I think ultimately we're probably born with a sense of future suffering. I think we're aware of it, like some kind of primal memory, and the older we get and the more we go through the more it reveals itself to us.

-- Emmylou Harris, April 2021 interview

I'm listening to Warren Zevon again, but all the California songs. The dark, tender, biting, seedy California songs. A river Styx of alcohol running through all of them.

"Carmelita." "The French Inhaler." Most of all, "Desperados Under the Eaves."
I love the mariachi guitar frills on Carmelita, the mentions of Echo Park and Alvarado Street. The ( Read more... )

Notes ( Read more... )

I can't seem to find a coherent analysis, but here are some notes, anyhow ( Read more... )

Parting

The note and flower worked
to signify your leaving;
the note's lines stark,
the slackened rose grieving.

The paper's edge cuts.
The rose's edge curls.
Your heart opened and shut,
but never unfurled.

Pestilence

Pestilence stalks without
and we must dwell within
to bake and brood,
drift and dream.

God stirs the pot,
roils the world
into one great
whirlpool.

"Your delight is at springs, among goatherds and oxherds,
and you dance with the nymphs, you keen-eyed hunter and lover of Echo."
-- Orphic Hymn to Pan, tr. by Apostolos Athanassakis

Pan and EchoHe chases her sound across the peaks ( Read more... )

PenitenceMy wants come from your self unpinned ( Read more... )

Festivity

There is no revel without feast.
The laid-out bounty is the first exuberance.

As we have we share, whether
saffron-laced pastries
and peppercorn-studded meats,
or simply oil and bread.

There is no revel without song,
which is the sustenance of the soul.

The feast is the comfort,
the carol the joy.

Oinops pontosThe wine in the cup is ( Read more... )

Impeachment

Now is the winter of our dissent,
and of their pious lies;
the winter of our malcontent;
and of their compromise.

Asked to judge, they abstain.
Asked to act, they refrain.

The Victor offers them a cup
of poison, and they drink it up.