read the following 2 poems twice in march -- on the 22nd at big blue marble and on the 27th at elkins park library:

LAST SATURDAY ERE SPRING

robin on sidewalk before my lawn
wednesday morn round 10.
right now a sparrow jumps
branch to branch
in big bush by front window.
34 degrees,snow swirls.
3/2013


MAKING THE CASE

1. VERDICT

if you make a tool
& it does the job
& you use it
long as you can
till it gets old
& starts to fall apart
& doesn't work well
& even makes you risk
getting hurt
if you use it
what do you do?

you take a good look
& see if you can fix it
& if you can
you fix it
& if you can't
you throw it away
& make a new tool


2. 'N DOCTR NATION

get m whn th'r yung
whn taste fr life
fresh n strong n sweet in thr mouths
makes it easy t'make m bliev y'
whn y'tel m
chance t'cm out in one piece
bes f they follo ordrs

nt tht it aint mind y'
bt whn stayin whol upprmos
they don' think 2 hard
bout wht ordrs say


3. SURGE

every generation has its war
& every generation gets told it must fight
to give its children & grandchildren peace

& every war is a holy war
with chiefs of state standing in for god
one hand gives
one takes away
giving death & taking life

& they ask are you man or mouse
not the rodent i've got in mind
edge of cliff ahead
deep water far below
i ask are you human or lemming

& noah's dove flies o'er the flood
still seeking the olive leaf


4. HI YO STRANGELOVE

silver buckin smartbomb tween knees
white 10-gallon ranger beret in hand
crusader jackrabbit
masked multinational vigilante
secretary tonto at his side
brings apocalyptic vengeance
rides mother o battles valkyrie wind
into baghdarok harmegiddo sunset

chip off ol block: slim w pickins


5. BETWEEN MESOPOTAMIA & A HARD PLACE

where did your heart go,america?

once you cared for folk in need
now you merely feed your greed

once you tried to defend the weak
now you burn to protect a sheik

you were a place of promise & vision
love & joy & hope

now i see only denial,suspicion
hatred,sorrow,fear

know why we feel afraid & alone?
poisons fill air & water
ground gives off deadly gases
roads & bridges crumble
a few with power line their pockets
many with no place to go lose their homes
children starve or get bombed
& you turn your back on it all

you had the spirit of pioneers
dared cross prairie & mighty river
fought the force of storm & drought
forged new life in wilderness

if only we could go back in time
see how future used to look
& do what we must do
to make it come out that way

but a metaphor's not what it seems
& time machines belong to dreams
& no physician alive can cure
the sickness unto death
2/1991-2/2003

ben franklin's well-armed lamb?

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin:

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

Widely attributed to Franklin on the Internet, sometimes without the second sentence. It is not found in any of his known writings, and the word "lunch" is not known to have appeared anywhere in English literature until the 1820s, decades after his death. The phrasing itself has a very modern tone and the second sentence especially might not even be as old as the internet. Some of these observations are made in response to a query at Google Answers.

The earliest known similar statements are:

A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
~Gary Strand, Usenet group sci.environment, 23 April 1990.

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.
~Marvin Simkin, "Individual Rights", Los Angeles Times, 12 January 1992

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
~James Bovard, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994), ISBN 0312123337, p.333

Also cited as by Bovard in the Sacramento Bee (1994)

read these on 3/9 at musehouse:

when you hear or read
something full of insight
remember:
things are sometimes
as they seem
sometimes not
8/02


a thousand lead roles
with rave reviews
pale beside
one part
fully played
on the stage of life
12/91


my muse,how could you
walk out on me this way?
didn't i treat you right?
i gave you
everything i had
& more

i lied for you
stole for you
killed for you
died for you
& tho
from time to time
i chased another muse
i always loved you best
& came back to you for more

give me one more chance,o muse
& i'll crush whole worlds for you
steer my winged steed beyond the stars
that spin in spiral streams
& in the empty reaches there
where no mind has gone before
weave elastic webs of cosmic silk
stretched around the formless dust
& with my diamond blade
carve living shapes of unknown kind
make nature take new laws

but first
let me show you
what those other muses
showed me
1/93


pledge
pledge allegiance
pledge allegiance to
pledge allegiance to the
       allegiance to the
                  to the
                     the
republic
republic for
republic for which
republic for which it
republic for which it stands
         for which it stands
             which it stands
                   it stands
                      stands
with
with liberty
with liberty and
with liberty and justice
with liberty and justice for
     liberty and justice for
             and justice for
                 justice for
                         for
4/92


FILL 'N TH BLANKS

y'say y'stuk'n a rut
ovrwrkd
undrpaid
n whr y'wrk crowded
unhelthy
unsafe

wl don' say it too loud
cz y'kno who wait fr yr job
f y'don' like it

we'l handl y'kno who
keep m 'n thr place
long as y'
jus do yr job
take yr pay
pray sundy morn
watch th game aftrnoon
n f tht ain nuf
n y'find y'slf yelln at th wife n kids
jus stop at th bar aftr wrk
n rmembr
bettr hom awaitn
'n th sky
1/93


TRADITIONL FAMLY VALUES

god n cntry
mothrhd n appl pi
hom whr hart iz
evr so humbl,no place like hom
man's hom hz castl
place t'hang yr hat
charity bgins at hom
spare rod,spoil child
tall oaks frm lil acorns gro
lil pitchrs hav big ears
childrn shd b seen,nt hrd
silnce goldn
luv blind
womn shd b seen,nt hrd
womn's place in th hom
kitchn n bedrm
barefoot n pregnant
on a pedestal
lady in drawng rm,whor in bed
womn's wrk nevr dn
two cn liv cheap as one
luv me,luv my dog
8/92

The GOP chose to protect tax loopholes for the wealthy instead of helping the middle class.

Infographic: Tax Loopholes for Corporate Jets or Investments in Jobs and Education?

americanprogress.org

By eliminating a loophole that gives special treatment to corporate jets, Congress could avert cuts that would cost.... 

(77) philosophy for all!...

philosophy for all! price of admission: your mind --
glenside library, tuesday, 3/19, 7pm


Socrates-Café-Abington/Glenside facebook page

my current favorite quotes on my facebook page:

I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.
~Socrates

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead

A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.
~Theodore Roosevelt

It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
~Mark Twain

It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know that just ain't so.
~Artemus Ward

No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
~John Stuart Mill

NEVER underestimate an opponent.
~Sunzi

It's not that complicated. The good guys are the ones who want more people to vote. The bad guys are the ones who want fewer people to vote.
~Joel Finkelstein

A witty saying proves nothing.
~Voltaire

Words are the source of misunderstandings.
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

waste no words.
~david matthew

Our natural benevolence accounts, in great part, for the origin of morality.
~David Hume

An unjust law is itself a species of violence.
~Gandhi

Poverty is the worst form of violence.
~Gandhi

Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time.
~Gandhi

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
~Gandhi

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.
~Martin Luther King

The time is always right to do what’s right.
~Martin Luther King

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.
~Martin Luther King

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
~Martin Luther King

Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.
~Martin Luther King

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
~Martin Luther King

I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom.
~Martin Luther King

In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right.
~Martin Luther King

The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
~Martin Luther King

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
~Martin Luther King

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
~Martin Luther King

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
~Martin Luther King

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
~Martin Luther King

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.
~Martin Luther King

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
~Martin Luther King

There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.
~Martin Luther King

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.
~Martin Luther King

The time has come for an all-out world war against poverty. The rich nations must use their vast resources of wealth to develop the underdeveloped, school the unschooled, and feed the unfed. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for "the least of these".
~Martin Luther King

In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All life is interrelated, and all men are interdependent. The agony of the poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We are inevitably our brothers' keeper because of the interrelated structure of reality.
~Martin Luther King

... no nation can claim victory in war. A so-called limited war will leave little more than a calamitous legacy of human suffering, political turmoil, and spiritual disillusionment.
~Martin Luther King

We can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.
~Martin Luther King

The course of true love never did run smooth.
~Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

We are such stuff
as dreams are made on, and our little life
is rounded with a sleep.
~Shakespeare, The Tempest

Empathy is the mortar that holds society together.
~Chuck Close

haven't been posting here much lately

look for me at
https://www.facebook.com/novadust
and
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Socrates-Caf%C3%A9-AbingtonGlenside/308377552592682
plus
https://twitter.com/n0vadust
and of course you can still see older posts here.

thanks.

playing catch-up again. in june i read these 2 poems at musehouse and this one at big blue marble.

here's a poem i wrote the day the cops that beat rodney king got acquitted and the riots started:

THE VERDICT

if you make a tool
& it does the job
& you use it
long as you can
till it gets old
& starts to fall apart
& doesn't work well
& even makes you risk
getting hurt
if you use it
what do you do?

you take a good look
& see if you can fix it
& if you can
you fix it
& if you can't
you throw it away
& make a new tool

4/92

in simi valley in april 1992, 3 LA cops were found not guilty and the jury failed to reach a verdict for the fourth. the riots that followed caused 53 deaths and 2000 injuries and destroyed 600 buildings.

regarding the march 1991 incident, wikipedia says:

King was taken to Pacifica Hospital immediately after his arrest. He suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken right ankle, and numerous bruises and lacerations. In a negligence claim filed with the city, King alleged he had suffered "11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken [bones and teeth], kidney damage [and] emotional and physical trauma." Blood and urine samples taken from King five hours after his arrest showed that he could be presumed intoxicated under California law. The tests also showed traces of marijuana (26 ng/ml), but no indication of PCP or any other illegal drug. At Pacifica Hospital, where King was taken for initial treatment, nurses reported that the officers who accompanied King (including Wind) openly joked and bragged about the number of times King had been hit. King sued the city over the beating, settling for $3.8 million.

his book, just published in april to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the trial, will undoubtedly and ironically be a bestseller.


‎"Can we all just get along?"


RIP

really behind here. on may 17 i read 3 poems in the bombay room at the chestnut hill hotel. in order they were FILL 'N TH BLANKS, OUR/NATION ALL & THEM/OFF-KEY, and TRADITIONL FAMLY VALUES. since i've posted them before this, you can read them here and here, along with a free bonus.