flambingo

The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
Get it wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Eqyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not a language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

jack gilbert
slate on jack gilbert

voting

election night bingo

i love election night, depressing as the next days results are bound to be, the the rolling news, swingometers and people declaring nothings happening are fabulous. i like how public everything is.

however even exciting things like election coverage can wane - hence: constituency declaration bingo!

i've taken a selection of consituencies in rough order of likely declaration and distributed the names over eight cards. everything on the cards should be declared by 1.30.

simply take your card and when a constituency on your card declares, cross it off! continue till you have crossed everything off on your card and you are the winner and get to run the country. or at least the living room.

download the set:
bingo card 1
bingo card 2
bingo card 3
bingo card 4
bingo card 5
bingo card 6
bingo card 7
bingo card 8