Happy Memorial Day. Thanks to all who have been of service.

Military service is a grand tradition, one that honors the ideals this country was founded on: freedom, hard work, faith, and helping others. It is a tradition that many young men and women in today's world ignore for greater aspirations. Those that give their life to their country, for one year or twenty, metaphorically and literally, deserve our thanks, for they help keep these ideals alive.

Service to others is a principle not practiced by many, but is one that we should all practice. What better way to make the world a better place. Go out and help someone.

Poetically, Siegfried Sassoon's Dreamers, summed up the life of the military at war, when those that serve are in the greatest service.... I like the music, the mundane life they miss.

Dreamers

BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,

Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.

In the great hour of destiny they stand,

Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.

Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win

Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.

Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin

They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.

I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,

And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,

Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,

And mocked by hopeless longing to regain

Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,

And going to the office in the train.

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Summer Poetry Reading in Rehoboth

If anyone's interested in a mid-summer run to Rehoboth's outlet malls, consider Tuesday, July 27th, and stop by the Rehoboth Beach Librar y for the summer poetry series. Besides moi, Denise Clemmons, poet and food critic for the Cape Gazette, and Sherry Chapplle, poet and professor. Excellent company. Books will be for sale afterwards. It's a quality series, and full of surprises. Garry Hanna has done a bang-up job organizing the summer series. Bring a few quarters to ward off the meter maid. Reading starts at 7:00 PM.

#PresidentBannon, feudal #America. Dugin's influence on the White House

Op Ed. Ramble. Steve Bannon is often described as a Neo-Nazi, or just a Nazi. He really isn’t. That’s way too simple. He knows his Nazi imagery and iconography, evident from the “America First” inauguration speech, the lingo of the campaign, plus the regime’s early policy. Bannon claims to be a Nationalist, one with an originalist view of the Constitution, much like Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s pick for SCOTUS. So what do you get when you thread a Fascism fetish, Old-School Constitutional thinking, and capitalism? American feudalism. A loose federal government, controlled by a strong military, the oligarchy ruling class lording over the spoils of the states which would possibly be recombined, even, into loose nations, pooling resources, and trade leverage. Dystopia schmopia. And how would that even happen? We’ll have to go through Russia to get there. If you’re just catching onto Steve Bannon, and Stephen Miller for that matter, two power hungry conservatives ru

Common Core Standards and Urban Decay Inspire First Poem for 30/30 May

This May I will be giving my time to write 30 new poems for Tupelo Press, which is in the throes of raising money via crowd-sourcing for new projects. They are non profit. Grants remain at recession lows. So, this morning as I met with my graduating seniors during their one on one conference (we discuss plans for success, grades, papers, attendance, etc) I pulled up Common Core Apps while waiting for a senior to fetch his book for his book report. The app is Common Curriculum , a cool lesson plan and web posting service. For some reason the idea struck to adopt some of the standards for a United States of Poetry--which sounded dystopian and Orwellian to my ears. So I mashed up some made up standards with some urban decay riffs. The urban decay riffs will need tweaking as they don't really strike any new visual ground, but rather cull standard tropes together. The made-up Common Core riffs are meta, and will also need to be made consistent. There is obvious commentary about CC

Field Recordings

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