2012/02/28

Pull, You Know, Favor, Drag




I play the single from the new Magnetic Fields' album again just because inside baseball but mostly because I like it, unlike the rest of the new Magnetic Field's album which can be streamed here. Six times through, each time I like it progressively less. In my brain of hearts I knew when I voted for Obama in November 2008 exactly how February 28, 2012's obamapostasy would feel: my disillusionment at the Corporate fuck that Obama is is no rubier or kayfabier than my fantasies of Obama as progressive hero were, but in faith's marrow, I never expected to not adore a Magnetic Fields album.










[In the great snowfall before the bomb]

Lorine Niedecker

In the great snowfall before the bomb
colored yule tree lights
windows, the only glow for contemplation
along this road

I worked the print shop
right down among em
the folk from whom all poetry flows
and dreadfully much else.

I was Blondie
I carried my bundles of hog feeder price lists
down by Larry the Lug,
I'd never get anywhere
because I'd never had suction,
pull, you know, favor, drag,
well-oiled protection.

I heard their rehashed radio barbs—
more barbarous among hirelings
as higher-ups grow more corrupt.
But what vitality! The women hold jobs—
clean house, cook, raise children, bowl
and go to church.

What would they say if they knew
I sit for two months on six lines
of poetry?