EARTH ~

Gwendolyn Brooks

THE BOY DIED IN MY ALLEY



Without my having known.

Policeman said, next morning,

"Apparently died Alone."

"You heard a shot?" Policeman said.

Shots I hear and Shots I hear.

I never see the dead.








The Shot that killed him yes I heard

as I heard the Thousand shots before;

careening tinnily down the nights

across my years and arteries.









Policeman pounded on my door.

"Who is it?"  "POLICE!"  Policeman yelled.

"A Boy was dying in your alley.

A Boy is dead, and in your alley.

And have you known this Boy before?"








I have known this Boy before.

I have known this Boy before, who

ornaments my alley.

I never saw his face at all.

I never saw his futurefall.

But I have known this Boy.








I have always heard him deal with death.

I have always heard the shout, the volley.

I have closed my heart-ears late and early.

And I have killed him ever.








I joined the Wild and killed him

with knowledgeable unknowing.

I saw where he was going.

I saw him Crossed.  And seeing,

I did not take him down.







He cried not only  "Father!"

but "Mother!

Sister!

Brother."

The cry climbed up the alley.

It went up to the wind.

It hung upon the heaven

for a long

stretch-strain of Moment.



The red floor of my alley

is a special speech to me.


__________________________

from to disembark   
(Third World Press, 1981)  

This past week in America:

TO LIVE AND DIE IN AMERICA

3 Shot And Killed In Mich... 18-Year-Old Shot Multiple Times, Dies... Man Kills Wife, Teen, Himself... Man Shoots, Kills Own Son... Cops Shoot Teen Dead... Man Gunned Down In Parking Lot... 5 Dead In Spate Of Shootings... 2 Murdered In Philly... 2 Kansas Cops Shot Dead... Shooter Killed... 4 Die In Apparent Murder-Suicide... Ga. Cop Dies From Gunshot... Argument Leads Teen To Shoot Friend... Man Shot To Death... Teen Dies After Being Tied Up, Shot... Man Shot Dead In Street... Drug Deal Leads To Shooting Death... Mother Of 2 Killed In Road Rage Shooting... Man Shoots, Kills Intruder... 1 Killed In Coney Island... Man Dies From Gunshot Wounds... Cops Investigate Gun Death... Shooting Victim's Body Found On Bike Trail... Man Charged With Shooting Own Brother Dead... Man Dies After Being Shot In Chest... Body Of Shooting Victim Found In Pickup... Teen Arrested For Robbery Shooting Death... Man Carrying 2-Year-Old Son Shot Dead... Man Fatally Shot Near Home... Parolee Dies In Shooting... 1 Killed In Buffalo Shooting... Man Shot Dead In Apartment Complex... Street Gun Battle Kills Grandma Bystander... Man, Woman Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide... Woman Shot Dead By Intruder... 14-Year-Old Arrested Over Fatal Gun Attack... Man Found Shot Dead In Parking Lot... Woman Shot In Face By Ex-Boyfriend... 1 Woman, 3 Men Shot Dead... 2 Die In Attempted Robbery... Army Reservist Shot To Death In Alley... Man Shot To Death In Bodega... 2 Shot Dead In Burned House... Man Shot During Break-In... Man Fatally Shot... 20-Year-Old Gunned Down... Man Shoots Self During Police Pursuit... 1 Killed In Baltimore Shooting... Cops ID Shooting Victim... 60-Year-Old Man Shot Dead... Shot Man's Body Found In Vacant House.... Woman Shot And Killed Outside Her Home... Shooting Victim Was 'Trying To Turn Life Around'... Slain Shooting Victim Found In Street.... Driving Altercation Leads To Shooting, 1 Dies... 3-Year-Old Dies In Accidental Shooting... Man Turns Self In After Allegedly Shooting Wife... Man Shot Dead Outside Home... 3 Slain In Separate New Orleans Shootings... Cops Investigate Shooting Death... Man Shot Dead In Ohio... Teen Shot To Death... Man Dies After Being Shot Multiple Times... Man Charged Over Son's Shooting Death... Cops Find 2 Men Shot Dead... 1 Dies In Shooting... Man Charged Over Gun Killing... 1 Shot Dead In Confrontation... Man Charged With Murder Over Shooting... Motel-Owner Shot And Killed... Husband Shoots Estranged Wife Dead... Suspect Arrested Over Deputy's Shooting Death... Police Probe Fatal Shooting... Cops Kill 2 Suspects In 3 Shooting Deaths... Man Killed Fighting Back Against Robber... Man Killed In Home Invasion.... Nightclub Shooting Kills 1... Child Brain Dead After Drive By Shooting... Man Charged Over Shooting Of Ex-Wife... Body Found In Vacant House... Teen Fatally Shot... 

 
from The Huffington Post

Newtown's Loss

 Filmed in Stamford, Connecticut in 2010 — about 40 miles from Newtown the way the crow flies —
a devastating portrait of  things gone wrong as portrayed by a terrific Tilda Swinton (mother) and Ezra Miller (son). Much too close for comfort to what happened in the same state two years later.
Directed by Lynne Ramsay 


 

 

 

EARTH ~

How long?


How long will people wander in disappointment?
How long will they wander thirsty, hungry and insecure in the deserts?
Most people are jobless, wandering around.
How long? You wander hungrily in deserts.
The wrecked economy deprives you of education.
How long? You pass the time waiting patiently.
Pretending to carry out reconstruction; they established personal businesses,
They enjoy life, and you? How long will you wander in the rubbish heap?
They voice hollow slogans of equality;
The salaries of a hundred men are given to one; how long will the poor wander?
They observe well what is going on with the oppressed people;
How long will you wander unauthorized?
Every day; our nation suffers from the fire of the enemy,
How long will the shameless puppets walk without being taken to account?
M.A. is astounded by such a life;
How long will they stay drunk and happy?

M.A.
December 16, 2007






Wound


It seems to me that everything has changed,
It seems there is deception amidst our friendship.
I had gone with you sincerely
But your footsteps show you have taken the wrong path.
I don't trust your admissions anymore,
Full of frauds, it seems you are a thief of the tamarisks.
Here, lamps are put out, darkness spreads;
Lamps are turned on in each of your houses.
Saqi! I desire intoxication, but don't bring me any more wine;
Your bottle is the murderer of love.
It walks on much thinner paths;
Your end seems to have arrived.
I am not incredulous, I know it all too well;
The sky seems to be the core of the earth.
Latun has inflicted many gashes on the heart;
Every Ghazal is painful.

Luftullah Latun Tokhi
December 16, 2007






Change


A strange uproar rose up in my body,
When your emotional song reached my ears.
It was magic in words and magic in song,
It became the host of my imagination and motive of my mind.
As its voice of conscience fell in my heart,
The light of hope glimmers in an atmosphere of disappointment.
There were the blows of Ayyub Khan and the heroic poems of Malalai,
The story of Maiwand came to mind.
My God! There were foreign invaders in this country;
We have been changed and this is a time full of crimes.

Stanizi
August 3, 2008






Learn!


Learn to speak with a melody like the nightingale,
Learn the silent dialogue of the flower with the nightingale.
Cover your head, come out of the blossom,
Learn to blow like a breeze through the air.
How long will you live like a bird?
Learn to fly free like an eagle.
Speed up, make the caravan go fast, the destination is close.
Learn to project your voice like a bell.
Leave comfort and take up hardship, O zealous Afghan!
Learn to cry for the homeland's pain and grief.

Abdullah
September 8, 2008

_______________________________

At your Christmas, Bagram is alit and bright;

On my Eid, even the rays of the sun are dead.

Suddenly at midnight, your bombs bring the light;

In our houses, even the oil lamps are turned off.

~ Khepulwaak, On Eid

The contrast drawn in the lines above between Americans celebrating Christmas in the Bagram Air Base and Afghans commemorating the Muslim festival of Eid outside is so simple as to be unanswerable. However slanted it might otherwise be, this brief description represents a truth beyond the politics of good intentions that characterises the international community's actions in Afghanistan. Ultimately it is likely to be such descriptions that come to define the war in that country, and not the complicated arguments of those who would rescue it from the depredations of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Now that coalition forces are preparing to withdraw from Afghanistan without achieving any of their goals, such arguments are about to fall silent in any case, and a new society will have to be built from the kind of consciousness that is on display in this and other poems that may be said to constitute the literature of the Taliban.

~ Faisal Devji 

from the preface to Poetry of the Taliban
Columbia University Press (2012)
edited by Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn
translated by Mirwais Rahmany & Hamid Stanikzai

SHELLEY ~

Heathcote Williams and Shelley

 please link and travel well:

http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2012/12/shelley-at-oxford-a-timely-poem-for-christmas.html

http://www.huxleyscientific.com/books/shelley/

BOTANY ~

 

                     Duckweed

Afloat on their own reflection, these leaves
with roots that reach only part of the way,
will fall asleep at the end of summer,
draw in their skirts and sink to the bottom.





                    

                    Foxglove

Though the corolla dangles upside down,
nothing ever falls out, neither nectar
nor loosening pollen grains: a thimble,
stall for the little finger and the bee.


                  


                       Dock

Its green flowers attract only the wind
but a red vein may irrigate the leaf
and blossom into blush or birthmark
or a remedy for the nettle’s sting.


                


                       Orchid

The tuber absorbs summer and winter,
its own ugly shape, twisted arms and legs,
a recollection of the heart, one artery
sprouting upwards to support a flower.



______________________


Michael Longley
from Collected Poems
Wake Forest University, 2007

New from Bob Arnold! (Says Susan)


 

~   3 BOOKS   ~

FREE SHIPPING!

Order through Paypal and make your choice ~ this offer is for U.S. orders, please inquire as to international mailing

Bob Arnold, Individual Books

Yokel, postpaid $18.00 USD    I'm In Love, postpaid $18.00 USD    Beautiful Days, postpaid $18.00 USD    Set of Three, postpaid $40.00 USD

HANDS UP! ~

How many gun are sold in the US each year?
 Completed .40 caliber cartridges, above, are seen at Stone Hart Manufacturing, Miami, Florida. 

If you want to find out exactly how many guns are sold in the US each year, then the figures are not recorded.


However, if you want to know how many applications there are to buy guns each year, then the latest data from the FBI shows that 2012 looks like a bumper year for gun sales in America.
In the wake of the Newtown shooting in Connecticut, there is a renewed focus on gun control in the US. And, under US law, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System is used to check if someone can buy a gun from a federal registered dealer before they can walk out of the shop with it.

Before ringing up the sale, cashiers call in a check to the FBI or to other designated agencies to ensure that each customer does not have a criminal record or isn't otherwise ineligible to make a purchase.

The figures show that there have been 16,808,538 applications in 2012 so far to the end of November. If they were approved, that would be enough weapons to stock member of Nato's armed forces nearly five times over. The system has received 156,577,260 applications since 1998 and the US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world.



68,584,078 of the total applications since 1998 have been for 'long guns' such as rifles, usually a minimum length of 16 inches (40 cm) for rifle barrels - that is 43.8% of all applications.
The figures are also broken down by state - and they show that of those 16.8m applications, a huge amount come from Kentucky: 2,329,151, followed by Texas with 1,196,176 applications.


If you look at those figures by population for 2012, then Kentucky has had 535.78 applications for every 1,000 people in the state, followed by Montana with 116.95. The US average for 2012 is 53.94.
Of course, not all applications are approved. Reasons for denial include being convicted of a crime in the last two years, having a dishonorable discharge from the military or mental health problems. The latest figures show that being convicted of a crime (which is the easiest to check after all) is responsible for 58.65% of the 976,255 denials under the system.


The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also records figures for weapons stocked under the National Firearms act, which regulates and taxes many of the most serious weapons. It shows a record high in these weapons being processed this year.

The full data is below. What have we missed and what can you add?

Data summary

NICS applications by state

Click heading to sort table. Download this data

STATE	TOTAL APPLICATIONS, NOV 1998 TO NOV 2012	TOTAL, Jan to Nov 2012	2012 Rate per 1,000 population
SOURCE: FBI These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale. from The Guardian (UK)  Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
UNITED STATES	156,577,260	16,808,538	53.94
Alabama	3,749,099	350,780	73.30
Alaska	714,007	72,904	102.09
Arizona	2,675,937	290,868	45.35
Arkansas	2,514,731	207,363	70.98
California	10,714,573	981,798	26.29
Colorado	3,736,952	361,385	71.59
Connecticut	1,810,014	208,250	58.24
Delaware	256,059	25,098	27.89
District of Columbia	2,170	398	0.66
Florida	5,957,840	699,974	37.16
Georgia	4,559,627	386,562	39.80
Guam	5,934	819
Hawaii	121,737	15,414	11.31
Idaho	1,243,607	115,927	73.79
Illinois	8,399,271	923,920	71.95
Indiana	3,300,627	404,259	62.28
Iowa	1,530,528	128,293	42.06
Kansas	1,673,605	175,427	61.36
Kentucky	15,118,518	2,329,151	535.78
Louisiana	2,987,951	266,593	58.65
Maine	790,550	79,418	59.83
Mariana Islands	296	5
Maryland	1,239,350	117,432	20.30
Massachusetts	1,567,707	185,202	28.25
Michigan	4,817,185	370,960	37.56
Minnesota	3,516,313	385,075	72.51
Mississippi	2,390,007	180,121	60.65
Missouri	3,804,462	432,060	72.06
Montana	1,253,675	115,893	116.95
Nebraska	742,160	70,454	38.50
Nevada	1,076,544	123,943	45.83
New Hampshire	894,061	108,531	82.42
New Jersey	634,408	75,804	8.61
New Mexico	1,338,322	121,882	59.00
New York	2,849,970	290,299	14.97
North Carolina	4,427,820	415,284	43.44
North Dakota	590,720	73,878	109.51
Ohio	4,918,014	526,684	45.65
Oklahoma	2,841,850	307,245	81.71
Oregon	2,347,894	222,795	58.04
Pennsylvania	8,156,636	835,293	65.68
Puerto Rico	115,421	13,772	3.70
Rhode Island	169,915	20,180	19.17
South Carolina	2,320,334	265,276	57.21
South Dakota	744,106	73,658	90.20
Tennessee	4,166,503	432,200	67.98
Texas	11,724,997	1,196,176	47.37
Utah	2,967,949	198,091	71.37
Vermont	310,812	29,662	47.39
Virgin Islands	9,320	370
Virginia	3,524,638	371,267	46.27
Washington	3,631,035	444,762	65.96
West Virginia	2,059,912	191,550	103.30
Wisconsin	2,974,560	413,842	72.71
Wyoming	587,027	53,480	94.73

HEART ~

Some of what President Obama did tonight 

in Newtown, Connecticut

The family of Emilie Parker, who was 6, and a victim, released this photograph to the public

also:

"Human rights lawyer and law professor Bill Quigley writes that while the President offers condolences to the families of the 20 children shot in the massacre in Newton, Connecticut, he must also remember the countless children across the globe who die in tragedies every day, including "the 231 children killed in Afghanistan in the first 6 months of this year."

And on Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated in a report that ongoing violence in Afghanistan was taking an “unacceptable toll” on civilians, with an increase in civilian casualties of 28 per cent between 1 August and 31 October compared to the same period last year.

"Women and children are often the victims of the war between the Taliban and US-led Nato and Afghan forces, now in its eleventh year," the Irish Times writes in a report on Monday's blast."
(from "Common Dreams")

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/12/17

BRIDGE ~

Max Brod and Franz Kafka

Because of Brod, we have Kafka ~

as executor he disobeyed Kafka's instructions to incinerate his life's work

and instead became his biographer

guardian angel


________________

The Bridge

I was still and cold, I was a bridge, I lay over a ravine. My toes on one side, my fingers clutching the other, I had clamped myself fast into the crumbling clay. The tails of my coat fluttered at my sides. Far below brawled the icy trout stream. No tourist strayed to this impassable height, the bridge was not yet traced on any map. So I lay and waited; I could only wait. Without falling, no bridge, once spanned, can cease to be bridge.

It was toward evening one day — was it the first, was it the thousandth? I cannot tell — my thoughts were always in confusion and perpetually moving in a circle. It was toward evening in summer, the roar of the stream had grown deeper, when I heard the sound of a human step! To me, to me. Straighten yourself, bridge, make ready, railless beams, to hold up the passenger entrusted to you. If his steps are uncertain, steady them unobtrusively, but if he stumbles show what you are made of and like a mountain god hurl him across to land.

He came, he tapped me with the iron point of his stick, then he lifted my coattails with it and put them in order upon me. He plunged the point of his stick into my bushy hair and let it lie there for a long time, forgetting me no doubt while he wildly gazed around him. But then — I was just following him in thought over mountain and valley — he jumped with both feet on the middle of my body. I shuddered with wild pain, not knowing what was happening. Who was it? A child? A dream? A wayfarer? A suicide? A tempter? A destroyer? And I turned around so as to see him. A bridge to turn around! I had not yet turned quite around when I already began to fall, I fell and in a moment I was torn and transpierced by the sharp rocks which had always gazed up at me so peacefully from the rushing water.

_________________

Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

from Collected Stories (Everyman)

"Stories Unpublished in Kafka's Lifetime"

it was all day yesterday afternoon, as Sweetheart drove, I read aloud these shortest of stories by Kafka

WOMEN ~

I watched for hours and hours and hours through Friday all this heartache from a one-shooter slaughter of small children and others in Newtown, Connecticut. It's quickly too much. The fact that the childrens' torn and dead bodies were being left in the school all night was already too much to bear. It's evident while men are storming the grounds in heavy artillery, which is also way too much, the women are a standout during this tragedy — including even the women in the media. I was struck by this teacher, who survived the shooting, and her actions with children that she had hustled into a bathroom and just waited. Imagine imagine just imagine this. When she came to the moment in her story that she looked at the children and realized someone had to tell them they were loved. . .she had me in the palm of her hand.

MORE MINNESOTA HUMOR
MEETS MORE MUSIC ~

Leo Kottke once played trombone




 

ACROSS THE STREET ~

LEO KOTTKE

http://music-illuminati.com/interview-leo-kottke/

GOOD START ~

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/three-arrested-in-connection-to-rate-rigging-scandal/?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/07/16/business/dealbook/20120716-libor-interactive.html

Russell Libby ~

Dear Russell,

I had no idea the next time I'd hear from you would be via the New York Times obituary page. You famous wonder-jack, you! Who sent me his books of poems, or just a sheaf of poems at will, as a friend. A friend I never got to meet, and what a shame. You were such a good man, Russell, and the best part of this is every part of that goodness will remain since as a farmer, family man, husband, and neighbor you put it back into the soil. Gave it to Maine. I'm going to miss your short but sweet letters telling me how you chimed into my Birdhouse blog each day, and shared some of your day with me. Heck, that's how we met! You bought my books and took those other books I tucked in as extra. The cancer came and it seemed you had it beat, but I can see in this film below you're doing your ever loving best to stay above the grade, seriously hurt as you were. The grand teacher. The quiet poet. The one animals and birds and the wind already miss. It's very important that those that had never heard of you (impossible in Maine) knew you were with us.

http://www.wcsh6.com/rss/article/220013/10/Bill-talks-with-Russell-Libby

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/us/russell-libby-organic-farming-advocate-dies-at-56.html?ref=obituaries

Applied Geometry

Russell Libby

Applied geometry,   

measuring the height   

of a pine from   

like triangles,   

Rosa’s shadow stretches   

seven paces in   

low-slanting light of   

late Christmas afternoon.   

One hundred thirty nine steps   

up the hill until the sun is   

finally caught at the top of the tree,   

let’s see,   

twenty to one,   

one hundred feet plus a few to adjust   

for climbing uphill,   

and her hands barely reach mine   

as we encircle the trunk,   

almost eleven feet around.   

Back to the lumber tables.   

That one tree might make   

three thousand feet of boards   

if our hearts could stand   

the sound of its fall.

see Russell's book
Balance: A Late Pastoral 
 (Blackberry Press, 2007)

EAST MEETS WEST ~

RAVI SHANKAR

( 1920~2012 )

"Ravi Shankar, whose formal name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to a family of musicians and dancers. His older brother Uday directed a touring Indian dance troupe, which Ravi joined when he was 10. Within five years he had become one of the company’s star soloists. He also discovered that he had a facility with the sitar and the sarod, another stringed instrument, as well as the flute and the tabla, an Indian drum."

please read more:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/arts/music/ravi-shankar-indian-sitarist-dies-at-92.html?hp

ARCHIVE ~

A MOTHER USING ONE ARM STOPS A TRAIN TO LET SMALL ENGINEER SON OFF

_____________________




MORE TRAIN RIDES:

http://longhousepoetryandpublishers.blogspot.com/search/label/American%20Train%20Letters

photo © bob arnold

WATERWORLD ~

hphttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/science/project-seeks-to-map-and-reduce-ocean-noise-pollution.html?hp

LOVE LIBRARIES ~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/10/uk-lost-200-libraries-2012