Interestingly relating to Heather's story project, Fred, at least as
to stories not to tell children. But contained within the lyric
detourned. Or the narrative thus done.
'God' may have a reply, but I can't think of one right now....
For everything....
Doug
On 16-Feb-09, at 8:15 AM, Frederick Pollack wrote:
> Nick Vujicic
>
>
> But Zev, you had no business sending me
> that YouTube about a guy
> who was born with no limbs except
> for one clawed flipper,
> who walks with his butt, articulately charms
> an auditorium full of schoolgirls who cry
> as he demonstrates “*You can get up,
> however hard it is*,” then one by one hug
> the handsome face above the living herm.
> We see him eating, not who cut his food.
> He praises God, his life, his ministry.
> You like such testimonials.
> You think that someday one will get to me.
> Actually they prove nothing.
> I would have told him to curse God and die.
>
>
>
>
> Mall, Northern Virginia
>
>
> She’s dancing for the fun of it, plus
> some pittance. All sudden
> elbows and hips, black hair and peppermint-
> striped spandex; close enough
> to childhood, still, that she can’t run out
> of energy, or rapid Spanish
> gossip for a more stolidly
> twisting friend. She’s dancing
> in front of a jungle-themed smoothie joint,
> opening today, which had hoped
> for drop-ins from the upscale kidswear
> and houseware places, but they’re gone,
> and the dollar store and nail salon
> are far. Big tangled balloons,
> the chairs white-plastic wobblers, coffee vile;
> it won’t last a month, but today she’s dancing,
> imagining broadcasts, bounding
> indoors to shake it for her MS-13
> boyfriend trying the Mango-Banana Godzilla.
>
>
>
>
> Reprieve
>
>
> Only fetishized bureaucracy
> could outweigh, at that moment,
> that purpose, but he was let out
> of a gas van. There by mistake:
> not Jewish; listed
> as “useful” though incurable.
> The guards unbarred the door, a doctor
> called his name. Instead he was chained
> to a shovel, by the end clearing rubble
> and corpses from bombsites.
> Receiving, thankfully, no further treatment,
> and never, despite orders, forgetting.
>
> He discovered that he who can say
> *Only I alone am escaped
> to tell thee* goes generally unheard.
> Especially when he has,
> under any regime, been called mad,
> and when what he wants to describe
> is not the thing everyone knows
> but doesn’t discuss. Among
> the other “mental defectives”
> in the van was a woman. Before
> they shut the door, he saw
> her expression, contemptuous, calm,
>
> and her gesture:
> a hand beside her face
> impatiently brushing away
> a world that contained such things,
> dismissing it. He also
> antagonized people, priests especially,
> by saying he wasn’t grateful for
> his escape. It wasn’t deserved,
> any more than her death. If that
> was grace, he said, it’s typical
> of God, Who I’ve learned
> is the same one that Hitler said he served.
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity.
Charles Ives
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