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	IN A STATION OF THE METRO The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Ezra Pound

Song Winter is icummen in, Lhude sing Goddamm, Raineth drop and staineth slop, and how the wind doth ramm, Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm, So 'gainst the winter's balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm, Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM. -Ezra Pound

		Miami and Weimar

			Political commentary by Scott Perry

The GOP strategy of surrounding vote-counting sites in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Fort Lauderdale Counties this week with angry crowds of Republican demonstrators, is a risky one. Flown into Miami from all over the country and bused into the area at party expense, the vociferous and aggressive Bush advocates have left an image on the national retina of civil disturbance and, for some, mob rule. The GOP has characterized their actions as “voicing outrage” and “venting frustration” at the unfair process unfolding in the limited recount of Florida’s presidential votes.

Their deployment seems particularly questionable at a time when the Bush organization is riding a crest of recent court victories, and the looming certification deadline set by the Florida Supreme Court has Gore supporters backed against a wall. What then, is to be gained by shouting, chanting, and banging on doors and walls outside where the votes are being counted? It is perhaps a measure of the Republicans’ grim determination to win this election at all costs. The costs, in the end, could be high.

Protesters have denied their "mission" is to intimidate the vote counters, though it is difficult to imagine not being intimidated by a throng of people-- mostly white males of fairly menacing size-- intent on “venting outrage” at you for doing your job. Apparently the Republicans see displays of anger and psychological terror as somehow more fair than letting the canvassing personnel do their work in peace.

They’re doubtless encouraged by Wednesday’s folding of the Miami-Dade recount and the acquiescence of counters in precincts where irate protests netted them Bush votes in the absentee tally. The message is clear: the more pressure you apply, the fewer votes will be counted for Gore. The intent is not to voice opinions but to influence, and if possible stop, the recount.

These are curious tactics for a Bush campaign that promised to unite us. GOP operatives compare them, however, to the Democratic rallies held in the disputed counties by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. There is a monumental difference. Jackson and his followers never yelled or chanted at election officials while they were doing their duty or tried to crash the door at the counting site-- one presumes, to loom over the process physically, or even to intervene. Bodily. Yet the GOP insists no intimidation is intended.

Strong-arm methods are inherently antidemocratic and are sure to further diminish the legitimacy of a Bush presidency should he win the vote. The Florida protesters so far have stopped just short of being a mob, and they are farther still from being street fighters of the kind that roamed Germany’s major cities in 1933 beating up opponents. In other respects, however, the analogy to the demise of the Weimar Republic is more exact.

Now, as then, party rhetoric is the force that drives the demonstrators. Party officials are organizing them and orchestrating their actions in the streets. Some of them have reported Secretary of State James Baker himself is running the show, but this has been denied. Just as Nazi party officials inflamed the passions of their followers with charges that communists were taking over the country and that the institutions of Weimar democracy were rotten, Republican officials, all the way up to Gov. Bush himself, are urging people to believe the Democrats are stealing the election, that the courts are usurping the powers of the state, and that officials performing the recount are enemies of the American way of life.

This vilification of the recount and its participants, a process considered reliable all across the country in the past, implies that only Republicans are fair-minded enough to oversee close elections, that in the absence or inadequacy of machine counts, no fair assessment of the results is possible, that human beings (or Democrats, at least) are inherently too dishonest and opportunistic to conduct a reliable vote count, whereas a blind, obsolete machine is impartial and fair, even when grossly inaccurate. This causes one to wonder how democracy ever came into existence without voting machines. Apparently individuals can be trusted to vote, but not to count votes. This poses a curious dilemma for democracy in general.

Most unfortunate of all, the defamation of the court-ordered recount gives the less thoughtful and perhaps unstable among us all the excuse they need to act; for passion rarely finds a suitable outlet in mere debate. In taking us down this road James Baker and George Bush are playing with fire. As we witnessed in Dallas in 1963 and at Kent State in 1970-- as we have seen over and over at abortion clinics around the country-- our rhetoric can have consequences that are regrettable and entirely unforeseen.

Letter to the editor

by Terrence W. Kirk, Appeals Attny.

Though it's not clear to me what the Supreme Court was thinking when they chose the Nov. 26 deadline--probably that all the counties would be inspired and somehow get it done, despite their need for more time-- it has certainly had an impact on Al Gore's chances. On the other hand, I think the court's decision not to force Miami-Dade to renew the count was legally sound: strange we don't hear the Republicans explaining how the "Court that destroyed the rule of law" could now rule in their favor. My guess is that after Gore loses Sunday, he will win the contest in court to force the recount, and Miami-Dade will have to start the counting again. Which brings me to the cruelest irony of all: after superb lawyering, and judicial courage I certainly never expected, Gore may lose the election precisely because the Democratic county officials are trying to be fair. They are not giving every disputed ballot to Gore, but making a fair effort to determine voter intent, an admittedly subjective determination, but not unconstitutionally so. The Bush suit before the United States Supreme Court is legally frivolous; if I filed something like that, I would be fined. However, the U. S. Supreme Court has decided, for whatever reasons of its own, to get into the fray.

The Republicans are, of course, on a Holy War footing here and are in danger of going over the edge with their goon squads, but no one is going to remember their strong-arm tactics, especially because the media allows absurd comparisons to Jesse Jackson in the interest of "objectivity." I personally fervently wish for a constitutional crisis, to bring all this to a head, and we will have one if Miami-Dade is forced to count, given the time to do it, and adopts the Broward County standard. The Republicans will never allow Gore to win Florida outright. Republican Secretary of State Katherine Harris will refuse to certify any Gore victory, and the Florida legislature will do whatever it can, up to and including defying the Florida Supreme Court. Make no mistake: we are up against brownshirts here and, on the whole, the Democrats lack the moral outrage to fight back. (Where were the Democratic protesters when Miami-Dade gave up? ).

In another irony, however, it may be the lawyers and a Republican Supreme Court who save the Democrats. If Gore doesn't give up, and if he ever pulls ahead, the case will end up in the Supreme Court, and I don't believe the Court will say that the Florida legislature can choose the electors in flagrant contravention of the vote-- if they can, why even have an election? Similarly, although it is less clear legally, I do not think they will say that a Republican Congress can ignore Democratic electors chosen in accordance with the decision of Florida's highest court. Ruling that way would portend their own end, establishing a precedent that the Legislature trumps the Judiciary. Even though the Justices are Republicans, they care more about their own power than they do about a Bush presidency.

If I'm wrong, however, so much the better. Perhaps the only thing that would galvanize the people would be a naked power grab that would demonstrate openly that voting doesn't matter. The difference between a pig and a hog is that the pig gets fat, but the hog gets slaughtered. Republican ruthlessness could do them in. On the other hand, the Democratic nightmare is that Gore will lose even after all the votes are counted, and Bush will say the rule of law has prevailed. No one will think about the butterfly ballot, or about the approximately 4,700 probably illegal absentee ballots where Republican operatives violated state law by filling in blank parts of the applications that had to be completed by the voters themselves. Since we do not allow political parties to walk into the voting booths on election day to help with the voting, I do not see how Republicans can legally insinuate themselves into the absentee voting process, either. This is an issue not given much press and one that I hope the Gore team raises in court. In any event, Democrats will abide by what the Florida Supreme Court says on this, unlike some conservatives like George Will, who've said they wouldn't if the decision went against the Republicans. But it seems unlikely the Florida Court will have the courage to throw out those absentee ballots legal or not. Finally, I believe a citizen can condemn a court as being cowardly or biased, but the citizen may not refuse to accept the court's decision, unless he admits he is engaging in non-violent civil disobedience. Speaking of which, I wonder how a Republican mob would react to police dogs and firehoses? That would be worth seeing.

Crisis of Closure

by Malcom Mordred

Oh no, not again! whine the hoarse talking heads,
Kept from their shopping, estranged from their beds.
They roll bloodshot eyes, sniff and sputter and swoon
And stand hand-in-hand and all sing the same tune:
We're bewildered, astonished, and heartily bored.
How can the plight of the press be ignored?
Our wits are all tangled, we want the last say.
This misleading self-repeating and going astray,
And rushing to be first to get it all wrong
Is fraying our nerves and souring our song.
We're weary of lawyers, voters, and legislators--
Gore is up to his ass in irate alligators.
It's gone on too long, our makeup is stale.
We pitch and we pitch and we can't make a sale.
They can give it to Bush or give it to Gore
Or let Clinton keep it, we don't care anymore.
Just send us some crisis, some shocking world -shaker,
To free us from Christopher, Boies, and Jim Baker!

What to Do When You Know You Don’t Have Enough
A prose poem on the perils of enumeration:
by Woff L. Wiseman

When math is your enemy, reasons must be found at all costs to avoid the fatal act of counting. Though Jesus and the Apostles flanked by saints and angels show up to do the enumeration, you must not count. If the total will mean your political death, you must keep from totalling. If the Founding Fathers, accompanied by Abraham Lincoln, rise from the dead and offer to count all the votes, tell them no thanks, adieu-- not counting is your only hope. If your All is not going to add up to the Most, not counting is the only reprieve from the intransigence of numbers. Get ahead in the count and then stop counting. Thereafter, though they summon all the demons of hell and more lawyers than there are swamp rats in Florida you must stand somehow between them and the ballot box and allow no inventory. After you've won, the ballots should be locked away for safe-keeping and, in the fullness of time, by legal wizardry or lucky accident, destroyed, severly damaged, or reduced in number in such a way as to make it impossible ever to ascertain how many there were. Otherwise they’ll get counted. And become witnesses.

I really did win. Now I’m off to unite the country. That’s what I’m good at.

Listening to the Radio
With the Window Down
On the Way Home From the Office

Reams and reams of dry words spilling
From orifices of diaphragms perforated
To agitate innocent molecules of air
With all that can be told or sold
Stated or judged or insinuated
Of a perfectly low, ordinary day.

Traffic reports, pest-control ditties,
Ecstatic jingles of money and titties,
Abject tales of political panderings
And certain vague meteorological misgivings
All add their dull vibrato to the roaring
Shriek of the expectorant city.

Get out! Get out! You've done enough goring,
Enough begging, enough looting,
Enough praying, enough whoring for one day.
Go home, be quiet, merge with the Other.
Repent your sins or give in again.
But turn the radio off for a while.
Turn the goddamn radio off.

And as the personal marquee
of a bumper sticker tersely urges,
With a logic truly American and Zen:
HONK IF YOU LOVE PEACE.

Copyright 2000, H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.

Depression
by Aaron Alden Williams

on my spirit's bed of grief,
sadness lays me down.
captured, contained
inside of pain,
i can't see the world around,
or rise up
from the sickening sleep
of my mind,
where all my thoughts lay down.
deep down in my cavernous soul,
I entomb sacred revery.
fragile arms of illusion
curl in and out, delicately.
somewhere rapture rushes along.
but in me are no streams.
my mind sulks, stagnates,
laced and lavished with dreams.
across myriad time,
my tiny, tender designs
connect in crystal dreams...

Copyright 2001 by Aaron Alden Williams. All rights reserved.

Miz Everest By Marcus Harvey

Miz Everest has been known to be a man’s greatest joy and his worst defeat

Those who have succeeded in winning her heart have never been closer to heaven

Those who have failed have never been closer to having their dreams crushed so badly

On this journey of love there is no set path, but the destination will have you at the top of the world

She is the epitome of intimidation and temptation

Many have tried, many have failed, few have succeeded, but all have memories that will last for a lifetime

After enduring the coldness, difficult choices of paths to take, and coming to the reality that it is truly harder than you thought, one must question himself

How bad do I want this?

Will I gain as much as I am losing?

I answered both of these questions

Winter Trees-- William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.

Robert Frost

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Ritualizing
(Fragment)

I take the 71c
from shadyside to oakland
I know I miss the garden
people are no garden
that girl did not wash her hair this morning
her face full of pink pimples
makes me sick
squirrel god does not take the bus
the guy over there poses
he is reading because he wants us to know
he is reading
and he is so busy that the only place left
for him to read is the bus
he probably reads while eating
and he definitely reads on the toilet
he is one huge volume
of his own reading experience
the book
teach yourself salsa in 12 hours

Dorothy Parker

Observation

If I don't drive around the park,
I'm pretty sure to make my mark.
If I'm in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I'll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

Let’s Get It Over
by Annie Young

If you really want to kill yourself, then go ahead and do it.
But, please, let’s get it over if you’re gonna put me through it.

I hoped and prayed you’d learn to cope; you’d get your shit together.
But months and years keep dragging on, it doesn’t matter whether

I’m supportive or I’m bitchy. You don’t seem to understand
That your scheming just enhances my devotion to that man.

I fear the end that I suspect you’ve chosen for yourself:
The slowest form of suicide, the ruin of your health.

It really doesn’t matter, in the end, which way you choose:
The shotgun or the chocolate cake, the cocaine or the booze.

When you’re nestled in your shiny box and I wear my black dress,
No matter what the method, I’ll be cleaning up your mess.

Untitled
by Courtney Brooke

Sometimes when i say certain words,
words that contain the sound of "s"
i make a whistling noise
it's another imperfecion
added on to my far from perfect list entitled 'things i wish i didnt have'
it's after the part about my flabby ass and thighs,
embedded between 'dirty rose colored glasses'
and 'eighteen year old dreams'

If you keep reading on,
you might glance over the part that goes something like 'talks in her sleep, bites her nails, and doesn't like to be seen while she eats'
did you catch the part on 'horrible at keeping secrets' right after 'has too many secrets of her own'? yeah, i bet you did.

Oh you are probably wondering where the part on him is?
well he isn't on there
he probably would be though
if he was a possesion that in my reach

And you are probably wondering,
just as i did
where his list is?
i've tried to make one up for him
but its not something i could do

his snoring wouldn't be on my list
his steady breathing puts me to sleep
and his knuckle cracking isn't on there
it's those hands that make me weak

the way he stutters when he's nervous
just shows me that he cares
although he is never stuttering at me
his above normal decibel of speaking to her
makes it easier for me to hear.

but if you ever do read my list in full
and you are so saddened by me you want to do me a favor and throw it out,
please don't,
because if by some chance he is within my grasp,
i want him to fall asleep to the whistle in my speech
to love every inch of obstruction on my darkened frames
and to make a reality of my eighteen year old dreams.

Copyright 2001 by Courtney Brooke. All rights reserved.