more on mandelstam

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I am reading Hope against Hope (with compelling urgency even almost blindly ..) - Nadeshda Mandestam's Memoir of her own and Osip M's life in exile. this is a biography. biography of banishement of sudden "miracles" of the fears and terrors of millions .... the revolution of 1917 and its aftermmaths.....I can't hel p but think it proves that everything is political. reading her book is bone shuddering. one knows this is so, even if it is not the case in this country

(her name is Russian signifies hope )


'this country' is a strange russia of denial and disarming of
patriation and other falsehoods
i cant begin to speak of 'this' country.


It was published in two volumes in 1970/ One of the high periods of the Cold War...

--- another cold war continues under other names.
war is the way of the world. it does not mean it has to remain that way.

history of 20 th century and the 21 st thus far is history of prisoners,prisons, and escapes, liberations, freedom, getting out , doors swinging open,, finding a
space for
oneself and others ,,

democracy now has a story about american judges sentencing kids
to private jails
------------

freeing the prisoner's
hard work
death row
to life
flow



--

prisoner s of time money
body

;

love is a prison.
always being watched.

--- but politics is the negotiation of the watcher and watched. a flow of goods and people rounding up themselves for spaces of better freedom. people speak of spirituality as if it was not political but spiritual is too political. the earth is politcal. the stars

are political
breathing

is political


i work daily on this new book ive begun ./ slow / drudgery.


everyone has their prison, the

heart's a prison that never stops
beating
beating its prisoner alive &
dead
death's a prison they say

wont let
you
escape so they
say life's a prison
too

well
what do i know
about bones
and prison
except this




_______

all of this is obvious. about politics. i mean. it feels trite to even say it.

rabble ca has a series of
yes, what, yes,
more to

---
bail outs for rich
banks
world wide corporations
so death goes
on hanging its living ones


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A poem by the Russian that has been translated into
French

Garde à jamais sauve ma parole pour son arrière-goût de malheur et de fumée

Pour la résine de commune endurance, pour le probe goudron du travail.

L’eau dans les puits de Novgorod sera noire et liquoreuse

Pour qu’à Noël s’y reflète l’étoile aux sept nageoires.

En retour, père mien, mon ami, mon aide de rudesse,

Je -frère méconnu, mis hors la loi du cercle de son peuple-

Promets de construire des puits coiffés d’une charpente si robuste

Que les Tatars puissent y descendre les princes dans un bac.