truthfront

Category: photo

  • behind you in the city

    You know my name

    i don’t know yours

    wandering town

    choking heat vapor

    ___

    I know your face but you don’t know mine

    glass shop windows, sunlit refraction

    smell the melting city

    living Dalí, dead world

    ___

    I follow you 

    black jean jacket

    sidewalks loaded

    fifty dollars for a cake

    feral panhandlers

    muse drifting

    pay the mortgage

    chase your dreams

    ___

    Aggressive music

    molded grapes in a bag

    house for rent

    chrome forty-five

    fuck the president

    you look rebellious

    today

    ___

    Ice cream

    a summer shell

    a voice: love me 

    you’re looking for something

    credit card swipe

    crooked bacchus

    ___

    suddenly Stan Getz

    in a raincoat

    no bus fare

    Colfax meanderer

    i’ve met you before,

    he says

    ____

    sculptures of horses

    destroying each other

    temporarily i lose you

    forget your voice

    family burdens, debts

    hang on walls

    ___

    joyous are we

    behind sunglasses

      behind you in the city

        who’s behind me?

  • The Great Wall, by Eliot Weinberger

    Richard Nixon, visiting the Great Wall of China in 1972, said: “I think you would have to conclude that this is a great wall.”

    Ronald Reagan, visiting the Wall in 1984, said: “What can you say, except it’s awe-inspiring? It is one of the great wonders of the world.” Asked if he would like to build his own Great Wall, Reagan drew a circle in the air and replied: “Around the White House.”

    Bill Clinton, visiting the Wall in 1998, said: “So if we had a couple of hours, we could walk ten kilometers, and we’d hit the steepest incline, and we’d all be in very good shape when we finished. Or we’d be finished. It was a great workout. It was great.”

    George W. Bush, visiting the Wall in 2002, signed the guest book and said: “Let’s go home.” He made no other comments. 

    Barack Obama, visiting the Wall in 2009, said: “It’s majestic. It’s magical. It reminds you of the sweep of history, and that our time here on Earth is not that long, so we better make the best of it.” During his visit, the Starbucks and KFC at the base of the Wall were closed.

    Weinberger, Eliot. The Ghosts of Birds, New Directions Books, New York, 2016: 91.

  • on Nietzsche

    Flaming youth

    …Nietzsche wished to make a rule of the exception. The higher self becomes the measuring stick against which human life is evaluated. To realize his potential, man must struggle such that his higher self may rule. One seeks, in other words, to extend the time one lives in a state of inspiration…The feeling of inspiration, of a heightened sense of power, is attainable only when the soul rises above itself…Whoever demands greatness from himself is subject to unending inner struggle…

    Leslie Paul Thiele, Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul