Black-jack Poetry

 

You are undoubtedly familiar with Haiku, the form of poetry that condenses a single phenomenon into 17 syllables in three lines: 

“A World of Dew” by Kobayashi Issa

A world of dew,

And within every dewdrop

A world of struggle.

I have recently learned of another form of poetic abbreviation: Black-Jack poems. The idea is similar, but the format provides 21 syllables (hence the name) in three lines. I've been fooling around with the form for a couple of weeks. Here are some examples:

I'm indifferent to "gods."

"Yeah there are," or "No there ain't?"

Utterly irrelevant!

I cannot be expected
To meet stupidity with
Placid equanimity.

I have some, a few, regrets.

But they don't trouble me like

That mountain of karmic debt.

 The Dog watches as I eat,

Silently reproaching me

For every bite I DON'T share.

A country staggering like

A behemoth lurching from

Unhealed mortal injury.

 

"Not today!" Why not "Today?"

Is the evidence of your

Hypocrisy still bleeding?

Do any spent blossoms look

More ravaged than irises

When their flashy days are done?

 

My heart's been dormant so long

--Ten years last June since she died--

I can't disturb it now.

The thing about blasphemy

Is, it's really GOTTA STING.

Otherwise, why'd ya bother?

In this vernal, desert light, 

green's to blue as black to white;

on the ether, nature writes. 

Iris in its "pupal" stage:

Fat bulge on a sturdy stalk.

Then, the blossom emerges.

The Dog watches as I eat,
Silently reproaching me
For every bite I DON'T share.The Dog watches as I eat,

A Hospice Tale, of Smoky and Mr. P

Five years ago, I accepted a bedraggled, abused, elderly (enormous), shaggy, frightened, shell-shocked male Malamute, whom his rescuers dubbed"Nobel," into my home. He was in sad shape when he was rescued: a groomer shaved 30 lbs of matted fur. He was weak and aloof. Rescuers thought he might have six months to live; I was able to stretch that out to 20...

And I changed his "home" name to Smoky or Mr. Smokes because of his grey, black and white coloring, and because he moved so silently through the house. 

Smokes was, expectably, not house-trained (at first, though he learned pretty fast). But at first, not so much; so I attached a bell to his collar. I'm a light sleeper so I could hear the bell when, at night, he started moving around. Movement usually portended the need to excrete. This enabled me to prevent many "accidents" by directing him outside. 

Eventually--after close to a year--he began to warm to me, but he never became "affectionate, though we did learn to play, especially after NMDOG, the rescuers, sent along a "companion,"  a young, tri-pod husky named Tasha, who taught Smokes to "dog" all over again. He was doing very well, until his hind legs started to fail him.

Smoky went on ahead in August 15, 2018. I kept Tasha until April, 2019, when I shattered the humerus in my left arm and could no longer keep up with her, and I had to relinquish her back to NMDOG. Sometime later, NMDOG recovered Piggums, who came to me as a hospice in June, 2019.

There are things to know about animal "hospice. The situation is fraught. Abused dogs require a long time to re-acquire the capacity to trust humans, and it will try your patience. 

Don't let it:
1: When accepting a hospice dog, don't expect them to take to you like a puppy would. Older dogs will have "human trust" issues which may be resolved in time, but may not. In 18 months, Smoky never rolled over for a belly rub, because exposing yer belly isn't easy for a dog. He was starting to be more affect-ionate (stet) in hisa last summer. I've had Mr. Piggums for 18 mos, and he's still reluctant, though he can be cajoled.

2) The "Loss" Thing

I've thought about this a lot. Before anyone accepts a hospice dog, one MUST accept that "losing" such a companion in the relatively foreseeable future is an inevitable part of the deal. You HAVE to have that knowledge before you take in an old or injured fur-being. It cannot intrude in loving them, because that's what you're THERE for: love and comfort.

Related: Over the many years of having dogs and their meeting their sad but necessary departures, I've found it really helpful to regard these duties the way the Hopi regard the deaths of their elders: They are going (and I am sending them) on ahead. 

OVERTAKEN BY CHEATS

 The Price of Exceptionalism

Americans are prisoners of myth and fantasy:

Y/our "exceptionalism."

The "best ever," the "greatest ever," the "freest ever," and yadda-yadda. Repeat that stuff long enough, and without any countervailing, critical narrative or correction, and you're gonna end up with a pretty distorted idea of your situation. whuch we have (see above).

The emergence of "Critical--Legal, Race, Educational, Economic, Historical, etc.--Theory" has spotlighted what the exceptionalist propaganda has elided almost from the first: the disjuncture between the principles "we" espouse and the deeds we commit.

The overwhelming majority of y/our compatriots have absolutely NO fucking idea about how the country and the economy AND the Empire actually "work," and have no interest in--or capacity for--learning.

Yet they have zero hesitation about furiously and bitterly criticizing and inveighing against that about which they know embarrassingly little; or, worse, blindly following the shrillest, meanest-spirited demagogues who most loudly spew what they need to hear to sustain their fantasies and amplify their grievances.

It wasn't always this way--though the current conditions were always immanent within the system--and it is turning out that the commentators who have warned that the Constitution could become a mutual suicide pact might be correct, after all.

It was/is a system predicated on an ideal of "honor," on "playing fair," which had/has no way of dealing with a concerted, "popular" effort to cheat.

And we have been overtaken by cheaters.