Tuesday, March 25, 2014

"The Trafficiad," Hans Ostrom

Re-posting one from several years ago. Dedicated to all commuters.

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost

We were asked to memorize this poem in third or fourth grade. Because we lived in rural snow-country, the subject-matter seemed perfectly ordinary, except by then, no one used horse-drawn buggies.

Friday, March 14, 2014

"The Maldive Shark," by Herman Melville

As the Indian Ocean has been in the news, with the Malaysian Airline plane missing, I thought of Melville's poem, the Maldives being situated in the Indian Ocean.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

CIA Spies on U.S. Congress

I'm not sure why people are so upset about the CIA's allegedly spying on Congressional staffers. Citizens in general get spied on all the time, sans warrants. And the fact that the concentration camp at Guantanamo is still open is incalculably more egregious.

Besides, at least the CIA is spying on the enemy: Congress.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

"Lucid Mansion"



Grace creates a spaciousness,
a spacious nest like a meadow

between cedar groves, or a placid
piazza—a place, that is, 

for consciousness to consider
its conscious nest, 

its fortunate fest of being. In
the howling storm of time,

grace manages to accrue
some space, in dark 

vacuity manages to
maintain a lucid mansion.


hans ostrom 1984/2014

"Winter Moon," by Langston Hughes