My son
Born in water and blood
Becoming flesh
Not easy for you
Becoming father
Not easy for me
But darling
Just look at us now

You have the gentle curiosity
Of a boy unfolding
Cautiously in the world
Playfully at home
You remind me of myself
If I had grown up in a safe and loving home

My son
I give you what I did not receive
And you give me so much more than I ever imagined
Possible
Love and wholeness and reasons for living
A son is a supple and oh-so-delicate thing

You have a quiet thoughtfulness
A surprising ridiculousness
A delightful tender-heartedness
And when you slide yourself beneath my arm
When we sit on the couch together
I know that everything in my life that brought me here
Absolutely everything
Was worth it

Thank you
I love you
Happy birthday

I read somewhat more books in 2021 than in previous years. The pandemic was certainly a factor. Be that as it may, I read 156 books, watched 44 films, and watched an additional 41 documentaries. Here, then, is my list of the best of the best, the worst of the worst, and everything else in between.

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The rain sounds differently
On hemlock pine and spruce
The wind speaks with a distinct voice
In maple elm and cedar
The dryads can tell you with their eyes closed
Which is which

The river sings when she is full and rushing
Playfully joyously
Glad to be alive
The naiads dance just below the surface
On moonless nights
They hold their breath and
Leap

My American friend
Tells me he can identify
A Glock 22 a Smith & Wesson Model 340 a SIG Sauer a Ruger Blackhawk
Just by the way they sound when fired
He can blindfolded assemble an AR-15
In 40 seconds or less
Something he tells me
With obvious pride

I go home
Pray to all the gods I don’t believe in
Kiss my children
And count my dead

I hear the voice
Of anywhere but here
Calling me calling me
Calling me away
The mountains
The oceans
The forests
The swamps and river deltas
Anywhere but here
Calling me away

My people
We go
And we stay
Just long enough
To devastate
Everything
And then we once again
Hear the voice
Of anywhere but here
Calling us calling us
Calling us away

This city is an open grave
Filled to overflowing with the present absence
Of all my dead friends

This city is a slaughterhouse
And nobody is criminally
Responsible
Just fiscally
Fiscally responsible

This city is a ghostland
Hey there’s Timo
I think to myself
Hey there’s Cam
I say
Before I remember
They’re all dead

This city rewards the greedy
And destroys the kind
This city is in other words
A secure investment
Rejoice
You bankers
Take heart
You real estate developers
All your properties
Will appreciate in value
And all your enemies
Will be dead

[SPOILERS! Do not continue if you intend to watch this film. But if you do intend to watch it—beware! Content warning for discussions of violence and sexual violence.]

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Discussed in this post: 21 Books (Virtue Hoards; The Revenge of the Real; Undoing the Demos; Capital Rules; A World Without Police; How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Object-Choice; The Hero’s Way; Sync; On Time and Water; Cyclonopedia; The Society of Reluctant Dreamers; Belladonna; The Case Worker; The Death of Vivek Oji; A Touch of Jen; While the Earth Sleeps We Travel; Selected Poems of Langston Hughes; Romanian Poems; Austerity Measures; and Voodoo Hypothesis); 2 Movies (Pig; and The Green Knight); and 2 Documentaries (Framing Britney Spears; and McMillion$).

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I am still a month behind with this. Nevertheless. Discussed in this post: 15 books (How to Change Your Mind; The New Way of the World; Never-Ending Nightmare; Family Values; On Violence and On Violence Against Women; Culture Warlords; Lectures on Russian Literature; Extinction; An Untouched House; Pastoralia; The Encyclopedia of the Dead; Dancing in Odessa; Letters in a Bruised Cosmos; Becoming Unbecoming; and They Called Us Enemy); 2 movies (Fugue; and Nosferatu the Vampyre); and 3 documentaries (Heimat is a Space in Time; Perfect Bid; and All Light, Everywhere).

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Take me back to Erwin, Tennessee
1916
The good old days
Hard-working folks
The salt of the earth
Husbands and wives and a whole lotta Jesus
Jesus

Two thousand five hundred
Men, women, and children
At her hanging
Like a day at the circus

The day before
The White man
Her master
Hit her behind the ear
Used a metal hook
Smashed her infected tooth
Because she stopped
Reached for
Food
A Watermelon rind

And so she killed him

The local blacksmith
Shot her five times
But she lived long enough
To be lynched the next day

The chain snapped
On the first attempt
And she broke her hip when she
Fell
Little White boys and
Little White girls
Screaming and
Running and
Laughing

The second time
The chain held
And she died
Buried
Beside the tracks
In the Clinchfield Railroad Yard
September 13th
It was a Wednesday

Strange fruit