The Left Column

Politics for Poets

for today, a fairytale

It's easy to forget to try and stay non-partisan. As a poet I risk letting anger direct my efforts. If we are angry then what is that doing for us? When it's open season on poets society is broken. Culture dictates a muzzle? Custom dictates dissent. But the poet, he supposed to be as if he wasn't paying attention. Huh? I've been out of this loop since . . . something about some towers?

But seriously, all you poets out there, how are you dealing with our current . . . situation? Are we supposed to use the rage form of pop music and speak the truth to the idle crowd? We can't, as educated people, rouse the rabble because, as poets, we understand how dark and serpintine that tsunami can be. Enraptured crowds following a demagouge are to be avoided by the poet. The poet must flee from such crowd, avvoid the demagouge, not except the award to be picked up at the dinner in a white house.

But I worked hard. I deserve the reward. If I'm non-political, why can't I go and pick up my award from [name of some hated despot]? We're all suppose to go and sip champaigne with figurehead queens (as dear as the old girl is) and pretend that the rediculous clamp-down on the expresion of free ideas, as witnessed by the shabby way that a famoous talk show host is being treated (in a very savage way) that why shouldn't our president ask the question? "why him? why is he singled out? I don't like his politics. I know that he doesn't like mine. but how is it that it is even allowed to try and styfle the opposition? If we stop listening to the raver from the wilderness we disconnect from the real current that flows in, like a wild bull in a canyonland of ages past, whole cultures having been created and destroyed over just very such an image, guilded. And we hunt down and kill the real thing when we find it."

There are curious questions that we are not supposed to ask. If we are a philosopher, a rybald playboy poet, a curly-haired lothario penning verses for his many women friends. Playful boy playboy off and wondering the dawn streets unaware of terror drills and with our instant blog-snot-camera-rabble-corder (in 3-D) and with his recent trust fund payout and five-thousand dollars of camera equipment and the clammy hand of classified drill activity, and a super secret heliocopter comes whizzing by. Why is he here on this London Street at 4:00 AM, just at the dawn and with who it is in town? and supping at the Queen (though not sure if it was 'lizbeth or Elton)?

The young trust fund lothario is arrested in the pre-dawn streets and mixed in with presidental daughters who were being returned from the zoo. "We can't have this. We can't have this, even as a joke." tweets pooh-bear in charge. He snorts snot towards the microphone. All of it is picked up and promptly put into the teller. Next it's presiducky reading this crap because it's a live feed back to the 10 O'clock hour and one of those 'Oh, hey, prezzy-wezzy moments on Leno-man late television.'

But there isn't a detweet function even though they had been directed by the retraction ordinances (including brain-wipe provissions, as the whim of a brit judge, if that technology ever might become available. It could happen.) damn the costs and paybents to the advocate and all of their advocates. This process has been patented but there is a gag order on it so I can't keep making up this stuff about it because even if this is made up it works that they can claim it harms them and then slam the counter-liberal gags to be fastened. With firewalls run by the yellow foriegn sunshine. It's like candy made of seasalt and suggery peas. Totally crazy.

The blog post puts the censor software into an infinite loop sig-sef (can't even kill it with a dash nine) and the whole web of censor-bots is churning through the many mirrored posts with their infinity of word hash posts, most of which are not real but spawned off by the snot-bot process (and secret daemon, inserted into all kernels of any OS by an evil plot from far away fields (farmers they thought they said they did but hackers are they all now).

There was no way out of it. All of the appointed officials could see it like that anyway. The only thing that they could do was cut funding for the blog-snot monitoring program. Those south-asian based software companies would loose all of that market share. And someone please tell the securities montioring bank-fusses that if anyone trades on this information (on the inside) and sees how this cut will effect these recently IPO'd securities (exchanged, already, to the many funds of funds of funds) that they could and can be arrested development. Lost and hurt and not OK.

They had to let the college kid go back to his flat in the English town. They tried to keep his 5 thousand pounds of camera equipment, but he had them stealing it already cached as video on his overseas blog. They tried to invoke privledge and gag it but instead they were voted out of office for ever and the Savage reply was a long and extended trip to London from where he broadcasted his show for many many happy happy months. And England was pushed forward into a golden age. And all cupiditious people were suddenly turned from their usurous ways. And just anybody at all in every country can live where ever they want without harm and rancour. And free taffy for all the children. And they all lived some happily and some ever-after.

The preceeding has been a creative spew of blog designed to intruegue and befuddle any and all blog monitoring software of the fussy. All those who seek to censor should censor themselves from that very idea.

Life goes on.

Fret not for you know not the day nor the hour . . .

~ OK Now.

May 25, 2011

The Susquahanna River, Pennsylvania from
last fall.


  If she was bothered by the wind
  she didn't let on about it.
    I listen to her drone on for a long hour
      then another. Then another.

  When you sign up for these things
    you never know what you're getting yourself into.
  And I've never enjoyed the company
    of chatty female strangers
      without their men
      no matter how pretty they are.
      
  But if she were silent.
     She'd direct her silence against the
      bare soul cliff-face heart ache
    masking itself as bubbles and sun-bows
     
     did I see
      unicorns dancing in the bulevard?
    20,000 kids drinking for the day?
     who's that naked?
    I'm not printing that picture here.

  finally when she batted me on the arm
    I let into her, really let her know what I think.
   There's all of us here.
   We've all had to wait all day to get this far.
   And no one else
    wants to hear 
    anymore from her
 so why doesn't she just
     shut up.

  I don't like to 
    loose my cool
   in front of strangers
  and possible mystic
   fellow travelers
  out over the storm
  with rough weather
  and silent thoughts
   of the holy dead.