The man lying in the bushes was not asleep. He was laughing.
He'd had a dream he said, of a pelican with a bow tie.
"I'd call him Reginald, if I were you. And I'd get yourself a bow tie."
He answered: "Can't say as I've ever seen one of my kind in a bow tie."

The shirtless tatooted man was not laughing, but walking fast,
prodded by a security man shouting "keep walking!"
and poking shirtless in the back with stiffened fingers.
"He needs a pelican with a bow tie, " I said as I walked past.

The poker's partner stepped in front of me, stopping me.
"What's your name, sir?" he asked, as if the habit itself was bored.
"Owl Man," I said without delay, pointing to the owl on my tee.
"Let's see your ID, sir!" "I don't carry ID on my morning walk."

"Why did you say that guy needed a pelican with a bow tie?"
"Because the homeless guy around the corner had a dream
of a pelican with a bow tie and he couldn't stop laughting.
Everyone needs a dream or at least something to imagine on."

"Well, Owl Man, your talk is crazy, but you do not seem crazy."
"We are at an edge, Security Man. What are you going to do?"
"Look, I gotta help my partner deal with a situation. You can go."
"Thank you. But don't forget the pelican. Don't forget the bow tie."

---
My morning walks are for treating my balance problems.

But they offer so much more when I pay attention,

don't divert my eyes, don't fear saying unexpected things.

The tiny squirrel does a tippy-toe scurry across the road

just missing being flattened by the unseen auto

the driver unaware she nearly pancaked the latest incarnation of *’s curiosity

She doesn’t know that *’s embodiment is not a one-time thing

limited only to a human and man at that and long ago

*’s curiosity is restless and seeks incarnation

over and over in other and other

There, in that homeless one, in that fallen leaf, in your left shoe

how about a little more reverence then for the untended

you never know when *’s curiosity will incarnate

may never learn, the secret of love is curiosity

? There is a very good article on “Freudianism” centered on arch-critic Frederick Crew’s new book (New Yorker Aug. 28, 2017, p. 75-82), entitled, Freud: The Making of An Illusion. New York: Metropolitan Boos, 2017. In the New Yorker’s A Critic at Large section, Louis Menand’s critique is entitled, “The Stone Guest: Can Sigmund Freud ever be killed.”

? By far the most illuminating work on the radical right/libertarian plans for the takeover of the United States is Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. New York: Viking, 2017. This book makes visible what is mostly hidden, hidden on purpose and by design. Once you read this book, you will be able to see what is happening in our country and why things are developing the way they are. This is essential reading as is Professor MacClean’s earlier book, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan.

? Paco and I are working on the second volume of Dreams, Bones & the Future. It will be subtitled, “Queries & Speculations.” We hope to be finished in the fall. Watch for excerpts soon.

? Rose-Lynn Fisher is an artist, writer and photographer whose latest work is photographing tears through optical magnification to create an extraordinary and fascinating look at human emotions as pictured in the microscopic landscape of tears. If you want a break from the craziness of today’s news, look at The Topography of Tears. New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2017.

? The 1981 film My Dinner with Andre with Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn is one of my favorite films. I watch it from time to time and see how prescient so much of the conversation was. Now I have spent time with Wallace Shawn’s new book, Night Thoughts (Chicago: Hay market Books, 2017). It’s a short book, but long on implications for considering possibilities amid the rubble of our time.

? Did you know? In Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. This not only sparked the civil rights movement, but energized the southern states to find innumerable ways to block this decision from changing what the states considered was their “rightful way of life.” This “fight” is still going on. In 1959, Prince Edward County in Virginia, padlocked all public schools, and used public funds for whites only education. For five years, black children had no public education. The backbone of racism and inequality is alive and well in many parts of the country. One of the purposes of “originalism” in court appointments, and particularly to the Supreme Court is to revitalize the original aspects of the Constitution that permitted (without naming) the fact of slavery. If originalism gains a clear majority, watch for civil rights cases, such as Brown vs. Board of Education, to be nullified.

? The anti-science stance of the current government will escalate dramatically as it is a part of the deeper and broader embrace of anti-truth. “Climate change” as a phrase has been outlawed in all government connected and government supported activities. The basic idea here is that “the truth is not what is, but what we say it is.” At some point, reality is going to bite hard.

THE ROAD TO RUIN

The Road to Ruin has never been called
the Road to Ruin, always, always something else.
In the language of reverse speak the sign's
arrows point to Greatness, Best, Number One.
Always, always, the Road to Ruin is littered
with the throwaways, the cast-offs:
humans that are different
the powerless and the havenots
truth and its children
values and their kin
culture and creativity
love
At some point it will hit you and you will turn
around and go back and begin to recover all
that has been thrown away.

It can be too late sooner than you think.

THE CROW’S APPOINTMENT

Crow waddles in, refuses the couch,
hops atop the stolid oak desk.
“A bit unusual,” I’d say.
Not at all, I’m always black.
“No wish for white then?”
None at all. Black is best you know.
“You seem ok with being a crow and being black.
What’s your problem then?”
No problem. But I’ve had what you hue mans call a dream.
“Well, then, tell me the dream.”
You mean for free?
“Well, then, what’s your fee?”
Three thousand of your US dollars per dream.
“That’s insane!”
So, as a hue man, what would you pay for a crow dream?
“The whole idea of paying for a dream is absurd!”
Hmmm. Insane. Absurd. The rule of three requires a third.
“Let me think. How about harebrained.”
You got something against hares? No feathers, I admit.
“We will have to continue this next time. Your hour is up.”
But it’s only been thirteen minutes.
“Economics. We’re on the thirteen-minute hour now.”
Insane! Absurd! Harebrained!

GIVING DARKNESS ITS DEW
... a line from a dream

Hey, all you light seekers
Give darkness its dew!

Dew forms in the night
when surfaces of car glass
and spider webs cannot
evaporate faster than the air’s
moisture condenses.

Dew: the lachrymose impulse of darkness

Is such a line from a dream nonsense
as some say, or is it a line for a poem?
I am for embracing the possibilities
of the line more than the Inquisitor’s
blustering and dismal dismissive cant.

Give darkness its dew is not a thought
I’ve had before. Such is the gift of dreams.
Imagine now condensation and evaporation
as psychological even physiological processes
giving birth from the darkness of the night.

In other words: dreams as dew.

You can control people by language, but you cannot control the world--only how the world is perceived by people, until the world in its ineluctable reality comes visiting. To deny the visitation of reality is to suffer the fate that only Philemon and Baucis avoided by welcoming the disguised gods. Everyone else perished.

From The Guardian:

USDA staff reportedly told to avoid term 'climate change'

Department of Agriculture staffers have been told to "avoid" using the term "climate change" in written correspondence, The Guardian reported Monday. In instructions on how to discuss climate change-related work, "climate change" is listed as a term to avoid and replace with "weather extremes." Another blacklisted phrase is "reduce greenhouse gases." The instructions were included in an email sent in February by Bianca Moebius-Clune, the USDA's director of soil health. President Trump has repeatedly expressed doubts about the science of climate change, and his top pick for the USDA's chief scientist, Sam Clovis, has called climate research "junk science."

Watch to see what the President orders of the Congressionally mandated Climate Report by scientists at 13 agencies. The report is grim by any measure. The NYT has a draft copy so even if the President suppresses it, it will be available for all to see.

On My Morning Walk

Doctor's orders: fast-walk every day for an hour
to improve balance through brain-ear-body synchrony.
Four months now, most every day at 7:00 AM.
So, I watch the ground to avoid banana slugs, snails,
unidentifiable splotches of this and that, odd levels of sidewalk,
tree-root's revenge against man's cementings.

I just manage to avoid stepping on a black plastic fork
bird-like thoughts flitter through
wondering if fork is lonely for knife and spoon.
Is this like Kandinsky's white trouser button
glittering in the puddle...everything, he says,
has a secret soul, silent more often than speaking.
So, fork, I'm listening.
"Craziness," the Inquisitor bellows.
Used to that bluster, I listen harder.

Fork reminds me of an observation:
Providence Hospital cafeteria is half-way point
on my daily route. I stop for coffee and rest.
I've watched hundreds pick up napkins and utensils.
Here's the thing:
men take one or two napkins,
women, three or four.
Men keep everything separate, women wrap their utensils
in their napkins, swaddling-like.

What do you make of that, Inquisitor?

Ursula Le Guin Words Are My Matter (2016)

Rüdiger Safranski Goethe: Life As a Work of Art (2015)

Laura Raicovich At the Lightning Field (2017)

Wallace Shawn Night Thoughts (2017)

Walter Hopps The Dream Colony: A Life in Art (2017)

Each month I'll post a notice of the books I have found that were

important to me, that have the power to make a difference in

one's life --- ral