A Bee Sez

EPITAPH ON A GENERAL

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
the tale they perfected was easy to understand;
they knew human folly like the back of their hand,
to show such great interest in things indiscreet;
it was published, respectable senators burst with laughter,
he lost his command, was done in by deceit.

•••••••••••••••••••

REALITY

age of disbelief
nothing surprises
the word
be
is denied
all is get now
life is
a dream
fantasy
viewers
listeners

very few
do
everyone wants service
but
not serve

reality
and life
are everywhere
one thing
is crystal clear
loyalty
is rare

“HORROR AND INJUSTICE
PLAY STARRING ROLES”

Have movies
that range from fantasy
murder and horror to snuff
affected the ability to evaluate real crimes

A review of “Enemies of the People”
NYT June 11, 2010 page C14
“A High Point of Human Rights Watch film festival”

“An inspiring film”

If opaqueness
masquerades as transparency
it makes me want to forget
I’m supposed to be a bee

According to the reviewer of this film
•••••• “to hear
people recall committing
unspeakable acts while under
duress is liberating for them and
for us”

The movie’s ultimate coup
is the interview
of Brother No. 2
the chief ideologue of Pol Pot
who explains that the
Khmer Rouge was determined
to establish a form of commu-
nism that was even purer than
Chinese communism under Mao
Zedong

Movies
are classified
as arts and entertainment
how to classify the body count in millions of

Armenians
Jews
Poles
Ukranians
Russians
Chinese
Cambodians

Who are the stars
of this film?

the chief ideologue
the living killers “forced to kill”
the dead political victims

EPITAPH ON A TYRANT

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
W.H. Auden

“A LITTLE QUANTUM SCIENCE”

NYT June 5, 2010

About
This year’s world science festival
A series
of programs
at the Lincoln Center of the Arts
to make science
“exciting to laymen” by
making “science sexy”
there was also
a music and dance program
at a theater in Chelsea
with “a little quantum science to go along”
the highlight

“three theories”
Relativity
Quantum mechanics
String theory

A meeting
of modern dance and ballet
at one time getting down to the undies
with mixed excess

so 21st century

T.S. Elliot
was almost 100 years
ahead of this latest attempt
at cosmic conundrum
inspired by Sweeny
a 20th century everydude

T.S.E. wrote three poems
Sweeny erect
Sweeny among the nightengales
Sweeny agonistes

The poet waited 20 years
for a production
of his
“A Fragment of an Aristophanic Melodrama”
but was dismayed
in 1932
when it was produced as a farce
rather than a serious effort

in it
Sweeny sang
Birth Copulation and Death
That’s All, That’s All, That’s All
•••••
Birth Copulation and Death
••••• You’d be bored
Birth Copulation and Death
That’s all the facts when you come to brass tacks:
Birth Copulation and Death
I’ve been born, and once is enough.
You don’t remember, but I remember
Once is enough
•••••
•••••
But I’ve got to use words when I talk to you
•••••
We’re gona sit here and have a tune
We’re gona stay here and we’re gona go
•••••
But it’s nothing to me and it’s nothing to you

so 20th century

Three stories
on June 3, 2010
NYT does a riff
on reality

ONE  Alicia Alonzo
on pages C1 and C2
New York in her youth
an etherial ballet star
evolves into
a Cuban cultural apparatchik

BEAUTY IS TRUTH
TRUTH BEAUTY

TWO  An athletic Italian prosecutor
pages C1 and C4
takes another crack
at rich American
art collectors
with facist bureaucratic finesse

BEAUTY IS TRUTH
TRUTH DUTY

THREE  on E7
from a Chelsea boutique
a publicity paeon
to fashionable beach attire
is this treatise on male muscular dressage

DUTY IS TRUTH
TRUTH DUTY

There
for now
truth seems
light
and free
without
ideology

BEAUTY IS YOUTH
YOUTH BEAUTY

1984 TIMESPEAK UPDATE

Mr. Bee wonders (as the world turns)
how freedom
education and promise
create the possibility
of power
for those who want
to intimidate   crush   destroy   kill
anyone who has the temerity to disagree with them.

Terrorists
1 – used statues of the Buddha for target practice
2 – stole the sign over the entrance of the shrine at Auschwitz
3 – tore down the mojave desert memorial cross that they did not approve of
4 – ?

disbelievers have lined up with true believers in the hate race!

In this world of predatory moralists
bad becomes good
it is right to wrong
passion for morality the excuse for terrorism.

ps
considering the activities of William Ayers
his letter to the New Yorker magazine (05-19-10)
on “the origins of terror”
is it apt for a former terrorist
who has the need to set the record straight about his place in American history
to be the one to define
terror.

Make war not love!

Few appreciate the joys of quiet
A lot of nothing is on the internet
A river of trivia floating by
Some people don’t ever stop

The Japanese have Haragei the unspoken way
Let’s not go there
The poet Elliot had to
Use words when he talked to you
The philosopher Wittgenstein
Nearly went nuts
Finding a way to say
Something accurate and to the point

The Bee aims to comment
As an observer rather than a critic
If something has meaning to me it is my intention
To say it naturally as possible
Simply

It may seem like Greek to you
Mr Bee doesn’t do
translation

A full moon in an age of DEATH • DISMAY and violent CHANGE
Little makes sense except systematic FAILURE

We bees endure phenomenon like this through the centuries
We survived when our life seemed over

This bee admires human WORDS • MEANINGS
They give you the ability to EXPRESS • UNDERSTAND
Develop TECHNIQUES to deal with disasters

Like the bees you are programmed to die after life • TRANSFORMATION is the essence of existence • THE UTILITY OF WORDS cannot fail to help you face your days • DETERMINATION to appreciate the meaning of dilemma

THE END IS ALWAYS BEGINNING

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE DAYS March 24, 2010 when the interesting news in the New York Times has a familiar theme. ON PAGE 1 IT’S CHINA VS. GOOGLE – Universal health care vs. its critics – Islamics in Somalia vs. cell phone voices. ON THE SPORTS PAGES, page B12 the focus is on the foul as a winning tactic in the last moments of play. ON PAGE D5 IN THE FOOD SECTION it’s about muscling in from Kansas to win the battle of selling superior beef by using total quality product control. AN EXPERT ON CHINA finds the Chinese problem inexplicable. WHAT IS NOT CONFUSING are the parts played by overconfidence, tactics and bribes or basic fairness. IN OTHER WORDS blunt force vs. fair play. Extreme ideology vs. cooperation. Short-term gains vs. long-term victory. IN A SIMILAR STORY on Associated Press concerns two sisters in Connecticut. One sister wins a $500,000 prize but refuses to share it with her dear sister because of a fight over $100 they had years before.

THE WORDS POWER PLAY COME TO MIND.

A Wittelsbach blue diamond is in the news. “A modern crown jewel” (New York Times 01-09-10, page E1). The diamond was part of a historically famous decoration, The Order of the Golden Fleece. A royal knighthood as illustrious as the British Order of the Garter.

How real is intangible value? I think it is valuable because it means something to those who own or to appreciate it.

In this case the stone has been removed from a decoration, has been recut and donated to the Smithsonian Institution. It is now called “a modern royal crown jewel”. In reality, it has value only as a donation and a tax deduction.

The stone has no value now, except as a smaller blue diamond. It once had value. There is an absence here. The economic price of this stone is the cost of destroying its significance. You apparently live in an age of negativity, in which something real now has no real value.

Behind all this, to see through this blog thing, I have to think to see the world the way a single man might see it. To use words as a bee or a wanna-bee would use them. To talk with the voice of a bee. This buzz is my buzz “in the poet’s summary of life and old age” as Helen Vendler says in her review of John Ashbery’s collection of new poems, “Planisphere.” (New York Time Book Review, 10-13-09).

There is a cultral mystery here in this disambiguitized world of the internet: There should be room for a bit of personal ambiguity.