517 Social commentaries poems

Greed got in the way. We built a fake estate. Levinas said to see ourselves we need each other yet doorbells, rows of them, glow in the night village a string of lit invitations no elbow has leaned into (both arms embracing messages). Unanswered the doors are rotting from the bottom up. It’s another perplexing pothole in our road, loves. Hard core from the quarry might make it level, hard core and cunning speculation into matters concerning love and doubt, concerning want and plenty. O the places where pavement runs out and ragwort springs up, where Lindenwood ends but doesn’t abut anywhere neatly, a petered-out plot of Tayto tumbleweeds, bin bags, rebar, roof slates, offcuts, guttering, drain grilles, doodads, infill, gravel! A not-as-yet nice establishment, possessing potential where we have no authorized voice but are oddly fitted out for the pain it takes to build bit by bit. When the last contractions brought us to the brink of our new predicament, we became developers.

We are learning to control our thoughts, to set obtrusive thoughts aside. It takes an American to do really big things. Often I have no thoughts to push against. It's lonely in a song about outer space. When I don't have any thoughts, I want one! A close-up reveals that she has chosen a plastic soap dish in the shape of a giant sea turtle. Can a thought truly be mine if I am not currently thinking it? There are two sides to any argument; one arm in each sleeve. • Maybe I am always meditating, if by that you mean searching for a perfect stranger.

The big front wall that blocks off the courtyard often catches the newborn light of the sun like the side of a barn. The body awakes in the morning to a room, messy and empty, that smells of the first, clumsy perfume. Even that body, wrapped now in sheets, is the same that it was when it thrilled in discovery. Her body wakes alone to the extended call of morning, the languor of another morning returning in the heavy shadows: the barn of childhood and the heavy tiredness of sun hot in the indolent doorways. A perfume worked itself into the usual sweat of her hair, a smell the animals knew. Her body took secret pleasure in the sun’s suggestive, serene caress—like a real touch. The languor of bed saps the sprawled limbs, still youthful and plump, like a child’s. The clumsy child used to smell the mixed scent of tobacco and hay, used to tremble when touched by the man’s quick hands: she liked playing games. Sometimes she played lying down with the man in the hay, but he wasn’t smelling her hair: he’d find her closed legs in the hay and pry them open, then crush her like he was her father. The perfume was flowers ground upon stones. It often returns, in the slow rise from sleep, that undone aroma of far-off flowers, of barns and of sun. No man can know the subtle caress of that sour memory. No man can see, beyond that sprawled body, that childhood passed in such clumsy anxiety.

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Someone had spread an elaborate rumor about me, that I was in possession of an extraterrestrial being, and I thought I knew who it was. It was Roger Lawson. Roger was a practical joker of the worst sort, and up till now I had not been one of his victims, so I kind of knew my time had come. People parked in front of my house for hours and took pictures. I had to draw all my blinds and only went out when I had to. Then there was a barrage of questions. “What does he look like?" “What do you feed him?” “How did you capture him?” And I simply denied the presence of an extraterrestrial in my house. And, of course, this excited them all the more. The press showed up and started creeping around my yard. It got to be very irritating. More and more came and parked up and down the street. Roger was really working overtime on this one. I had to do something. Finally, I made an announcement. I said, “The little fellow died peacefully in his sleep at 11:02 last night.” “Let us see the body,” they clamored. “He went up in smoke instantly,” I said. “I don’t believe you,” one of them said. “There is no body in the house or I would have buried it myself,” I said. About half of them got in their cars and drove off. The rest of them kept their vigil, but more solemnly now. I went out and bought some groceries. When I came back about an hour later another half of them had gone. When I went into the kitchen I nearly dropped the groceries. There was a nearly transparent fellow with large pink eyes standing about three feet tall. “Why did you tell them I was dead? That was a lie,” he said. “You speak English,” I said. “I listen to the radio. It wasn’t very hard to learn. Also we have television. We get all your channels. I like cowboys, especially John Ford movies John Ford movies John Ford (1894-1973) was a Hollywood director, famous for a number of movies, including cowboy movies starring John Wayne, such as “Rio Grande,” “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” and “Stagecoach.” . They’re the best,” he said. “What am I going to do with you?” I said. “Take me to meet a real cowboy. That would make me happy,” he said. “I don’t know any real cowboys, but maybe we could find one. But people will go crazy if they see you. We’d have press following us everywhere. It would be the story of the century,” I said. “I can be invisible. It’s not hard for me to do,” he said. “I’ll think about it. Wyoming or Montana would be our best bet, but they’re a long way from here,” I said. “Please, I won’t cause you any trouble,” he said. “It would take some planning,” I said. I put the groceries down and started putting them away. I tried not to think of the cosmic meaning of all this. Instead, I treated him like a smart little kid. “Do you have any sarsaparilla sarsaparilla An old-fashioned soft drink. When a character in a Western film would order a sarsaparilla in a bar, instead of an alcoholic beverage, he would be mocked by cowboys. ?” he said. “No, but I have some orange juice. It’s good for you,” I said. He drank it and made a face. “I’m going to get the maps out,” I said. “We’ll see how we could get there.” When I came back he was dancing on the kitchen table, a sort of ballet, but very sad. “I have the maps,” I said. “We won’t need them. I just received word. I’m going to die tonight. It’s really a joyous occasion, and I hope you’ll help me celebrate by watching The The / Magnificent Seven A famous 1960 western, starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn Magnificent Seven The / Magnificent Seven A famous 1960 western, starring Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and James Coburn ,” he said. I stood there with the maps in my hand. I felt an unbearable sadness come over me. “Why must you die?” I said. “Father decides these things. It is probably my reward for coming here safely and meeting you,” he said. “But I was going to take you to meet a real cowboy,” I said. “Let’s pretend you are my cowboy,” he said.

"A cradle thief," my mother called the man we'd see in shops, cafes, parks, even church, with "that poor girl" beside him. Hand in hand, they'd walk as if they didn't feel the scorch of people's stares. The day we saw him press his lips to hers, my mother blocked my eyes as if his mouth (I longed for my first kiss) against her mouth was smothering her cries. All week, I ran a fever that wouldn't break. "A cradle thief"—a voice I only half knew as my own surprised me in the dark, my sick-bed wet with shivers. "A cradle thief," I said again, as if the words could will my window broken, footprint on the sill.

Ruby, please. A night shift nurse fell asleep at the wheel. The whole earth had a fever and the heated pulse beats faster ’til everything picturesque has her reeling. Just tryna make it real baby, like it is. He condescends. Twitching a trio of flax seeds between the thumb and forefinger in a dirty spiral, these are full of phytoestrogens that turn the gender    ...    generic    ...    generous. Hey, girl! Crease in her hey the size of turning. Is that mean? I live in place where it’s mean to be honest but I come from a place where it’s generous. Freetown is hedged on a slum. The ghetto, everybody’s vigilante. Cut to the footage of a young boy swimming in floodwater made of mud and feces. Constructed. Like shelter, the safest destination the excess has. You see a fugitive, I see my daughter’s future husband, Ma quips, full sunned and sweet, a nigga who can swim, can hunt her free. Glad silk bending his teeth into a Sunday hotel. And the kind of silt that reachers for shatter. All the land is water. You come forth through the cosmic slop by drowning. The sun is a gang of murders. You come through on the new acquittal looking for chicken strips and bourbon with Netflix on in the background and I’ll kill you myself. Back on the Las Vegas strip, the sun is a bouquet of drones chasing promoters through a circus. Stand there and look indignant in a bandana and stop calling the Loa out their names before they answer. You’re on the guest list for lil yachty and one oak and it’s a mouthpiece the boxer’s choking on when the nurse wakes up, a double suicide, American, pie and guns and obscene convenience, proud mascots for an army with no one left to defend

The crowd at the ball game is moved uniformly by a spirit of uselessness which delights them— all the exciting detail of the chase and the escape, the error the flash of genius— all to no end save beauty the eternal— So in detail they, the crowd, are beautiful for this to be warned against saluted and defied— It is alive, venomous it smiles grimly its words cut— The flashy female with her mother, gets it— The Jew gets it straight— it is deadly, terrifying— It is the Inquisition, the Revolution It is beauty itself that lives day by day in them idly— This is the power of their faces It is summer, it is the solstice the crowd is cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail permanently, seriously without thought

no more windows ESCape the unwound protection that heals an amorphous child, won deterrence         Voodoo bags inhibit the murder that stories tell, the incisions on our drums ‘que nuestro pais se cuenta sin hablar’ pushing on determined corn husks. count the zero that impresses germs                  upon language rails, on the tree that simmers, showering bomb threats over THE LOST TONGUE. place hand to the other torso, place heart to the horse’s hide and speaking races over sisters.          never do the ties remember all their screens, or all their hiding limbs . . . wet on the chair, ‘woven stone’ — places the INCUBATED muscle on desiccated insects, droves of mango that never fell to the floor. a welcome accomplishment. SURFACE shrinking skin, the isthmus isn’t remembered for its canals. eggs & softened lizards — poured milk on the Wheel, red faces that play the memory of your silent chairs . . . some rain makes the wind full . . . blankets into stone

The radio clicks on—it’s poor swollen America, Up already and busy selling the exhausting obligation Of happiness while intermittently debating whether or not A man who kills fifty people in five minutes With an automatic weapon he has bought for the purpose Is mentally ill. Or a terrorist. Or if terrorists Are mentally ill. Because if killing large numbers of people With sophisticated weapons is a sign of sickness— You might want to begin with fire, our early ancestors Drawn to the warmth of it—from lightning, Must have been, the great booming flashes of it From the sky, the tree shriveled and sizzling, Must have been, an awful power, the odor Of ozone a god’s breath; or grass fires, The wind whipping them, the animals stampeding, Furious, driving hard on their haunches from the terror Of it, so that to fashion some campfire of burning wood, Old logs, must have felt like feeding on the crumbs Of the god’s power and they would tell the story Of Prometheus the thief, and the eagle that feasted On his liver, told it around a campfire, must have been, And then—centuries, millennia—some tribe Of meticulous gatherers, some medicine woman, Or craftsman of metal discovered some sands that, Tossed into the fire, burned blue or flared green, So simple the children could do it, must have been, Or some soft stone rubbed to a powder that tossed Into the fire gave off a white phosphorescent glow. The word for chemistry from a Greek—some say Arabic— Stem associated with metal work. But it was in China Two thousand years ago that fireworks were invented— Fire and mineral in a confined space to produce power— They knew already about the power of fire and water And the power of steam: 100 BC, Julius Caesar’s day. In Alexandria, a Greek mathematician produced A steam-powered turbine engine. Contain, explode. “The earliest depiction of a gunpowder weapon Is the illustration of a fire-lance on a mid-12th-century Silk banner from Dunhuang.” Silk and the silk road. First Arab guns in the early fourteenth century. The English Used cannons and a siege gun at Calais in 1346. Cerigna, 1503: the first battle won by the power of rifles When Spanish “arquebusiers” cut down Swiss pikemen And French cavalry in a battle in southern Italy. (Explosions of blood and smoke, lead balls tearing open The flesh of horses and young men, peasants mostly, Farm boys recruited to the armies of their feudal overlords.) How did guns come to North America? 2014, A headline: DIVERS DISCOVER THE SANTA MARIA One of the ship’s Lombard cannons may have been stolen By salvage pirates off the Haitian reef where it had sunk. And Cortes took Mexico with 600 men, 17 horses, 12 cannons. And LaSalle, 1679, constructed a seven-cannon barque, Le Griffon, and fired his cannons upon first entering the continent’s Interior. The sky darkened by the terror of the birds. In the dream time, they are still rising, swarming, Darkening the sky, the chorus of their cries sharpening As the echo of that first astounding explosion shimmers On the waters, the crew blinking at the wind of their wings. Springfield Arsenal, 1777. Rock Island Arsenal, 1862. The original Henry rifle: a sixteen shot .44 caliber rimfire Lever-action, breech-loading rifle patented—it was an age Of tinkerers—by one Benjamin Tyler Henry in 1860, Just in time for the Civil War. Confederate casualties In battle: about 95,000. Union casualties in battle: About 110,000. Contain, explode. They were throwing Sand into the fire, a blue flare, an incandescent green. The Maxim machine gun, 1914, 400-600 small caliber rounds Per minute. The deaths in combat, all sides, 1914-1918 Was 8,042,189. Someone was counting. Must have been. They could send things whistling into the air by boiling water. The children around the fire must have shrieked with delight 1920: Iraq, the peoples of that place were “restive,” Under British rule and the young Winston Churchill Invented the new policy of “aerial policing,” which amounted, Sources say, to bombing civilians and then pacifying them With ground troops. Which led to the tactic of terrorizing civilian Populations in World War II. Total casualties in that war, Worldwide: soldiers, 21 million; civilians, 27 million. They were throwing sand into the fire. The ancestor who stole Lightning from the sky had his guts eaten by an eagle. Spread-eagled on a rock, the great bird feasting. They are wondering if he is a terrorist or mentally ill. London, Dresden. Berlin. Hiroshima, Nagasaki. The casualties difficult to estimate. Hiroshima: 66,000 dead, 70,000 injured. In a minute. Nagasaki: 39,000 dead, 25,000 injured. There were more people killed, 100,000, in more terrifying fashion in the firebombing Of Tokyo. Two arms races after the ashes settled. The other industrial countries couldn’t get there Fast enough. Contain, burn. One scramble was For the rocket that delivers the explosion that burns humans By the tens of thousands and poisons the earth in the process. They were wondering if the terrorist was crazy. If he was A terrorist, maybe he was just unhappy. The other Challenge afterwards was how to construct machine guns A man or a boy could carry: lightweight, compact, easy to assemble. First a Russian sergeant, a Kalashnikov, clever with guns Built one on a German model. Now the heavy machine gun. The weapon of European imperialism through which A few men trained in gunnery could slaughter native armies In Africa and India and the mountains of Afghanistan, Became “a portable weapon a child can operate.” The equalizer. So the undergunned Vietnamese insurgents Fought off the greatest army in the world. So the Afghans Fought off the Soviet army using Kalashnikovs the CIA Provided to them. They were throwing powders in the fire And dancing. Children’s armies in Africa toting AK-47s That fire thirty rounds a minute. A round is a bullet. An estimated 500 million firearms on the earth. 100 million of them are Kalashnikov-style semi-automatics. They were dancing in Orlando, in a club. Spring night. Gay Pride. The relation of the total casualties to the history Of the weapon that sent exploded metal into their bodies— 30 rounds a minute, or 40, is a beautifully made instrument, And in America you can buy it anywhere—and into the history Of the shaming culture that produced the idea of Gay Pride— They were mostly young men, they were dancing in a club, A spring night. The radio clicks on. Green fire. Blue fire. The immense flocks of terrified birds still rising In wave after wave above the waters in the dream time. Crying out sharply. As the French ship breasted the vast interior Of the new land. America. A radio clicks on. The Arabs, A commentator is saying, require a heavy hand. Dancing.

Our vice runs beyond all that old men saw, And far authentically above our laws, And scorning virtues safe and golden mean, Sits uncontrolled upon the high extreme. Circes, thy monsters painted out the hue, Of feigned filthiness, but ours is true. Our vice puts down all proverbs and all themes, Our vice excels all fables and all dreams.