On the other side of the tracks
Old Glory flew
Filled full by the warm California wind
As I had never seen her before
Not for many years, anyway
Not like that
Defiant and strong
As I stood
Waiting for the Surfliner to arrive
And my heart swelled
With both pride and fear
Pride for those who shed their blood
To defend freedom
A way of life
That now stands threatened
By those who put petty self-interest
Greed driven lust for money
Ahead of country
Those who would tear down
What so many worked for
Died for
Argued for
And cried for
For the many
And not the few
It rushed through my head
As I saw our flag
Strong in the wind
As I waited for the train
A reminder of who we are
And what we stand to lose
If some of us are forced to live on one side of the tracks
While the rest are on the other
With no law or common good
To balance our wants and needs
Providing a bridge
To cross over
Only the lust for money
A rigged system
And the power of greed
Simple thoughts
Far too simple, perhaps
For the many
And not the few
Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
I am not an expert on the works of the late Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. He is regarded by some as one of the greatest Latin American Romantic poets of the 20th Century. An insightful commentary can be found in Forest Gander, whose critically acclaimed translations of the Chilean Nobel Laureate appear in The Essential Neruda. Selected Poems. 2004.
My own view is that a great deal of myth mongering surrounding his name due to his political beliefs and sudden death just after the Pinochet coup, may contribute considerably to his present fame.
Certain writings from the late Julieta Gomez Paz, an emiminent Argentinean eassayist, feminist critic and poet in her own right, argue that in much of Neruda’s love poems, the female role is depicted more as an object than a personality. In other words an archaic machisimo attitude is very much present in his works. An opinion that i am not altogether unsympathetic towards.(Robin Ouzman Hislop)
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#90. Th)
7/1/14
Think of how many times
you’ve heard scientists say
(or maybe you’ve heard it
from people on daredevil tv)
“do not try this at home” —
knowing that someone,
somewhere
won’t heed this advice
and end up
with an unintended explosion
instead of a fantastic discovery
from their radical experiment…
Well, good thing one Swedish chemist
didn’t decide to “not try this at home”,
doing groundbreaking experiments
in his kitchen flat.
Though Jöns Jacob Berzelius < !—(yens yoke-ub bear-zeal-ee-us)—>
discovered a few elements,
he seemed so psyched
to name one new element
for the Scandinavian god of thunder, Thor.
And it’s kind of funny
that with his affinity for Thorium,
he never understood
Thorium’s radioactivity
(because, well,
when he discovered Thorium,
radioactivity hadn’t
even been discovered yet).
But after Thorium was discovered,
Thorium was used
for powering gas lamps
back in the day
when the world’s light
disappeared at nightfall.
But wait, Thorium’s radioactive,
and back in the day
they didn’t know this,
so did people get cancer
from radiation poisoning?
Well, maybe if
there was enough Thorium
in those gas lamps,
and maybe if that Thorium
wasn’t stopped from
getting to humans
by the glass surrounding the lamps…
Because only if you’d eat Thorium (and maybe
only the supernatural God Thor
would eat Thorium)
maybe only if you ate it
only then might it make you sick.
I mean, they still sell it
today in camping lamps,
unless you actually look for a lamp
that’s Thorium-free…
But even when it came
to eating Thorium,
some people would do it
back in the ‘30s with x-rays
for detecting their cancer,
because at the time Thorium
was perfect for saving lives
thanks to those x-rays.
So with Thorium for cancer x-rays,
the new cancer risk
seemed like a fair trade-off
before they could find
a safer x-ray detection agent.
So yeah, there’s no way
a Swedish chemist
could have guessed it
when he discovered
the element Thorium
and wanted to name it
after the God of Thunder,
but Thorium can bring
some light into our world,
as long as we use Thorium
in just the right way.
effects induces an involuntary
almost unnoticeable change
in personal philosophy
until I discover myself engaged in
a no-limits-capacity hoarding–
one good main daily meal
no longer enough to satisfy
like when I lived minimal in
different parts of Asia–
here in San Francisco I’m constantly
trying to fill my 2 small fridges
stacked one upon the other
up against a wall in my bathroom
and never once in expatriate Asia 4 years
did I feel that need–
here if you want a meal out it’s a big production
involving distorted remnants of old world
Euro-manners barely applicable today
my first day in Tokyo ate soup standing up
fast-slurping Japanese all sides at a counter
a woman constantly filling water glasses
shoving them down to the next soup slurp-er
entering tropical summer hot
–that water only drink offered–simplifies
matters– and only 3 kinds of soup–
no need to speak to order
just purchase the correct ticket upon entrance
under the train station stairs–
a sensible location
errand–get it down fast on your way back
on your way to work or the next destination
while many restaurants in Hong Kong, Tokyo
stay open all nite long–
here Americans consider eating-out entertainment–
a planned activity–invite friends for conversation
and most restaurants close-up by 11 p.m.
some foreign ones stay open till midnite
as if everyone gets up sleeps eats at the same
hour–
