Hello to the one or two people who may actually read this blog [other than me]
I hope you find this interesting and/or useful.
Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name
George Lakoff
Author, The Political Mind, Moral Politics, Don't Think of an Elephant!
How to Frame Yourself: A Framing Memo for Occupy Wall Street
I was asked weeks ago by some in the Occupy Wall Street movement to make suggestions for how to frame the movement. I have hesitated so far, because I think the movement should be framing itself. It's a general principle: Unless you frame yourself, others will frame you -- the media, your enemies, your competitors, your well-meaning friends. I have so far hesitated to offer suggestions. But the movement appears to maturing and entering a critical time when small framing errors could have large negative consequences. So I thought it might be helpful to accept the invitation and start a discussion of how the movement might think about framing itself.
About framing: It's normal. Everybody engages in it all the time. Frames are just structures of thought that we use every day. All words in all languages are defined in terms of frame-circuits in the brain. But, ultimately, framing is about ideas, about how we see the world, which determines how we act.
In politics, frames are part of competing moral systems that are used in political discourse and in charting political action. In short, framing is a moral enterprise: it says what the character of a movement is. All politics is moral. Political figures and movements always make policy recommendations claiming they are the right things to do. No political figure ever says, do what I say because it's wrong! Or because it doesn't matter! Some moral principles or other lie behind every political policy agenda.
Two Moral Framing Systems in Politics
Conservatives have figured out their moral basis and you see it on Wall Street: It includes: The primacy of self-interest. Individual responsibility, but not social responsibility. Hierarchical authority based on wealth or other forms of power. A moral hierarchy of who is "deserving," defined by success. And the highest principle is the primacy of this moral system itself, which goes beyond Wall Street and the economy to other arenas: family life, social life, religion, foreign policy, and especially government. Conservative "democracy" is seen as a system of governance and elections that fits this model.
Though OWS concerns go well beyond financial issues, your target is right: the application of these principles in Wall Street is central, since that is where the money comes from for elections, for media, and for right-wing policy-making institutions of all sorts on all issues.
The alternative view of democracy is progressive: Democracy starts with citizens caring about one another and acting responsibly on that sense of care, taking responsibility both for oneself and for one's family, community, country, people in general, and the planet. The role of government is to protect and empower all citizens equally via The Public: public infrastructure, laws and enforcement, health, education, scientific research, protection, public lands, transportation, resources, art and culture, trade policies, safety nets, and on and on. Nobody makes it one their own. If you got wealthy, you depended on The Public, and you have a responsibility to contribute significantly to The Public so that others can benefit in the future. Moreover, the wealthy depend on those who work, and who deserve a fair return for their contribution to our national life. Corporations exist to make life better for most people. Their reason for existing is as public as it is private.
A disproportionate distribution of wealth robs most citizens of access to the resources controlled by the wealthy. Immense wealth is a thief. It takes resources from the rest of the population -- the best places to live, the best food, the best educations, the best health facilities, access to the best in nature and culture, the best professionals, and on and on. Resources are limited, and great wealth greatly limits access to resources for most people.
It appears to me that OWS has a progressive moral vision and view of democracy, and that what it is protesting is the disastrous effects that have come from operating with a conservative moral, economic, and political worldview. I see OWS as primarily a moral movement, seeking economic and political changes to carry out that moral movement -- whatever those particular changes might be.
A Moral Focus for Occupy Wall Street
I think it is a good thing that the occupation movement is not making specific policy demands. If it did, the movement would become about those demands. If the demands were not met, the movement would be seen as having failed.
It seems to me that the OWS movement is moral in nature, that occupiers want the country to change its moral focus. It is easy to find useful policies; hundreds have been suggested. It is harder to find a moral focus and stick to it. If the movement is to frame itself, it should be on the basis of its moral focus, not a particular agenda or list of policy demands. If the moral focus of America changes, new people will be elected and the policies will follow. Without a change of moral focus, the conservative worldview that has brought us to the present disastrous and dangerous moment will continue to prevail.
We Love America. We're Here to Fix It
I see OWS as a patriotic movement, based on a deep and abiding love of country -- a patriotism that it is not just about the self-interests of individuals, but about what the country is and is to be. Do Americans care about other citizens, or mainly just about themselves? That's what love of America is about. I therefore think it is important to be positive, to be clear about loving America, seeing it in need of fixing, and not just being willing to fix it, but being willing to take to the streets to fix it. A populist movement starts with the people seeing that they are all in the same boat and being ready to come together to fix the leaks.
Publicize the Public
Tell the truth about The Public, that nobody makes it purely on their own without The Public, that is, without public infrastructure, the justice system, health, education, scientific research, protections of all sorts, public lands, transportation, resources, art and culture, trade policies, safety nets, ... That is a truth to be told day after day. It is an idea that must take hold in public discourse. It must go beyond what I and others have written about it and beyond what Elizabeth Warren has said in her famous video. The Public is not opposed to The Private. The Public is what makes The Private possible. And it is what makes freedom possible. Wall Street exists only through public support. It has a moral obligation to direct itself to public needs.
All OWS approaches to policy follow from such a moral focus. Here are a handful examples.
Democracy should be about the 99%
Money directs our politics. In a democracy, that must end. We need publicly supported elections, however that is to be arranged.
Strong Wages Make a Strong America
Middle-class wages have not gone up significantly in 30 years, and there is conservative pressure to lower them. But when most people get more money, they spend it and spur the economy, making the economy and the country stronger, as well as making their individual lives better. This truth needs to be central to public economic discourse.
Global Citizenship
America has been a moral beacon to the world. It can function as such only if it sets an example of what a nation should be.
Do we have to spend more on the military that all other nations combined? Do we really need hundreds of military bases abroad?
Nature
We are part of nature. Nature makes us, and all that we love, possible. Yet we are destroying Nature through global warming and other forms of ecological destruction, like fracking and deep-water drilling.
At a global scale, nature is systemic: its effects are neither local nor linear. Global warming is causing the ferocity of the monster storms, tornados, floods, blizzards, heat waves, and fires that have devastated huge areas of our country. The hotter the atmosphere, the more evaporated water and the more energy going into storms, tornados, and blizzards. Global warming cannot be shown to cause any particular storm, but when a storm system forms, global warming will ramp up the power of the storm and the amount of water it carries. In winter, evaporated water from the overly heated Pacific will go into the atmosphere, blow northeast over the arctic, and fall as record snows.
We depend on nature -- on clean air, water, food, and a livable climate. And we find beauty and grandeur in nature, and a sense of awe that makes life worth living. A love of country requires a love of nature. And a fair and thriving economy requires the preservation of nature as we have known it.
Summary
OWS is a moral and patriotic movement. It sees Democracy as flowing from citizens caring about one another as well as themselves, and acting with both personal and social responsibility. Democratic governance is about The Public, and the liberty that The Public provides for a thriving Private Sphere. From such a democracy flows fairness, which is incompatible with a hugely disproportionate distribution of wealth. And from the sense of care implicit in such a democracy flows a commitment to the preservation of nature.
From what I have seen of most members of OWS, your individual concerns all flow from one moral focus.
Elections
The Tea Party solidified the power of the conservative worldview via elections. OWS will have no long-term effect unless it too brings its moral focus to the 2012 elections. Insist on supporting candidates that have your overall moral views, no matter what the local issues are.
A Warning
This movement could be destroyed by negativity, by calls for revenge, by chaos, or by having nothing positive to say. Be positive about all things and state the moral basis of all suggestions. Positive and moral in calling for debt relief. Positive and moral in upholding laws, as they apply to finances. Positive and moral in calling for fairness in acquiring needed revenue. Positive and moral in calling for clean elections. To be effective, your movement must be seen by all of the 99% as positive and moral. To get positive press, you must stress the positive and the moral.
Remember: The Tea Party sees itself as stressing only individual responsibility. The Occupation Movement is stressing both individual and social responsibility.
I believe, and I think you believe, that most Americans care about their fellow citizens as well as themselves. Let's find out! Shout your moral and patriotic views out loud, regularly. Put them on your signs. Repeat them to the media. Tweet them. And tell everyone you know to do the same. You have to use your own language with your own framing and you have to repeat it over and over for the ideas to sink in.
Occupy elections: voter registration drives, town hall meetings, talk radio airtime, party organizations, nomination campaigns, election campaigns, and voting booths.
Above all: Frame yourselves before others frame you.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Occupy Wall Street
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Occupy Wall Street: Again...
More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.
True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.
The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.
Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.
Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.
Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.
Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.
Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.
Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Occupy Wall Street
JOBS; EQUALITY; ACCOUNTABILITY
Why?
The immediate cause of all the mischief of misrule is, that the men and women acting as the representatives of the people have a private and sinister interest, producing a constant sacrifice of the interest of the people. William Leggett
They [the poor] have to labor in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France in Le Lys Rouge
True Functions of Government New York Evening Post, November 21, 1834. Title added by Theodore Sedgwick, Jr. in editing A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840).
The fundamental principle of all governments is the protection of person and property from domestic and foreign enemies; in other words, to defend the weak against the strong. By establishing the social feeling in a community, it was intended to counteract that selfish feeling, which, in its proper exercise, is the parent of all worldly good, and, in its excesses, the root of all evil. The functions of Government, when confined to their proper sphere of action, are therefore restricted to the making of general laws, uniform and universal in their operation, for these purposes, and for no other.
Governments have no right to interfere with the pursuits of individuals, as guarantied by those general laws, by offering encouragements and granting privileges to any particular class of industry, or any select bodies of men, inasmuch as all classes of industry and all men are equally important to the general welfare, and equally entitled to protection.
Whenever a Government assumes the power of discriminating between the different classes of the community, it becomes, in effect, the arbiter of their prosperity, and exercises a power not contemplated by any intelligent people in delegating their sovereignty to their rulers. It then becomes the great regulator of the profits of every species of industry, and reduces men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their Government. Governments possess no delegated right to tamper with individual industry a single hair's-breadth beyond what is essential to protect the rights of person and property.
In the exercise of this power of intermeddling with the private pursuits and individual occupations of the citizen, a Government may at pleasure elevate one class and depress another; it may one day legislate exclusively for the farmer, the next for the mechanic, and the third for the manufacturer, who all thus become the mere puppets of legislative cobbling and tinkering, instead of independent citizens, relying on their own resources for their prosperity. It assumes the functions which belong alone to an overruling Providence, and affects to become the universal dispenser of good and evil.
This power of regulating—of increasing or diminishing the profits of labour and the value of property of all kinds and degrees, by direct legislation, in a great measure destroys the essential object of all civil compacts, which, as we said before, is to make the social a counterpoise to the selfish feeling. By thus operating directly on the latter, by offering one class a bounty and another a discouragement, they involve the selfish feeling in every struggle of party for the ascendancy, and give to the force of political rivalry all the bitterest excitement of personal interests conflicting with each other. Why is it that parties now exhibit excitement aggravated to a degree dangerous to the existence of the Union and to the peace of society? Is it not that by frequent exercises of partial legislation, almost every man's personal interests have become deeply involved in the result of the contest? In common times, the strife of parties is the mere struggle of ambitious leaders for power; now they are deadly contests of the whole mass of the people, whose pecuniary interests are implicated in the event, because the Government has usurped and exercised the power of legislating on their private affairs. The selfish feeling has been so strongly called into action by this abuse of authority as almost to overpower the social feeling, which it should be the object of a good Government to foster by every means in its power.
No nation, knowingly and voluntarily, with its eyes open, ever delegated to its Government this enormous power, which places at its disposal the property, the industry, and the fruits of the industry, of the whole people. As a general rule, the prosperity of rational men depends on themselves. Their talents and their virtues shape their fortunes. They are therefore the best judges of their own affairs, and should be permitted to seek their own happiness in their own way, untrammelled by the capricious interference of legislative bungling, so long as they do not violate the equal rights of others, nor transgress the general laws for the security of person and property.
But modern refinements have introduced new principles in the science of Government. Our own Government, most especially, has assumed and exercised an authority over the people, not unlike that of weak and vacillating parents over their children, and with about the same degree of impartiality. One child becomes a favourite because he has made a fortune, and another because he has failed in the pursuit of that object; one because of its beauty, and another because of its deformity. Our Government has thus exercised the right of dispensing favours to one or another class of citizens at will; of directing its patronage first here and then there; of bestowing one day and taking back the next; of giving to the few and denying to the many; of investing wealth with new and exclusive privileges, and distributing, as it were at random, and with a capricious policy, in unequal portions, what it ought not to bestow, or what, if given away, should be equally the portion of all.
A government administered on such a system of policy may be called a Government of Equal Rights, but it is in its nature and essence a disguised despotism. It is the capricious dispenser of good and evil, without any restraint, except its own sovereign will. It holds in its hand the distribution of the goods of this world, and is consequently the uncontrolled master of the people.
Such was not the object of the Government of the United States, nor such the powers delegated to it by the people. The object was beyond doubt to protect the weak against the strong, by giving them an equal voice and equal rights in the state; not to make one portion stronger, the other weaker at pleasure, by crippling one or more classes of the community, or making them tributary to one alone. This is too great a power to entrust to Government. It was never given away by the people, and is not a right, but a usurpation.
Experience will show that this power has always been exercised under the influence and for the exclusive benefit of wealth. It was never wielded in behalf of the community. Whenever an exception is made to the general law of the land, founded on the principle of equal rights, it will always be found to be in favour of wealth. These immunities are never bestowed on the poor. They have no claim to a dispensation of exclusive benefits, and their only business is to "take care of the rich that the rich may take care of the poor."
Thus it will be seen that the sole reliance of the labouring classes, who constitute a vast majority of every people on the earth, is the great principle of Equal Rights; that their only safeguard against oppression is a system of legislation which leaves all to the free exercise of their talents and industry, within the limits of the GENERAL LAW, and which, on no pretence of public good, bestows on any particular class of industry, or any particular body of men, rights or privileges not equally enjoyed by the great aggregate of the body politic.
Time will remedy the departures which have already been made from this sound republican system, if the people but jealously watch and indignantly frown on any future attempts to invade their equal rights, or appropriate to the few what belongs to all alike. To quote, in conclusion, the language of the great man, with whose admirable sentiment we commenced these remarks, "it is time to pause in our career—if we cannot at once, in justice to the interests vested under improvident legislation, make our government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, and against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many."
Why me?
In my damned beloved universe I would like to be a lonely weed, but not a delicate Narcissus kissing his own mug in the mirror. I would like to be any of God’s creatures right down to the last mangy hyena--but never a tyrant or even the cat of a tyrant. I would not like to be in the elite, nor, of course, in the cowardly herd, nor be a guard dog of that herd, nor a shepherd, sheltered by that herd. And I would like happiness, but not at the expense of the unhappy, and I would like freedom, but not at the expense of the unfree. Yevgenii Yevtushenko
If not you then whom?
Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name
Why?
The immediate cause of all the mischief of misrule is, that the men and women acting as the representatives of the people have a private and sinister interest, producing a constant sacrifice of the interest of the people. William Leggett
They [the poor] have to labor in the face of the majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France in Le Lys Rouge
True Functions of Government New York Evening Post, November 21, 1834. Title added by Theodore Sedgwick, Jr. in editing A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840).
The fundamental principle of all governments is the protection of person and property from domestic and foreign enemies; in other words, to defend the weak against the strong. By establishing the social feeling in a community, it was intended to counteract that selfish feeling, which, in its proper exercise, is the parent of all worldly good, and, in its excesses, the root of all evil. The functions of Government, when confined to their proper sphere of action, are therefore restricted to the making of general laws, uniform and universal in their operation, for these purposes, and for no other.
Governments have no right to interfere with the pursuits of individuals, as guarantied by those general laws, by offering encouragements and granting privileges to any particular class of industry, or any select bodies of men, inasmuch as all classes of industry and all men are equally important to the general welfare, and equally entitled to protection.
Whenever a Government assumes the power of discriminating between the different classes of the community, it becomes, in effect, the arbiter of their prosperity, and exercises a power not contemplated by any intelligent people in delegating their sovereignty to their rulers. It then becomes the great regulator of the profits of every species of industry, and reduces men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their Government. Governments possess no delegated right to tamper with individual industry a single hair's-breadth beyond what is essential to protect the rights of person and property.
In the exercise of this power of intermeddling with the private pursuits and individual occupations of the citizen, a Government may at pleasure elevate one class and depress another; it may one day legislate exclusively for the farmer, the next for the mechanic, and the third for the manufacturer, who all thus become the mere puppets of legislative cobbling and tinkering, instead of independent citizens, relying on their own resources for their prosperity. It assumes the functions which belong alone to an overruling Providence, and affects to become the universal dispenser of good and evil.
This power of regulating—of increasing or diminishing the profits of labour and the value of property of all kinds and degrees, by direct legislation, in a great measure destroys the essential object of all civil compacts, which, as we said before, is to make the social a counterpoise to the selfish feeling. By thus operating directly on the latter, by offering one class a bounty and another a discouragement, they involve the selfish feeling in every struggle of party for the ascendancy, and give to the force of political rivalry all the bitterest excitement of personal interests conflicting with each other. Why is it that parties now exhibit excitement aggravated to a degree dangerous to the existence of the Union and to the peace of society? Is it not that by frequent exercises of partial legislation, almost every man's personal interests have become deeply involved in the result of the contest? In common times, the strife of parties is the mere struggle of ambitious leaders for power; now they are deadly contests of the whole mass of the people, whose pecuniary interests are implicated in the event, because the Government has usurped and exercised the power of legislating on their private affairs. The selfish feeling has been so strongly called into action by this abuse of authority as almost to overpower the social feeling, which it should be the object of a good Government to foster by every means in its power.
No nation, knowingly and voluntarily, with its eyes open, ever delegated to its Government this enormous power, which places at its disposal the property, the industry, and the fruits of the industry, of the whole people. As a general rule, the prosperity of rational men depends on themselves. Their talents and their virtues shape their fortunes. They are therefore the best judges of their own affairs, and should be permitted to seek their own happiness in their own way, untrammelled by the capricious interference of legislative bungling, so long as they do not violate the equal rights of others, nor transgress the general laws for the security of person and property.
But modern refinements have introduced new principles in the science of Government. Our own Government, most especially, has assumed and exercised an authority over the people, not unlike that of weak and vacillating parents over their children, and with about the same degree of impartiality. One child becomes a favourite because he has made a fortune, and another because he has failed in the pursuit of that object; one because of its beauty, and another because of its deformity. Our Government has thus exercised the right of dispensing favours to one or another class of citizens at will; of directing its patronage first here and then there; of bestowing one day and taking back the next; of giving to the few and denying to the many; of investing wealth with new and exclusive privileges, and distributing, as it were at random, and with a capricious policy, in unequal portions, what it ought not to bestow, or what, if given away, should be equally the portion of all.
A government administered on such a system of policy may be called a Government of Equal Rights, but it is in its nature and essence a disguised despotism. It is the capricious dispenser of good and evil, without any restraint, except its own sovereign will. It holds in its hand the distribution of the goods of this world, and is consequently the uncontrolled master of the people.
Such was not the object of the Government of the United States, nor such the powers delegated to it by the people. The object was beyond doubt to protect the weak against the strong, by giving them an equal voice and equal rights in the state; not to make one portion stronger, the other weaker at pleasure, by crippling one or more classes of the community, or making them tributary to one alone. This is too great a power to entrust to Government. It was never given away by the people, and is not a right, but a usurpation.
Experience will show that this power has always been exercised under the influence and for the exclusive benefit of wealth. It was never wielded in behalf of the community. Whenever an exception is made to the general law of the land, founded on the principle of equal rights, it will always be found to be in favour of wealth. These immunities are never bestowed on the poor. They have no claim to a dispensation of exclusive benefits, and their only business is to "take care of the rich that the rich may take care of the poor."
Thus it will be seen that the sole reliance of the labouring classes, who constitute a vast majority of every people on the earth, is the great principle of Equal Rights; that their only safeguard against oppression is a system of legislation which leaves all to the free exercise of their talents and industry, within the limits of the GENERAL LAW, and which, on no pretence of public good, bestows on any particular class of industry, or any particular body of men, rights or privileges not equally enjoyed by the great aggregate of the body politic.
Time will remedy the departures which have already been made from this sound republican system, if the people but jealously watch and indignantly frown on any future attempts to invade their equal rights, or appropriate to the few what belongs to all alike. To quote, in conclusion, the language of the great man, with whose admirable sentiment we commenced these remarks, "it is time to pause in our career—if we cannot at once, in justice to the interests vested under improvident legislation, make our government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, and against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many."
Why me?
In my damned beloved universe I would like to be a lonely weed, but not a delicate Narcissus kissing his own mug in the mirror. I would like to be any of God’s creatures right down to the last mangy hyena--but never a tyrant or even the cat of a tyrant. I would not like to be in the elite, nor, of course, in the cowardly herd, nor be a guard dog of that herd, nor a shepherd, sheltered by that herd. And I would like happiness, but not at the expense of the unhappy, and I would like freedom, but not at the expense of the unfree. Yevgenii Yevtushenko
If not you then whom?
Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Adonde vas...
En la luna negra
de los bandoleros,
cantan las espuelas.
Caballito negro ¿Dónde llevas tu jinete muerto?
…Las duras espuelas …
del bandido inmóvil
que perdió las riendas.
By: Federico Garcia Lorca
de los bandoleros,
cantan las espuelas.
Caballito negro ¿Dónde llevas tu jinete muerto?
…Las duras espuelas …
del bandido inmóvil
que perdió las riendas.
By: Federico Garcia Lorca
Friday, September 2, 2011
Why?
Because...
To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;
A time to kill, and
a time to heal;
a time to break down, and
a time to build up;
A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and
a time to lose;
a time to keep, and
a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and
a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;
A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
To everything there is a season, and
a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and
a time to die;
a time to plant, and
a time to pluck up
that which is planted;
A time to kill, and
a time to heal;
a time to break down, and
a time to build up;
A time to weep, and
a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and
a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and
a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and
a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and
a time to lose;
a time to keep, and
a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and
a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and
a time to speak;
A time to love, and
a time to hate;
a time of war; and
a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Sunday, July 31, 2011
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
By Pablo Neruda
Loved by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
By Pablo Neruda
Loved by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Friday, July 15, 2011
Always
I am not jealous
of what came before me.
Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!
Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!
By Pablo Neruda
Copied, pasted and lived by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
of what came before me.
Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!
Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!
By Pablo Neruda
Copied, pasted and lived by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Sunday, June 12, 2011
What is required?
"And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to
love mercy
and to walk humbly with
your God."
Micah 6:8
Doesn't seem God is asking for a lot, so why don't we do it?
Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
To act justly and to
love mercy
and to walk humbly with
your God."
Micah 6:8
Doesn't seem God is asking for a lot, so why don't we do it?
Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Thursday, June 2, 2011
May 33, 2011
Brooding on Circumstance: Poem 1
By Zhang Jiuling
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Brooded over by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
A swan on its own comes flying inland
Too lofty to prey on ponds of the weak,
And sees askance two lavish kingfishers
Nesting proud on a pearl-tree's peak:
Atop their treasure-tree, high as if mighty,
When don't they fear the bronze bullets' flight?
For wearers of wealth are worn down in the crosshairs
And grandeur will crowd the gods to spite.
And I now roam far beyond range of men's eyes.
So what shall the fowl-hunter's heart now prize?
By Zhang Jiuling
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Brooded over by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
A swan on its own comes flying inland
Too lofty to prey on ponds of the weak,
And sees askance two lavish kingfishers
Nesting proud on a pearl-tree's peak:
Atop their treasure-tree, high as if mighty,
When don't they fear the bronze bullets' flight?
For wearers of wealth are worn down in the crosshairs
And grandeur will crowd the gods to spite.
And I now roam far beyond range of men's eyes.
So what shall the fowl-hunter's heart now prize?
Far and Away
by Fanny Howe
copied and pasted by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
The rain falls on.
Acres of violets unfold.
Dandelion, mayflower
Myrtle and forsythia follow.
The cardinals call to each other.
Echoes of delicate
Breath-broken whistles.
I know something now
About subject, object, verb
And about one word that fails
For lack of substance.
Now people say, He passed on
Instead of that. Unit
Of space subtracted by one.
It almost rhymes with earth.
What is a poet but a person
Who lives on the ground
Who laughs and listens
Without pretension of knowing
Anything, driven by the lyric's
Quest for rest that never
(God willing) will be found?
Concord, kitchen table, 1966.
Corbetts, Creeley, a grandmother
And me. Sweater, glasses,
One wet eye.
Lots of laughter
Before and after. Every meeting
Rhymed and fluttered into meter.
The beat was the message. . . .
copied and pasted by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
The rain falls on.
Acres of violets unfold.
Dandelion, mayflower
Myrtle and forsythia follow.
The cardinals call to each other.
Echoes of delicate
Breath-broken whistles.
I know something now
About subject, object, verb
And about one word that fails
For lack of substance.
Now people say, He passed on
Instead of that. Unit
Of space subtracted by one.
It almost rhymes with earth.
What is a poet but a person
Who lives on the ground
Who laughs and listens
Without pretension of knowing
Anything, driven by the lyric's
Quest for rest that never
(God willing) will be found?
Concord, kitchen table, 1966.
Corbetts, Creeley, a grandmother
And me. Sweater, glasses,
One wet eye.
Lots of laughter
Before and after. Every meeting
Rhymed and fluttered into meter.
The beat was the message. . . .
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
To those who look at the night sky in wonder...
Poetry
by Pablo Neruda
And it was at that time... Poetry came
to find me. Don’t know, don’t know from where,
it leapt, winter or the river.
Don’t know how or when
no, not words, not
voices, not silence,
but I was called from the street,
from the branches of the night,
suddenly, from the others,
in violent flames,
or coming back alone,
I, without a face,
it touched me.
I did not know how to say, my mouth
no names,
my eyes
were blind,
and something began in my soul,
fever or lost wings,
and I made it alone,
deciphering,
that fire,
and I wrote the first, vague line,
vague, without a body, pure
nonsense,
pure knowledge,
of he who knows nothing,
and suddenly saw
the sky
unlock
and open,
planets,
pulsating spaces,
perforated shadows,
riddled
with fires, flowers, flights,
the revolving night, the universe.
And I the smallest thing,
made drunk by the great void,
starred,
in the image, likeness
of mystery,
felt myself pure part
of abyss,
turned with the starlight,
my heart broken loose in the wind.
by Pablo Neruda
And it was at that time... Poetry came
to find me. Don’t know, don’t know from where,
it leapt, winter or the river.
Don’t know how or when
no, not words, not
voices, not silence,
but I was called from the street,
from the branches of the night,
suddenly, from the others,
in violent flames,
or coming back alone,
I, without a face,
it touched me.
I did not know how to say, my mouth
no names,
my eyes
were blind,
and something began in my soul,
fever or lost wings,
and I made it alone,
deciphering,
that fire,
and I wrote the first, vague line,
vague, without a body, pure
nonsense,
pure knowledge,
of he who knows nothing,
and suddenly saw
the sky
unlock
and open,
planets,
pulsating spaces,
perforated shadows,
riddled
with fires, flowers, flights,
the revolving night, the universe.
And I the smallest thing,
made drunk by the great void,
starred,
in the image, likeness
of mystery,
felt myself pure part
of abyss,
turned with the starlight,
my heart broken loose in the wind.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Ode to Joy
Each day brings that which was not here before
And takes away what shall be here no more;
For every grief the snows of winter make,
The gleam of spring a thousand joys awake.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, IX
And takes away what shall be here no more;
For every grief the snows of winter make,
The gleam of spring a thousand joys awake.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, IX
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Last Nickel
A father walks into a restaurant with his young son. He gives the young boy 3 nickels to play with to keep him occupied. Suddenly, the boy starts choking, going blue in the face.
The father realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back. The boy coughs up 2 of the nickels, but keeps choking. Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.
A well-dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at the coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.
Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants; takes hold of the boy's' testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly. After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.
Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor? "
"No," the woman replied, "I'm with the Internal Revenue Service".
The father realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back. The boy coughs up 2 of the nickels, but keeps choking. Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.
A well-dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at the coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.
Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants; takes hold of the boy's' testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly. After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.
Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor? "
"No," the woman replied, "I'm with the Internal Revenue Service".
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Flowers and News
When I speak
of flowers
it is to recall
that at one time
we were young.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
By: William Carlos Williams
Copied and loved by: Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name ... in the end
of flowers
it is to recall
that at one time
we were young.
It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.
By: William Carlos Williams
Copied and loved by: Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name ... in the end
Monday, April 4, 2011
In the End
all we want is to be slippery,
smooth,
strained
into silk--
is what I thought,
when I saw
you there
enjoying seasons that had
passed us, seasons
that came out of turn.
I know you
wanted me to judge you, but
there was no jury to decide
your guilt. Anyway,
what could I charge
for the dirty crime
of making me wait,
like words
scrambling for euphony
in an endophasic embryo?
We are never right or wrong.
All we can hope is to be
less than dull, shiny
like well kept cars,
in need of no refinement.
You
and I were not lovers,
but assassins.
The most recent kill
always the hardest,
each time,
less and less
coated
by the shock.
By: Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña
Copied and loved by: Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name in the end...
all we want is to be slippery,
smooth,
strained
into silk--
is what I thought,
when I saw
you there
enjoying seasons that had
passed us, seasons
that came out of turn.
I know you
wanted me to judge you, but
there was no jury to decide
your guilt. Anyway,
what could I charge
for the dirty crime
of making me wait,
like words
scrambling for euphony
in an endophasic embryo?
We are never right or wrong.
All we can hope is to be
less than dull, shiny
like well kept cars,
in need of no refinement.
You
and I were not lovers,
but assassins.
The most recent kill
always the hardest,
each time,
less and less
coated
by the shock.
By: Gabriela Anaya Valdepeña
Copied and loved by: Homeless with a Laptop, That is My Name in the end...
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Sonnet No. 1
From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
By: William Shakespeare
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.
By: William Shakespeare
Saturday, March 12, 2011
On Wisconsin
Wisconsin's Governor Walker and the GOP legislature's actions, bought and paid for by the Koch brothers and other corporate interests, bring to mind the following:
“The immediate cause of all the mischief of misrule is, that the men and women acting as the representatives of the people have a private and sinister interest, producing a constant sacrifice of the interest of the people.”
William Leggett
DO NOT ALLOW "REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE" [I.E., ONLY RICH PEOPLE] TAKE AWAY THE RIGHTS OF AMERICA'S REAL PEOPLE, IT'S WORKERS!
SOLIDARITY!!!
GLEN
“The immediate cause of all the mischief of misrule is, that the men and women acting as the representatives of the people have a private and sinister interest, producing a constant sacrifice of the interest of the people.”
William Leggett
DO NOT ALLOW "REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE" [I.E., ONLY RICH PEOPLE] TAKE AWAY THE RIGHTS OF AMERICA'S REAL PEOPLE, IT'S WORKERS!
SOLIDARITY!!!
GLEN
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Making Poetic Love
You asked how poets make love with words
I decided to show you not by mouth or curves
Tonight I'll write my poetry across the canvas
Of your body, my willing blinded accomplice
Expressing my innermost secret desires
Planning every word's placement my pen attires
Your angled and plane aroused contour
With pleasure filled fantasies writing on your
honeyed skin; tastes of budding succulence
Building from the ladder of your emergence
From dreamlike slumber to writhing climax
Orgasmic words are the finest aphrodisiacs
So when you feel my pen tantricly lift up
I'll mount you Lover while I sensuously touch
And moan each tattooed word in your ear
Til you can't breathe and can't conjure
More passionate love than a poet's words
By: Can't remember name
Copied and lived by: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
I decided to show you not by mouth or curves
Tonight I'll write my poetry across the canvas
Of your body, my willing blinded accomplice
Expressing my innermost secret desires
Planning every word's placement my pen attires
Your angled and plane aroused contour
With pleasure filled fantasies writing on your
honeyed skin; tastes of budding succulence
Building from the ladder of your emergence
From dreamlike slumber to writhing climax
Orgasmic words are the finest aphrodisiacs
So when you feel my pen tantricly lift up
I'll mount you Lover while I sensuously touch
And moan each tattooed word in your ear
Til you can't breathe and can't conjure
More passionate love than a poet's words
By: Can't remember name
Copied and lived by: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Sunday, February 13, 2011
‘Bound for your distant home’
By Alexsandr Pushkin
Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.
But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.’
But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ......
I wait for it: you owe it me .......
By Alexsandr Pushkin
Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.
But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.’
But there, alas, where the sky
shines with blue radiance,
where olive-tree shadows lie
on the waters glittering dance,
your beauty, your suffering,
are lost in eternity.
But the sweet kiss of our meeting ......
I wait for it: you owe it me .......
Saturday, February 5, 2011
In the Afternoon of my Life
Stone is a forehead where dreams grieve
without curving waters and frozen cypresses.
Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time
with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets.
Federico Garcia Lorca “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”
Things do not occur without reason,
without some special need for them.
Who will remember me? The gray that I’ve seen
Of winter’s misty streets at dusk
the lighted building windows against the darkness of the sky;
the rebirth of life and spirit that I felt
like Cherry blossoms during Spring;
the hot sultry nights of Summer
where two lovers chance fate’s decrees.
The reds, yellows and browns of Autumn’s rainbow,
that forecast Winter’s gray and white sheet.
Who will remember yesterday’s memories that
I strain to capture in these few lines for you.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely head
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
What is the cause of things, why are they so?
Is it some heavenly master plan or
Fickle fate that prevented you and I from ever meeting?
Perhaps we would have not prevailed…
Or… our happiness too short lived.
But… perhaps… we would have.
For you, I would have: fought dragons,
conquered mountains,
written songs and poems,
collected flowers for your mornings,
sat by you in the afternoon
driving home from work;
brought you a blanket and my
burning body to keep you warm
during the cold nights;
loved you with all my being, for
only you have I loved, and
was honored to be loved by you.
This you must know.
Yet darkness comes to us all,
my heart’s wounds are too deep;
for I bared my soul; now the pain is
more than I can bear.
For a brief moment I wondered:
Do dreams come true after all
these years?
Alas, they remain but dreams.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.
The autumn will come with small white snails,
misty grapes and with clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died forever.
Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth, like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.
Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
I sing of [your] elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.
Federico Garcia Lorca “Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”
In the afternoon of my life, I sit on a rock
I can't see all the other rocks;
my thoughts are buried there.
I don't want to remember the past,
The present is but an instant, and
I don't care about the “future”.
“Past, present, future”... they are but
words that some philosopher made up;
they have no relevance for the dead
and the dying.
By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
without curving waters and frozen cypresses.
Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time
with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets.
Federico Garcia Lorca “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”
Things do not occur without reason,
without some special need for them.
Who will remember me? The gray that I’ve seen
Of winter’s misty streets at dusk
the lighted building windows against the darkness of the sky;
the rebirth of life and spirit that I felt
like Cherry blossoms during Spring;
the hot sultry nights of Summer
where two lovers chance fate’s decrees.
The reds, yellows and browns of Autumn’s rainbow,
that forecast Winter’s gray and white sheet.
Who will remember yesterday’s memories that
I strain to capture in these few lines for you.
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely head
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
What is the cause of things, why are they so?
Is it some heavenly master plan or
Fickle fate that prevented you and I from ever meeting?
Perhaps we would have not prevailed…
Or… our happiness too short lived.
But… perhaps… we would have.
For you, I would have: fought dragons,
conquered mountains,
written songs and poems,
collected flowers for your mornings,
sat by you in the afternoon
driving home from work;
brought you a blanket and my
burning body to keep you warm
during the cold nights;
loved you with all my being, for
only you have I loved, and
was honored to be loved by you.
This you must know.
Yet darkness comes to us all,
my heart’s wounds are too deep;
for I bared my soul; now the pain is
more than I can bear.
For a brief moment I wondered:
Do dreams come true after all
these years?
Alas, they remain but dreams.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.
The autumn will come with small white snails,
misty grapes and with clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died forever.
Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth, like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.
Nobody knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
I sing of [your] elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.
Federico Garcia Lorca “Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”
In the afternoon of my life, I sit on a rock
I can't see all the other rocks;
my thoughts are buried there.
I don't want to remember the past,
The present is but an instant, and
I don't care about the “future”.
“Past, present, future”... they are but
words that some philosopher made up;
they have no relevance for the dead
and the dying.
By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Dedicated to Kara...
Our Wood...
Is a magical place
where I laid my head...
in your lap... and ran my
fingers through your hair...
I told you my greatest dreams
and cried my saddest songs...
where my dreams came to...
nothing
I dreamed of finding you
in our wood...
of birches and firs
of sunflowers and golden bumblebees
who buzzed and buzzed
around two ghostly figures
that sought to find one another...
and almost did
I cried for the peace of our wood
by a brook of crystal waters
formed by tears of...
anguished hearts who roam and roam
the valleys and hills of life
in search of ...
a dream too good to be true...
and it is
The slumber of drunkenness
provides no relief, nor brings me closer...
to our wood, where we sought to join
in a place that time stood still
where joy would last...
but whose magic is short-lived
That I’ve resigned myself to a life...
of... dreams, slumber, dizzing heights
and deepest lows...is but a dialectical process.
A statue in our wood dries... ever harder
and harder... the plaster conforms...
to fate’s unseen hand that shapes...
a mold it did not choose ... my
contribution is the tear in its eye
Is a magical place
where I laid my head...
in your lap... and ran my
fingers through your hair...
I told you my greatest dreams
and cried my saddest songs...
where my dreams came to...
nothing
I dreamed of finding you
in our wood...
of birches and firs
of sunflowers and golden bumblebees
who buzzed and buzzed
around two ghostly figures
that sought to find one another...
and almost did
I cried for the peace of our wood
by a brook of crystal waters
formed by tears of...
anguished hearts who roam and roam
the valleys and hills of life
in search of ...
a dream too good to be true...
and it is
The slumber of drunkenness
provides no relief, nor brings me closer...
to our wood, where we sought to join
in a place that time stood still
where joy would last...
but whose magic is short-lived
That I’ve resigned myself to a life...
of... dreams, slumber, dizzing heights
and deepest lows...is but a dialectical process.
A statue in our wood dries... ever harder
and harder... the plaster conforms...
to fate’s unseen hand that shapes...
a mold it did not choose ... my
contribution is the tear in its eye
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