No Kings, No Traitors

NO KINGS PROTEST #3
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

"Readers should treat the “traitor” label
as a charged political and rhetorical claim in many sources
rather than as a uniformly substantiated legal fact. . . . "

That being said . . . you can buy this flag on amazon!

Ever one to shout out "Treason!" and call the kettle black,
Trump himself has been identified as a traitor many times.

For example,
as early as 2020 in this book by David Rothkopf

What would Cicero say?
NO KINGS!
On Traitors:"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself.

"For the traitor appears not a traitor — he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.

"He rots the soul of a nation — he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city — he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." ~Cicero in 42 B.C.E.

What would Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas say?
NO KINGS!
On Authority: “Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet… [A]t the constitutional level, speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive… [A] function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” ~Douglas in 1972

What would Tom Robbins say?
NO KINGS!
On Autonomy: "The only advice I have for you tonight is not to actively resist or fight the system, because active protest and resistance merely entangles you in the system. Instead, ignore it, walk away from it. Turn your backs on it, laugh at it.Don’t be outraged, be outrageous! Never be stupid enough to respect authority unless that authority proves itself respectable. So be your own authority, lead yourselves." ~ Robbins in 1974

What would John Adams say?
NO KINGS!
On the White House: "I Pray Heaven To Bestow The Best Of Blessings On This House And All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under This Roof." ~Adams in 1800

Building the First White House
by N. C. Wyeth (1882 – 1945)
"The Case of the Missing White House"

PREVIOUS NO KINGS POSTS
July 3 for Indpendence Day
QK: Freedom Capital

February 16 for Presidents Day
QK: Presidents Not Kings

October 18: 2nd NO KINGS PROTEST
QK: Factbase Roll Call
Facebook: In Chicago

July 14 & 15
FN: America, Give Me Strength
QK: America, Vast Confused Beauty

June 28 & 30
FN: Living With Dementia
QK:Living With Dementia

June 14: 1st NO KINGS PROTEST
FN: Fighting Fantasy
QK: No Kings Day

May 28
FN: The Gulf of Mexico and Beyond
QK: "A Very Much Different Country"

May 14
FN: "I Didn't Even Know Anything"
QK: "I Didn't Even Know Anything"

Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, April 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Ease Into the Conversation

CAROLYN'S TEAPOT
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

"The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink . . ."
~ David Whyte ~

Painting above & more by
~ Carolyn Rathbun George ~

Here's to re-connections!
With old friends and old poems!
Way back in the Philadelphia era, Carolyn was our neighbor, less than a block away! We shared dinners, parties, walks around the neighborhood, choir events and fundraisers on behalf of my kids, similar tastes in music, art, and historical architecture.

Influencing our vibe for years to come, it was Carolyn who introduced our family to the work of artist / poet Brian Andreas. I still remember going into Carolyn's little powder room on Pine Street and seeing the beautiful original wooden StoryPerson hanging on the wall! It was also thanks to Carolyn that we discovered Primal Elements soap, especially the Christmas Tree Light design, which I have loved ever since! That was certainly an iconic visit to the Powder Room! You just never know where treasures may lurk! And that includes old friends themselves, for it turns out that after all these years, Carolyn is once again our neighbor! Okay, across town instead of just down the block, but that's alright.

As for poetic re-connections, I owe the remainder of this post [see previous comment] to my friend Katie, who put me in touch with yet another perception - shattering poem from David Whyte.

Kitti: In my "notes to self" after our call last night, I had hastily scribbled down "Irish poem." Now, this morning, I can’t recall what I meant by that! Any ideas?

Katie: I was supposed to send you a link to an Irish poem that I remembered hearing and reading a couple of years ago, but I can’t find it! If I find it, I’ll send it over. It’s in the spirit of Hirschman, Merwin, and Pastan.

A few days later . . .

Katie: Here is the poem by the Irish poet I was trying to remember last week! It was just quoted in a little essay in today’s print edition of The New York Times! Can you believe it?!

After our conversation, I tried googling "Irish Poet" with some of the images I remembered from the poem, and of course there are hundreds of Irish poets, maybe thousands!

But now, the Monday before Thanksgiving, his poem appeared in a lovely little essay, "Tuning In: put down the headphones, and tune back in" (part of "the morning" newsletter).

Maybe you already know this poet? If you don’t, enjoy! And if you do, enjoy rereading!

Kitti: Amazing! I’ve read a few things by Whyte before, but never this one! And how incredible — your unexpected path towards rediscovering it!

Katie: I’m so glad you enjoyed the poem, and I’m so glad I found my way back to that poem again, or it found its way back to me.

It was waiting for us!

Everything is Waiting for You

After Derek Mahon

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
[emphasis added]

by David Whyte (b 1955)

Untitled Tea Scene
by Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Additional paintings: QK & FN

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Burning the Letters

UP IN SMOKE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Woman Burning Love Letters: Retrospection (c. 1840)
by Alfred Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920)

Totally living up to the watchwords of "connection and coincidence," this blogpost got its start a few days ago when Brian Bilston posted his list of "Discarded First Lines," reminding me, in turn, of Gregory Corso's list of "Saleable Titles." I knew I had saved some Corso poems in one of my college notebooks, so I pulled it off the shelf and was thumbing through . . .

found the Corso . . .

and, wait, what?!
. . . this poem that has been on my search list
for the last 7 or 8 years!

Back in 2018, I wrote to a few
of my classmates from college days:

Dear Deanna, Milly, and Ruth,

I am trying to track down a poem that Herman Wilson gave us years ago to analyze -- it was called "Burning the Letters," and I could swear that the poet's name was "Kiligrew" or something like that. But no matter how I google it, nothing along those lines turns up, and I can't find it in any of my old books / papers. Any ideas?

If only Herman were still with us, I bet he would know it right off the top of his head! Alas . . .

Was I thinking of Sylvia Plath's poem -- also entitled "Burning the Letters"? Possibly. Yet, the name "Kiligrew" felt more like it to me. Could I have merged the two poems / poets in my mind because they were on the same page or we studied them at the same time? It wouldn't be the first time for such a mix-up in my head.

But at long last, thanks to Bilston and Corso, the mystery has been solved! It wasn't Plath, nor was it Kiligrew. It was Grew -- Gwendolyn Grew! Now, if only I could learn something more about this poet. If anyone has any information on Gwendolyn Grew, please let me know!

Burning the Letters

One flutter of memory, then all becomes
First blaze, then char. A Fall of after-thought,
And leaf by leaf, a slant wind numbs
Summer from the bone-tree. ’’Nothing is not

Something,” she thinks. And it is nothing now
To send a season blazing. Day by day
What greened, a sun-machine upon its bough,
Unsuns, ungreens, discolors toward decay.

Up from the bed now she can see the pale
Last glow of paper X-rayed by the bright
Underglow of the flame. A becalmed sail
It stirs, uncertain. Then it bursts a-light.

Like leaf-veins, the black lines stand in relief
As fire travels them clean. Then a black bloat
Riffles the page. Footless as a night-thief
The fire draft stirs them then, sets them afloat

And sucks them up to darkness, each a bat.
Till the last line has swollen and gone out
With its black mouse-bird. “How long have | sat
Here in self-pity?” she begins to doubt.

And still she kneels, and with a poker stirs
A last bird from the blaze, loving its flight.
Nursing the not-much hurt. But it is hers,
And nurse it she will through one more acted night.

By Gwendolyn Grew
Anthologized in How Does a Poem Mean
Edited by John Ciardi & Miller Williams

Postcard #817 ~ Sherie Series
By Inter-Art Co., Southampton House, London

And it seems only fair to conclude
with Plath's poem for comparison:

Burning The Letters

I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?
Grain by grain, they unrolled
Sands where a dream of clear water
Grinned like a getaway car.
I am not subtle
Love, love, and well, I was tired
Of cardboard cartons the color of cement or a dog pack
Holding in it's hate
Dully, under a pack of men in red jackets,
And the eyes and times of the postmarks.

This fire may lick and fawn, but it is merciless:
A glass case
My fingers would enter although
They melt and sag, they are told
Do not touch.
And here is an end to the writing,
The spry hooks that bend and cringe and the smiles, the smiles
And at least it will be a good place now, the attic.
At least I won't be strung just under the surface,
Dumb fish
With one tin eye,
Watching for glints,
Riding my Arctic
Between this wish and that wish.

So, I poke at the carbon birds in my housedress.
They are more beautiful than my bodiless owl,
They console me—
Rising and flying, but blinded.
They would flutter off, black and glittering, they would be coal angels
Only they have nothing to say but anybody.
I have seen to that.
With the butt of a rake
I flake up papers that breathe like people,
I fan them out
Between the yellow lettuces and the German cabbage
Involved in it's weird blue dreams
Involved in a foetus.
And a name with black edges

Wilts at my foot,
Sinuous orchis
In a nest of root-hairs and boredom—
Pale eyes, patent-leather gutturals!
Warm rain greases my hair, extinguishes nothing.
My veins glow like trees.
The dogs are tearing a fox. This is what it is like
A read burst and a cry
That splits from it's ripped bag and does not stop
With that dead eye
And the stuffed expression, but goes on
Dyeing the air,
Telling the particles of the clouds, the leaves, the water
What immortality is. That it is immortal.

By Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)
More on FN & QK

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, March 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Your Broken Heart

BE MY VALENTINE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Path

Go to your broken heart.
If you think you don’t have one, get one.
To get one, be sincere.
Learn sincerity of intent by letting
life enter because you’re helpless, really,
to do otherwise.
Even as you try escaping, let it take you
and tear you open
like a letter sent
like a sentence inside
you’ve waited for all your life
though you’ve committed nothing.
Let it send you up.
Let it break you, heart.
Broken-heartedness is the beginning
of all real reception.
The ear of humility hears beyond the gates.
See the gates opening.
Feel your hands going akimbo on your hips,
your mouth opening like a womb
giving birth to your voice for the first time.
Go singing whirling into the glory
of being ecstatically simple.
Write the poem.

by Jack Hirschman (1933 – 2021)

See also
"Keep the Faith" by Jack Butler
"Your Poem, My Poem" & "What Do Writers Want"

Hear this poem read aloud in the movie
Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You never know where you might find a heart!

Chocolate Ravens & Ginger Hearts

Toast

Snowy ~ Hearts

"The human heart is vast enough to contain all the world."
~ Joseph Conrad ~

Be My Valentine!
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, February 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Television Cat

MESMERIZED
IN FRONT OF THE TV ON A SNOW DAY
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

“What sort of philosophers are we,
who know absolutely nothing
of the origin and destiny of cats?”
~ Henry David Thoreau ~
What sort of a cat mom am I who has absolutely no idea what goes through Fuqua's mind when he watches TV? One of my friends wondered if Fuqua availed himself of the healthy snack of pears, there within easy reach. Well, it's true, Fuqua loves to bite the stems off the pears if given the chance!

In addition to Fantasia, he has been known to watch all of the Charlie Brown holiday specials, as well as the magic of illusionists Penn and Teller. A little feline sleight-of-hand . . .

"A cat is more intelligent
than people believe,
and can be taught any crime"
[or magic trick].
~ Mark Twain ~

In his more limber days,
Fuqua enjoyed the Beach Body exercise videos.

When it comes to the origin and destiny of cats, Mark Twain had the right idea, and I'm sure that Fuqua and his little brother Lester would agree:

I urged that kings were dangerous.

Clarence said, then have cats. He was sure that a royal family of cats would answer every purpose. They would be as useful as any other royal family, they would know as much, they would have the same virtues and the same treacheries, the same disposition to get up shindies with other royal cats, they would be laughably vain and absurd and never know it, they would be wholly inexpensive, finally, they would have as sound a divine right as any other royal house. ... The worship of royalty being founded in unreason, these graceful and harmless cats would easily become as sacred as any other royalties, and indeed more so, because it would presently be noticed that they hanged nobody, beheaded nobody, imprisoned nobody, inflicted no cruelties or injustices of any sort, and so must be worthy of a deeper love and reverence than the customary human king, and would certainly get it. (see p 515)

- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday February 14th

Between now and then, read

Previous cat quotes on
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs

Thoreau: The Size of Grief
Twain: A Perfect House
Twain: Halloween Happy Cats

www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

As Mark Twain himself
wrote about his own cats:
"There is nothing of continental or inter-national
interest to communicate about those cats.
They had no history;
they did not distinguish themselves in any way."

But still . . .

These Two
I love the way that the Light of God
is shining right through Fuqua's ear!

A Bright Golden Haze

"AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN"
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

" . . . all the fields . . . glow
Like flashing seas of green . . .
[like] running fiery torchmen"

Finding these red leaves among the evergreens reminded me of Helen Hunt Jackson's juxtaposition of poppies among the wheat. In the imagery of her sonnet, the red petals are first "torchmen" then "wine." As in bread and wine, spiritual sustenance as well as physical:

Poppies on the Wheat

Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.

The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,
But I,—I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, though bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat.

by Helen Hunt Jackson (1830 – 1885)
Connection to Emily Dickinson

"A Bright Golden Haze"

Throughout the course of his life, author Hamlin Garland, lived from sea to shining sea; but his fiction, non-fiction, and poetry remained focused on the American Midwest and -- as this poem illustrates -- upon the land beneath his feet. Similar to Jackson's sonnet above, bread and wine are honored here, amidst a dazzling array of color, from russet to amber to olive:

Color in the Wheat

Like liquid gold the wheat field lies,
A marvel of yellow and russet and green,
That ripples and runs, that floats and flies,
With the subtle shadows, the change, the sheen,
That play in the golden hair of a girl,—
A ripple of amber—a flare
Of light sweeping after—a curl
In the hollows like swirling feet
Of fairy waltzers, the colors run
To the western sun
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.

Broad as the fleckless, soaring sky,
Mysterious, fair as the moon-led sea,
The vast plain flames on the dazzled eye
Under the fierce sun’s alchemy.
The slow hawk stoops
To his prey in the deeps;
The sunflower droops
To the lazy wave; the wind sleeps—
Then swirling in dazzling links and loops,
A riot of shadow and shine,
A glory of olive and amber and wine,
To the westering sun the colors run
Through the deeps of the ripening wheat.

O glorious land! My western land,
Outspread beneath the setting sun!
Once more amid your swells, I stand,
And cross your sod-lands dry and dun.
I hear the jocund calls of men
Who sweep amid the ripened grain
With swift, stern reapers; once again
The evening splendor floods the plain,
The crickets’ chime
Makes pauseless rhyme,
And toward the sun,
The colors run
Before the wind’s feet
In the wheat!

by Hamlin Garland (1860 – 1940)
Connection to Henry George / source

"Like liquid gold"
See also: Earth Day & Facebook

All photos:
Kirksville, Missouri ~ October 2024
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, January 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com