Tickled that Obama has won re-election. This gives me hope that the majority of Americans are reasonable and are not behind policies and rhetoric that is,(on the far right), bigoted and full of blame. I was weary of Obama being referred to as "Hussein" Obama among other things. I was weary of the hate towards food stamp recipients, disability recipients, women, minorities, immigrants, veterans and so forth. Mostly, I'm thankful Romney and gang won't touch my social security, turn it into a voucher program or tax it. Today I am proud of my working class background and family! Despite the fact that some are Republican out of fear and out of what I consider to be misplaced rage and internalized racism,  I love my family!

This song is a remake of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero," and I think Green day did a good job with it.

I'm in a funk about my writing lately. Lots of insecurities, fears and uncertainty, but as they say, uncertainty is a good place to be as a poet.

I've been reading Nietzsche's THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA, and secretly loving it!!! It is unnerving, even though all this time has passed since he wrote it. That the far right clings to "God" as much as it clings to the things stated above, Nietzsche's Zarathustra so far appeals to my sense of self-confidence, passion and
daring! I know from reading the introduction that Zarathustra at the end, returns to his cave and solitude, so I'm not sure where this path of wild preaching on this character's part is going, but I am loving it. Nietzsche is often quoted out of context, but I have truly been thrilled by much of what Zarathustra has to say. His commentary on poets and scholars made me laugh last night. He essentially challenged the dichotomy of good and evil, Some of it is vervy and makes me feel awkward. For instance, he writes, "I do not want to be mixed up an confused with these preachers of equality. For justice speaks thus to me. ' Men are not equal.' And neither should they become so!"..."Life wants to build itself up into the heights with columns and stairs: it wants to look into the far distance and out towards joyful beauties-- therefore it needs height, it needs steps and conflict among the steps and the climbers! Life wants to climb and in climbing overcome itself."..."Thus asssured and beautiful let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely will we strive against one another!-- And later..."But I live in my own light, I drink into myself again the flames that break forth from me."

Zarathustra seems to be saying that we must be creators, "And he who must be a creator of good and evil: truly, he must first be a destroyer and break values...Let us speak of this, you wisest men, even if it be bad. To be silent is worse, all suppressed truths become poisonous."

"But it is precisely to the hero that beauty is the hardest thing of all. Beauty is unattainable by all violent wills."

As for poets, Zarathustra dislikes them even though he considers himself one. Poetry, he acknowledges much the same way Keats did, is essentially feminine. He goes so far as to call it the "eternal-feminine in us." But he writes of the poets:

"I became weary of the poets, of the old and of the new: to me they are all superficial and shallow seas. They have not thought deeply enough: therefore their feeling did not touch bottom. Some lust and some boredom: these have as yet been their best reflection. All the jingling of their harps is to me the breathing and coughing of ghosts; what have they known so far of the fervor of tones!-- They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddy their waters to make them seem deep. And they would like to prove themselves reconcilers: but to me they are mediators and meddlers, and half-and-half and impure! Ah, I cast my net into their sea and meant to catch good fish, but I always drew out the head of some old god. Thus the sea gave the hungry a stone. And they themselves may well have come from the sea. ...They have learned vanity too from the sea: is not the sea the peacock of peacocks?"

In any case, this has all been fodder for thought. It feels good to be reading carefully again, feeling interested in what I read, too. I also have been reading AMBITION AND SURVIVAL by Christian Wiman and am finding much there which gets me thinking. It seems so far, Wiman is an advocate for form, traditional forms, and yes, the control and ambition one needs to write in form has always impressed me, but I fear I am tone-deaf, maybe a bit lazy. Okay, well a LOT lazy!!! hahaha.

Well, I've gone on to long and nobody is listening, but I'm having a ball!!! LOL