Is it a pitch-perfect-performance? No. Is it the best performance I can do right now? Yes.

This is the first time I’ve every played for easily over a hundred people. I picked up the trumpet less than two years ago. Before that it had been 30 years since I played an instrument. If I only had the time and freedom I did when I was 16! Now, as many of you can relate, I have to fit in my practice between cooking dinners, driving children around, work, and all sorts of other tasks. I know improvement will take time.

Confidence should always lead talent — this is where improvement happens.

Many people don’t hear the mistakes I made, which are probably more obvious in the recording. And if you compare it to the greatest recordings, it’s not impressive. But it was impressive to a pool full of swimmers and parents to watch someone stand in front of a crowd and play a trumpet.

Normally what happens at these events, is that the volunteer announcer attempts to play a recording of the national anthem. However, because they struggle with the audio mixing console, they abandon the anthem and instead lead a recitation of the pledge of allegiance. After hearing this a few times, I decided I would play the national anthem — all of four days ago.

Which, is not a lot of prep time for a person of my level. But the swim meet was today, so I could wait until I was ready, or go for it.

In our instagram-era, we are living with too much polish. Here is a pitch corrected version of my playing above. It took about a minute to run through the software and sounds “better.” I could go in and edit the misplaced notes even. I can even go to that last note I missed and literally drag it to the correct note.

All of this, can be done without using AI.

Single-note changes were done in the age of analog tape. Film photography has famously manipulated before. Analog does not necessarily mean authentic. I could doctor this audio up, but that’s not the point. The point is that I want to eventually play this, in front of larger audiences, even better. The point, is to improve.

Swimming is the ultimate sport for those with a “type-A” personality. This sport has metrics upon metrics. The numbers don’t lie and by the numbers you are ranked. One of the main lessons these children learn is that they are racing themselves — they are always striving for improvement every time they get in the water.

Many people came up to me afterwards, but the best moment of today happened when a ten year old boy, who I drive several times in a car pool each week, said to me “I like your trumpet, Mr. Datko.” He is a first year French Horn player, as I was once. He has not said a single unprompted sentence to me in the years I’ve been driving him and he crushed his times today.

His entire life for the last decade has been constant improvement. This is why more adults should try new activities. I think we forget what it feels like to get better at something. It brings a child-like joy back into one’s life.

Besides, what fun is there in instant perfection? Machines are perfectionists, and I don’t want to be a machine.

For example, this is a military machine. It is an official US military device that goes into the bell of bugle. The way it works is you press a button, and after a delay, it plays taps perfectly. The operator of the bugle needs only to play the part, so-to-speak. These operators get told, don’t point the bell of the bugle towards the family.

What happens when the bugler gets approached by the family of the deceased? What do they say when this family tells them their performance moved them to tears?

Why is the military so afraid of a few wrong notes at a funeral? This device is the epitome of military efficiency and all the cold, heartless, calculations that go along with that.

As for me, despite my critiques of the military in which I served, I still can honor this country by learning her anthem and performing it, to the best of abilities, to other Americans.

And I know I will look back at this post one day, maybe even in a week, and I’ll see how much I have improved. I won’t consider it “cringe.” It will be as cringe as a child’s first words, barely pronounced. And I’ll think, in another week, how much more will I improve!

One day, I might have the courage and energy of Rea, until then, I will watch her dance high on a mountain. A true force of nature, this one. Her poetry is full of wild imagery that is not afraid to take you to the underworld, and safely back.

I put on my poncho and dusted off the flute for her poem Astrape. And I told the funny story of our first comment exchange about this poem. After that, I’ve been a fan!

Rea, lives in South Africa. And sadly, the global financial system (don’t get me started) picks winners and loser countries. South Africa is on the short-end-of-that-stick because Stripe, which is the sole supplier to Substack for paid subscriptions, refuses to work with the citizens of South Africa.

So, she can’t accept paid subscribers.

If you enjoy Rea’s work, I am linking to her buy-me-a-coffee page. In you feel so inclined, I know she would appreciate it.

Support Rea here!

Have a great weekend everyone! Below are the links to the poems I read today.

Rea’s Substack

Astrape

I am dancing high on a mountain…

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a year ago · 37 likes · 13 comments · Rea de Miranda

Rea’s Substack

Love Never Dies a Natural Death

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings…

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a year ago · 45 likes · 19 comments · Rea de Miranda

Rea’s Substack

Like a Wisp of smoke

Like a wisp of smoke…

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a year ago · 34 likes · 11 comments · Rea de Miranda

Rea’s Substack

No Heaven Without Hell

“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell…

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2 months ago · 69 likes · 32 comments · Rea de Miranda

Rea’s Substack

To Say What Can't Be Said

“There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can’t be said…

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a month ago · 85 likes · 40 comments · Rea de Miranda

It can feel awkward, even sacrilegious, to aggressively cover the military as a civilian. My confidence to do so is owed to a cadre of military writers who, in their style, rigor, outlook, and, in many cases, personal counsel, showed me the way.

This one passage has given me a new perspective on why I write.

Some friends and colleagues have told me in-so-many-words, to move on from writing about the military and war. They tell me, it is a necessary evil, they don’t like it any more than I do, but what can we do? Josh, you are turning people off because this all you talk about. Write about something else!

Many of you reading this now are accomplished writers, engineers, and veterans yourself. Many of you tell me privately you agree with the direction I’m going. I have received hand-written mail with stories of family history, originating with the military, that has brought me tears.

If one of you writes a book, makes a movie, creates a piece of art, gives a speech, and like Jasper Craven, lists me in the acknowledgements, then I can consider all of this worth it. And not because of the public acknowledgement — who reads those anyway! But, it is a true honor and accomplishment to provide a shield of confidence for another to speak out.

The best feedback I received from my poetry book, Wasted Blood, is that it is powerful, important, and difficult to read at times. Presumably not difficult because of my craft — maybe? In any case, I’m not asking for a clarification — but in how it deals with the shadow side of one of the most trusted American institutions: The United States Military. I will pass on the same compliment to Jasper who not only addresses veteran suicide as I did, but sexual assault (on both men and women), racism, nationalism, and more. There is no sin left untouched.

God Forgives, Brothers Don’t is a work of journalism. It is possible to dismiss this book as a critique of the military. But it is a critique in the same way a pile of evidence is “critique” against a murderer. The jury, the reader, is left to answer the following questions. Do we judge an institution by its best days or its worst? And, what is the role of the military in society?

The allure of the American military is stuck in WW2. If the United States Military was on trial, they would surely include references to WW2. But since the draft was lifted as a result of Vietnam, the American public, apart from 9/11, does not spend much time thinking about the military.

The Founders did. As we approach the 250’s birthday of the United States, Craven opens his book with reminders of what the Founders thought of the military.

James Madison argued that “oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.”

The United States has a standing army. I think many would agree about the second point. And if you consider the synonym defused or deactivated for disarmed, I would say all three are satisfied.

Since I’ve shifted from a military serviceman, to a Quaker-like anti-war stance, I’ve realized that many people hate pacifists. Not simply dislike, but they harbor a deep hatred of those that refuse to kill other people. Craven reminds us, this tradition has strong roots.

After pacifist Quakers were conscripted against their will into [Washington’s] army, with some having rifles tied tightly on their backs, Washington intervened, allowing the mean to follow their principles and return home. This intervention helped lay the groundwork of the American military’s recognition of conscientious objectors.

The poet Robert Bly, who was not a pacifist, received death threats for his anti-war poetry in the 1960s. The band, The Dixie Chicks, in 2003 were one of the most popular, best selling, all-female country music groups. Before the illegal Iraq invasion (the media always refers to the Russian invasion as “Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine”, but never to a U.S. invasions with such qualifiers), a member of the band said she was ashamed of the President. In response, they received death threats, radio stations blacklisted them, and fans destroyed their CDs.

It turns out, when there is a bloodlust, war hawks make enemies. Even if that enemy is domestic, as I’ve written before:

Awaiting the next war with 
     sad certainty,
I hear the shrills of the 
Red-tailed Hawks —
whose menacing cries
     often mistaken for
     the Bald Eagle's pride.

For the next 250 pages or so, Craven documents a rap sheet of the military focusing on the military’s educational establishments: the military academies and their junior colleges.

As an alum of the U.S. Naval Academy, and someone who had a few run ins with Valley Forge Military Academy, which I learned from this book that it is closing, I have some personal connection with all of this.

One of most striking moments to me was when Craven interviews a West Pointer who ends up in jail. This person admits that it was his military experience at West Point put him on this path that lead him to jail. However, he still feels that:

“I’m not one of those guys that serve in the Army and comes back with a lot of animosity. I feel like it’s still an honorable institution. The actions of a few people aren’t going to ruin it.”

I felt a strong sense of Stockholm Syndrome — the love a victim feels for their kidnapper — in this man. But then I realized, I too had this feeling! There were times where Craven was writing about the integration of blacks to the Academy in 1960s, or when women were finally allowed to join in 1979, and I felt part of me being an apologist. How many institutions got civil rights correct in the 1960s? The opinion was mixed on women in the military back then, can we blame the Service Academies?

I started to think through my own classmates. My roommate and best man, permanently paralyzed from a questionable training accident still goes to his local VFW. He meets with our female Marine officer classmate, who remained in the Marine reserves. I went to the wedding of Jewish shipmate, who was with me through the worst parts of my submarine life. They all seemed to be like I — a cross section of working class families wanting to serve their country.

And yet, I was almost a veteran suicide statistic, why is my first reaction to defend this organization?

But counter-examples bubbled up too. I remembered the officers who told me I would be divorced as soon as they heard I was married. My wife would surely cheat on me, as did theirs. When other officers talked about the “camel fuckers” they killed in Iraq, they clarified it didn’t apply to my wife, who is Iraqi, but to the enemy.

I remembered my official welcome-to-Afghanistan briefing I received. Here, I was told the biggest problem on Bagram airfield was the trust game. Where soldiers held pistols to each other heads and asked, “do you trust me?” As in, “do you trust I removed the ammunition from my pistol.” American soldiers have high levels of misplaced trust in each other apparently.

The number two issue was the high incidents of sexual assault. Especially male-on-male sexual assault. These assaults were often alcohol related — and alcohol is banned on the base. For example, If I were to tell someone the laundromat was next to “rape village” people would know exactly where that is. There was a poorly lit section of the base, with wooden huts, where NATO soldiers were advised to not walk through at night, by themselves. And nearly every soldier walks around with at least one firearm.

It was in Afghanistan, where I saw the juxtaposition of how soldiers died and what their parents were told. Every American should know of Pat Tillman story, for example. Craven of course, includes this in his book.

But still, misogyny and racism still exist in American society, from which the military draws. I still found myself thinking, it is a bit unfair of Craven to cherry-pick worse examples than I provided, to make his point.

If WW2 was the high-water-mark for the American military, let me tell you — all of these problems existed then. I have been told as much directly from WW2 veterans. When you have a resounding military victory, the “rape villages” turn out to be just a minor blemish.

Arguably, since WW2, the American military has overwhelmingly suffered strategic defeat over tactical victories. I would never bet against the American military in any firefight. But the twenty years of GWOTs, including this recent debacle in Iran proves how our confidence exceeds our talent in accomplishing strategic geo-political objectives with blunt instruments, our military.

We might have avenged the 3,000 deaths of 9/11 by killing one Osama Bin Laden. But as a result, over 30,000 American serviceman committed suicide as a result of the GWOT. Where is their memorial?

What do we want from our military? Do we want a win-at-all-cost organization? Because I will forever thank for casually recommending one day the Shakespeare play Coriolanus. After a great military victory, the general Coriolanus attempts a run at politics. He is a man of action, not words. But here, his feelings to the citizenry are clear:

You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate
As reek o’ th’ rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you!

We want our soldiers to be paragons of virtue. This is why there is a “dress uniform” in every branch of the military. We love to see our military in parades! But we are very uncomfortable discussing veteran suicide. We love shouting Slava Ukraini! But we ignore Ukraine’s forcible conscription.

We outsource the killing of the enemy, and all that comes with that, to the member’s of military. Civilians can enjoy dead Russians, dead Jews, dead Palestinians, dead Ukrainians, dead Iranians, all without getting their soul stained. Cheers all around!

What do you think happens behind those closed doors?

For me, I have replaced one extreme with the other. I am now a Quaker and oppose all of this on spiritual grounds. But most are not this extreme. That’s fine. But if you are not opposed to war, then go fight in it. It is cowardice to support military action from afar, with only words. Every military is recruiting. Take a sip of the chalice of death. See if you can handle it, if you are man enough that is.

Isn’t this the exact line of reasoning that every military uses?

This sentiment shows up in WW1 pro-war poetry, such as “The Eleventh Hour” by Francis St. Vincent Morris, 1917.

Is this to live?—to cower and stand aside
While others fight and perish day by day?
To see my loved ones slaughtered, and to say:—
‘Bravo! Bravo! How nobly you have died!’

To be clear, no I don’t wish anyone into war. I want to only demonstrate how effective the propaganda pull of joining the military is across centuries.

A fair critique of my review here is that it is more about me than Jasper Craven’s book. There are very few pages without highlights in my copy. I could talk about many of them — the recent ones especially I am intimately familiar with. But I decided, in the spirit of Craven’s acknowledgement, to make this essay personal in order to say, Craven hardly scratched the surface.

And yet, the book is not perfect. We are in a time where criticizing the military, especially because of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is popular. As strongly as I share Craven’s sentiment, I wished at times, he would have bitten his tongue. Perhaps this would make this book more palpable to a general audience. But, he is one writer going up against the most prestigious institution in America. They don’t hold back, why should he?

It is a difficult conversation and there are few willing to discuss. Especially those without a military service record. For example, the same publisher released the book Danger Close in 2017, detailing the life of American female helicopter pilot. A Navy seal wrote this about it, “Danger Close gives tremendous insight into the sacrifice our American men and women make every day.” Back then, shelves on book stores were lined with ghostwritten Navy SEAL memoirs and all of them somehow, had an essential part in the raid to kill Bin Laden. This periods was also ripe with pro-war movies.

So, part of me is skeptical that a major publisher feels comfortable now in flipping the script. But despite this, and considering my own anti-war book was released the weekend before this Iran war, I know the uphill task that Craven’s faces and I support his journey. I will keep close my highlighted copy of his book.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to for recommending this book to me. May we all find someone like him whose personal recommendations are always on point.

Father, into my daughter, let not my sin spill.
I fought in war so that she may one day know peace.
But to survive — there’s no sin I wouldn’t fulfill.

All I wanted was a safe return in one-piece,
to the woman at home I’ve known since I was grown.
I left my waiting wife, with child, whose love I lease.

Now my own soul is cold, fading like a tombstone.
Yet in these infant eyes, I see pairs of pure light.
Will she follow my shadow? How can I atone?

Hope takes hold of my finger bone, ever so sleight.
In her, the divine spark glows. She shows mine to me.
For her, must I wage a war — an internal fight.

By them, I am loved, and it sends me to my knees.

More anti-war poems are in my collection, Wasted Blood.

The ghazal, being of an ancient Arabian origin, seems out of place on our over-literate substack. It wants a bit of repetition, a bit of music, and a bit of spontaneous movements of the spirit from the group.

Which is why , , and really pulled of something remarkable here with this series:

Arthouse Poetry

Conquest of A Marble Dream

Conquest of A Marble Dream - a ghazal in three parts…

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21 days ago · 28 likes · 13 comments · Rasmus Rosenkrantz, Bence Ádók, and Luciana Moroianu

The best collaborations, are one where the form invites loose-coupling. Rasmus is of course, an expert in this having done many of such efforts over the last year or so. The renga series that writes with other poets is also a beautiful example of this kind of style.

So here, we have three very different voices all dancing around paintings, like whirling dervishes, to make something thats more than the sum of their parts.

If you don’t watch my reading, with the most killer-twisted-trumpet introduction — that’s fine. But you should at least read these poems out loud with some music playing. This will help grow your appreciate of the form.

As I mentioned in the stream, there was a video last night that is well worth your time. From the one and only Micheal Meade:

And, from the paintings, to the poems and back into the visual medium we have :

And lastly, I’ve finally going postal again, and shipping more physical copies of Wasted Blood. There are still physical copies left which you can order from wastedblood.com.

Have a great weekend!

It's fire not just hot air the reed-flute's cry,
   If you don't have this fire then you should die!
Love's fire is what makes every reed-flute pine,
   Love's fervour thus lends potency to wine;

-- Rumi, The Song of the Reed Flute,
     translated by Jawid Mojaddedi

I’ll play a song, come around in the light.
Let’s find a drum we can pound in the light.

When the bugle calls, I will sheathe my sword.
There is a new queen I’ve crowned, in the light.

I lost love in the basement of reason.
Fetch it from dark undergrounds in the light!

One time, I swallowed a burning candle.
While it danced I was spellbound in the light.

Inside me is both the new and full moon.
In this king tide I have drowned, in the light.

Born of mud and clay, I long for the sea.
Turtles, the ocean they found in the light.

Why did I walk away from my soul’s source?
Astray, like a demon downed in the light.
 
Oblivion awaits my ambition —
from womb to tomb I whip-round in the light.

After the fire lingered an oaken smoke —
a scent I tracked like a hound, in the light.

In the clearing, an old willow tone floats.
I whirl and whirl — I am wound, in the light.

The brass bellows a call of duty. But,
a forrest flute I have found in the light.

Datko, don’t swing a scythe at a sand dune!
Let your breathe be the wind-sound in the light.

Many thanks again to , who gave me some excellent tips on writing a gazal. In this one I attempted to maintain the radif, the repeating phrase, the qafiya, the rhyming pattern, the matla, the opening two lines, the maqta, the last couplet with a takhallus of my name, and lastly, the bahr. The bahr being the same syllabic count.

The ghazal is the form in which I hear the music the loudest. There’s many lyrical forms, I’m aware, but what can I say, I’m attracted to this one. There is a spiritual longing in them that is resonating with me at the moment.

However, I’m convinced to write a ghazal, one needs the proper soundtrack. If my voiceover music didn’t do it for you, try this:

There really is difference in poetry for the page and for the ear. A concrete poem looses something without its shape. And when a poem is encountered on the page first or orally also makes difference. It is less about the poem in this case then it is about the medium in which it is presented.

So to only read James’ poems and not have them read is quite a shame. Because want to be shared in the corporate environment. And less the backrooms-like corporation and more so a shared collective.

But if you’d rather read them than have them read to you — I won’t mind. This platform prefers the visual over the sonic.

In any form, I think is well worth your time. And I hope you enjoy his writing as much as I.

1. Cold, Contrary Country.

2. Unseen Asgard.

3. Time and Tides.

4. Older Autumn.

5. Ear Bending.

6. On the Brink.

Next week, I am going to shift the format a bit. And focus on a theme. Stay tuned.

Lastly, Celia Crane everyone:

p.s.

There was a discussion about active fiction communities here. Is there an active book club meeting to discuss regularly fiction? I know has quite an active book club and once met to discuss ‘s Major Arcana. mentioned some initiatives here where people are reading fiction (there own? each others?), but I’m not aware of a book-club style.

I don’t think I’ve got the fiction bug — my life is already full of unbelievable events. But, if you are in the Venn intersection of poetry and fiction, maybe leave a comment below and help the fictional-poets ;) find each other.

Love is basically without a bottom; it is a great ocean.

It is an ocean that is suspended, one among the ancient secrets.

All souls are drowned in that ocean, continuously;

A drop of it is hope, and all the rest of it is fear.

—Rumi

From the shoals, I hear the drawl of the deep.
Answer must I, a call of the deep.

War-torn and ocean-borne, 
I am but a thrall of the deep.

I wander the widow’s walk —
Why can't I don again the shawl of the deep?

I’ve tread too long in shallow shadows,
what little I recall of the deep.

Below the sea-foam pearls grow,
which await my trawl of the deep.

Rumi says love is a bottomless ocean — 
take me down in your yawl of the deep!

Down the hatch goes the sea.
Just one drop — alcohol of the deep.

Unmoored from the shore,
I seek an ancient cabal of the deep.

Soaked anemones dance among
smoldering souls in the sprawl of the deep.

I fathom the fear, but
make me once-and-for-all, of the deep.

Submerged I will stay,
this will be my fall of the deep.

Dovidenia Datko, play your trúbka.
Soothe the drowned in the Great Hall of the Deep.

Notes:

1. Widow’s walk: A widow's walk, also known as a widow's watch or roofwalk, is a railed rooftop platform often having an inner cupola/turret frequently found on 19th-century North American coastal houses. The name is said to come from the wives of mariners, who would watch for their spouses' return, often in vain as the ocean took their lives, leaving the women widows. [Wikipedia]

2. “Down the hatch.” English maritime expression — to drink something.

3. Dovidenia, trúbka: Slovak for Goodbye, trumpet.

Many thanks to who help inspired me to write a more lyrical ghazal, with the rhyming words. The next level is to create couplets of all the same syllabic length. But I like to follow a crawl, walk, then run kind of pattern.

The poetry is in the practice. Sunny Rollins recently died. He was a legendary jazz saxophone player. But he didn’t like be called a legend. As he saw it, he was always searching for “the lost chord” — the improvement in the next performance or recording. Even for a great player like Sunny Rollins, there is always something to improve.

What I enjoy about Substack, is despite it being a digital platform, it operates in a very analog way. That is to say, it is continuous as opposed to discrete. Each post is but a moment in time on a sine wave. Some times, a good point can be on a down trend or vice versa. But there is a continuous motion in the seeking for that lost chord.

Where on the graph is this poem for me? When you zoom in too far everything looks the same, so I don’t know. I do know that I wouldn’t have pushed myself to commit to the form, to go deeper, had it not been for the community here. So thank you.

Lastly, if you like ghazals, stay on this frequency because I hear that , , and are stoking that fire soon.

See you tomorrow for Poetry on Tape!

Look at the waves of armies of my states -- each one in anger
and enmity toward another one.

(So) observe a great battle such as this within yourself (as well).
Therefore, why are you occupied with battle against others?

— Rumi.

The hand of Vengeance found the bed
To which the Purple Tyrant fled;
The iron hand crush’d the Tyrant’s head
And became a Tyrant in his stead.”

— William Blake, The Grey Monk

Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep

— William Blake, To Thomas Butts, 22 November 1802

Stripped of everything, there is only faith.
Alone, under rockets and shells, there is no other test of faith.

Once I was a Holy Warrior, a Paladin —
my stained sword swung for a false faith.

To raise a sword now to any banner,
would be done only in bad faith.

Rumi says why bother battling others —
you are loosing the great battle within yourself without faith.

And Blake knows that when iron hands crush tyrants,
only more tyrants grow from that faith.

Weak my eyes have grown, I wear
glasses to see the fourfold-vision of faith.

There is no map, no territory,
just a bearing to find faith.

When I returned from the land of roses-under-thorns,
my anemone was waiting for me — that is faith.

How many more olive-branch-arrows will we make?
Each one dipped in a poisoned faith.

Jozua Datko, what do know you of peace? 
Only the dead find peace. Until then — faith.

Notes:

1. LT Joshua Datko, USN was a member of Combined Joint Task Force Paladin, 2011.

2. Rumi — See quote above.

3. Blake, William. See above.

4. Roses-under-thorns, aka, Afghanistan.

5. Anemone — Daughter of the Wind, a Flower. See above.

6. Olive branch — See the back of the One Dollar Bill and The Great Seal. The Eagle holds 13 arrows and an olive branch which contains 13 leaves.

7. Jozua. Slovak spelling of the Biblical name of Joshua from the Slovak Ecumenical Translation. It is pronounced with a ‘Y’ like Yo-zu-ah.

8. Trumpet, arrangement, and vocals in the voiceover — Josh Datko.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

— Sun Tzu

In 2011, the same year I was in Afghanistan, there was a paper published called Analyzing Taliban taranas (chants): an effective Afghan propaganda artifact. This research, conducted by professors at the Navy Postgraduate School, analyzed the poetry of the Taliban and Taliban chants. Their conclusion:

All of this begs the question, is there a realistic way to counter Taliban chants and other Taliban narrative expressions? The simple answer is that countering Taliban narratives is an extremely difficult and often almost impossible task for the West because of sensitivities concerning religious themes that dominate the Taliban narrative space, not to mention the lack of Western linguistic capabilities, including the understanding and mastering the poetic nature of local dialects. […] Quite simply, the Taliban clearly know what resonates with the Afghan population, and their narratives reflect this. They understand relevant cultural referents and themes, and of course, local traditions. We do not.

I am continuing to study The Poetry of the Taliban. There are quite a few things I like about it. The ghazal form for example, is still quite popular. And I noticed that each couplet might be heavily symbolic and invoke, often with just a name, an entire mythology. For example, one Taliban poem just mentions Rice. This is of course, Condi Rice — former U.S. Secretary of State. Presumably, this poet assumed readers would understand the reference. Many others refer to famous Afghan warriors.

I also like how the ghazal writers are in communication with other poets. This is practice I hardly see here apart from erasure poetry. Well, the more academic poets here will use Greek and Roman references occasionally, but that’s about it.

Lastly, I like how the ghazal writers invoke themselves in the final couplet.

Frankly, I am only a poet today because of the Taliban. I learned more about the United States, and myself, from my brief encounters with them. Had I not visited Afghanistan, I would have never considered poetry. When I reflected on this beautiful irony, I decided I should embrace it. How could I merge the energy in their poems with one of my own? The result was the poem above.

Which is difficult to do without heroin.

But I tried.

Besides the lyrical heartbreak, that is present in both Ben work and Chet’s playing, we had some great discussions about lyrical poetry as well. For example, what poetry works on substack versus an open mic?

The substack culture is extremely literate, which means it is very visual. Unlike the Taliban for example, which live in a 33% literate society. In that society, poetry is exalted, memorized, and performed.

So, maybe, to make poetry flourish, our growing illiteracy is a trend in the right direction! Maybe, the literary renaissance will destroy poetry. I’ve heard Jared Henderson say for example, he doesn’t “get” poetry and he positions himself as extremely literate.

He should hang with the Taliban for a few months like I did and he will “get” poetry.

But tongue-in-cheek aside, there is a Chet Bakerness to Ben’s poems which I enjoyed reading, and I hope you enjoy it too. Next week is !

Have a great weekend!

The normalization of war

189. In 1965, the words of Saint Paul VI resounded powerfully at the UN General Assembly: “Never again war, never again war!” [180] We must acknowledge that, despite the desires and declarations for peace, the past sixty years have been marked by conflicts of astonishing brutality, often affecting civilian populations on a massive scale, leading to the death of innocent victims, mass displacement, social destabilization and long-lasting wounds. Nevertheless, in public discourse, there was a widespread conviction that war should remain a last resort, subject to strict ethical and legal limits, and always oriented toward a political vision of peace. Following developments in the immediate post-First World War period, a turning point occurred after the Second World War: peace was made the focus of the international order, as attested in particular by the United Nations Charter, with the intention to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” [181] Likewise, many national constitutions restricted the use of force to extreme and strictly limited circumstances. Even during the Cold War, despite the existence of serious conflicts, there remained the awareness that a new world war had to be avoided at all costs.

190. Today, however, we are witnessing a real paradigm shift in public discourse and in decisions regarding rearmament, with a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics, while the very ethical principles that had previously limited its use are being eroded. Regional conflicts that drag on over time, escalating tensions and reciprocal threats are becoming almost commonplace, and forms of conflict driven by the desire for territorial expansion that were thought to be overcome are re-emerging. Public opinion is gradually being shaped and conditioned by polarizing media narratives, which are often amplified by algorithms that prioritize conflict and confrontation.

191. We are also witnessing a disconcerting loss of historical memory, as first-hand accounts of the Holocaust and the two World Wars are disappearing. This leads to a selective or distorted rewriting of the past, in a context where fake news and the manipulation of narratives obscure the lessons that have been learned. Without a living memory of the horrors of war, political decisions risk being made on the basis of power alone, without any consideration for the long-term consequences.

192. To all of this, the media and digital dimensions are adding new and decisive elements. Communication networks, fragmented information environments and algorithms that reward conflict can magnify polarization and resentment, increase propaganda and make shared discernment more difficult. Thus, war is not only fought, but also culturally conditioned through simplistic narratives, a friend-or-foe mentality, disinformation and fear. When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even “sanitized.” It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts. Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the “just war” theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated. [182] Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness. The use of force, violence and weapons reflects a relational poverty that always has disastrous consequences for civilian populations.

Even the Pope takes time out of his day for performative social media content.

I’m not a Catholic, but I get the sense encyclicals are a bit more serious than a hot take. This one, Magnifica Humanitas, On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, caught the attention of many because of its AI stance. But I think he buried the lead by overturning the just war theory.

I had talked about this before and even made a nice Nike slogan for it:

Now, I’m sure it’s not hard for the Pope to preach peace, but I think it’s significant that the moral framework for a just war is now outdated. Some people have told me I’m too Catholic for the Pope with my anti-war stance. Well, the Pope just raised that bar. Will the next Pope come in and clarify that Thou shall not kill has the same exceptions as the US tax code? Exceptions are always made for the powerful.

The Catholic Church is of course one of the most powerful global institutions, but I will take a win where I can. Even from a religion with as much blood on its hands as Christianity, I see this as an encouraging step. I can understand the naïveté of peace, but the alternative is our currently reality where nations trade missiles for civilians deaths. Which gives birth to more missiles.

A human birth is celebrated by a family, a village, as this precious moment of continuing life. Perhaps we should celebrate when a missile is birthed by our governments similarly. All that work, all that pain, to give an angel of death its wings.

I’ve been thinking about how to proceed with my anti-war work. On one hand, it’s quite easy to be anti-something. Just look at American politics today. What do Democrats stand for? How about Republicans? Democrats are anti-Republican and Republicans are anti-Democrat. That is clear. But what is the vision for the future? Neither has an answer.

This is the ultimately the problem of being always against-something.

It’s not that I’m changing my stance on war. In fact, I’m probably more pacifist now than just anti-war. But as I’m learning with the trumpet, excessive blowing in the instrument meets excessive resistance. For each note there is a harmonious balance of air, lips, and flow. The trumpet is “simple.” I just need to find this perfect balance every time I play a note. Pursuing this perfection takes a lifetime of work, which I think is needed to make the most beautiful sounds.

The essay Poems for Peace, puts its like this:

Yet we Americans live in the most powerful country in the world, whose adaptably postmodern empire is marked by what William James calls Pure War, a state in which the real war is the constant preparation for war. Though our poetry has ably represented the traumatic and unmaking operations of war—from the rage of Achilles on to our present day—it has also often unwittingly glorified and perpetuated a culture of war. We have yet to give adequate attention to how our poetry also contains the seeds of other ways of dealing with conflict, oppression, and injustice, and how it may advance our thinking into what a future without war might look like.

How to imagine peace, how to make peace?

This question, might take a lifetime of reflection.

Denise Levertov also took up this question in her poem Making Peace. An inspirational call to poets to do what perhaps poetry is best at:

A voice from the dark called out,
             ‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’

I said in the video that I think she is one of the best examples here on Substack. Each of her posts are an experience and she brings her full self to each one.

I added some drums and some poncho to today’s show. The poncho was quite hot :) It may have to take the summer off, but it shall return.

The following poems of her’s are quite a sampling of grief, dadaism, nature, and playful poetry.

Thank you to the amazing , who also made a live collage as well:

Next week is !

Marjorie’s Cosmic Gumball Machine

Gumball #111 Head in the Sky

seeker in the sky wonders where Lucy is asks how the diamonds got there why scattered like breadcrumbs for crows and crowns to scoop up a bounty of sparkles to share with lightning bugs blades of grass and eucalyptus bark to ponds, rivers and tributaries that eventually reach the sea bioluminescence waves freshens the ai…

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a year ago · 19 likes · 13 comments · Marjorie Pezzoli

Marjorie’s Cosmic Gumball Machine

Gumball #126 Cosmic Eye

Tears Falling Up How does one begin a story that shouldn’t have the need to be told? The journey began the day I gave birth to my daughter. I have come to learn it began before time made itself known. A glimmer of a cosmic portal opened twelve years ago for me. It took th…

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7 months ago · 13 likes · 25 comments · Marjorie Pezzoli

Marjorie’s Cosmic Gumball Machine

Gumball #149 Becoming a BadAss/Superhero for Myself

Alyssa became our S…

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2 months ago · 8 likes · 15 comments · Marjorie Pezzoli

Marjorie’s Cosmic Gumball Machine

Gumball #142 Doodling through Dictatorship

A Matter of Light forever resides within quantum mechanics look for it in dewdrops intuitive mind maps and more take the high road or a Möbius strip pathw…

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4 months ago · 13 likes · 14 comments · Marjorie Pezzoli

Marjorie’s Cosmic Gumball Machine

Gumball #152 Why This Place?

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a month ago · 12 likes · 14 comments · Marjorie Pezzoli

Many of you like them and enjoy them. I am not judging them. There are few activities better than discussing books. Often, after reading a book, there is a certain burning desire to talk to someone else about it. Of this, I can understand.

But, a book chooses you and not the other way around. And book clubs, while they often choose worthy books and have excellent people present to discuss them, they rarely align, in place and time, with my soul.

For example, I have tried to read Don Quixote a few times, and I can tell my soul is resisting that book. But how do I know it is resisting? Because I know the feeling when alignment occurs — when the reading flows as effortlessly as water. Recently, for me that was War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

In many ways, which I won’t get too much into here, I felt it was book that was waiting for me my entire life. If I was to read it five years ago, I would have not been ready for it. If I would have waited a year, I would have slept on it.

There is something in Tolstoy that is stirring me. He went through a deep spiritual crisis at 50 or so. He thought he was wasting his life with two amazing novels. He witness one public execution in Paris and is so shocked, he vows to never serve the state again. Tolstoy, by his own admission, “committed every crime,” in his youth, and took on an overt transformation.

But, to a degree, this is the run-of-the-mill spiritual transformation that is over-sold by televangelists. Come on in boys, the water is fine! Perhaps Tolstoy did knock down that Piggly Wiggly in Yazoo:

This kind of transformation has a distinctive “wake-up” feel to it; a Matrix-like red-pill. The call is to wake-up, realize the world is not like it is. Even the great poet Kabir says (Robert Bly translation):

You have slept for millions and millions of years.
Why not wake up this morning?

But lately, all I want to do is sleep.

I fell asleep one day reading Tolstoy. His non-fiction tends to do that. I didn’t dream, but when I woke I had a vision. It was not formed by my morning-consciousness, it was already there. Like an unread direct-message to myself that slipped in under the covers of silent notifications.

These images are fleeting and fickle. Any movement or muscle or thought can erase them. But, I tried to capture it:

I’m ready for my daily death in sleep,
with the slowness of my breath, I seek sinless sleep.

Everyone wants to change the world,
I want to change myself. So first I must sleep.

An oath I once swore to defend my country,
reading those words now puts me to sleep.

I resisted evil with fire, which only grew the fire.
The heat smothered me to a sweaty sleep.

Two swords are not worth one cloak,
which blankets me to peaceful sleep.

Caesar may have his coins back,
they are stained and are of no use in sleep.

The hour has already come,
it is time to sleep.

Originally, this day was called Decoration Day. The purpose of this day was to visit veterans’ graves and decorate them with flowers. The tradition started around the civil war when about 700,000 American soldiers became residents of the grass.

If we aren’t going to honor this tradition, I say we strike this holiday from the national register. Surely we can find a better way to kick off summer.

The Memorial Day Order stated the purpose of the holiday as such:

Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders.

Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time, testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten, as a people, the cost of a free and undivided republic.

Memorial Day is so far gone from the memory of Americans, it is necessary to remind ourselves why we even have this day.

Not many people visit graveyards these days, but in military graveyards, one might find poetry. Specifically a verse from Bivouac of the Dead, by Theodore O’ Hara.

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
  The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on life's parade shall meet
  That brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
  Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round,
  The bivouac of the dead.

But what good are these words to the dead in their graves and the citizens who don’t visit them? The Civil War was hard to ignore for Americans in 1861. Now, I’ve been told by some people I’m the only veteran they know. I can’t blame these people for their ignorance. But it points out the military-civilian divide. The United States has outsourced the duty of war, like it has outsourced food delivery to Uber Eats.

Do you know who the Uber Eats delivery person is? Nope. At best case, you can thank them for their service as they walk back to their car. Unknown and unseen. The best type of service.

Leave a rating: 5-stars, will request war again!

When you do see veterans, it is typically one of three kinds. The first is when they are being honored at an event. My hockey team will have a Veterans celebration. “Hometown Hero,” it’s called. They announce the veteran, who is usually standing with their family, and the audience claps for an extended period of time.

I can’t tell you the name of a single veteran who was honored. I just know I clapped, as did others.

The other veteran you might see is on the corner with a sign, begging for money. This veteran makes us uncomfortable. Here was a man willing to die for our freedom and is now asking for our help, so we ignore him. This is such an uncomfortable topic, I will move on. Nobody likes seeing homeless veterans, or talking about them, especially disabled ones.

The third veteran we love the most. The dead one. Because the dead veteran we can cover with the flag, and let the flag speak for them. The dead veteran, speaks with a unified voice of service, honor, and patriotism. The dead veteran, unlike the homeless one, we solemnly support. Memorial Day is a national holiday to the dead veteran. If only homeless veterans would become dead veterans, we could properly honor them the last Monday in May.

The dead veteran, unlike a troublesome one, does not make us uncomfortable.

Since we no longer respect the death of veterans, we no longer respect their lives. We send them to pointless wars so they can return to graves we refuse to visit. And yes, I’m aware there are individuals and groups that properly honor this day, but this is a national holiday, and as a nation these traditions are lost.

I am not asking for Americans to go out and put flowers on graves. That is too much a burden.

For me, there is only one grave I prefer to visit on this day, when I can. At one point, he was the most decorated Marine with two Medals of Honor. He is not buried in a military cemetery, because after he left the military, he dedicated his life to preventing the wasteful use of American life in foreign wars.

WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

How is it that someone as honored as Major General Smedley Butler, who spent over 30 years in the military, could say something like this?

The United States takes brave men and women, who nobly want to serve their country, and exploits them in wars of choice that serve politicians and corporations. Smedley Butler understood this especially after seeing the horrible treatment of veterans returning from WWI.

And this year, we have 13 new graves to visit from Operation Epic Fury.

How do we end this madness? Smedley Butler again:

Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket. 1. We must take the profit out of war. 2. We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether or not there should be war. 3. We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.

The United States goes to war, a solemn and sacred act, on the will of the Executive branch alone. Sgt. Declan J. Coady, age 20, from West Des Moines, Iowa was the youngest service member killed in Operation Epic Fury. Was he permitted to decide whether or not there should be a war? The three steps that Butler called for in 1935 sink deeper into the ground with each war we wage.

Sadly, the precedent for American presidents to abuse their war powers has been set many presidents ago. Those thirteen men and women volunteered, knowing one day they might have to pay the ultimate price. They trusted, as did I once, that the civilian leadership of their country, and the American people, would not ask them to do so unless it was the last resort.

When Václav Havel becomes president of Czechoslovakia in 1989, after decades of socialism, he makes the following speech on January 1st, 1990. He starts with this:

My dear fellow citizens,

For forty years you heard from my predecessors on this day different variations on the same theme: how our country was flourishing, how many million tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us.

I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.

Our country is not flourishing.

He goes into some history and the many problems facing this new nation. He continues:

But all this is still not the main problem. The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships.

Then, the other shoe drops:

we are all - though naturally to differing extents - responsible for the operation of the totalitarian machinery. None of us is just its victim. We are all also its co-creators.

He told the newly freed people of Czechoslovakia, who spent 40 years under socialism, that they were also the co-creators of their own suffering.

I’m not sure a U.S. President has every accused the public so directly. Populism encourages an appeal to the public with the message — it is not your fault. Havel says the opposite.

My sadness on Memorial Day is for the young men and women joining the military today — the living, not the dead. Perhaps they join for noble reasons, like a strong family tradition, or to be part of something “bigger than themselves.” Maybe they just need a job or a way to escape their current living situation. But the check on executive power, the one placed in the constitution to ensure their lives are not wasted nor abused, it is no longer respected. We have a cuckold Congress that abdicated this awesome responsibility, and I believe, we the American people, co-created this problem as well.

How did we co-create this problem? Because we only celebrate the veteran as he is going to war, or after he has died in one. We allow military recruiters in our schools and not the paralyzed veteran in a wheel chair. We let defense contractors sponsor our children’s activities, but not the domestic abuse centers that field more calls from military families. We don’t know how to deal with the fact that what killed the most soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan wasn’t IEDs or combat, but suicide — when they got home. Where is their memorial? Who plays taps for them?

We care more about the jobs in the missile factories than the soldiers killed by missiles. Dead veterans don’t vote.

I wonder what kind of speech a Vaclav Havel-like leader would make today.

There is another nation that memorializes the military in May. On May 9th, Russia celebrates Victory Day which marks the defeat of Germany in WW2. Over 8 million Russian soldiers died defending their country. America, in her 250 year history, has only seen just over 1 million military deaths.

What makes Russia’s Victory Day propaganda and the United States’ Memorial Day a patriotic holiday?

Memorial Day, like Victory Day, exists to remind the public that human sacrifice to the state via war is to be glorified. These days, filled with parades, speeches, fireworks, and celebration in both countries, help mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters feel better about the lost of a family member in service. Memorial Day, like Victory Day, is a day meant to boost domestic patriotism. And one of my favorite Russian writers, Leo Tolstoy, had something to say on this:

Patriotism and its results--wars--give an enormous revenue to the newspaper trade, and profits to many other trades. Every writer, teacher, and professor is more secure in his place the more he preaches patriotism. Every Emperor and King obtains the more fame the more he is addicted to patriotism.

Tolstoy and Butler, were both officers in the military. They both leave the military and vehemently oppose militarism. Butler opposes it on economic terms and a concern for the enlisted soldier and Tolstoy opposes it on a grander spiritual sense. Tolstoy calls for a kind of parallel society through Christian anarchism, claiming that true Christians could not be involved in the military. Butler’s demands, compared to Tolstoy’s, are more pragmatic. However both ideas, the disintegration of the state and a reform in the United States military, seem equally radical today.

Butler’s demands are the starting point to fixing this situation. Otherwise, I only foresee only more of this from Beware the shrill of the Red-tailed Hawk:

An unborn child, 
     not even a twinkle in 
     the hawk's focused eye —
doesn't yet even know 
     the wasteful way 
          he will die.

Memorial Day, as prescribed by the U.S. Government, is a sad, solemn day. But as traditions and culture change, our holidays should change as well.

If we want to keep this day off, then I propose we rename Memorial Day to “Grass Day,” after the American poet Carl Sandburg. His poem, Grass, is below. Why “Grass Day?” Because instead of the state-sponsored parades meant to produce pangs of patriotism, the grass quietly does its job.

Grass
By Carl Sandburg, 1918

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
                                          I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
                                          What place is this?
                                          Where are we now?

                                          I am the grass.
                                          Let me work.

calls himself a nature poet, which is to say a poet as nature is inside us. We can get a sense of that nature in the poem I started with:

The Effusion

War is God

WAR IS GOD…

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6 months ago · 78 likes · 23 comments · Simon Johnson

But we also get that notion in:

The Effusion

My Generation Was Lost

August. Milosz dies under the waning crescent & the moon is silent / new for…

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2 months ago · 25 likes · 6 comments · Simon Johnson

Both of these I like quite a bit. The War poem — my thoughts are probably known on that by that now. Although, as I discuss in the video, war touches everything. I believe it is the exception that proves the rule and how we feel about war, what we think is acceptable in war, with whom we wish to wage war, all of this is the shadow-self. So, I continue to think it is a topic worth dedicating my creative efforts.

But, I took of my uniform and my aviators to read My Generation Was Lost, which is a perfect poem for this moment. I left this comment on that poem that I still stand by:

I wish we would all appreciate the fragility of the moment a bit more tbh. There is a lot of ambition on this site, but it is more fragile than we realize. I have been through many an online community that has disappeared in an instant, this one is not immune.

There are days where I’m frustrated with Substack. But then there are days when you write something like this. We may perhaps pine for 1920s Paris, but this could really be a moment where future generations look back at 2026 and what a moment that must of been.

It’s up to us really.

And the last poems we read was a cosmic trio (my description, not his) of:

1. I Rupture the Cosmos

2. Moonbeams

3. Pinpricks

All of his poems I set to Gustav’s Holts The Planets. Which is a beautiful symphony, well worth the 45 minutes listen. We started with Mars: Bringer of War, then Jupiter: The Bringer of Jollity, and finally Neptune: the Mystic.

And I think his poems line up quite nicely with the Holst symphony and the themes therein.

Simon is off taking pictures with Lego Rilke somewhere, but Celia came through once again with a collage:

Next week, everyone!

Marshall McLuhan is most famous perhaps for his book, The Medium is the Message. However, I prefer the LP version with the accidentally-on-purpose turn of phrase, The Medium is the Massage.

That book is not a book in a normal sense. Yes, it is printed and has a cover and uses the codex and stitching to keep pages together, but it is more an experience than a book. He followed up on this book with a lesser known one called War and Peace in the Global Village, 1968. Working with the same collaborator, Quentin Fiore, the book again is in a non-linear style.

A non-linear book is actually quite hard to pull off. It’s unsurprising than that McLuhan was such a fan of James Joyce.

One of the probes as McLuhan calls them that he makes in this book, revolves around the stirrup. The stirrup allows a knight to make a mounted attack without dismounting from his horse. But, according to McLuhan, it fundamentally alters society around the stirrup:

The stirrup that led to the armor abolished the yeoman’s small holdings in favor of the lordly domain and created the same revolution that occurred in America — small farmer to lordly corporation.

He continues:

Few inventions have been so simple as the stirrup, but few have had so catalytic an influence on history. The requirements of the new mode of warfare which it made possible found expression in a new form of western European society dominated by an aristocracy of warriors endowed with land so that they might fight in a new and highly specialized way.

The stirrup was eventually replaced with gunpowder, and a new kind of civilization came from that. Drone warfare is the next stirrup. When used by the state, it can hold entire armies back as in done in Ukraine, or keep a major waterway closed, as in Iran. The state uses drones for surveillance already. But imagine if a large group of citizens in a country had drones. Like the bullet, it is a great equalizer.

What good is a nuclear weapon against a cheap drone?

In the remainder of this post, there are a series of diptychs of quotes from War and Peace in the Global Village and YouTube clips. McLuhan was quite fond of this method as well, often pairing his writing with images and quotes from James Joyce.

The method is a bit jarring I will admit. It can be frustrating as it demands explanation, but refuses to give it. But sometimes, this method is need to provide an anti-environment — to tell fish they swim in water.

If you enjoy this kind of thing, is quite good at it here on substack.

When our identity is in danger, we feel certain that we have a mandate for war. - MM

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve.

— Woodrow Wilson, Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917)

Every new technology necessities a new war — MM

If soldiers serve only for pay, the army is not likely to concern itself deeply in politics — at least so long as the pay is forthcoming. But, as with Cromwells’ men, they serve with a view to the salvation of their souls, they are unlikely long to be politically neutral, at least in a wicked country.

— MM, quoting Galbraith

They have discovered the great principle that real news is bad news. Up till now advertising has been all good news and, therefore, gets very little attention. —MM

However, when we seek to rally the corporate energies for sharply defined objectives, we do not hesitate to impose uniforms. Bot the military costume of the citizen as robot and the ceremonial costume of the elite at dignified functions are exact parallel to the tribal use of costume. —MM

Governments will operate only through force or the threat of force, and that all other principles of control will be left to education, religion, and commerce. If this continues to be the case, we may as well give up. A government can never create a free people with the techniques now allotted to it.

—MM quoting Skinner.

In his book Propaganda, Jacques Ellul elucidated the nature of propaganda not as the content of any particular medium or institution but as the total culture in action, a clear instance of macroscopic gesticulation. —MM

All media or technologies, languages as much as weaponry, create new environments or habitats, which become the milieux for new species or technologies. — MM

”That left me with a choice. Either fade into irrelevance, or islands, or build something that actually matter.” — CEO of Anduril in the above video.

For my mother Thetis the goddess of the silver feet tells me
I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day my death. Either,
if I stay here and fight beside the city of Trojans,
my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting;
but if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers,
the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life
left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly. (Iliad 9.410-416)

“Pingree Park and Pingree Hill are being renamed Soule Park and Soule Hill after the U.S. Board of Geographic Names approved a group of Fort Collins citizens’ request for the name change. The new names honor Silas S. Soule, a Union captain who refused to fire his weapon at the massacre.”

In our elementary schools in Colorado, they teach about the massacre at Sand Creek, which occurred on November 29th, 1864. I’ll quote the National Park Service description:

Over the course of eight hours the American troops killed around 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people composed mostly of women, children, and the elderly. During the afternoon and following day, the soldiers wandered over the field committing atrocities on the dead before departing the scene on December 1^st.

George Washington Pingree and Captain Soule (pronounced ‘soul’) were at the Sand Creek massacre, but Soule refused the order to participate. Apparently, we only know most of the details of this massacre as a result of his actions, witness, and testimony. In a rather graphic letter, he hears “officers say that Old Smith and any one who sympathized with the Indians, ought to be killed and now was a good time to do it.” And yet, in spite of this, he refused.

I wonder if any U.S. servicemen had the same thought about their participation in Operation Epic Fury. How many questioned what they were doing? Are there any who are trying to forget what can’t be forgotten or did this operation truly have full support from the President down to the deckplate?

The massacre at Sand Creek took 6 to 8 hours. The massacre at Minab took an instant. Such is progress. The tomahawk missile that killed those in Minab, was raised from the spirit of Sand Creek, as I’ve said before:

Towering on the graves of Sand Creek,
Raytheon forms bone-grey 
     Tomahawk missiles,
from massacred mandibles.

Captain Soule did not stop the massacre. It’s near impossible to calm blood-lust once it sets in. After all, even the gods could not abate the wrath of Achilles, which burned in him when he kills Hector. All the gods could do was to preserve Hector’s body, until Achilles releases the corpse to his father, King Priam.

On March 16th, 1968 another massacre by U.S. troops took place — the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Over 400 civilians were killed by U.S. troops. But one man resisted. Hugh Thompson was later awarded the Medal of Honor for:

heroism above and beyond the call of duty as Pilot of an OH-23 Raven Observation Helicopter of the 123d Aviation Battalion, Americal Division, on 16 March 1968, while saving the lives of at least 10 Vietnamese civilians during the unlawful massacre of noncombatants by American forces at My Lai, Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam. Warrant Officer Thompson landed his helicopter in the line of fire between fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pursuing American ground troops to prevent their murder. He then personally confronted the leader of the American ground troops and was prepared to open fire on those American troops should they fire upon the civilians.

Later, in WWII, Desmond Doss, from Lynchburg, VA enters the Army. He joins with a designation of a conscientious objector and refuses to pick a weapon, including in basic training, as to not compromise his religious beliefs. It turns out, carrying a weapon isn’t a prerequisite for courage under fire.

He finds himself in Okinawa in 1945. He was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Truman in a truly unbelievable story.

Private First Class Doss was a company aid man when the 1st Battalion assaulted a jagged escarpment 400 feet high As our troops gained the summit, a heavy concentration of artillery, mortar and machinegun fire crashed into them, inflicting approximately 75 casualties and driving the others back. Private First Class Doss refused to seek cover and remained in the fire-swept area with the many stricken, carrying them one-by-one to the edge of the escarpment and there lowering them on a rope-supported litter down the face of a cliff to friendly hands […]

Doss’ story was later turned into the 2004 documentary The Conscientious Objector and the 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge. Here Andrew Garfield explains to his chain of command that he can’t touch a rifle:

I find such stories about people like Captain Soule incredibly inspiring. Moral courage is often in greater demand than physical courage. To have both, at the same time, is rare indeed. After all, Captain Soule didn’t have to reject the order. He could have feigned obedience and just purposefully fired his rifle into the sand. But, Captain Soule kept his head about him.

Rudyard Kipling could have been writing about Captain Soule perhaps in the opening lines of If:

If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

Standing up against the tide is not without consequences however. Doss was ridiculed and tormented by his unit initially. Hugh Thompson had to look down the barrel of men in the same uniform he wore. Captain Soule…, well, what happened to Captain Soule?

In Denver, there is a plaque that completes the history of Captain Soule. Following the plaque is my response, using the words of the plaque to create a poem.

Assassins killed a
   soul. This Soule
disobeyed murder.

Lion’s Honey

Redbird Soul | Bluebird Heart

My 2 brothers and myself have been artists since our cord was cut. Then we were placed in a very unartistic, blue-collar coal-mine town (with the exception of a notorious Christmas display called Can…

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2 months ago · 14 likes · 14 comments · Jon Murphy

But I can tell you this. Jon has an eye for beauty where most people would see none. There’s a real sense of place in his poetry. And it seems to me that place has taken roots in Jon. So in the five poems we read, I think there is a strong consistency — even though they are quite different.

Props to Jon for sending me an actual mixtape as well!

He understood the assignment. A mixtape master. It is a mix of his own poetry, which he read so well, music, and inspiration quotes from his influences like Tupac Shakur.

I opened the show with arrangement I made for his poem: I know why the old man don’t speak. And then we read:

• I am Not a Good Man

• Ol’ Boots

• Wax and Wick

• Concrete Clouds

Thanks all that attended live to hear Jon! And next week we will take a stroll into nature with !

Thank you Celia, for the amazing artwork inspired by Mr. Murphy!

I want to be a good elder,
said the man to the quiet crowd.
To teach the youth and guide them so,
and help them find the light of life.

Not a teacher nor professor,
not a coach nor mentor nor friend,
but a worldly weathered wise man,
growing the young into the old.

For Will Peters

A met Will Peters recently who made this comment, “I want to be a good elder.” I was struck by this. Who says this these days?

I know many people that want to be artists, engineers, famous, rich, powerful, or even happy. But I have never heard someone say, I want to be a good elder. What ambition!

I felt a sad state of culture, or at least the culture in which I’m surrounded. It reminded me of this passage from Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God is Within You:

Whatever names we dignify ourselves with, whatever uniforms we wear, whatever priests we anoint ourselves before, however many millions we possess, however many guards are stationed along our road, however many policemen guard our wealth, however many so-called criminals, revolutionists, and anarchists we punish, whatever exploits we have performed, whatever states we may have founded, fortresses and towers we may have erected—from Babel to the Eiffel Tower—there are two inevitable conditions of life, confronting all of us, which destroy its whole meaning; (1) death, which may at any moment pounce upon each of us; and (2) the transitoriness of all our works, which so soon pass away and leave no trace. Whatever we may do—found companies, build palaces and monuments, write songs and poems—it is all not for long time. Soon it passes away, leaving no trace.

"The standard and oracle for all things translated", "Drunk raccoon in Middle-earth”, "Bard of the Underworld", "Romanian Madame Psychosis" Catch Translate Tuesday every other week and poetry and occasional gnostic, astral and Dada destruction poems.

We started off playing a tape, The Poems of Rumi with Robert Bly and Coleman Barks. And I think from this tape alone you hear how poetry and music want to go together. Somehow, in our western tradition of music we migrated to pairing chords-with-scales but there is another tradition, a more mystic one perhaps, where words don’t fall directly on the beat.

And when you hear this, the music and poetry are in time in a different plane. This is the plane where Luciana’s poetry lives.

Three of the poems we read today were from her collection Flowers in Limbo, which you can get here.

Apart from those, we read two others which are on Substack:

Language of Limbo

Petit Mal

The cat infantry Naked, unlocalized Shadows the dread of the black night Emblem of a yellow pain ripe in the swaddle Of a carnation An apple with its naked navel sunbathes In a clear glass bowl, leaning against the thought of better times The desert plant’s wig shutters the photograph In which you no longer look like you did ten years ago Naked as a gun…

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6 months ago · 24 likes · 16 comments · Luciana Moroianu

and

Language of Limbo

The Mourner

How much can a woman weep, (do they wonder?) The first martyr was God, then I followed. The final stages of limerance— liquid grief harvested in the fire. The wound of the world is... a woman. In the horse of your heart I dug my broken ring fingers. I mourn the unworn liquid veil when I married the night, as a child. I mourn not knowing sisterhood, …

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5 months ago · 26 likes · 16 comments · Luciana Moroianu

On top of all this, Luciana has done many, many translations here on Substack including excellent biographies. Look how she writes about Nicolae Labiș:

She was a 36-year-old Russian ballerina, way older than the 21-year-old poet, but they became acquainted and she caught the poet’s eye. The chilling part? It’s widely believed she was not only a Security informant, but an actual agent, meant to be the honeypot that silences the revolutionary voice of our poet. She was reportedly assigned to frame him, to report on his private conversations and political leanings. It was this dual role as lover and spy that placed her as the primary, and most controversial, eyewitness to the tragedy that followed.

Language of Limbo

Translate Tuesday - A triptych of Nicolae Labiș

Hello there, readers of Translate Tuesday! Welcome back to a new story article about my crazy countrymen and poets. Since spooky season is upon us, today I’ll tell a quite a macabre story of the young man you can see in the picture above…

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8 months ago · 10 likes · 12 comments · Luciana Moroianu

The artists that have always inspired me the most are the ones that actually live the life they portray. In the United States, we talk about fascism, government repression, but the poets in Romanian under communism were subject to the state spies trying to discourage them. And yet, they still wrote. They didn’t just attend protests, their lives were a protest. These poets apparently grew like grass in Romanian and sadly, the state occasionally “mowed the grass.”

There is much to like in Luciana’s work. And I’m happy to see it also inspired to also create this:

Next week, everyone! I believe he is a firefighter in addition to a writer and poet here. I’m looking forward to spending more time with his work!