trump will get to heaven

because he follows the adage:
"love thy neighbor as thyself"

In general, he believes and acts to: love, not hate. Charity and generosity and kindness; give away whatever you have to those who have not; be charitable in interpreting the actions of others. Your neighbors are your friends and allies. There are no enemies. There is no heavenly value to earthly wealth. Whatever is in your pockets, weighs you down.

Hegseth was right: shed weight, become light, and so you will ascend.

ed piskor

if words now are as deeds
deserved of analogous retribution
then his DMs were indeed criminal
but his accusers’ words were as a lynching
and so their acts likewise contemptible
and their guise of virtue forfeit

new year’s eve sonnet

(for MKI, as always)

Hey Omicron: the letter of the hour!
You’ve brought another covid Christmas: who’d
have thought lightning could strike again so soon?
but never mind, we’ve foiled your plot to sour
our Stollen — hopped the last of the outbound flights
to paradise, where naked hugs and sweaty
dancing are de rigueur, the restaurants ready
for parties of ten plus, no rez required!

’course we’re not all so lucky: lockdown wounds
are here to stay; while absent friends on screens
remain; let’s hope tonight to drown our blues
in toasts to family lost, who flock our dreams
like larks at dusk, ’til waking see anew
the chance for change in twenty-twenty two.

if we can keep it

new year’s eve sonnet

All my brothers locked down, the sound of lighters,
of bottle openers, bottles popped alone
that foam and spill across the empty wide
expanse of kitchen floors unmopped. A home
in name but not in deed, indeed a jail
that native sons know well, a reservation
held in reserve, revisiting the names
inscribed on birth certificates, a nation
of orphans stumbling in twilight. Is hope
obscene to our imagination, or can
we dream a fiery green without dull smoke
and scour clean our hearts, as we have our hands,
’til double twenty penitence is done,
emerge absolved in twenty twenty one?

boris johnson, are you aware, you may have pushed this nation to the brink . . . ?

see, e.g. here.

bhh on shakespeare garden / end of world

the entertainment system

transformations

I use to think I was a capitalist first, but now I see that anarchy is über alles.

Including the market.

Because slavery of or to or for the self is still slavery;

And "consent" in the moment of lust is not consent.

dubrovnik

City of cats, spackled by shells
firing the red roof-tiles black
chalk outlines the corpse of a city

risen again, swathed in stone and moated
scene of dragon battles staged
where tourists climb the sides of churches

children hang off bas relief fountains
and swarm, ride scooters through squares
dripping sweat and screaming for pasta;

synth sing-a-long at church, jeans
and bad haircuts, long dresses
cross the chest and shuffle behind pews.

Quiet in a vertical garden, sloping
down to the sea where cactus bulwarks
fortress the cliff against the waves

flecked in cinders, they pixelate a peace
that spreads across the Adriatic’s
azure solace, Croatia

maintains, embraced by octopus
split by former comrades, edge that
boomerangs Westward to Europe.

new year's sonnet

At turn of year, some doors are closed forever
while others open new on gleaming halls
in mansions bright; as prodigals we find
this welcome hearth unearned, yet still endeavour
to prove our worth.
                                       The gloom of winter falls
away before the flame of spring; tall pines
embroidered in fragrant buds bend to fawn
upon our hopes and teach how nature solves
the puzzles set to life. We read these signs
as affirmations: tracts that note the songs
of seasons past and clear the undergrowth
for blooms of May.
                                   A year to nurture time’s
long generations into future dawns
upon the hidden glades where saviours spawn.

flight

new year’s eve sonnet

It’s time to say goodbye again and cheer
the passing of another year, look back
in wonder, doubt, and momentary tears
along the stretch of paths and cul-de-sacs
we’ve travelled, sometimes slow and sometimes fast,
with fear or circumspection, some dismay
at times, reflecting on the die we cast
and cards we drew. Despite these harder days
we seem to muscle through, and find a way
to live again and turn our year from fall
to spring. Before the fire spends its final flame,
as clock ticks on it murmurs to us all:
remake the world to match your secret dreams
and seize the day in twenty seventeen!

the silencing of nozick

Conversation with a "philosopher":

What are you teaching this term?

Political philosophy.

Oh, what are you teaching?

The first half of the term is Rawls, the second half contemporary critiques of liberalism.

That sounds great—are you teaching Nozick at all?

No, I find when you teach Nozick, students just accept his criticisms and can't take Rawls seriously any more . . . .

illusive

Gazing in the shimmering pond, Alice thought she saw another world; dimly, past the rippled clouds, she could almost make out the face of another her, with bottomless liquorice eyes, and a downy tear dropping down from sculpted cheek to rivulet past Wednesday's best . . .

blocked by lothian buses

Deemed too dangerous, apparently . . . .

caterpillar

the tarot can't show how crunk it will go . . .

RIP Miss Cleo

paint

caroline shaw