Misadventures of Crow

Misadventures of Crow Aug 2016

Dazzled by
the glamour of robber barons,
   a **** fetishist
      shills for feudal revival
         ambidextrously flogging
      bleach-white equestrian bones
   eventually dying
a looter's death.

Ayn Rand was a Russian-born American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. (via Wikipedia)

Mortified at Trump's presidential campaign, I can't help but think of it as the logical conclusion of garbage philosophy.

The "**** fetishist" thing may seem provocative for those unfamiliar with her work. A review of the *** scenes in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged should provide context.

My partner pointed out that mentioning it at all might be perceived as ****-shaming. She makes a worthwhile point, so to clarify - that's not my intent, and my sincere apologies to anyone who might be offended.

Rather, it seems metaphorically apt as a description of American politics - the powerlessness we seem to display every four years in the torrent of manipulative, exploitive electoral pandering. When will we finally tire of it?

I imagine Rand would have voted for Trump.

#politics #capitalism #objectivism #trump

Misadventures of Crow Aug 2016

Self-centered

Most spend their days
obsessed with themselves:

   how the hair looks,
   do the teeth sparkle,
   what others think of them,
   whether they're happy enough,
   opinions about others' opinions,
   the validity of their arguments
   their educations

   their careers
   their achievements
   their expectations

      their fading youth
      their politics
      their legacy

         their entitlement
         the imminence of irrelevance
         the safeguards against

            their avatars
            their audiences
            their likes

               Biding time with empty
               distractions and temporal
               snares keeping the mind
               oriented to survival.

This
is what it means
to be self-centered.

#privilege

Misadventures of Crow Jul 2016

Woman as a Literary Device

She's a rainbow

-- that rainbow in every
rock song about nothing,
a hidden hook that snares
a sucker's wallet

   *I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her

She
is the philosopher's stone transmuting
garbage lines into shiny trinkets
in desirous minds

   When you're old, nobody will know
   that you was a beauty

         What would pop culture be
         without woman to exploit?

   She's a gooooooood girl
   crazy 'bout Elvis

Obscured, behind
the Micks and Pettys
   the Kellys and Ushers
      the Pauls wailing MAMAAAAA
         the free spirit groupie cliché

is Woman fictionalized
by peacocking pimps
deceptive plumage splayed

is Woman
   sung about
   talked at
   reduced to an abstraction
   dispensed with
   forgotten
   and sold
   and the men
get rich.

#feminism

Misadventures of Crow Jul 2016

Thirty-five

Frenetic rhythms
smooth, softening and
ripening into
grooves, the space
between notes
now comes-to-presence
in dimensions
younger ears
will someday hear

waiting for unsure
notes to catch up
to the perpetual
pulse of the hidden beat
that drives this ecstatic
dance of self-undoing

orchestrating
a dynamic storyline
within the silent
odeon of an aging heart

where one day
Wisdom will sing
the Beloved to sleep.

#beauty #spirituality #aging

Jul 2016

William Blake

The Tyger

Tyger Tyger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

May 2016

spysgrandson

the Buffalo Cafe

no bison on the menu
at the Buffalo; this diner
never served it

Big Mike, long gone
named it for the high shelf
on the prairie behind it

where Lakota learned
to stampede beasts over the edge, massacring
hordes without bow or sweat

the gully below,
their forgotten bone yard,
left little trace of them

save half a skull
Mike exhumed and hung on the wall
in the time of polio

before the wide whizzing interstates
when truckers still landed on his dusty lot
their rolling behemoths content in pasture

in a new millennium, the cafe highway is but
an accidental detour; the shack guarded by thistles,
long departed the Detroit steel

the truckers now in the ground, their bones
free from pillage, but the Cyclops on the wall remains,
eyeing the vacant prairie they all once roamed