More Poetry Outtakes

Confess Your Ignorance

Just as we run out of menthe verte,
Scraps of colored silk

Flutter past my window.
Confess your ignorance!

Shout it from the rooftops!
Make me proud . . .

I feel as if time has stopped.
Can you tell me where we are?

TV Hits Rock Bottom

Monica Lewinsky is now hosting a TV "reality show" dating game. I bet you can guess which network it's on (hint: it starts with "F" and ends with "X"). Lewinsky says she doesn't know yet if she really wants a TV career--she also designs handbags and is considering law school. She says she's still trying to "figure out" her life. What an awful thing to have to do in public, for her and for us. Read more, if you must:

Lewinsky to Host Dating Reality Show

Quote of the Day

"It appears that something so profound is happening in the world that none of us is yet able to grasp it. How can we consider and speak to the possibility that America is deliberately declaring that the only criterion of power shall now be power itself? The introduction of the doctrine of the right to the pre-emptive strike is an event in international history of infinitely more consequence and importance than anything that happened on September 11. Even the transgression of a territorial border and the murder of innocent citizens cannot compare to what is being claimed here: the right to go in and destroy a regime, at whatever cost and without any clear plan for its future, not because of what anyone has done, but because of what you cannot prove they might do."

That's by the award-winning playwright David Hare. Read more at:

Don't look for a reason

Sunshine and Sinking Feelings

My son was in a Little League parade today. The weather was golden and springlike. It's odd how normal everything seems on the surface at this bizarre (in my opinion) moment in our nation's history. After the parade, I listened to the gaseous speeches at the Little League's opening-day ceremony, with the requisite references to how well "our boys" are doing in Iraq, feeling like I had entered the Twilight Zone. Of course, in one sense, they have done "well"--Saddam is gone. But as that country descends into chaos, the whole rationale for the war seems screwier than ever to me. Now the talk is of taking over Syria, too--supposedly, the "weapons of mass destruction" that they still can't find were sent over there (how convenient). These weapons, powerful as they are, are both awfully easy to hide and awfully easy to move, it seems. It reminds me of the search for the holy grail . . . Sometimes I wish I could just turn off my mind, turn on Fox News, and stop questioning so much.

Haiku 10

As icicles drip
The small fire warms my hands
I want to go home

Suddenly, it's spring here. Last week, winter returned with a vengeance, but today it's 70 degrees (F). Such schizophrenic weather! I often think that what we see on the outside is a reflection of what's going on inside us. This is a time of transition. We're heading into an uncertain future as a nation, I think--standing at a fork in the road. Everyone is afraid, on some level, and fear makes people do strange things. We all want to "go home," I think, but we don't know how to get there. It reminds me of a scene from a Marilyn Monroe movie, The Misfits. "How do you find your way home in the dark?" Marilyn asks Clark Gable. "Just head for that big star straight on," he says. "The highway's under it--it'll take us right home."

Poll: Nude Celebrities

Traffic has been a bit slow here lately, so it's time to revive our favorite poll. Which one of the following public figures would you most like to see naked?

Michael Douglas
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Snoop Dogg
Regis Philbin
J.K. Rowling
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Condoleezza Rice
Karl Rove
Jessica Lynch
Sharon Osbourne
Bjork

Foul Ball

Does everything have to be politicized these days? The Baseball Hall of Fame has cancelled a showing of the film Bull Durham because the stars, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, are anti-war. This sort of paranoid pseudo patriotism is ominous and reminds me of the worst days of the Vietnam era--or even the McCarthy period. What's next? A black list? Read more:

Baseball Hall Cancels 'Bull Durham' Event

Quote of the Day

"Another effect of the ‘support the troops’ (meaning in fact, support the war) message is that it elides any debate about what the war is actually about and what it costs in every sense, and obscures deep splits within US society. Before the war, the entire discourse centered on Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” Now, three weeks into it, as US forces have found no evidence of such weapons, 58 percent of Americans say that finding them is not necessary to justify the war. We seem to be looking at a process whereby as the stated reasons for it fade from consciousness, the war becomes self-justifying, based largely on the perception that it is a success."

More of this essay can be found at: Pockets of anti-war resistance in America

How to Support the Troups

"[We] support our men and women in the armed forces. We regret that their Commander in Chief has sent them on an ill-advised and unnecessary mission, but we respect and thank them for their service. We urge special support for the families of service members and reservists who have been sent to the Persian Gulf. We call for greater efforts to address the medical problems that will result from service in the gulf. More than 167,000 veterans are currently on disability as a result of their service in the first Gulf War. We condemn the cuts in veterans' benefits approved by the Republican-controlled Congress and call for increased availability of medical care and other benefits for veterans." --April 21st issue, The Nation

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Another Perspective

Here's a site that collects reports on the Iraq war from Russian journalists and military analysts (and translates them into English):

Russian military intel update: War in Iraq

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Quote of the Day

"Everyone sees what you seem to be, few perceive what you are; and those few don't dare oppose the general opinion, which has the majesty of the government backing it up. ... The masses are always impressed by appearances and by the outcome of an event -- and in the world there are only masses. The few have no place there when the many crowd together." --Machiavelli

Better watch what you say. People are taking names, says columnist Richard Reeves, writing on the new political correctness.

Black Humor

It may not seem that there's much to laugh about these days, but some lucky people can find humor in just about anything. One such is The Wacky Iraqi. He describes himself as "Just a regular guy--an American who happens to be of middle-eastern decent. I am an artist and a musician, educated and opinionated. I am a former write-in candidate for the US House of Representatives (one vote, and it wasn't even me), and a rabid, card carrying member of the ACLU."

This self-described "rag head" may be left of center, but he's definitely not politically correct.