There’s a knot inside

That no one tied

And the ends are dipped in pitch

You may pick it til your fingers bleed

But you can never fill that need

And no one else can scratch that itch

Though others tried

Their twistings hide

That there is no simple resolution

A carpet knife drawn from the palm

A whiskey or a homemade bomb

It will only stretch out your ( Read more... )

 

• 70’s Fender blueface Twin Reverb
• 60’s Fender blackface Princeton Reverb

I considered taking pictures.  But I couldn't quite fit it in one or seventeen pictures.
So confess, dear readers:  what are your obsessions?

Up too late because of bad scheduling, bad work habits, and bad luck.  So now I will post!

I'm working on a conference paper, and have about ten good pages out eleven needful on a topic that really deserves fifty.  Unfortunately, I only have seven pages worth of time.  And must have it done by Wednesday night.   At such times I wonder what it is in ( Read more... )

Since last I posted, I have:

• Gotten kickass Christmas presents, including but not limited to:   a skull (ersatz), a nice green laser to put a dot one half mile away atop a tower, some strange water purifying UV wand thing, and a top hat.  Note:  I look damn fine in a top hat.  And so tall.  I'm waiting for it to come back.
  
• Finished one semester, ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Lucretius felt the change of the world in his time, the great republic riding to the height

Whence every road leads downward; Plato in his time watched Athens

Dance down the path. The future is a misted landscape, no man sees clearly, but at cyclic turns

There is a change felt in the rhythm of events, as when an exhausted horse

Falters ( Read more... )

Was writing up notes for my Whitman class, and thinking a bit about failed revolutions ( Read more... )

9.

HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,

Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome

and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning

my face in my hands;

Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth,

speeding swiftly the country roads, or through

the city streets, or pacing miles and ( Read more... )

I've been reading deeply in Whitman again (teaching a graduate course).   I use MS Word to annotate, which makes neat little comment boxes on the side.  I'm thinking of a very strange book you may or may not know, The Blue Cliff Record.  The Blue Cliff Record is a series of zen koan, or "public cases" with several layers of commentary. It's ( Read more... )

So, down to the last couple of weeks before I go back to work, so have to recivilize and get working at a minimal level to prep for my courses.  Emerson / Thoreau, which I've been reading for in a desultory fashion, and American Lit post 1865, which I've taught before, and will have to cut to local standards for summer courses.

So, here's what I've ( Read more... )