Gonzalo Rojas, R.I.P.

I know that this blog sometimes appears to be an obituary page in some wierd newspaper, but, nonetheless, Mr. Rojas is still dead.  More on his life here.

Celia

by Gonzalo Rojas

And no more tears; this transparent woman,
who today is sealed away,
this woman who now is walled
in a niche grave
like a madwoman chained
to a cruel bedstead in an airless room
with neither boat nor boatman, among faceless strangers,
this woman who, alone, is
The One,
who held us all in the heaven
of her body.
Blessed
be her womb.

II
And nothing nothing else; that she bore me and made me
a man with her seventh birth
her figure of fire
and of ivory
in the trials of poverty and sadness
and she knew
how to hear through the silence of my childhood the sign
the Secret
Sign
without ever
breathing
a word.
Blessed
be the fruit of her womb.

III
Let others go instead of me
I can't go now to put
the red carnations there
the carnations of the Rojases ‚— mine and yours ‚—
today
on the painful thirteenth day of your martyrdom
those family members who are born at dawn
and who are reborn ‚— let them go to that wall for us for Rodrigo
for Tomás for young Gonzalo for Alonso; let them go
or not as they wish
or let them leave you in the dark
alone
alone with the ashes
of your beauty
which are your resurrection Celia
Pizarro
daughter and granddaughter of Pizarros
of late Pizarros Mother;
and may you come with us
into exile dwelling as always in grace
and mutual delight.
Blessed
be thy name.

Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please

Please.

I Have A Question About Donald Trump

Did Donald Trump ever fuck goats?  I wonder.  Hopefully he will provide the appropriate documentation, like say, a contract signed with a hoof or something.

Phoebe Snow, R.I.P.

She's dead.

Hey There Good Lookin' & I Mean All Of You

There is new stuff over at my other blog. Geese (Canada), gulls, doves, waves, one duck, & one dove.

So Much For Finding Others In The Universe

I've never been a big fan of manned space flight because the change for exploration is very small.  Space flight by robots or just a bunch of computers with the ability to send back images & data, however, is one of the things I think our government ought to be doing & doing it well.  One small attempt to locate other beings in the universe is now turned off, 

The SETI Institute has been forced to temporarily shut down operations at its telescope array due to federal and state funding cutbacks.

The Allen Telescope Array, composed of dozens of radio dishes 300 miles northeast of San Francisco, was put into a state of hibernation last week. The telescope array is operated by both SETI and the University of California at Berkeley, who have been using the radio dishes to search for signs of extraterrestrial life since 2007

My emphases.

Sean Duffy Is A Bigger Asshole Than I Knew, & I Know Assholes

Via TPM.

CONSTITUENT: I’d like to know where you get your information, where those projections come from?
DUFFY: That’s also from the CBO.
CONSTITUENT: No, no, no, no, no. Did you get any information from the Heritage Foundation?
DUFFY: [...] This is OMB and CBO.
CONSTITUENT: Show me how the Ryan budget that you just voted for brings down the deficit.
DUFFY: I don’t have the chart here. [...]
CONSTITUENT: [...] I know what chart you used, it came from the Heritage Foundation, from a man named William W. Beach, he’s lying. It’s a fraud. [...] A Nobel Prize-winning economist labeled it a fraud! [referring to Paul Krugman]

Later, another constituent criticized Duffy’s claim that the Affordable Care Act cut half a billion dollars from the Medicare program, pointing out that much of this was to tackle waste, fraud, and abuse. This caused Duffy to lose his cool and angrily suggest to the constituent to go host his own town hall:

DUFFY: If you look at PPACA, we’re taking 500 billion dollars out of Medicare to fund this program.

CONSTITUENT: That’s not true!

DUFFY: (laughs)

CONSTITUENT: This is about fraud and abuse. You see these things happen all over the country. They’re talking about money into Medicare fraud enforcement. 60 minutes did a huge story, billions into medicare fraud annually.

DUFFY: Let me tell you what. When you have your town hall you can stand up and give your presentation.

Goddamn ReThugs Like Paul Ryan Make Me Want To Puke On Joe McCarthy's Grave, ....Again

Paul Ryan in so many words:  "I got mine, but fuck you, moocher leech!"

A Person Gets To The Point Of What Is The Point?

Hundreds escape from a prison in Afghanistan.  If these guys were such terrible guys, how does a country like the good 'ole U.S. of A. allow them to dig a tunnel under the prison for that these guys can walk out?  If we can use drones to bomb wedding parties, I guess we can somehow not see a tunnel being built & then not seeing the hundreds as they leave. 

Thanks To My Sister, B, For This Great Piece - 'Don't Know' Is So Right, Heh, I Think I Made A Joke

Much thanks to Shutterwi for teaching me how to alter the size of the YouTube box.

Sean Duffy Gets The Shit Kicked Out Of Him Again

Stuff To Think About

This comes as no surprise.

The studies, say one of the authors, are important because while others have linked pesticide exposure to potential developmental effects, these are the first to follow groups of mothers and their offspring over time and document changes in the children's cognitive development. Even after accounting for other factors that could explain differences in IQ, such as maternal education, the home environment, and possible underlying attention or development disorders, the relationship persisted. "These studies are unusual in that they are the first to look at prenatal exposure at a low level — at levels that would occur in everyday life, and not levels that would poison us — and followed the children prospectively," says Brenda Eskenazi, director of the center for environmental research and children's health at U. C. Berkeley.

Now we know why the rich are so insensitive to the poor & middle class.  I just wonder how much botox the Koch Brothers use, if any. 

Botox may smooth your wrinkles, but it can dull your ability to understand the emotions of others, a new study suggests.

Botox, used in cosmetic and medical procedures for 20 years, paralyzes muscles, hindering certain facial movements, such as frowns, that over time can cause wrinkles.

Therein lies the problem, says David Neal, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, lead author of the research, published today in the journal Social Psychology and PersonalityScience.

The wealthy don't need to be exposed to pesticides, unless they demand green grass 365/12 in their gated communities. But the wealthy do want to botox themselves into insensitivity so that they don't have to worry that their policies & political donation are killing people.  Got to have that frozen smile & blond hair to keep daddy happy.  It's clear that botox & pesticides are part of the insidious attack on the poor & middle class, & no, I'm not kidding.

Happy Easter

Hazel Dickens, R.I.P.

She's dead.

John Haines, R.I.P.

I'm very late to this but he's still  dead.

Ice Child

BY JOHN HAINES

Cold for so long, unable to speak,

yet your mouth seems framed

on a cry, or a stifled question.

Who placed you here, and left you

to this lonely eternity of ash and ice,

and himself returned to the dust

fields, the church and the temple?

Was it God—the sun-god of the Incas,

the imperial god of the Spaniards?

Or only the priests of that god,

self-elected—voice of the volcano

that speaks once in a hundred years.

And I wonder, with your image before me,

what life might you have lived,

had you lived at all—whose companion,

whose love? To be perhaps no more

than a slave of that earthly master:

a jug of water on your shoulder,

year after stunted year, a bundle

of reeds and corn, kindling

for a fire on whose buried hearth?

There were furies to be fed, then

as now: blood to fatten the sun,

a heart for the lightning to strike.

And now the furies walk the streets,

a swarm in the milling crowd.

They stand to the podium, speak

of their coming ascension ...

Through all this drift and clamor

you have survived—in this cramped

and haunted effigy, another entry

on the historian’s dated page.

Under the weight of this mountain—

once a god, now only restless stone,

we find your interrupted life,

placed here among the trilobites

and shells, so late unearthed.

John Haines, “The Ice Child” from For the Century’s End: Poems 1990-1999. Used with the permission of the University of Washington Press.

Source: For the Century's End: Poems 1990-1999 (University of Washington Press, 1999)

A Poem Like A Grenade

It is made to be rolled down

a flight of stairs,

placed under a guilty hat,

or casually dropped into a basket

among the desks

of the wrongheaded statesmen.

As it tumbled on the carpeted stairs

or settles quietly

in its wire-wicker nest,

it begins to unfold,

a ragged flower whose raw petals

burn and scar...

Its wastepaper soil catches fire,

the hat is blown from its hook.

Five or six faces are suddenly,

permanently changed...

There will be many poems written

in the shape of a grenade -

one hard piece of metal flying off

might even topple a government.

I was lucky to know John Haines a bit. He spent some time at Northland College in northern Wisco. My friend, Lee Merrill & I were able to spend time with him. I have learned a lot from him & in particular, his poetry. I turn to his poetry in those times when I need something to remind my of the real, organic, salmon filled world. Lee corresponded with him for several years. I will miss John Haines quite a bit. He lived a long & great life. Now is is with that thing that "...doesn't care if I alive or dead."

Almost Forgot - Have A Happy Earth Day

Not A Good Catch

Bighead carp.

Paul Ryan Is Not Well Liked By His Own Constituents

I sure hope this energy is around during next year's election.

Now For Some Poetry

The Poetry of Ted Hughes

From Crow

Crow Blacker Than Ever

When God, disgusted with man,

Turned towards heaven,

And man, disgusted with God,

Turned towards Eve,

Things looked like falling apart.

But Crow Crow

Crow nailed them together,

Nailing heaven and earth together-

So man cried, but with God's voice.

And God bled, but with man's blood.

Then heaven and earth creaked at the joint

Which became gangrenous and stank-

A horror beyond redemption.

The agony did not diminish.

Man could not be man nor God God.

The agony

Grew.

Crow

Grinned

Crying: "This is my Creation,"

Flying the black flag of himself.

Now this is a great poem.

The Poetry of Ted Hughes
From Crow

Apple Tragedy

So on the seventh day
The serpent rested,
God came up to him.
"I've invented a new game," he said.

The serpent stared in surprise
At this interloper.
But God said: "You see this apple?"
I squeeze it and look-cider."

The serpent had a good drink
And curled up into a question mark.
Adam drank and said: "Be my god."
Eve drank and opened her legs

And called to the cockeyed serpent
And gave him a wild time.
God ran and told Adam
Who in drunken rage tried to hang himself in the orchard.

The serpent tried to explain, crying "Stop"
But drink was splitting his syllable.
And Eve started screeching: "Rape! Rape!"
And stamping on his head.

Now whenever the snake appears she screeches
"Here it comes again! Help! O Help!"
Then Adam smashes a chair on his head,
And God says: "I am well pleased"

And everything goes to hell.

Hey, April is Poetry Month & I haven't posted anything about, save the piece of the discovery of a big bunch of Walth Whitman's papers. Ted Hughes was a great poet.  His poetry is still great.  He's dead now.  He also loved to catch steelhead trout in the waters of British Colmbia.

Michael Sarrazin, R.I.P.

He's dead.

It was his performance in the 1969 film “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” a grueling existentialist drama directed by Sydney Pollack, that established him as one of the era’s more intriguing antiheroes. He played Robert Syverten, an aimless, unemployed film extra who enters a marathon dance contest with the equally desperate Gloria (Ms. Fonda), hoping to win recognition and prize money. Instead, after days spent circling the dance floor, he ends up fatally shooting his partner in a twisted act of mercy.

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is on my top five or ten favorite movies.  How about you? My emphasis.

Here's the last scene - boy, was I both surprised & impressed.

Four Down

Congrats to all the hard workers in the 10th District for collecting enough signatures to force a recall election.  Bye-bye Sheila Harsdorf.  & a great riddance it will be.

WOW - This Is Really Exciting

Papers of Walt Whitman were found by a researcher in Nebraska of all places.  Now, this is not Slim Whitman, OK?  Walt Whitman is, in my opinion, the man responsible for all great & good poetry that the U.S. of A. has produced & is still producing.

The newly discovered documents "were crucial for (Whitman's) writing of one of the most important meditations on the meaning of American democracy," Price said. "They're also vital for understanding Whitman's late poetry. Anyone writing about the latter parts of his career is going to want to figure out what the relationship was between what he knew and when he knew it, and what he had to say in 'Democratic Vistas' and his later poetry."

 *****

The documents, which were revealed at a news conference at the National Archives this morning, consist of Whitman's handwritten clerical work from 1865 to 1873, when he was a scribe in the attorney general's office in the nation's capital. For more than two years, Price pored over a range of documents, including large, bound 900-page letter books in the archive, discovering for the first time thousands of official federal letters that were written in Whitman's hand.

"I had a hunch there might be three, four, maybe five documents still there. I looked through hundreds of pages without finding anything, and was starting to get bleary-eyed," Price said. "Then, there it was, a page entirely in Whitman's handwriting. Then, a few others. Then, a whole string of them, all in Whitman's hand."

 This:

Not this:

& Luther Olsen Makes Three

Luther Olsen is the third ReThug Wisco state senator who will be faced with a recall election.  Keep up the great works, y'all.

Snow Job Or Blow Job

You be the judge.

I Watched This 10 Times & Actually Laughed Each Time, Once For 30 Seconds

Via Dependable Renegade.

Russia? U.S.? Difference?

This is from Lost Continents, a good blog from Wisco. Go read the whole post, it is very good.

I first visited the then Soviet Union in 1975 and was struck more by similarities than differences in the two societies. The Russian communists had more in common with republican rotarians than American leftists. Today both countries have embraced what I call Fuck You capitalism and are run by oligarchic kleptocracies with similar results for their respective peoples.

My emphasis.