Marty/Reading

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Poems/Marty Christensen

LORNA

You are a plum tree moving
towards the mountains.
Liberated, you are a jade flute
used only in the highest
mayan ceremonies. I guess
you are
about the only american
whose tastes are truly French.
you could be a jukebox.
I could be a dime.

PROSE POEM

Scientists, working for Adolph Hitler,
succeeded somehow in transforming 500

pineal glands into one enormous freak, who
to this day lives on, above the Alps, where

he lies bleeding in a thousand languages.
Recently, carried by a southern wind, globs

of his spit dropped onto Texas lawns whose
owners swore the “blobs” were still growing

hours later. Isaac Asimov, scientific expert
called in by the government, was heard on tv

to make this remark…Oh my God, Oh my God. For
nestling in the phlegm was something enigmatic.

THE WRONG PROFESSION

I am tired of being an insane poet.
I want to drive around in a big cigar.

IN THIS POEM

There is an imaginary ocean. Not a
merely magical lake: a vast exhausted ocean
which can barely even undulate
its aches and pains around much anymore.

Overhead the pockmarked corpse of the moon
is starting to shed dandruff. Almost all
these specks of manna will disintegrate
into that unsteady lawn of spindrift tears.

But, some of those flakes may crystallize
and harden into diamonds sparkling like dew.
Only by then they could be a million fathoms down
so even if you did find one you probably would drown.

Marty Christensen (1942-2012)


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Fraudster

Hillary Clinton has not “fought for racial justice” her entire life — she has disrespected and betrayed Americans of color.

Furthermore, Clinton has flip-flopped on a myriad of issues including immigration, the Iraq War, the Patriot Act, gay marriage, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, NAFTA, the Keystone pipeline, and gun control, always becoming more liberal as time goes on, and evolving, rather than fighting, “every step along the way.”

On foreign policy, Clinton is often called a war hawk — not exactly a progressive thing to be.

Poor Hillary is getting beaten up by the know-nothing ideologues on the left.

She's no Emma Goldman.  That's the latest rumor, anyway.

Ted Rall doesn't think so either.

Nor does Lauren McCauley.

Meanwhile, Katrina vanden Huevel has some advice for Benie.

Ha, ha, what a season.


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My Favorites

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L

Denver is up on Carolina at the half in the Stupor Bowl, and boy is that the correct handle!

I'm here, rather than there, and I refuse to watch the halftime show, the unpalatable extravaganza which is the epitome of over-hyped excess in this show every year.

So this year the powers ditched the Roman numeral for the game.  I didn't realize that was on the ticket until recently.  I lost track of the numerical designation after Super Bowl XXX because I never bothered to memorize the entire old system, so it was probably a good thing for me.

I guess "L" looked too lonely for the top brass.  Next year the powers will risk confusing LI with the old poet Li Po, won't they?

Gotta kill some more time until halftime is over.  Should take a long walk like Billy Lynn.


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Before Bundy and His Boys

This is a good historical perspective, with some amazing old photographs, on the Harney County debacle.

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Nice Day

Man, is it ever a beautiful mid-winter day here in Portland.  A little spring in the air, if not in my step.

Talk yesterday of today reaching a record high temp.  We'll see about that.


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Pencil/RP Thomas

I like this.  Very subtle and unforced.  The discrete blue on the vase in the lower corner is a kill shot.

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Super Bowl Sunday

I like football, but I hate the hype, pompousness and disingenuous militarism that surrounds the game.

Come to think of it, the military and pro football do have something in common.  Both use people, right up to the time they become damaged goods, and then do as little as possible to take care of them after the fact.


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Trump Fans

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Ha!

Duh troof.


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Poem of the Day

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the American Flag

As a sari while scrounging
For food in America’s dumpster.
As down payment on a hospital death bed.
As promise to suspend habeas corpus.
As camouflaged team uniforms in the “war on terror.”
As message from God.
As wistful memory of the imaginary American Dream.
As dubious plot to make all men equal when they
Are surely not, never were, and never will be.
As walk-off home run in a nuclear war.
As jealous amateur in a chili cook-off.
As highlight film in a vacuum-sealed
Plastic container in Baltimore.
As ideology before common sense.
As the silly advancement of technology.
As Bob Hope’s nose.

from Cello Music & Other Poems
by Terry Simons

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Good Advice

From CD's blog.

I agree 100 percent.  Do something, Bern.

Early in his campaign I would write back to his media team and bitch about his inadequacies whenever they sent me an e-mail and donor request while castigating the billionaires.

I hate billionaires as much as the next guy, but it's not their fault that Americans are mainly stupid and buy all the shit they sell.

That is on you, America.

I would write things like, "Get a foreign policy clue, Bernie."  And, "Free Palestine!" Just to annoy the team.

I was fucking with them, of course, and then one of his media guys disappeared in the scandal awhile back when Berns had to fire people for their campaign transgression against Hillary's private parts!

Er, mailing list.

I think that guy joined the D.C. Patriot Movement and took up arms...

I got on the radical communist's list by volunteering for a paid position, didn't get hired, so all I can really contribute is a vote for Bernie.  If you're not paying me, KMA.

I don't write them anymore, but I still like the Bern.  I agree with CD that Liz ought to jump on Bernie's boat.

But I wonder...Will it sink or float?


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Post-Mortem

I'm unhappy when my friends and relatives die of gunfire as well.

My friend Ricky Bloomquist died accidentally when the hunting rifle he was "cleaning" discharged when we were in the fifth grade.

My cousin Steve Farber died when his hunting partner, another cousin, shot him accidentally during a trip into the Cascades.

My childhood and high school buddy Rick Brown was shot in a drug deal gone bad, in 1977.

A friend of mine may have committed suicide by cop in 2005, or he may have been killed in cold blood by a Portland SERT.  We don't know.

Here's the deal about armed revolution and weaponry.  If you do not surpass the "enemy" in terms of strategy, firepower and sheer numbers, you will be defeated.

In the US we have a glimmer of hope that change might come through the ballot box.  That is all.

If you don't like the America you live in, change it by organizing your people into a legitimate force that can strike back.

The armed cowboy militia isn't a viable option.


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Good Job

Far across the field the Cowboys cheerleaders have formed a kick line, and even at this distance, through the haze of sleet and fireworks smoke, Billy’s eyes go straight to Faison, his groan a mere drop in the ocean of sound. Destiny’s Child is mounting the stairs, pausing every few steps to throw sassy looks over their shoulders, T&A bait for the TV cameras. Billy doesn’t so much as twitch when they pause on his tier, a fulmination of animal heat roaring at his side. For as long as they pose he doesn’t move, but once they’re gone he raises his eyes to the sky, then lifts his face a few degrees to get the weather’s full effect.

This was a good book and it's even better that the Guardian has hired Ben Fountain to cover the presidential race this year.

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