onfocus

today's song: visions of johanna by dylan. But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off.

The Charge by Ron Padgett

That poem is from a book I have called Surrealist Poetry in English. It has some poems by Ron Padgett in it. There has to be a good link to some Padgett Poems. I'll see if I can dig one up.

good morning poem:

Daybreak
by Bert Meyers

Birds drip from the trees.
The moon's a little goat
over there on the hill;
dawn, as blue as her milk,
fills the sky's tin pail.

The air's so cold as a gas station
glitters in an ice-cube.
The freeway hums like a pipe
when the water's on.
Streetlights turn off their dew.

The sun climbs down from a roof,
stops by a house and strikes
its long match on a wall,
takes out a ring of brass keys
and opens every door.

right on, right on.

Chicago Tribune: And The Winner Is...: "Do you for one moment think Al Gore would have sounded that militant tocsin, among other matters, such as better health care, the minimum wage, firm affirmative action and the phoniness of school vouchers? He, who hitherto had been an errand boy for the Big Boys almost as much as Dubya. Not on your tintype. It was the fear of Nader's possible 5 percent that impelled Gore's spin doctors to add blood to his pallid being: Adopt Nader's platform, even if mildly so." [via sfblogs]

The latest Adbusters was in my mail yesterday. The cover has some great art by Chris Woods. It would be funny if it wasn't disturbing. In his own words, "The north-american mass-media world we live in is unique in human history and I feel that it has a deep impact. Advertising has become our primary belief system and it dictates to us the way we should behave and function."

I was thinking about how I saw that poem I mentioned the other day at the perfect time. There should really be more poems on walls. I love the poems on the muni platforms in San Francisco. If you have control of a wall or mass transit platform, consider putting one up.

On the drive home from work last night I heard an interesting quote on Fresh Air. David Leavitt was quoting a psychologist friend of his: "Everything is about sex. Except sex, which is about aggression."

The Stiff Guy vs. the Dumb Guy: [Jay Leno on political jokes:] "Viewers know what spin doctors are, and they understand," he says. "But you have someone come out and tell the truth, and it's really hard to do a joke about that guy, you know? How many Ralph Nader jokes do you hear? You don't. Here's a guy, he comes out and tells it like it is. My job's over!"

this is about where I live. Sebastopol council could go Green: "Although the race is officially nonpartisan, Sebastopol voters hold the power this season to place a Green Party majority on their city council for the first time." Isn't it great?

skp and I eat at Pasta Bella in Sebastopol quite a bit. On the wall there is a poem by Mary Oliver. As we were eating dinner on Saturday night, I was thinking about Fray Day 4. I was amazed to see how well this poem captured my thoughts about the event. It probably sounds like one of the hundreds of "inspirational story" emails you get every day. ;) Here it is anyway:

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.