A comment from Stan

It appears that Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions have come to their end, her protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. She still has a loyal base that will quite probably make a show of it for her in West Virginia, the Washington Post says this morning, but Obama is likely to win a larger number of delegates in Oregon, plus he has had a pickup of super delegates and is in front of Clinton in that category, too. A Clinton-supporting super delegate was on the radio a little while ago saying the trickle to Obama is going to become a gush. Turn out the lights, my dear. The party’s over.

Ms. Clinton’s only hopes appear to be in a willingness to disrupt the convention with a floor fight over seating delegates in the discounted Michigan and Florida primaries, and a blatant appeal to super delegates that she will be the one to get the white racist vote. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has posted a PowerPoint document that the Clintons have been circulating among the super delegates. The PowerPoint uses the code “The Tough Districts,” but the point is as obvious as Richard Nixon’s use of Law and Order in the same districts. They are the districts where racialist sentiments have been successfully appealed to in the past.

Mrs. Clinton would be well advised to condede at this point. Frank Rich points out in this morning’s column that a major problem for her and the pundits on both sides is that they keep misunderstanding what’s going on because their minds are stuck in the past. The Right Wing of the Nutcase Watch think “the Karl Rove playbook of Swift-boating and race-baiting can work as it did four and eight years ago.” The mass of new voters coming online this year are demonstrably not hung up on race or a host of other issues that the old guard conventional thinkers keep pounding on. And they are voting, these twenty somethings.

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Click here to watch a clip of Pangea Day

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Poems by Stan

Guitar

And the strings rusting now,
Cutting fingers,
But love all the same.

Scratched love in spruce,
My life this moment,
breathe with me.

Subjects

Tennis: waking swung
To a newspaper bleating
At cornflakes sans raisons.
What a day.

Speak not of yourself, you,
But look at what is else
For the story of the day.
What a day.

True

Good is the obverse of evil.
It is the same coin.
But flip it and watch:
And who sees the gleam
And who sees the glitter
And whose coins are hidden?

At Home with the Ideal

So all things have a measure,
A series of cubes, functional:
The cycle of plants, wet and dry
Growth and degeneration,
Are tested and known.

We grant the fault of the doors,
But nailing them is too abrupt.

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by John Goggin

Pat Buchanan
thinks that he can
still pontificate.
He should stay home and masturbate.

The Right Reverend Wright, when
he was told to sit tight, then
incurred public pillory;
although he has a life-long friend in our Lady Hillary.

Chris Matthews
discussing issues
always shouts.
I never know what the fuck he’s talking about.

Monsieur Colbert
finds himself quite “cher”.
As a master of smarm
I guess he can’t do any real harm.

From Gene’s notebook

…and there I am on my bike, corner of Boca Chica and Central Boulevard, looking at the $3.55 gas, looking at car upon car and truck upon truck, single person in each …. The heat builds, near 95 degrees; the southeast wind rips bank flags. Half the drivers in those cars and trucks are on cellphones, and all have their ACs turned full blast ….

Is this hell? Is this laughing to the grave? Who gives a damn! Burn that gas. Don’t change! Don’t carpool!

Earlier I told a doctor and librarian that this gas “crisis” might have some fine outcomes: more walking, thus cutting into the doctor’s heart business; he didn’t mind; more library books with people sticking around their homes more; she was pleased.

Back to the hot intersection; the lights changed, and those stopped went and those going stopped, and the world went on and on, until ….

–Eugene (Gene) Novogrodsky

A new clerihew by John Goggin

Ms. Brittany Spears
confirms our worst fears
that fame’s but a drug.
Perhaps she just needs a big old hug.

A poem by Rudy H. García

No one really knows how old
She is.
But she sure does look old,
Under those Mexican dresses
She wears to school every day
She looks older
Than the rest of us,
Because her feet,
Her feet, give her age away.
Like thirty maybe? Maybe more…
You can tell by
Looking at her toes… sticking out from under her huaraches made of some kind of leather, or something,
Her toe nails are thick, like the first communion bible my padrinos give me when I was eight.
And they are some kind of brownish color, or something
Like the color of
Old nails you find in your father`s tool box
The bended nails he never
Wants to throw away, because he says to you
He may have a use for those nails someday.
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a poem by Eugene (Gene) Novogrodsky

Push and wind, up go the shutters,
Noisly, in Mexcian shops, with morning sun building.
Young women, maybe some junior high, and
Then then pour water on the sidewalks,
Then, sweep it away … wetting gutters ….

Hit a button and up go the shutters in malls.
The women, maybe some high school, in suits,
Ready to work the store, no brooms for them,
No straining with aluminum, no blouses and jeans,
No wishes for Friday’s romance ….

Brownsville

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Renowned author Victor Villaseñor will speak at South Texas College’s Pecan Campus Library located at 3201 West Pecan Blvd in McAllen on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 7 p.m. He will discuss his bestseller, Rain of Gold.

The evening starts with a reception at 6:30 p.m. and Villaseñor will sign books and meet attendees following his speech. Books will be available for purchase.

In addition, Villaseñor will be the speaker for South Texas College’s graduation ceremony for its Division of Liberal Arts and Social Science on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 2 p.m. at Dodge Arena in Hidalgo. Admission to the graduation is free and open to the public.

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A poem for Joe Godfrey by Stan

We gave up
That there was a perfect swing
There was only the connection
To the moment of the swing,

And the things of the swing,
The club, the man,
The ball, the tee,
The green grass by the yard,
The pin and cup,
Melded in a moment
Worked without mind.
The club as much a man
As a thing of man;
The man an extension of the club
as much a man.

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A note from Stan

I call your attention to the new page just added for the Writers Forum at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center. I’m a member of the group and support it enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. It figured large in my resurrection as a writer. It has figured large in the lives of many writers in the valley and similar groups have since appeared in McAllen, Port Isabel, and elsewhere in the Valley. The Writers Forum sponsored the recent and successful (thanks to the energies of Brenda Nettles Riojas and Daniel Garcia Ordaz) Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival and already is involved with the planning for next year’s event.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Writers Forum meets every first Tuesday at 7:00 pm at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center. The next meeting will be June 3rd. For more information, go to the new page.

On Feburary 17th, 2008, one of the Valley’s most talented musicians, Andy Chapa, was involved in a car accident resulting in the loss of his left arm.

HE’S ALL RIGHT drive is raising money to help Andy with Prosthesis expense and to obtain a Rick Allen Drum Kit.

We have a full day of Music and Mischief planned at

Boog-A-Dee Boo’s Burgers & Brew
May 10th, 2008
1302 Morgan Blvd,
Harlingen Texas, 78550

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A poem by Patricia A.

Inspired by last night’s City Commission meeting (May 6, 2008)

The circus came to town and stayed;
it set out tent at City Hall.
Stubborn minds will not be swayed,
and elevated egos will not fall.

How do good intentions go astray?
And how do so-called servants have the gall
to make a public spectacle, and thus betray
The trust awarded them for answering the call?

On second thought, animals that do obey,
and are led by a ringmaster that can stand tall,
shouldn’t be lumped with politicians who can’t find their way,
that were elected by a constituency that dropped the ball.

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A poem by Thomas Thornburg

Down in Naptown, skipping in the breeze,
Sylvia Lykins, pretty as you please;

Sylvia Lykins, sing girls sing,
Jump up, double-dutch, jump and swing;

Down at the playground, by and by
Sylvia Lykins told a lie;

Somebody told her bad step-ma,
Silly got a lickin, ha, ha, ha;

How many licks did Silly score?
One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven, eight;
Sylvia Lykins, tied to the gate;

Somebody told the teacher at school,
Somebody printing in the Golden Rule.

Yonder comes the Truant, knocking on the door
One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven, eight,
Sylvia Lykins, don’t be late.

Put her in the bathtub, dress her nude,
Sylvia Lykins got tattooed;

How many words did Sylvia score?
One, two, three, four,
Five, six, seven, eight,
Sylvia Lykins, sure as Fate.

Down in the cellar where the rats do play
Sylvia Lykins used to stay;

Sylvia Lykins, down on her knees
Saying to the furnace her A B C’s;

One, two, three, four,
Sylvia Lykins, dead on the floor.

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Poems by Thomas Thornburg

Jonathan Swift
gives me a lift;
everyone he debated
he hated.

Hannibal and Hamilcar
perished in a Punic war
along with the other
brother.

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A comment from Stan

Following up on a recent column on the Pennsylvania primary by Frank Rich of the New York Times in which he pointed out that the media generally are ignoring the Republican primaries, we note this morning that in the North Carolina primary yesterday, McCain is a loser in at least two ways. First the totals. The Democrats posted votes from 1,575,561 voters against 518,224 Republicans who made it to the polls. That’s close to a three to one margin. The numbers from Indiana were similar.

Now it should be pointed out that the Republican race is demonstrably over and therefore voter motivation among Republicans is down. But if you look at the internals, as the commentariat calls it these days, 62,917 of those Republicans voted for Mike Huckabee, 40,275 for Ron Paul, and 33,894 for unstated others. All told, 137,086 of the Republican voters found motive to send McCain a message, more than twenty-six percent of the total.

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A comment from Stan

The lead editorial in this morning’s Brownsville Herald, concerning an alleged rebound in the Valley’s real estate market, acknowledges that the current banking system (if you can call it that given that the the development of subprime lending means that the so-called bankers had given up due diligence) boldly asserts that one of the drags on the market has been that “many residents saw their property taxes rise drastically,” thus dragging out one of the paper’s favorite whipping boys once again–taxes.

Not that taxes are a good thing precisely, but they are necessary. We want streets and drainage and fire  and police protection and there’s not another viable entity beyond government to provide those services, unless, of course, we want to go with the Robocop scenario where we’ve outsourced all government functions so that we’ve got to pay some greedy and lazy shareholder, too. We saw how that worked out. In the current arrangement, we are the shareholders.

The Herald’s note got me thinking. I’d gotten my property tax bill yesterday or the day before and, yes, I had one of those whistling-through-the-teeth, will-ya-look-at-that moments on the way to filing it away.

But this morning, as I read the newspaper, I noted the Herald writers didn’t mention anything about the silent tax of the market place—inflation—and the question came up, “What would the ‘natural,’ market-based rise in property taxes be if one took into account inflation?”

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A Blues by Stan

Now I ain’t got the money
And the rent is due
And the man at the corner
Says my credit’s got shoes
Now the weathers got colder
And my coat’s mighty thin
I think it’s time to admit
The shape that I’m in
 
I don’t belong here
I see what you’re saying
Must be about time for sailing away
I don’t belong here
The day’s about over
Find the door, hit the road, don’t look back, don’t come back, Jack

A fragment by Stan

Oh, the widening gyre and slouching beast–
       Who was it called them out?
Never more than twinkling eyes and ribald laugh
       With old Jane’s jokes passing over many a head,
Not heard by many outside that golden circle
       Thought seriously to be in search of a center.
Other days had their bitter tears: the odd bomb there;
       A wounding almost mortal; another that just was
By a hair’s breadth and stopped the wrong heart;
       So, appalled, the world quietly rifled files
To check the print, fine or not, to see if that was in the bargain.

So, send out the boys and hold on to the doves,
       Who can flutter awhile in their cages and preen feathers
And catch their breath each time an echo of booming ordinance
       Comes in from the shell-shocked fields
Where those boys sent forth experiment their way through
       The blood of their brothers, the hopes of their sisters,
Called on and on by older men–or was it some kindly uncle–
       Who calculated death for many, though not nearly enough.

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We’ve put up a new “About Us” page listing contributors and volunteers (all unpaid, of course) and setting forth our view on copyright.

Essentially, we copyright the page but reserve copyright for individual contributions to the piece’s creator. It stays yours if you publish it here. We do request the indulgence of notice that you’d published it here first (it helps with our only advertising campaign–word of mouth), but do not require it.

Which means also that we are keeping NunnaYerBizness open to other writers. If you’ve got a piece you want to share to see what responses it might garner, send it to sraines902@aol.com.

Enthusiastically yours for Lit,

–Stan

The Writers Group, one of the sponsors of the recent Valley International Poetry Festival meets at 7:00 this evening at the Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center, 225 East Stenger Street in San Benito.

The meeting is open to anyone interested in writing. Participants have ten minutes each to read whatever they choose. Some regularly bring guitars and perform original music and once or twice flamenco dancers have taken a turn.

The Narciso Martinez Cultural Arts Center is named for the renowned Mexican accordion player known as the Father of Conjunto — a popular form of Tex-Mex music. The San Benito center promotes Latino heritage through art, music, theater, film, dance and literary programs. (956) 361-0110.

a poem by Stan Raines

Here, for you, my lesson,
A turning of words
As light recedes:
The green has left this leaf
And leaves a fibrous web …

Here, do not guess at
That you would know:
Bend and see that
Which crawls at you
As if fleeing to the room,
Which races to you
As all would do
if they had eyes
as you do.

But the lesson:
Take place and make stand;
Move walls,
Build furniture,
That you may live
In this place-
Which you are.

Life is light;
Light is life;
All is taut:
And now the green has broken from this leaf,
The web is left that has trapped
The light of life.
And your silence weighs like speech.

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A note from Stan Raines

I was great helping National Poetry Month along here and the question has occurred: why stop now? I invite writers of all stripes to send your work.

Unless it’s blatantly pornographic or otherwise obscene by reason of its racism or blatant disregard for the rest of humanity, I’ll put it up without much comment and with no alterations.

My hope is that we’ll have lively discussions about lively pieces of work. There are many highly gifted writers in these parts. Let’s see your stuff.

We were pleased to see a letter in The Brownsville Herald today from Tony Lehmann, Jr. decrying the condition of Pablo Kisel Boulevard and the expense of maintaining it. We’ll fire off a missive letting folks at the Herald know what we’ve found on the topic. Perhaps the Herald will take up the topic with its mighty resources and plethora of contacts.

They are vigorous diggers into the local skullduggery, are they not, those Herald folks?

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