Saturday, April 20, 2013

Saturday commute lxxix: manhunt






     I crawled off through 
     the grass and rushes 
     on the far bank, and
     bolted for home. I am 
     not ashamed to remem-
     ber that I was fright-
     ened, careless. To be 
     shot from ambush is 
     horribly unnerving.















Geoffrey Household
Rogue Male
1939
New York Review Books, 2007©


Friday, April 19, 2013

Suppose it were Friday lxix: a little salt spray






     
          to season our
          surveillance,
          particles re-
          porting where
          we are

          


















Tuesday, April 16, 2013

In the countryside of Virginia, the quorum of spring calves





infallibly does rally
to investigate a play-
mate






























Passing by the windows of The Post last evening





We did see an international 
sporting event in the United 
States marred by tragedy in 
the last couple of days, but 
it was not the Boston Marathon, 
it was the Masters Tournament 
at Augusta. You don't get trag-
edy without hubris; Tiger Woods 
gave us tragedy, and he paid for 
it. What we got in Boston was a 
gaudy interference with malice 
aforethought, resulting in fatal 
effects. But such events, a news-
paper needs to comprehend, are not 
tragedies, unless it is the paper's 
intent to advance the degradation 
of distinctions of importance. But 
equally deplorable is the Editors' 
invocation of fury, when the honest 
response is one of sadness. This pa-
per is infamous for inciting flash-
points of hysteria, and this editor-
ial is a truly splendid example of 
its demagoguery on any occasion when 
redneck indignation can be brought to 
bear against peace, decorum of cons-
ciousness, the English language, and 
that very innocence the Editors in-
voke as their excuse.











The Washington Post
Editorial Board
The Post's View
  In Boston, explosions
  transform a scene of
  celebration into one
  of tragedy
April 15, 2013©

Reader's comment








Monday, April 15, 2013

Boston








     
      They come together again,
      the luminous swift hand over the slow
      ..



















Jon Stallworthy
The Anzac Sonata
  New and Selected Poems
   Message Received
   [fragment]
Norton, 1987©
  


Sunday, April 14, 2013

Sunday with Charles Simic



My Secret Identity Is

  The room is empty,
  And the window is open




















Jacket photo Dominique Nabokov
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013©