More than I want to know, more than I ought to know about the riot, the attempted overthrow of an election…  There is a surplus of video taken of the January 6th assault on the Capitol.  According to the New York Times:

It’s hard to think of another crime that the perpetrators documented so thoroughly and publicly.

The people who participated in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6 posted thousands of videos of it to Parler, a social network. Journalists and other witnesses have released dozens of their own videos, too.

This trove of video is available for perusal. But for what purpose?  Enough.  I feel revulsion at the acts perpetrated in the name of patriotism.  I do not need to experience vicariously through an iphone lens the atrocity incited by the soulless individual residing in the White House for the past four years.  Thanksgiving is in order.  His reign will end tomorrow with the inauguration of President elect Biden.

Therefore I turn to a poem, words as a source of equanimity, to renew my battered self, to reclaim the goodness of life in this world.  I offer the Title Poem from the collection composed by Rainer Maria Rilke.  The ten poem collection is entitled The Voices. 

TITLE POEM

It’s OK for the rich and the lucky to keep still,

no one wants to know about them anyway.

But those in need have to step forward,

have to say: I am blind,

or: I’m about to go blind,

or: nothing is going well with me,

or: I have a child who is sick,

or: right there I’m sort of glued together. . .

And probably that doesn’t do anything either.

They have to sing, if they didn’t sing, everyone
would walk past, as if they were fences or trees.

That’s where you can hear good singing.

People really are strange: they prefer
to hear castratos in boychoirs.

But God himself comes and stays a long time
when the world of half-people start to bore him.

Yesterday a friend commented that revolution was a controversy over ownership of the streets and the parks.  Indeed, ownership, who has final say, is the issue.  The mob on January 6th intended to seize the final say, to have the last word in the election of November 3rd.  As is always the case the fault line runs between those who have more than enough, and those  “sort of glued together.”  The poor, the dispossessed, the essential workers, ethnic-warehouse-personnel, delivery drivers, the unemployed must raise their voices to sing.  Otherwise, “everyone would walk past, as if they were fences or trees.”  Not that such voices are sought after by those affording tickets to the preferred “castratos in boychoirs.”

It’s more useful to massage them into a mob, using Fox News, Newsmax TV and One America News Network live, —  directed by the Presidents command to overthrow an election.

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And as for the lifeline tune to get us through the day?  This!

Behind Blue Eyes
by The Who

No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free
No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you
No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through
But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free
When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool
And if I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
And if I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat
No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

lyrics written by Pete Townshend

The original man ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ was a bouncer that The Who met while staying in Brighton during a tour. This long haired man with the bluest of eyes had a dark military history, and his eyes showed deep pain from the losses and hardships he’d battled.– wikipedia