Thursday Hodgepodge (Obama in Osawatomie, Gingrich Ascends, Pujols Departs, etc.)

Very little posting these days, because it's exam week, and it has been a nonstrop reading extravaganza since September, though the pace has accelerated over the last few weeks as so many things appear on my desk and must be addressed, ASAP.  A few thoughts on various things going on, below.

***

I was stunned to read about the shooting earlier today at Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University).  According to the most recent accounts I've seen, two people are dead, one a campus police officer, the second the alleged shooter.  I won't comment on what this means or attempt any sort of grand statement, but rather state how saddened I am to hear that there has been another shooting anywhere, but especially on the grounds of any educational institution, and especially on this one, which was the site of a horrific spree in 2007, in which 33 people died and 25 were wounded.  I can only imagine how shaken people at Virginia Tech and their friends and family members are right now. My thoughts and best wishes go out to their entire community.


***

from the New Yorker

I was very happy to hear President Barack Obama's lively, progressive speech at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas, reprising some of the themes not only of the 2008 Democratic campaign and of the Occupy Resistence Movement, but also of Teddy Roosevelt's 1910 speech in which he expounded his famous "New Nationalism" ideas, championing a positive government role in domestic affairs.  Reggie H. smartly (as always) pointed out today, and I've seen almost no media mention of it, that Osawatomie also has a deeper resonance. It is one of the towns the (New England) Emigrant Aid Society founded in the wake of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act to ensure Kansas was a free state, unlike its neighbor to the east, Missouri, and it was to Osawatomie that abolitionist John Brown--whose half-sister Florella Adair had already established a home there with her husband, anti-slavery preacher Rev. Samuel Adair--traveled in 1855 to take up the cause of anti-slavery resistance. Brown made the Adair home his base of operations, and in 1856 killed five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie Creek, near Lane, Kansas, an event that was subsequently known as the Pottawatomie Massacre, and which helped to give Kansas, along with Missouri a site of constant skirmishes and later, during the US Civil War, outright battles, between anti-slavery and pro-slavery forces, its moniker of "Bleeding Kansas."

I would imagine that as smart as President Obama is, he knows this history, but he is probably doing the right thing by focusing on TR, as as opposed to JB. Now, if he would only stick to the substance of this speech, as opposed to launching yet another attractive Zeppelin that goes nowhere, and if he would begin by firing his Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, one of the chief engineers of his approach to Wall Street and the banks, I think I'd be willing to take him more seriously as TR's (or even JB's) modern apotheosis.

***

Yesterday, Illinois's former Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich, was sentenced to 14 years after being convicted on 18 counts of corruption, including attempting to sell off the US Senate once held by President Barack Obama.  Judge James Zagel noted that although Blagojevich had done some good while governor (he was a good advocate for working-class Illinoisans and the elderly), his crimes deserved severe punishment.  He put it this way: "When it is the governor who goes bad, the fabric of Illinois is torn and disfigured and not easily repaired."

Blagojevich's sentencing follows his effective prosecution by US Attorney for Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald, who yesterday expressed his utter disgust for Blagojevich's brazen behavior.  An earlier trial concluded with jurors unable to convict on more than just 1 of 24 counts, lying to the FBI.  In the second trial, Fitzgerald snared him on 17 of 20 counts.  What made Blagojevich's situation so outrageous is that he was elected in 2002 on a reform platform, and his immediate predecessor, Republican George Ryan, was convicted of corruption and is still in jail.  Of the four Illinois governors sent to prison in the last 40 years, Blagojevich has received the longest sentence; Ryan only received 6 1/2 years.  He will have to serve at least 12 unless he is pardoned, an unlikely outcome.

What is likely is that he'll appeal, but the wiretaps that helped convict him this time won't be going away, so he had better start preparing for a long stay behind bars.

***

Watching Newt Gingrich ascend to the top of the GOP polls feels like a combination of vertigo and déja vu, but it stands to reason that one of the most notoriously outrageous and corrupt rhetoricians to grace our national politics, a former professor of history, a lobbyist par excellence, a party boss, and, at his professional peak, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, has returned, like a horrendous repressed memory or the zombie discourse of the 1990s, with renewed vigor and force, to vie as the Republican nominee for the 2012 US presidential race. There are so many awful things about Newt Gingrich's record, his history of gross misstatements, distortions and lies, his hypocrisy, and so much else, that I would have thought he'd forever disqualified himself from public office, anywhere, including outside the US. But such is the logic of American life that certain people--not everyone--get second or even multiple chances, and if you are rich and famous and outlandish enough, you might even get the biggest second chance of all, to lead the country, including right into the ground. On the one hand I view Gingrich's ascent with a bit of laughter, but he is so unbelievably compromised, to the point of absurdity; on the other hand, I also keep in mind that in my lifetime, my fellow Americans twice elected Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush, so...well, I'd rather not put that horrible outcome into words.  And let's work to ensure it's not an actuality, either.

***

Albert Pujols, Oct. 29, 2011 (Jeff Haynes / Reuters)

On a far less important note, at least to the majority of people out there who are not Saint Louis Cardinals baseball fans, the wires reported today that Baseball Hall of Fame-bound first baseman Albert Pujols has signed a 10-year-deal with a no-trade provision, for $250 million, with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. (Yes, that is their official name.)  Pujols spent exactly 11 years with the Cardinals, and produced a record that outstrips that of many of the greatest baseball players of all time. The 2001 National League Rookie of the Year and a three-time winner of the National League Most Valuable Player Award (in 2005, 2008 and 2009), Pujols has hit 445 home runs, driven in 1,329 runs, scored 1,291, won a battle title (in 2003, at the age of 23, hitting. 359), led the National League in slugging three times, in OPS three times, and in total bases 4 times. He also was a key player in the Cardinals' post-season success during his tenure; they won the World Series in 2006, and again this year, and made it to the finals in 2004 (losing to the Boston Red Sox), and were repeatedly in the playoffs, in no small part because of his consistently excellent play.  The Cardinals' ownership had offered Pujols around $200 million for 9 years, but it apparently was not enough. Saint Louis's loss is Los Angeles (and Anaheim's) and the American League's gain, but whatever Pujols does after this point, he made his name, his career and his fame in the Mound City.

Reyes donning his new team cap (LM OTERO / AP PHOTO)

Also changing teams was the New York Mets' longtime shortstop and emergent star, José Reyes, who will now play for the Miami (no longer just the Florida) Marlins, who also have a new taxpayer-funded stadium in the city's Little Havana neighborhood. Reyes has said that he never received a firm offer from the Mets, who are still reeling from some of the ownership's involvement in the Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme scandal, and who, despite packing the team with all-stars in the mid-2000s, could never seem to go all the way. Reyes has suffered repeated leg injuries over the last few years, but still won this year's National League batting title, and is only 28, so the Marlins should get at least half a decade's worth of good years out of him, and vice versa.  Currently on a spending spree, they also got the Chicago White Sox's best pitcher, my homeboy Mark Buehrle, and their former manager, Ozzie Guillén. If they keep up at this rate, they will be the team to watch next season and for season to come, whether they win or not. The Marlins forbid long hair (???), so Reyes must again cut off his beautiful dreadlocks. (I know, I know, I cut mine off two years ago, so I shouldn't be saying anything, but still...I didn't look like José Reyes!)

New Year?...Hey, It's January 8th!

For once this does feel to me like a new year. A new and very extremely busy year already (sigh), but fresh all the same. It was wonderful to be home with C for a little bit, and to get away for a hot minute too. (Besotes siempre a Anthony M.) But I did post a New Year's message, and I experienced no airline horrors getting back to Chicago, despite all the grim O'Hare flight news that besieged the holidays and holiday travelers, and so a correspondent wondered where I've been since, and I meant to reply to her as I did to a graduate student that I'm in the "mines" right now, so no or only a little posting.

It's a metaphor I didn't think of several years ago when a younger writer asked what my quarters usually consisted of, but this ought to give some sense of what's up: winter quarter classes have begun (I have two, one an undergraduate introductory creative writing class, one an upper level undergraduate class in literary theory, about which I'll write more soon). I am also supervising the honors theses of 2 undergraduate students (one working on a literary study, one writing a fiction manuscript), the MA/MFA theses of 2-5 students, the doctoral dissertation of one student, and a independent study project of at least 1 undergraduate student. (I hope I haven't forgotten anyone!) And then there's the committee and departmental activities of which I cannot say more. The quarter's over in March. I'm going to try to post a bit more than once per week, but the entries may be thin gruel indeed, and it's not for lack of intent or interest....

***

Congratulations to CCer Aracelis Girmay, who won the 2009 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for her superb book of poems, Teeth (Curbstone Press)!

***

Today's RedEye (the free, dumbed-down, picture-heavy version of the Chicago Tribune) has on its all-black cover (wink, wink) the question "Is Racism Dead?" Because our 44th president is a black person, you know. (Please do note the images shown in the "Stories" list.)

Why don't we ask him, or him, or him, or them? And those are just the spectacular examples....

(And how could we ever forget this character, who'd like to fill Hillary Clinton's seat. "The Democrats are throwing the election away. And for what? An inadequate black male....Well, I got news for you, McCain will be the next president of the United States!": famous last words, Ms. Christian, famous last words.)

And then there are these buffoons! (And if you're looking for Facebook friends, wackpot and W enabler Ken Blackwell bragged today that he has more Facebook friends than the other contenders. Have you missed out on being part of his online posse?)

***

Police have arrested the quartet of Latino and Black men who brutally gang-raped a 28-year old Black woman in Richmond, California, on December 13, 2008, because of her sexual orientation. A Facebook group, "Help a Sista Out," has been established here.

If you would like to offer some financial support to her, her partner, and her daughter, you can do so here:

Community Violence Solutions
2101 Van Ness Ave.,
San Pablo, CA 94806
Attn: Mrs. Joanne Douglas

If you would like to send a sympathy card, you may do so here:

Richmond Police Department
Attn: Sgt. Brian Dickerson
1701 Regatta Blvd.
Richmond, CA 94804

I hadn't seen this very on-point post by Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell, one of Princeton's many brilliant lights, but it's definitely worth reading! (H/t to WOC PhD) I haven't seen Milk yet, but then I also didn't get to Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom when it was in Chicago for an eyeblink. The DVD will be out in February, I believe I saw in this past week's Windy City Times, so I plan to see it as soon as I can.

***

The Israel-Hamas War continues, with a new front possibly opening up as of yesterday. The United States is uniquely placed to bring it to a cease-fire. We all know this. If you have not contacted your Senator(s), Congresspeople and the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect, demanding that they do so, please do so now.

While you're politely but firmly demanding they push for a cease-fire, please also let them know that letting all of the people who engaged in warrantless spying on Americans, who organized and authorized torture, extraordinary renditions, and secret prisons, and who kept Guantánamo in business deserve to be brought before a Truth and Reconciliation Commission at the very least, and prosecuted for War Crimes at best. They really should hear this as often as they can. As should our new president, Barack Obama, who appears poised to go the Clintonian route and sweep all the prior crimes under the rug in an effort to "move forward."

***

Speaking Obama, Illinois, and the junior Senate seat shenanigans, I found myself mentioning Blagojevich in reference to the concept of "tragedy" in my first afternoon class this past Tuesday, which got me to wondering how four major playwrights--William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, August Wilson, and Adrienne Kennedy--would explore the circumstances of his rise (he was elected not only twice to the governorship, but also to Congress in the seat Rahm Emanuel just gave up) and fall.

If I can offer some very potted thoughts, I think Shakespeare would focus on the fatal flaws in Blagojevich's character, and the colorful context and cast that surrounds him. His estranged father-in-law, Alderman Dick Mell, would certainly be a character as would Patrick Fitzgerald and Lisa Madigan. And then there's the ghost of Richard Nixon, whom a young Blago was quite enamored of. (Shouldn't some intrepid reporter have pointed that out to voters before the first election?) Shakespeare probably also would have made much punning on Blago's Kennedyesque affectations; delusions, hubris, grandiosity and denial; and hair. How many allusions to hair do you think Shakespeare would have come up with? Ten? Twenty? Fifty? When speaking before the legislature or to constituents, or when soliloquizing, he would speak in poetry, but in best Shakespearean fashion, when speaking on those tapes, we'd get pure prose (and some clever vulgarities too). The Avon Bard would probably also condense and distill the story so that we got the highlights and lowlights, but in a way quite different from the temporal compressions of contemporary dramas. I think the ghost of Nixon would factor into these. Would it end with impeachment, or just with Blago being marched out of his house by police?

Shaw would probably focus on the malign influence of money, Blago's working-class background, and his desire for greatness fatally undercut by his lack of good faith. I can see one scene including Blago's very public and vocal denunciation of the ever-growing bemoth Bank of America at the Republic Windows and Doors Factory sit-in followed by his very public and shocking arrest right thereafter. One of the key elements of Shaw's treatment would, like Shakespeare's, be the monologues each character delivered. Shaw's Blago would probably have a more gilded tongue than the real governor, and almost convince us spectators of his virtue, just as he conned a majority of Illinois voters before his re-election, despite the fact that the festering pustules of corruption that were eventually to burst would be evident to anyone listening to and watching carefully what was unfolding on the stage. Another key element would be comedy, caustic but effective in getting us to see some absurdity at the base of the tragedy before us. I'm not so sure how Shaw might end the play, except to say that we would probably have a bit more sympathy for Blago, which makes me think that the Burris legerdemain would factor in. Now admit it, didn't you have to give Blago props for his audaciousness in pulling this mess off?

August Wilson would probably also include a ghost, but not Nixon. His ghost might be Martin Luther King Jr., and his focus might be on either Jesse Jackson Jr., who can give a good speech, or Roland Burris, whose ego is Shakespearean, to put it mildly. Barack Obama would certainly be part of this cast. Two of Wilson's greatest strengths as a playwright are his compelling poetry and his gift for encapsulating an epoch in a few gestures, conversations, several acts, so I think if he were to focus on Jackson Jr., we might see a contrast between the dreams and actions of his father and the Civil Rights era, and the contemporary moment, when even a Black person can be as corrupt and connected a player as anyone else. He also might give us some of the hidden family drama unfolding among the Jackson clan: imagine the exchanges Wilson could come up with between Jesse Jackson Sr.; Jesse Jr.; brother Jonathan Jackson, who's allegedly linked to the Blago Senate seat selloff; Jesse Jr.'s wife Sandi, a Chicago City Councilperson; and mother Jacqueline Jackson. If the men ended up wrestling on the floor, while uttering unforgettable lines, would you be surprised? How would Wilson end the play? With Jesse Jr. alone in his Chicago office, watching a TV set on which Burris was being sworn in as Obama stood by (poetic license, you know)?

Adrienne Kennedy, the only one of the playwrights I've invoked who's still alive and writing, would have a field day with this story if she took it up. I could see parallel narratives, one with Blago being sworn in as president of the US, the other of him in jail, telling the story. He might even be represented by various personalities/selves, designated by grotesque masks or grotesquely made up actors, including one who was actually a version of Richard Nixon, one a version of John F. Kennedy, another Richard J. Daley. Or one might be, in outlandish and brilliant Kennedy fashion, a major, tragic female figure from history, like Queen Anne of Great Britain, or Joan of Arc. Given Blago's strong support among Black Chicagoans, one self might be Jean Baptiste Point du Sable! All of them would end up cleverly mixing snippets of Blago's speeches with their own (or invented) words, all undercut by the Blago-in-jail narrator, who would assure us that in fact, the true outcome was that he was elected President, far in the future. I would particularly look forward to the final speech or portion that unraveled or complicated the delusional stance of the governor, and the revelation that the nondescript office was, in effect a jail cell. Kennedy could certainly pull it off.

Blago Nabbed + Zimbabwe Slips + Obama/Cicero + Webern [Poem]

I would be lying if I said I weren't transfixed by the news that's been reported all day: federal authorities took Illinois's extremely unpopular and incompetent governor, Rod "Blowdryavitch" Blagojevich, or Blago for short, into custody early this morning after a multi-year investigation by the FBI and US Attorney's office, captured him on wiretap allegedly engaging in a host of corrupt activities. US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald earlier announced today at his press conference that the most sensational allegations in Blago's "political corruption crime spree" were his demands for financial and job favors, for himself and his wife, in exchange for the US Senate seat that President Elect Barack Obama just vacated, and that he and his chief of staff John Harris had pressured the Chicago Tribune (cf. yesterday's entry) to fire editorial staff who'd repeatedly criticized Blago and supported previous calls to impeach him.


Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich holds a news conference in Chicago on Nov. 5. (AP/M. Spencer Green)

Fitzgerald noted that Obama was not linked to the charges in any way, and that Blago was captured on tape damning the soon-to-be president for offering only "appreciation" as a reward. It appears that Obama's desired pick, Candidate 1 in the indictment, supposedly transition chief Valerie Jarrett, also did not agree to pay to play, although Candidate 5 (Jesse Jackson Jr.) was allegedly willing to pony up around $500K for the position, or at least this is what was captured on tape. As for the Tribune drama, it appears that the principle owner, Sam Zell, and his chief financial officer, had taken into account Blago's criticisms, even though the paper thankfully did not fire any of the editorial staff as a result. The Tribune did, however, hold off reporting about the investigation (including its own) at Fitzgerald's request, which has brought some criticism, though it appears that in this case, allowing the investigation to unfold so as not to obstruct it or force Fitzgerald's hand was probably the way to go.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in Illinois in 2008 who did not think Blago was corrupt, though the brazenness of his alleged recent actions, especially in light of the toxic cloud of scandal that surrounded him at the time of his reelection in 2006, is astonishing. It appears he even knew he was investigation, and possibly being wiretapped, and yet he kept right on going. The irony of his having run as a reformer in 2002 isn't lost on anyone else, I imagine, or that he replaced Republican George H. Ryan, who went to jail for fraud, racketeering and other crimes. According to NPR this evening, he joins an infamous roll of Illinois governors, from both parties, who were indicted, and in most cases convicted, of serious crimes.

One question now hinges on the US Senate seat, which Obama vacated swiftly, in part to allow Illinois's newly appointed junior senator to gain seniority. Until or unless Blago resigns, I gather that he could still appoint someone, including himself, though that person would be horribly tainted and have zero political legitimacy and credibility, let alone power, in the US Senate. Lame duck status from the start would mark this appointee from the beginning. Senior Senator Dick Durbin has called for the Illinois legislature to enact a law that would remove Blago's power to appoint Obama's successor and instead vest it in the Illinois voters, through a special election. Senate president and leading Obama replacement candidate Emil Jones has said he would do so. What about Chicago's all-powerful mayor, Richard Daley, about whom scandals have have hovered like dragonflies? He didn't have much to say today.

Now, irrespective of the pertinent issues here, it is curious to me that the Bush administration has gone after at least three Democratic governors (Siegelman in Alabama, Spitzer in New York, and now Blago), and yet a number of Republican governors, including one who did not pay taxes on her per diems and another whose involvement in the unseating of Siegelman has merited little response from the Attorney General or the Justice Department, have gone unscathed. Hmmm....

^^^

How long will Robert Mugabe hang on? A walking death's head, he has precipitated and presided over the complete destruction of his country. The Zimbabwean economy is shot, the government is barely functional, and now a cholera outbreak is racing throughout the country. The African Union, sadly, still supports him. South Africa, which probably has the most leverage and to which thousands of Zimbabweans have been fleeing, refuses to apply real pressure. Some African leaders, like Kenya's PM, Raila Odinga, have called for African nations to help oust Mugabe, as has W, not that anyone is paying him attention these days.

If the economy continues its runaway collapse, worsened by the cholera spread, I foresee the army taking a decisive step and driving Mugabe out, though it probably will have to get a sign of approval and no interference from South Africa. Would opposition leader Morgan Tsangvirai and his MDC Party take over, would control fall to one of Mugabe's hangers on, or would one of the Mugabe's generals hold power? That's something I hope the nations surrounding Zimbabwe, the African Union, and the UN are thinking very carefully about, as the last two options might prove no better than the current situation.

^^^

Obama qua Cicero? The President Elect is a master rhetorician and speaker, true. His opponents in the primaries and in the Presidential election even attempted to use his gifts and skills as an orator against him, with little success. More than once observers have cited Black Church oratorical traditions, along with Abraham Lincoln's and John F. Kennedy's examples and the Bible's rhetorical model, as Obama's influences. In the GuardianUK, Charlotte Higgins discerns classical models, both Greek and Roman, in his rhetoric, noting his use of such figures and devices as the tricolon (trios of phrases), anaphora (repetitions of phrases at the beginnings of sentences), epiphora (or epistrophe, as Thelonious Monk might have suggested-repetitions at the end), and one of my favorites, praeteritio (saying what you claim you won't say), which was also, interestingly enough, one of Richard Nixon's favorites. But Higgins discovers life parallels with one of the greatest orators and stylists of all time, the Roman Marcus Tullius Cicero (106BCE-43BCE). She says:

It is not just in the intricacies of speechifying that Obama recalls Cicero. Like Cicero, Obama is a lawyer. Like Cicero, Obama is a writer of enormous accomplishment - Dreams From My Father, Obama's first book, will surely enter the American literary canon. Like Cicero, Obama is a "novus homo" - the Latin phrase means "new man" in the sense of self-made. Like Cicero, Obama entered politics without family backing (compare Clinton) or a military record (compare John McCain). Roman tradition dictated you had both. The compensatory talent Obama shares with Cicero, says Catherine Steel, professor of classics at the University of Glasgow, is a skill at "setting up a genealogy of forebears - not biological forebears but intellectual forebears. For Cicero it was Licinius Crassus, Scipio Aemilianus and Cato the Elder. For Obama it is Lincoln, Roosevelt and King.

Without a doubt, he'll require all these rhetorical skills and more to keep the country together, marshal the Congress to pass his projects, and lead us out of the mess we find ourselves in. The silver tongue will need to become platinum. Or as Shakespeare, another master rhetorician, says in Henry IV Part 2, invoking anastrophe (reversal of phrases): "We are ready to try our fortunes / to the last man."

^^^

On a completely different note, this little link from Alex Ross's blog caught me: Anton Webern's music on the Andy Griffith Show? Webern in Mayberry: it's not as strange as it sounds.... MMusing blogger Michael Monroe shows how the background music during some of the AGS episodes does sound quite Webernian, which is to say, very spare, a little spooky, and utterly modern. See this clip he found on YouTube. He suggests that mystery visitor might be a certain Mr. Schoenberg. If you're intrigued, search YouTube for "Webern" (portrait below right, by Oskar Kokoschka) there and you'll find a handful of representative clips or snippets of his music. Ross points out in an earlier post, "Tiny Tony," that during the second season of the Sopranos, Webern's "Variations for Orchestra" was playing in the background of a crucial scene!

One Webernian pieces that exerts unending fascination over yours truly is his "Symphony (Opus 21)," which sounds unlike any other symphony you are likely to hear on the radio or concert hall, though it must be said that post-Webernian serial composers have created works as strange and haunting as this. I also love that it was after a New York Philharmonic performance of the "Symphony" that composers John Cage and Morton Feldman first met. I have never heard this work performed live, just on CD and in digital form, but I did write a necessarily short poem, an acrostic in (mildly) graphic form, inspired by it. In the case of Webern, the use of the acrostic and graphic forms echo his own constant play with the possibilities of the tone row, and in a larger sense, with his fellow Second Viennese school composers' use of names as guides for notation in their work. My favorite example of all of these is Alban Berg's "Chamber Concerto," in which he weaves Arnold Schoenberg's, [Anton] Webern's and [Alban Berg] his names into the score (using the German pitch notational system), and like his opera "Lulu," at its exact center, a musical palindrome. Webern did this kind of thing often, including a symmetry in the opening phrase of the "Symphonie," except that unlike Berg (or Schoenberg, their teacher, friend and mentor, who was less adept at such games, having pioneered the whole 12-note concept), whose work makes great use of late Romantic elements and lushness at times, he antithetically pared away all excess, creating pieces that often sound like they've been beamed in from another planet (literally embodying Schoenberg's famous quotation of Georg in the revolutionary "Second String Quartet": "I hear the air of other planets...").

So here's my "Symphony (Opus 21)," and then a YouTube of Webern's "Symphonie," which, as you'll hear, is really a symphony deconstructed (vor den Tatsache--or something like that--William?).

SYMPHONY (OPUS 21)

Atoms     Atmen
Notes     or their shadows     evanesce from each tone     row
 Traces    of key    melodies     echoes:     silence
Order mirrors     in intervals     invariance:
nothing   is wasted

Why wreak such beauty     on Vienna?
Even the maestro, Mahler    on his deathbed     lay baffled
 because one must    retrain the ear     to hear
 even      familiar     harmonies.
Revolution    begins in lyric     restraint     in freedom
nothing is     wasted



Copyright © John Keene, 2001, 2008.