Every night, lonely and scared, a Crassus
retires to a private screening room to view
a phony gladiator in a natty do-
rag fuck a forum-screamer’s wife. He passes
a hand across his lap and wipes his glasses.
Aroused, confused, he hates and loves these few
pornographic pleasures and the voyeurs who
provided them; the fortune he amasses
endlessly cannot touch him, cannot keep
his bed warm or the plebs beyond the walls
from peering through the keyhole at the sad rich wreck
who can’t decide to masturbate or weep
when the show ends and the grim shadow falls:
death’s debit, unpayable by cash or check.
Culture
Vagina . . . Without Previous Approval
Art, Books and Literature, Culture, Education, Media, Poetry, Religion, Science, The Life of the Mind, UncategorizedDistrict officials sent WWMT a quote from a school handbook that says teachers are required to get approval before discussing any topic related to reproductive health.
The word itself makes some men uncomfortable.
-Maude Lebowski
Imagine the spring. Imagine the tulip trees
in the garden—still a chance of morning frost,
the gold-black baby spiders, the first bees
betting on dew instead by instincts that we’ve lost.
Consult the Farmer’s almanac; consult
the weather on the internet; we are obsessed
with warnings, dire predictions; with results
whose precursors embarrass us. Confess:
you too, sex-positive and libertine,
are slightly squeamish at the ordinary bits
a flower represents: fecund, gene-
wet, vaginal. Marble tits?
Appropriate. But a flower is a stealth
lesson in the forbidden: “reproductive health.”
Fired Like a Dog
Culture, Economy, Poetry, The Life of the Mind, Things that Actually Happen, UncategorizedI tell my dog that she is fired. She
regards me, head cocked and floppy ears
each lifted slightly; whatever it is she hears
and apprehends, she snorts, and squats, and pees
on the hardwood floor; this appears to please
her to no end; she pirouettes and yowls,
beagle-body pitching, feet to jowls,
fully engaged, unlike a human: we
are idiomatic, every sound reflects
an abstracted actuality; we mean,
even when we’re speaking gibberish; we try
to fold the world into sequenced sound. Our pets,
the wild animals, the wind-shook green
leaves mean nothing, don’t know that they will die.
Eternal Recurring Meeting
Conspiracy and the Occult, Culture, Justice, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Religion, Uncategorized, War and PoliticsThe Pentagon said Friday that it had killed ISIS’ finance minister, Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, whom many analysts consider the group’s No. 2 leader.
–CNN
The inbox full. The voicemail light is blinking.
Who leaves voicemail anymore? he asks
himself. There are too many red-flagged tasks
today. The boss called off. Sick? He’s drinking
again, for sure, and the worksheet isn’t linking
to the right data set. Each day, he masks
the long-dawned sense: his office is a cask-
et; he is dead already; Death is winking
at his glass door; his new assistant waits
in the wings for the whirring warning. Success? Success-
ion. Years ago he had a home, a wife.
Now he has a list of meeting dates.
When he explodes at last they’ll slap on some fresh
paint and give the next in line his life.
Baron Scalia
Culture, Justice, Media, Poetry, Religion, The Life of the Mind, Uncategorized, War and PoliticsTony always believed in a certain sort
of intercessory prayer; ironically
each sainted martyr was a pharisee;
the letter was the spirit, he’d retort,
to the grace-besotted pleaders at his court;
was it wit? he was as chronically
mean as a country-club drunk, comically
self-indulgent as he’d wink and snort
that José, the barman, was a fag; he doesn’t
mean to be mean, his foursome buddies say;
that’s just Tony! He’d give you the shirt off his back,
well, anyway, he helped my kid out; he wasn’t
a ballbreaker; he made the problem go away;
good to his friends until his heart attack.
A Parliament of Fowls
Culture, Poetry, Religion, The Life of the Mind, Things that Actually Happen, UncategorizedSo sore, ywis, that whan I on him thinke,
Nat woot I wel wher that I flete or sinke.
During the Middle Ages, people thought
that Valentine’s, or thereabouts, would mark
the date when birds paired off, each lark to lark,
each life-pair-bonded waterfowl not
quite sure their spouse would like the card they’ve bought;
should they’ve considered jewelery? trips? The spark
of a single season’s mating faded to the dark
mornings in winter; they woke together, fought
for the first shower and who would walk the dog,
who would make the bed and do the dishes
from the dinner that they’d thrown the night before,
while all the years became a catalog
of various compromises; yet one wishes
for this forever. The swans are never bored.
In Your Own Clever Way
Conspiracy and the Occult, Culture, Poetry, Things that Actually Happen, Uncategorized, War and Politics1) You in your own voice describe them as “muscular”
There’s nothing new here. We have known it all
since we grew out of our college commitments;
got our WaPo gigs; became assistants
to undersecretaries; bought our Falls
Church houses; unsolicited, got called
by Blitzer’s harried booker when a different
call-in pundit’s call was dropped. This persistent
shock that gambling’s going on recalls
that scene, you know the one, that quote I can’t
quite place my finger on; but why is it wrong
to give a little courtesy to those
on whom one’s access is dependent, grant
anonymity, bury a strong
lede from time to time, soften one’s prose?
Goldman Sacks Rome
Culture, Economy, Justice, Media, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Religion, The Life of the Mind, Things that Actually Happen, Uncategorized, War and PoliticsAgain, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.
-Matthew 4:8
That’s what they offered.
-Hillary Clinton
The Spirit brought her out, and the devil said
some of these rider reqs are quite obscene:
a private jet and caviar in the green
room? We usually do business class instead;
a good hotel, of course, and comfy bed,
but a whole floor and a fleet of limousines?
eunuch attendants and a host of seraphim?
payment in blood? the final triumph of the dead?
She shrugged. Look, Satan, one accrues,
when one is such an avatar of ex-
cellence and obviously deservèd fame,
some costs and expectations; retinues
aren’t cheap these days; they require sex,
feeding, jobs, and booze to treat the shame.
Du mußt dein Leben ändern
Culture, Media, Poetry, The Life of the Mind, Uncategorized, War and Politics“Very strong, powerful men. Young.”
-Donald Trump
Strong, powerful: men. Young. They come
bright-eyed and desiring all we’ve built
on the Manhattan bedrock and Mississippi silt,
long after our dead, gorgeous youth had run
off the Indians, French, buffalo; won
the West; their beautiful hands grasped the hilt
of the ploughshare-sword. Less masculine men, guilt-
wracked, longing for that smooth flesh, dumb
to their inarticulate desire to be near
this youth would open up the castle to
these hordes of lovely angels; but I, a man
old enough to be beyond such queer,
unusual wants, know better; I only rue
my lost marble, now an expensive tan.
Mourning Joe
Culture, Media, Poetry, Uncategorized, War and PoliticsHey Iran, you have exactly 300 days left to push a US president around. Enjoy it while you can. After that, there will be hell to pay.
He’s never thought
of himself as anything but a vessel for
the true sensibilities of the rich and poor
alike; he’s not
one to worry
about the particulars; let the news-
papers fret like little priests; in the pews
the people—sorry,
the real people:
they value simple common sense above
the effetely weak-kneed truth of things; they love
strength, hate evil.
So what if we began
the war, transgressed a border, armed both sides
against each other? The principle that guides
him: a man
must be a lion:
he wakes and knows exactly what he wants
for breakfast. “Consuela, two croissants!”
She’s Uruguayan,
maybe, legal
though, he’s almost sure. His car and driver
take him straight to the station. A survivor,
like an eagle
who’s come back,
no thanks, whatever you’ve heard, to regulation,
from a brush with what the dweebs would call extinction:
attack, attack—
he learned it on the last
if unopposed, campaign: never concede
a point—that’s what it really means to lead:
no brake; all gas.
Jacob Bacharach 