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"Letter to Martín Espada" by Doug Anderson

Esto no es realismo mágico

Dear Martín:

In Izalco, while Christ waits for Easter

in his glass tomb in the cathedral

a single long note is blown on a trumpet

en el parque central. Los perros flacco

forage at the feet of la gente.

Los poetas mount the stage in a shower of rose petals

thrown by old ladies.

The Mayor opens his arms wide.

In the audience are campesinos, hijitos, shopkeepers,

viejos, the town trauma surgeon, and a generous contigent

of la policia con pistolas, escopetas y M16s.

Solamente el volcán duerme esta noche.

Los perros flaccos jump into the big blue garbage cans.

Martín, you will certainly believe this.

Each poeta is introduced with a fireworks rocket.

Los perros flaccos jump out of the big blue garbage cans.

Poetas de Argentina, Taiwan, Guatemala, España,

Peru, Nicaragua, France, Costa Rica, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, y

Los Estados Unidas open their mouths.

Out come pajaros, serpientes, y duendes,

hombres, mujeres, y alquimistas with flasks of aether;

out come revolutionaries in diapers, ambassadors

in limousines of obsidian, the Virgin in a Madonna T-shirt,

y los Indios with flutes made of thigh bones

and bombs made of skulls; out come

the dead dictators chained together by ectoplasm

swinging censors that emit the stink of money,

priests with rifles, nuns with giant beasts

whose names are forgotten hidden in the musk

of their habits; out come conquistadores on roller skates,

Moros in black on black motorcycles, Mad Max

with tattoos de los Maras Salvatruche.

When los poetas have finished, there are more fireworks.

They are swarmed by hijitos, viejos y otros

wanting autographs. Their hands are as soft as their hearts.

Death does not hide here but lives among them dressed in

white lace with earrings rattling on her skull. Life does not hide

here but steps through irony as if it were the vanishing fog.

#Doug Anderson #poetry

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I woke in the middle of the night for my usual routine of self-hatred until I realized how excruciating it all was and instead wrote down on the set schedule “remember how good it feels to be good to yourself” carrying it around with me ever since. Hoping I will.

— Bianca Stone, from “Set Designer,” What Is Otherwise Infinite

#bianca stone #poetry

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"Looking for the Differences" by Tom Hennen

I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness. The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a branch in the tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be noticed by people, out of reach of stray dogs. It leans against the scaly pine bark, busy at some existence that does not need me.

#tom hennen #poetry

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And hence it is that Augustine says, "To succor the needy is justice" (PL 52:1046). And Ambrose, "You are not giving the poor person the gift of a part of what is yours; you are returning to him something of what is his" (PL 14:747). Chrysostom: "Do not say, 'I am spending what is mine, I am enjoying what is mine.' It is not actually yours, it is someone else's" (PG 61:86). Basil: "It is the hungry one's bread you keep, the naked one's covering you have locked in your closet, the barefoot one's footwear putrifying in your power, the needy one's money that you have buried" (PG 31:277).

That the holy fathers are serious about this may be seen from Jerome's phrase quoted above: "All riches derive from injustice." The fathers understood very well the reiterated analysis made by the Bible and studied in our present chapter: All differentiating wealth is acquired by exploiting and despoiling the rest of the population. Hence they see almsgiving as restitution in strict justice.

José Porfirio Miranda, Communism in the Bible, trans. Robert R. Barr

#José Porfirio Miranda #quotes

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How far can you get with the idea that a person should not place his or her heart in money and material things (the central idea of the Sermon on the Mount) if the existing social system inculcates just the contrary under pain of blows and death? Perhaps an insignificant minority can heroically resist the peremptory mandates of such a system. But Christianity cares about all human beings. It cannot content itself with saving a tiny minority. The majority cannot even assign a sense of realism to the Christian message of brotherhood and solidarity with neighbor, when the social structure imposes upon it, under pain of annihilation, the task of seeking its proper interest and letting the chips fall where they may, without preoccupying itself with other people.

José Porfirio Miranda, Communism in the Bible, trans. Robert R. Barr

#José Porfirio Miranda #quotes

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Don't Let Me Be Lonely: “A father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life...” by Claudia Rankine

A father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life is the amount of time he has spent worrying about it.

Worry 1. A dog’s action of biting and shaking an animal so as to injure or kill it, spec., a hound’s worrying of its quarry; an instance of this. 2. A state or feeling of mental unease or anxiety regarding or arising from one’s cares or responsibilities, uncertainty about the future, fear of failure, etc.; anxious concern, anxiety. Also, an instance or cause of this.

It achieved nothing, all his worrying. Things worked out or they didn’t work out and now here he was, an old man, an old man who each year of his life bit or shook doubt as if to injure if not to kill, an old man with a good-looking son who resembles his deceased mother. It is uncanny how she rests there, as plain as day, in their boy's face.

Worry 8. Cause mental distress or agitation to (a person, oneself); make anxious and ill at ease. 9. Give way to anxiety, unease, or disquietude: allow one’s mind to dwell on difficulties or troubles.

He waits for his father’s death. His father has been taken off the ventilator and clearly will not be able to breathe for himself much longer. Earlier in the day the nurse mentioned something about an electroencephalogram (EEG), which measures brain waves in the cerebral hemispheres, the parts of the brain that deal with speech and memory. But his brain stem is damaged; it seems now the test will not be necessary. The son expects an almost silent, hollow gasp to come from the old man’s open mouth. Those final sounds, however, are nothing like the wind moving through the vacancy of a mind. The release is jerky and convulsive. There is never the rasp or the choke the son expects, though one meaning of worry is to be choked on, to choke on.

#poetry #Claudia Rankine

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« Tech-inspired disaster has long been fodder for Hollywood blockbusters. But in real life the dangers of science and technology are greeted with a yawn. Few see society as being in the midst of an epistemic crisis. I don’t mean fake news, which has certainly done its damage, but instead the more fundamental fact that our pursuit of knowledge has spun out of control. Knowledge becomes ever more powerful, and is produced in so many areas and places, that no one could possibly understand what it adds up to. But we still somehow trust that all the outcomes will be benign.

[…] Science and technology have been so successful for so long that we’ve lost the ability to see that the role they play in our lives has changed. Genie-like, they have moved from faithful servants to capricious and unpredictable forces that threaten not only our values but also our very humanity. [O]ur politics and policy debates surrounding technological advance haven’t caught up with reality. It’s not only the apocalypse that’s to be feared; it’s also the tracking of our every movement, desire, and purchase, providing the insidious means for manipulation and control. 

Our habit of treating science and technology as our get out of jail free card has obscured the fact that uncontrolled desire lies at the root of personal unhappiness, as well as social struggle and disappointment. Science and technology have given us a set of work-arounds to facing up to ourselves; transhumanism is now offered as the ultimate work-around. [… I]t is increasingly the case that [what] science and technology offer us is trivial and/or dangerous in nature. Trivial, as it provides us with mindless amusements and pointless innovations; dangerous, because it could lead to our enslavement if not our destruction. […]

[Ray] Kurzweil exemplifies our social policy: not only that technological development must continue, but that it must continually speed up. Objectors to this program are cast as Luddites calling for a return to the Pleistocene. But there’s another option: we can slow down. We can support progress, but also call for deceleration. We can slow the growth of knowledge and of social change to the point where we can plan for some of its effects, and have time to think about the possible consequences of our discoveries and inventions. »

— Robert Frodeman, Transhumanism, Nature, and the Ends of Science 

#quotes #Robert Frodeman

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“I tell what I have seen and what I believe; / and whoever shall say that I have not seen what I have seen, / I now tear off his head.”

— — Antonin Artaud, as quoted in Meg Remy’s Begin by Telling

#antonin artaud

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“Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.” by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Do not care if  you just arrive in your skeleton. Would love to take a walk with you. Miss you. Would love to make you shrimp saganaki. Like you used to make me when you were alive. Love to feed you. Sit over steaming bowls of pilaf. Little roasted tomatoes covered in pepper and nutmeg. Miss you. Would love to walk to the post office with you. Bring the ghost dog. We’ll walk past the waterfall and you can tell me about the after. Wish you. Wish you would come back for a while. Don’t even need to bring your skin sack. I’ll know you. I know you will know me even though. I’m bigger now. Grayer. I’ll show you my garden. I’d like to hop in the leaf pile you raked but if you want to jump in? I’ll rake it for you. Miss you standing looking out at the river with your rake in your hand. Miss you in your puffy blue jacket. They’re hip now. I can bring you a new one if you’ll only come by. Know I told you it was okay to go. Know I told you it was okay to leave me. Why’d you believe me? You always believed me. Wish you would come back so we could talk about truth. Miss you. Wish you would walk through my door. Stare out from the mirror. Come through the pipes.

#Gabrielle Calvocoressi #poetry

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« In a fully mechanized world there would be no more need to carpenter, to cook, to mend motor bicycles, etc. […]. There is scarcely anything, from catching a whale to carving a cherry stone, that could not conceivably be done by machinery. The machine would even encroach upon the activities we now class as ‘art’; it is doing so already […]. Mechanize the world as fully as it might be mechanized, and whichever way you turn there will be some machine cutting you off from the chance of working—that is, of living.

At a first glance this might not seem to matter. Why should you not get on with your 'creative work’ and disregard the machines that would do it for you? But it is not so simple as it sounds. Here am I, working eight hours a day in an insurance office; in my spare time I want to do something 'creative’, so I choose to do a bit of carpentering—to make myself a table, for instance.

[…] But even when I get to work on my table, it is not possible for me to feel towards it as the cabinet-maker of a hundred years ago felt towards his table […]. For before I start, most of the work has already been done for me by machinery. The tools I use demand the minimum of skill. I can get, for instance, planes which will cut out any moulding; the cabinet-maker of a hundred years ago would have had to do the work with chisel and gouge, which demanded real skill of eye and hand. The boards I buy are ready planed and the legs are ready turned by the lathe. I can even go to the wood-shop and buy all the parts of the table ready-made and only needing to be fitted together; my work being reduced to driving in a few pegs and using a piece of sandpaper.

And if this is so at present, in the mechanized future it will be enormously more so. With the tools and materials available then, there will be no possibility of mistake, hence no room for skill. Making a table will be easier and duller than peeling a  potato. In such circumstances it is nonsense to talk of 'creative work’. In any case the arts of the hand (which have got to be transmitted by apprenticeship) would long since have disappeared. Some of them have disappeared already, under the competition of the machine. Look round any country churchyard and see whether you can find a decently-cut tombstone later than 1820. The art, or rather the craft, of stonework has died out so completely that it would take centuries to revive it.

The tendency of mechanical progress, then, is to frustrate the human need for effort and creation. It makes unnecessary and even impossible the activities of the eye and the hand. There is really no reason why a human being should do more than eat, drink, sleep, breathe, and procreate; everything else could be done for him by machinery. […] The implied objective of 'progress’ is—not exactly, perhaps, the brain in the bottle, but at any rate some frightful subhuman depth of softness and helplessness.

The sensitive person’s hostility to the machine is in one sense unrealistic, because of the obvious fact that the machine has come to stay. But as an attitude of mind there is a great deal to be said for it. The machine has got to be accepted, but it is probably better to accept it rather as one accepts a drug—that is, grudgingly and suspiciously. Like a drug, the machine is useful, dangerous, and habit-forming. The oftener one surrenders to it the tighter its grip becomes. »

— George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)

#George Orwell

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“At the River Clarion” by Mary Oliver

1.

I don’t know who God is exactly. But I’ll tell you this. I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking. Whenever the water struck a stone it had something to say, and the water itself, and even the mosses trailing under the water. And slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what they were saying. Said the river I am part of holiness. And I too, said the stone. And I too, whispered the moss beneath the water.

I’d been to the river before, a few times. Don’t blame the river that nothing happened quickly. You don’t hear such voices in an hour or a day. You don’t hear them at all if selfhood has stuffed your ears. And it’s difficult to hear anything anyway, through all the traffic, the ambition.

2.

If God exists he isn’t just butter and good luck. He’s also the tick that killed my wonderful dog Luke. Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

Imagine how the lily (who may also be a part of God) would sing to you if it could sing, if you would pause to hear it. And how are you so certain anyway that it doesn’t sing?

If God exists he isn’t just churches and mathematics. He’s the forest, He’s the desert. He’s the ice caps, that are dying. He’s the ghetto and the Museum of Fine Arts.

He’s van Gogh and Allen Ginsberg and Robert Motherwell. He’s the many desperate hands, cleaning and preparing their weapons. He’s every one of us, potentially. The leaf of grass, the genius, the politician, the poet. And if this is true, isn’t it something very important?

Yes, it could be that I am a tiny piece of God, and each of you too, or at least of his intention and his hope. Which is a delight beyond measure. I don’t know how you get to suspect such an idea. I only know that the river kept singing. It wasn’t a persuasion, it was all the river’s own constant joy which was better by far than a lecture, which was comfortable, exciting, unforgettable.

3.

Of course for each of us, there is the daily life. Let us live it, gesture by gesture. When we cut the ripe melon, should we not give it thanks? And should we not thank the knife also? We do not live in a simple world.

4.

There was someone I loved who grew old and ill One by one I watched the fires go out. There was nothing I could do

except to remember that we receive then we give back.

5.

My dog Luke lies in a grave in the forest, she is given back. But the river Clarion still flows from wherever it comes from to where it has been told to go. I pray for the desperate earth. I pray for the desperate world. I do the little each person can do, it isn’t much. Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

6.

Along its shores were, may I say, very intense cardinal flowers. And trees, and birds that have wings to uphold them, for heaven’s sakes– the lucky ones: they have such deep natures, they are so happily obedient. While I sit here in a house filled with books, ideas, doubts, hesitations.

7.

And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its long journey, its pale, infallible voice singing.

#Mary Oliver #poetry

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gives everyone on tumblr a copy of the dbt skills workbook. yes these things do feel stupid and condescending and childish until you actually start doing them

#dbt

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“Questionnaire” by Charles Bernstein

Directions: For each pair of sentences, circle the letter, a or b, that best expresses your viewpoint. Make a selection from each pair. Do not omit any items. 1.a) The body and the material things of the world are the key to any         knowledge we can possess.   b) Knowledge is only possible by means of the mind or psyche. 2.a) My life is largely controlled by luck and chance.   b) I can determine the basic course of my life. 3.a) Nature is indifferent to human needs.   b) Nature has some purpose, even if obscure. 4.a) I can understand the world to a sufficient extent.   b) The world is basically baffling. 5.a) Love is the greatest happiness.   b) Love is illusory and its pleasures transient. 6.a) Political and social action can improve the state of the world.   b) Political and social action are fundamentally futile. 7.a) I cannot fully express my most private feelings.   b) I have no feelings I cannot fully express. 8.a) Virtue is its own reward.   b) Virtue is not a matter of rewards. 9.a) It is possible to tell if someone is trustworthy.   b) People turn on you in unpredictable ways. 10.a) Ideally, it would be most desirable to live in a rural area.    b) Ideally, it would be most desirable to live in an urban area. 11.a) Economic and social inequality is the greatest social evil.    b) Totalitarianism is the greatest social evil. 12.a) Overall, technology has been beneficial to human beings.    b) Overall, technology has been harmful to human beings. 13.a) Work is the potential source of the greatest human fulfillment.    b) Liberation from work should be the goal of any movement for         social improvement. 14.a) Art is at heart political in that it can change our perception of         reality.    b) Art is at heart not political because it can change only       consciousness and not events.

#Charles Bernstein #poetry

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“Self-Help” by Charles Bernstein

Home team suffers string of losses.—Time to change loyalties.   Quadruple bypass.—Hold the bacon on that next cheeseburger.   Poems tanking.—After stormiest days, sun comes out from behind clouds, or used to.   Marriage on rocks.—Nothing like Coke.   Election going the wrong direction.—Kick off slippers, take deep breathe, be here now.   Boss says your performance needs boost.—A long hot bath smoothes wrinkles.   War toll tops 100,000.—Get your mind off it, switch to reality TV.   Lake Tang Woo Chin Chicken with Lobster and Sweet Clam Sauce still not served and everyone else got their orders twenty minutes back.—Savor the water, feast on the company.   Subway floods and late for audition.—Start being the author of your own performance. Take a walk.   Slip on ice, break arm.—In moments like this, the preciousness of life reveals itself.   Wages down in non-union shop.—You’re a sales associate, not a worker; so proud to be part of the company.   Miss the train?—Great chance to explore the station!   Suicide bombers wrecks neighborhood.—Time to pitch in!   Nothing doing.—Take a break!   Partner in life finds another partner.—Now you can begin the journey of life anew.   Bald?—Finally, you can touch the sky with the top of your head.   Short-term recall shot.—Old memories are sweetest.   Hard drive crashes and novel not backed up.—Nothing like a fresh start.   Severe stomach cramps all morning.—Boy are these back issues of Field and Stream engrossing.   Hurricane crushes house.—You never seemed so resilient.   Brother-in-law completes second year in coma.—He seems so much more relaxed than he used to.   $75 ticket for Sunday meter violation on an empty street in residential neighborhood.—The city needs the money to make us safe and educate our kids.   Missed last episode of favorite murder mystery because you misprogrammed VCR.—Write your own ending!   Blue cashmere pullover has three big moth holes.—What a great looking shirt!   Son joins skinhead brigade of Jews for Jesus.—At least he’s following his bliss.   Your new play receives scathing reviews and closes after a single night.—What a glorious performance!   Pungent stench of homeless man on subway, asking for food.—Such kindness in his eyes, as I turn toward home.   Retirement savings lost on Enron and WorldCom.—They almost rhyme.   Oil spill kills seals.—The workings of the Lord are inscrutable.   Global warming swamps land masses.—Learn to accept change.   Bike going fast in wrong direction knocks you over.—A few weeks off your feet, just what the doctor ordered.   AIDS ravaging Africa.—Wasn’t Jeffrey Wright fabulous in Angels in America?   Muffler shot.—There’s this great pizza place next to the shop.   Income gap becomes crater.—Good motivation to get rich.   Abu Ghraib prisoners tortured.—Let’s face it, shit happens.   Oscar wins Emmy.—Award shows are da bomb.   FBI checking your library check-outs.—I also recommend books on Amazon.   Gay marriages annulled.—Who needs the state to sanctify our love?   President’s lies kill GIs.—He’s so decisive about his core values.   Self-Help.—Other drowns.

#Charles Bernstein #poetry

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“There are particular difficulties in determining whether the symptoms of depersonalization and derealization are those of structural dissociation or not because these labels are generally applied to a variety of phenomena […]. Such symptoms may include feelings of strangeness or unfamiliarity with self; a sense of unreality, such as being in a dream; and perceptual alterations or hallucinations regarding the body. Derealization involves a sense of unreality and unfamiliarity with one’s environment, and distortions of space and time […]. They may occur in “normal” individuals under conditions of mild stress, hypnagogic states, fatigue, illness, medication effects, and alcohol and drug intoxication […]. Obviously, depersonalization symptoms are the essence of depersonalization disorder. Depersonalization is very common in traumatized individuals with different types of traumatization […]. Clinically, it is imperative to note whether depersonalization and derealization phenomena occur without structural dissociation, or are a manifestation of structural dissociation, because treatment interventions will be different depending on whether dissociation is present or not.”

— The Haunted Self: Self Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization - Onno van der Hart, Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis, & Kathy Steele

#dissociation

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« ‘All damaged people are dangerous. Survival makes them so.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they have no pity. They know that others can survive, as they did.’ »

— Josephine Hart, Damage

#josephine hart

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Fariha Róisín, How to Cure a Ghost

#Fariha Róisín #poetry