and so it ends, this miserable year, and we are left wondering how this will be treated in the history books. Will 300,000 dead have their eulogies? Will the meanderings of the flaccid politicians be endlessly discussed? Will the poets have their say? What will be the final verdict upon our rampantly dissolute culture?
And who is going to get their "I SURVIVED 2020" t-shirt?
We had imagined ourselves having the
Greatest Love of All Time, and
we found it,
in the occasional quiet
of a Saturday afternoon
when all chores were done
and there was nothing left to do
but sit on the porch
drinking sweet tea
and watching our dogs chase squirrels.
MR
2020-1230
Forgiveness does not pardon the other person for what they did, but rather, it frees you from the shackles of a continuous grudge. This is not to say that forgiveness is easy. It is very very hard. But the freedom it brings makes you feel like you are flying.
- Salinghetti
1: Thank God this year is almost over.
2: Yeah, because we all know that COVID will magically disappear on January 1st.
1: Actually, that's on January 20th.
2: Good one. Yes, on January 20th, there will be a vaccine, COVID will disappear, the economy will improve, everyone will have jobs, and Brexit will be a done deal.
1: Brexit? Now you're just moving in the realm of fantasy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyort5EpMes
The Last One
Well they’d made up their minds to be everywhere because why not.
Everywhere was theirs because they thought so.
They with two leaves they whom the birds despise.
In the middle of stones they made up their minds.
They started to cut.
Well they cut everything because why not.
Everything was theirs because they thought so.
It fell into its shadows and they took both away.
Some to have some for burning.
Well cutting everything they came to water.
They came to the end of the day there was one left standing.
They would cut it tomorrow they went away.
The night gathered in the last branches.
The shadow of the night gathered in the shadow on the water.
The night and the shadow put on the same head.
And it said Now.
Well in the morning they cut the last one.
Like the others the last one fell into its shadow.
It fell into its shadow on the water.
They took it away its shadow stayed on the water.
Well they shrugged they started trying to get the shadow away.
They cut right to the ground the shadow stayed whole.
They laid boards on it the shadow came out on top.
They shone lights on it the shadow got blacker and clearer.
They exploded the water the shadow rocked.
They built a huge fire on the roots.
They sent up black smoke between the shadow and the sun.
The new shadow flowed without changing the old one.
They shrugged they went away to get stones.
They came back the shadow was growing.
They started setting up stones it was growing.
They looked the other way it went on growing.
They decided they would make a stone out of it.
They took stones to the water they poured them into the shadow.
They poured them in they poured them in the stones vanished.
The shadow was not filled it went on growing.
That was one day.
The next day was just the same it went on growing.
They did all the same things it was just the same.
They decided to take its water from under it.
They took away water they took it away the water went down.
The shadow stayed where it was before.
It went on growing it grew onto the land.
They started to scrape the shadow with machines.
When it touched the machines it stayed on them.
That was another day.
Well the next day started about the same it went on growing.
They pushed lights into the shadow.
Where the shadow got onto them they went out.
They began to stomp on the edge it got their feet.
And when it got their feet they fell down.
It got into eyes the eyes went blind.
The ones that fell down it grew over and they vanished.
The ones that went blind and walked into it vanished.
The ones that could see and stood still
It swallowed their shadows.
Then it swallowed them too and they vanished.
Well the others ran.
The ones that were left went away to live if it would let them.
They went as far as they could.
The lucky ones with their shadows.
— W.S. Merwin, from The Lice (Macmillan, 1967) and The Second Four Books of Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1992)
You don’t know what love is Bukowski said
I’m 51 years old look at me
I’m in love with this young broad
I got it bad but she’s hung up too
so it’s all right man that’s the way it should be
I get in their blood and they can’t get me out
They try everything to get away from me
but they all come back in the end
They all came back to me except
the one I planted
I cried over that one
but I cried easy in those days
Don’t let me get onto the hard stuff man
I get mean then
I could sit here and drink beer
with you hippies all night
I could drink ten quarts of this beer
and nothing it’s like water
But let me get onto the hard stuff
and I’ll start throwing people out windows
I’ll throw anybody out the window
I’ve done it
But you don’t know what love is
You don’t know because you’ve never
been in love it’s that simple
I got this young broad see she’s beautiful
She calls me Bukowski
Bukowski she says in this little voice
and I say What
But you don’t know what love is
I’m telling you what it is
but you aren’t listening
There isn’t one of you in this room
would recognize love if it stepped up
and buggered you in the ass
I used to think poetry readings were a copout
Look I’m 51 years old and I’ve been around
I know they’re a copout
but I said to myself Bukowski
starving is even more of a copout
So there you are and nothing is like it should be
That fellow what’s his name Galway Kinnell
I saw his picture in a magazine
He has a handsome mug on him
but he’s a teacher
Christ can you imagine
But then you’re teachers too
here I am insulting you already
No I haven’t heard of him
or him either
They’re all termites
Maybe it’s ego I don’t read much anymore
but these people who build
reputations on five or six books
termites
Bukowski she says
Why do you listen to classical music all day
Can’t you hear her saying that
Bukowski why do you listen to classical music all day
That surprises you doesn’t it
You wouldn’t think a crude bastard like me
could listen to classical music all day
Brahms Rachmaninoff Bartok Telemann
Shit I couldn’t write up here
Too quiet up here too many trees
I like the city that’s the place for me
I put on my classical music each morning
and sit down in front of my typewriter
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see
and I say Bukowski you’re a lucky man
Bukowski you’ve gone through it all
and you’re a lucky man
and the blue smoke drifts across the table
and I look out the window onto Delongpre Avenue
and I see people walking up and down the sidewalk
and I puff on the cigar like this
and then I lay the cigar in the ashtray like this and take a deep breath
and I begin to write
Bukowski this is the life I say
it’s good to be poor it’s good to have hemorrhoids
it’s good to be in love
But you don’t know what it’s like
You don’t know what it’s like to be in love
If you could see her you’d know what I mean
She thought I’d come up here and get laid
She just knew it
She told me she knew it
Shit I’m 51 years old and she’s 25
and we’re in love and she’s jealous
Jesus it’s beautiful
she said she’d claw my eyes out if I came up here
and got laid
Now that’s love for you
What do any of you know about it
Let me tell you something
I’ve met men in jail who had more style
than the people who hang around colleges
and go to poetry readings
They’re bloodsuckers who come to see
if the poet’s socks are dirty
or if he smells under the arms
Believe me I won’t disappoint em
But I want you to remember this
there’s only one poet in this room tonight
only one poet in this town tonight
maybe only one real poet in this country tonight
and that’s me
What do any of you know about life
What do any of you know about anything
Which of you here has been fired from a job
or else has beaten up your broad
or else has been beaten up by your broad
I was fired from Sears and Roebuck five times
They’d fire me then hire me back again
I was a stockboy for them when I was 35
and then got canned for stealing cookies
I know what’s it like I’ve been there
I’m 51 years old now and I’m in love
This little broad she says
Bukowski
and I say What and she says
I think you’re full of shit
and I say baby you understand me
She’s the only broad in the world
man or woman
I’d take that from
But you don’t know what love is
They all came back to me in the end too
every one of em came back
except that one I told you about
the one I planted We were together seven years
We used to drink a lot
I see a couple of typers in this room but
I don’t see any poets
I’m not surprised
You have to have been in love to write poetry
and you don’t know what it is to be in love
that’s your trouble
Give me some of that stuff
That’s right no ice good
That’s good that’s just fine
So let’s get this show on the road
I know what I said but I’ll have just one
That tastes good
Okay then let’s go let’s get this over with
only afterwards don’t anyone stand close
to an open window
“You Don’t Know What Love Is” by Raymond Carver from All of Us: The Collected Poems
hello Bill Abbott:
I appreciate your passing around my books in
jail there, my poems and stories.
if I can lighten the load for some of those guys with
my books, fine.
but literature, you know, is difficult for the
average man to assimilate (and for the unaverage man too);
I don’t like most poetry, for example,
so I write mine the way I like to read it.
poetry does seem to be getting better, more
human,
the clearing up of the language has something to
do with it (w. c. williams came along and asked
everybody to clear up the language)
then
I came along.
but writing’s one thing, life’s
another, we
seem to have improved the writing a bit
but life (ours and theirs)
doesn’t seem to be improving very
much.
maybe if we write well enough
and live a little better
life will improve a bit
just out of shame.
maybe the artist haven’t been powerful
enough,
maybe the politicians, the generals, the judges, the
priests, the police, the pimps, the businessmen have been too
strong? I don’t
like that thought
but when I look at our pale and precious artists,
past and present, it does seem
possible.
(people don’t like it when I talk this way.
Chinaski, get off it, they say,
you’re not that great.
but
hell, I’m not talking about being
great.)
what I’m saying is
that art hasn’t improved life like it
should, maybe because it has been too
private? and despite the fact that the old poets
and the new poets and myself
all seem to have had the same or similar troubles
with:
women
government
God
love
hate
penury
slavery
insomnia
transportation
weather
wives, and so
forth.
you write me now
that the man in the cell next to yours
didn’t like my punctuation
the placement of my commas (especially)
and also the way I digress
in order to say something precisely.
ah, he doesn’t realize the intent
which is
to loosen up, humanize, relax
and still make as real as possible
the word on the page. the word should be like
butter or avocados or
steak or hot biscuits, or onion rings or
whatever is really
needed. it should be almost
as if you could pick up the words and
eat them.
(there is some wise-ass somewhere
out there
who will say
if he ever reads this:
“Chinaski, if I want dinner I’ll go out and
order it!”)
however
an artist can wander and still maintain
essential form. Dostoevsky did it. he
usually told 3 or 4 stories on the side
while telling the one in the
center (in his novels, that is).
Bach taught us how to lay one melody down on
top of another and another melody on top of
that and
Mahler wandered more than anybody I know
and I find great meaning
in his so-called formlessness.
don’t let the form-and-rule boys
like that guy in the cell next to you
put one over on you. just
hand him a copy of Time or Newsweek
and he’ll be
happy.
but I’m not defending my work (to you or to him)
I’m defending my right to do it in the way
that makes me feel best.
I always figure if a writer is bored with his work
the reader is going to be
bored too.
and I don’t believe in
perfection, I believe in keeping the
bowels loose
so I’ve got to agree with my critics
when they say I write a lot of shit.
you’re doing 19 and 1/2 years
I’ve been writing about 40.
we all go on with our things.
we all go on with our lives.
we all write badly at times
or live badly at times.
we all have bad days
and nights.
I ought to send the guy in the cell next to yours
The Collected Works of Robert Browning for Christmas,
that’d give him the form he’s looking for
but I need the money for the track,
Santa Anita is opening on the
26th, so give him a copy of Newsweek
(the dead have no future, no past, no present,
they just worry about commas)
and have I placed the commas here
properly,
Abbott?
,
, , ,
, , , , ,
, , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , ,
, , , , , , , , , , ,
, , ,
, , ,
Charles Bukowski,What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
Johnny Isn’t Angry Anymore
V
When Johnny was a young man
He used to be so mean
Smashing windows of the Junior High
Setting fire to the streets
C
Now’s Johnny’s gotten older
He’s just a little bored.
Johnny worries about his job,
But Johnny isn’t angry any more.
V
Johnny
C
Now’s Johnny’s gotten older
He’s just a little bored.
Johnny worries about his job,
But Johnny isn’t angry any more.
V
Johnny’s kids think he’s clueless
Making “Dad Jokes” all the time
Embarasses them in front of their friends
They wish he’d just go hide
Opera Libretto
DOMINGO
Domingo Santiago
Lauren Holmes
Catarina Veracruz
Catarina
How could it be?
How could it be!
All that I worked for
All that I strived to be
For nothing
For nothing
Lauren
Me too!
Me too!
In the days of the movement, me too!
Domingo
How could it be?
How could it be!
All that I strived so hard to achieve
all for nothing
all for nothing
let it be
MR
2020-0226
Isaiah
60 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
4 Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.
5 Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.
Isaiah
Arise,
shine;
for the light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is on you.
2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
4 Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.
5 Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.
60:1 is the Coro
CORO
60:2 is verse 1
CORO
60:4 is verse 2
60:3 is bridge
CORO
60:5 can be a CODA [?]
The Tree of Fire
When she was born the tree of fire blossomed,
And the mountain swelled great with liquid rock,
She spent her first years barefoot on black soil,
Feeding her younger half sisters, dressing them,
Changing their diapers, until such a day came during
Her fifteenth year, she left the house of leather
Straps across her back and walked into the city.
There, she met a man, he worked, they loved.
She nursed his dying wife and then she spent
The next year of her adolescence feeding her
Stepdaughters, until her belly began to swell
With her own child, the first of eight, the years
Then spent in kitchen, making dinner, and in
Rooms, spinning thread and cloth, and in shops,
Purchasing rolls of material, and she spun
Together uniforms for schoolchildren, clothes
For her own, as the daughters helped her with
The spinning and the sewing and the buttoning
And the selling, and then
One day, her husband died in her arms at a
Restaurant. He said he did not feel well, and then
He slumped over, his head on the crook between
Her shoulder and her breast, his ear against the
Beat of her heart.
Then came the worst of it: the war, the bodies
Slumped against the door in the mornings, scaring the
Lady who cooked breakfast and cleaned the house,
And then the sons began to graduate with degrees
In engineering, and then the threats from the rebels
If they took that job with the government, and so
She spun and she spun and she spun her children
North, up north, spun them to Missionary bases
In the Bible Belt Buckle town, and some of them
Landed eventually in British Columbia, and they,
Each of the children, one by one, made their way
Through the Northern lands, spinning their own
Stories and having their own babies, with her
Having folded her work and walking into that
Northern land where there are no volcanoes, no
Torogoz, no sounds of the Quetzal in the mornings,
Just a house where she taught herself to make pupusas
And read the Bible each morning and move among
Her children and the hermanos de la
Iglesia, and she saw many marriages, and
was the first to hold many of her grandchildren,
and she, the Tree of Fire, watched her leaves
stretch out across the land, full of life and full
of energy and full of their own leaves which
they scattered across the years and the decades,
and the laughter that she has heard
and the Christmases that she has shared, and
surely it must be said, that the Tree of Fire,
her flame burns, and continues to burn, and must
continue, in the hearts and the blood in the veins
de todos sus niños y nietos y bisnietos
and all those still yet to be born.
Colder Than Snow
[second draft]
Am C
The snow has finally come
G D
Though it’s been winter all year long
Am C G
We shall be glad when this year is done.
And here beside the bed
Where she lays her weary head
Her hands that held my babies are now clenched inside my own.
The cars that drive by the bay
Turn the snow on the street to rain
As the wind rattles the window pane
The sun, like the star
That guided Magi to the Lord
Today has a dimmer glow
And my heart is colder than the snow.
We Pray Not
We pray not
because we bow
not,
refusal to
supplication,
we have raised
ourselves up
as gods,
lords over all
we survey,
so why should
we pray?
There is
nothing above us,
only sky, such
wild
imaginings,
like
the quicksand
that
we pretend
is solid ground.
MR
2020-1229
This could be a movie.
A psychological thriller, that ends in a gruesome murder. So, a psychological thriller that ends as a horror film.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55447557
Mitch McConnell Meets the Grim Reaper - A Christmas Story
Mitch McConnell walks into his house after a long Christmas day spent ensuring that many American citizens will have no relief as this year ends.
He walks into his study, pulls the stopper out of the decanter and poured himself two fingers of Old Rip Van Winkle Kentucky Bourbon. Then, as he takes a sip, he hears a sound, a shift, a slight movement in the chair by the window.
Turning on the overhead light, he sees the figure in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, the black robe shifting from the movement. The scythe is propped against the chair by his side.
In his famous Kentucky drawl, McConnell says, "Well, well, well, I was wondering when you'd arrive."
Death leans slightly forward in the seat. "You've been using my name."
McConnell chuckles. "Didn't think you had a copyright on it."
Death shrugs. "It's OK. There have been others with such pretenses across the millennia. I just wanted you to know that you undershot the term. Something with such gravitas ... used to deny a few pieces of useless paper? Quite ... pitiable, actually."
McConnell says, "Is there a point to this? Are we gone dicker about names here or are we gonna get down to business?'
"Have it your way." Death stands, picks up the scythe, and says, "Time to go, Bitch."
"The name's Mitch."
Death laughs. "Not where you're going."
The Collywobbles
Torogon
The Empty Chair
Dysania
Found these notes in a file. Just names. Seems like I meant for them to be titles.
The Collywobbles sounds like a great name for a band. Maybe "Torogon" will be the name of a song or an album. The Empty Chair, I don't know what that was all about. Maybe it is a reference to the empty chair that Clint Eastwood spoke to at the 2016 RNC. Dysania I'll need to look up again what that means ...
Wow! Dysania means you can't get out of bed for 1 to 2 hours after you wake up. Apparently doctors do not recognize it as a medical condition. Yes, that would be good as an album title.
It was a chill December morning,
It was warm across the bay,
The water cold, the feeling bold,
The birdsongs just before day
break.
MR
2020-0221
Zoom Call for
Abuelita
The family
gathered around the Zoom call.
The sons, the
daughters, the grandchildren, all their spouses.
Abuelita at the
center of the screen, a propped doll
In a bed,
immobile, unspeaking, responding only
In grunts when
Gabi spoke, or when Julie spoke.
Carlos, with
his wife and new baby, simply said,
“You are going
to a better place, grandma!”
He was the only
one who spoke in English.
Still, Abuelita
said nothing, barely moving.
The hospice nurse
propped her up a little with a pillow.
Everyone was
crying.
What would she
have said if she could have said anything?
Would she have
said, “Remember that I prayed for each of you,
By name, daily,
in the morning and at night”?
Would she have
said, “Know Him as I know Him”?
Would she have
said, “Give my recipe book to Nohemy”?
Everyone made
plans to fly to Washington state,
To see her in
person one last time, flying during
This COVID
year, this messy year, this year of such
Uncertainty and
impending death.
The air turned
cold that day, the skies grey and blue-black
With freezing
rain, a chill as far south as Houston,
Sweeping all
our uncertain futures into the Gulf of Mexico.
MR
2020-1215
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus.
Then I told Daddy, and Daddy went to the gun cabinet, got his shotgun, and blew Santa Claus away.
- A Christmas Story
To recline and read is to
relax the mind and the body to
allow the thoughts to flow like the blood
that washes through the veins, the
words of the page are the oxygen that is fed
to cells. The mind, full. Enriched.
Like every cell, filled. Enriched.
MR
2020-1214
Your love is like a hemorrhoid
It always gets me so annoyed
It's something that I can't avoid
Your love is like a hemorrhoid.
Your love is like a lung disease
You do only just what you please
You got me so I just can't breathe
Your love is like a lung disease.
Your love is like a massive stroke
It left me so completely broke.
On my tongue I almost choke
Your love is like a massive stroke.
Your love is like a hemorrhoid
It's something that I can't avoid.
When you're gone I'll be overjoyed.
Your love is like a hemorrhoid.
MR
2020-1214
https://www.faithandculture.com/home/2019/12/19/g-k-chesterton-and-the-death-of-christmas
http://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/all-things-considered/35/
http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/shop-of-ghosts.html
The Shop Of Ghosts first appeared in London's Daily News. It was later collected into the book of essays Tremendous Trifles.
Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing. Also I make an exception of another thing, which I am not allowed to mention in this paper, and of which the lowest price is a penny halfpenny. But the general principle will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly coloured sweets for a halfpenny. Also you can get the chance of reading this article for a halfpenny; along, of course, with other and irrelevant matter.
But if you want to see what a vast and bewildering array of valuable things you can get at a halfpenny each you should do as I was doing last night. I was gluing my nose against the glass of a very small and dimly lit toy shop in one of the greyest and leanest of the streets of Battersea. But dim as was that square of light, it was filled (as a child once said to me) with all the colours God ever made. Those toys of the poor were like the children who buy them; they were all dirty; but they were all bright. For my part, I think brightness more important than cleanliness; since the first is of the soul, and the second of the body. You must excuse me; I am a democrat; I know I am out of fashion in the modern world.
As I looked at that palace of pigmy wonders, at small green omnibuses, at small blue elephants, at small black dolls, and small red Noah's arks, I must have fallen into some sort of unnatural trance. That lit shop-window became like the brilliantly lit stage when one is watching some highly coloured comedy. I forgot the grey houses and the grimy people behind me as one forgets the dark galleries and the dim crowds at a theatre. It seemed as if the little objects behind the glass were small, not because they were toys, but because they were objects far away. The green omnibus was really a green omnibus, a green Bayswater omnibus, passing across some huge desert on its ordinary way to Bayswater. The blue elephant was no longer blue with paint; he was blue with distance. The black doll was really a negro relieved against passionate tropic foliage in the land where every weed is flaming and only man is black. The red Noah's ark was really the enormous ship of earthly salvation riding on the rain-swollen sea, red in the first morning of hope.
Every one, I suppose, knows such stunning instants of abstraction, such brilliant blanks in the mind. In such moments one can see the face of one's own best friend as an unmeaning pattern of spectacles or moustaches. They are commonly marked by the two signs of the slowness of their growth and the suddenness of their termination. The return to real thinking is often as abrupt as bumping into a man. Very often indeed (in my case) it is bumping into a man. But in any case the awakening is always emphatic and, generally speaking, it is always complete. Now, in this case, I did come back with a shock of sanity to the consciousness that I was, after all, only staring into a dingy little toy-shop; but in some strange way the mental cure did not seem to be final. There was still in my mind an unmanageable something that told me that I had strayed into some odd atmosphere, or that I had already done some odd thing. I felt as if I had worked a miracle or committed a sin. It was as if I had at any rate, stepped across some border in the soul.
To shake off this dangerous and dreamy sense I went into the shop and tried to buy wooden soldiers. The man in the shop was very old and broken, with confused white hair covering his head and half his face, hair so startlingly white that it looked almost artificial. Yet though he was senile and even sick, there was nothing of suffering in his eyes; he looked rather as if he were gradually falling asleep in a not unkindly decay. He gave me the wooden soldiers, but when I put down the money he did not at first seem to see it; then he blinked at it feebly, and then he pushed it feebly away.
"No, no," he said vaguely. "I never have. I never have. We are rather old-fashioned here."
"Not taking money," I replied, "seems to me more like an uncommonly new fashion than an old one."
"I never have," said the old man, blinking and blowing his nose; "I've always given presents. I'm too old to stop."
"Good heavens!" I said. "What can you mean? Why, you might be Father Christmas."
"I am Father Christmas," he said apologetically, and blew his nose again.
The lamps could not have been lighted yet in the street outside. At any rate, I could see nothing against the darkness but the shining shop-window. There were no sounds of steps or voices in the street; I might have strayed into some new and sunless world. But something had cut the chords of common sense, and I could not feel even surprise except sleepily. Something made me say, "You look ill, Father Christmas."
"I am dying," he said.
I did not speak, and it was he who spoke again.
"All the new people have left my shop. I cannot understand it. They seem to object to me on such curious and inconsistent sort of grounds, these scientific men, and these innovators. They say that I give people superstitions and make them too visionary; they say I give people sausages and make them too coarse. They say my heavenly parts are too heavenly; they say my earthly parts are too earthly; I donÕt know what they want, I'm sure. How can heavenly things be too heavenly, or earthly things too earthly? How can one be too good, or too jolly? I don't understand. But I understand one thing well enough. These modern people are living and I am dead."
"You may be dead," I replied. "You ought to know. But as for what they are doing, do not call it living."
A silence fell suddenly between us which I somehow expected to be unbroken. But it had not fallen for more than a few seconds when, in the utter stillness, I distinctly heard a very rapid step coming nearer and nearer along the street. The next moment a figure flung itself into the shop and stood framed in the doorway. He wore a large white hat tilted back as if in impatience; he had tight black old-fashioned pantaloons, a gaudy old-fashioned stock and waistcoat, and an old fantastic coat. He had large, wide-open, luminous eyes like those of an arresting actor; he had a pale, nervous face, and a fringe of beard. He took in the shop and the old man in a look that seemed literally a flash and uttered the exclamation of a man utterly staggered.
"Good lord!" he cried out; "it can't be you! It isn't you! I came to ask where your grave was."
"I'm not dead yet, Mr. Dickens," said the old gentleman, with a feeble smile; "but I'm dying," he hastened to add reassuringly.
"But, dash it all, you were dying in my time," said Mr. Charles Dickens with animation; "and you don't look a day older."
"I've felt like this for a long time," said Father Christmas.
Mr. Dickens turned his back and put his head out of the door into the darkness.
"Dick," he roared at the top of his voice; "he's still alive."
Another shadow darkened the doorway, and a much larger and more full-blooded gentleman in an enormous periwig came in, fanning his flushed face with a military hat of the cut of Queen Anne. He carried his head well back like a soldier, and his hot face had even a look of arrogance, which was suddenly contradicted by his eyes, which were literally as humble as a dog's. His sword made a great clatter, as if the shop were too small for it.
"Indeed," said Sir Richard Steele, "'tis a most prodigious matter, for the man was dying when I wrote about Sir Roger de Coverley and his Christmas Day."
My senses were growing dimmer and the room darker. It seemed to be filled with newcomers.
"It hath ever been understood," said a burly man, who carried his head humorously and obstinately a little on one side (I think he was Ben Jonson) "It hath ever been understood, consule Jacobo, under our King James and her late Majesty, that such good and hearty customs were fallen sick, and like to pass from the world. This grey beard most surely was no lustier when I knew him than now."
And I also thought I heard a green-clad man, like Robin Hood, say in some mixed Norman French, "But I saw the man dying."
"I have felt like this a long time," said Father Christmas, in his feeble way again.
Mr. Charles Dickens suddenly leant across to him.
"Since when?" he asked. "Since you were born?"
"Yes," said the old man, and sank shaking into a chair. "I have been always dying."
Mr. Dickens took off his hat with a flourish like a man calling a mob to rise.
"I understand it now," he cried, "you will never die."
Along the border of Arizona, 29 separate projects are running crews around the clock to destroy a Federally protected natural habitat to build a madman's vanity wall, using money that was not allocated for that purpose.
What's the point of even having a government if it is not going to uphold the laws that itself passed?
2020-1211
Day 666
Taylor Harrison Housewright
We build a house right!
"I saw that ad on someone's truck. Had old timey lettering and everything."
Here are some writing prompts that I am going to try.
One word, each.
Wish me luck
https://freelance-writing.lovetoknow.com/writing-prompts/300-one-word-writing-prompts
Gifts
One baby, born
on one day, on one specific year,
The embodiment
of grace,
The gift,
Given freely
from a bountiful God, saying,
“Here I am,
For you,
Innocent.
Kill me.”
And we do,
With every
keystroke Amazon purchase,
With every overstuffed
Outlet Mall shopping bag,
With every liqueur-filled
chocolate,
With every
glass raised at the family feast
To toast family
and friends and food.
MR
2020-1209
Cruelty is the
Point
Cruelty is the
point, the sneer,
the meme, the
desire that your babies
would never
have been born.
They call you
stupid, they call you sheeple,
they call you
subpar humans, they call
you worthless,
for what?
For wearing a
mask in a pandemic.
For wanting
clean water for all humans.
For wanting
police to stop leaving black bodies
Dead on American streets,
They want to
know how long they
have to put up
with you, but that’s OK,
they are happy
enough just to call you
DemoRAT, shitlib,
cuck, scum, dog, animal,
Cockroach,
Libtard, deMONrat,
did I miss
anything?
No matter …
here they come …
MR
2020-1204
Haiku
He painted still life
"Woman at window with bird"
The books were askew.
MR
2020-1202
"Driving in today, the fog was so thick you couldn't see from one streetlamp to the other. I like that.
It's eerie, but quiet ... somehow calming. I was so relaxed when I got to work. Not stressed at all, like I usually am."
Lucky Moran: I don't really see how Santa can be such a 'right jolly old elf.'
Otis Redwing: Because he only comes once a year?
Lucky: HEY! How did you know I was gonna say that.
Otis: The year may change, but your jokes stay the same.
Lucky: The classics never go out of style!
Otis: Keep telling yourself that.
1: Is it psychological or is it spiritual?
2. Is there a difference?
1: Of course there is a difference! One is the mind and the other is the soul.
2: But what if they are both the same?
1: How can they both be the same? One is one thing and the other is the other.
2: But how do you KNOW?
1: I know it in my mind and I feel it in my soul. THAT's how I know.
May have been the same BBC show, think it was “News Hour” with Nikki Beatty, but they were talking to other British actors and there was one of whom they asked to describe how it was to work in Hollywood. She replied that she liked working in LA and the main difference was that, in England, everyone did every job on set, while in Hollywood, every job was compartmentalized: A gaffer was a gaffer, a set designer did set designs, and she was free simply to focus on nothing more than her lines. She found it freeing.
She also mentioned that she found a sort of “home away from home.” The actress talking was Israeli, born to Iranian parents, and she met a lot of Iranians in Hollywood. She said, in fact they called it “Tehrangeles.” (Tehran + Los Angeles)
Strange how we need to hear Biblical lessons from people of the world. Non-believers. Or, if they are believers, you would never be able to tell from their lifestyles. Anyway, though, heard a BBC interview with Matthew McConaughey a few weeks back and he said something really insightful, truly insightful.
They were discussing the death of the movie theatre as we know it: COVID has killed the movie-going experience. They asked McConaughey if he was afraid regular movie going experience would never return.
His answer: “I’m not ‘afraid’ of it. I don’t have any fear of anything I can’t control. What happens with movies is totally out of my hands. It’s like when I fly on a plane. I don’t have any fear because I know I’m not the second best pilot of the plane. So I just accept that whatever happens to the plane is not up to me.”
And even though the questioner probably meant something different than actual “fear,” the response was brilliant, and Biblical. “Take no thought of today, tomorrow has succifient evil.” This whole philosophy is to teach us that we can only control what is within our control, which is, at the end of everything, our reaction to circumstances. Almost everything else in this world is beyond our control, and so, it does not good to fear it or worry about it. That only prevents us from preparing ourselves how to react adequately to it.
"I'm not really sure about the story line yet," he said, "but I've got the main character. Her name is Cadejo, and she roams the Mexico/US border looking for coyotes and traffickers ... and kills them. Frees the kids. Gets the kids to safe houses. She leaves water in the desert. She's no friend of the cartels and she's no friend of the CBP, and she gets into run-ins with both of them. But she's badass. Like, super-badass."
I love music, man, just love it ... look, you share music with some lover, and then years later, the lover is long gone, but the music is still there, the music you shared, and then you feel the same way you felt when you were together. Music unlocks that emotion that you still keep inside you of all the good times.
'
I gotta tell you, all I really learned in business is that you have to keep your wits about you during acquisitions, because nothing gets 'em more snarly over every little penny than when there's 50 million dollars on the table.
Picking radishes,
Thick fingers mow through thick leaves.
Ploughed rows in wide field.
MR
2020-0907
For
Notes from a National Emergency
Day 647
2020-1122
The man was saying, "Jesus never said life would be easy. In fact, He promised it would be difficult. His only real promise was that He would be there, that there would always be a path through the wilderness, a path that leads directly to Him."
The other man said, "How can he be walking with you on the path and then be at the end of the path?"
The man said, "That's Jesus, man. He's everywhere."
The Best of Bits and Pieces (c) 1994
He remembered during the first decade of the 21st Century, working at the City of Tulsa, receiving in the mail each month a pocket sized magazine of the name “Bits and Pieces” filled with interesting vignetes, quotes, stories, usually business-related or meant for motivation.
The book, the “Best of” – printed in 1994, reading it now in 2020, can tell that it still had sway many stories which, by contemporary standards, would be considered extremely misogynistic. For example, a section called “Women” but not a section called “Men” – or stories desinged to illustrate the success of a man dependant upon the woman supporting him in his endeavours, yet no stories about the contrary.
Still though, there are many good quotes which do stand the test of time and which can be very useful
Heard an interview with Michael J Fox last Thursday on NPR. He was discussing the loss of his trademark optimism. He described the scene: it was a year or two ago, he has been living with Parkinsons for almost three decades, he had a tumor on his spine which was touching his spinal cord, and he had just had surgery to have the tumor removed, and he was in his apartment in New York and fell and shattered his arm.
He described how he was laying there, arm broken, and suddenly was angry with himself. He had told everyone that he was ok, and was living on his own, and he had been walking too fast into the kitchen. He said he fell because he had been too prideful and thought he could do things he could no longer do, and as he lay there, he thought about all the work that other people had put into his rehabilitation and his recovery, he thought about all the time that the physical therapists had put into him, how much effort all the doctors had put into his surgeries, how much emotional energy his friends and family had put into his life, and how easily all that work could be ruined just because he was walking faster than he should have been.
And I thought "how amazing!" How often do you ever hear of anyone acknowledging the work that other people have put into their lives? Almost never... our cultural narrative is so completely filled with stories of people who kept trying and never gave up, who through sheer force of will made something of themselves, overcame obstacles, etc., and we rarely - if ever - hear anyone acknowledge that their success is the result of the effort and support of others.
That was just amazing. It was beautiful. And we all need to understand that we are not here just because of our own efforts: we are here because of the efforts of so many others, many more people than we will ever recognize or remember or even be aware of.
She wanted to see his phone.
Why?
Her sister had said that when a man won't let you see their phone, then they are cheating on you.
She got his phone.
Nothing there. Just texts to the Bible group and a couple of buddies.
Nothing in his photos, just the kids, and her, and pics of his truck (for some reason).
"Where else should I look?" she said.
"What are you talking about?" he said.
"You're obviously bothered by me looking at your phone. What are you hiding?" she said.
"I'm bothered because you take my phone EXPECTING to find something incriminating, and that's insulting!" he said.
"That's just what my sister said a guilty cheating man would say," she said.
"Oh Jesus," he said. "Can't we just order dinner to go?"
For NFNE
The child knows who took his parents.
The child knows who caged him.
The child knows you hate him.
The child will grow.
And one day, the cage will not be able to hold him.On that day, that child will come for yours.
for Notes from a National Emergency
Day 646
2020-1121
Mom: Did you get your prescription?
Son: No. You gonna pay for it?
Mom: No. You're 21. You can pay for your own meds.
Son: Then I'm not gonna pay for it.
Mom: That's OK. Big Pharma just wants everyone addicted anyway.
Dad: What are the meds for?
Son: Muscle relaxers. For my back.
Dad: Oh yeah, don't get those. They're a gateway drug to heroin, anyway.
Ideas for Mad Dog stories
1) loud music from fitness center
2) Naming the children
3) "Dude I will bone-saw you like you were a Saudi journalist"
4) Vacation to Central America - clean out their Mara Salvatrucha problem.
5) at kids' soccer games
Mom: I only put ONE comment!
Son: Mom, I told you a million times, don't comment on anything on the Internet. Nobody listens and nobody cares!
Mom: But all I said was that he promised he would show his taxes ...
Son: Omigod, Mom!
Mom: ... and then someone wrote back "Don't talk like that about someone who could drop a bomb on your house."
Son: See? See what I told you?
Why don’t you ever come out of your room?
Why would I ever come out of my room?
To socialize.
With who?
With us.
With you guys? Why would I want to do that?
Because we’re your parents.
But you never say anything I want to here.
Well, then you can just stay in your room then.
Actually, THAT is something I don’t mind hearing.
She said, "It's a book I'm writing call 'How to Love Catholics but Hate the Pope' - it demonstrates the vast difference between the lives of the clergy from the lives of the people who honestly and earnestly try to follow Catholicism. Such as the Pope who got stabbed in the anus by jealous husband as he tried to escape out the window of his mistress, compared to the lives of regular people who attend mass regularly and try to live faithfully."
He replied, "I'm sure your readers will find the Pope with the sword up his arse much more interesting."
She said, "That's the one drawback I see to the whole project."
At the gender reveal party,
the man's daughter tells everyone
it's a girl.
A girl.
The man goes out to the garage,
so no one will see him cry.
Tears of relief.
This world is so hard
for Black boys.
From an article I heard on NPR this morning at 6:20am 2020-1113
Yuki Noguchi in Minneapolis ... about the trauma that Black women face that leads to lower birth weights, more maternal deaths in childbirth, higher infant mortality rates.
MR
2020-1113
Aphrodite is taking amphetamines
Now this angel is falling apart at the seams.
Trying to ease the weight of a Hunter's Moon
Pray that daylight don't ever come too soon.
She says you gotta demonize your sophistry.
I don't really know what that means for me.
Aphrodite waves her mood ring in the air
Trying to make a single into a pair.
And Little Tom is yellowing outside in the yard.
He says he'll never again let down his guard.
Not since that one time that he gave away his heart
Down by the railroad to that salty yellow tart.
Aphrodite now she is waving goodbye
With one slim middle finger from the back of a motorbike.
Little Tom is still pining for that salty yellow tart
To coming riding one day back into his heart.
Back into his mean green heart.
MR
2020-1111
So, my wife's sister took her grandkids to the zoo this weekend, and she was telling my wife that they were about to go into the aquarium when the zoo attendants said they couldn't enter without a mask. They even had masks right there for people if they hadn't already brought their own. But the kids refused. They said, "Daddy says we don't have to wear a mask!"
"Well then, you don't get to go into the aquarium," said my wife's sister.
So they just went around the rest of the zoo. She said the kids were sad that they couldn't go into the aquarium, but she just reminded them that's how Life goes. There are certain rules that help to protect people, and you have to live by those rules if you want to get into cool places.
He looked at his nightstand. The books piled on top. The books stacked underneath. The books hidden in the drawer.
Hand on the wood, fingers moving toward the spine of the book atop two others.
"How many of these have I read?" he thought. "How many do I need to read before I get to 1,000?"
Most of them, he could see, were books about the Bible. Books on the Bible. Books based on Biblical principals or the study of Jesus Christ, who is God.
But how much of a percentage could he have read to consider them counting toward the 1,000?
50%?
75%?
And would that include paragraphs he skimmed over?
And since they were about his Lord and Savior, would any shortcuts be, in effect, cheating God?
These are questions to which he had no answer.
He supposed he would just have to take it on faith.
He smiled than, both wanly, and with resolution.
Crazy Love, by Francis Chan
Lindsey said, "You know, I'm really not sure I should let the kids go out this Hallowe'en, I mean with COVID and all that, you don't know whose door they're gonna knock on that has it or not, and then every kid is sticking their little fingers in the same basket, but then I thought, hey, they're young and it's just a little cough and nobody really gets it, I mean they say that 250,000 people have died but only one person I know of at church died and the president said nobody really gets it, I mean, he got it and got over it, so I figured if the kids get it they'll be OK and if they pass it to me, I should be all right, so yeah, I'll just make sure they wear their jackets tonight because it's supposed to be chilly."
1: So you gonna riot on Tuesday?
2: No, I'm gonna vote.
1: You throwing that vote away. Then you gonna riot.
2: Yeah, OK, whatever, sure.
1: See you there.
April said, "We went on an Alaskan Cruise for our twentieth anniversary three years ago, Rocky had booked the whole thing and surprised me with it, and let me tell you this story, if I can, just real quick. At first, I didn't want to go, I was thinking, 'Oh my God, thirteen DAYS with this man, I'm gonna go nuts!' And I asked all the ladies at church, 'Please pray for me that I can survive all that time with him' but I have to say, that it was the BEST trip of my life. I mean, he was wonderful, I found in those two weeks, not just my husband, but also my best friend, my lover, my boyfriend, my confidante, and I realized that those twenty years we'd been married that I had been the difficult one.
"It also helped that everyone else on the cruise was over 60. I felt OK wearing my bikini to the heated pool!"
Halloween day.
Morning is crisp cold and the sky is clear, can almost still feel the tug of the moon, just there, beyond the horizon, waiting to slip back up again tonight.
Climb in the truck, man can't believe the chill, even down here in Houston. Heading toward Waco today, someone said there's actual snow, that should be nice tonight, some crystals against the fur.
FENCES
One of their finest performances.
Obviously a play, I truly wish I could see this on stage. But the movie version was stellar.
This is the interplay between dreams, possibilities, missed opportunities, and what we do with what we have and how we live with the loss of what we could have been.
Haiku for Blood Moon
Blood Moon at Sundown
All the wolves with plastic pails,
"Trick or Treat!" they cry!
MR
2020-1031
The Myth of American Exceptionalism -
should be a book, if no one has already written it.
Should be a study of the complete brainwashing of an entire population into believing that they were somehow immune from the rigors of the rest of the world, that they were somehow better, smarter, more beloved by God than the rest of the world.
Such an identity, perpetuated continually, has rendered the populace completely incapable of addressing serious issues in the society, and left them absolutely helpless in times of national tragedy,
Examples: the bad reaction to 9-11, which led America into 20 year wars and an eventual recession.
The COVID pandemic, which led have the populace to believe the disease did not exist, which led to needless deaths.
As we kick off the three month holiday season, during the election that no one ever thought would happen, let this be a raucous celebration - starring with the festivities against the demons and the dead that is Hallowe'en, which moves into the reverence of All Saints Day, which is followed by the bringing to life the headstones of the cemeteries in the days that are called the Day of the Dead, which is crowned on November 3 by the election that will determine if the demons win this country or if the living souls maintain the democracy.
And then, all those shredded families get to face each other over a Thanksgiving dinner, where their prayers to God will be filled with gloating from the side that one, and prayers for deliverance and smiting from the side that lost.
