A B B


the acronym is Any Body but Bush.


and I'm sure most persons have heard it already. today, I read in the Wall Street Journal an editorial on the October Surprise, the writer listed a number of scenarios. which one will it be?

hmm.

just returned from a reading, Poets Against Bush, to benefit the political action committee MoveOnPAC.org where I bought a couple of Poets Against War anthologies and read a couple of poems. it was an energizing experience. I wasn't scheduled to read but was rather roped in by the organizer, and publisher, Richard Hansen when it was open mic time. but it was good to be in the presence of many writers who feel as strongly as I do about this administration.

that was a good thing. yet, I've been feeling a really guilty. I'll explain. you see, this is my favorite time of year, and Anna and I expect the birth of our first child in a little less than nine weeks. I've literally been dancing on air. but the horrors, the atrocities committed by groupthink, lies and duplicity, the evils, the violence and the relative malaise of individuals before such enormities makes me wonder whether there is any hope at all.

and yet the feelings of hopelessness might be a sign of life, and where there is life there remains a chance. I can't explain my feelings of joy except for the obvious outlined above. what can poetry do in these wild times? and I do not mean Auden's overused phrase: Poetry Makes Nothing Happen. cuz it does, for each individual. my guilt is in my enjoyment of life, knowing full well all the terror. but poetry must know this as well, for even in the dirge there is pleasure, in its melodies and its absolute necessities of utterance. that is a cause for hope:

joy and real fucking horror.