E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Depending on where you live in Europe, 'Christmas is cancelled' is already a thing. Lockdowns and major new waves of Delta/Omicron have already started in Ireland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and beyond. Travel is being curtailed, as is access to pubs, restaurants and crowded events. In England, the most laissez-faire of the UK's nations, there is a sort of blasé exceptionalism, commingled with a frantic surge in third (and fourth) vaccinations (boosters). The UK government has been keen to normalise the situation since summer, and 'move the conversation on' - the new variant is a bloody impertinence, and not on message at all. This blog and its chief writer-editor are not optimists. I find the history of human conduct to be an almost infinite library of ignorance, cruelty and self-interest, leavened at times with striking acts of sacrifice, wisdom, and kindness noteworthy by their relative rarity. Violence and depravity seem hard-wired, but even if it is onl

 

 C rucifixum docet veritatem I am there now, the place where I can say to you directly What the tricks of language Can hinder or form, I know that to keep it interesting Is the price of attention, you go Variously across the field, It’s a show, and a tell, but the main fact Is talking, some sharing, a gesture Out to another, maybe a friend Who is not even real, yet, An apparition of apprehension, Expected attendee at the imaginary Reading in the heaven of elsewhere, That place without pornography, Alcohol, violence, pills, and screaming; That ice palace of peace, unlike any Genuine mind, I am on the boil, A lobster reddening, on ferocious Pain attention, it’s all apart now, Break it open, and they mock it up, The they are you, and elseward to the world, You know I am hated, have felt that slap; Have been kicked to the concrete And licked a boot; had a cigarette appoint Itself its red dragon my maker; Thank you, masters of the cruel quickening; I know now a meaning, a need Greater than

  NOVEMBER 2021   War is coming or maybe it has begun just like somewhere   it is already the sun over the banners just like Bannon   is never alone so long as there is a phone; plans percolate;   waters rise, small nations drown; deafening tanks blitz a bit in the Eastern part of town   and all Mrs Kane's pieces begin to fit; destiny is on a date with a modern Kaiser;   the West bides its time not wanting to blurt havoc and let the dogs out   just yet; no one wants guerre when they can enjoy butter; but errors happen, Chief,   as do impactful mental states; the great men of history may have downsized a tad,   though hypersonic threats move past mortal disbelief to break a lot of conference plates.

  ABOUT APPLE PICKING   one is never wrong. The orchard itself is the correct answer to any question. Climbing is a problem, but gravity solves even that for some. The round truth of an apple is sufficient; being lost here is to be found; it is the end of the quest, best friend to cheese; and can become cider soon enough. The fall to the very ground if it happened, was near this row or that of reaching, autumn themes, the cooling air, a sense of collecting the divine in a modest wicker basket. Science is what finds the good among the bad, the worms, centring on the crisp core's seeds, the ample harvest before the frost, that sweet-bitter-tanging bite, flight into so many delicious names.   October 19, 2021

  POEM FOR CANADIAN THANKSGIVING 2021 for Michael Kovrig An entirely unearned sense of unexpected ease Comes this Sunday, perhaps because of the earlier Raucous post-mask brunch at a table with seven others Debating, rowdily, the British empire, how one manager’s Nursing home saw fifteen deaths in two weeks last year. Over vegan crepes and flat whites, after exercising In the park, amid rain, then sun, as a London October, this Occurs; I am gently teased for publishing conservatives But can any book deserve a bonfire, Even as evil as M. K .? I try to justify the neutral stance Assayed by publishers wanting to take no sides, Yet it feels a poor excuse for indecision, I agree.   I am thankful for much this year even apart from survival, And the lives of my loved ones who survived, I am one of the most fortunate of those not famous, not lean, I can give thanks also for the weather, and my God, who, Whether or not I believe in them, either remains Or w

WHO CARES WHO THE NEXT JAMES BOND WILL BE WHEN WE HAVE CRAIG TODAY? i.m. Douglas Barbour who died yesterday. Been a while since I thought a poem was a pop song Instead of a Walter ppk to the heart of the superstructure, Interrogating the very concept of linguistic designer thoughts; A poet never changes their spots, just their t-shirts, the ideas At the core of a human are not easily ironed out with ironic References to transhumanism, or Mao; no, we can smell fear Of losing the bank vault to the Beagle Boys, we know when Herr Nobel really likes the boy with the bowl cut, or the red lingerie. It’s a deontological low point when Django Unchained may be A cogent argument against slavery, and history isn’t; but That’s a filmic nostalgic revenge fantasy; we have to save A planet from ourselves with only The Poetics, and conflictual Arguably biological imperatives driving cleavage between The nation-states and free-floating transnationals in the way; We know more words than we can fathom wa