bi_janus

Easter, 2012 Bi Janus Passing Eliot’s cruel month and returning to the Passion once kept safe to me as history, I am falling past argument toward beatitudes. That the tomb is empty is no great surprise, nor that the women found the emptiness. They have tombs in them. This story, absorbed by my bones in youth leafs out in guncotton boles, but its root is in a soil I cannot penetrate. I am falling encircled by the serpent, tail in mouth, wheeling around the fleshy axle, the root older than memory. Once out of nothing come, born anew, leaving us origin in emptiness as story, who will control the violence? Better we know the sacred as tomb.

I thought a long time before posting this comment, realizing that my words may seem insensitive. The tragedy of this killing is beyond discussion. That a vigilante was armed and misused a weapon is undoubted and reprehensible. That said, I'm one of those guys who walk around armed much of the time. I do so where I am allowed by law to do so. Do I feel safer when I am armed? I do not particularly because I don't generally feel unsafe. Do I have anxiety attacks when I do not carry a weapon? No. In an early post on this topic, I believe Des spoke to his having been a victim of violence. People who have been shot at or attacked with blades often develop an altered point of view about firearms, especially if they survived the attack but loved ones or bystanders did not. I am exceptionally well-trained in the use of firearms and am clearly aware of the circumstances in which I might use one against another person. None of those circumstances involves protection of property. I might even be willing to give my life before I would shoot someone, but I would have no hesitation about stopping an attack on my wife or my son by shooting if there was no other way. I have been shot at on more than one occasion, and in all but one instance have had the option of retreating, which I took. Ann often hikes alone in the wilderness near our home, and when she does, she is armed not because she expects to be attacked, but because we both know that an attack is a possibility. I hope that if she is attacked she will do whatever she has to in order to come back from the trip. For me the handgun is a tool, a very imperfect one at that, but on very rare occasions, it is the only tool that will suffice. The taking of any life ought to mark the person who has acted to do so forever, and in fact it does. I have great difficulty forming a philosophical system around this issue that matches my experience, so I have given up trying. I haven't been sad for one moment, though, that I always came home to my family at the end of the day.

Thanks to Des and Ben for a generous story. Oldie I can buy, but golden? Well I suppose he does resemble Adonis ever so slightly.

Well, let's try it again. A word changes everything. The Promise Bi Janus Saturday morning I came upon a promise standing upon my door, not even the tips of bony fingers soft or raw, the frame skeletal without decay but all waiting. Instead, pointing to what I will see later— green in Summer. The promise that if I can abide fire will greet me in the Fall.

The Promise Bi Janus Saturday morning I came upon a promise standing upon my door, not even the tips of bony fingers soft or raw, the frame skeletal without decay but all waiting. Instead, pointing to what I will see in later— green in Summer. The promise that if I can abide fire will greet me in the Fall.

This remarkable young writer is so much more than a victim. I've attached a link to a podcast of a talk he gave at Columbia U in October 2010. His L'Armée du salut has been translated from the French and is available in America. http://maisonfrancaise.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=225:abdellah-taia-moroccan-literature-in-french-october-22-2009&catid=10:video-and-audio-recordings&Itemid=52

Some mornings I must set aside time to cry. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/a-boy-to-be-sacrificed.html?_r=1&hp

I suppose that hugging along with many other expressions of friendship and compassion have been treated as narrowly sexual expressions by school administrators for many years--at least as long ago as I was in the one room schoolhouse. The problem is that when school administrators paint every display of human affection as unacceptable, the lesson is unfortunate. I remember that when I was leaving high school this same crowd sent us off to the jungles with M-16s because they believed that dominoes would fall in Southeast Asia. That fear was unjustified as is the fear that a hug will lead to carnal chaos in the hallways. Interestingly, among the first things male soldiers do after surviving battle together is to hug one another. Now that I think of it, hugging should be seen as a patriotic duty.

Thanks, James. While reading your kind comment, I realized that I had misplaced the apostrophe in Yvor Winters' name. The edit function, alas, won't let me make the change.

Questions for Hart Crane Bi Janus for Myron Ochshorn (1920-2012) Were you difficult because of coyness? In my youth I struggled with you, and you held me tight all the way into the sea. In my age, ashore, you are the last one who moves me to weep. The veneer of indirectness cannot conceal you. Whom did you think you would disappoint, one woman among all the men, not enough? Did you think the Gulf tenderer than your own drunken judgment? And all because you were on your knees before those sailor boys as Winter’s crowd, protesting the whole while, was before you unable to help itself. In my youth I thought you another Blake. I know better in age. Still, while I would converse with Eliot across a linen-covered table, with you I would sneak to the back row of a second-run cinema under the flickering projector to savor the touch of your shoulder on mine in the darkness.

Original Face Instruction Manual for Worrywarts Bi Janus Inattentive breathing or mindful breathing, step without attention or mindful step, all thought and action collapse toward the still point in the precise turning of inhalation to exhalation. From the still point in the precise turning of exhalation to inhalation the world that can be enjoyed and suffered arises. No object, no category, not time, not this, not that, arises in any other way.

I read the piece two more times. I think maybe James was writing a tale about the failure of adolescent impulse control--a sort of darker Ferris Beuller's Day Off. I think we have to be open to reading about the darker sides of human nature, but I cannot forgive the character's judgement of Citizen Kane. Really, James!

Interesting article to be published in the Sunday NYT Arts & Leisure section. http://artsbeat.blog...d-your-life/?hp

Everyone's entitled to a really bad day occasionally, but I worry about seeing this lad's name on the news shortly.

This I hope is knowledge we find, Des and Richard, with every mindful step. Your poem is an anthem, Des.

Fever Bi Janus Fever is another way to see the world, a photo creased with edges curled, pasted into a dusty journal, sepia-tinted pulsing diurnal. The evening hawks a fuzzy wooze, a tipsy stupor nearly snooze, that, uncensored, loves laugh-talking, eyes too heavy for steady walking. Fever, now a singular way to endure, no longer a symptom in search of a cure.

Jim’s Voyage Bi Janus A sea can have mountains, or a river, and climbing is a sidelong journey against gravity and tide. Luffing sails before the wind, hesitate and concentrate, as a man might rest leaning on his walking stick face turned up to a crest, before the wind takes you at angles to the goal. Switching back on the chop, tacking to shore from shore, an improbable journey made possible over a certain length but whiling an uncertain time.

Savior Victorious Bi Janus . . . all shall be well, All manner of things shall be well. Gods were rooted things, whose parlors topped mountains we visited unshod, before we made them airy and vaporous, smudging their edges out to every place. Then we took them where we went, slung like papooses, we making everywhere our home until the word lost meaning. Damn, you’re so easily impressed by life eternal. Victory, you call it and you’re made his jealous goad, a crowner of sovereigns, and cannibal. To hell with the meek, we do love the big winner. What gifts of his glorious incorruptible body are you savoring today? Well, sweetie, I’ve been there, though not for three days. I’ve managed minutes away, enough to share the hidden geist. Is my power a Savior’s mark, the single notch on my bedpost? Tremble before me. Hosanna, I kid you not. The defibrillator’s hand, not the Holy Ghost, jerked me back across the blood red intractable river to the community of silence. And the men and women coming to the bedside, preparing to anoint the corpse, saw the stone rolled back, but only miracle tarnished, syndicated with no angelic pronouncement, God’s power, reduced to parlor trick, rendered pedestrian when a Sodomite finds the spark of resurrection. Now, if you found one facing life professing beatitudes all the while, you should wonder at him, her, not a deific brawler, awe-filled by mercy, and humble. All shall be well, All manner of things shall be well.

Thank you, Colin.

Terrifying and nicely done. I'd like to think that Federal law enforcement agents would be subject to some loving correction. On the other hand, from experience, I can say that the number of Christian fundamentalists and Mormons in Federal law enforcement is scary and a topic not often discussed.

Advice for the young on love: get ready for the struggle. You can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself. Don’t let the strong winds born of identification with your beloved extinguish the small flame of your ego. Don’t let your ego grow to the extent that it tries to encompass your beloved. Welcome a companion. And, as important, this work is fun even when painful, so let your souls laugh. The practice is all we have.

Well, I'm back at work this week. My co-workers are always mildly surprised when I show up after a bout. There's the moment of surprise quickly replaced by solicitude. As to gardening, I think it a fair metaphor for many experiences with cancer therapy. Now, I am shame-faced at I driving you to Wikipedia and garden dreams. Better I should drive you to your garden.

Return of the Gardener Bi Janus The mild surprise, unconcealable, almost out the door between the legs, a sly pup pulled back by its tail, shame-faces put right with smiles. No card to pass around this time. You’re looking better, not so drawn, a succulent suffused— epidemiologists ask, steroidal edema masking wasting? The pruning’s long done. Now, the poison for the nematodes mixed and spread. The little buggers, cut in half, become two each. In the present case eradication is the homicidal cure, and a flowery shrub reprieve is what you take, a tenuous balance among things, proper and not, growing in the soil. The bed’s put right as rain one more time. Back to anthrax, pertussis and E. coli, influenza churning through unremarked, disaster an intellectual puzzle. Marshal some strength, planting season approaches.

Ah, poor Galileo.

Very nice. I love how the second and fifth verses play against each other. Thanks for sharing you work.