A Bag of Hammers

"If you can get dumb enough you can write marvelous poems about things that are really close to you."—William Stafford, "Some Suggestions from Experience"

What, he wondered, was "really close,"

near enough to be recognized, if seen,

and deployed, with progress made?

It could, of course, only be poetry!

What's closer to us than language,

the words that keep the world at bay?

Blunted by technology, might those belovèd fingerposts still point a way?

If so, hooray! Ignore the shilly-shallying

asininities of technology and speed

with your bag of hammers past the ding-

a-lings to the Muse's marvelous grimoire.

There’s always something, or someone,

to dumb down despite how dumb you are.

Illustration, engraved by Henry Bunbury, in Laurence Sterne's The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Confronted with Dr. Slop's pony and Dr. Slop himself on his back on the ground, with a spotted dog prancing over him, Obadiah tries to pull up his horse. A signpost with a hand points To Shandy Hall. Publish'd as the act directs 3d February 1773 by J. Bretherton, London.

Thursday, December 10, 2025

Just Right

“Who was that bear whose porridge is always just right? I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”—Wittgenstein

“Truth is provisional, time flows,

Where it comes from,

Where it goes,

No one knows,

Past and future live in our minds,

Depending on what the present finds,

The sun has spots, a leopard, too.

Commas are many. Full stops, few.”

All, or none, of this may be true—I can’t  tell.

Vive la bagatelle !

Sniffing the Region

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”

—1 Corinthians 13 (KJV)

In Saint Paul’s great poem that is

1 Corinthians 13

we tinkling cymbals find quiet.

Art makers. Stafford says,* must be

responsive to where they happen

to be. That response is perhaps

charity. Or maybe it’s not.

(I've uncharitably forgot.)

*William Stafford, “Sniffing the Region,” in My Name is William Tell: Poems (Lewiston, Idaho: Confluence Press, 1992).

Obit

“Of making many books there is no end.”

—Ecclesiastes 12:12 (ca. 970 BCE)

How long this vaunted progress now has been!

Our forebears did many ingenious things:

Calculated the Earth’s circumference

With only sticks and stones for evidence;

A clever Greek invented mayonnaise,

Improving lunch in the forthcoming days.

What’s it all amount to? Does it make sense,

Learning to swing a glaive to kill a queen?

Of all their cleverness, it would now seem,

None has been so little to their credit

As writing books to inform us of it.

King Solomon, three thousand years past,

Pronounced English literature’s obit.

Although supported by its boots, it falls.

Blurb

“Man, that’s Warm!!”*

—Iscariot Hackney, “Hot and Cool,” in Poet to Let (new ed., n.p., n.d.)

*Tip 'o the kepi to James Richardson. “Vectors 2.3,” no. 9, in Vectors: 6 & Ten-Second Essays (Copper Canyon Press, 2001): "no one exclaims delightedly 'Man, that's Warm!'"

 L0

Prix Fixe

Francis Bacon, Figure with Meat (1954)

"Little man, what now?"—Hans Fallada

My name is Legion,

and I’ll be serving you tonight.

I recommend the genocide

today, along with the main delight.

Take your time if in any doubt

about the proper moral reason.

Yes, despair is on the menu.

Unfortunately, it's not in season.

Want an entŕée a bit more cuisinée?

Ethnic cleansing clears the palate

in its inimitable way

Many of our customers concur—

it has, they say, it's own allure

And lives to kill another day!

Sunday, December 7, 2025