Jerry Ward's Blogspot

DOING TIME IN NOLA Here is miracle: a cage of paper where a bird does not just sing but thinks from dawn to blue noon to dusk to night's demise of seconds and in a second line --so rare-- which can be happy dancing   this last return from death to freedom's holy sunrise. Jerry W. Ward, Jr.             February 27, 2018

EPISTLE TO THE HUMANISTS February 25, 2018 Dear____________:                 When that excuse we call a POTUS pandered to his tribe and hissed a less than original poem about a snake, the circus we call American politics in 2018 had a climax rather than an orgasm.   No doubt the POTUS thinks the poem is a fine example of American verse, equal in accomplishment to D. H. Lawrence's "Snake," a better than typical British lyric.   It is but wishful thinking that Fate would deliver a copy of Lawrence's poem to the WH, which of late has become the GOP   " s---house," and force the POTUS to recite these two lines from "Snake" each day: "I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act! I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education." (Stanza 17, lines 63-64) But enough of fantasy bereft of jouissance as we return to a future.   The curse of huma...

April 4, 2018 Be wary. Be wise. Stand far away from anyone who suggests that you celebrate anything on April 4, 2018. It is not a day to celebrate. It is a day to remember. Remember how thoroughly dead the King of Love is dead. Listen to Nina Simone. Teach our young to remember. Help our young to remember. Remember how thoroughly dead the King of Love is dead. April 4, 2018 is a day to remember. It is not a day to celebrate. Stand far away from anyone who suggests that you co-opt yourself with celebration. Be wary. Be wise. Listen to Nina Simone. Jerry W. Ward, Jr.             February 25, 2018

TELL THEM WE ARE RISING TAKE ONE/ 16 February 2018                                                                                       Scene: Ash é Power House, 1731 Baronne Street, New Orleans, LA Act:   PBS/Indie Lens Film Screening: "Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities" Purpose:   To view a short version of Stanley Nelson's most recent documentary, a visual narrative of many narratives, designed "to tell the dynamic story of Americans who refused to be denied a higher education and ---in their resistance ...

ERASING the poem resides in a process,   the secret of spit becoming enchanting for our times, which parody and paradox themselves with need of erasing. enough.   go. inhabit minds. polemic them with prisms and prisons where lambs lament a pound of cantos and ferment carrots. dance a wall street rag with a virgin hag. assess the season inside the trick bag. demons disappear in reason when an ear listens to wine shatter in a pretense of class. still, old mother, wit lives in the sample of example, in the idiot a tale yearns to trample. Jerry W. Ward, Jr.             February 16, 2018

SCHOLARSHIP Old people drying, bagatelles dying: scholarly sadness. Jerry W. Ward, Jr.             February 12, 2018

alternatives I can become brave to say my dream to the world. Jiang Zejin, 1 December 2016 On a cold day say your dream to me in the silk of red water. I shall speak it into transparency. If it flows in a riddle, I shall make use of it, painting possibilities more promising than photographs. Backgrounds of clean azure shall shock the eye to recognize what can hatch when music clears your throat. The pristine white of my design shall be a phoenix soaring more truly than an eagle, or a sparrow who, having nothing to tweet against the stars, shall banish cages and erase the bars.   Jerry W. Ward, Jr. February 10, 2018