More Rediscovered Poetry

I found these in a notebook in the pocket of my winter jacket. They're from last winter. I hope you like em.

Highway of cars,
just as dawn
cracks slow- an
egg over the horizon,
rendered invisible in the
morning dark.

Headlights strung
out on gossamer,
beads of hand-
carved amber and
you cannot tell sky
from city through the
window of the train.

All fades with the dawn
like a theater when
the lights come up.

----

A weathered rock
only earthly remain
of a poor old man
how many years has
he been lying?

Ice water in the vein,
boyfriend splits.

----

Mid-November
and the trees have
begun to change.
Leaves crinkle
voiceless.
Foliage of another fall.

----

Oh policeman!
Eyes grey as
a glacial field,
and heart far colder
still.

You never feel
a moment's
compunction
arresting kids
for hurting
no one.

Legal technicalities
restoreth thy soul.

----

My mood crystalizes on the
limbs of the ice-varnished trees
threatening to crack at the sigh
of the wind.

Held in horrible potential
this life so delicate
and rashness never rewarded.
A moment's carelessness
untold beauty destroys

I feel a fear in my deepest
heart I never before have
known. A real, true, serious,
poignant ache for someone
other than myself.
Someone who isn't answering
her telephone.

----

In our transparent age
we define ourselves by
our secret shames.

The things that make us
cry and roll around at night
sleep a distant dream's dream.

Lies we've told and lines we've
drawn and lives we've taken.
Things you could never tell your
lover, never mind your mother.

What flaws hide in the diamond
of your soul?

For all our money and all our science
all we really have is our tragedies.

----

Ice on the wire kills
light and sound, the train
coasts for a moment-
motor silent.

The sound of one hand
clapping is no
sound at all.

----

trees glowing from without
rain shards of glass
and phone poles bleed
clear blood from 'neath
the shelter of false skin.

Skate on sidewalks and
walk on grass, hardened
under foot.

Just Because I Care About Syntax Does Not Make Me a Grammar Nazi

I frequently get accused of being a Grammar Nazi. I have to say, at first glance it seems as though this might even be a reasonable charge, based on my proclivity for using words like proclivity and my borderline obsession with dependent clauses. I did, after all, post a quote by George Orwell about the decay of language being connected to political chaos as my status on Facebook last week. However, I didn't mean it in the sense you probably assumed that I did. How biased of you.
I delineate sharply between myself and "language mavens" like the late Christopher Buckley. And in this delineation, I feel, lies the key to why I am in fact not a Grammar Nazi. Sure, I'll argue with people on the internet when the things they say make no sense, not even in the sense loose fashion of poetry. And there is a hell of a lot of it out there. It's kinda fun, despite the fact that it makes me look like a pretentious ass.
I don't mind nonsense. Really. Bob Dylan is one of my favorite musicians, and even he doesn't know what a lot of his songs mean. Or Hunter S. Thompson, a master of drug-crazed babbling. He's the one that said after all nonsense is all good, "as long as it sings,". What I meant by the George Orwell quote, and what Orwell meant himself, I'm guessing, had more to do with the semantic twisting of language by those who would spin and obscure the truth than it did about people not using grammar in the ordained way.
But the difference between myself and people who really do deserve the label of Language Nazi, or at least Language Fascist, is a deep one, and one that regards our respective understandings of how language exists.
To clarify, there is a bit of a gap, or at least a tension, between prescriptive and descriptive grammars. Prescriptivists like Avril Incandeza or Mr. Buckley seem to regard language as an edifice, a Platonic ideal the perfection thereof is to be aspired to. This is the grammar they teach you in school, and I have to admit, I can see the appeal. There isn't much like a perfectly crafted sentence. It's like a well rolled Cuban cigar or a really quality distilled bottle of Absinthe. Completely intoxicating.
But descriptive grammar, to me, seems to have more bearing on the world people actually live in. Everyone (except the rare feral child) speaks language, or language speaks through people, depending on how seriously you take Lacan and Baudrillard. However, the language that they speak is modified by where they grew up, their economic level, how much education they've gotten, how much they use the internet, any number of factors. Languages are composed of diverse dialects, and each dialect is composed of diverse idiolects. And as long as communication is achieved, it's functionally successful. Clarity can be measured by how successful the communication was, but even still, this leaves no place for the Queen's English or the dictates of the French National Academy of Language.
Who cares about all that formalized crap? Language derives from culture, and culture is a human phenomenon. And humans, living on earth, are constantly contending with difference, and the dynamic fact of being alive on a moss covered rock hurtling through space. So language changes as people change, as cultures change, as populations change, as meta-narratives rise and fall. Perfection against which to judge exists only in stasis, and stasis is a myth outside a lab or the depths of space. So speak, play with language. It's yours. It's ours. Keep changing it, because stasis is death and if we let it die then we are all of us fucked.

The Reason for the Lack of Updates

I don't update this thing often. I realize that I say that every time I do update, but I figure I should explain why. After all, it's been around for a while and it doesn't even have ten posts. Kinda sad really. But I have another blog, Moderately Evil, who's link can conveniently be found in the links list. That one is for political stuff, this one is for art and literary things. Apparently I'm more concerned about politics than literature. But given the world situation at the moment, I think this is understandable. Additionally, the vast majority of my literary/artistic energies are going into writing a novel which takes up a substantial portion of my free time (and is dedicated to a much missed friend), so that holds the updating of this bugger up somewhat. I plan to start updating more soon though. This is going to be my base for self-promotion of my novel, so I guess I should start building up a fan base. Though if I'm as unsuccessful at drumming up visitors here as I am at Moderately Evil, there isn't much point. Gonna give it a shot anyway. See you soon.

Damn Straight they Can

Maurice Sendak, Author of Where the Wild Things Are, has told parents who are worried that the new movie based on his book will scare their children to "go to hell". Damn straight. As far as I'm concerned, coddling a child is one of the worst things you can do to her. Or him for that matter. It's almost a form of negative abuse. Sure you're not molesting them, hitting them or swearing at them, but a child protected from ever having to be scared is going to end up a whiny little wimp totally unable to think for himself. Kids need to experience the full range of emotions so that they can learn to deal with them while still young and pliable. Plus, the habits of mind that this sheltering fosters are a timidity and unwillingness to stand up for yourself. Maybe that's why, in our child-centric, foam-padded culture, we are almost completely unable of generating any new and daring thought of any sort, be it art or politics.

Federico Garcia Lorca

This article, looking at the Spanish government's pursuit of truth, or rather the lack of such pursuit, in the cases of the mass graves wherein are buried the victims of Fascist violence during the civil war; takes as it's starting point the death of Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain's greatest poet, and one of the highlights of twentieth century world literature. Imagine if Dali were a poet, and not such a repulsive human being.