Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Donald Trump went to Texas last week





Albert Herring, eat your heart out.

The homecoming queen went trolling
for loot in River Oaks, and barbar-
ous thrills in rally after rally of
famished sociopaths. Along the way,
he warned the squeamish to shut up,
advising he would do this himself;
revoked the free press credentials
of the essential morning paper for
everyone in government, from coast
to coast; promised to decapitate
the laws of libel in protection of
political expression; and celebrat-
ed a dominance of his Party which
saw the Speaker of the House chang-
ing his diaper at every interview.
Apart from the latter's discomfort,
these are acts of pure despotism.



  But wasn't he yar to his
  enthusiasts, and positive
  catnip still to a media
  bedazzled, It could hap-
  pen here. Everyone who
  wasn't raised, 24/7, on
  Crisco, sugar, and salt,
  Fox, and Koch casuists,
  professed to be baffled.
  But we scarcely possess
  an excuse. We cordially
  begged to differ with
  friends who indulged the
  lies of Trump's Party so
  long, we consoled each
  other with their ingen-
  uity in controlling the
  attack dogs they'd bred.
  And now, It has happened
  here. Their Mengelian ex-
  periment has whelped their
  Caudillo, indifferent to
  catechism, in raw control.







     Wasn't everyone warned at home,
     a soul bears a responsibility?

     Donald Trump has let it loose,

     The ultimate horror of Trump
     is not for whom he reviles, but
     for those who love him. There,
     is the greatest crime politics
     can commit. It's happened here.



































Monday, June 20, 2016

They tell me, this is our longest day






      the edible substance is without
      a precious heart, without a bur-
      ied power, without a vital sec-
      ret .. to eat is but to select.



















Roland Barthes
Empire of Signs
  Food Decentered
1970
Richard Howard
  translation
Hill & Wang
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982©







Sunday, June 19, 2016

We go home now vi


I was shopping
for greens yes-
terday and met
a guy who wore
a logotype, be-
tween shoulder
blades, I know.






   And earth began to look 
   as you remembered her,
   herons, like seagulls, flock-
   ed to the salted furrow,
   the bellowing, smoky bullock
   churned its cane sea,
   a world began to pass
   through your pen's eye,
   between bent grasses and one word
   for the bent rice.

















Collected Poems
  1948-1984
    The Gulf
    and other Poems
      Exile
      1969
The Noonday Press
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986©
      
Eduardo Techado