Excerpt from NYT Article on Skochilenko's “My Prison Trip”

 From the NYT article, "Seven Years for Antiwar Stickers?  Russian Activist Would Do It Again":

When Aleksandra Skochilenko affixed five bogus price tags bearing antiwar slogans to the shelves in her grocery store in St. Petersburg, Russia, she did not anticipate receiving a seven-year jail sentence … “The values of freedom of speech, of peace, could be more important than spending even 10 years in jail,” she said in an interview, comparing her experience with that of Antigone … Ms. Skochilenko, who [now, due to a prisoner swap] lives with her longtime Russian partner, Sonya Subbotina, is a sometime painter, musician and aficionado of 1960s American hippie culture. She has just published a memoir, “My Prison Trip,” illustrated with her own naïve, cartoonish drawings … [Her trial statement included the words,] “How fragile must be the prosecutor’s belief in our state and society, if he thinks our statehood and public safety can be brought down by five small pieces of paper? … I’ve been incarcerated for over a year and a half now, alongside murderers, thieves, statutory rapists and pimps. Can the supposed harm I caused even compare to those crimes?”

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/world/europe/russia-protester-antiwar-aleksandra-skochilenko.html

========================

Poem: Accusation

 

Accusation

 

pinecones bob in wind,

pointing every which way.

 

we know! we know!

 

so many tines

flipping off humanity.

 

isn’t it obvious? don’t you see?

 

we the people, however,

don’t care if the pines have a right to speak.

 

we go about the task

of paying to have them cut down

 

as if it were our duty.

=========================

Poem: Leaf Circus

 

Leaf Circus

 

Ferris wheels 

bent from collision

clutch rubble from a tower of Babel.

 

a scamper of clowns 

devour each other’s antics,

unable to move on,

amid bleachers toasted and

twisty as crispy chips.

so many autumn escape artists,

much more numerous 

than the floppy straitjackets. 

a backflip of poodle 

intercepts a fire-breathing tiger.

 

strings less taut than wobble

moor a ruptured tent whose

post is a crooked spine.

 

all of it bound to anticipate:

scenes which form seesaws

primed for acrobatics, 

waiting

for the next hammer fall of gust.

===================

11/8/25 ... tough... 

11/7/25 ... many mods, difficult

11/5/25 .. mods all day .. changed poem to present tense, etc.

Poem: Fire

 

Fire

 

a mane, a chrysanthemum,

an orange-blue bear trap.

each lick grazes

the stomach of oxygen,

tasting rarified flesh.

grey bones hide in the flames

as if heat were psalms

risen from the grief of embers.

 

in the crude headdress,

furious fingers

strum flickery strings.

zithers, lyres, psalteries

forged of tortured gas

devour each other,

writhe to become

the music itself,

sibilant notes

that would destroy

a Stradivarius

for a few bars.

 

why do i look into the fire

as if it forged spells

out of volatile memories?

there is no sorcery

in its jaws except illusion.

it doesn’t want to be seen

for what it is:  a snake

which mesmerizes a chickadee,

fangs of a blurry madhouse

ushering a pilgrimage of sufferers

on a quick journey home.

===================

Original version, slightly different, was published in Poetry Magazine, 2006

Poem: Morphize

 

Morphize

 

wind never sighs,

rain never weeps,

 

crickets don’t sing,

doves aren’t angels.
 

stones never pray,

nor any tree wise,

learned with lichen.

 

clouds are not donnybrooks

of jumbled menagerie.

 

we witness the mere sculpt

of our fantasticating minds:

 

chisels of bliss, hope,

and kindness,

 

awls of pain, cruelty,

and fear.

=================================

11/2/25 ... changed sixth stanza

10/30/25 .. mods all day

anthropomorphize

One of the Worst Days in Human History

As I've written before, "11/5," the day in 2024 when Trump was elected, is one of the most darkly significant days in the entire history of civilization.  The USA is the most powerful country in the world.  Trump is a fascist.  Fascism leads to war.  And war, in our time, greatly ups the chance for a global nuclear holocaust, that is, the destruction, not just of humanity, but of ecosystems, plants and animals everywhere on this unique, grand sphere we call Earth.   

Even without war, the global shift toward authoritarianism means the rise of ignorance-based governance, which we can't afford given the rapid development of new and powerful technologies.   Advanced AI, robot armies and police, seamless surveillance, brain-computer interface, genetic engineering that replaces evolution itself:  in the hands of immature, callous, saber-rattling, narcissistic men on golden thrones, such power will bring a nightmarish future of malignant, miserable totalitarian control.  Tyranny will become far stronger than it has ever been before--a soul-killing omnipresence.

The following quotes, from an article by Margaret Sullivan, are evidence for my claims about the awfulness of that tragic day, 11/5.  (see also previous blog posts).

Article:  "The tragic change a single year has made in America," Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/26/america-tragic-change-2024-election

A few quotes from the article:

One year ago, everything was so different. In late October 2024, before the US presidential election, thoughtful Americans could ... still recognize it as the United States. A democracy ... In late October 2025, many of us barely recognize the nation we live in. People suspected of being illegal immigrants are rounded up and shoved into vans, sometimes denied due process. The East Wing of the “people’s house” – the White House – is being destroyed for an obscene ballroom. Donald Trump is persecuting his political rivals or supposed enemies and demanding the justice department hand over $230m. Armed military personnel are being sent into American cities on false pretexts. The Pentagon, relabeled the Department of War, has – in effect – rid itself of day-to-day journalistic scrutiny as it spends what could amount to nearly $1tn of taxpayer money. Universities, law firms, news companies are buckling under the president’s threats, and billionaires are treated like members of the royal family.

 

 Another:

“The United States, just months before its 250th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism,” Garrett Graff, the American historian and author, wrote in August. “In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here.”

Sullivan doesn’t give up hope.  She is heartened, for instance, by the No Kings protests.   She values the arguments put forward by Robert Reich but doesn’t share his unvarnished optimism:

Robert Reich, the former labor secretary, wrote recently that “the great sleeping giant of America is awakening”, just as it did after the Communist witch-hunt era in the 1950s or during the Vietnam war protests or during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s …

Reich says he knows the signs of that awakening and sees it happening now. As evidence, he cites the recent massive protests, the widespread, bipartisan pushback against late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s removal from television and the near-unanimous refusal by journalists to sign the defense department’s demands they report only what is sanctioned.

Trump is itching for a fight, as seems evident from his attacks on Venezuelan fishing boats and his ordering of an aircraft carrier into the region.  Fascists use force to take and take.  It's all extremely reckless and dangerous for world stability.  Napoleon did this sort of thing, reckless wars.  We can all be grateful he didn't have access to nuclear weapons.  By the end of Napoloeon's foolhardy wars, France had lost everything it had gained, death and mayhem were widespread, and the cultural protections around civilians in wartime had been obliterated.  'Total war' is now a thing, civilians acceptable targets, thanks to Bonaparte.

Why am I writing this?  I am hoping to add a tiny bit of momentum to the ripples of peaceful resistance, which hopefully can grow into a mighty wave.  Such resistance might save the Earth's animals and ecosystems, including the human species, from nuclear annhilation or an endless existence in a totalitarian dungeon.

If you bow down to Fear and Fear gains total control, backed by all-powerful technology, you create Hell itself.

The world tilted gravely on 11/5.   Whether or not you imagine 11/5 as one of civilization's worst days ever, it is time to act.

I talk about how to evolve human civilization toward maturity and, as well, higher ethics tech, including how to handle malignant narcissists like Trump in the following post (and many others):

https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/09/essay-apotheosis-problem.html

=================== 

Poem: Signs

 

Signs

  

stars not so proud,

they roll to flip bells

on the idle cap of

 

a puppet in play

strung to mythic pawns.

 

the sun-half crests

on waves which yank confused

 

to trip the tilt-a-whirl

of the darkling other;

 

so it goes, a scrabble

of spin and totter:

 

up charms down

till all trends clown

 

dizzy on the reel

of a sphere.

=============================

Poem: Escorpion Peak

 

Escorpíon Peak

 

swirling lockets

breeze over my skin,

tease pictures

from the museum of my face,

 

these memories

as easy as a robe of glow,

tangerine from the sun,

and sequins of dragonfly,

 

they are my muscles now,

floating as i perch,

my heartbeat their sparkle,

sweeping in waves.

 

formless stairs

spiral up my nude reach,

lift me with their songs

till i am cleansed and whispery.

 

after a long, unruly game of toss

in which time somersaults away,

lost from the doubt of reason,

the Earth catches me,

 

and my eyes swing to look up

at a fresh sky so patient.

no hint of the mischief there

lazy yet rambunctious,

 

as if someone else had turned me

into a leaf.

 

 

 

 

===============================

10/19/25 ... mods all day

Poem: Panoptic

 

Panoptic

 

fine leather soles 

rush to the daily crisis,

minds staggering in a slog

to decipher the latest incident

of the manifesto.

faces make waves

but only in sync,

alloyed to hard smiles

which dig with strain

into mountainsides

of cheekbone.

they bat around hello

so that i’m fine

can bounce off and you?

as if a jigger

or two of numbness

could cure the day,

keep the ache mild,

no bridle required

for grinding teeth. 

prim eyes 

flash a thrill

or conjure up sympathy;

for they see what audience

they were taught to know;

and perceive

for the same reason as

the many other actors

who fish for clues and

compliments, 

and who look out, as well,

just the same.

 

========================

10/16/25 ... mods all day

Poem: 2am

 

2am

 

chill tightens around the screen

like a celsius of snake

menacing an egg,

my eyes twin fidgets in the yolk,

so small.

 

from here to the depths of Cetus,

the only lamp is this dim square,

bugaboo of joules,

spooky against the feral flesh

of the ancient night.

 

my hands run like spiders,

do not ‘straddle the velvet’

as my mind perceives to wish,

contemplating as i am

the flight of the Dipper.

 

no thread attached to the real

as i click to type glibly away,

fast as i can in this uncertain place,

lost in the qualms of a somewhat sleep

which hints at rest.

 

 

 

 

 

=========================

10/14/25 ... changed some words

10/13/25 .. eds off and on all day