January 22, 2025: "The Victims," More Orwell, "Poem Eleven Days After the Funeral . . ."

Sometimes people get punished for their abuses, and sometimes they get pardoned.

Sharon Olds writes about abuse . . . 

The Victims

by: Sharon Olds

When Mother divorced you, we were glad. She took it and
took it, in silence, all those years and then
kicked you out, suddenly, and her
kids loved it. Then you were fired, and we
grinned inside, the way people grinned when
Nixon's helicopter lifted off the South
Lawn for the last time. We were tickled
to think of your office taken away,
your secretaries taken away,
your lunches with three double bourbons,
your pencils, your reams of paper. Would they take your
suits back, too, those dark
carcasses hung in your closet, and the black
noses of your shoes with their large pores?
She had taught us to take it, to hate you and take it
until we pricked with her for your 
annihilation, Father. Now I
pass bums in doorways, the white
slugs of their bodies gleaming through slits in their
suits of compressed silt, the stained
flippers of their hands, the underwater
fire of their eyes, ships gone down with the
lanterns lit, and I wonder who took it and
took it from then in silence until they had
given it all away and had nothing
left but this.

COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:  If you are a Trump supporter, please stop reading this blog now to avoid becoming offended or angered.  Oh, and go fuck yourself.

I'm going to try to avoid being political in every single post for the next four years, but, currently, the situation in Washington, D. C., is more Orwell than Orwell ever imagined.  At the end of this week, I think everyone is going to feel pretty battered and bruised.

That's it.  That's the wisdom I have for you today.  Hang in there, disciples.  Try to find something beautiful or wildly funny (or both) to focus on.  

Saint Marty wrote a short poem of loss today, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem that has only two lines (no more than thirteen syllables each).  End the poem with an image of something being lost.  Give the poem either a long or one-word title.

Poem Eleven Days After the Funeral

of President James Earl Carter, Jr.

by: Martin Achatz

Outside the library, the flag hangs half-mast, still, sad,

as if there's an Executive Order banning wind.