100 Year Old Poem, For Today

"It is difficult to get the news from poems, but people die everyday for lack of what is found there" - William Carlos Williams

American Rhino

Check the online definition. You learn a rhinocerous is a large, heavily built  mammal with one or two horns on its nose and thick folded skin. You discover that all rhinoceroses are endangered. However, before getting upset at the possibility of their extinction, consider first who and where they are.

Right now, a large herd of them is to be found in the United States Senate. They can be seen huddled together, mostly male with a few females stuffed into their mass, watching a woman tell the truth about her sexual assault by one of their fellow rhinos. Their snouts lift upwards, they sniff the political winds, they lower their massive heads and snort untruths about her whilst defending their accused member. He's a good rhino, they insist; such a well educated beast would never harm a lady; he was only playing rhino games like we all do, but his hooves got a bit heavy. Snort, snort, he's all right and she's lying. Snort, snort, let him drink at our watering hole;  leave her outside in the heavy weather.

Keep watching as they snuffle their way through questions by the press; as they enlist the head rhino's press secretary to bray about how no one, least of all head rhino himself, is mocking the accuser; as they whisper reassurances to one another that elevating the accused to a position of high honour is only right for he is, verily, the very essence of rhinodom. He's even better than many of them at appearing dainty when he crushes someone under him. And when he's angry, his rage is magnificent to behold, righteous and wreckless and thrilling in its disregard of truth.

Listen as the largest rhino of all, he of strange orange skin and hair, has the last bellow. "My fellow creatures", he roars, demanding apologies for hurting one of his herd, "you made the mistake of naming what should never be named, wounding one of our finest beasts. Never again question the power of one who demonstrates how easy  to move to the front of the herd. You pulverise whoever gets underfoot."

Note: sadly, honourable non-elected rhinoceroses are an endangered species. This is not meant to disparage their magnificent being.

-Rose Levinson

Brexit Blues

I’m weary beyond words at the ongoing disaster that is Brexit. Yes, I'm an American citizen who cannot vote in the UK. Fundamentally, I’m an outsider to the culture I now share. But I’ve come to regard London as my home. In this city-state of exiles, I’m one of many who both lose and find themselves in its vast sea of diversity. I have a stake in what happens.

Brexit is a disaster. For me, an older urban intellectual, the impact will be less dire than for those whose livelihood depends on freedom of trade, goods and services. I worry not about my job but about such things as traveling freely to other European countries. This is not said smugly; I know how lucky I am not to be struggling with the economics of a non-European UK.

Basically, it's the stupidity and provincialism of Brexit that outrage me. The UK will be isolated in a world increasingly disordered. It will cut itself off from an EU entity that gives it protection against an increasingly predatory USA and a rising China. The exclusion of potential immigrants will drain London's energy, and no doubt impact the labour force in towns outside London.

In truth, I don't know how it will impact places outside London. I'm less concerned than a good lefty liberal should be. It's the city I care about. I'm a rootless cosmopolitan, and what I value are ideas, diversity, edgy thinking, mixing up of cultures and people, the creative goo arising from confusion. I don't want London to lose its messy soul.

As an American, I can tell you most Americans like Britain for its cool accent and its historical pageantry. Period. When US citizens glance up from their isolation and look out at the world, Britian is not the first place that comes to mind--or even the fifth. It's a delusion to think Britain can see the US as a reliable trading partner--or a reliable anything else. And this will be true even if a non-sociopath replaces the current President.

As the Brexit tumoil rumbles on, I want to scream 'stop, stop before it's too late.' There's some hope the worst of it can be derailed. It was, after all, only fifty two percent who voted Leave against forty eight for Remain. In the US, you can't even change a postal route with that kind of feeble majority. But who knows what madness lurks in the heart of the UK's politicians and how potent the forces for little England are?

-Rose Levinson