A pretty new white lace dress, cute little ballet shoes,
It is the first day of spring, the children are singing
(they are supposed to be sleeping) the clock is ticking
the cats are waiting for supper, one of them pregnant
kittens to herald the spring, nothing is blooming
nothing seems to bloom much around farms, just hayfields and corn
farms are too pragmatic, I look at ads
for hydrangea bushes, which I hate they remind me of brooklyn
for chinese wisteria vines, which I can’t picture
but they sound exotic and mysterious
a kind of blue purple, I decide I’ll get some
will I be disappointed, will they be yellow?
will I hate the Shetland pony we are buying
will we run out of wholewheat flour this week
before a new supply drives up from the city?
oh, it is very like being a pioneer,
but then everything is in this country, and in the country
especially. it was like being a pioneer on 5th street, too
and houston street, and amsterdam avenue
and in brooklyn, under the streetlights growing up
rollerskating at dusk with stickball games in the street
was the most pioneery of all,
it is slightly boring,
it tastes a lot of the times crossword puzzle
and ordering things thru the mail, which never come
or turn out wrong, or come the wrong color (wisteria)
I can’t blame Alan for planning to go to India
to free his kundalini, so that his ears peel
or something dreadful happens to his physique
we are built for the exotic, we americans, this landscape leaves us
as open as a piece of chocolate cream pie
19th Amendment Ragtime Parade by Marilyn Chin
Birthday, birthday, hurray, hurray
The 19th Amendment was ratified today
Drum rolls, piano rolls, trumpets bray
The 19th Amendment was ratified today
Left hand bounces, right hand strays
Maestro Joplin is leading the parade
Syncopated hashtags, polyrhythmic goose-steps
Ladies march to Pennsylvania Avenue!
Celebrate, ululate, caterwaul, praise
Women’s suffrage is all the rage
Sisters! Mothers! Throw off your bustles
Pedal your pushers to the voting booth
Pram it, waltz it, Studebaker roadster it
Drive your horseless carriage into the fray
Prime your cymbals, flute your skirts
One-step, two-step, kick-ball-change
Castlewalk, Turkey Trot, Grizzly Bear waltz
Argentine Tango, flirty and hot
Mommies, grannies, young and old biddies
Temperance ladies sip bathtub gin
Unmuzzle your girl dogs, Iowa your demi-hogs
Battle-axe polymaths, gangster moms
Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Lucy Burns and Carrie Chapman Catt
Alice Paul, come one, come all!
Sign the declaration at Seneca Falls!
Dada-faced spinsters, war-bond Prufrocks
Lillian Gish, make a silent wish
Debussy Cakewalk, Rachmaninoff rap
Preternatural hair bobs, hamster wheels
Crescendos, diminuendos, maniacal pianos
Syncopation mad, cut a rug with dad!
Oompa, tuba, majorette girl power
Baton over Spamalot!
Tiny babies, wearing onesies
Raise your bottles, tater-tots!
Accordion nannies, wash-board symphonies
Timpani glissando!
The Great War is over!
Victory, freedom, justice, reason
Pikachu, sunflowers, pussy hats
Toss up your skull caps, wide brim feathers
Throwing shade on the seraphim
Hide your cell phones, raise your megaphones!
Speak truth to power
and vote, vote vote!
WARNING:
Nitwit legislators, gerrymandering fools
Dimwit commissioners, judicial tools
Toxic senators, unholy congressmen
Halitosis ombudsmen, mayoral tricks
Doom calf demagogues, racketeering mules
Whack-a-mole sheriffs, on the take
Fornicator governators, rakehell collaborators
Tweeter impersonators, racist prigs
Postbellum agitators, hooligan aldermen
Profiteering warmongers, Reconstruction dregs
Better run, rascals better pray
We’ll vote you out on judgement day!
Better run, rascals better pray
We’ll vote you out on election day!
"A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.”
– Thomas Jefferson
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| Etching signed "yvon" |
From Wikipedia: "The Bouquinistes of Paris, France, are booksellers of used and antiquarian books who ply their trade along large sections of the banks of the Seine: on the right bank from the Pont Marie to the Quai du Louvre, and on the left bank from the Quai de la Tournelle to Quai Voltaire.
The Seine is thus described as 'the only river in the world that runs between two bookshelves'.
Installed along more than three kilometres of the Seine and declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, the 240 bouquinistes make use of 900 "green boxes" to house some 300,000 old books and a very great number of journals, stamps and trading cards."
Spending a day walking in Paris browsing book stalls.
What could be more perfect?!
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As I grow old
I will not shuffle to the beat
of self-interest
and make that slow retreat
to the right.
I will be a septuagenarian insurrectionist
marching with the kids. I shall sing
‘La Marseillaise’, whilst brandishing
homemade placards that proclaim
‘DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING’.
I will be an octogenarian obstructionist,
and build unscalable barricades
from bottles of flat lemonade,
tartan blankets and chicken wire.
I will hurl prejudice upon the brazier’s fire.
I will be a nonagenarian nonconformist,
armed with a ballpoint pen
and a hand that shakes with rage not age
at politicians’ latest crimes,
in strongly-worded letters to The Times.
I will be a centenarian centurion
and allow injustice no admittance.
I will stage longstanding sit-ins.
My mobility scooter and I
will move for no-one.
And when I die
I will be the scattered ashes
that attach themselves to the lashes
and blind the eyes
of racists and fascists.
- - - Brian Bilston
We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.
―Pascal Mercier, from Night Train to Lisbon
