Time of lifting spiders

Time of lifting spiders on the garage door. Time of filling the Yard Machine with gasoline. Time of pulling the string. To Sartre everyone had a string to pull. I'm skeptical. Unsure of the "every," unsure of the pull. In lives so pulled. Time to pull becomes time to push. Time of waist-high weeds along the edges. Time of the neighbor's treacherous fence, jutting at us through his property-line-speak smoke screen. Time of know your rights. Time of swallowing allergen-induced post-nasal drips. Remember the time of action figures in exotic jungles of not extraordinarily tall grass. Remember the time of die-cast metal cavalry. Outlaws and marshals and Texas rangers. Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache. Brown patio of the mid-western plains. Surreal fields of freshly mowed grass. Father and son animating cowboys and Indians. Cowboys and Indians meeting their demise by the roll of the dice. Sgt. Pete Stone fires at Painted Horse. Storm Eagle wings an axe at Wes Bonner, the great scout. Rain Hat positions his rifle from behind a petrified tree, taking aim at "Shotgun" Crawford. Remember the names, remember the time. Worlds we leave behind. But who's that in the make-shift saloon behind the walls of Fort Larame? G . . . W . . . Bush. Don't remember him.
 

What about the lyric

What about the lyric as phenomenological inquiry? I wake up with the same thought I left off with. The last thought I can at least remember. There were others. So much of life is forgetting. Hmm, into the morning routine, except I eat and have my tea before brushing teeth. Jazzy morning. Vaughn buzzing around the living room. KC tottering along, room to room, with Dash in her arms. Room to room? There are only three-and-a-half down here. Plus a half-bath. Is that four? Never fully comprehended the mathematics of realty. Would a phenomenological lyric be called phenomenolyrical? Why care what it'd be called when I can't say what it is? Saying, saying. I hate saying. Intuitive movement through the lyric. Silence in the words. Between the words. Of the words. Constituted but not chained. KC sets Dash in his crib upstairs. She's "in the shower" before she's in the shower. Vaughn building Duplo towers in the living room. Chatting to herself. Taken over the years by the idea of "phenomenological lyricism." Taken over by the illogical impingements of connotations. Formerly in the full phrase: "a phenomenological lyricism which recreates the texture and logic of interior experience." Redundancy. The interior is built into the phenomenological. Texture in necessarily a result of the dynamic process of person-al experience, of self-reflective consciousness, of being in time. The lyric as synthesis of the minute analyses at work in the self-reflective moment. The moment is a movement. Jargon and redundancy led me to an ill-conceived, half-understood concoction of surrealism, cubism, beat, post-langpo, etc. quagmire, futility. The need to start over. Recognized over the years, but seeking articulation in order to act. Damn articulation. But is that right? The "free world" is riding piggyback on the inarticulate speech of a not particular president. A president of the Word. Who doesn't understand the Word is a black stone. Whose white stone is black with oil and blood. Whose white house is invisible black with oil and blood. Whose home is a mansion, but whose room in the house of being is a half-bath the size of a public bathroom stall. Who eats and sleeps in the oil and blood of his own shit. Empty mug of tea. Where's my family—they're upstairs. Black stone words. That "language is the house of being" is the poet's challenge, not his or her sentence.

Bush cedes power to Cheney— temporarily?

Dubya's colonoscopy is big news because he will temporarily be ceding power to Dick Cheney. How does a story like this get reported without irony? It barely seems possible. Is there anybody out there who doesn't believe Cheney has been pulling the strings all along? Seriously, and partisan politics asisde, the Republican party should offer some kind of apology to the voters duped into thinking they were voting for Dubya-Dick, not Dick-Dubya.

Sad Day For the U.S. . . .

. . . when geography tests for presidential candidates seem like a good idea.

from The New York Times Magazine:

Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. "I don't know why you're talking about Sweden,'' Bush said. ''They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.''
   Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ''Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They're the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.'' Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion.
   Bush held to his view. ''No, no, it's Sweden that has no army.''
   The room went silent, until someone changed the subject.

Because there are some things that the President, at least, just ought to know.

Bush, Kerry face off on Iraq

This has to be one of the most one-sided presidential debates ever. Bush keeps muttering the same prepackaged bit about Kerry being inconsistent over and over. Kerry, surprisingly, pretty clearly states how his position, his one position, has always been consistent, and Bush responds by repeating his script just with more emphasis. Kerry seems less petty than he often did during the early Dem primary debates when he was far behind Dean and could only catch up by misquoting and shoveling the shit. I might even be able to vote for Kerry with a clear conscience after this one—especially with Ralph Nader's continuing ballot-access issues. Nader would be wise to follow Alexander Cockburn's advice.

Liberal Media Strikes Again

Interesting contrast in this weekend's issues of The New York Times. Yesterday's over-the-fold photo shows George W. in a warm shining light with Jesse Jackson behind him, both of them with big smiles on their faces—though not smiling at each other, but at someone else not shown in the picture. This really belies the content of the story, which down in the sixth paragraph reports the tepid response of the audience throughout Bush's hastily-scheduled, politcal face-saving speech to the National Urban League.

Today's over-the-fold photo shows John Kerry in profile sitting alone in a stark, dark room. Isolated in such a way, Kerry comes across as cold, impersonal, and self-absorbed. We can see the wires from whatever interview he's giving: they lead up to his leg, suggesting he is some kind of pre-programmed tax-hiking robot. Worst fo all, behind Kerry is a huge mirror in which we see his reflection, which serves to emphasize the Republican argument that Kerry is a Janus-faced flip-flopper.

Yep, damn that liberal NY Times, always manipulating the news to the Democrats' advantage.