A NEAT NOTION, IF LUNATIC

71 of #100daychallenge

The kitties were all scared enough at all the outdoor hubbub to come in with no cat guff leveled in my direction. Three families on our street were having front yard parties. I know they are more about celebrating because it is a holiday than thinking about the USofA. 

The USofA does not make me want to celebrate currently. Y'all know I am pretty pessimistic in the best of times and these are not those. There are now wave upon wave of explosions. Hopefully, they will burn out early. I know that is my plan.

I didn't get in a nap today. My cousin Christina and I worked on cutting out our muslins/tissues which took quite a bit of time. Tomorrow we are meeting to baste and adjust the tissue/muslins and thence to cutting fabric. Not that I needed to at all, but I bought more fabric for this specific dress. I can never find my stash when I need it, but perhaps this will kick off more sewing and I will get those materials better to hand. It is much better to work with someone else on this stuff.

I was sorely tempted to have a drink, but I couldn't muster the energy to buy wine. There is gin and lime juice about ... I am no longer sure how many days it has been. But I didn't have the gumption to go get some.

My friend Peter just wrote that he is feeling a battlefield effect. He also says it is stimulus. money in the sky. The sky is very smoky and stinky. I just don't get this fireworks/explosives thing. It is so aggressive and inconsiderate. Would it help if I were a different gender? At least folks around here aren't firing guns off into the sky. I am a little worried about my garden as my neighbors are big on celebrating this. However, given that they invited me to have a drink and some bbq, they seem to be aware.

I caught my mom watching Fox News a couple of times today... She just walked to the back of the house to complain about the poor air quality. She said it was the worst she has seen it in 94 years. She wants to do something about it. I told her to forget it. I will only escalate in years to come. Best to get far out of town if possible. The USofA is a shit hole of stupidity and toxic masculinity in both biological genders, maybe in the cultural ones, too.

The kitties are nervous except for Fox and Nina. Fox is in his usual perch on my little bookshelf where I keep the books I am working with. Nina is stretched out on my bed. Idrisse is gone to ground somewhere. McCoy is very nervous as is Vera and currently nowhere in sight. 

My temporary crown fell out again, making it a solid three times and a week to go before the permanent one arrives.

WALDEN IN JULY

Three pigeons down-swing

through a chimney of air

onto Black Tom—a rock

in the Sound’s shallows, bare

but for gulls’ dung

and clams’ broken crocks.

There is no food there—

not even a flotsam weed

from high tide. No food.

Unless you are a rock-dove

that maybe eats rocks; or brood

of the Roc, and feed

on imponderables—plasm of

lost time, dreamt magnitude.

Time plasm. There’s a neat

notion, if lunatic,

like—Who was it who said

our souls make an aspic

for the moon to eat?

He saw Man as aphid

in an ant-heap zodiac.

Well, who knows what stocks

of men the moon needs?

She does drag out of us

dreams, longings, certain tides

in the blood, paradox—

being Ishtar, libidinous,

and Dian, light-of-maids.

Maybe time’s the stuff

a moon eats. The white

meat of desire, the dark

of regret, a meat

Universe had none of

till mind reached fore and back—

and, to immortals, sweet.

Something is ranching us!

We wax in numbers; all

our plagues, wars, genocides

don’t dent the capital

stock the increasing mass

cracking on all sides

our spherical corral;

and always we strew in wake

of the planet—and cast ahead—

cobwebs of time. To the moon,

maybe, or some dread

Draco? A chance we take,

till pigeons settle in

their pigeonholes for good.

— Peter Kane Dufault, The New Yorker,  November 12, 1960 issue