Sellers: A Warning / Triggered

A Warning
Author: Anonymous
Publisher: Twelve Books
272p

Triggered
Author: Donald Trump Jr.
Publisher: Center Street
304p

1. Two Books

These two books sit at #1 and #2 as we start the last month of 2019 and that feels exactly right.

We have an innate desire to know what goes on behind closed doors. Especially the closed doors of the "important" and "famous". Look at the popularity of celebrity Instagrams. Of Jennifer Garner's pretend Facebook cooking show.

We want to not only see what these people are doing, we want to know the details of how.

This goes double when it comes to how our country is being run.

Even if you are "not political" you probably find the possibility of knowing more about the behind-the-scenes interesting. I don't know how else to explain the success of entertainment like Jack Ryan or 24. I don't know how else to explain the bumper stickers.

I don't know how else to explain these two books.

America is supposedly divided. Very divided. I don't buy it. I think that media is divided. Manipulative. Is actually currently creating multiple realities. We can debate the reality of "truth" but there are things that are real and things that are unreal.

One of these books is about a more real real than the other.

Sidenote: How the fuck are you not political because all things are politics and your very existence depends on the politics of where and who you are.


2. Public v. Private

That there is even a discussion about whether the person who sits in America's White House at the moment is actually fit for the job is perhaps a shocking thing. That this person won an election at all is perhaps shocking.

If you haven't been paying attention to the growing divide in media representation in America over the last 30 years, you would naturally be shocked. Naturally.

That one of these books sits at #2 mainly because political money was used to bulk purchase it feels even more 2019.

That in private Republicans actually seem to have morals that they refuse to express in public...is actually the more shocking thing to me. See, I assume that all of this is a con to gain power money power clout legacy money etc. But I also assume that to be that bald in your ambitions, you would have to be a pretty terrible person.

But a person still.

There are divides. And then there are fences walls purpose built. These two books represent the latter.


Sellers is my attempt to examine what books are topping the best-seller list and why. To talk about and understand the trends in popular writing.

Poem-A-Day #257 : November

November

Burnt skin          is tight across fingers
the prints are shallow          there is whiteness everywhere

At some point your self was erased and why didn't you notice it

The red in the wagon was a warning          you could sit in it
pretend that you could steer it downhill          how does chin feel on pavement

One morning you woke up and the birds wheeling in the sky didn't recognize the land

The two children hit each other with rebar          it is November
the land is in the midst of its throes          the mountain snows in

There are ravens in New Mexico they croak in the treetops they are alarm bells

John J. Audubon - Birds of America (1827-1838)

Poem-A-Day #255 : Tired

Tired

In the face
                    the tired

Along the eyes mostly

A sort of indescribable thereness

                    Here

a lake to stare at

                    A sort of attempt at mirror

                    Imperfect in its temper

Can the water be tired

                    from its journey

                    from its pulse to the surface

Think about those rocks it leeched

The minerals that it described

                    A finger pressed

into rocky flesh until it gives

Poem-A-Day #254 : First Frost

First Frost

There is the moment when the night comes up to us and grabs our hands

It is not a threat but it feels like blood in the water - the tendons are always just about to kick - the fists are always clenching and unclenching there is a grinding sound under the skin - it is velvet but burned it smells like canned air - we are on fire together

Getting out of the car tonight may feel like a death - air escaping like prisoners fleeing labyrinthine hallways into the cold of everything

But

Above will be found the stars where they were left still silver in the blue expanse of space - Orion notching an arrow at the backs of the Pleides

The roof of the car beside mine was covered in frost - thin and translucent - I was urged by an unknown force to rake my finger across the surface - and I did

Fingers come away cold and wet and covered in light - the ink of winter seeping into the bones of autumn - around us the cars all twinkle it is a calm

There is a moment when night comes up and puts its hands to our throats

Not a threatening gesture - an honest one

The rasps of its nails speaking about the darkness within us - the heat of its eyes a cipher - night is a void filling with the answers to questions asked in daylight

At the top of the cycle there is death - at the bottom there is more

Somewhere in between is a sort of daylight - a moment where hope exists - where the growing isn't futile and it will not just end again

Fuck - it burns -

Poem-A-Day #253 : Poem

Poem

I close my eyes as I walk down the hallway

Light reds the space - it oranges skin and pops along the carpet like sprouts coming up

I want to be free - the air does it - the light makes its way from the eye to the eye along the way it breaks for the hills - somehow free happens - somehow

Spread arms like skin coming away from a rabbit - heat in there - light - a paw on the end of a key chain