Remember what the Dormouse said

Feed your head.

Public Thing

Respublica:

The strident high

civic trumpeting

of misrule. It is

what we stand for.

Wild insolence,

aggregates without

distinction. Courage

of common men:

spent in the ruck

their remnant witness

after centuries

is granted them

like a pardon.

And other fealties

other fortitudes

broken as named—

Respublica

brokenly recalled,

its archaic laws

and hymnody;

and destroyed hope

that so many times

is brought with triumph

back from the dead.

Geoffrey Hill.

#throwbackthursday

Bubsy bubsying with an Atriot audience.  (2010)

Ooh, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good

It's so good.

ephēmeros

Momentary:

I never glimpse her but she goes

Who had been basking in the sun,

Her links of chain mail one by one

Aglint with pewter, bronze and rose.

I never see her lying coiled

Atop the garden step, or under

A dark leaf, unless I blunder

And by some motion she is foiled.

Too late I notice as she passes

Zither of chromatic scale—

I only ever see her tail

Quicksilver into tall grasses.

I know her only by her flowing,

By her glamour disappearing

Into shadow as I’m nearing—

I only recognize her going.

A.E. Stallings.

But it's too late to say you're sorry

How would I know? Why should I care?

バラ

after goodbye
the roses
kept blooming

Aiko

— Basho Society (@BashoSociety) June 16, 2026

PS - Mom majored in Japanese and East Asian Studies.

Twenty Fucking Years

God damn, I miss you, Mom.  So do your grandkids, who have never even met you.

<exits singing, They say life carries on and on and on>

When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see?

Some other cat lookin' over his shoulder at me.

the world’s so small, the sky’s so high

fire:

more the idea of the flame than the flame,

as in: the flame

of the rose petal, the flame of the thorn

the sun is a flame, the dog’s teeth

flames

Nick Flynn.

Thunderthief

I hope everybody enjoyed the festivities in DC today.

Only traces make us dream.

Companions in the Garden:

    Man is but a blossom of the air held by the earth, cursed by the
stars, inhaled by death; the breath and shadow of this coalition
at certain times elevate him. 

    Our friendship is the white cloud preferred by the sun. 

    Our friendship is a free rind. It does not detach itself from our
heart's prowesses. 

    Where my spirit no longer uproots but replants and cares for,
I begin to grow. Where the people's childhood begins, I love. 

    In the twentieth century man was at his lowest. Women be-
came enlightened and moved about swiftly, on a ledge where
only our eyes had access. 

    To a rose I bind myself. 

    We are ungovernable. The only master favorable to us is
Lightning who sometimes illuminates us and sometimes cleaves
us. 

    Lightning and rose in us, in their transience, are added for our
completion. 

René Char.

You Say It’s Your Birthday?

Well it's my blog's birthday too, yeah!  The original Dohiyi Mir had humble beginnings on Blogger, an astonishing 23 years ago, which makes my return to this platform with the demise of Typepad a funny full circle thing.

I'd gotten home from teaching in Buffalo, of all places, and was doing laundry to get ready for my next gig, wherever the hell it was (funny how I don't remember that detail).  Called Grandma to wish her a happy birthday, then decided stuff I was sending to my friend e-mail chain (for you youngsters, that was like a group chat) might as well go up somewhere more public.

My biggest hit back in those days was Queer Eye For The Deposed Guy.  Got noticed by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Inky)!  It was all so quaint and silly.

Mom eventually became one of my most consistent readers and commenters.  Coincidentally, she went into the hospital unexpectedly on this very date in 2006, whilst I was teaching in Anaheim (I was not aware at the time).  Yes, the big twentieth anniversary of the most horrible day is coming up.

Life is a rich pageant.

Selah.

Happy Obama Appreciation Day!

In addition to celebrating Barack Obama, I'd like to note a couple things that happened on this festive day in 1777:

Resolved, That the flag of the ∥thirteen∥ United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

The council of the State of Massachusetts bay having represented by letter to the president of Congress, that Captain John Roach, some time since appointed to command the continental ship of war the Ranger, is a person of doubtful character, and ought not to be entrusted with such a command; therefore,

Resolved, That Captain Roach be suspended, until the Navy Board for the eastern department shall have enquired fully into his character, and report thereon to the Marine Committee.

Resolved, That Captain John Paul Jones be appointed to command the said ship Ranger.

I had a book about Jones, devoured it a couple of times as a lad, rather enamored with his swashbuckling story.  More recently, I read Rick Atkinson's The Fate of the Day:

Abigail Adams would describe Captain John Paul Jones as “a most uncommon character…small of stature, well-proportioned, soft in his speech, easy in his address, polite in his manner, vastly civil…. He is said to be a man of gallantry and a favorite amongst the French ladies.” Those who had seen him swinging a cutlass in battle or roaring curses from the quarterdeck drew a less genteel portrait. As he put to sea from Brest on April 10, two days after Commissioner Adams arrived in Paris, Jones paraphrased Paradise Lost in a letter to a friend: “The world lays all before me.” 

The son of a gardener from Solway Firth, on Scotland’s southwest coast, John Paul had gone to sea at age thirteen; after killing a mutinous crewman in the West Indies, he added a new surname to cover his tracks and fled to America. Short and wiry, with prominent cheekbones, a cleft chin, and hazel eyes, he found purpose and opportunity in war, having won a commission in the nascent Continental Navy.

Anyway, a couple years after his appointment to Ranger, he took command of Bonhomme Richard, and ultimately engaged with the British at the Battle of Flamborough Head:

When a British boarding party appeared with cutlasses near the quarterdeck ladder, Jones and his seamen drove them back across the bulwarks to Serapis with pikes, firelocks, and shouted oaths. A panicky American gunner, convinced the ship was sinking, headed aft to strike the flag in surrender, until Jones knocked him unconscious with a pistol butt. And when Commodore Pearson, hopeful that the Americans were ready to capitulate, called out above the tumult, “Do you ask for quarter?,” Jones scoffed. Various versions of his defiant reply would be attributed to him, including, almost half a century later, the exhilarating “I have not yet begun to fight.” A week after the battle, Jones wrote Franklin only that he “answered him in the most determined negative.” He later told Louis XVI that he had shouted, “I do not dream of surrendering, but I am determined to make you strike.”

He did, in fact, cause Pearson to strike.  We will do the same against our current adversary, whilst flying our colors high.

Anyway, Happy Obama Appreciation Day to all, even the haters and losers!

PS - Happy birthday to Grandma, who would've turned 101 today.