Because We Are Not Taken Seriously
By Stephen Dunn
Some night I wish they'd knock,
on my door, the government men,
looking for the poem of simple truths
recited and whispered among the people.
And when all I give them is silence
and my children are exiled
to the mountains, my wife forced
to renounce me in public,
I'll be the American poet
whose loneliness, finally, is relevant,
whose slightest movement
ripples cross-country.
And when the revolution frees me,
its leaders wanting me to become
"Poet of the Revolution," I'll refuse
and keep a list of their terrible reprisals
and all the dark things I love
which they will abolish.
With the ghost of Mandelstam
on one shoulder, Lorca on the other,
I'll write the next poem, the one
that will ask only to be believed
once it's in the air, singing.
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Another evening of being incredibly pissed about family stuff (my side this time, and really so much worse than my husband's), so I'll just stick in another locked post and rant there. Since my day started with an early orthodontist appointment, continued through carpooling in several different directions and stopping at CVS and exciting things like that, the high point was a conversation with
Oh yeah, and I wrote a review of "The Devil in the Dark" which is pretty straightforward about how slashy it is, only without using the word "gay" and arousing the fury of the fan boys who can't even deal with there being gay characters in some of the Trek novels (someone posted a hilarious fake rant on the BBS about the heterosexual agenda in other novels, where Riker and Troi are married which clearly represents the author imposing his values on everyone else -- sad thing was, a lot of people didn't get it).
Sadly there is no
1. Have you ever been to the ocean? Many times, and more than one, though never enough.
2. When is the last time you wore a swimsuit? In August in Ocean City.
3. Do you respect people more for staying through difficult times or knowing when to call it quits? Usually staying. I don't disrespect people who decide to call it quits after a very painful struggle, but as a general rule the ones I admire are the ones who manage to stick it out.
4. Name a TV show that made a huge splash in the beginning, but has since gone downhill: Desperate Housewives leaps immediately to mind, though I could name a hundred predecessors from Dallas to The X-Files to Star Trek.
5. Have you ever eaten shark? I tried it a long time ago, did not particularly like it, and I am a big seafood fan so I never had it again since there are generally other things on the menu I'd rather have.
1. What is your favorite noise to hear? The surf is pretty high on the list. Also insects at night in the mountains. And my kids laughing.
2. If you could live in any era of time, what would you choose and why? Now. The future's an unknown and I don't think there was a better era for the average woman in the western world, despite all the things that are still problems.
3. You just found $50 while cleaning your house. Where do you decide to spend it? The bookstore, unless there's some specific item I'm coveting right at the moment I find it.
4. What magazines to you subscribe to/read on a normal basis? The kids get Disney Adventures, Cat Fancy and Mad, all of which I read; we get Reform Judaism, Entertainment Weekly, Smithsonian, Astronomy, our college and grad school magazines, the Sunday weekend newspaper supplements like Parade; and we just subscribed to several for the school magazine drive, I believe including Archaeology Today and one of the popular photography magazines. I am sure I am leaving some out.
5. If you could witness any event in history, but not change anything about it, what would you choose and why? The last day in the life of Jesus Christ. I can't think of an event that had more of an impact on global history and I would dearly love to know what really happened, what was really said, what was really done by whom.
 | You scored as Elizabeth I. I am Queen Elizabeth I of England. I am sometimes vain of my appearance, but usually level headed, though I have inherited my father's temper. I like to put on a performance. I have a way with languages and with words. I can inspire my subjects. I also accept the counsel of those who would advise me, though I stay true to my own opinions.
Which Female Heroine Are You? created with QuizFarm.com |
Tomorrow we might hike on Sugarloaf or at Scott's Run, or we might go look at new televisions, or we might do both. Or, you know, I might hide under a rock.
However, proof that other planets in the solar system generate radio waves was discovered right near where I live by earlier amateur astronomers.
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