Response to the Loyalty Oath

I copped this at Feel Free to Read (no, that's not Feel Free to Steal; always give credit to the original author and/or blogger, please. This has been a free public service announcement..;>), the blog of Glenn Buttkus, who is a genius for sifting through the annuls of literary history for the most interesting items for our continued reading pleasure, I swear! Thank you, Glenn, for providing cyberland with a fantastic repository for (most) all things prose & poetry! This piece by Jack Spicer is a brilliant discourse on the nincompoopery of loyalty oaths:

[Response to the Loyalty Oath]

by Jack Spicer

We, the Research Assistants and Teaching Assistants of the University of California, wish to register our protest against the new loyalty oath for the following reasons.

1) The testing of a University faculty by oath is a stupid and insulting procedure. If this oath is to have the effect of eliminating Communists from the faculty, we might as logically eliminate murderers from the faculty by forcing every faculty member to sign an oath saying that he has never committed murder.

2) That such an oath is more dangerous to the liberties of the community than any number of active Communists should be obvious to any student of history. Liberty and democracy are more often overthrown by fear than by stealth. Only countries such as Russia or Spain have institutions so weak and unhealthy that they must be protected by terror.

3) Oaths and other forms of blackmail are destructive to the free working of man's intellect. Since the early Middle Ages universities have zealously guarded their intellectual freedom and have made use of its power to help create the world we know today. The oath that Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to swear is but a distant cousin to the oath we are asked to swear today, but both represent the struggle of the blind and powerful against the minds of free men.

We, who will inherit the branches of learning that one thousand years of free universities have helped to generate, are not Communists and dislike the oath for the same reason we dislike Communism. Both breed stupidity and indignity; both threaten our personal and intellectual freedom.
[c. 1949]

This letter cost Spicer his job.
Published over on the Poetry Foundation
Source: Poetry (July/August 2008).

National Poetry Month kick-off!

What better way to jumpstart Poetmeister 4 Poets! after a longish hiatus than start off National Poetry Month with a shout out to all my favorite poetry sites & blogs, and then some! I've truly missed, over the past months, my usual blog-hopping forays; it looks like the dust is settling over our homestead at last which will allow me to resume my blogging

• I shall start things off by giving a high-five to Joe Felso, er, David Marshall, of Joe Felso: Ruminations, for his newest start-up blogs, Haiku Streak and Signals to Attend, which I'm just starting to "get to know." You may remember that Joe Felso/David Marshall is one of my favorite online educators and excellent writer of haiku! Welcome back to the blogging world, David! I'll be stopping in again soon to catch up with your comings and goings.
  
• You must go to Poets Who Blog and give some luv to Sara who puts in endless hours of superb writing on All Things Poetry - for a community of some of the most talented, unique, innovative poets in cyberworld. Poets Who Blog site has undergone a new look which really pops! Great job, Sara. Kudos to you for your tenacity and perseverance in providing the best information hub to the online poetry world!
• Don't forget to check in with these great blog sites, too; World Class Poetry, Billy the Blogging Poet, Blogsboro Poetry Club, Asphalt Sky , Glenn Buttkus' Feel Free to Read & Silliman's Blog!
  
• Rick Mobb of Mine Enemy Grows Older still continues to amaze me with his enormous talents and vision, and heart for social justice. Read Rick's newest poem, and now she's awake here. And Just Paisley continues to awe us with her poems & writings with their perfect complementary photo or artistic embellisment. Scot Young's Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers still rocks for me. Go give some luv - now!
  
• I'm totally taken by several new blogs I've discovered or been introduced to recently: Bryan Borland's SHAKE and David Rheins Blog.

These few highlighted sites ought to keep you busy kicking off April's National Poetry Month! At least until I return with more places to check out - and more poetry, of course.. ;>

Drum as Love, Fear, and Prayer

This is one of my favorite poems by Sherman Alexie which resides over on one of my favorite poetry blogs, Feel Free to Read. Please do..:)

Drum as Love, Fear, and Prayer

1.

Drums
make everyone feel
like an Indian.

Drums make
everyone feel
like an Indian.

Drums make everyone
feel
like an Indian

Drums make everyone feel
like an Indian.

Drums make everyone feel like
an Indian.

Drums make everyone feel like an Indian.

2.

I have more faith
in drums

than I have in the people
who play them

I told her
and she said God

is a drum.
I have more faith

in a small drum
because I can carry it

everywhere I go
I told her

and she said God
is the smallest drum.

3.

She said, dance.

It is crazy, I know, how quickly I've learned to love
this dancing, this step-step across the floor

when I'd spent my whole life
without any music. I had promised never to dance

in the white way
if I didn't dance in the Indian way first

but she said dance
refuses color when we are broken down

and embraces color when we are built again
and I believed her

and danced when I heard the drums, the drums
the drums in her voice.

4.

If love is taken
in its smallest part
will there still be enough
to frighten me? Yes

and no. I mean, if love can be
reduced to a cut bead
then I am not afraid.
But if that cut bead is sewn

into a moccasin or purse, if
that bead is part of a chain
built larger and larger, bead
by bead, then I am afraid.

Here, she said, take this bead
with honor. Then she offered another.

5.

And if I choose to love
this Indian woman
partly because she's Indian

(drum)

and if I choose to love
this Indian woman
mostly because she's Indian

(drum)

then who are you to stop
this love between
and Indian woman and man

(drum)

and who am I, who is she, now
for both of us to make these decisions together?

6.

I have broken
bread with her.

We have prayed together in silent places
where we could hear each other breathe
and in airports and lunchtime restaurants
where nothing wanted to rise above it all

except a few lonely people
with their cigarette smoke.

These prayers have not been easy, how
do we say Indian prayers in English
and which God will answer? Is God red
or white? Do these confused prayers mean

we'll live on another reservation
in that country called Heaven?

7.

Then she tells me Jesus is
still here
because Jesus was
once here

and part of Jesus are
still floating in the air.
She tells me Jesus' DNA is
part of the collective DNA.

She tells me we are all part
of Jesus, we are all Jesus
in part. She tells me to breathe deep
during all our storms

because you can sometimes taste Jesus
in a good hard rain.

8.

And I want to say this (say it)
and I want to whisper (shout)
and I want to shake the doors of the house (church)
and I want to blow a trumpet (play a drum)

and I want to run (dance)
and I want to talk about laughter (pain)
and I want to count up all the losses (magic)
and I want to blow a trumpet (play a drum)

and I want to inventory my fears (joy)
and I want to hide beneath old blankets (grace)
and I want to feast (pray)
and I want to blow a trumpet (play a drum)

and I want
to play a drum.

9.

She danced alone
before she ever knew me

and she'll dance alone
though she loves me

but for now
she dances

with me.
I take her hand.

No.
I take her face

in my hands
and I tell her

how much I believe
in her, in her.







Sherman Alexie..........from The Summer of Black Widows
Photo courtesy of Standing Bear's Manataka Weddings

Stupid war makes for "Four Buck Gas" by Glenn Buttkus

Taking one of Rick Mobbs awesome paintings (yes I am a big fan of Rick Mobbs work!) with a little help (horse's red leg) from his son, Broadus, entitled , Stupid War, Glenn Buttkus co-author of Feel Free to Read blog, wrote the following poem, Four Buck Gas. It's long. Too bad. Excellent poetry comes in long - as well as short and medium. heh heh. Long is good. I know. How do I know? you might be asking. Glenn Buttkus tends to write lengthy poems; you see, he has an eye for detail that can analyze any subject down to a, ah - a gnat's eyeball! Yeah! That's it. Furthermore - this particular poem is an excellent example of my premise that poets are the true historians. But that's not all...Glenn also writes movie reviews that rock. He includes so much information that by the time you've read the review, you might feel like you just saw the movie! Yup, that good. This is also the way he treats poetry. If Glenn likes what you've written, he'll tell you exactly why; pulling every nuance, hidden meaning, psychological undertone, and any literary reference alluded to in the imagery that he can hunt down. He'll weave a beautiful and carefully written essay about your poem/movie/writing or pack a novella of a concise review down to critical mass thumbnail size that makes you feel like the most important poet that's hit the scene! Make sure you take a jet to his blog. You will find a fascinating & fantastic potpourri of miscellaneous literary extracts. And now, without further ado, here's Glenn Buttkus on four buck gas!

Four Buck Gas

This morning
I stood in the pre-dawn chill
and pumped 4-buck gas
into my pick up.

Suddenly consumed
with unspeakable anger,
I shook my free fist
at the Shell sign—
standing there tall
and sullen
and silent,
arrogantly golden
flashing
its $4.15
for regular gas
message.

I thought about
The Bush War
and what it is costing
us/me,
and about the fat cat
oil barons
who hang out with Junior
swilling Lone Star
and counting their tax-free
trillions.

The New Millennium Crusades
suddenly swam belligerently
into my cortical net,
witnessing Bush stir up
the Muslim wasp nest,
sending our youth
into harm’s way
to face the barbs and stingers,
RPG’s, roadside explosions,
and suicide bombers
who themselves
are barely old enough
to enjoy
the promised 100 virgins
in Jihad Paradise.

A few yesterdays ago
there we were
post 9-11 in 2003,
wanting to strike back,
wanting revenge
for the terrible toppling of our towers,
and the callous crushing
of the innocent thousands,
as death was brought to us
on our own silver wings,
diving and plunging
straight down,
laden with high-pitched screams
from jet engines pushed to full throttle
and passengers hoarse from fear.

Something had to be done.
Who could we punish?
Who could we kill
to satiate our blood lust?
George W. Bush, Jr.
and all his father’s posse
smiled like hyenas
in a silent pack,
and their greedy index fingers
pointed back,
straight at Iraq;
telling us repeatedly
that right there was the heart
of darkness,
the den of murderers,
the scourge of the earth;
plotters, terrorists, and enemies—
that Bush was ready
to lead us
into a holy war
that would finish the job
left undone by his daddy
in 1991—
that as righteous patriots
we should take on
the rag tag Republican Army
and run that ruthless fox,
Saddam Hussein,
to ground;
for he was a madman,
an abuser of human rights,
a killer,
a dictator,
a womanizer,
a sodomizer;
and not only
did he absolutely possess
weapons of mass destruction,
but he fully intended
to send unmanned squadrons
of drones
to our eastern shores,
that were fully laden
with biological germ warfare payloads.

75 senators were duped, cajoled,
and convinced,
thus launching
Operation Iraqi Liberation;
soon to morph into
Operation Iraqi Freedom.

During the one month assault,
we overran Hussein’s finest troops
like shooting coyotes
from horseback,
and it only cost us
139 American lives.
“Outstanding!”
was on the commander’s lips,
followed by,
“Let’s stick around a while now,
and assist the Iraqis into forging
a Democracy.”

We all recall
the smirking grin
and lying eyes
of warmonger
Donald Rumsfeld;
and that late afternoon
five years ago this May
on the USS Abraham Lincoln,
when Commander in Chief,
President Bush
emerged from a fighter
wearing a flight suit,
stood spread-legged on the naked steel deck,
waving his thunder bolt helmet
and declaring,
“Mission Accomplished!”

And presently
here we are,
knee deep in Year 5,
fighting “asymmetric warfare”,
without front lines,
against a faceless enemy
that hides in
and melts into
the civilian population;
just like before
in 1964—
except now we are immersed in
and surrounded by
civil war and insurgency,
as we are being branded
the Occupying Force,
once again;
spilling blood for greed
and democracy—
being taught hard lessons;
like we cannot curtail
the flow of Jihad insurgents
by cutting the head off the Hydra,
or its whelps,
or its lieutenants—
for new warriors
spring like cockroaches from the shadows,
craving to join the resistance
to the Infidels and Capitalists,
arriving in dark clumps daily,
like monsters rising out of the blood-soaked
waters of the Tigris and Euphrates—
making us pay
every day
for patrolling
the Sunni Triangle.

Oh God,
when will the madness end?
How much black gold
has to be pumped
into profit
from the Iraqi
fat oil reserves?
How many more
retired Special Forces
will have to be recruited
by Blackwater
to protect Bush’s
real agenda?

The numbers for Y5
are staggering!
U.S. dead: 4,079.
U.S. wounded: 30,000.
Contractors dead: 1,028.
Contractors wounded: 10,569.
Iraqi death toll: 1,000,000.
Iraqi combatants dead: 10,800.
Insurgents dead: 22,807.
Detainees: 43,000.

Like in the 60’s
when the carnage
in Viet Nam
was broadcast to us daily,
splashing red and futile
on our living room television screens—
today
our forced occupancy
of Iraq
is beamed immediately by satellite
to every home,
for all of us to see
and cringe
as the pride of our loins
are kicking down doors
and pumping hot lead
from their Mossberg shotguns
into the Islamic populous—
are being ambushed
around every corner,
green zone or not;
witnessing the riddling
of those poorly armored Humvees,
those High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles,
with bullets bought in black markets,
originally manufactured by us
and sent to Saddam
when it was his job
to fight the Iranians
for us.

Our young men
and women,
do their duty,
without hesitation,
becoming hard-hearted
and stone-jawed—
even though many of them
may be stop-lossed
or extended
by their loving government
to stay
in the fray;
professional targets,
standing atop
an M1 Abrams battle tank,
or racing down some dangerous narrow alley
in their M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle,
or screetching through those
mean Moslem streets in Strykers—
the dead brown skies above
choked
with Apaches, Kiowa Warriors, Black Hawks, and Chinooks—
the dirty twilight punctuated
by the deep throb
of dozens
of .50 caliber lethal heavy machine guns—
patrols partially protected
by howling M249 SAWS.

Yes, Lord,
we see it all;
and feel overwhelmed
with intense grief and anguish
as this cavalcade of cavalry and contractors
are at this very moment
toiling in the acrid white dust
of the Middle East,
providing the opportunity
for the petroleum bullies
to force me
to have to pump their goddamn
4 buck gas,
and shake my inept fist
at a stupid sea shell,
and snarl terribly
at those barons unseen,
but most certainly
felt.

Glenn Buttkus June 2008