I Stood Estranged from That Which Was Most Familiar

• Charles Olson, born 105 years ago today.
• It is December 27. Here in Maryland the crabapple trees are blossoming and I'm gonna need dig my mower out of shed and cut the grass.
• The lie behind the timeline: how 2015 was framed.
• Too little too late.
• The worse people of 2015. Again, I fail to make a list.
• The corporate takeover of Red Cross.
• Redd Kross. 
• A reminder there is no better metaphor for late-capitalism/neoliberalism than Professional Helmetball.
• On hate in general, on hating Hillary in particular.
• Trump, politics, pro-wrestling. Today's necessary duh.
• Radical salami.
• Wisconsin destroyed.
• Blegsylvanian melancholy.
• >> Return of Deleted Bleggalgaze << I didn't see a single mention of Zappadan this December. February 1st is BAD. Will anyone besides me remember?
• Of these ten 2015 books of poetry, I've read the Bang and Raab and urge the Bang and recommend the Raab to you. As for the rest, good thing I have access to a major university library's stacks and consortial arrangements.
• Though I am in a novel, and it's working, I've probably jinxed things and I won't even mention the novel's name or author.

MAXIMUS, TO HIMSELF

Charles Olson

I have had to learn the simplest things

last. Which made for difficulties.

Even at sea I was slow, to get the hand out, or to cross   

a wet deck.

               The sea was not, finally, my trade.

But even my trade, at it, I stood estranged

from that which was most familiar. Was delayed,

and not content with the man’s argument

that such postponement   

is now the nature of

obedience,

               that we are all late

               in a slow time,

               that we grow up many

               And the single   

               is not easily

               known

It could be, though the sharpness (the achiote)   

I note in others,

makes more sense

than my own distances. The agilities

               they show daily

               who do the world’s   

               businesses

               And who do nature’s   

               as I have no sense   

               I have done either

I have made dialogues,

have discussed ancient texts,

have thrown what light I could, offered   

what pleasures

doceat allows

               

               But the known?

This, I have had to be given,

a life, love, and from one man   

the world.

               Tokens.

               But sitting here

               I look out as a wind   

               and water man, testing   

               And missing

               some proof

I know the quarters

of the weather, where it comes from,   

where it goes. But the stem of me,   

this I took from their welcome,

or their rejection, of me

               And my arrogance

               was neither diminished   

               nor increased,

               by the communication

2

It is undone business

I speak of, this morning,   

with the sea

stretching out

from my feet