It feels to me like no one is answering the question I posed in my previous post. I posted it late, so I may not have been clear enough.

For the record, I understand the difference between religious extremism and religion, faith and spirituality. I understand that all traditions have been abused. I understand that political ends have been met under the guise of religion throughout human history.

My questions, put more directly, are these:

Is the American Left explicitly anti-Christian? Why?

Are you? How do YOU know if you are or you’re not? (I am ashamed to admit that I am.)

Does it matter to our efforts (for those of you who count yourself Lefty) that we do something about this?

Bring it on. I just painted a huge bullseye on myself for your shooting pleasure.

and I just made it far worse by listening to Dinosaur Jr, the Smiths, Ministry, and Lone Justice, in that order.

I have a sudden urge to put on a black leather cowboy suit, dye my hair blonde, and mope while having myself whipped to a screaming, incoherent frenzy accompanied by skronking, inconceivably overdriven guitar riffs.

Killing Joke is coming up. Add some Brit-crank aggro-punk, and you can tell where this is going…

no more work getting done this year.

FIVE FAVORITE SONGS BY X:

“Adult Books”
“I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts”
“Devil Doll”
“Surprise Surprise”
“The New World”

FIVE ARTICLES OF CLOTHING I RECENTLY DISCARDED:

Ripped T-Shirt from NPS ’96
Elvis Presley’s codpiece
A pear-scented dog collar
Worn out “Physician’s Assistant Martens” (bargain brand)
Tighty used to be Whiteys

FIVE THINGS MY CAT THREW UP RECENTLY:

Elvis Presley’s codpiece
Dominick Dunne
Solid gold cufflinks previously owned by Fabio
Tuna
Tuning fork

FIVE PHRASES I HAVE SHOUTED DURING THE PHYSICAL ACT OF LOVE:

Give me that lollipop and no one gets hurt!
Now, then, where the hell is that codpiece?
Dwarves! Dwarves everywhere!!!
Get that otter off me, you goddamn psycho!
The square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the opposite sides!

FIVE OF MY FAVORITE FOODS:
Salmon in a citrus fennel marinade
Peanut butter and cream cheese on wheat bread
Great Italian bread dipped in oil and spices
Tomatoes and fresh mozzarella in oil and vinegar, preferably in Santa Fe
Cheetos

FIVE GREAT LEADERS OF OUR GENERATION:

Um, I’ll come back to this. Maybe later. Much later.

FIVE GREATEST MEMES OF ALL TIME:
The one about the colors!
The one about who you will be best suited for in love!
The one about the celebrity you are most like!
The one about the band you should be in!
The one about sheepiness!

Add your own!!!!!

my mother used to say
sing before seven,
cry before eleven. meaning

don’t let yourself be too happy.
don’t think about it. don’t even try.
give up the morning and settle for dusk,

and don’t imagine what it would be like
if the lights never came on again, because
there was never any power anyway.

don’t conjure
hope
you can’t handle.

don’t ask for mercy.
don’t turn your bed into a music hall
and expect a dance troupe to come through.

the arms of god are nearly endless,
some poet said. point being, of course, that
they do end. i should know, because god’s got me good —

that bricklayer’s
paw up in
my puppet hole.

but i keep my mouth shut, and i feel nothing.
i don’t even hum when i get up. i was well prepared.
mom was smart. i thank her every morning.

The world’s big insurance companies have indicated that they won’t be adversely affected by the tsunami, because so little of the property involved was insured and the population was generally too poor to have insurance.

Here’s a link to the story.

Whew.

“how about that tsunami?” “the one in indonesia?” “yeah, that one”

All day there’s been a stream of visitors
to the world map on my cubicle wall,
co-workers come to look for the place where it all happened.

Should I be surprised that on at least five occasions
I’ve had to point at the Indian Ocean
and then do a quick finger tour around the rim?

Or should I be heartened that at least
they came by to look? Or that they knew
the map was here? It’s evidence, after all, that

the wave reached beyond Aceh. The wave
hit everything. It’s just that not everything
got wet enough to make a body feel,

and we have money, like paper towels, to
keep the damp out. I wish I knew if I should cry
or just keep going back to the wall to point it out again:

here is Phuket, here Aceh, here Sri Lanka, here Tamil Nadu,
here Pondicherry, here Chennai. Here is Myanmar
which has been silent. Here we are in the United States,

and here is everyone else.

Be it resolved that use of the phrases “primordial chaos” and “rain streaked window,” or any use of the word “soul” that does not involve references to Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Etta James, or Aretha Franklin, will be punishable by subjecting the poet to a term of no less than fifteen and no more than thirty consecutive recitations of the collected works of Matty Furmanek in pig Latin.

By Donald Rumsfeld.

Resolved:

That any poet who writes a poem based in a wistful and/or romanticized view of suicide as:
— an inevitable step;
— a proper response to a failed love affair or parents who are too strict;
— the true province of art and poetry;
— an idealized state of grace and release from care;

be it, again, hereby resolved that I will smack said poet upside the head with a copy of the Nirvana box set.

And if I write one myself, I give you full license to do the same. Twice.

happy xmas, y’all…

if you aren’t celebrating, then happy day to you too.

T

I’m giving up on the road to Heaven because
it feels like the sky god who they say lives there
is just someone we’ve been stuck with
because the arguments for other ways don’t get heard.

I say: why settle for that distant promise
of an eventual view from those heights
when there’s all this power right here,
ripe and cool with promise?

Maybe I am meant to be
the ocean god’s project. I will learn humility there
in the storms. If I want for Heaven
I could let a wave carry me there.

Maybe there’s an earth god who’ll brew me beer and teach me
more ways to screw than there are beads on a rosary.
I’ll live a life here, dirty and rutty and rich;
and if I want for Heaven, I’ll grub it up myself and grow my own Eden.

If there is a fire worthy of worship,
it’ll come down to me from storm clouds.
If I hear a prophecy on the wind, it’ll be clearer
after blowing through the trees.

As for the Heaven-God — how he fulminates —
ah, well, I think
that is just what comes of sitting
so high above things.

Unless — and this is possible —
the stories we hear about the sky god
were just something dreamed up
by someone with an axe to grind.

In fact, I’d bet on it —
there may be a sky god, but I know my gods,
and what they keep describing
isn’t one.

Looks like I’m gonna make it to iWPS after all…classes start the weekend before.

So if you’re coming in for it…we’ll hang.

is currently listening to Guns N Roses’ “Greatest Hits.”

Specifically, “Sweet Child O’ Mine.”

I contradict myself; I contain multitudes. (Which I suspect offically makes this the first LJ ever to mention the work of Walt Whitman and W. Axl Rose in the same post.)

Where do we go…where do we go…

I see it
in the dim corner
of the room

strung with
heavy weight
shiny brass

there are scars on the neck
where the choker goes for
giving a song a new voice

the dark wear and slipshod binding on
its ovals and holes and curves
and the head like a bat’s wing opening

this sinister beauty is
enough itself
to stand alone

so what am I to it?
I am no instrument
no mover of air

truly neither singer nor song
neither cheers nor applause
just the rack that holds it up

when it has settled
into silence
I put it down

and lie awake thinking:
I am not music
enough for her

I am positive I am destined for something. No doubt.

I guess I’m the kind of person who could be dangerous, if it’s not channeled correctly.

A question for you, one that may be a bit daunting…

Tell the truth: are you destined for something?

Do you know something’s waiting for you and you alone to do or be? Something the world needs, wants, can’t do without, and only you can deliver it?

Hmmm?