A Writer's Diary

A Writer's Diary

On Another Day

Like Yesterday

Nov 07, 2024
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The last time Trump was elected, my first written reaction was poetry, was the below.

I didn’t share it or try to publish it at the time, because I thought it was too much. But probably it wasn’t enough.

There is no attempt at neatness here. And it’s not strictly rational, because rationality seemed to fail to address what had happened. The end is obscene.

I have not made any changes.

I might now choose another year for ‘1936’.

9.11.16, 10am

How shall we wear our despair?

I ask you, very simply –

because I don’t know how I

figure.

*

I am as helpless as you are

I know as little as you do

I was as wrong, as often,

                        as they were

as often and as completely

*

There were accords, during my childhood,

leaf settled on leaf and several

boring men martialled us through

times that might have become interesting.

*

There were false accords, when I was young,

and clear political hatreds

that threatened every creature

but in a calibrated manner.

*

The rainbow is there again,

                                                the fucker

out of the window above the desk

Eloquence is not the problem

Elegance is not the solution

*

To be a politic dormouse and play guitar

fingerstyle while others deal with

social fretwork –

I echo you

*

‘I trust in the good sense of the American people’

said with no irony, at the time –

banners and applause, rage and hair.

How shall we wear?

*

Fame has come, has spunked

all over the flag

the sound of rutting from men who hunt.

Do not call him what you want to call him.

*

And what do I say to my sons

about what is worth doing

and what you shouldn’t do because

people like that

because people like that

who do things like that

end up

because the right thing to do is

always

and only

the right thing to do

which is –

how fucking feeble –

be kind

*

as 1931 becomes, overnight, 1936

*

what can I say to my sons

about how the world is

that people act out of fear

that if you can understand people’s fear

            you can understand people

that if you can understand people

            you can use their fear to make

            a safe place for yourself and for those like you

(you think)

*

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