Saturday, June 25, 2022

from ancient greek δρᾶμα (drâma, “an act, a theatrical act, a play”), and -ology, -λογία (-logía, “study of”)*

 “Love!” 

That’s what he said, the incarcerated resident of Maine’s maximum security prison, responding to a rhetorical question: “If ‘persona’ means to sound through, and a person is that which is being sounded through, what is it that we long to have sounded through us so as to be a true person of  character?”

Then he got up, excused himself, and said he’d be soon back.

One might easily overlook the subtle symbolic allusion in such a throwaway narrative recitation.

I sense, having posed the question, and heard the response, and seen the incarnated incidence of incarcerated explication and activated dramatology, something needed to be captured and related before natural forgetfulness follows, as it always does.

Sic fuit, sic est! 

(So it was, so it is!)

…   …   …

*(see wictionary)

Friday, June 24, 2022

the delusion of victory, the illusion of defeat

 Do not be too triumphant in victory

Nor too devastated in defeat

The pendulum goes back and forth

And each of us will die — 

If you win today, be humble

If you lose today be gracious

Nothing lasts forever

Everything changes on a dime

Do not be deluded

Things have a way of

Balancing out

Bending back into the middle

The center where home

Begins and ends

Remaining true to itself

rethinking this

In my end is my beginning. 

 In this volume, which reaffirms the uncompromising brilliance of his mind, Cioran strips the human condition down to its most basic components, birth and death, suggesting that disaster lies not in the prospect of death but in the fact of birth, "that laughable accident." In the lucid, aphoristic style that characterizes his work, Cioran writes of time and death, God and religion, suicide and suffering, and the temptation to silence. In all his writing, Cioran cuts to the heart of the human experience. (Goodreads)

All’s well that ends.

Well? 

the trouble with being born

Sunder substitutes

For Sunday. So few, I guess,

Would recognize God —

Hard to connect with righteous

Wan religiousity 

Thursday, June 23, 2022

making a distinction

                 (after 6jan hearing)

It’s not evil. It’s 

unconscionable. It’s what

being a jerk means.

there's a new gang in town

 I've watched westerns

holsters on hips, bad, good, guys

draw, shoot, -- (Supreme Court)

gun smoke, paladin, roy

rogers -- it was on TV

whatever prayer is

 At night, ending Compline, this blessing:


            May the all-powerful Lord grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.

There are nights it feels close. 

For many of our brothers and sisters, it was close and closest.

Whatever prayer is, I pray for them, for each, for all.

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

bay ridge avenue to barnestown road

Haiku

                (22june) 


When my father died

 forty seven years ago

a different porch


                (wfh)

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

going through this solstice, a hospice haiku

Haiku


            (for CK, as spring steps into new season)



So many watched


Your going through this solstice  


Looking after you


(wfh / 21june2022)

Monday, June 20, 2022

denial of common truth

 Thinking is being twisted by non-thinkers into ugly propaganda laced with cynicism.

It feels right-wing arrogance and counter-accusation is standard attack.

It is more than worrisome, this bellicose barbarism and bare-faced denial of common truth.

I think there will be great harm done in the cynical smugness and folksy down-home hatred.

take my word, it's been fun(da)mental

 If you've got

nothing

to do --

Do this!

...   ...   ...

    (or perhaps)

Book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki, narrated by Peter Coyote,  YouTube,

https://youtu.be/vjpXPECBi5o

pieces of 89/90

 Without beginning

Or end

You are


And most of these

Are emptiness

And pain


Give success

To the works

Of our hands

Sunday, June 19, 2022

body

 All of it

Without exception


Is

Body of creation


Given us

For its own


Delight

and one day like any other


This from Ricardo Blanco's blog about The last days of Antonio Machado:

 

" This, however, was my first effort at one of his poems, before abandoning the idea of translating him:"  

 

I have walked down many roads

and cleared many paths.

I have sailed a hundred seas

made fast to a hundred shores.

 

Everywhere I’ve seen

caravans of sadness,

proud people sad people

drunks in black shadow,

 

and pedants offstage

who watch on, keep silence, think

they know better, because they don’t

drink wine in humble bars.

 

Bad people who carry on

like pests polluting the earth.

 

And everywhere I’ve seen

people who dance and play

when they can, and work

their four palms of earth.

 

If they arrive somewhere

they never ask where they are.

When they travel, they ride

on the shanks of an old mule,

 

they never hurry

not even on fiesta days.

Where there is wine they drink wine;

where there is no wine they drink cold water.

 

Good people who live

and work, get by and dream.

And one day like any other

they go under the ground.

 

And in the original:

He andado muchos caminos,
he abierto muchas veredas;
he navegado en cien mares,
y atracado en cien riberas.

 En todas partes he visto
caravanas de tristeza,
soberbios y melancólicos
borrachos de sombra negra,

 y pedantones al paño
que miran, callan, y piensan
que saben, porque no beben
el vino de las tabernas.

 Mala gente que camina
y va apestando la tierra…

 Y en todas partes he visto
gentes que danzan o juegan, 

cuando pueden, y laboran
sus cuatro palmos de tierra.

Nunca, si llegan a un sitio,
preguntan a dónde llegan. 

Cuando caminan, cabalgan
a lomos de mula vieja,

y no conocen la prisa
ni aun en los días de fiesta.
Donde hay vino, beben vino;
donde no hay vino, agua fresca.

Son buenas gentes que viven,
laboran, pasan y sueñan,
y en un día como tantos,
descansan bajo la tierra. 

(from Soledades, 1903).

https://richardgwyn.me/2016/10/02/the-last-days-of-antonio-machado/