get to one hundred before you get to ten, read the relegation table, tabulate the hü hüsker

something is afoot, something’s always been afoot, and lo and behold (!) after all this time something has to be done …

… but we’ll go down in fracking fissures, hoodwinked, earthquake(d), thirsty …

… frozen water water everywhere (but) not a drop to drink …

(let’s go hyperthermic admiring our handiwork)

we’ll go down like oiler rats, like rabid wildcatters (!) in a gush and a push …

and this land was never our$

(but we bum-rushed it)

$$$$
$$$
$$
$

(makes a nice wedge on its side)

i couldn’t be bothered with alternate keys, with umlaut(ed) u’s …

… ask yourself why you don’t know about the White Lion, or if you did know why you learned of it at such a late date, or at such a diminished rate …

ask yourself why (?)

we get cheated, and cheat ourselves, shipped out of our own reality

What I’m Reading, or: What I Just Finished Reading (a continuing series)

Unbought and Unbossed / Shirley Chisholm (1970)

Published two years before her groundbreaking Presidential run — Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman to primary for President on a major party ticket — straight talking, like no other Congress person, Shirley Chisholm was unbought and unbossed.

If we’d had a dozen more leaders like Chisholm we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today. But the problems remain — just as she railed against status quo politics and caste 50 years ago — if anything our politics and society at large have become more dysfunctional and more prone to autocratic behavior and political unresponsiveness from our leaders.

Maybe there’s still a chance — her words ring true, and just as urgent, today:

“If it is not too late for america to be saved, the young will save it — and the blacks, the Indians , the Spanish-surnamed, the young women, and other victims of American society. They, if any, will become the conscience that the country has lacked. They will try to force it to practice what it has preached.”

I wish I could have cast a vote for Chisholm back in the day, or have been of age when she was still in our socio-political zeitgeist. It’s an unadorned, straightforward, righteous read — and still vital — all these years later.

Ebook, 02/20/21.

“In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.”

— Shirley Chisholm / Unbought and Unbossed