22/30: Notes En Route Alongisde the March For Science

Darth Vaders with Han Solo signs.
Elbows to elbows to knees to smalls of backs.
Snide asides from the "justtryingtogettowork"
crowd about "finally a march I'm on board with."

Plenty of jokes. Plenty of quotes. Plenty of
white folks with dreadlocks. No sign of hacky sack
in the rain.

A bullhorn in the rapidly filling park.
Cheers. A switching tide of people,
toward and away from less clogged routes,
toward and away from shorter lines for coffee.

Plenty of portraits of obscure physicists next to
"It's Motherfucking SCIENCE BITCH" next to
grey haired ladies in rumpled gortex talking about
priests of nonviolence and the 70s and the
documentary their lone young companion should watch.

Storm troopers with anti-fa arm bands.
A chance to dress up in a casual town.
A swarming sea of blacks and blues and greens
and the thought that Science will continue
whether we recognize it or not,

much to the terror of the man pulling a radio
flyer with two brown haired children,
thumbsucking and curled up on eachother
like puppies.

13/30: Shadows of 45

The what-to-do? list.

An article about how an unlikely band of sculptors
ousted an Estonian autocrat in the early '00s, forwarded
by a friend you met twelve years ago in an attic.

This is the first from them in five years. Signed "stay strong."

The what-to-do? guilt.

First on the list, always feel guilty,
there  is never enough.

Bodies hit the floor, like in that song
you thought was funny once, full of
lead or pressed by men-cum-cyborgs
by weight of their machinery vests.

That paralyzing lilt in conversation, how
do you answer
"how are you
today?"

You just want to read your poems and eat your still-delicious
foods and-- no.
You just want to break windows and rise up and-- no.
You just want to know what you can do to help
and then your inbox is full and half the links
are viruses.

Setting aside the time
for vigilance,
the time for guard
to never
be
let
down. A week from tomorrow,
with friends at the park
with signs.

The what-to-do? Wait, every song too oblivious
or on-the-nose.

Til then, it's a bright and sunny day. nearly 80 in april.
try to enjoy it. don't think about what that means.

12/30: Canadian Angst/Cascadian Rain

Dan Boeckner salutes the puddles collecting in the Central
District by the sidewalks by the 20th Century brownstone on
the corner, empty, mid-repaint, windows stickered with

construction logos. One still may not smoke near

the abandoned doorway. Synth tones and baritones soaring warped,

decades of lite socialism have not cured sadness, have not

bulwarked against nostalgia, nor have the neo-liberal reversals

restored good times glory to the Maple Leaf.

All the songs that make it south are sad ones;

dancing and crying translate internationally.

The rains of Vancouver don't hit different than the rains

of Tacoma or the rains, when they come, of Portland or

Everett; they flow to different bodies of water, but sound

the same in crosswalks.

Canadian citizenship became an active

interest that November day in North Carolina,
where rains were few and different
and my phone filled with texts, and

everyone’s Canadian friends
were suddenly Besties,
infinite couches and spare rooms
and job leads and citizenship paperwork,
and a different kind of city grid
but same kinds of mountains

seemed like not a sacrifice at all.

To hear the songs with ownership.  The washed out
melancholy of the Northern Cities of the

World.

As the days passed, and the texts petered out, and Everyone
Suddenly Knew Why The Bad Thing Happened and Whose Fault It
Was, everyone stopped their moves to Canada, renewed their

Passport for travel purposes only. Some cautiously suggested

it’d be for the best, for the dissolution of borders, of the lines

that dictate the nationality of rivers, the citizenship of rain. Others

suggested it’d be for the worst, for the dissolution of

everything. Under it all I heard
“When I get back

When I get back

Home

I won’t be the same
No more.”

And asked Jake if he was ever moving back. The answer wasn’t

No, he said, but the rivers up here are good, even if the bars are

expensive, and I can hear these songs just how I need to, sad

as they may be.