I 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.
Poetry
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.
For the Rest, Trump
Conspiracy and the Occult, Economy, Media, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Uncategorized, War and PoliticsThough in the wild he is not a Muss-
olini, or not quite, he has a dear-
ly bought and bald-headed public fear
that the old order’s order has shaken loose,
the locomotive stalled, the red caboose
has rolled off backward, feckless, foreign, queer;
the goggling passengers try to smile, sneer:
the question of ticket class is too abstruse,
and yet they have been left behind; they are
getting drunk and telling the waiter that
they’re going to have him fired, but their hist-
rionics never leave the dining car.
The bosses don’t care anyway. Back at
the station they quibble over who’s a fascist.
Made Flesh
Culture, Media, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Religion, War and Politics“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”
-Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, M.D., P.C
We are all flesh: we live; we die. The seasons
slip through our notice. My God, it’s Christmas! We
have only just remembered to trash the tree
from last year. Of all the brief reasons
to be glad, despite the body’s daily treasons—
its aching mornings and sniffling nights—they flee,
my thoughts, first, to this: that we are free
of immortality, which makes heathens
of the divine principalities, for they
can neither aspire nor want nor hope nor change;
they can’t make their fortune or lose weight,
and nothing escapes their notice: a single day
is a century. Their lives are intolerably strange.
They do not really live. Instead, they hate.
Jacob Bacharach 