Homey Homily

Yep, I Would Think This Is Cool

My good pal Equant over at Retards.org has this page of
Shakespearean sonnets in Morse code.

It has a nice beat. And I don't dance anyway.

Planting Arrival

Ward Nerd

Howdy in the Holla':

I rarely bring politics onto this page,
and I wouldn't call this 'political'...

The war nerd isn't about sides.

He's about tactical and strategic common sense, and
having a memory beyond last season's Survivor.

Read this latest piece;
then weep;
then go look up the references you didn't understand;
then go read every other article he's written;
then go look up the all the other references you didn't understand.



. . .

(I'll be busy for a few days,
flagging down perhaps the loveliest woman I've ever met.)

I See People In Their Water

I see people in their water
Claiming water rights against
People passing by on the way to the sea

I see people wave divining rods against gravity
Bricking wells over bickering
People scratching the sand for any moist hope

I see people damning it up for hydraulic power
Using it to wash the dirt off and below
People rationing, people saturating

I see folks just sit under bridges watching it roll by

I see it fall from sky,
On eyes forgotten and dry
I feel it the same,
Running through me red and sweet

I see people squeeze it from rocks
See it tear up and drip into a smile
I see people scrape it from cold windows
Cursing the frost of their freedom

See it bead on the worker’s brow
See it bubble before late dinner hour
See it douse other fires than simple flame

See it dreamt of as lost clouds
Over the horizon

See the birds shake it from wing

See it molder and shudder,
An old puddle stepped in deep
Beneath the canopy.

See folks drown in it
By murder or despair

Find it seeping from broken pipe

See glades given sun
Once a day

See it bought, traded and given away

See truth in it
Reflected rippling as a lie
See it spit upon the golden face of misery

Feel it run through your hair,
Living life as we run
From storm to storm
Kissing under our parasol quietly

RAH, Excerpt

...from the man,
Robert A. Heinlein,
...from To Sail Beyond The Sunset

"""
The exploitation of space flourished unbelievably. Mr. Harriman's decision to keep it out of government hands, let private enterprise go at it for profit, was vindicated. While Pikes Peak Spaceport was still new, Spaceways, Ltd., was building bigger, longer, and more efficient catapults at Quito and on the island of Hawaii. Manned expeditions were sent to Mars and to Venus and the first asteroid miners were headed out.

Meanwhile the United States went to pieces.

This decay went on not just on time line two but on all investigated time lines. During my fifty years in Boondock I read several scholarly studies of the comparative histories of the explored times lines concerning what was called "The Twentieth Century Devolution."

I'm not sure of my opinions. I saw it on only one time line, and that only to the middle of 1982 and in my own country. I have opinions but you need not take them seriously as some leading scholars have other opinions.

Here are some of the things I saw as wrong:

The United States had over six hundred thousand practicing lawyers. That must be at least five hundred thousand more than were actually needed. I am not counting lawyers such as myself; I never practiced. I studied law simply to protect myself from lawyers, and there were many like me.

Family decay: I think it came mainly from both parents working outside the home. It was said again and again that, from midcentury on, both parents had to have jobs just to pay the bills. If this were true, why was it not necessary in the first half of the century? How did laborsaving machinery and enormously increased productivity impoverish the family?

Some said the cause was high taxes. This sounds more reasonable; I recall my shock the year the government collected a trillion dollars. (Fortunately most of it was wasted.)

But there seems to have an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously--after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows is important . . . so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be both ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth. (Most of his fans were just as ignorant and unlettered; the disease was spreading.)

Consider these:
1) "Bread and Circuses";
2) The abolition of the pauper's oath in Franklin Roosevelt's first term;
3) "Peer group" promotion in public school.

These three conditions heterodyne each other. The abolition of the pauper's oath as a condition for public charity insured that habitual failures, incompetents of every sort, people who can't support themselves and people who won't, each of these would have the same voice in ruling the country, in assessing taxes and spending them, as (for example) Thomas Edison or Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Carnegie or Andrew Jackson. Peer group promotion insured that the franchise would be exercised by ignorant incompetents. And "Bread and Circuses" is what invariably happens to a democracy that goes that route: unlimited spending on "social" programs ends in national bankruptcy, which historically is always followed by dictatorship.

It seemed to me that these three things were the key mistakes that destroyed the best culture up to that time in all known histories. Oh, there were other things--strikes by public servants, for example. My father was still alive when this became a problem. Father said grimly,

"There is a ready solution for anyone on the public payroll who feels that he is not paid enough: He can resign and work for a living. This applies with equal force to Congressmen, Welfare 'clients,' school teachers, generals, garbage collectors, and judges."

And of course the entire twentieth century from 1917 on was clouded over by the malevolent silliness of Marxism.

But the Marxists would not and could not have had much influence if the American people had not started losing the hard common sense that had won them a continent. By the sixties everyone talked about his "rights" and no spoke of his duties--and patriotism was a subject for jokes.

I do not believe that either Marx or that cracker revivalist who became the "First Prophet" could have damaged the country if the people had not become soft in the head.

"But every man is entitled to his own opinion!"

Perhaps. Certainly every man had his own opinion on everything, no matter how silly.

On two subjects the overwhelming majority of people regarded their own opinions as Absolute Truth, and sincerely believed that anyone who disagreed with them was immoral, outrageous, sinful, sacrilegious, offensive, intolerable, stupid, illogical, treasonable, actionable, against the public interest, ridiculous, and obscene.

The two subjects were (of course) sex and religion.

On sex and religion each American citizen knew the One Right Answer, by direct Revelation from God.

In view of the wide diversity of opinion, most of them must necessarily have been mistaken. But on these two subjects they were not accessible to reason.

"But you must respect another man's religious beliefs!"
For Heaven's sake, why? Stupid is stupid--faith doesn't make it smart.

I recall one candidate's promise that I head during the presidential campaign of 1976, a campaign promise that seems to me to illustrate how far American rationality had skidded.

"We shall drive ever forward along this line until all our citizens have above-average incomes!"

Nobody laughed.
"""


(if you are unfamiliar with Heinlein,
don't let the material above shy you away from
the graciously gratuitous sex, polite wit, and emotional lucidity
that fills the rest of the pages...)

TMI

Alright, ... as a nod to lovely Valyna, I'll play some reindeer games...
and answer this week's TMI Tuesday questions.


1. What one piece of sage relationship advice would you give your child (or niece/nephew or friend).

Learn everything you can.
Remember everything you read.
Learn to associate emotions with things you want to remember.
Encourage anyone willing to teach you how to do something.
Practice "Everything in Moderation." (Including Moderation).
The harder something is to do, the more time and energy it takes, the more worthy the outcome.
Know the difference between 'Hot' and 'Cold' technology.
Pay attention to your dreams, and when anyone you love tells you about theirs.
Empty what's full, fill what's empty, scratch where it itches.
Understand what is communicated by body language.
Give equal respect to both your genes and your memes.
The older souls have a better sense of humor (they're the ones always chuckling to themselves).
Do not stop expanding, trying again, growing, and enjoying every moment of senseless passion that comes your way.

(oooh right. "one piece"... oops.)


2. When was the last time you left a passion mark Or had one left on you? (A passion mark is an unintentional physical manifestation of an act of passion: a hickey left in the heat of the moment; fingernail or teeth marks that last for more than an hour, a bump on your head from slamming into the headboard could even count).

*Blush... what she said. (Though i was the one who looked like he ran into a wolverine.)


3. When was the last time you had sex in a car?

The drive-in, ... say, five years ago.


4. Have you ever had an orgasm in a public conveyance?

Yes. (No more information allowed.)


5. Have you ever had an orgasm with someone other than your partner (or partners) present?

Nope. Not yet.

(Hmmm, I think I suck at all this "revealing of self" game here.) :-P

...let me try harder...


Bonus (as in optional): You are strolling along in the mall with your S.O. (hypothetical if necessary) A young same sex as your S.O. is approaching from the opposite direction and will pass within feet of you. (S)he is attractive and has magnificent body. Describe your reaction.

Ahhh, my significant other. Hoooo, is she ever!

Ok, my reaction: I either, catch my SO's eye, nod in the direction of the approaching bombshell, and smirk devilishly; or trust that my SO has already spotted the bombshell, and all I need do is extend my touch to a private part of my SO's body to help her enjoy the show...


there ya go! TOO MUCH INFO!

Hard, Sharp, Wet

And if I asked you,
If you do remember do,
Yesterday.

If you’ve seen tomorrow,
If you’ve heard notes before dawn
And smelled breakfast in the kitchen,
One month hence.

Would you know what I mean,
Would you know just what minute
Of which dream.

With too many filler words,
Too round sounds for the tongue,
When mouths are better for
Other things than talking.

Darling dear, my
Black sun stir,
my star blur,
Flick
Of raven’s soaking wing.

You,

My favorite unformed memory,
My lake bonded lady,
My better word for blue.

What questions I have,
I hold for you,
I know the bed I sleep in,
I know where to begin,
And, so westerly

“I can’t help humming along
to this life…this moment’s already gone.”

-Damn this terrible text usurping
my drawing touch along your neck-

-Do bring the dusk,
My hands in your hair,
My sweet subtle world cracking relief,
My covetor of thieves girl-

Beware dreams,
Hearts,
Gorgeous cookies from ginger fingers green,
My fairytale princess,
Middle west and torn in black dress,
Ripped nightly,
In the moon lightly
That finds your far window.

Come play with me
this year's noon.
Come play with this
knife, my spoon.

Secret Thoughts Of A Bomb

secret thoughts of a bomb
ticking in anticipation,
dealing self death in self indulgent fantasies
speaking breakfast of darkness and delusion

not every poem sparks sprites for a warm fire,
some states of the brain, beget only destruction
yearn to give only pain,
dangerous invitations from dark alleys

a body feeding upon its own flesh,
starvation strung tight to hard vibration,
strumming tunes of lost road marauders
beating hoofs and kicking dusty threats
of rape, theft, murder and viking acts

ticking what dark hearts want,
clicking in cold lonely brain satisfactions
of malevolence, singular malice, insatiable blood lusts
no good night’s dream may cleanse

a war machine designed, crafted and waged
without one irritating mote of compassion
to dissuade the hell bent heat of this dark coast,
or the gnashing ivory grinding puncture
of twitching jaw

enslavement, coercion, confusion, fear,
butter the bread and slam it to the dirty floor,
soothe, hearts' are sore,
break breath, fog tears in insect spray,
give death’s shiver, quiver, quiet,
away

So It Goes...

...raise a toast tonight, and wink it in...

RIP, Mr. Vonnegut.

Indian Burst

...an event not being covered by mainstream media...

Variety Pack

Hey folks, I have returned.

Above is the Wahoo I labored over 15 minutes to bring in.
That's Captain Reid on the left. Best damn captain on the banks.


Below is my Uncle and the fat ass tuna he brought in.

Ooof! look at the gaping maw on that sucker!



Next, here we are with our whole catch of the day...
quite the "variety pack," said Captain Reid.



Below, middle, is Reid's boat... Devereux II



The stories of this trip are many and crude and highly entertaining....
but you'll have to buy this pirate a drink to hear them.

There And Back Again

Hello you people who look at this page,

(make 7up yours! to those that don't)



I'm heading back to the OBX for some rest, relaxation,
and hardcore ocean hunting. (with beer)

For the illiterate folks in the audience:

(who won't be able to tell I'm making fun of them right now)
"HAHAHA! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LETTERS ARE FOR!! HAHAHA
BIG RED HANDS ON CROSSING SIGNALS ARE FOR YOU!! HAHAHA
READING IS FUNDAMENTAL DUMMIES!!!!!

Here is a graphical representation of where I'm going.

LINK! <-----THIS IS A LINK!!! CLICK ON IT WITH YOUR MOUSE!!!

Next we have a graphical representation of what I'm hunting:



THIS IS A SHARK!!! DO NOT PUT YOUR HAND IN THERE!!!

...now, such shouting may sound condescending... i know. But truly, I mean it honestly.

For myself, before I get back on that boat, I'm writing in indelible ink on both hands:

"NOT IN SHARK"


....see ya in a week....

Decanting Ray

...for christmas, my father gave me a copy of Ray Bradbury's sequel to Dandelion Wine
...and after a winter of texts and fictions, anthropological and pathological,
I knew I must dust off the original 'dandelion' of summers past
...and reread one of the great works of the twentieth century...

(there are few authors who better release in one's heart such a benevolent flow imagination, of image-ghosts both subconscious and transcendent with each and every line)

so, with Ray's invisible indulgence, I copy here his introductory poem to, and the first section of,
Dandelion Wine:

Byzantium, I come not from,
But from another time and place
Whose race was simple, tried and true;
As Boy
I dropped me forth in Illinois.
A name with neither love nor grace
Was Waukegan, there I came from
And not, good friends, Byzantium.
And yet in looking back I see
From topmost part of farthest tree
A land as bright, beloved and blue
As any Yeats found to be true.
So we grew up with mythic dead
To spoon upon midwestern bread
And spread old gods' bright marmalade
To slake in peanut-butter shade,
Pretending there beneath our sky
That it was Aphrodite's thigh...
While by the porch-rail calm and bold
His words pure wisdom, stare pure gold
My grandfather, a myth indeed,
Did all of Plato supersede
While Grandmama in rockingchair
Sewed up the raveled sleeve of care
Crocheted cool snowflakes rare and bright
To winter us on summer night.
And uncles, gathered with their smokes
Emitted wisdoms masked as jokes,
And aunts as wise as Delphic maids
Dispensed prophetic lemonades
To boys knelt there as acolytes
To Grecian porch on summer nights;
Then went to bed, there to repent
The evils of the innocent;
The gnat-sins sizzling in their ears
Said, through the nights and through the years
Not Illinois nor Waukegan
But blither sky and blither sun.
Though mediocre all our Fates
And Mayor not as bright as Yeats
Yet still we knew ourselves. The sun?
Byzantium.
Byzantium.

-----------------------------

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

Douglas Spaulding, twelve, freshly wakened, let summer idle him on its early-morning stream. Lying in this third-story cupola bedroom, he felt the tall power it gave him, riding high in the June wind, the grandest tower in town. At night, when the trees washed together, he flashed his gaze like a beacon from this lighthouse in all directions over swarming seas of elm and oak and maple. Now...

"Boy" whispered Douglas.

A whole summer ahead to cross off the calendar, day by day. Like the goddess Siva in the travel books, he saw his hands jump everywhere, pluck sour apples, peaches, and midnight plums. He would be clothed in trees and bushes and rivers. He would freeze, gladly, in the hoarfrosted icehouse door. He would bake, happily, with ten thousand chickens, in Gradma's kitchen.

But now--a familiar task awaited him.

One night each week he was allowed to leave his father, his mother, and his younger brother Tom asleep in their small house next door and run here, up the dark spiral stairs to his grandparents' cupola, and in this sorcerer's tower sleep with thunders and visions, to wake before the crystal jingle of milk bottles and performs his ritual magic.

He stood at the open window in the dark, took a deep breath and exhaled.

The street lights, like candles on a black cake, went out. He exhaled again and again and the stars began to vanish.

Douglas smiled. He pointed a finger.

There, and there. Now over here, and here...

Yellow squares were cut in the dim morning earth as house lights winked slowly on. A sprinkle of windows came suddenly alight miles off in dawn country.

"Everyone yawn. Everyone up."

The great house stirred below.

"Grandpa, get your teeth from the water glass!" He waited a decent interval. "Grandma and Great-grandma, fry hot cakes!"

The warm scent of fried batter rose in the drafty halls to stir the boarders, the aunts, the uncles, the visiting cousins, in their rooms.

"Street where all the Old People live, wake up! Miss Helen Loomis, Colonel Freeleigh, Miss Bentley! Cough, get up, take pills, move around! Mr. Jonas, hitch up your horse, get your junk wagon out and around!"

The bleak mansions across the town ravine opened baleful dragon eyes. Soon, in the morning avenues below, two old women would glide their electric Green Machine, waving at all the dogs. "Mr. Tridden, run to the carbarn!" Soon, scattering hot blue sparks above it, the town trolley would sail the rivering brick streets.

"Ready John Huff, Charlie Woodman?" whispered Douglas to the Street of Children. "Ready!" to baseballs sponged deep in wet lawns, to rope swings hung empty in trees.

"Mom, Dad, Tom, wake up."

Clock alarms tinkled faintly. The courthouse clock boomed. Birds leaped from trees like a net thrown by his hand, singing. Douglas, conducting an orchestra, pointed to the eastern sky.

The sun began to rise.

He folded his arms and smiled a magician's smile. Yes, sir, he thought, everyone jumps, everyone runs when I yell. It'll be a fine season.

He gave the town a last snap of his fingers.

Doors slammed open; people stepped out.

Summer 1928 began.

Saturn's Hex

"We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."

...see the video.

Spring Turn

Turning dirt,
Fecundity.

Spring Bright morning early bird says,

‘Say you say the word Say!
Turn the dirt with me’

In the
Tree

‘Say you say the word Say!
Turn the dirt with me’

Hands Sweating over shovel burrs,
Drip and turning over
Earth, air,
And worms’ hollow.

In the noOn Shine,
Furrows of
Steel sifting
Rotting leaves
And little green thieves.

Radio and rolling barrels,
Talking with two heralds
Over our linking fence.

me and She Shading
patio kisses
by a dusky low mOon.

Smiling with evening tea,
Sowing stars

Here and there with thee.

Perfect Rainy Afternoon

Perfect rainy afternoon,
Lainy with my moon,

“stop she said,
“I’m much too tender,
“please.”

Starlings singing,
Drops on the pane push ringing.

Left her before she left today,
Giving my heart’s wrapping away,
Filtered cold light on a cloudy day,
Dreaming awake with you,
Watching your closed eyes move.

“It’s not my blue,
“It’s just sweet time with you.”

Can’t remember a day it rained like this,
My so something lainy with a twist,
Smiling and sore and pissed,
Sweet and subtle and sullen,
Conjunction here and there,
Goldie and her bear.

Weekends away,
Hours breaking and fray.

“I’d love to hear you play guitar.

“It’s going to sound like shit.

“I don’t care.”

New Moon

We’ve watched her from below,
Through the long darkness.
Watched her pour herself nightly
Upon far away stars,
Emptying herself,
Unburdening herself,
Freeing herself,
Of last light.

Yet she whispers to me,
I am not dying,
But beginning anew,
My new moon.

Dressed in black,
A fresh shape,
A young breath,
Reborn in soft silhouette,
She rises from the east,
She comes to me,
To fill with new reflections of the distant Sun.

Again, for me,
Waking again with me.

What does she cast upon this westland

What nocturnal prowlings does she grace

What muzzles bristling wait to howl

What trembling earth does she quake,
With her first night black boot step

What tide does she draw to her
From within my aching breast

What blood pulses for thee,
My new moon

What dreams will follow with you tonight

What love
What love
What love

Shaving La Luna

Gmail Down!!

Tulips Push

“tell me is the time as slow”



Woke today,
Couldn’t wait to start drinking,
Thinking too far ahead,
Cause I’m just waiting,
Waiting.

Can feel it move up my wrist
From my clock to my cleave,
Looking down that airport road,
Spotting those metal wings
Glinting above,
Waiting, waiting.

Watching the tulips push
Through the winter clay,
Wanting what the birds say,
As they call out to passersby,
Whistling their flirty feathered tones.

As it warms,
As it waits,
So patiently burning through my
Front porch shirt.

This world waits for you,
For that very first day,
For the first of Spring,
For the first day she comes.