“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?”

~ Vita Sackville-West

Poem: “The Wars,” by Howard Moss, from New Selected Poems (Atheneum).

The Wars

How can I tell you of the terrible cries

Never sounded, of the nerves that fail,

Not in jungle warfare or a southern jail,

But in some botched affair where two people sit

Quite calmly under a blood-red lamp

In a Chinese restaurant, a ludicrous swamp

Of affection, fear drowning in the amber

Tea when no word comes to mind

To stand for the blood already spilled,

For rejection, denial, for all those years

Of damage done in the polite wars?

And what do I know of the terrible cries

That are really sounded on the real hill

Where the soldiers sweat in the Asian night

And the Asians sweat where the soldiers flail

The murderous grass, and the peasants reel

Back in a rain of gasoline,

And the shells come home and the bombs come down

Quite calmly under a blood-red moon

Not far from China, and the young are killed,

Mere numerals in the casualties

Of this year’s war, and the war of years?

He stands with a knife in the Daily News.

They are snaking their way into the hills.

She is walking up Broadway to hurt again.

They are fleeing under a hail of shells.

He is taking her neck into his hands.

A human seed squats in the dark.

She is scalding the baby in the bath.

He feels the bullet enter his skin.

She spits in the face of the riot squad.

They are sitting down, they are opening wounds.

Downloaded from http://www.writersalmanac.org/almanac/index_almanac_source.shtml, for personal non-commercial use per their terms of use.

Note: Because I’m posting this persuant to fair use for educational, non-commercial purposes but without permission, I made every effort to link to a site where this work is for sale for the poet’s benefit. If you have $1005.86, Barnes & Noble may have access to an enscribed used copy. Wow. Out of print, you think?

This one falls under Hey it’s Worth a Try:

Woman Tries to Pass $1M Bill at Wal*Mart.

I cleaned the mirror

in the living room

and meant to look

into it, and went

back to the kitchen twice

for paper towels.

I polished it clear

but forgot to search

for anything important

there, boxed away

or lost. Maybe a bowl

of broken glass, the face

of a dead dog, or the spent

ends of blue candles.

When I get home today,

assuming I do, I’ll look

for Papa’s radio,

his pen knife, his bible

stuffed with letters and

clippings, and find

the tearful image

of his eyes.

Kyle Kimberlin

11.13.2002

Water melts sugar. Sunlight

in February melts the dull fog

on the bald canal. We are

dissolved, standing on the bank

searching the dark water for gar.

They drift away.

Fog dulls the hearing. There —

is that dog barking ahead of us

or behind? No matter, we have

no need of dogs now, or fish.

We have everything.

You know, sugar is good in our coffee

and on berries when the summer comes.

And look — I think I see one

swimming in the swift, cold deep.

Kyle Kimberlin

3rd Draft, 8/9/03

Yahoo! News – Buffett scolds fund directors

“Berkshire has $12 billion in foreign currencies because [Buffett] worries that the nation’s huge trade deficit will continue to push down the value of the U.S. dollar. Overseas investments become more valuable to U.S. investors when the dollar falls.”

This one’s for my buddy Erik. I think it’s exactly the fiscal sentiment to carry us through the rest of George Bush’s misbegotten presidency.

Yahoo! News – Pastor Dies Two Months After Being Beaten

I read this article, thinking, “that’s something I would probably have a comment about; it’s a little different, emotionally compelling, sad.” I got to the end of the item, thought about it, and came to the realization that I don’t have anything else to say about it. So why start typing at all? Because it’s the fact of the lack of insight that I find interesting here. Why aren’t I outraged? Why aren’t I calling for justice, or urging forgiveness, or at least reflecting on the inscrutable waste of life?

Is blogging an epidemic of information sharing?

Found on Doc Searls blog.

This is important stuff. If you love freedom, I urge a few minutes to read this blog post on Dan Gillmor’s eJournal and the article to which he links. Fear is killing freedom in our country.

Everybody just quit pestering the president about the economy and jobs. He’s trying to show the president of Mexico a good time. Presumably, so wee can keep going down there for margaritas, and they can keep coming up here for work. And besides, he says everything’s cool.

Did Martha Stewart’s lawyers blow it? Do you care?

On Feb. 22, I posted that a hearing was taking place to decide the posthumous military rights of the grandfather of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I’ve followed up and found this page, which says the petition was denied.

Nicholas Márquez Mejía was a colonel in the War of a Thousand Days, and never received his pension.