January 21, 2024

I’ll bite / the feeding hand until I’m fed / and buried.

We have reached the part of the US political cycle where presidential candidates start dropping out, but the books are still banned.

We have reached the part of the Discourse cycle where the receipts, that were there all along because ‘twas ever thus, get the splashy, highly-produced, long-form reporting treatment.

We are always in the part of the media cycle where the storied brand with the storied history is sold to private equity and stripped for parts and there is much journalistic moaning and gnashing of teeth but no one does the “HIRE THIS PERSON!” tweets any more because Twitter is gone and the jobs are gone.

Perhaps this will all mean something, someday. But what, and to whom?

The damage is done, the damage remains.

Attribution

The dirt so thick with our good
fortune. And who pays for it. And what am I

but fear, but wanting. I’ll bite
the feeding hand until I’m fed

and buried. In the shining day.
All deadly good

intentions. A catalogue of virtues.
This is how I’ll disappear.

— from Aubade by Camille Rankine