Book of Hours

A living city rises with the dawn,
The cold, grey, iron light of 6 o’clock.
A door is opened down an empty street,
Broadcasting light across the Delphic asphalt,
And then a dozen doors open and close
And engines wheeze and flutter into life.
Like wings of birds the rising light gives life,
The doors and engines beat against the dawn
Like wheeling [...]

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People come with complicated dreams

People come with complicated dreams
And leave with much less complicated failures.
What we want is more than what we seem
But what we get’s determined by our natures.
Our natures, in turn, are formed before we’re born.
Father’s name, profession, color hair.
The winner’s picked before the race is run.
The only choice we get is what to wear.
You’ll tell yourself [...]

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Hair so dark, lips so red, her eyes

Hair so dark, lips so red, her eyes
That shine so bright contain a light that shines
The brighter for having been contained. Her hair,
Black as summer midnights’ plaguey sable
When lilacs blow across the garden gate,
So dark it gleams like wings in winter trees,
In January scenes when blackbirds sing,
A slash of red across each sooty shoulder
In [...]

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Seaweed and Nacre

I.
From every dark exit,
Radiant in cuirasses of glass,
Angels rush, consecrate,
Into amens. Let our
Ramshackle consciousness
Anamorphize.
II.
Galiongees rid encumbering growths
Via anthromorphous negligence,
Driving eternal railheads hither,
Ecstasy in death extirpated.
III.
I am nobody.
Before, eternal amor recused death.
Sadly, love exited yesterday.
IV.
Subterranean cotillions of thought
Turn troubling trous-de-loup
Against your love
Of retreat.
V.
Colloquies of reduction, born in negation,
Provide ontological theories
In case he awakens.
VI.
Starving the evening, [...]

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I’m Famous in Spain and It’s About Damned Time

The Argentine writer Hernán Zin has written an article on my work with the Committee to Protect Bloggers for the Spanish daily La Voz de Galicia. It’s very flattering, considering it’s part of a series on genuine do-gooders. Hopefully no one will find out I’m a cynical fraud. I’m counting on seeing a plaque unveiled [...]

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Scoble Attacked

I have disagreed with Microsoft’s Robert Scoble in the past. In particular, I found his defence of his employer in the MSN Space China debacle to be unreasoning and his change of heart unconvincing. (Though I think his later offer of blogging space to Michael Anti was awfully decent.)
But now, irritated by what he considers [...]

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Newsgator

To my surprise (it always surprises me when something which works is redesigned and looks and functions better) Newsgator’s new design looks quite good.
Newsgator, feed_aggregator

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Stop Posting Your Links

Stop posting your links. A random handful of your links are not a post. They’re a useless irritation. I have little enough time. From now on, each time I click through my feed reader and find a garbage pile of your links I’m going to erase you. If you have nothing interesting and or important [...]

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International Condemnation of Fascist Spain

Spain is a unique place for many reasons, not all of them good. Among all the countries who have had brutal internecine conflicts, as well as those who were ruled by fascists, Spain seems to be alone in not having done anything to address its history. Once when I mentioned Communists in Granada’s Gypsy quarter [...]

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Name Your Band

OK, you lucky dogs. I’m disgorging on the world my top secret list of band names, album titles and noms de rocke. I give you leave to choose from among them to decorate the next five to ten years of your life as you fruitlessly pursue rock stardom.
I have divided them into sections named accordingly, [...]

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