EthicalDative

The Guitars and Drums Do Most of the Talking

Posted on July 26, 2026 by JMN

“Bullseye” detail, mixed media (JMN 2026).

Since I fancy myself poetry curious, I’m ashamed that the lyrics of most rock songs constitute for me so little of the listening experience. I rarely register more than the odd phrase that penetrates the instrumental layer. The frontpersons (I first wrote “singers,” but that didn’t compute) don’t seem particularly vexed to “sell” their words the way a standards or country-western vocalist does. Think, say, Tony Bennett and “San Francisco” or Patsy Cline and “Crazy.” You can’t not understand them.

I like Pink Floyd’s song “Money.” (And Dire Straits’s “Money for Nothing,” as well! Am I hung up on the root of all evil?) When the spirit moves me I look at genius.com just to see what a song actually “says.” Also, to see if the words hold any interest as artistic speech outside their embodiment in the song. Roger Waters’s lyrics to “Money” sort of do.

The song has 3 verses, each with its “refrain.” Have you ever cracked a bullwhip? I did so obssesively as a kid. Each verse of “Money” is the part where you swing the whip around your head in a crescendo-ing arc.

Money, get away…
Money, well, get back…
Money, it’s a crime…

Jerk the whip just right and you get a righteous crack. That’s the refrain — the money shot: filthy specific: shows more than tells.

A new car, caviar, four-star daydream
Think I’ll buy me a football team

I’m in the hi-fidelity first class travelling set
And I think I need a Learjet

But if you ask for a rise
It’s no surprise that they’re giving none away

The third refrain is bland but interesting for use of the British “rise” instead of “raise.” “Surprise” mates with it; this sort of rhyming salts the song smartly throughout.

Cherry on the sundae: “Money” has a mischievous “spoken outro.” Its last line is:

It came to a heavy blow which sorted the matter out.

It also repeats the egregiously excellent question:

Why does anyone do anything?

Then there’s this:

Hahaha, I was in the right
Yes, absolutely in the right
I certainly was in the right
Yes, I was definitely in the right,…

Heavy blows to sort matters. Futility. Manic repetition. Absolute rightness. Ecce modern times foreshadowed!

Posted in Commentary | Tagged language, music, style | Leave a comment

There Is No ‘I’ in ‘Poet’

Posted on July 24, 2026 by JMN

Verse in the pen of the writer.
Poetry in the mind of the reader.
Words the strike.
Mind the flint.
Fire the poem.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged doggerel, language | 2 Comments

Trumpetss Ssound, End Timess Hiss

Posted on July 20, 2026 by JMN

An overt latent sshiftiness, both andss,
Neither norss, never alwayss the ssame;
Sslithering duness, conssisstent sshifting ssands,
Familiar, sscarcely recognissable;
Crucible, crux, ssacrifice, ssuffering, sshame.

F-150’s rifle rack naked, gun
Baked. Cup of staggering fisted. Son
Nailed, lanced, bled, mocked, screwed.
In car nato birthed, hanged from the rearview.
Lent from on high. Sucked up to sky. Who knew?

Peradventure corpses stir, what then?
Push come to shove, quoth the Raven.
Quake! Flood! Hot seas! Chiggers! A crappy wind!
Behold! Faults slipped. Glaciers melted. Crude spent.
Halfbreeds gumming dregs. Goddamned. Hellbent.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged doggerel, language | 4 Comments

Paul Thek, Practitioner of ‘Crude Figuration’

Posted on July 16, 2026 by JMN

Paul Thek’s early work, “Untitled (The Rhinemaidens / Wagner),” circa 1962. The painting show an affinity with the second-generation Abstract Expressionists. Credit… The Estate of Paul Thek, Pace Gallery and the Watermill Center; Photo by Josh White. [New York Times caption and illustration]

Although Thek possessed impressive skills as a draftsman and painter, he was an early practitioner of the crude figuration of “bad painting” (a term coined by Marcia Tucker, the founder of the New Museum).

Paul Thek, “Untitled (view of Zannone and Scoglio Grosso from Ponza),” 1969. Thek composed his pictures directly on a newsprint page, leaving part of the paper exposed so that it would yellow as it aged. Credit… Galerie Buchholz. [New York Times caption and illustration]

I don’t know how seriously to take Thek’s “view of Zannone” as picture making, but I’m glad it exists, and I revel in the impishness of his “untitled” titles.

It seems for me the quest to dare and paint “crudely” is of the essence, as it fights against the docile, groomed depiction towards which my complacent brain so strongly urges me. The ideal progression is: First look hard. Then see. Then raise hell on a surface. The mode of engagement is not chaotic; it’s reductive, maybe the fruit of considered impulse. It’s hard and hurts (mentally). May consist of doing the right amount of nothing with pencil or brush, letting pauses or vacancies speak. I rarely succeed in drawing or painting this way, but the craving to break the picture barrier is always on the drawing board.

Paul Thek mocked mortality in the last year of his life. Here, “Big Bang Painting,” circa 1988, on view at Pace Gallery. Credit… The Estate of Paul Thek, Pace Gallery and the Watermill Center. [New York Times caption and illustration]

(Arthur Lubow, “Paul Thek’s Art Legacy: A Shriek and a Giggle,” New York Times, 7-9-26)

Posted in Commentary | Tagged art, drawing, painting, style | 2 Comments

My Dog

Posted on July 14, 2026 by JMN

My doggy pets herself with my bare foot.
The foot is there, she thinks, idle appendage.
Why not let it do rewarding work?
My foot responds unthinkingly to her command.
It fetches the affection she has thrown,
And she extols me with her lavish wag.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged doggerel, personal | 11 Comments

‘There dwells in the glance an ancient hunger…’

Posted on July 10, 2026 by JMN

Translation to English of a poem in Spanish titled “Únicas/Únicos” by Azurea20 published at La Bancarrota del Circo on July 6, 2026.

ONE / ONLY
There dwells in the glance
an ancient hunger;
a buzzing of
bees crowns
cogitation
as one’s own light
tries to take root
in stellar pulsars.
There are days when magnets stray,
of walking blind
under a firmament
thick with ashen rain.
A solar vibe,
a thunder of gold
pierces the stagnation
of the mind.
Everything gestates there,
on the blue crossing
that precedes the dawn.
It’s the instant when
wise laughter erupts;
an unbarred relish
cleanses the voice
like a spring gushing
inimitable words.
At last,
when the world’s clatter
dies down,
there’s only that blessed quiet
of one giving sedentary ear
to the self’s own signal.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged language, poetry, reading, Spanish-English, translation | 12 Comments

Morning Norther, Hill County, Texas

Posted on July 3, 2026 by JMN

“MOU” (Memorial of Undertaking). Charcoal, oil pastel and watercolor on wrinkled paper.

… Mr. Trump [promised] that this year’s fireworks display will break a Guinness World Record by exploding more than 860,000 shells.

MORNING NORTHER, HILL COUNTY, TEXAS
The wind trees up,
rousing leaf rabble,
a scramble of squirrel.
Water kettled, coffee ground, storm brewing.

Clouds muscled like a ton of riled bull
In the chute — dark, bowed up, lowering.
Prophets’ eye fire streaks, thunder clobbers its drum.
Rain dropkicks the sink window pane.

Ear pulsing to the fray,
I will my little house stout:
Ride it out, I say.
I say, ride it out.

Happy 250 Fourth. Better days ahead.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged doggerel, language | 2 Comments

On Being Groped by a Bottom Feeder

Posted on June 29, 2026 by JMN

— To the Bro’hood of Silicon Gulch, la Fraternidad del Pinche Cabrón.
No es lo mismo la cómoda de tu hermana que acomódame a tu hermana.

Scat, lollapaloozer, vile binary stud!
This crotch don’t cash your crypto crud.

Shamelord sonnyboy, sleaze disease,
Take a hike. Don’t touch my cheese.

No dipping wick in this bee’s wax.
What rumbles here is just the facts.

Hitch a ride to space soon, goon.
Get your rocks off on the moon.

Scads of toodles and buckets of byes.
Damn your liver and damn your eyes!

Of course the bot will just scarf my riff and take a powder. At least I blew it a kiss.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged A.I., doggerel, language | 3 Comments

Blood and Dirt

Posted on June 26, 2026 by JMN

Dagger. The Bible has the story of a fellow who fashioned himself a dagger, fetched it hidden into the chambers of an unsuspecting portly man, and plunged it into the man’s belly so deep that it disappeared, unextractable. The King James remarks laconically that “the dirt came out.” Observationally spot on, no doubt; the dirt would be feces oozing from punctured intestine.

Cock fight. In Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust a character repeatedly puts a bloody rooster’s beak in his own mouth while tenderly stroking the bird, administering a kind of resuscitation therapy in order to motivate the creature to fight its losing battle to the bitter end.

Synthesis. The two narratives, leaking intestine and cock fight, intertwined in my head with the performative carnage staged at the White House on June 16th in which the old boy who “won” the melee screamed that a former first lady, accomplished wife of a living two-term ex-president, is a man.

Moral. Blood and soil: When you stab a country in the gut, the dirt comes out.

Note. The analogy of cage brawling to cock fights belongs to Senator John McCain, Solon-Warrior-Patriot. Rest in Honor, Sir.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged language, miscellaneous | 4 Comments

Sadness on the Wing: A Celebration

Posted on June 24, 2026 by JMN

Diction front-loaded with shopworn sparkle (destiny adamantine jade infinite sunset horizon blossom heart gaze…) can reek of prefabricated verse, whereas speech treading on the heels of the quotidian can light your pants on fire. I ask myself what’s up with poems that come straight at me on first reading. Why does one cohere and stick when others don’t? Who cares? Celebrate it.

Without overquoting Winniebell Xinyu Zong’s “Bargains” (Poetry, June 2026), it’s possible to trace the arc of an affecting dialog between mother and daughter:

yuzi, where will mama live when baby grows up?
you asked me, your only baby.

mama in mama’s house, baby in baby’s!
[…]
baby always has a room in mama’s house.
does baby give mama the same?
[…]
we may be neighbors when i have my own family.
[…]
if we become neighbors, can we be so close
your door faces mine?
[…]
eighteen years later, near a swimming-pool-turned-
lotus-pond, you & i share a basin of crawfish,
[…]
between us, your new baby, sat by his screen.
[…]
we squat-sit, peel shells, let chili oil numb our
tongues. i am full. you persist; busy your chopsticks

in the remains. you ask again:

yuzi, if ma boil soup & want to bring you a bowl,
can ma find you before soup grows cold?

i pick off a rice grain stuck to your chin.

Eighteen years from the poem’s beginning mother and daughter squat dining near “your new baby,” a grandchild. The poem goes to the heart of a reversal that occurs, from when the child depends on the parent to when the parent depends on the child. For me it conveys affectingly, all the more for doing so in an offbeat fashion, how there’s just no way we can get from birth’s welcome mat to death’s door without help.

The matter-of-fact culmination, the poem’s last line, i pick off a rice grain stuck to your chin, evinces flair for telling by withholding, a delicate form of understatement that takes keen touch. The terse, level and plain can pack punch when rifled truly.

“Bargains” triggered for me that surge behind the eyeballs which I like to call “how sadness laughs.” I glimpse in it a negotiated love and constancy, surpassing creed and muscle, rallying themselves against life’s contingent frailty.

Posted in Anthology | Tagged language, poetry, reading | 2 Comments