The Celebrity Talk Show Game

 

Brooklyn Bridge - Vladimir Mayakovsky

 

Brooklyn Bridge

Proclaim, Coolidge,

a shout of joy!

To the good 

                    and I don’t apologize for the words.

Blush red 

                from my praise 

                                         like the flag of our motherland,

even if you’re 

                       the disunited states of

America.

Like an obsessed believer

                                           goes 

                                                    to church,

Withdrawing, 

                      austere and simple, 

                                                       to a cell, -

So I 

        at a vespers 

                            seeming so gray,

Walk onto, 

                  humble, the Brooklyn Bridge.

As into a city, 

                      into its destruction, 

                                                     the conqueror makes his way

on cannons - with a muzzle 

                                             as tall as a giraffe -

so, giddy with glory, 

                                 satisfied at nothing,

I clamber up, 

                      proud, 

                                 onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

Like an idiot artist 

                             into the museum's madonna

thrusts his eye, 

                         enamored and sharp,

so I, 

        from a sky, 

                          peppered with stars

look 

        at New York 

                            through the Brooklyn Bridge.

New York 

                until the evening heavy 

                                                      and stifling,

I forgot 

            how heavy it is 

                                     and tall,

and it’s only 

                    hobgoblin spirits

that rise up 

                   in the clear luminescence of the windows.

Here 

         it hardly itches, 

                                  the elevators’ itch.

And it’s only 

                    by this quiet itch

that you will understand - 

                                         the trains creeping along, rattling,

as though 

                 putting the dishes in the cupboard.

When then, 

                   it seemed, from down river

a peddler began 

                           delivering sugar 

                                                     from the mill, -

that 

       under the bridge the passing masts

measured 

                 no more than the size of pins.

I’m proud 

                here’s this mile of steel,

alive from it 

                   my visions have risen -

a struggle 

                 for structures 

                                       rather than fashions,

a rough accounting 

                                of nuts 

                                            and steel.

If 

   it comes 

                 the end of the world -

chaos 

           will polish 

                           the planet,

and the only 

                     thing left will be 

                                               this,

erected over the dust of ruination a bridge,

then 

        in the way that from bones, 

                                                    more slender than needles,

they grow stout 

                         the dinosaurs 

                                                mounted in museums,

so 

     from this bridge 

                               a geologist in days to come

will be able 

                   to reconstruct 

                                          the present day.

He will say: 

                   - You see this 

                                          steel paw

that united 

                  the seas and the prairies,

from here 

                Europe 

                             burst into the West,

throwing 

               to the wind 

                                 Indian feathers.

It looks like 

                   a machine 

                                     this rib here -

think about it, 

                      are there enough hands,

to, standing 

                    with a steel foot 

                                              on Manhattan,

to pull Brooklyn 

                          by its lip 

                                        all this way?

By the wires 

                     of the electric strand -

I know - 

              after the steam 

                                       age -

here 

        people 

                   already 

                               were shouting on the radio,

here 

        people 

                    already 

                                were soaring in the air.

Here 

         life 

              was for some - carefree,

for others - 

                  a famished prolonged wail.

From here 

                  the unemployed

into the Hudson 

                          threw themselves 

                                                       head first.

Next 

        my painting 

                           without a snag

along strings - the cables 

                                         right to the feet of the stars.

I see - 

           here 

                   stood Mayakovsky,

stood 

          and wrote poetry syllable by syllable -

I’m watching, 

                      like an eskimo looking at a train,

I bite, 

          like a tick bites into an ear.

Brooklyn Bridge -

Oh yes… 

                That’s the thing! 

Vladimir Mayakovsky - 1925

translation - Barry Link

I Smell Mischief!

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie!

Roll of the Die

The Collapsed Room

Upstairs

The Patio

Zoe Ingstrom

Crimson Jack

Hot Stuff

Sure Gun

 

I Scratch Your Eyes Out

 

Stick and Slip

 

The stick–slip phenomenon… is a type of motion exhibited by objects in contact sliding over one another. The motion of these objects is usually not perfectly smooth, but rather irregular, with brief accelerations (slips) interrupted by stops (sticks). Stick–slip motion is normally connected to friction, and may generate vibration (noise) or be associated with mechanical wear of the moving objects, and is thus often undesirable in mechanical devices. On the other hand, stick–slip motion can be useful in some situations, such as the movement of a bow across a string to create musical tones in a bowed string instrument.

Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick-slip_phenomenon

Dick Cheney is a true believer in the two party system. He shares that with the party whose ticket he's endorsed. Two party system, here, refers to the common support by Democrats and Republicans for American dominance of the global economy and preservation of capitalist production at home. Common in the sense that political control of the state apparatus can be safely exchanged between the two within agreed parameters to absorb the more ordinary domestic and international contradictions.

This consensus is now entirely encompassed within one party, the party which has put forth a platform of opposition to Trump. By focusing their criticism on the thrice nominated candidate of the Republicans the Democrats avoid presenting themselves as the single survivor of the 20th century American partisan landscape. The bloc which has coalesced behind Trump is the negation of the two party system and, specifically, of the Republican party as a partner to it. Its platform identifies, paradoxically, the Democrats with the movement of the working class to supplant the political-economic order which they, along with their erstwhile partners in the GOP, have always been pledged to uphold. 

In fact, the “far left” against which Trump directs the wrath of his so-called movement is not represented by a mass political party in this election. It is certainly not to be found in a cabal of globalists who both own everything and are simultaneously conspiring to overthrow private property, throttle biblical prophecy, and so forth. The far left does exist as the inevitable specter of opposition to the multiple, intertwined crises that threaten the planet.

The Democrats, while faithful to the old order, are capable of expressing the aspirations of opposition. In their rhetoric it’s apparent they lack any other inspiration. Just this acknowledgement is enough to trigger the reactionary negation of the entire American political system: no contradiction, no way forward, no politics, no reality, all stick, no slip. This is the end to which a doddering, beset Trump is delighted to dedicate his stream of consciousness stand-up act.