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Author Archives: Redzenradish
The Alternative Orwellian Present
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2017
“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.” –George Orwell
What Rough Beast
Sad Day
The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Ample Make This Bed
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Ample Make This Bed
Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.
Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.
Emily Dickinson
Strong and Willing Hearts
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Fortune
This is the first time a new year approaches where I’m feeling more trepidation than hope, but I will work hard to lean into hope. Not a believer in fortunes, particularly the random kind that come in cookies, I kept this one. There are things I need to accomplish this year, and things I know we will all face as individuals and as a nation. We will all need strong and willing hearts.
We all need to gather the fragments we will shore against our ruin, so at the end of it all we may chant, “shanti, shanti, shanti.” (from T.S. Elliot’s, “The Wasteland”)
The Basement Door
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Basement Door
Endings
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Endings
This year is closing on many somber notes, one note involving a trip to help with the aftermath of a death in the family. Old wounds open up. There are tears and some eyes that refuse tears. Healing laughter is shared while a cold rain is falling.
A Certain Slant of Light
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A Certain Slant of Light
There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – We can find no scar, But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are – None may teach it – Any – ‘Tis the Seal Despair – An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance On the look of Death – Emily Dickinson
Blades
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Blades
Hope
Hope
At a time when the voice of hate seems louder than other voices, I turn to the voices I trust. I turn to members of my family. I turn to my friends. And I turn to the poets and artists whose work has sustained me. Thank you, Emily.
Redzenradish Photography 