Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Is this thing on? OPEN THREAD

Just the other night, I found myself having to shuffle some stuff around in my garage. You know, making a path to make room for other stuff. Anyway, after I accidentally broke some pottery, I happened across this poem I wrote a long time ago. It was written all at once, in a flood of words, and remains as-was, that is to say unedited, and unrevised.

I remember liking it at the time, but I was traveling when the poem happened, and I lost the scrap it was scrawled on within a few days. As they years marched by, I forgot all of it — save the title and the last two lines. I’m not sure how I feel about it now. I can’t interpret it. Nor do I know what inspired it, so it’s a lot like the writing of a stranger to me. Odd that. If you feel like reading it, come on over the fold.  

So long as the Moose exists, I’ll never lose this poem again. Yet another reason I’m glad the Moose exists.

Shitspeare

Thirst

the point has been lost

in the struggle, dear,

some of us give – give

of ourselves without

replenishing the stuff

that makes us.

renewal, rebirth, rejuvenation

anything preceded by re-

becomes a struggle, a storm

in which the point, our focus

becomes a fugue of fogs

and yet, dear, we continue,

some of us, ever onward –

that void, that suction;

paying for nothing with everything

pouring water in the sand.

There you have it. Say what you want, do what you want — it’s an Open Thread.


45 comments

  1. DTOzone

    Am I alone in thinking trying to recall a governor for, you know, governing, was a huge waste of time, emotional and financial resources?

  2. Yes, life is a matter of pouring water into sand: “the hand, having writ, moves on”.

    Life is like journalism, feeding the press that is ever hungry as if you have never fed it before. The Moose is an example, where the volume of previous thought does not in itself create the creature but is only the memory of it.

    Only through continuing to pour water into sand are we, at all. One can read into that tragedy or joy, it is purely a matter of choice.

    Thirty-eight and soon thirty-nine birthdays have poured our time as parents into the sand. This is to either say that our period on this earth with our children small in our hands is coming to a close, or that the unique points in space and time and heart that are Christine and Roxanne and Damien consist of all that pouring.

    Life is good, life is grand, life is what it is. Embracing the sound of the water pouring and reveling in the beauty of its flow is the key.

  3. fogiv

    8th grade graduation (they call it a ‘promotion’ now, don’tchaknow?) and in witnessing the ceremony and various academic recognitions, my belief that the GOP are more and more on the wrong side of history was affirmed — the top students, nearly all of them, especially in math and science, were girls.  And minorities.  

    What does the GOP have to offer these kids?  

  4. Strummerson

    Been away a bit for a number of reasons.  Trying to get next year set up (apt. rental, house sublet, schools for the three adorable little squatters who are freaking out about moving to a different country) and tending to music gear issues.

    But it’s really because I’m feeling pessimistic, even before last Friday’s bad economic numbers and the travesty of the re-call.  (If you are going to try to do something as hard as trying to unseat a Governor who hasn’t been indicted, you better make sure you can send a strong candidate to do it).

    I know it doesn’t help to gripe and recriminate, but as we await the SCOTUS decision on the ACA, I am really troubled by the fact that Obama didn’t sell, or in my eyes sufficiently try, to sell it to the public.  Now, if it goes down five months before the election, it will be “the bill that people didn’t want AND turned out to be illegal.”  It’s true that the specifics are popular and that repeal will be economically and socially harmful.  But he didn’t need to convince me.  I don’t buy DTO’s line that he tried and no matter what more he would have done, he would have been stymied by racism.  I think it was because he bought into a false distinction between campaigning and governing.  When the right wing media complains that the President is over-exposing himself and politicizing everything with a permanent campaign, that’s because it’s working.  Don’t back off the the thing they are trying to back you off of!  When the right wing media derides the president for being professorial and lecturing to the American people, it’s because he’s a good professor who explains things well and can effectively educate the public about his policies.  Don’t back off the thing they are trying to back you off of.

    OK.  End of rant.  But this thing is gonna be tough and its outcome is uncertain.  Even if demographics and the electoral map still suggest structural advantages and Obama CAN be a uniquely appealing campaigner, I think we need to approach this as underdogs.  Maybe a little pessimism is exactly what we need.  But right now, it’s just making me feel bad…

  5. HappyinVT

    all my poems start with “There once was a girl from Nantucket …” but I’m a perv that way.

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