The World of Good and Evil

This is not about poetry. It is about more weighty subjects. But those of you who read me on a routine basis have learned I digress. This is about a world of texture and of color. A world in which there are gray areas and all is not black and white.

According an associate press story, Lawrence Wilkerson, a former chief of staff to then Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the BBC in an interview that Vice President Dick Cheney rejected an offer by Iran in 2003 to help the U.S. stabilize Iraq and at the same time end its military support of Hezbollah and Hamas. Wilkerson said when the offer was received, it was thought by the State Department to be “very propitious moment” to strike a deal, but as soon as it reached the vice president’s office, “… the old mantra of ‘We don’t talk to evil”…reasserted itself.

Of course here we are three years later, 3,000 plus U.S. Servicemen deal, countless others with wounds that will impact them for the rest of their lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian causalities and a bloody civil-war between rival factions and no end in sight. The Iraq Study Group recommends that one alternative approach would be to enlist the support of Iran and Syria in the region. Of course, the President, el al in the administration have chosen to ignore this possibility in favor of sending 21,500 more American to the middle of a civil war.

I understand fully the concern President Bush has with nuclear proliferation. There are several fronts in which this is an issue, including North Korea and some of the regions of the old Soviet Union which have unaccounted for nuclear weapons grade supplies. Unfortunately, through out his one and a half terms of service, he has really achieved nothing on two of those fronts and largely ignored the third. This administration sees everything in terms of “good” and “evil” and if you are evil, we isolate you and hope that one day you will wake up and realize you are evil and decide to be good instead. Is this progressive foreign policy?

For many years, nations have successfully worked to find areas of agreement even though they have other issues in which they remain far apart. There is the old adage that the “enemy of my enemy is my friend.” It has allowed countries to find areas of mutual interest and work towards solving problems from what they can agree upon. If what Wilkerson has indicated about Iran’s communication in 2003 is current, it angers me to think that the Vice President would not have allowed the State Department to see what might have been accomplished to spare the region more bloodshed, loss of more American lives, and slow the $380 billion plus drain on the people of this country.

If one is to accept the premise of good and evil, it might be noted that good like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Such a concept is strictly black and white. I can acknowledge my fears and concerns about the nuclear paths of North Korea and Iran. But I can clearly see how from their vantage point they feel a double standard that says some nations have nuclear weapons and it is ok for those that have them to keep them, but the rest just have to accept the fact that no one else can.

Perhaps it is time again for us to conduct our foreign policy in living color – recognizing all the gray areas and not just looking at everything as if it were just black and white. Do we need to put poets in government? Is this the answer?
Sorry, I digress again.

The Year 2006 In Words

From my project I started on December 31, 2006



In all, the red and blue states were not so static—
As a sagging democracy, we have a lot to learn
About spreading it. And why
Do we want others to have it, yet emigrants are a code word
Rioting through our heads in fear— grabbing up our food
Crashing our schools and hospitals stealing what jobs
We still have in this global economy of circular motion?
The more things change for the worse, the more we hear “stay-the-course”
We need a plan, all of us, to deal with it all…
Gruesome body counts, stock market, crude oil and health care costs
Ascending rugged terrain of news charts—
Who are the terrorists? The lines are blurrier than ever.
Neocons fashion themselves as saviors.
Religious extremists chant with fervor.
A jihad in denomination is still a jihad.
A global warming to the sounds of war is calling us to redeploy
And some what withdrawal now!
Where are our battles? Who? What do we fight?
Illegal aliens? Civil Union? Stem-cell research?
What really ticks the clock of doom? Any of these?
Or nuclear tests by a nation teetering on instability
While another thinks proliferation their birthright
And we beg to argue from the weakness of a hypocrite.
We talk about the issue of bilateral verses unilateral discourse
Yet the critical issue might as well be the unidentifiable liquid
Upon the moon. Insane as is was 2006 is history.

Last Night In The Bedroom....

So here I am last night lying across the bed and my wife sitting next to me and she is reading notes from a French Poetry Anthology with English translations. The book is actually a text book for one of my daughter’s classes. But here we are, my wife [who is not particularly enamored by poetry] and I, discussing the process of translation, Romanticism, Surrealism, Cubism, Dadaism and a whole host of things about poetry including. It was both fascinating at the time, and rather amusing thinking back on it this morning.

In other news of a personal note, I discovered somewhat belatedly that a poem of mine titled File Folder was published in the Park University Scribe.

Frieda Hughes On Poetry / Erotic emergency - Times 2 - Times Online

Erotic emergency

Some days it goes like this....

"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again. "

Oscar Wilde

Unconscious Mutterings Week 206

I say ... and you think ... ?

Episode :: Another episode disconnect in foreign policy
Source :: Considering the
Jerk :: Knee jerk pleadings of an asshole
Introduce :: Spy vs. Spy
Ralph :: Ralph Constance Lauren
Stare :: stare into the blank
Cast :: -aways
Scenario :: opera of the possible
Flu :: shot over the bow
Mad :: about you

John Ashbery - Not Poet Laureate Material

John Ashbery is a highly recognized figure in contemporary American Poetry. The last of the so-called New York School of poetry. He has some 24 poetry books that have been published and in the realm measuring success by publication, one is hard pressed to discount is successes.
He has had poetry books published in each of the last six decades.

Deborah Solomon in a New York Times Magazine article posed the possibility that Ashbery may have felt snubbed since he has never been asked to serve as Poet Laureate. But Ashbery himself insisted, "I really don’t think I’m poet-laureate material." He added, " To be poet laureate you have to have a program for spreading the word of poetry. I’m just willing to let it spread by itself."

In earlier biographical material I've read on Ashbery I've noted that he seems to be quite content with a more laid back, less public posture. I can appreciate that the remarks attributed to him in Solomon's article are an honest expression of his view. But I can't help but believe this man, who's work I believe so brilliant, would in fact bring a robust and exciting debate to the
public discussion of contemporary poetry.