Saturday, November 6, 2010

History Lesson


DETOQ


I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
Alexis de Tocqueville 1831

Cars videotape the gun scene
with just the lens as witness,

the scrawl of the unseen
scrolling tic tic tic

through the machine.
Revenant is relevant:

a return from the dead,
a return from Hello?

electro-cardiogrammed.
There's no squirrel

in this. Freedom is not
atoms in envy. You feel

and report back and the atoms
pile up into pencils.

Even breath, the bread
in breadth chewed down,

our radiant future,
De Toq foresaw.

Terese Svoboda
from Weapons Grade

Dual portrait of De Tocqueville (book and author) by Maira Kalman.