Saturday, July 25, 2009

Blackberries&Bromige/Dresden James/Bill Maher


(P1) Poetical

More of the Lasting Contribution of David Bromige

Perhaps it was 2 years ago that I shared the following poem with David Bromige. He suggested an addition that is in the second version below. Suffice to say, it is the second version (with David's addition) which has been accepted for publication by Xanadu.

Picking Blackberries Without Me

She sd
I could have used you
to hold the dog
Your height
to get to the good ones
Your body mass
to push aside the vines,
tough out the thorns
and get just a little bit juicy.

Picking Blackberries Without Me

She sd
I could have used you
to hold the dog
Your height
to get to the good ones
Your body mass
to push aside the vines,
tough out the thorns
and get your face
just a little bit juicy
so I could lick it off.


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(P2) Philosophical


When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over gerations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. - Dresden James -

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(P2) Political

Bill Maher's New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/bill-maher/headshot.jpgHow about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn't do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn't used to define us. But now it's becoming all that we are.

Did you know, for example, that there was a time when being called a "war profiteer" was a bad thing?...Prisons used to be a non-profit business, too. And for good reason --­ who the hell wants to own a prison? ...unlike in Cronkite's day, today's news has to make a profit like all the other divisions in a media conglomerate... ...But like everything else that's good and noble in life, some Wall Street wizard decided that hospitals could be big business, so now they're run by some bean counters in a corporate plaza in Charlotte. In the U.S. today, three giant for-profit conglomerates own close to 600 hospitals and other health care facilities. They're not hospitals anymore; they're Jiffy Lubes with bedpans.... ...If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain."...

...And if medicine is for profit, and war, and the news, and the penal system, my question is: what's wrong with firemen? Why don't they charge? They must be commies. Oh my God! That explains the red trucks!

Bill Maher (at Huffington Post), host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher airs live tonight at 10pm

Get the entire essay.

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3 comments:

Jonah Raskin said...

Thanks for the poem, which I like.

See you,

Jonah

Viola Weinberg said...

Thanks so much, Ed. This is a sublime little blog that always brings me pleasure.

V

david f said...

As Kabir said in the 12th century:

Saints, I see the world is mad.
If I tell the truth they rush to beat me,
if I lie they trust me.
I've seen the pious Hindus, rule-followers,
early morning bath-takers--
killing souls, they worship rocks.
They know nothing.

I've seen plenty of Muslim teachers, holy men
reading holy books
and teaching their pupils techniques.
They know just as much.

And posturing yogis, hypocrites,
hearts crammed with pride,
praying to brass, to stones, reeling
with pride from their pilgrimage,
fixing their caps and their prayer beads,
painting their brow-marks and arm marks,
braying their hymns and their couplets,
reeling. They never heard of sudden soul.
The Hindu says Ram is the beloved,
the Turk says Rahim.
Then they kill each other.
No one knows the secret.
They buzz their mantras from house to house,
puffed with pride.
The pupils drown along with their gurus.
In the end they're sorry.
Kabir says, listen saints:
they're all deluded!
Whatever I say, nobody gets it.
It's too simple!