Have been sort of busy/distracted lately, not much bloggin'.

Interesting juxtaposition in this week's New Yorker : excellent review of the "Bush dynasty" books, talks about how George W. views the current situation as a religious war; then in article about contemporary Egypt, quoting confident young Islamist who has the same opinion. Feel like we're regressing to Middle Ages, when there is no distinction between faith and politics, theology and ideology. Where is Roger Williams? Help, Rog!!

latest sketch (from Shakespeare's Head):

16

 
Hobo hides his head in the sumac shade
of deep July.  Way overhead, titanium scouts
penetrate the misty rings of Saturn.  Motes
of moons shepherd the circling parade

 
while Hobo doodles his own star-map, out
beyond Babylon – talking in his sleep beside
the iron railroad tracks, before time was.
Before the golden Cyprus oak was rooted

 
(quercus alnifolia), before Venus turned
and tumbled beneath its limbs, before
the pantheon was knit (the yarns of yore);
when his iron heart (spurned) yearned

 
(magnetic) for the light of those eyes
more gold than golden (slow surprise).

      
                *

   
On a curtain-sleeve (painted in Paradise-
Byzantium) the adamantine letters

   
will not be effaced.  Through shadow
of death and laughter of jackals,
through snarling gods, sheep-killers,
armies of neighbors, they go

   
on shining, they go on shining
through derision, through the dark.
Until that day – Hist! Hark!
I have it! – you grasp their meaning:

   
on that benevolent summer day
in the heart of July, when you know
the bowl cannot be broken:  Love’s vow
rings Time itself with titanic mastery.

         
                                       7.7.04