Wax (poetic)
Been working on a poem. Called Raise The Dead. It has gone through four versions. Different versions search for different things.
First come the usual suspects. I have groupings of words that bring in areas of language. As a kind of alchemy.
I seem to move in quickly toward Keats, his timezone. Keats is still hanging above the line metaphysically. But he can get really close in on perspective at same time.
I can push toward Beckett’s scoping out an exactitude for himself that is prickly and pissed off. Breathes in horror.
And always then jump back towards Emily I think, who is unafraid to propagate rhyme. Tho she can get beyond rhyme too. That said even her poems that elude rhyme, have an internal control inside of them that leans on it.
I have been finding myself pitting sentences into really tight stanzas, two or three lines long, for a while now. Every time I try to break myself free of that lately, it just springs back.
Searching for exactitude — I never get there until the fourth version. And there is a freedom, that Emily and Keats have, that no longer subsists much in modern poetry, certainly not to their extent.
I seem to take it to the middle ground between then and now, while at the same time remaining jealous of their era.
Must stay at it long enough, that I can break through on the time line in the poem and balance out the categorical thinking, and then soldier on, get in after exactitude, to suck out the particulars across the timeline.
And, at the end of day and its decay, not be afraid to let in a little sunshine. The horror bunnies feast on my death.
From Cioran’s latest
The moaning of wind in the chimney reminds of the walk I took in the moors, at Haworth, in the footsteps of Emily Brontë.
And I think of the Cornish moors. Is there a desolation to the world more fascinating?
The wind, succeeds so effectively in music and poetry, I am amazed at the regions where blown wind seeks a mode of expression other than its own.
Emil Cioran Journals 23 August 1962
Standing up to Maga
Bandying with some of the Maga-ites. I have taken to just showing up there and presenting our side of things.
The scream at me, I scream at them. They all think Trumps family is allowed to make as much money off of it as they can, because thats why they elected him, he’s a business man.
Unlike stupid Biden and all those evil Democrats who are just politicians and still millionaires. They hate Fauci. And blame him for the disease! They blame him for everything that has anything to do with COVID. From the disease happening at all to the rules during its height to the side effects of the shot.
I always respond with facts about the disease and the vaccine. Again and again. Occasionally learn something. I do not pretend that COVID vaccines have no side effects. But in fact discuss what they are, and when its important to be careful, as is true with all pharmaceuticals.
The country is not happy with Trump. Those under fifty who voted for him, no longer support him. And even immigration has gone down again according to Silver, I think it is because of the deaths. Every time they murder someone, support for ICE diminishes by several points.
Also, American soldiers are now coming back in body bags. To whose benefit? Not ours. So unprepared, and beyond that, it is Netanyahu’s war. And America is pissed at the amount of money that goes into that war, and many feel really bad about the genocide there.
Maga nuts hate muslims. Drives them crazy Mamdani is so popular.
Republicans are again actively shutting down help for Americans about health care. So many rumors about ICE that are bad. So much money being spent on the ICE Army.
Maga heads all say we dont want to pay for the health care of others. Mindless of the fact, that that is what insurance does.
And somehow always find a way to blame it on immigrants.