1043. Bonds of Freedom 13 (Finale)

In 1812

We conclude our delve 

Into the bonds of freedom

With Madison: we need him

To secure the independence,

The superintendence

Of basic dignity

To end the malignity

Against the human spirit,

To finally hear it,

The clarion call

To end the fall

Of man.

Madison,

And the War of 1812,

The very garrison

Of the Revolution,

Seldom acknowledged 

As a resolution,

The war dismissed

As unnecessary,

Nothing more than a fist,

An embarrassment 

A fiasco,

The last experiment 

Against Canada,

For which the White House burned,

And Dolley earned

Her image in history,

While Oliver Hazzard Perry

On Lake Erie,

Made merry

In a moment of triumph

And then Jackson

Sounded the klaxon

Of what would follow,

Which we have

Ever since

Failed to nav,

That pernicious popular folly,

By golly!

Still misleading us

As to the true course,

The true source

Of our glory,

What Americans have been chasing,

The allegory

Of the story.

But we still seek our quarry!

1042. Bonds of Freedom 12

France came to explore.

France was different 

From England or Spain.

There’s no popular narrative 

About its New World,

Except that it happened,

And that eventually,

There was a reckoning 

With its English rival,

As so much of their

Histories

To that point

Concluded,

Again and again,

This time

While Dramatic developments

Occurred

On two sides

Of the Atlantic Ocean.

The crisis

That was America

Became France’s.

That’s the story

That emerged,

A tale of two countries.

Before the Revolution 

In North America 

There was something they called

The French and Indian War,

Which is chiefly remembered 

As the war Washington fought 

Before the Revolution.

Funny enough,

The French became 

His chief military allies

In the Revolution.

And then Independence was won,

And then France fell apart.

Spectacularly.

Then Napoleon happened,

And a result of that

Was the Louisiana Purchase,

Which greatly expanded 

The scope of the new nation

And marked 

The end

Of French ambition.

In Canada

There’s a province

That sometimes dreams

Of independence 

And it’s the French one,

And its existence 

In the last part of the New World

Still lingering in English concepts 

Led to my ancestors 

Completing the journey 

From France

To the United States.

I still try to understand 

How this past

Shaped

My present.

#1041. Bonds of Freedom 11

I think we tend to forget

That the English

Really were

The ones 

Who decided to settle 

The New World.

They weren’t 

Exploring 

They were actively 

Colonizing.

Between John Smith,

The Puritans,

The Pilgrims,

They established 

What it was

To be a European 

Living in North America.

Today we look at it

From the perspective 

Of encroachment,

We redefine 

The Thanksgiving story

As the prelude

To slaughter.

But it was never the story

Of trying to decimate 

The native populations.

Daniel Boone,

For instance,

Was as close to

Straddling 

The two worlds

In a famous capacity 

As we ever got.

We forget

That in terms of technology 

They really weren’t so different,

That the whole point of

The Thanksgiving narrative 

Is that the native peoples 

Gave these Europeans 

A chance to survive,

And that horses

Were not native

To the Americas,

That the native populations 

Very quickly adapted

To them

So that in later generations 

They had master the equestrian life

Perhaps better

Than anyone else had

In history.

What happened 

Was not prelude 

Was not destiny

But rather

A culmination 

Of choices

That played out.

The English

Built societies

In the New World.

We look at what happened in Salem

As emblematic 

Of how primitive they were

But it’s the Mayflower Compact,

Really,

That demonstrated

How quickly 

The idea

That was to define these lands

Took hold

In the imaginations

Of the earliest 

English migrants,

That it was the idea

Of opportunity,

Of freedom

That inspired them.

We think American history 

Begins with the Revolution,

With a Declaration of Independence,

With the formal recognition of

Of a country,

But it begins

With English settlement,

With the foundation stories,

For they really are

As American as anything 

That has happened 

Since.

9/11 at 25

Twenty-five years ago

I experienced what I still hope

To be

The most infamous day

I will ever live.

I listened

To radio commentary 

Explain that

A plane

Had flown

Into a building.

And it escalated from there.

I was at breakfast

In the dining hall.

Then I was at Jennifer Moxley’s

English class.

Then I skipped French class.

And started to watch

The footage.

I didn’t call home that day.

My mom wished

That all of her kids had

But we didn’t.

What we learned later

Was that some of them

Traveled through Bangor.

I was in Orono,

Attending the University of Maine.

The next year

I wrote my first 9/11 poem.

I’ve tried writing one

Every year since.

Some of them got lost along the way.

Some of us

Got lost, too.

This was orders of magnitude.

This was a day that changed everything.

And we still don’t understand 

How.

We don’t know

What was supposed to happen

To have been

Achieved.

It wasn’t 

A declaration of war

In their part.

But we declared two wars.

And for some

That was the outcome.

For some it became

Anathema to carry on

The patriotic response.

Not the wars

But the feeling

Of unity.

So for much

Of the past

Twenty-five years

Some have struggled 

To feel proud

In any visible way

In our country,

Not through the old

Counterculture 

But as a new culture,

A new fade

Toward despair,

An acceleration of

A yearning

Just to fade

Into a global context

Perhaps 

Where we don’t stand out

Where there isn’t anyone 

Planning attacks

Against us.

For some

We remember.

We remember the day.

We remember the days

That followed 

When we were united,

When we came together,

When we mourned,

When we reflected,

When we were all Americans.

We told the stories,

We were amazed

At how some passengers 

Guided a plane

Into Shanksville,

At how office workers

Called home

One last time,

How there were heroes

Who endured the debris

That by some reports

Would kill them

Just so they could find

Survivors.

A president 

Read a book

To children 

In a school 

In Florida,

And remained calm

And kept reading.

That is how I remember him.

That is how I remember 

What happened.

I don’t think

I can ever

Forget.

(This is for you,

Gallaher,

Who didn’t think I could commemorate 

Such an event.)

#1039. Bonds of Freedom 10

I think I’ve already mentioned this?

But it confuses me

That context

Is so easily 

Forgotten.

The Spain that commissioned

Columbus 

Had just recovered

Its national mandate,

It had just emerged

From centuries under 

Muslim rule.

I honestly don’t know

How this is not

A larger part

Of the historic narrative.

It’s fashionable 

Today

To point out

That Columbus 

Thought 

That he was headed

Toward India,

That at no time

Was he aware

That he had

In fact

Discovered

The New World.

You need look no further

Than the fact

That we still call

Native Americans 

Indians

Today.

But names aren’t reality,

And the reality is

That Spain kept sending ships

To the New World,

And the whole world

Was transformed 

Because of it.

What were the results?

Well,

Today it’s fashionable to say

That we wrecked the New World,

That we demolished 

Some kind of golden age.

But maybe

Just maybe

The result

Of Spain

Pushing and pushing

For European interest

In the New World

Permanently expanded

The world’s horizons.

I would suggest

In every way

That this was a good thing.

It fueled possibilities.

It was in every sense

An impossible dream,

And one still worth

Believing in.

Stop weeping for lost worlds.

Stop insisting 

A retrograde appraisal 

That suggests 

The world we live in now

Is the result of sin.

Sin existed long, long before

Columbus.

Some would certainly suggest

That Spain digging itself back

To national determination 

Was one of the best things

That ever happened,

And that good things happened 

As a result,

That we still reap

The rewards.

A fountain of youth,

You might say.

You might also say,

A new birth

Of freedom,

Freedom to expand horizons,

Freedom

For Europeans

To break free

From the constraints

Of the past,

The old patterns,

The mistakes of the past.

It was Old Europe

That created the world wars,

Not the New World.

#1038. Bonds of Freedom 9

The Vikings

Essentially 

Ruled the world.

To be clear, the European world 

In the wake

Of the Roman Empire.

They were able to do this

Because they had mastered

The sea

And they thought nothing

Of exploiting it

And all those 

Around them.

They were 

The barbarians,

Make no mistake,

Although nostalgia 

Against a Christian world

Has obscured this,

Converting 

Norse gods

And mythological dread

Into a legendary past 

The likes of Tolkien

Understood

To be heroic.

The thing they really accomplished,

Though,

Was discovery

Of the New World.

They called it Vinland.

But although they were

Uniquely poised

To find it

They could not

Exploit it.

For its people

Offered 

Nothing of value 

To them,

And that was the Viking way.

But what they accomplished

Was a tangible legacy

In the European memory,

Which was the echo of Vinland,

Which was passed down 

Better than Odin,

Better than territory,

Better than treasure,

Which was the future.

The freedom

They found at sea

No matter the cost

Was to be inherited,

After all,

By the world.

Although certainly,

Not without a cost.

The first to pay 

Were the Vikings themselves,

Who were left behind 

By the tide of fortunes.

#1037. Bonds of Freedom 8

Here’s the thing

About the Red Scare:

Well, of course!

Everything in this one

Is a lie.

In the aftermath

Of WWII,

Berlin

Became split

By a wall.

It was literally 

The coldest city,

Where Americans 

And Russians

Straddled,

Where the crux

Of the postwar world

Existed

In its purest form.

The Red Scare

Existed

Because communists 

Existed

In the United States,

And even the communists

In the United States

Started realizing

That communists

In the United States

Were probably,

To characterize them

With a single word,

Crazy.

Then the culture 

Started telling us

They were heroes.

Even when they denied

What they were

Or had been

But were clearly there

Because of it

To have them

Attempt to stem the tide

Was called a sin.

The Berlin Wall

Came down,

And Germany

Officially reentered

The modern world,

And Russians 

Stopped being Soviet.

But communists

Still got to be heroes.

I can’t explain it.

Freedom from tyranny 

Is the ability to comprehend 

That reactionary impulses 

Should not define

Anyone’s idea

Of mainstream thought.

Freedom is freedom

When it counts everyone.

When it trickles upward,

That is the death of freedom,

When it stifles the individual 

While claiming

To liberate them,

When they cannot speak

When they think they are a martyr 

Because they cannot speak,

When the wheels of society

Are falling by the wayside 

For what they call the greater good,

When power centralizes 

And grows paranoid,

Seeking and eliminating 

The enemies within

And refuse debate,

That is not freedom.

Freedom is knowing

The difference.

#1036. Bonds of Freedom 7

The Civil War

Is certainly 

The most peculiar episode 

In U.S. history.

Like all wars

Americans have fought 

It was an unpopular one.

Try to remember that.

The idea of what it was fought for

Has actually been debated.

But there is no debate.

It was fought

Because of the institution 

Of slavery.

Period.

The Union believed

Because of the rising Republican Party

That slavery no longer had a place

In legitimate society, 

That its spread

Should be curtailed.

The South believed

It should continue 

Across new state lines.

Many lies have been told

And believed

Since the war was fought

And most of them

By those who are now

Claiming to be

The proponents 

Of moral superiority.

Strangely,

They obsess over the details

They don’t understand,

That the slavery

They abhor,

That subjugated 

A race 

And warped

And defined

History

Is now

A thing of the past.

They can’t understand 

Disparities

They accept as everyday life

As having anything to do

With the peculiar institution,

That exploiting others

Under gross terms,

Because they term it

Giving the next generation 

A better future 

Somehow means

It’s okay

If the prior one

Suffers.

Put in the hard work!

…Somehow only really 

Required

And is a reality

When someone else

Has to do it

All day

Every day

Of their lives,

Not behind a desk,

Not on paper,

Not networking

But being trapped in a job

With no chance of leaving it

Just for the idea

Of giving your children 

Opportunities 

You never had.

When we look at immigration now,

How many of those we pity

Are going to live

Better lives only insofar

As they are escaping worse conditions 

Back home?

How many are destined 

To live

In their generation, 

The lowest levels

Of our society?

Does that make you proud?

Does that sound

Like a system that is working?

That you should argue

Is worth fighting for?

Does it really sound

So much better

So different 

From slavery?

Slavery, 

In which a person

Had no other choice?

If an immigrant 

Must work in a field

In order to work at all,

That is slavery.

If an immigrant 

Will only find work

By cleaning up

After someone else,

That is slavery.

You don’t need chains

You don’t need a whip

To call it peculiar.

You don’t need politicians 

Calling it a way of life,

You don’t need a state

To exist

To affirm its existence,

You don’t need to breech

The sacred tenets 

Of a constitution 

In order to fight

To preserve

Tyranny.

Reality

Isn’t a set of words.

It is the functioning world around you, 

It doesn’t exist

Out of the good will

And good intentions

Of those who want to believe 

They’re right.

It exists as all society 

Experiences it,

Not as you would hope,

Not as you believe,

But in the real world.

If you believe

You are fighting

For a better world,

Reflect the better world

You want to see.

Don’t preach

And then wallow

In your comforts.

Don’t complain

And then relish

Your easy delights.

Don’t chastise

And then lazily reflect

On meaningless indulgences.

If the better world you seek

Exists in small pockets

And you erode the greater good

In order to fill them,

Then you are hollowing out

In your hollow virtue,

The wholeness

Of the world,

You are emptying it out.

You are not the inheritors

Of Lincoln,

You are the critics

Who hounded him

In the North

In the Union.

Because that was where

He was most hated.

That is what they call

A martyr.

That is what they call a hero.

Anything less

Is everything freedom 

Opposes.

#1035. Bonds of Freedom 6

What exactly 

Were the colonies 

Trying 

To accomplish?

Well, let’s 

Call a spade

A spade:

What was 

Massachusetts?

It wasn’t 

Merely

The imposition 

But the idea

That they had

No self-determination,

No right

To settle 

Their own fate.

These were colonists

Who had lived there

For generations,

For a hundred years.

They were still forced

To relinquish control

To a system

That operated

An ocean away.

They had developed 

A thriving economy,

A way of life,

A culture,

A people

That were different 

From those

Who still claimed them

As citizens.

Citizens of what?

When empires colonize 

They tend to impose

Upon the natives

And it’s the natives

Who usually strike

For independence.

In the colonies 

The natives

Wanted nothing

But to be left alone,

And behaved accordingly,

Including participating 

In strategic alliances 

Even with their enemies 

If it suited them

At the time.

History still struggles 

Determining

That outcome.

But the colonies?

They didn’t see themselves 

As colonies,

Certainly not in Massachusetts.

They saw themselves

As communities.

Uniting the colonies 

Was difficult.

Giving them

An identity 

Ended up becoming 

A political statement 

That changed the world.

And is still 

Little understood 

Today.

#1034. Bonds of Freedom 5

Here’s one of the things

That’s only further confused me

The more I’ve thought about it:

The Nazi occupation 

Of France.

It became France’s whole identity 

To have lost most of the country,

In Groundskeeper Willie’s estimation

To have become 

“Cheese-eating surrender monkeys”

Despite all the great history 

Behind it

Not,

Incidentally,

Merely considering 

A guy named Napoleon,

Who was in one sense

Hitler before Hitler,

Who rallied his country

In a time when it seemed

To have lost everything.

And yet de Gaulle,

The very face of 

The famous French resistance,

Upon which dubiously sits

All subsequent resistance,

Isn’t as famous as Churchill,

Who rallied his own country

To confront the Nazi menace,

To successfully defend it

And lead the world against Hitler

For a time.

Napoleon, whatever else he was

Was no Hitler.

No one in history 

Is Hitler 

Except Hitler,

And it is an insult 

To an actual Holocaust 

We still mourn

While still believing

Jews have no right

To a country

To living

To running their lives,

To ever, ever suggest otherwise…

And this resistance 

Is the signal, last major

Rally to freedom

Of modern times,

Not merely self-determination,

But of a great power of history,

Having lost it

And struggled to reclaim it

And reduced

Only to resistance 

But mostly shame.

These are the times

In which we live.

#1033. Bonds of Freedom 4

One of the things

I find particularly surprising

About the way we perceive 

History 

Is that we tend to overlook 

The importance 

Of European resistance 

To Islam.

Charles the Hammer

Drew the line

At Tours,

Even though

Most of Spain 

Fell.

We celebrate Charles

But forget Spain.

And Spain resisted 

For centuries 

Until at last it drove out

Its Moorish occupiers.

This is the backdrop 

Against which

Cervantes wrote

And Ferdinand and Isabella

Commissioned Columbus 

On his fateful voyage.

Today there’s a musical Quixote 

About the Spanish Inquisition 

And yet in Cervantes 

There are Muslims 

Still literally 

Just wandering about.

Today we condemn Columbus

And dismiss the Spanish

In the New World

As butchers,

And yet this is the actual foundation

Of the modern world.

This is history.

There’s a pernicious 

Instinct 

To rewrite the past

To label wrongs

And ignore achievements,

To pretend

The past isn’t the past,

That there isn’t 

An inescapable 

Chain of events

That in some respects 

Began with Spain’s liberation 

From conquerors.

Well, a long time ago…

As they say.

#1031. Bonds of Freedom 3

When Constantine decreed

Christianity

In the empire

He had completed 

The most unlikely revolution 

In the history of

The world.

Many lies resulted.

Lies about what it cost the world,

Lies about what it replaced,

Lies about what the world became,

All in the service

Of blind,

Willful,

Ignorance.

Christianity changed the world.

It took a civilization 

That was indulging itself

Into nonexistence

And suggested

That maybe

It was better

To see value

In each other,

Not in some myth,

Not in the service

Of an empire,

But in a shared belief

That the point to all this

Is love.

You don’t have to believe

Anything else

To see the value

In this.

So the greatest act of freedom

Is now seen 

As a shackle

The world must escape

In order to emerge

Into civilization.

Well,

Believing that

Is a choice.

A curious one,

If you don’t mind

Me saying.

#1030. Bonds of Freedom 2

Here’s the thing:

Even if you don’t believe

That the biblical narrative 

Is real,

It speaks to something important,

That life under Egyptian rule

Was probably 

Intolerable.

That’s what you really need

To take away

From that.

Somehow modern man

Struggles to comprehend 

Building the pyramids;

I don’t know how to explain 

To future generations,

Because even now

It seems,

Well,

Insane.

“Aliens did it!!!”

Well,

Slaves did it.

Just imagine.

That’s why we hate slavery,

By the way,

Forcing anyone 

To lug all those heavy stones

To someone else’s 

Eternal ego

That in a few thousand years

Is just a fancy tourist attraction…

And sure,

A hundred years or so ago

We all went crazy about Egyptians,

Started the whole,

Continuing,

Mummy craze,

Made King Tut

A celebrity 

Just when the rest of the world’s 

Royalty

Was fading

Into the past…

Well,

These Israelites,

These Jews,

They had a story

About a man named Moses

Who led his people

Out of bondage,

Into Freedom,

Into self-determination.

Moses,

Whom they saw

As an adopted son

Of the state,

Who somehow tricked himself 

Into supporting his own people,

Who unleashed

A series of plagues

Until the pharaoh 

Let his people go

Straight into the Red Sea,

Which parted

Thanks to God,

Straight into the desert,

Where these people

Still grumbled…

Look,

People like to complain,

But that’s the cost

Of Freedom.

#1029. Bonds of Freedom 1

250 years ago

Our forefathers

Struggled.

In Boston

They wondered

Why they couldn’t 

Merely get along

With their day,

Why the British

Were so interested 

In their activities,

Why they kept

Meddling.

And things

Kind of

Escalated.

Originally it was just Boston

But then

It spread

Across 13 colonies.

13 colonies,

The product of several

Ambitious empires 

In the Old World

Discovering the New,

Not the New World

Being discovered,

Which had been done,

Perhaps,

Over the Bering Strait,

But certainly by Vikings,

By the Chinese,

Neither of which

Decided to stay,

To do something substantial, 

There.

But eventually,

The Spanish,

The English,

The French,

The Dutch,

They all left their mark

Somewhere,

And that started

A ball rolling

Toward Freedom.

250 years ago

These colonies 

Declared Freedom.

They declared

Self-determination,

Which they thought

They’d already had

And defied 

An empire 

In order to secure.

They weren’t united.

In the beginning, they weren’t.

They squabbled,

These colonies,

And even when the war was won

They wondered how they would

Live together.

Factions arose.

The Virginians,

Perhaps originally recruited 

To add legitimacy 

To Boston’s struggles,

Began to assume control.

But that was Freedom,

The ability to squabble and still

Coexist.

Sometimes we assert

A Virginian’s suggestion 

That this struggle 

Be recapitulated 

To renew the idea

But we do it every day,

Which is the point,

Which we forget

Every day,

Which is the point.

That’s freedom.

That’s 250 years

Of Freedom.

The End of the World Comes Daily

There he is.

You know he's there,
you've been watching him all day,
and so you know where he is.

Sometimes it comes as a surprise,
but most of the time
you know where he is.

He's still learning.

He's literally learning everything,
because that's what's happening;
everything's new to him.

And most of the time
he loves it.

He loves exploring,
and o god it fills you with joy
knowing how he sees wonder
everywhere.

But then he cries.

Sometimes it isn't obvious
and sometimes it is.

Sometimes,
sometimes,
it's that simple reason,
that he slipped,
or was knocked over,
or tripped,
or in all other words
fell.

And he cries.

He cries like it's the end of the world.

It's the first language we all learn,
the first thing we assume we know,
that the end of the world has come,
again.

And it's like that
over and over again,
and you have to remember,
this is his life,
this is how he's experiencing,
how he's learning,
the world.

And somehow,
it's the end of the world
every day.

And he gets right back up,
sometimes with a little help,
sometimes with a lot,
but he gets right back up,
and then it's another day,
and another,
and he's learning,
and he's growing,
and the world begins
to lurch a little less.

But every now and again,
the world ends again.

And you give him what you can,
you give him love.

Because that's what you do
when the world ends.

What else could there be?

Eventually he will dust himself off,
and it won't be so bad,
and he won't hardly cry at all.

Then, of course,
when he does,
you continue to love him.

Because that's the way the world ends.

The Yellow King

their long hair
tied up to the crest of their heads
like manes

Poseidon: always Earth-Shaker

I had been taught
it was the mark of a king
to receive homage with grace.

There is always
some small hitch
at Troizen;
we do not do these things
with the smoothness of Athens.

My grandfather felt the cleaver's edge;
he reared up like a tower,
feeling his death,
dragging the men
like children;
the scarlet cleft in the white throat,
the rank hot smell;
the ruin of beauty,
the fall of strength,
the ebb of valor.

Then it was that I heard
a sea-sound in my ears.

He paused in thought.
Moira? he said.
The finished shape
of our fate,
the line drawn round it.

When the work of the King Horse was done,
he was given to the god,
as you saw yesterday.
And in those days,
said my great-grandfather,
as with the King Horse,
so with the King.

That he chose short life with glory,
and to walk with the god,
rather than live long,
unknown like stall-fed ox.

Deixos, the Horse Master's son,
who feared nothing four-footed.

Deixos slipped,
and fell in
while the beast was watching.

Henceforth, he said,
you will know it again.
If it comes to you, run out of doors,
and call to the people that Poseidon
is angry.
Then they can save themselves,
before the houses fall.
Such warnings are a favor of the god.
Try to be worthy.

How far man is,
even at his height of fortune,
below the Immortals.

A half-grown boar,
whose tusks were showing,
in the Great Hall when the King of Tiryns
was dining there.

I had never before singled out Apollo for worship.

Do not be late tonight,
or you will miss the harper.

The Cretans had halved it with their hoists.

Then the stones rose up slowly,
and slid into the bed the Cretans made for them.
And they stood fast.

One does not ask a priestess
how she knows things.

They are of the seed of Hephaistos,
Lord of the Earth Fire.

Though he didn't stand by you,
he did the next best thing;
he gave you a son who will.

Poor boy, it's not your fault
you know nothing. 
Talk to your grandfather.
It is better from him than me.

The grain was small in the ear,
ad the grapes were like hedgerow berries;
the dust lay deep,
so that men's feet sank in it,
and nothing prospered but the flies.
And with the drought came a sickness,
which, sparing the old,
took children and maidens and young men.

Sometimes it thunders,
or one hears the lion.

To be a king, I thought,
what is it?
To do justice,
go to war for one's people,
make their peace with the gods?
Surely, it is this.

In the midst,
straight before me,
stood a stately woman,
with a slave holding a sunshade
over her head.
She was about seven and twenty;
her hair, which was crowned
with a diadem of purple
stitched with gold,
was as red as firelit copper.

I have grieved longer for a dog
than they did for him.

So the man had not even left
a name behind him.

The troops were led by Xanthos,
the queen's brother.

I was the King;
and I was still new enough in Eleusis
to suppose this meant something.

Every day the Queen held audience.

Fathers were nobody in Eleusis,
and could not choose wives
for their own sons.

The young Companions
were escorting me,
as they did everywhere.

Now I began to seek
for occupation. 
It is not in my nature
to do nothing.

Because of some oracle concerning me
which had been kept secret from the people.
I remembered the dead King's laughter;
but it told one nothing.

When a man lives like this,
a youth he can choose for himself,
who looks up to him
and copies him
and boasts of his friendship,
will give him more pride in himself
than the womenfolk at home.
I see no sense in looking down on this.

Even kings have names where I come from.
Mine is Theseus.

He calls us to a high place,
my father said,
and we leap down to him.
We go of ourselves.

He put his black hairy hands on Chryse
and ran them all over her.

Seeing Minos in his bull-mask,
of whom not one cried aloud.

The Cretan double ax,
the sacred Labrys.

The bull chooses the team,
not the other way.

Ways of divining:
with sands of pebbles,
with water-droppings
or with bees or slivers of ivory,
with birds, like the Hellenes,
or, as the Sauromantians do,
with lizards.

It was said that if a dancer lived three years,
the Goddess set him free.
No one could remember anyone
lasting half as long.

But I cannot keep from putting my hand
to what I find about me.

It was the look of those who had had bad auguries;
those who had been brought young from home,
and were growing out of their strength and speed.

Helike was bull-shy.

A team that gave no show
would be broken up
before next day was out,
even if no one died.

But she had trusted me,
because of our vow.
This was the first test of it.

That any good we do in the bull ring
will profit for that insolent swine?

His father was a bull-leaper.
The Bull Court was the only place
in the Labyrinth
where speech was free.

A great impiety!
She used to follow him
into the Bull Court,
she was so besotted,
and hide herself in the wooden bull.
My friend said that is only vulgar talk.
But she was made for him,
quite out of her head.

The child is the mother's.
So the King kept quiet
to save his face,
and let it pass for his.

We have craft laws in Attica.
And for the farmers, too.

Well, if the King of your country
ever lands here, Theseus,
he'll find plenty of us
to fight for him,
in return for laws like that.

#784. Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas originally published the poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" in 1952.  I'm writing about it today because it seems to have become the latest go-to poem in pop culture, succeeding Yeats' "The Second Coming."

Need reminding what "...into that good night" is?  Here it is:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Most notably, Michael Caine recites it in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar:

Strangely, wrestler John Cena has also done a version:

And I've seen it referenced in the pages of Grant Morrison's Annihilator.  I am likely among a very select few to have noticed such a common link, between movies, professional wrestling, and comic books.

Caine's reading is particularly haunting as he intones "rage, rage" in his deepest range, creating an evocative effect as his character propels a team of astronauts into the unknown.  It's a message, I think, that like "The Second Coming" speaks to our uncertainties about the future, which seems to have become the mantra of our modern age, though issued as a note of defiance.  (In case you were wondering, WWE, like Levis, does tend to use classic literary references more often than you'd think.)

As a student of literature, I like seeing nods like this, especially if they're striking, as this one is in each of the instances I've spotted it lately.

9/11/14

thirteen years:

perhaps an 

       unlucky number;

but these are

       unlucky times,

although saying so now

makes me wonder

if there are

       lucky times

#601. Road Tripping

(Before we begin, I should acknowledge that the road trip couldn't have happened without a very long prelude.  Things happened, items were consolidated, other journeys came to an end, and I ate some cake that was technically meant for someone else's going away party but pretended it was meant for me.)

Then we came to the beginning.

Day 1 (8/30/13, a Friday)

This was the day I left Colorado Springs behind.  I originally arrived there on 10/31/07, arriving on Jet Boo, I mean Jet Blue (Boo is the name of the Best Cat in the World, but the airline had jokingly renamed itself for Halloween that year, or perhaps every year?).  This time it was a departure in a car, my sister's Etta, I mean Jetta (the "j" fell off at some point), following her husband's convoy of truck-pulling-5th-wheel-pulling-small-trailer.

It did not take long, surprisingly, to leave the Rocky Mountains behind.  I used to call them the Ladies (a twist on one of the early Dave Barry touches in the Starcatchers books).  Some days I thought I appreciated them enough, others I took them for granted.  They were a fantastic backdrop.

We reached Kansas soon enough (we left somewhere around 10:30, and were there by the afternoon).  For years I heard incredulous tales of Flat Kansas.  I wrote a whole poem about Flat Kansas in the early days of this blog because of this.  But the truth is, it's not so flat.  More like Wavy Kansas.  But it's really not much more boring than anything else we saw on the trip.  It may be that we managed to see all the most generic gigantic open...tracks of land in America (but I don't want that!).  I don't know.

We saw plenty of oil derricks (but very few Oil Derek Lowes, much less Oil Can Boyds) on this stretch.  Saw a few dust devils, the last of them the most spectacular.  I saw buffalo.  And cows!  Lots of cows!  (And signs repeatedly advertising the freakish five-legged steer of someone's dubious livestock collection!)

(By the way, Dubious Livestock would make a great name for a rock band.)

And corn.  And windmills!  I explained to my sister the nerdy significance windmills have for me.  To her, they're boring, especially as they become more ubiquitous in this particular region.  They occupy whole windmill fields.  They're like a mechanical plague!  Beware the windmill apocalypse!

She also said how impressive they are when you see them in pieces.  Not because my sister revels in blowing them up.  It's because you don't appreciate how big they are until you see their component parts up-close.  And it's true.  One blade looks like a whale's fin.  Ahoy!  Avast!  There be blubber in Kansas!

Day 2 (8/31/13, a Saturday)

We arrived at our first destination, the home of my sister's in-laws, her husband's folks.  This was in Stoutland, in Camden County (Earl was nowhere to be found, alas), just outside Lebanon, Kansas.

Before this, however, we drove through one of the few signs of active civilization on the drive, Lawrence, KS, home of Kansas University.  We were too early for a lot of college babes, alas.

We started counting FedEx double trailers (the highest count came Day 7, I believe, some 90 of them).  You can go crazy on a road trip.

We passed the Lake of the Ozarks.

And we arrived in Stoutland.  Here I was introduced to the goats George and Ginger, and for expediency's sake (and not much exaggeration) we'll say that this was my primary amusement for Days 3 and 4, which were all spent there.

Goats are awesome!

Day 5 (9/3/13, a Tuesday)

We passed the Mark Twain National Forest.  I had no idea he was so closely associated with dry land.  (And dry enough that at least in my late home territory of Colorado Springs the summer was once again festooned with news of raging fires in just such a setting, but with far fewer iconic writers associated with it, apart from myself.)

We also passed the Mississippi River, which for some reason is not known as the Mark Twain River.

We reached Tennessee!  We saw lots of corn!

We passed signs denoting many historical attractions (either in TN or elsewhere, including landmarks for dead presidents like Eisenhower and Truman, because apparently the years following WWII were a good time to have been born in this part of the country and having the hope to attain the highest seat of office).  Anyway, there was also Shiloh, famous for the site of a famous battle in the Civil War.  There was the Tennessee River.  And Nashville.  (Now with more glow-in-the-dark pyramid action!)

Day 6 (9/4/13, a Wednesday)

We reached another Lebanon.  But still not the actual Lebanon.  (Although it's always funny to see places named after more famous destinations that are clearly not in that geographic location.  Think Pluto [Not a Planet Anymore], but located somewhere that has banjo music.)

Anyway, we reached Virginia, our target state!  The Appalachian Mountains!  Tobacco fields!  Apparently, the Misty Mountain (nowhere near Middle Earth).  We visited a Wilco (not the band), which featured Stuckey's (but not Stuckeybowl, much less featuring a practicing lawyer named Ed [but not the talking horse]).  (The day before we stopped at a Casey's and enjoyed a much-ballyhooed fried steak sandwich, which was good, especially with my trademark toppings of banana peppers and honey mustard dressing.)

Day 7 (9/5/13, a Thursday)

We passed through Crozet, Virginia, one of several area locations famous in the Rita Mae Brown cat mystery books.  This pleased my sister's mother-in-law to no end.

Everyone obsessed over the view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

And we arrived in Williamsburg, our initial destination in VA.  Williamsburg is part of the Historic Triangle tourist trap in the area, which also boasts Jamestown and Yorktown (and now Bootown).  You should know plenty about Jamestown (John Smith, Pocahontas, Colin Farrell).  Yorktown is the site of the end of the American Revolution (besides the tailgate in Hamilton's backyard).  Williamsburg is...really old.

Day 8 (9/6/13, a Friday)

We reached our temporary permanent destination in the Anvil campground.  I would have made more references to Jim Neidhart, Bret Hart's tag team partner in the Hart Foundation, but sometimes a joke only you get isn't really worth it.  But I kept thinking it the whole time we were there anyway.

Day 9 (9/7/13, a Saturday)

I took my first independent excursion of the trip, to a used bookstore, where I found Peter Ackroyd's The Fall of Troy and a Jerome Charyn mystery featuring Isaac Sidel (the latter of which is nearly impossible to do in an actual bookstore).  I was sorely tempted to buy both of them, but I'm just coming off a period where I eliminated a considerable percentage of my things, including many books.  It's hard to jump into buying more.  But I really wanted to.  Ackroyd is a favorite.  He's the measuring stick I hold to judge every bookstore.  If he's in it, it's a good bookstore.  Charyn, he's another favorite, and he's even more scarce.  And as I've suggested, the Isaac Sidel books are especially scarce.  And I have yet to read any of them.  I really should have gotten them both.  (And readers of this blog with some memory know how I also obsess over Troy.  Seems like the whole of 2011 was devoted to it.)

Day 10 (9/8/13, a Sunday)

My birthday.  We hit spots in Jamestown and Yorktown, but avoided being too touristy.

Day 11 (9/9/13, a Monday)

Reached actual final destination at Langley FamCamp.  (The whole point of the road trip was to relocate my sister from the Air Force Academy to Langley AFB; I piggybacked for a relocation of my own.)  I took my second independent excursion of the trip, running across a graveyard and memorial to the Battle of Big Bethel, which was apparently the first fight of the Civil War.  And I dangled my feet at the end of a small dock.

Day 12 (9/10/13, a Tuesday)

This was the end for me.  Two fairly brief plane rides finally landed me in Maine, which is where I am and will be for the foreseeable future.  Yay!

And yesterday was 9/11.  For the first half dozen years or so after it, I wrote a poem in commemoration.  After I lost some of them to a computer crash, I guess I kind of fell out of the habit, or at least the original fervor.  But here goes, for the day after:

When the World Came Tumbling In

we will never forget
a day like none other,
when the world came tumbling in

mad scrambling
and recriminations,
when the world came tumbling in

the heroes and the villains
and the flags waving,
when the world came tumbling in

it's hard to remember
except in images,
when the world came tumbling in

what do we say
except that it happened,
when the world came tumbling in?

#586. Life & Theft Sunday: A Grunt

recently i was thinking
about war again

durm und strang
and bang and blame

i think the people
who hate war the most
are the ones who can't
keep their own horrors
out of their eyes

war is a terrible thing
don't get me wrong
but there are a lot of bad things
that happen all around us
all the time and war
has its worst effects in the mind
where most war is pitched
every single day

far from the battlefield

or at least any
that will ever be
commemorated

so what is it
about war and people
getting blown to bits
because that's
what they set out to do?

we find it a horror
because we can't imagine
how anyone could volunteer
for such a fete

yet we've been a volunteer army
for decades now
and the strange thing is
i wish we still had the draft

i wish we still had the draft
because it prevents all the typical bullshit
it prevents assholes from telling you
that you can't fight for your country
because once you go volunteer
you can be rejected
and i know all about that now

when there's a draft
they'll take anyone
and you're all in it for the same reasons

when you volunteer you can be screened away
like it's a good thing to reject the willing
on technicalities while those who slipped in
can be as bad as they want to be
like all the assholes behind a wheel
on the battlefields of the road

volunteers come into a regimented culture
but it's an artificial one that's just as phony
as anywhere else
the drafted were always forced into conformity
because there was no telling where they came from

the drafted could bitch about the horrors with justification
volunteers have no one to blame but themselves
and damned if no one still knows the difference

war in a volunteer state is a tacit approval
and a true dichotomy of the culture
even after all that culture revolution
there are still people who believe in war
and ain't that a bitch?

until the other day i thought the iraq war
was less stupid than the popular opinion suggested
a hangover of the vietnam years that we still cling to
like dependents on the drugs that helped make it possible
you all said bush was an idiot
burning in his own folly
you still claim that it made no sense
and yet it made all the sense in the world
the only problem is that we lost the stomach for resolve
and instead just wanted to believe in absent hope

hope in the middle of climate change
is like a winter that doesn't want to go away
snow in the middle of spring
and spring in the middle of winter
when the levies broke we all saw monsters
a hushpuppy in a bathtub

well maybe it was an obsession
that wasn't so healthy after all
but in a lot of ways it really was inevitable
a mess we had to clean up if we ever wanted
to look at ourselves in the mirror again
and in the 21st century mirrors are no longer miracles
but more of our patented nightmares
they're on the walls and nowhere in the landscape
and there is no fairest of them all
just another warrior attempting to find their grail
in a childrens crusade to a holy land
stuck in a quagmire of conflicting faith
all derived from the same source
but speaking a different language

someone is making the argument
that all of this makes sense
and that the only explanation is that
black is still black and white is still white
but black isn't a color and neither is white
these are absences and they are the abyss
and we are all staring at it
never once realizing that it is indeed
staring back at us

we moonwalk toward Golgotha
and there's not a Cyrenian in sight
and we look upon the grim works of
Ozymandias and tremble because we no longer know
how to look at history with any perspective
perhaps because all those books of Alexander's
were lost and really i was recently reminded
that 97% of human history was left off the annals
so what do we really know except what we tell ourselves?

drafted into this world and volunteered to fight a war
i try to blend all the disparate conflicting impulses
that float around me and the life and the theft of it
are just things that happen before it all ends

so tell me again why i should be outraged
or why i shouldn't be outraged
every single day

i respond with a grunt