fjord fallow night (2017)

  

rib riven of seaside oxen driven to death

flank flung on coal bed born beside a black oak

seven seers serene tear severe to bits in bites

ash char snow lettered prehistoric blood scribble spray

ice ballast beard teeters toward keg

fists scabbed wrapped in ointment rags plundered

of southern thrusts plunged draining dawn of sun

slung moon songs hurled breath smoke

under eight pelts four furs six trees three rivers solid mtn sweat

mothers birth men yet cry to scare wolves stiff distant

in dens won by woe found wanting

creel harpoon craft mast listing in mist bygone tomorrow to battle

a silver rattle left and earrings persian glass

time sealed in twelve century slough night tantalizes mead heavy mind

a brace of narwhale ivory mends a leather pillow of a man

old known tree sounds fire speaks seasons secret lines

the fjord mirror draped in loam and foals child chased

her shield resting more tested his spear ready less flaunted

reindeer swim amid star filled lakes glacier gotten

acorn rolls name game the wood script floats off intelligent

cloak unhurried a button waits finger frozen 

sleep steams breath falls not far afield of brows sheltered

three roosters call fallow nights hold over

in goldrimmed henbane pots ice capped from sitting

knot known by woden born the day belongs

2017

Mt Tabor

Tagteams (1999)

 reasons and excuses

seasons and crucifixes

words are good trouble

send me these, on the double

po-lice and senators

burglars and creditors

sharing a pizza pie

while nukeing earth's 3rd eye

good moms and holy men

never tire of supporting them

their community base is strong

thru profits from the Hall of Wrongs

sight-see the warzone

(fertile thoughts were wince sown)

here on the mainframe

the reference point is our brain

1999 Klickitat, Wa

Swale Creek

Feelawful w/lovage I Wrote

  

Sunday, July 22, 2018 

feelawful lovage

Cooked black beans, simple

Made potato salad, using lovage

From the garden, vegan mayonnaise,

All vegan, then some falafel from

Scratch, soaked garbanzo beans 23 hours

Used more lovage, olive oil spices

Fried two dinky pans full

Sunday fuels up for push

Into week plate, black beans ready

Protein stick to my ribs

Body patches, vegan 

____ 

"The truth is, wellness is really inaccessible,” says Tilghman. “I was publicly shamed to the point where I considered suicide." 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/31/the-wellness-instagrammer-who-learned-to-let-go

One bitch of a sauce to kick (1993)

  

explosive or non she asked hipmenu

in hand well we prefer non

but since there's that three century wail in store

we'd take that window booth next to them

defense contractors overlooking

"swampy vegetable aroma patterns"

(halogen pterodactyls, spinach drooling

off beaks), the death salesmen

                           undo their belts

to pad that tax deductible paunch

old buddy senator stood ''em up

time to leak the polaroids

but no, frond of fate

a lit cuban cigar of karma ignites their

duffel sack of scalps autographed

blown to fiber optic dust

smithereens, they had a fine fang

for family bbq

cuz bad money is one bitch of a sauce to kick 

(1993)

Cameron dodged questions on the issue of whether he had seen such legal advice, 

 saying   

“I cannot recall  

every single piece of paper 

 that has been put in front of me … 

 I don’t want to answer that question.”  

$$$$$$$$$$atan said

"arms exports, referring to criterion 2c 

 of the UK’s Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, which requires the government to  

“not grant a licence if it determines there is a clear risk 

 that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law”.

Criterion 2c adds that “the government will also take account of the risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate gender-based violence or serious acts of violence against women or children”.  

Lammy said that this was “particularly relevant, given that women and children constitute a majority of the victims of the war in Gaza”.  

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/31/israel-alone-allies-fears-grow-over-conduct-and-legality-of-war-in-gaza

_____ 

 

"Cameron’s department has been given legal advice  

that Israel has broken international humanitarian law, 

 but has chosen not to make it public.'

"That claim will send shudders through London and Washington, as it strikes at the heart of one of the most sensitive issues in international diplomacy."

Workers ahem

  

" 'the Strippers’ Bill of Rights, was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 25.  

It includes anti-discrimination provisions and mandatory club employee training. 

Under the new law, club or establishment employees must undergo training aimed at preventing sexual harassment, 

 identifying and reporting human trafficking  

and learning how to de-escalate conflicts and provide first aid. 

entertainment establishments to have security workers on site and keypad codes for dressing rooms as well as working panic buttons within reach of dancers in private rooms where they are alone with customers.  

Also, clubs must prove that they are keeping lists of customers who’ve been banned to keep dancers safe.

Additionally, the law eliminates “back rent,”  

which is debt that accumulates when dancers do not make enough money to pay their customary “stage rental fee,” or house fees, for the night. 

 The law also limits the amount that establishments can charge dancers." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/30/us/strippers-bill-rights-washington.html

The hunchback in the park. (1942, Dylan Thomas)

  

solitary mister

Propped between trees and water

From the opening of the garden lock

That lets the trees and water enter

Until the Sunday sombre bell at dark

Eating bread from a newspaper

Drinking water from the chained cup

That the children filled with gravel

In the fountain basin where I sailed my ship

Slept at night in a dog kennel

But nobody chained him up.

Like the park birds he came early

Like the water he sat down

And Mister they called Hey mister

The truant boys from the town

Running when he had heard them clearly

On out of sound

Past lake and rockery

Laughing when he shook his paper

Hunchbacked in mockery 

Through the loud zoo of the willow groves

Dodging the park keeper

With his stick that picked up leaves.

And the old dog sleeper

Alone between nurses and swans

While the boys among willows

Made the tigers jump out of their eyes

To roar on the rockery stones

And the groves were blue with sailors

Made all day until bell time

A woman figure without fault

Straight as a young elm

Straight and tall from his crooked bones

That she might stand in the night

After the locks and chains

All night in the unmade park

After the railings and shrubberies

The birds the grass the trees the lake

And the wild boys innocent as strawberries

Had followed the hunchback

To his kennel in the dark. 

1942

Dylan Thomas

A fable ( Matthew Prior, 1703)

  

In Aesop’s tales an honest wretch we find,

Whose years and comforts equally declined;

He in two wives had two domestic ills,

For different age they had, and different wills;

One plucked his black hairs out, and one his gray,

The man for quietness did both obey,

Till all his parish saw his head quite bare,

And thought he wanted brains as well as hair.

                        The Moral

    The parties, henpecked William, are thy wives,

The hairs they pluck are thy prerogatives;

Tories thy person hate, the Whigs thy power,

Though much thou yieldest, still they tug for more,

Till this poor man and thou alike are shown,

He without hair, and thou without a crown,

Matthew Prior, 1703 

Forgreave and fortwit. (2018)

  

Nudge not, lest ye get nudged

Dong unto others as they donged you

Forgreave and fortwit.

Turn the check if slapped 

Easier to thread a camel

Just don't nudge on a budget 

2018 PDX 

To sir Tony (Phillip freneau)

 

Sugar-Planter in the interior parts of Jamaica

If there exists a hell—the case is clear—

Sir Toby’s slaves enjoy that portion here:

Here are no blazing brimstone lakes—’tis true;

But kindled rum too often burns as blue,*

In which some fiend, (whom nature must detest)

Steeps Toby’s name, and bands poor Cudjoe's breast.

      Here, whips on whips excite a thousand fears,

And mingled howlings vibrate on my ears:

Here Nature’s plagues abound, of all degrees,

Snakes, scorpions, despots, lizards, centipees—

No art, no care escapes the busy lash,

All have their dues, and all are paid in cash:—

The lengthy cart-whip guards this tyrant's reign

And cracks like pistols from the fields of cane.

     Ye powers! who form’d these wretched tribes, relate,

What had they done, to merit such a fate?

Why were they brought from Eboe’s sultry waste

To see that plenty which they must not taste—

Food, which they cannot buy, and dare not steal,

Yams and potatoes!—many a scanty meal! —

One, with a jibbet wakes his negro’s fears,

One to the wind-mill nails him by the ears;

One keeps his slave in dismal dens, unfed,

One puts the wretch in pickle, ere he's dead:

This, from a tree suspends him by the thumbs,

That, from his table grudges even the crumbs!

     O’fer yond’ rough hills a tribe of females go,

Each with her gourd, her infant, and her hoe;

Scorch’d by a sun that has no mercy here,

Driven by a devil, whom men call overseer:

In chains twelve wretches to their labour haste,

Twice twelve I see with iron collars grac’d:—

Are these the joys that flow from vast domains!

Is wealth, thus got, Sir Toby, worth your pains—

Who would that wealth, on terms like these, possess,

Where all we see is pregnant with distress;

Angola’s natives scourg’d by hireling hands,

And toil’s hard earn gins shipp’d to foreign lands?

     Talk not of blossoms and your endless spring;

No joys, no smiles, such scenes of misery bring!

Though Nature here has every blessing spread,

Poor is the labourer—and how meanly fed!

Here Stygian paintings light and shade renew,

Pictures of woe, that Virgi’s pencil drew:

Here, surly Charons make their annual trip,

And ghosts arrive in every Guinea ship,

To find what hells this western world affords,

Plutonian scourges, and despotic lords; —

Where they who pine, and languish to be free

Must climb the rude cliffs of the Liguanee;

Beyond the clouds in sculking haste repair,

And hardly safe from brother traitors there!° 

Freneau 1784

In wister, ok (1988)

 we sat on high heeled stools in the fisherman's lounge

tavern while a couple of cartoon faced men

shot some rank pool. zippy was standing in the corner,

by the jutebox when a farmhickmama

ax'em if he like rock-n-roll.

i like everything he replied, not calculating

the precise volume of flesh stuffed

into her tubetop

not squinching at the creak of listening naugahyde eyelids

not igniting the belches erupting from the oilfield

worker hunched next to his mom.

jim and i just sat there watching this, savoring

the finely layered ices on top of our beer draft.

thinking about goofing off,

the Real work to get done.

1989, lawrence kansas 

After Gary Snyder

The West Edmond Field

 

"The West Edmond Field was Oklahoma's most important oil discovery of the 1940s. 

 It developed through the persistence of Ace Gutowsky, who claimed to know the location of potential oil fields 

 by using so-called "doodlebug" techniques, a modification of the divining rod.

 He was convinced that oil was located to the west of the Edmond, Britton, and Oklahoma City fields, but reputable petroleum geologists dismissed his claims due to a lack of adequate geological and geophysical evidence.

Gutowsky found a backer for his project in D. D. Bourland of San Antonio, Texas. 

They spudded in on the Number One Wagner on January 2, 1943, in the NW 1/4 of the NW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 32, T14N-R4W, Oklahoma County, a few miles west of Edmond. 

The well came in on April 28, 1943."

_________

"Almost immediately pipeline service was established, with the bulk of the production going to the Champlin Oil Refinery at Enid. "

"The West Edmond Field produced 7,752,000 barrels of oil in 1944 to temporarily bring the state's sagging oil production to 1.5 million barrels more than the previous year. The field contributed to yet another statewide" increase of 15 million barrels in 1945.

http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=WE013

_________

"Gutowsky's father, Assaph "Ace" Gutowsky, was in the oil business. He became convinced that a major petroleum deposit lay under the area north of Oklahoma City and scouted the area extensively.

 In 1942 or 1943, Gutowsky's father discovered an oil field at West Edmond, Oklahoma, that was estimated at 117,000,000 barrels.

 Gutowsky's father discovered the oil field using a "doodlebug," a "homemade divining rod" and "struck it rich" as several major oil companies bought leases from him.

By 1944, Time magazine called the West Edmond field the "greatest concentration of rotary drilling rigs in the world."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Gutowsky

In the hammersmith garage (1986)

  

winter prys its icy fingers

into the crack of the huge sliding door,

pointed colors gust in the car exhaust.

greasy joe slides under a car

&wrenches at pipes, straining

not unlike a man milking a cow

in the frost of four a.m. iowa

he loosens a nut that drains the oil

and the cow wobbles

weakheaded. he puts a feedsack over the hood

and gives the back fender a

fleshy, familiar slap

1986 Lawrence Ks 

Published in Allegheny Review 

William Herbert Carruth poetry prize KU 1987

Cross country winter drive to stillwater

 

Equiknocks (2022)

 got the stolen bike snooze, 

Chained to hues blue 

Now I hoof it, chartered

Sidewalk cruise 

You have a borrowed riff raff,

Falstaff in the bath 

Wanna be muddy water 

Not a melody squatter 

A con etiquette yank 

FU Chet Hanks, ringaround yer collar, proud boy waller 

Con Ye even weaker than

Most whiteleash tweakers 

Sumfin soup, maybe shark or snail 

If snails had trails o wait they prevail 

It smears to da twitter with witless insouciance 

Being dumbass yer only insurance, 

 Xpyred as tracks yuhdrase 

If they didn't nap yo face

Foredaddy

SE pdx

Plymouth rock X (Malcolm x)

  

"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”

— Malcolm X

“We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.”

— Malcolm X

“My alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”

— Malcolm X

“Stumbling is not falling.”

— Malcolm X

“They put your mind right in a bag, and take it wherever they want.”

— Malcolm X

“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us.”

— Malcolm X

“Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”

— Malcolm X

“I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.”

— Malcolm X

“If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.”

— Malcolm X

“I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.”

— Malcolm X

“You don’t have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.”

— Malcolm X

“Dr. King wants the same thing I want. Freedom.”

— Malcolm X

“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.”

— Malcolm X

_______________________________________

https://www.malcolmx.com/quotes/

Sonnet 7 ( Shakespeare)

  

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye 

      Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, 

Serving with looks his sacred majesty ;

     And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, 

Resembling strong youth in his middle age, 

     Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, 

Attending on his golden pilgrimage ;

     But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day, 

     The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are 

From his low tract and look another way: 

So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon, 

Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.

Omotenashi kintsugi Isekai

  

"Omotenashi"=Mahala

which describes good hospitality, characterised by 

 “thoughtfulness, close attention to detail, and the anticipation of a guest’s needs”, was also added to the dictionary.  

Kintsugi, =silver lining

 "the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by joining pieces back together and filling cracks with lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum,  

highlighting the flaws in the mended object, was added" 

Isekai,  = escapism 

"a Japanese genre of fantasy fiction involving a character being transported to or reincarnated in a different, strange, or unfamiliar "

_____ 

Practice omotenashi 

Kintsugi Bloggod 

Isekai in Hong Kong  

"destruction of the family of Freeman Bloodgood, by Indians"

  

 

----Monitor readers will remember

the report was once circulated of the destruction of the family of Freeman Bloodgood, by Indians, in New Mexico. 

 But we learn that though some of the neighboring ranchmen and their families were destroyed, he learned of the approach of the Indians in time to escape from the ranch with his family; 

 but nearly all of his cattle were taken. Though, as ranchmen brand their stock, he afterwards found about a hundred head that had strayed from the rest. 

 Mr. Bloodgood occasionally visits the ranch, but does not yet consider it safe to endeavor to make it his permanent dwelling place. He has also a share in two mines."

(1883-ish) Kingston, NM

Geronimo avoided the reservation until 1877, when he was captured by Indian agents and brought to San Carlos in chains. He tried his hand at farming, but like many of the Chiricahua, he longed for the freedom of the frontier. Geronimo and his allies would eventually stage three escapes from the reservation between 1878 and 1885. Each time, the renegades fled south and disappeared into the mountains, only resurfacing to conduct marauding expeditions on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

 During his second breakout in 1882, Geronimo even staged a daring raid on the Apache reservation and forced several hundred Chiricahuas to join his band—some of them at gunpoint. By the time of his final breakout in 1884, Geronimo had earned an unparalleled reputation for cunning, and stories of his ruthlessness—both real and imagined—were front-page news across the United States.

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/7-things-you-may-not-know-about-geronimo

______________

"In December 2014, President Barack Obama signed the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, which would give land sacred to the Apache in Arizona to Resolution Copper Mine [RCM], a joint venture owned by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. The Act cleared the way for the land swap in which Resolution Copper would receive 2,422 acres of National Forest land in exchange for deeding to the federal government 5,344 acres of private land.[11]

A proposal or rider in Section 3003 of the Act, titled "Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act", would allow RCM to develop and operate an underground copper mine 7,000-feet deep (approximately five Empire State buildings) in the publicly owned Tonto National Forest near Superior, Arizona.

The mine would destroy an area set aside in 1955 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower that is sacred to the San Carlos Apache.

 United States Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said she was "profoundly disappointed with the Resolution Copper provision, which has no regard for lands considered sacred by nearby Indian tribes".[16]

By January 2015 over 104,000 had signed a petition to President Obama, "We the People|Stop Apache Land Grab".

 Bills introduced in 2015 by Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Tucson) would reverse the land-exchange deal, but neither has received a hearing.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Gloggod Tree

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus

"The Scots saying "Ne'er cast a cloot til Mey's oot" conveys a warning not to shed any cloots (clothes) before the summer has fully arrived and the Mayflowers (hawthorn blossoms) are in full bloom.

The custom of employing the flowering branches for decorative purposes on 1 May is of very early origin,

__________________

"The supposition that the tree was the source of Jesus's crown of thorns doubtless gave rise around 1911 to the tradition among the French peasantry that it utters groans and cries on Good Friday, and probably also to the old popular superstition in Great Britain and Ireland that 

 ill luck attended the uprooting of hawthorns.

 Branches of Glastonbury thorn (C. monogyna 'Biflora', sometimes called C. oxyacantha var. praecox), which flowers both in December and in spring, were formerly highly valued in England, on account of the legend that 

 the tree was originally the staff of Joseph of Arimathea."

_________________

'Serbian folklore that spread across Balkan notes that hawthorn

 (Serbian глог or glog) is essential to kill vampires,  

and stakes used for their slaying must be made from the wood of the thorn tree.

In Gaelic folklore, hawthorn (in Scottish Gaelic, sgitheach and in Irish, sceach)  

'marks the entrance to the otherworld' and  

is strongly associated with the fairies.

 Lore has it that it is very unlucky to cut the tree at any time other than when it is in bloom; however, during this time, it is commonly cut and decorated as  

a May bush (see Beltane).

 This warning persists to modern times

__________________

The superstitious dread of harming hawthorn trees prevalent in the British Isles may also be connected to an old belief that hawthorns, and more especially ' 

lone thorns' (self-seeded specimens standing in isolation from other trees) 

 originate from lightning or thunderbolts  

and give protection from lightning strikes.

Hawthorn trees are often found beside clootie wells;  

at these types of holy wells, they are sometimes known as rag trees 

, for the strips of cloth which are tied to them as part of healing rituals.

 'When all fruit fails, welcome haws' was once a common expression in Ireland.

According to a medieval legend, the Glastonbury thorn, C. monogyna 'Biflora', which flowers twice annually, was supposed to have miraculously grown from a walking stick planted by Joseph of Arimathea at Glastonbury in Somerset, England.

 The original tree was destroyed in the sixteenth century during the English Reformation, but several cultivars have survived. 

 Since the reign of King James I, it has been a Christmas custom to send a sprig of Glastonbury thorn flowers to the Sovereign, which is used to decorate the royal family's dinner table.

In the Victorian era, 

 the hawthorn represented hope 

 in the language of flowers."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crataegus

FLB

  

 

Raven bowl (2017)

  

down dropped said rainbow black bird 

wind-wand willed corn of the new world 

drooping off limb roost, the mountain lava cool beneath 

a kingpost more lonely for the company surrounding nine daughters

easily scared into a knotnut self planting wodan planted mind: 

bloggod his finger fires sent to nine twig-soul drenched 

hunted spiders born dust hungry for

felling planets on a droll tragic peck,

wavemaiden winds stirring flesh filled spy birds 

beyond speech

frothing pitching bellowing cooling

an arm of ygdrassil rent sullen

with nerves oil stripped

jotuun woodpeckers no spring sprite

nor four stag defenses may temper 

if huggin or muinnin don't fetch

rainbow root bridge a canal for stars to meander 

under navels of spring-cradles 

hidden if flowers yet dragon guarded

filled in feathered snakes of rills rushing uphill silvered blue

trunk twigs trash woden chips feeding sun 

fire song under spells raven eyed close

haunting thickets each former strength

bearlike attended

heart of hammer mallet sound wind lightning spear

veins ripped farms burnt wells poisoned 

spoils dehumanized

seeds vaulted over bloodhooved boars or cossacks with falcons

battle seeking shadow sinister eight legged ministers

wodan crushes village grave fury 

spilling human wine over oceans fierce

ancient gravity hurls godan along dog god good blood fort forests

skald rib lungs riven 

drug over hideous razor rocked silence

unmasked in lacerated paint burnt wood oils flower dregs soil riches

elk fed well slept guarded by hounds

lions nine dragonmaids three chambers

good gold god bold blood bloomed quartered spring warriors

phlox or aster or ladylace or dartknee or falling giant

stone burrows fed naked in rain 

eleven ghost charms element chained

trance blotgodi priestess gallow cleansing nine arrows hurt sent

to track deemed demons donning broken tooth false hornet hate

ear pinched eye punched gut 

blasted ankle shattered lung twisted throat split

past opened from greed hovels raven managed feasting on republics horror

                   giant mounds godan odin wodan wooden

 eagles scratched time over night waters pegged tied in green leather

from feral stallions zeus drove once

before valleys of cohorts

before granite or feldspar or coal dripped

in olive oil merchant perfume

whale parts our doorframes planets cousins company 

pulling leviathons onto marble yet liquid 

in a storm birthing circle

*                           *                          *

a circle punctuated by the eye of white willow's

sweeping charm

eight hundred miles wide drinking oceans flattening mountains

for meal is ground of bone beneath our thoughts,

a field of sky raised horses placid there in the hold of ships

rearing over waves mirrored in helm's raven watch

summoned of owl scat crushings star-sent 

wind was wand willed that no blot blood spilled

 "healing, death, royalty, the gallows, 

  knowledge, battle, sorcery, poetry, frenzy" 

  Goði hrafnblóts, Goði of the Raven-offering"

  ravenous redbloodhaired bloody hoofed steed of freyr. 

  Blóðughadda "  

Thorn-apple galapagos

  jimson weed the spiraled white flower

the thorn-apple of eve's delight

leaf the medicine smell tells one all

beware, wary bee.

prickly protected shell

(stay out! and keep in.!)

tiny dark seeds plot, waiting.

walls don't come alive,

our eyes awaken, cotton mouth

bites hard, as the liver and kidneys

pay the psychedelic tax.

everything is funny, other than

near paralysis and needing to piss

take too much,

and go meet  okie darwin

back in 1998.

Buttonwood, Bloodgood plane tree pt. 2

  

Platanus occidentalis, also known as American sycamore, 

 American planetree,   

western plane, occidental plane, buttonwood, and water beech, is a species of Platanus native to the eastern and central United States, the mountains of northeastern Mexico, extreme southern Ontario, and extreme southern Quebec. 

 It is usually called sycamore in North America, a name which can refer to other types of trees in other parts of the world. 

 The American sycamore is a long-lived species, typically surviving at least 200 years and likely as long as 500–600 years.  

The largest of the species have been measured to 53 m (174 ft), and nearly 4 m (13 ft) in diameter. 

 Larger specimens were recorded in historical times. In 1744, a Shenandoah Valley settler named Joseph Hampton and two sons lived for most of the year in a hollow sycamore in what is now Clarke County, Virginia.. 

In 1770, at Point Pleasant, Virginia (now in West Virginia), near the junction of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers, 

 George Washington 

 recorded in his journal a sycamore measuring 

 13.67 m (44 ft 10 in) in circumference  

at 91 cm (3 ft) from the ground 

_________ 

'The American sycamore is able to endure a big city environment and was formerly extensively planted as a shade tree,but due to the defacing effects of anthracnose it has been largely usurped in this function by the resistant London plane.  

The terms under which the New York Stock Exchange was formed are called the "Buttonwood Agreement", 

 because it was signed under a buttonwood (sycamore) 

 tree at 68 Wall Street, New York City in 1792" 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanus_occidentalis

"The Buttonwood Agreement is the founding document of what is now New York Stock Exchange and is one of the most important financial documents in U.S. history. 

The agreement organized securities trading in New York City and was signed on May 17, 1792 between 24 stockbrokers outside of 68 Wall Street. 

 According to legend the signing took place under a buttonwood tree where their earliest transactions had occurred. 

 The New York Stock Exchange celebrates the signing of this agreement on May 17, 1792 as its founding." 

Cribology (2017)

  

born of ribs sun-cribbed, moon-fibbed,

manger-nibbed of wood hungry hipped

  four legged one world fellow folk

  beak-pawed two eyed same blood-yolk

same eye on every parcel, same blood only redder

mixed in coals first sun-thought tethers,

   one tailed one spine feather-haired snout,

   pack or herd or flock; gang intrinsic clout

the worm dirt cherish, old man in silage

from under a cabbage patch, his former mortgage

   same heart the hart hath, same raven jaw wrath

   same fox simple hunger and eagle dumb math

   odd tool, nest of wood, the crib birth hallows;

   offering bounty, with lessons, sunrise wallows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criobolium

"Criobolium is the ritual sacrifice of a ram in the cult of Attis and the Great Mother of the Gods. It seems to have been a special ceremony instituted after the rise, and on the analogy of the taurobolium, which was performed in honor of the Great Mother, for the purpose of giving fuller recognition to Attis in the duality which he formed with the Mother."

New Bloggod, 1673

  

New Bloggod, 1673 

🌳🌿🌲 

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.

IV. New Amsterdam becomes New York: The Beginning of English Rule. 1664-1674.

_________

"In July, 1673, a Dutch squadron under two grim old sea-dogs, Admirals Evertsen and Binckes, suddenly appeared in the lower bay. The English commander in the fort endeavored to treat with them; but they would hearken to no terms save immediate surrender, saying that “they had come for their own, and their own they would have.” 

The Dutch militia would not fight against their countrymen; and the other citizens were not inclined to run any risk in a contest that concerned them but little. Evertsen's frigates sailed up to within musket-shot of the fort, and firing began on both sides. 

After receiving a couple of broadsides which killed and wounded several of the garrison, the English flag was struck, and the fort was surrendered to the Dutch troops, who had already landed, under the command of Capt. Anthony Colve. So ended the first nine years of English supremacy at the mouth of the Hudson.    10

  The victors at once proceeded to undo the work of the men they had ousted. Dutch was once more made the formal official language (though it had never been completely abandoned), and the whole scheme of the English government was overturned.

 In the city itself the schepens, burgomasters, and schout again took the place of sheriff, mayor, and aldermen. There was very little violence, although one or two houses were plundered, and a citizen here and there insulted or slightly maltreated by the soldiers,—much as had happened after the original conquest, with the important exception that it was now the Dutch who did the maltreating, and the English who were the sufferers.    11

  When the province was lost it was a mere proprietary colony of the West India Company; but this corporation had died prior to 1673, and the province was regained by the victory of a national Dutch force, and was held for the whole nation.

 Evertsen, acting for the home government, made Colve the director of the province. Colve was a rough, imperious, resolute man, a good soldier, but with no very great regard for civil liberty. The whole province was speedily reduced. The Dutch towns along the Hudson submitted gladly; but the Puritan villages on Long Island were sullen and showed symptoms of defiance, appealing to Connecticut for help.

 However, Colve and Evertsen, backed up by trained soldiers and a well

-equipped squadron, were not men to be trifled with. They gave notice to the Long Islanders that unless they were prepared to stand the chances of war they must submit at once; and submit they did, Connecticut not daring to interfere. The New Englanders had been willing enough to bid defiance to, and to threaten the conquest of, the New Netherlands while the province was weakly held by an insufficient force; but they were too prudent to provoke a contest with men of such fighting temper and undoubted capacity as Evertsen and Colve, and the warhardened troops and seamen who obeyed their behests.    12

  Colve ruled the internal affairs of the colony with a high hand. He made the citizens understand that the military power was supreme over the civil; and when the council protested against anything he did, he told them plainly that unless they submitted he would summarily dismiss them and appoint others in their places. 

Military law was established, and heavy taxes were imposed; moreover, as the taxes took some time to collect, those who were most heavily assessed were forced to make loans in advance. Altogether the burghers probably failed to find that the restoration of Dutch rule worked any very marked change in their favor.    13

  This second period of Dutch supremacy on Manhattan Island lasted for but a year and a quarter.  

Then in November, 1674, the city was again given up to the English in accordance with the terms of peace between the belligerent powers, which provided for the mutual restitution of all conquered territory.  

With this second transfer New Amsterdam definitely assumed the name of New York; and the province became simply one of the English colonies in America, remaining such until, a century afterward, all those colonies combined to throw off the yoke of the mother country and become an independent nation. 

http://www.bartleby.com/171/4.html 

____ 

The early annals of New Amsterdam (New York) the surname of Bloodgood ancestors followed the Dutch form of Bloetgoet and Goetbloet with several variations appearing in church, census, town city and County clerk's records; - Bloedtgoedt,

Bloedtgoet, Bloedgoedt, Bloedtgoet, Goedtbloedt, Goedbloet, Bloetgaat, Bloedgaedt, Bludgood and Bloodgodd.

 The name was anglicized soon after the English took possession of New Netherland

________________________________

8-3-1673, Frans Bloetgoet, John Hingman and Richard Wilde were appointed Schepens (Magistrates) by Governor Cornelis Everts Jr., and the Commanders of the Council of War.

1673,the Ango-Dutch war broke out where upon New York was re-captured by the Dutch.

 After a nine year period 1664-1673 the House of Orange flag once again waved over Manhattan. (Oxford History of the American People by Morrison)

11-10-1674, Bloodgood was made privy counselor to Governor Colve as to surrender of the colony (New Amsterdam) back to the English

____

 (Brodhead's Hisory of N.Y., Vol 11, pages 18, 243) ('Callaghan's Historical Mss relating to Colonial Hist. of N.Y. 

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.

IV. New Amsterdam becomes New York: The Beginning of English Rule. 1664-1674.

Eli Lilly Bush (1988)

  

'Somebody once said our music was a front for us to manufacture and distribute LSD across the country. It’s like [adopts sarcastic voice]: ‘Sure, yeah, it was all a convoluted way to do that.’" 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/25/butthole-surfers-psychedelic-art-rock-noise 

 Liar liar, cymbals on fire 

Eli Lilly Bush ain't retired   

____ 

'Phoenix had returned to Los Angeles after flying back from spending one week in New Mexico. Before that, he had spent six to seven weeks in Utah to complete the three weeks of interior shots left on his last project, Dark Blood.The film was finally completed in 2012.

In Bob Forrest's book, Running with Monsters, he wrote that Phoenix spent the days preceding his death on a drug binge with John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Phoenix and Frusciante were consuming cocaine and heroin and had not slept for several days.

"The evening of October 30, 1993, Phoenix arrived with his girlfriend Samantha Mathis, his brother Joaquin, and sister Rain at The Viper Room, a Hollywood nightclub partly owned by Johnny Depp.  

Phoenix was to perform with the band P, which featured Phoenix's friends Flea and John Frusciante from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, 

 Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers,  

Al Jourgensen of Ministry, and Depp," 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Phoenix

Nyc 1987

 

 

Stillwater home

 

 

Free roses for sell

  We think loneliness is in our heads, but its source lies in the ruin of civil society 

____

Robert Christopher Lasch

"June 1, 1932 – February 14, 1994) was an American historian, moralist and social critic who was a history professor at the University of Rochester.  

He sought to use history to demonstrate what he saw as the pervasiveness with which major institutions, public and private, were eroding the competence and independence of families and communities. 

 Lasch strove to create a historically informed social in criticism that could teach Americans how to deal with 

 rampant consumerism, 

 proletarianization,  

and what he famously labeled "the culture of narcissism". "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Lasch 

*** 

"the tendency to individualise social issues, whether poverty or unemployment, 

 to view them as psychological dispositions or even as moral failure.  

Loneliness, too, is frequently framed as a psychological condition, or mental health problem, the product of narcissism or self-obsession." 

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2024/mar/24/we-think-loneliness-is-in-our-heads-but-its-source-lies-in-the-ruin-of-civil-society 

"Cameras and recording machines not only transcribe experience but alter its quality,  

giving to much of modern life the character of an enormous echo chamber, a hall of mirrors,”  

he wrote in The Culture of Narcissism. " 

"his psychoanalytical eye often overwhelmed his social vision and what many took from his work 

 was less his social critique than his delineation of a new, narcissistic personality type. 

 The end point of his analysis 

 (the emergence of a public disconnected from one another and so more self-centred) became, instead, 

 the starting point for explanation 

 – that people’s narcissism and self-obsession explained their disconnectedness 

 and the erosion of communal bonds"  

____ 

The old woman sits on her knee -level stool, a pail of cut roses 

A cardboard sign advertises

Single mother please help roses $5 

She's 60 she's an immigrant who speaks out loud not to herself here at the front entrance of the farmers market

She says she's talking to her sister 

Wrinkles befitting her age she could be a great grandmother for the never seen children, family, or co-worker community she lives with 

Umbrella, patient as a fly trap, collects the pity drops, no one ever gives her coins, few give her actual food  

I play violin four hours just across from her, entertaining rain snow or searing heat, two thousand dollars worth of fragile equipment, a violin I've had over 40 years, a battery powered amp, my skills be what they may of playing my whole life 

I watch people give her money walk past me with their children or their fancy dogs, some thank me still not a dollar as they depart to mansion or luxury car to jet away 

She looks lonely, she old, she eastern european, perfect 

Who can ask her to beg on the sidewalk rather than at the entrance where vendors subsisting on sales pay rent, their tomatoes lettuce jam and honey and cut flowers all the market exists to sell 

It's capitalism 

She sells her lonely image sometimes several roses at a time 

The lonely buyers pay themselves on their vogue backs, they have a story to smell and put on Instagram

I play a gypsy song that I wrote and live, I can't berate her like the others chasing petition signatures or just a moment for children or Save Nature only $30 a month 

We all have a phone bill 

My stork beak keen is as old as this vase and her parable

My boots held together with luck stitches made for actual combat 

I'm not economic soldier just a tomb of an unknown poet 

Put a rose from mexico on my grave here's my Venmo we're all tempted to follow suit 

Not me

Qualms (1996)

  

when the qualms are exorcised&

monsters melt, you see into the radiant night

investing my innermost groves

then your purr creates my soul

in one fell swoop& fuses

us beyond reason

toward laughter's song and patch

of tears raining for earth's scars

feeling memo fossils embedded

in art, alchemy of time water& rock,

essential as pine pipe& grace,

consciousness free 

FLB 1996 

Swale Canyon, Washington 

Not dragged down

  Not dragged down, dawn grass flourishes untrampled by athletics, by briefly uncaged dogs 

As sunblast moves clouds to sculpt for eye that which appears foreground 

Prisms jitter on every blade in the faintest stirring 

A single fantastic lighthouse in the crowd radiates head and corona my attention 

It must harbor some fat globule of water on its circus shoulder 

Spiderwebs usually invisible glimmer and die with the ebb and retreat of bird call and sun teeter totter 

Not far off the nearest mountain a  jigsaw scrabble makes words fleeting from sense 

Disruption a phalanx of insects throw a fetch toy sunglasses oblivious  

They evaporate also, stretch our legs to float peopled burdens elsewhere 

Our traces palimpsests of learning, echoes of dogma faux tattooed

Pick up the silly putty they grime spring with and stick it under the front row bleacher 

Who are we to sing of nature be it lifted or carbon copy recited off instructions quasar merged 

Within the lime light squeezes 

Bdale 

To get along with to begin

  

Flung in place of Big Bang born porn

our solar dilemma a comic, torn

   dialectic now swirling, giving light clean away

   winter dim trudges toward jests portrayed

in star-nests best crow-pieced schlock

of zirconium and nickel cheap cosmic rock.

   tinsels of jesus on real plastic trees

   autumn beheaded an acorn's round knees

with water cold soaking, built on that spring

life leaking man dust, mechanical things 

   sucking or pushing, a baby of atoms

   grandparent aminos, pre-eloquent patterns

   pointless the wandering wane of what's dim

   to begin with to get along with to begin with to begin. 

12/21/17 

  

wind horns of four hart darting fourpart hence

over sweeping bows amidst venerable spans

only halting munching

evergreen grown things ygdrasil favored

to supply abundant

comet flower tidepools of space teeming

w/starfish with horns three

as dragon dug death from roots long alive

justly occupied

forever well filled flush clear water

across earths drum

artesian spring carried force more fierce

wrought than mjolnirs big bang

squirrel stirred nutpots antics frenzy

rumor a dare devil toy

from under lady lake a stag riven hunk

of human stone floated from the bog

water spiders rowed time along bank root

drinking deftly

long draughts a myriad of life

stone became wind wind became man

man was carved

water war owned

sound imprisoned wolves

wolves shorn, caged as business

on wind full hungered the eagle juts

carving unfinished sign tones

domes carry cup ygrdraasil as seed it will be

were it was now known nut then

ships chart tenuous passage

as stolen stars scramble fishlike instant

the spore of the seed

on the tip of the horn sings not woeden

 

2017 

Neutron star merger divine (2017)

 before motion) her stasis benign, anti-malignant

harbored in photons crass-cast twine, indignant

   that magnets might attracted------ internecine foreplay,

   binary neutron merger, foundation stone laid

instant sea's placid deep, thrusting granite steep

in mere seconds liquefied codified bleep

   erasing yet writing material form,

   shekinah well soul, stone sought berm

lending neither vile nor relenting, violent

her spirit created from dust unrepentant el serpent,

   three pieced in suits that never good fit,

   if only man's architect warn't ultimate twit

   no blot would be bargained, not sun dismal dive

   blood be still on target, heading heart-ward, alive

 2017

Folly wends

  

Haphazard significance remiss,  

Folly wends our marble games 

Joining ides of march hare madness and marching orders 

To bridge a dock

To flaunt our ducks

The godless victory emblazoned her sweatshop knight

Upon every bleeding heart ball 

We kill time as we flop 

Drive the lane to abruptly yodel pleas ceasefire 

The popcorn burn and microwaved morn, consanguine 

The reference bought cheeps easter ads for mind-mowers 

Little lamb who fades out to sink thirty foot endorsement

Bo peep, his candy cane guile 

Summons shopping to asphalt the potholes  

The autistic terrorist with his hoe

Sharper than his gardeners, 

Five seconds tardy to self weed their rank 

Get in line, the bonanza clock proscribes 

Be a sport good, sporting goods 

As virtual cart reality our eggs unboil and whiten 

Down the yolk that's on us 

Sunshine blinders bent as dewfed grass 

A cows lick smithed by a head slap 

Off to school, and empty your pockets at the front gargoyle 

There's no room in the library teeming bedlam char-leaders 

Knowledge ladders rung removed behind plate glass shredders 

Who's counting 

That's a foul, foul habit  

   

Union sun (2015)

  

soil as we know it gets in the way

easy to hire a crew to shape our whims

in an economy made to fit their shims, arbitrary.

only grass, driven

by a union sun

could dig

love 

2015

Portland 

Filling station ( Elizabeth Bishop)

  

Oh, but it is dirty!

—this little filling station,

oil-soaked, oil-permeated

to a disturbing, over-all

black translucency.

Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,

oil-soaked monkey suit

that cuts him under the arms,

and several quick and saucy

and greasy sons assist him

(it’s a family filling station),

all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?

It has a cement porch

behind the pumps, and on it

a set of crushed and grease-

impregnated wickerwork;

on the wicker sofa

a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide

the only note of color—

of certain color. They lie

upon a big dim doily

draping a taboret

(part of the set), beside

a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?

Why the taboret?

Why, oh why, the doily?

(Embroidered in daisy stitch

with marguerites, I think,

and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.

Somebody waters the plant,

or oils it, maybe. Somebody

arranges the rows of cans

so that they softly say:

esso—so—so—so

to high-strung automobiles.

Somebody loves us all. 

Elizabeth Bishop  

1965

The poems of our climate ( Wallace Stevens)

  

1. Pink and white carnations. The light

In the room more like a snowy air,

Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow

At the end of winter when afternoons return.

Pink and white carnations – one desires

So much more than that. The day itself

Is simplified: a bowl of white,

Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,

With nothing more than the carnations there. 

2. Say even that this complete simplicity

Stripped one of all one’s torments, concealed

The evilly compounded, vital I

And made it fresh in a world of white,

A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,

Still one would want more, one would need more,

More than a world of white and snowy scents. 

3. There would still remain the never-resting mind,

So that one would want to escape, come back

To what had been so long composed.

The imperfect is our paradise.

Note that, in this bitterness, delight,

Since the imperfect is so hot in us,

Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds. 

Wallace Stevens 

1942

A musical instrument ( Elizabeth B. Browning, 1862)

  

What was he doing, the great god Pan,

 Down in the reeds by the river?

Spreading ruin and scattering ban,

Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,

And breaking the golden lilies afloat

 With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,

 From the deep cool bed of the river:

The limpid water turbidly ran,

And the broken lilies a-dying lay,

And the dragon-fly had fled away,

 Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan

 While turbidly flowed the river;

And hacked and hewed as a great god can,

With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,

Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed

 To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,

 (How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,

Steadily from the outside ring,

And notched the poor dry empty thing

 In holes, as he sat by the river.

'This is the way,' laughed the great god Pan

 (Laughed while he sat by the river),

'The only way, since gods began

To make sweet music, they could succeed.'

Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

 He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!

 Piercing sweet by the river!

Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!

The sun on the hill forgot to die,

And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly

 Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,

 To laugh as he sits by the river,

Making a poet out of a man:

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,—

For the reed which grows nevermore again

 As a reed with the reeds in the river. 

Elizabeth Barret Browning 

1862

Emily Dickinson #1

  

Much Madness is divinest Sense -

To a discerning Eye -

Much Sense - the starkest Madness -

’Tis the Majority

In this, as all, prevail - 

Assent - and you are sane -

Demur - you’re straightway dangerous - 

And handled with a Chain - 

_____ 

Mine – by the Right of the White Election!

Mine – by the Royal Seal! 

Mine – by the sign in

the Scarlet prison – 

+Bars – cannot conceal!

Mine – here – in Vision – and

in Veto! 

Mine – by the Grave’s Repeal – 

____ 

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind — 

Emily Dickinson 

1860-70ish