“The only reality which a poet can ever surely know is that self he cannot help being. … If he pretties it up, if he changes its meaning, if he gives it the voice of any borrowed authority, if in short he rejects this reality, his mind will be less than alive. So will his words.”
– W.D. Snodgrass
Author Archives: Kyle Kimberlin
he goes too far … again
“The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington. “The danger is they’re reading Americans’ mail,” she said.
“You have to be concerned,” agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush’s claim. “It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we’ve ever known.” [Link]
Pretty soon, we’re going to need a whole new way to communicate. Forget cell phones, e-mail, and even letters to your Mom. Bush has his sticky fingers in all of those. Every home in America needs one of these. 
swimmin with sharks
Back in the early weeks of 2003, I predicted that, war being hell, no good could come from this insanity. I said that many would lose their lives for the unpresident’s quixotic clusterfark, while others would lose their minds, and some would lose their souls. Now, with the sideshow fatal hazing of The Decider of Baghdad, I take no pleasure in being proven right. The latest big stone head has fallen, in a long line of those who learn it’s a hard thing to lose an Americorp franchise. Don’t screw with the head office, boys. 
Of course, the execution was appalling, disgusting. Inhumane. Big deal. Par for the course in Iraq for four years. What’s happened to the Iraqi children alone makes this hanging look like a stroll through the park.
I’m reminded of an old adage from my days as a litigation paralegal: “If you’re swimmin’ with sharks, try not to look like bait.” Saddam’s mistake. He bluffed and had to fold, or punt or something. The question of the night is, now that Bush has the bait swinging from the proverbial hook, what do you suppose he’s going to catch?
Happy Year
Welcome to your first Metaphorical post of 2007. This space took yesterday off to watch football with Dad. And wasn’t that Oklahoma – Boise State game a hootenanny? A real kick in the pants. Boise deserved it though, they really did. I’ve never seen a college team play with more heart.
Anyway, I need to get outta here, and go for a walk in the morning sun. Here’s your ponderable, to kick off the year. Oh, I almost forgot: Notice that the title hereof is Happy Year. Whether it’s new or not is up to us.
Evil is like a shadow – it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.
-Shakti Gawain
Welcome to Hicksville!
What’s on the iPod tonight, Kyle? We need a break from the bizarre. What are you shoveling into the cerebrum?
Well, boys and girls, it’s Dan Hicks and the hot licks. Good stuff, Maynard.
meanwhile, back at the ranch
Our own fearsome leader is finally showing the inevitable signs of the stress of his office. 
It’s a phenomenon that I’ve been noting with interest for many years, that the presidency takes a heavy toll, and makes a man look older. The only president in my lifetime that didn’t look a little thrashed by the pressure of being The Decider was John Kennedy, only because he was assassinated while he was still pretty young. And even so, he had severe back pain, having been injured in WWII.
Mr. Bush has been the exception until recently; he’s been so healthy and physically unfazed by the rigors of power that it was a little twisted. He doesn’t look like a mountain biker now though, does he? So all of you who feel the nation, perhaps the world, have been royally hosed by this man’s poor judgment can take a bit of solace, knowing that maybe he’s not just steeped in ignorant bliss. Perhaps it’s dawning on his subconscious that his legacy is going to hell on horseback.
mistah kurtz, he dead
Well, Hussein is dead, according to reports. In the book Heart of Darkness, to which the title of this post alludes, the death of the madman Kurtz is a turning point, at which the boat of the story turns back toward civilization. Maybe that’s a metaphor for Iraq. But it illuminates the irrelevance of Hussein’s death to us in America. The boat of our story – of the western world – is apt to make no such turning toward sanity. We go on into darkness because Hussein was not the madman we go upriver, at our manifest peril, to find.
any minute now
Saddam Hussein is going to die. I don’t think I’m going to feel safer. America should not feel safer. The planet should recognize this as yet again another act of irrelevant barbarism by a species that seems addicted to such acts.
It’s not that he doesn’t deserve to die. It’s that his execution is like swatting a fly in the midst of a plague of locusts. In the long and troubled, occasionally graceful, history of humanity, no good has ever come from executing anyone.
out from under
She turned me into a newt.
… I got better.
The deep blue funk was lifted by a nice long walk on the bluffs in the sun, and some good tunes on the iPod my folks gave me for Christmas. That little thing is a wonderment. I love it. My bro loaded it with almost 700 songs and I’m adding even more. So I’m good to go.
It turned out to be a good day after all. Who woulda thunk?
deep blue
I’ve got the blues. Woke up this way today. I’ve got the post-holiday, lonesome, emotionally disoriented, what the hell happened, Christmas can’t really be over and I miss my family so somebody just shoot me blues. I guess I get ’em every year. Do you? Does it seem like there ought to be a big black raven perched on the dull and desiccated, tattered stalk of your Christmas tree? Nevermore.
I make a big emotional investment in Christmas. I look forward to it all year long. It’s absolutely the high point of the year for me. And if you’re going to have a high point, I guess you’re doomed to have a low one. But OK, frak it. I’m going to shake it off now.
Somebody please stop by with a big box of endorphins. Or at least a very tight, protracted hug. I’ll be out on the bluffs in the winter sun.
big windy
No, I'm not referring to Condoleza Rice. My family and I got home tonight to find our coastline in the clutches of one mighty kinghell windstorm. My Mom called to say that electricity is out at their house, a few miles away. I still have power – need it for the net, you know – but I won't be surprised if I lose it before I can finish writing this post. The weather channel says we're getting 40mph gusts, but it feels worse than that to me. The building is shaking. Lights are dipping. So we'll see. God is with us.
Christmas was really nice. It was at my brother's house in the foothills of the Sierras, between Sacramento and Reno. It was cold and quiet, except when it was warm and cozy and full of the sound of family having fun, enjoying the holiday. We had a wonderful time together, especially with my little nephew. He's 5, and such an incredible kid.
I hope your Christmas was good too.
I heard him exclaim, ere he flew out of sight
Time for holiday with the family. I might not be blogging much the next several days. Maybe a little. You won’t miss me; I am not the droid you’re looking for.
Be nice and remember, he sees you when you’re sleeping.
Metaphor 