It Rains Downright

My little one wanted to watch "My Little Pony" this morning, so I had to pass on Chelsea-Aston Villa and instead sat down at the computer.

Our front room workstation looks out the bay window at the street, so I was facing the drizzling rain that started Thursday morning and has not ceased since then. And I stared at the phosphors on the screen and, honestly, could not think of what to say.

The seemingly endless winter rains have gone past depressing into hopeless. And all around me the news from the wider world seems equally oppressive. All the worst aspects of humanity; hate and greed, foolishness and violence, and good old-fashioned brutal ignorance seem to be all the rage.

From pointless fulmination about private murders to thoughtless prosecution of pointless foreign wars, to the apparent inability of certain members of the federal judiciary to distinguish insurance from broccoli and insist instead on the "freedom" to get sick and sleep under bridges...I just felt like Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill. In the cold rain. Staring at that fucking rock and wondering despairingly why the hell I would even want to do this again.

There just seem so many things "wrong"...sometimes its hard to keep my perspective on the reality that we are not threatened by a global pandemic, or a barbarian invasion, or massive famine, or civil war. I am safe and comfortable in my home with my family about me. But, for the life of me, I cannot look about me without a little growl deep in my throat - partly anger, partly despair - at the bigger world around me. It just seems like we're fated to be pelted with a persistent rain of ignorance and stupidity and there's nothing that most of us can do about it. Grrr...

And enough with the fucking rain, already!

Storm Warnings

The glass has been falling all the afternoon,
And knowing better than the instrument
What winds are walking overhead, what zone
Of grey unrest is moving across the land,
I leave the book upon a pillowed chair
And walk from window to closed window, watching
Boughs strain against the sky

And think again, as often when the air
Moves inward toward a silent core of waiting,
How with a single purpose time has traveled
By secret currents of the undiscerned
Into this polar realm. Weather abroad
And weather in the heart alike come on
Regardless of prediction.

Between foreseeing and averting change
Lies all the mastery of elements
Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter.
Time in the hand is not control of time,
Nor shattered fragments of an instrument
A proof against the wind; the wind will rise,
We can only close the shutters.

I draw the curtains as the sky goes black
And set a match to candles sheathed in glass
Against the keyhole draught, the insistent whine
Of weather through the unsealed aperture.
This is our sole defense against the season;
These are the things we have learned to do
Who live in troubled regions.

~ Adrienne Rich

(h/t to the Rude One for the poem)

Hard to come by

Now that the rose of your
good fortune is blooming,
why are you standing there
with no glass in your hand?
Have some wine–
fate is a treacherous enemy,
And a day like this
is hard to come by.

~Omar Khayyám (trans. Juan Cole)

(and thanks to Lisa, who passed this along. A strong woman, who does not seek her? Her worth is far above that of rubies.)

The Mirror Crack'd

This blogging is an odd thing.

It really doesn't matter much in the sum of things. Just a little trickle of more noise, really, lost amid the greater noise of our cacophonous Information Age where we are carpet-bombed with light and sound until we shout just to be heard yet find ourselves one of millions of shouters whose voices drown each other out.

I wish I could pretend to have some trick worth coming to read, some facility within that produced some wisdom without, some internal depth that would translate into words on the screen that you would clamor to come to ingest them, and ponder them, and that would in turn provoke you to some great insights within yourselves. I can't.

I don't have any real insight into politics, or human nature, or sex, or warfare, or knitting. I have the contents of my head, and I take them out and air them here, in hopes that they will touch something in you. I don't know why I feel compelled to do this. Vanity? Probably; I'm a trifle vain of my own erudition and skill with words. But I haven't the skills to make a living at it.

Well, there's David Brooks, then.

Hmmm.

Let's say, rather, that I haven't the skill that should allow me to make a living at it.

But this odd little forum allows me to natter away without consequence, and allows me to at least pretend that someone or someones come to read my nattering. Looking back at last year I seem to be losing something; I didn't manage to find enough to talk about to match my postings for the year before, and certainly not from the Big Year, 2008, where I found enough materials lying around inside my skull for almost a post a day.

I'm not sure why.

Perhaps it was the official "end" of the Third Gulf War and the plainly-visible-to-everyone-outside-Victor-David-Hanson outcome (like "a dragon by the side of the road", as Bill James once said) of the Umpteenth Afghan War. Maybe it was the final, painful realization that my country is going to slide back into a half-assed sort of Gilded Age without even the prospect of enough dismal jobs in meatpacking and ironmongery to keep the parents of the future match girls and breaker boys in laudanum and cigarettes.

Maybe it was just preoccupation with the usual sorts of things we use as excuses for our national lack of political, economic, and social concern; work and family.

I don't think I'm done here. And I certainly want to thank and appreciate all of you who take the time to stop by, to read, and, especially, to comment back, especially those familiar friends and comrades; Lisa, jim, basil, Ael, Don Francisco, Pluto, Dee, Podunk Paul, Big Daddy, labrys, mike, Leon, Kevin...you are always welcome here, and welcomed. I hope to continue our epistolary friendship in the year to come. So this blog will be here, and I will be here, and, I hope, you will, too.

And I will continue to blab out whatever's in my head; poetry, and war, and love, and Korean in-laws, and kids, and ire at fucking Newt Gingrich, that vile staff-banging plutocrat, and soccer, and politics, and Portland, and the Northwest.

Oh, and I have eight more beers to review!

So, I hope, that even if I have nothing much to say I can say it well.

Welcome, friends, to 2012. I hope it finds you all well, strong, douce, and happy. And may we all leave it better, saner, happier, stronger, and kinder people than we enter it!

"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road run by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott."

~ Fred Tennyson

Black Months

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at nightAnd I love the rain.

~ Langston Hughes

Anamchara, on her Birthday

As when a beauteous nymph decays,
We say she's past her dancing days;
So poets lose their feet by time,
And can no longer dance in rhyme.
Your annual bard had rather chose
To celebrate your birth in prose:
Yet merry folks, who want by chance
A pair to make a country dance,
Call the old housekeeper, and get her
To fill a place for want of better:
While Sheridan is off the hooks,
And friend Delany at his books,
That Stella may avoid disgrace,
Once more the Dean supplies their place.

Beauty and wit, too sad a truth!
Have always been confined to youth;
The god of wit and beauty's queen,
He twenty-one and she fifteen,
No poet ever sweetly sung,
Unless he were, like Phoebus, young;
Nor ever nymph inspired to rhyme,
Unless, like Venus, in her prime.
At fifty-six, if this be true,
Am I a poet fit for you?
Or, at the age of forty-three,
Are you a subject fit for me?
Adieu! bright wit, and radiant eyes!
You must be grave and I be wise.
Our fate in vain we would oppose:
But I'll be still your friend in prose:
Esteem and friendship to express,
Will not require poetic dress;
And if the Muse deny her aid
To have them sung, they may be said.

But, Stella, say, what evil tongue
Reports you are no longer young;
That Time sits with his scythe to mow
Where erst sat Cupid with his bow;
That half your locks are turn'd to gray?
I'll ne'er believe a word they say.
'Tis true, but let it not be known,
My eyes are somewhat dimmish grown;
For nature, always in the right,
To your decays adapts my sight;
And wrinkles undistinguished pass,
For I'm ashamed to use a glass:
And till I see them with these eyes,
Whoever says you have them, lies.

No length of time can make you quit
Honour and virtue, sense and wit;
Thus you may still be young to me,
While I can better hear than see.
O ne'er may Fortune show her spite,
To make me deaf, and mend my sight!

("Stella's Birthday 1724" by Jonathon Swift)

Last Summer Days

Gorgeous Indian-summer day in Portland; I had work up in the far northeast of Vancouver, Washington, monitoring infiltration tests though the lazy, sunny afternoon. Cool enough for crispness - the meadowgrass was white with frost when I arrived in the predawn - but warming to pleasantly shirtsleeve temperatures by afternoon. A light wind from the south bringing on it the dry tartness of fallen leaves, the sultry scent of woodsmoke, and the high, clear iciness of the late October sky.

It gave me time to sit on my tailgate, book neglected at my side, and just enjoy the beauty of the last of summer and the brief, bright autumn we pass through so quickly before the gray rains of winter begin.

XXXIX

When summer's end is nighing
  And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
  And all the feats I vowed
  When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
  Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
  That looked to Wales away
  And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
  The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
  And hushed the countryside,
  But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
  In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
  And darkness hard at hand,
  And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
  The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
  Breathed from beyond the snows,
  And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
  And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
  That ever can ensue
  Must now be worse and few.

So here's an end of roaming
  On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
  For summer's parting sighs,
  And then the heart replies.

~A.E. Housman (Last Poems)

Last thoughts after Memorial Day...

Pace my friend Linda, I believe that the anti-war poem is a relatively recent addition to the thread of human song.

But it may well be the most sorrowful, deepest, the most grave song we will ever sing."So I Was a Coffin"

by Gerardo Mena

—For Corporal Kyle Powell, died in my arms, 04 November 2006

They said you are a spear. So I was a spear.

I walked around Iraq upright and tall, but the wind blew and I began to lean. I leaned into a man, who leaned into a child, who leaned into a city. I walked back to them and neatly presented a city of bodies packaged in rows. They said no. You are a bad spear.

They said you are a flag. So I was a flag.

I climbed to the highest building, in the city that had no bodies, and I smiled and waved as hard as I could. I waved too hard and I caught fire and I burned down the city, but it had no bodies. They said no. You are a bad flag.

They said you are a bandage. So I was a bandage.

I jumped on Kyle's chest and wrapped my lace arms together around his torso and pressed my head to his ribcage and listened to his heartbeat. Then I was full, so I let go and wrung myself out.

And I jumped on Kyle's chest and wrapped my lace arms together around his torso and pressed my head to his ribcage and listened to his heartbeat. Then I was full, so I let go and wrung myself out.

And I jumped on Kyle's chest and wrapped my lace arms together around his torso and pressed my head to his ribcage but there was no heartbeat. They said no. You are a bad bandage.

They said you are a coffin. So I was.

I found a man. They said he died bravely, or he will. I encompassed him in my finished wood, and I shut my lid around us. As they lowered us into the ground he made no sound because he had no eyes and could not cry. As I buried us in dirt we held our breaths together and they said, yes. You are a good coffin.

(h/t to the Rude One for this beautiful, grievous poem)

Some Thoughts on Rapture and Civic Duty in General, with Help from John Greenleaf Whittier

Well, nobody disappeared Saturday so I think that we can safely continue building equity on the mortgage.

But the non-event gave me pause for a moment to consider the essential silliness that permeates much of American public life. Not just the Rapture-sort of silliness, but the degree to which we tend to put frivolous nonsense ahead of serious business and value image over substance.And, yes, I know that for most of human history it has always been thus. The foolishness of people, especially people in groups, has been fertile soil for the cynic, the comedian, and the raconteur since the first Neanderthal got up before the night fire to entertain his or her companions with the clusterfuck that happened the last time the tribe packed up and moved or the goatrope that the most recent hunt turned into.

But as supposed citizens of a democracy we are not just any people; we are supposed to be not just people but heirarchs, not just the ruled but the ruler. We're supposed to sit in judgement on ourselves, to rise above our genital and gustatory uxoriousness to become men and women of sufficient wisdom and perception as to set a pathway for our children to follow us, one that avoids foolish excess and foolish penuriousness alike, one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number.And we have not and do not, in my opinion, and are doing worse now than we have done for several generations. Just look at the Presidential candidate field for the Republican Party if you want to see how far we have fallen from the Party of Lincoln. Hell, these greedy, pig-ignorant fuckers would make Bob Taft look like Solon and Barry Goldwater seem wiser than Solomon.

With that in mind, here's Mr. J.G. Whittier to tell us a little cautionary tale from the early days of our Republic, circa 1780:

Abraham Davenport & The Dark Day

In the old days (a custom laid aside
With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent
Their wisest men to make the public laws.
And so, from a brown homestead, where the Sound
Drinks the small tribute of the Mianus,
Waved over by the woods of Rippowams,
And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil deaths,
Stamford sent up to the councils of the State
Wisdom and grace in Abraham Davenport.

'Twas on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,
The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky
Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim
Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs
The crater's sides from the red hell below.
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter
The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
Might look from the rent clouds, not as He looked
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
As Justice and inexorable Law.

Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts,
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
"It is the Lord's Great Day! Let us adjourn,"
Some said; and then, as if with one accord,
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. "This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord's command
To occupy till He come. So at the post
Where He hast set me in His providence,
I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face,
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
Bring in the candles." And they brought them in.

Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read,
Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands,
An act to amend an act to regulate
The shad and alewive fisheries, Whereupon
Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport,
Straight to the question, with no figures of speech
Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without
The shrewd dry humor natural to the man:
His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while,
Between the pauses of his argument,
To hear the thunder of the wrath of God
Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud.

And there he stands in memory to this day,
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen
Against the background of unnatural dark,
A witness to the ages as they pass,
That simple duty hath no place for fear."Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
Bring in the candles."

Not a bad idea, don't you think? Why didn't we think of that?

Exotic Perfume

When, with both eyes closed, on a hot Autumn evening,
I breathe the scent of your warm breasts,
I see unfurled before me happy shores
Dazzled by the fires of a changeless sun;An indolent island upon which nature bestows
Curious trees and savory fruits;
Men whose bodies are thin and vigorous,
And women whose eyes are astonishingly frank.

Guided by your scent toward charming climes,
I see a port filled with sails and masts
Still fatigued by the swell of the ocean,While the perfume of green tamarind trees,
Which permeates the air and swells my nostrils,
Blends in my soul with the song of the sailors.

-Baudelaire, translation by Cat Nilan © 1999, 2004

No reason. No reason at all.

I just fell in love with my bride again, and it's starting on to spring, and the golden evening light fills with the sound of my children playing.

daughter of Michelangelo

"It will never be those theater beauties,
Corrupt products of a worthless century,
Those feet shod in buskins, those fingers holding castanets,
Who will satisfy a heart like my own.I leave to Gavarni, the poet of chlorosis,
His babbling flock of hospital beauties,
For I cannot find among those pale roses
A flower that ressembles my red ideal.

What this heart, as deep as an abyss, needs
Is you, Lady Macbeth, a soul powerful in crime,
A dream of Aeschylus blooming in a climate of south winds;

Or rather you, great Night, daughter of Michelangelo,Who peacefully twists into a strange pose
Those feminine charms fashioned in the mouths of the Titans!"

~Baudelaire

What Dreams May Come

from Brian Turner's wonderful "Phantom Noise":

Illumination Rounds

Will the girl find a bed among stones?
Will the fighter find a trench?
-Saadi YoussefParachute flares drift in the burn time
of dream, their canopies deployed
in the sky over our bed. My lover

sleeps as Iraqi translators shuffle
in through the doorway- visiting
as loved ones might visit a hospital room,
ill at ease, each of them holding
their sawn-off heads in hand.

Wordless, they wait for me
to dress in my desert fatigues,
my aid pouch with painkillers

of little help in sewing the larynx back,
though I try anyway, suture by suture.

-----------

She finds me at 3am shoveling
the grassy turf in our backyard, digging
three feet by six, determined to dig deep.
We need to help them, if only with a coffin.I say, and if she could love me enough
to trust me, to not cover her mouth
in shock or recognition, her hair lit up
in moonlight; if she could shovel
beside me, straining with the weight
each blade lifts in its gunmetal sheen,
then she'd begin to see them - the war dead -
how they stand under the lime trees and ash,
papyrus and stone in their hands.She stares at these blurry figures
in silhouette, the very young and very old
among them, and with a gentle hand
stays the shovel I hold, to say -
We should invite them into our home.
We should learn their names, their history.
We should know these people
we bury in the earth.

Burns Nicht

"There's nane that's blest of human kind,
But the cheerful and the gay, man,
Falala, la, la, (sotto voce: aye, etceteraa, ye bugger...!)

Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man."And before the night is over, may I be wishing you a very happy Robbie Burns Night? For all that I'm a just regular Yank, the blood of the great lairds (crofters, bandits, sheep-lifters, hedge-robbers, reivers, drunks, and generations of laborers, accountants, and itinerant soldiers) of Skye runs red in me veins. So from the Highlands of North Portland, may ye fare well this night, and may y'wake to a cuddle and a kiss?

Mmmph.

Barge

Well, the barge is in place, the driller ready to go, now all that remains is to foregather in Hood River tomorrow for four days of drilling in the middle of the Columbia River in the middle of winter."Growltiger was a Bravo Cat, who lived upon a barge;
In fact he was the roughest cat that ever roamed at large.
From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims,
Rejoicing in his title of "The Terror of the Thames."

"Then Gilbert gave the signal to his fierce Mongolian horde;
With a frightful burst of fireworks the Chinks they swarmed aboard.
Abandoning their sampans, and their pullaways and junks,
They battened down the hatches on the crew within their bunks.""The ruthless foe pressed forward, in stubborn rank on rank;
Growltiger to his vast surprise was forced to walk the plank.
He who a hundred victims had driven to that drop,
At the end of all his crimes was forced to go ker-flip, ker-flop."

"Oh there was joy in Wapping when the news flew through the land;
At Maidenhead and Henley there was dancing on the strand.
Rats were roasted whole at Brentford, and at Victoria Dock,
And a day of celebration was commanded in Bangkok."

(T.S. Eliot "Growltiger's Last Stand")

We'll have to see how this whole thing goes.

To a Louse, after Three Weeks With No Relief in Sight

Wee obligate para’sitical beastie,
O, what a party’s on her heidie!
Thou’s gae’n about being nasty
Above her chin!
I’m nae laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murdering Permetherin^TM.

I'm nae sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
Long syne thy hematophagic lugger.
Which sets me child tae scratchin’
At you, my oviparous bugger
Up there a hatchin’!

I doubt na, whyles, her blud may thieve;
What then? thou booger, thou maun live!
A drap or ickle o’ that serum
Is wha’ you’re suckin’;
I'll get a dose o’ interferon,
An' gie you a good...talkin’ to.

But Lousie, thou art such a pain,
And hard to pry from aft girlie's brain:
The best-laid schemes o' lice an' men
Gang aft agley,
At least thine will, if the louse-cream
Gives you your conge’!

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!
All you do is breed and flee:
But och! A fortnight or mair
She's still beloused!
And wi’ no daycare for me child,
I’m stuck i’ the house!

(Apologies to Robert Burns, and a hat tip to Lisa, who inspired this work)

The Ballad of Eskimo Nell, a Bawdy Verse

Be advised.

This is a VERY dirty poem.

I have loved poetry since childhood, and have read, and even written poetry, though the latter was so awful as to have earned me a deserved beating from Bulwar-Lytton and the guy who wrote the screenplay for "Gigli" together.

But I also have a rather bawdy sense of humor, which means my taste in the arts includes poetry as well as prose, song, and interpretive dance impolite as well as polite.This one is quite impolite. You are advised that it is neither safe for work nor the home and family, and the eyes of those of tender years should be warded from it lest they get the wrong ideas about men and women. And saloons.

And the poetry of Robert Service (in case you don't get the connection, go read "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" before reading further) as well as Arctic manners and mores.

This is me entertaining myself, and perhaps you if you appreciate a dirty joke well told. If you are of delicate constitution or douce temperament read no further!

For I now give you the 1982 Fort Bragg Rugby Club version of

The Ballad of Eskimo Nell

Gather 'round, you pimp and whore-y,
Gather 'round, and hear my story.

When a man grows old and his balls grow cold,
And the tip of his prick turns blue;
When it bends in the middle like a one-string fiddle,
He can tell you a tale or two.

So pull up a chair and stand me a drink,
And a tale to you I will tell
About Dead-Eye Dick and Mexican Pete
And a harlot named Eskimo Nell.

Now when Dead-Eye Dick and Mexican Pete
Go forth in search of fun,
It's Dead-Eye Dick that carries the prick,
And Mexican Pete the gun.This Dead-Eye Dick and this Mexican Pete
Lived down by Dead Man's Creek,
And such was their luck that they'd had no fuck
For nigh on half a week.

Sure, a moose or two, and a caribou,
And a bison cow or so,
But for Dead-Eye Dick with his massive prick,
This fucking was mighty slow.

Dick pounded his cock on a jagged rock,
And he said, "I want to play!
I've been wanking a week by this fucking creek,
With no women coming my way!"

So, do or dare, this horny pair
Set off for the Rio Grande:
Dead-Eye Dick with his frightful prick,
And Pete with his gun in his hand.

Then, as they blazed their noisy trail,
No man their path withstood.
The virgin bride, her husband's pride,
A pregnant widow stood.They roared the strand of the Rio Grand
From midnight to blazing noon.
When to slake their thirst and do their worst,
They sought Black Mike's saloon.

The swinging doors they pushed back wide,
And two fearsome weapons flashed free.
"According to sex, you bleeding wrecks,
You'll drink or you'll fuck with me!"

Now the boys knew of the fame of our hero's name
From Cape Horn to the Arctic stars;
So with nothing worse than a muttered curse
Those cowhands sought the bar.

The girls they knew of his playful ways
Down there on the Rio Grande,
So forty whores pulled down their drawers
At Dead-eyed Dick's command.For they saw the finger of Mexican Pete
Move on the trigger grip,
So they didn't wait; at a fearful rate
Those whores began to strip.

Now, Dead-Eye Dick was breathing quick
With lecherous grunts and puffs,
For forty asses were bared to view,
And likewise forty muffs.

Now forty bums and forty quims,
If you can use your wits,
And if you're slick at arithmetic,
Makes exactly eighty tits.

Sure, eighty tits are a gladsome sight
For a man with a raging stand.
They may not be rare in Berkeley Square,
But they are on the Rio Grande!

His phallic limb was fighting trim.
As he backed and took a run,
And made a dart at the nearest tart,
He scored a hole in one.

The lady he bore to the dusty floor,
And there he filled her fine,
And though she grinned, it put the wind
Up the other thirty-nine.

Deadeye Dick was finished quick,
And flinging the first aside,
He was making a run at the second one,
When the swinging doors flew wide.And entered in to that Hall of Sin,
Into that Harlot's Hell,
Strode a lusty maid who was unfraid:
Her name was Eskimo Nell.

By this time Dick had got his prick
Well into number two,
When Eskimo Nell let out a yell.
And bawled to him; "Hey, you!"

Dick gave a flick of his muscular prick,
And the girl flew over his head.
He then wheeled about with an angry shout -
His face and his bollocks were red.

With a lustful leer he said, "Look here,
Just get into the queue:
I've got to mate with thirty-eight
Before I get to you."

But Eskimo Nell, she stood up right well
And looked him dead in the eyes;
With utter scorn she sneered at the horn
That rose from his hairy thighs.

She drawled her scorn at his rampant thorn
In accents clear and cool:
"You sorry shrimp of a Yankee pimp!
You call that thing a tool?"If this here town can't take that down,"
She sneered to those cowering belles,
"There's another cunt that can do the stunt,
But it's surely Eskimo Nell's."

She dropped her garments one by one
With an air of conscious pride,
And as she stood in her womanhood,
They saw her Great Divide.

It is fair to state it was not so Great
As Deep as opposed to Wide;
And viewed from without, it left no doubt
Of the tensile strength inside.

She stubbed out the butt of her cigarette
On the end of his gleaming knob,
And so utterly beat was Mexico Pete
That he quite forgot his job.

She seated herself on a table top,
Where someone had left a glass.
With a twitch of her tits, she crushed it to bits
Between the cheeks of her ass.She flexed her knees with a supple ease,
And spread her thighs apart.
With a friendly nod to the mangy sod,
She gave him the cue to start.

Now, Dead-Eye Dick knew more than one trick,
And he meant to take his time,
For a woman like this was orgasmic bliss,
So he played the pantomime.

He flexed his asshole to and fro,
And made his balls inflate,
Until they looked like the granite knobs
On the top of a palace gate.He blew his anus inside out,
His scrotum increased in size,
His mighty prick grew twice as thick
And reached almost to his eyes.

He polished it up with alcohol,
Then, to make it steaming hot
And finish the job, he sprinkled the knob
With a cayenne pepperpot.

Then did he neither start to run
Nor did he take a leap,
Nor did he stoop, but with a swoop
Made a steady, forward creep.

As a marksman might, he took a sight
Along his mighty tool,
And his steady grin as he pushed it in
Showed a calculated cool.Have you ever seen the pistons
On the mighty C.P.R.,
With the driving force of a thousand horse?
Well, then you know what pistons are.

Or, you think you do, but you've yet to see
The ins and outs of the trick
Of the work when its done on a non-stop run
By a fellow like Dead-Eye Dick.

But Eskimo Nell was no infidel,
As good as a whole harem
With the strength of ten in her abdomen
And the Rock of Ages between.

With nary a scream, she could take the stream
Like the flush of a watercloset.
Now she gripped his cock like a Chatwood Lock
On the National Safe Deposit.

But Dead-Eye Dick would not come quick,
He meant to conserve his powers,
For if he'd a mind he'd grind and grind
For sixteen solid hours.

Nell lay a while with a subtle smile,
Then the grip of her chasm grew keener,
And a squeeze of her thigh then sucked him dry
With the ease of a vacuum cleaner.She performed this trick in a way so slick
As to set in complete defiance
The principal cause and basic laws
That govern sexual science.

She calmly rode through the phallic code
Which for years had withstood the test,
And the ancient rules of the classic schools
In a moment or two, went west.

Right here, my friend, we come to the end
Of copulation's classic:
The effect on Dick was sudden and quick
And akin to an anaesthetic.

He fell to the floor, and he knew no more,
His passions extinct and dead,
Nor did he shout as his cock fell out,
Though 'twas stripped right down to a thread.Then, Mexican Pete did leap to his feet
To avenge his pal's last spasm,
With a jarring jolt of his blue-nosed Colt,
He rammed it up Nell's chasm.

He rammed it hard to the trigger guard,
Then fired two times three,
But to his surprise, Nell closed her eyes
And smiled in ecstasy.Said Eskimo Nell, "You've rung my bell;
I'm ready to explode.
Oh Pete, my sweet, can you repeat?"
Said he, "I've shot my load".

She looked him down with a lowering frown,
Then "Too bad," she said, "for you,
I might have guessed that that was the best
That you two sad bastards could do."

"When next, my friend, that you intend
To sally forth for fun,
Buy Dead-Eye Dick a licorice stick,
And yourself an elephant gun."

"I'm going back to the frozen North
Where the peckers are hard and strong,
Back to the land of the grinding gland
Where the nights are six months long."

"It's hard as tin when they put it in
In the land where spunk is spunk.
Not a trickling stream of lukewarm cream,
But a frozen, steaming chunk.""Back to the land of the grinding gland,
Where the walrus plays with his prong,
Where the polar bear wanks off in his lair,
That's where they'll sing this song."

"Back to the wild and the icy North,
Where man and beast turn blue,
Where even the dead lie two to a bed
And the rotting corpses screw."

"Back to the land where men are Men,
I'll say 'Terra Bellicum,'
And there I'll spend my worthy end,
For the North is calling: 'Come!'"Then Dead-Eye Dick and Mexican Pete
Slunk away from the Rio Grande,
Dead-Eye Dick with his broken prick,
And Pete with no gun in his hand.

When a man grows old and his balls grow cold,
And the tip of his prick turns blue,
And the hole in the middle refuses to piddle,
I'd say he was fucked, wouldn't you?

Manic depressive

I'm up late after "Back-to-school-night" at our little Astor Elementary. The usual hyperkinetic crowd of kids, kidlets, and megakids with their adults in tow variously entertained, bemused, doting, baffled, or bored.Followed by an evening of homework (for the Boy) and "art projects" (for the Girl) topped off with a screening of the Disney Classic "Beverly Hills Chihuahua".

Surely you remember "Beverly Hills Chihuahua"?

Yep, that "Beverly Hills Chihuahua";Dear God, my eyes.

Anyway, after getting the littles to bed I spent a while reading through the usual blogs and trying to think up a worthwhile post here.

No luck.

I checked a look at my sidebar and noticed what a strangely cyclic year this has been for me. January and February? Huge - a post a day or almost. Then after the winter rain the drought of Spring. March barely a post every two days, April even less, May found me parched for ideas; 12 posts all month.

And, suddenly, the creative juices flow again. June and July the old fire direction center was processing missions and cranking rounds downrange like a bunch of Vietnam redlegs with eight woodcutters and a whole troop of monkeys in the free-fire zone and a truckload of projos to fire up before the end of the fiscal year.

And then?

August, the worst so far. September, too, has been a wash. In these bleak months I just don't seem to find anything interesting to say.

What the hell? Is this some sort of symptom of some sort of odd manic-depression? The hallmark of wild swings from euphoria to lumpish inertia?

I have no idea.

Part of the problem, of course, is part of the solution that is MilPub. I have another outlet for my political and military ranting, so that part of this blog has pretty much gone. I haven't done much politicking here, and, frankly, even my sense of military outrage has just been ground down to a nub.

There seems to be no point in reminding the people who visit here - a small and self-selecting group who largely share my view - that the notion of sending armed GIs to swan about the rocky deserts of central Asia in hopes that while they're waiting some turbaned Paine or chitrali-capped Jefferson will turn up (or, perhaps, someone will put a round in the center-of-mass of the Evil Taliban Emperor and secure victory for Luke, Leia, and the Rebel Alliance) is about as sensible as my donning purple Speedos and a tank top and hanging around the Seven-Eleven on the corner of North Lombard and Wall in hopes that I will catch the eye of

Jamie Lee Curtis as she drives past on the way to Fred Meyer and she will stop to pick me up and take me home for a evening of spontaneous, uninhibited wild monkey sex. While entertaining as fantasy, as bases for long-term policy both are poor substitutes for actual reasoning regarding probabilities, costs, and benefits.

And what remains is pure personal maundering; kid stuff, family tales, storytelling, army tales, local news, personal opinion, or "...battles long ago."

It seems to me as if I'm reaching a point where I still have things to say, but that on the great issues others say them better. While on the small ones...well, those, perhaps, are what is left to me.The picture in the center in the snapshot above is my son's self-portrait, BTW. If you look closely you will see he has given himself glowing red and green eyes like a fictional sorcerer. I'm intrigued, yet he will explain nothing.

But in the interim, perhaps a bit of Wordsworth:

"Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?"

(from "The Solitary Reaper", 1803)

September

"I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.
I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air."
- Theodore Roethke, The Far Field

Swept Homeward

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
(Sea-Fever, John Masefield)The hollow sea-shell, which for years hath stood
On dusty shelves, when held against the ear
Proclaims its stormy parents; and we hear
The faint far murmur of the breaking flood.
We hear the sea. The sea? It is the blood
In our own veins, impetuous and near,
And pulses keeping pace with hope and fear
And with our feeling’s every shifting mood.
(Sea-Shell Murmurs, Eugene Lee-Hamilton)Into the audience hall by the fathomless abyss
where swells up the music of toneless strings
I shall take this harp of my life.

I shall tune it to the notes of forever,
and when it has sobbed out its last utterance,
lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent.
(Ocean of Forms, Rabindranath Tagore)...the great luggage of the sea
falls thudding and trundling
and tumbling up the stairs of
beach; its undertow hissing,
sometimes spitting, rolling
back on its own prolonged
susurrations; pouring in
loud hushes across planking
through the open bedroom door;
(Rapture, Robert Dana)Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
(Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold)When these small
stones
were
in
clear pools and
nets of weed

tide-tumbled
teased by spray

they glowed
moonsilver,
glinted sunsparks on
their speckled
skins.Spilled on the
shelf
they were
wet-sand jewels
wave-green
still flecked with
foam.

Now
gray stones
lie
dry and dim.

Why did we bring them home?
(Beach Stones, Lillian Moore)When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.
(At the Sea-Side, Robert Louis Stevenson)I thought they were gone—
like the tutus and tiaras and wands
when she morphed from ballerina
to fairy princess to mermaid to tomboy,
refusing to wear dresses ever again.
Gone, those pastel party dresses,
the sleeves, puffed water wings buoying her up
as she swam into waters over her head.
(Shopping Urban, Jane Shore)If you should look
into a starlit night
and see a reflection of me
know only that
I will one day
come crashing again
to the shore
swept homeward
by the pull
of the tide
and
you
(Like Waves from the Shore, Marge Tindal)Out into the deep of the great dark world,
Beyond the long borders where foam and drift
Of the sundering waves are lost and gone
On the tides that plunge and rear and crumble.
(From the Shore, Carl Sandburg)Down on the shore, on the sunny shore!
Where the salt smell cheers the land;
Where the tide moves bright under boundless light,
And the surge on the glittering strand;
Where the children wade in the shallow pools,
Or run from the froth in play;
Where the swift little boats with milk-white wings
Are crossing the sapphire bay,
(Down on the Shore, William Allingham)And thank you for coming along on our trip.

Goodnight.

Stories for my daughter

As a decrepit father takes delight
To see his active child do deeds of youth,
So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.
For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crownèd sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store.
So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,
Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give
That I in thy abundance am sufficed
And by a part of all thy glory live.
Look what is best, that best I wish in thee.
This wish I have; then ten times happy me!

(Sonnet 37; Wm. Shakespeare)

Rain

"The sky seems to ride fast upon the madly rushing rain; the
water in the river is loud and impatient; women have hastened home
early from the Ganges with their filled pitchers.
The evening lamps must be made ready.
O child, do not go out!"from "The Rainy Day" by Rabindranath Tagore