OCCUPY WALL STREET LIBRARY ~

"...on November 15, (2011). . .the New York Police Department
seized and destroyed more than two-thirds of the collection (originally almost 3,000 books) when they raided and vacated the premises of Zuccotti Park. Today this library no longer exists. As a result of
a lawsuit filed by Occupy Wall Street against the City of New York
(then governed by Mayor Bloomberg), the material damages and loss
of the book collection were met with a payment of $47,000 the
following spring. The activist group distributed this compensation
among other social groups, public institutions and politically engaged 
businesses. . ."

___________________________
from Fantasies of the Library
edited by Anne-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
M I T     P R E S S

EVA HESSE ~

E V A     H E S S E

E V A    H E S S E

THE HISTORY OF ROCK & ROLL ~

R E V I E W

HOW TO MAKE A DECISION ~

Sap

In slush of the laundromat

Parking lot, stepping

Down out of his old truck

Rubbing a big hand across

His whiskered jaw, we

Have known one another

A few seconds as I

Load three sacks of

Clean laundry into the

Trunk while he quickly

Sizes the Dodge up and

Down, glancing at mud

High on the doors, sipping

The warm sun on his

Face and the spring

Feeling he gets that

Makes him have to say

To anyone who will listen —

Bet the trees are pissing today

Wood For Water

How come this night

You wash in a pan

A shallow draw of stream water

Spilled down from wild apples

Of the mountain, where deer

Browse, make trail

Leave droppings

Hand over hand, you may

Think of it this way, or

Water that simply flows

Spreading into a sound of peepers

Where I’ve entered

Truck low geared

Flushing every redwing

From trees we were to clear

Blackberries grew then

Tickling stone walls

While working in the heat, high boots

Rolled pants

Many came apart wet in my hands —

Couldn’t save any, not even for you

That was a half year ago —

Now dead wood dropped, hauled, split

Chickadees perch closely, fluttering pine

There is firewood to stack dry

Someplace through winter

At night you bathe cold, cold water

Heated warm —

When you dress you forget underwear

And the thin white blouse —

Just a dress, sleeveless and red

How To Make A Decision

This morning very early

Thinking to catch a logger

At home and knowing full

Well he would be deer

Hunting I called anyway

And receiving his wife

On the line who was not

At all helpful or friendly

I decided to call another

Logger who was off deer

Hunting but his wife was

Forthright and clear and

Honest and I decided to

Buy logs from her man

Tough

Leaf hangs

To one beat-up

                                                                                      Sawmill log

———————————

Bob Arnold

Once In Vermont

Gnomon

NOT A LEGITIMATE PRESIDENT ~

Congressman John Lewis
dean of the Georgia congressional delegation

Michael Moore

FROM MICHAEL MOORE'S WEBSITE ~
__________________________________

Here’s why Congressman and civil rights legend John Lewis is right that Trump “is not a legitimate President”:

1. Nothing, including an arcane, racist section of the constitution, can change the fact that 3 million more Americans voted for Hillary than for Trump. It’s either a democracy or it isn’t. If he had won by 3 million, I would sadly admit that Trump is the President the American people wanted. But that’s not what happened.

2. He is not well and needs help. He has a number of serious mental disorders that make him unfit to hold office — and they are on display every day in one cringe-worthy tweet after another. He is a full-blown malignant narcissist. He displays sociopathic tendencies. He will say one thing and 30 seconds later say the opposite. He is disconnected from the truth. And he has a stunning lack of human empathy. These behaviors make him a truly dangerous occupant of the Oval Office.

3. The Russians interfered with the election in order to get him elected. Even Trump now admits as much. That alone makes the election tainted and should be voided. We spend trillions on ridiculous weapons and ineffective police state-style homeland security measures to defend us against those who would “destroy our way of life” — but we are to remain silent when a foreign government is caught trying to get THEIR candidate elected as OUR president? AND they succeed! This is a joke of monstrous proportions — and the fact that conservatives, Republicans and patriotic good ol’ boys are actively defending this foreign aggression into our country confirms to me what I’ve feared all along: that they really hate our form of democracy, our Bill of Rights, our belief that “All men (sic) are created equal,” our one person-one vote system, that whoever scores the most points wins and that people of all religions are welcome here. They don’t believe that, and I’d respect them so much more if they would just simply admit it.

4. The FBI clearly chose sides, and FBI Director Comey’s interference in the 10 days before the election most-definitely helped tipped the balance to the FBI’s preferred candidate, Donald J. Trump. That our own federal police would so brazenly attempt to throw the election to the person with the least votes is mind-boggling, frightening and must be stopped. Attorney General Lynch must immediately, today, appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate what to me appears to be a criminal offense. If this is true, I want to see FBI Director Comey in handcuffs and behind bars. Short of murder and a few other heinous acts, is there a worse crime in our democracy than the highest ranking cop in the land attempting to throw the election?

5. Trump has nominated in Rex Tillerson the most powerful corporate CEO in the world as “our” Secretary of State. Why would the quarter-billionaire head of the world’s richest corporation want a “government job?” So that he, a personal friend of Putin’s, can get the US sanctions lifted off Russia so that his company, ExxonMobil, can get back to their exclusive oil deal with Russia — which will eventually net ExxonMobil three TRILLION dollars. This is nothing less than a bold, audacious robbery in broad daylight — and it says a lot about you and me that they think they can get away with it.

6. Trump has potentially committed a number of felonies — and a felon simply can’t sit in the Oval Office (I can’t believe I even have to state that). From his admitted sexual assaults to whatever he’s hiding in the tax returns, to possibly evading taxes, to his committing fraud with Trump U, to his long list of conflicts of interest — the chance of us having to suffer through his impeachment trial in the Senate is just too much to bear.

Donald Trump is, as John Lewis said, NOT a legitimate president. He is unfit, unstable and was elected with help from the Russian government. John Lewis has announced he will not attend the Inauguration, and eight other members of Congress today have joined him. Call (202-225-3121) or write your Congressperson and insist he or she not attend the swearing in of an illegitimate president. It’s the least you can do short of standing in front of this runaway train. — Michael Moore

THE STRENGTH OF ONE NOTE ~

ARI BANIAS ~

N A R R A T I V E
                                                          ________________________________



For example, I was once

a sundress on a splintery

swingset in Texas, and the world

was made of yellow grass

struggling to live in sand, sand

beyond our fence, across the street,

sand that could have drowned us

but didn't. Because it was

a border town, there were other

others, so we sort of

belonged. The cacti, religiously

stoic, held promise, as did the mountains,

cast pink in the waning sun.

In Illinois I tried to build a kind of Midwestern

girlhood that failed and failed

into the shape of a flute

I played only high notes on.

I stopped eating

meat. Stopped speaking

Greek. Became an ear.

Now the only one I remember from that time

is the girl who looked like a boy or maybe

was one, who walked the same way home

I walked, same coat, same sneakers,

whom I never once greeted, just repeated

his-her name to myself: Dominick? Dominique?

Massively old trees canopied the cobbled streets.

The houses set so far apart you'd hear neither

argument nor song. Dominick.

Dominique. Not a stitch of recognition

passed between us.



_________________


A R I     B A N I A S
A N Y B O D Y
Norton 2016

DEVOURING BIRDS ~

R O N A L D      B A A T Z

My Prize Possession

The skull of a dog hangs over the fireplace.
  On the mantlepiece there is a deck of cards,
 not used in over half a year, at least.
Nothing else hangs on the walls.
  There is almost no furniture to speak of.
 In the kitchen cabinets a few dishes reside,
along with cans of beans and a bottle containing
  the last of the olive oil I cannot afford to replace.
 In the bedroom upstairs, where I sleep, there is a futon.
In the spare bedroom on the other side of the hallway
  there is nothing but long, thin roots hanging on the wall,
that are entangled and twisting on the wall like a wreath.
I found these sacred roots in the stream, nearby
  the motel where I was living and working.  To say
 that I like to keep things simple is no big revelation.
Simplicity is easy in such a large house, where ponies
  were once raised in the barn out back.  The pony shoes
 I come across in the garden I hang in the woodshed.
From a great apple tree, that is in dire need of pruning,
  blossoms fall and cover the roof of this woodshed.  But,
 yes, there are so many rooms, my god, certainly too many
for one person.  It is rare that a visitor does not show envy.
  I moved in with a woman, but the relationship changed
 and the change left me alone and responsible for these rooms.
I cherish the skull of the dog.  It is a prize possession.
  I ask it no questions, and it shows me the same courtesy.
 I'll keep it with me as I grow old.  It will be the best of company.
I admire the teeth it has left.




———————————————

Ronald Baatz
Devouring Birds
NEW AND SELECTED POEMS
Blind Dog Press
Australia

BLACK WATER BLUES ~

URSULA K. LE GUIN ~

The Salt
                         

                                                         para Gabriela


The salt in the small bowl looks up at me

with all its little glittering eyes and says:

I am the dry sea.

Your blood tastes of me.




———————————

Ursula K. Le Guin
Late in the Day
poems 2010-2014
PM Press 2016

SPEECH IN ACCEPTANCE OF THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION MEDAL FOR DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS NOVEMBER 2014

To the givers of this beautiful reward, my thanks, from the heart. My family, my agents, my editors, know that my being here is their doing as well as my own, and that the beautiful reward is theirs as much as mine. And I rejoice in accepting it for, and sharing it with, all the writers who’ve been excluded from literature for so long – my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction, writers of the imagination, who for 50 years have watched the beautiful rewards go to the so-called realists.

Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality. 

Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. 

Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers, in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an e-book six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this – letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.

Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words. 

I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.

Ursula K. Le Guin 

ALBERT WOODFOX ~

HOW ALBERT WOODFOX SURVIVED SOLITARY

As one of the Angola 3, he was in isolation longer than any other American. Then he came home to face his future.

go ~

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/16/how-albert-woodfox-survived-solitary

The New Yorker magazine

THINGS BEHIND THE SUN ~