Ann: thank you for your sensitivity! (I'm firmly restraining my curiosity...)
Gregory: That's an amazing description from Dickens--truly capturing riot madness—that actually makes me want to read him again. Just curious, did you copy this long piece from your... Kindle.. or...?
FYI: I watched the Notting Hill riots back in 1976 start from scratch. I was at the street fair enjoying myself, when a few kids started throwing the odd coke can--and a ton of police showed up in riot gear, with shields, in massed formation. The whole thing got out of hand in minutes...
My stepmother has been e-mailing me on these latest riots, and I do just want to mention that it seems to be so complicated in England--the delicate balance between law-and-order and the kids without jobs, with benefits for youth clubs (and more) being cut, she tells me.
So… I found a Charles Simic poem with a longer view of things:
Sunday Papers
Charles Simic (2001)
The butchery of the innocent
Never stops. That’s about all
We can be ever sure of, love,
Even more sure than the roast
You are bringing out the oven.
It’s Sunday. The congregation
Files slowly out of the church
Across the street. A good many
Carry Bibles in their hands.
It’s the vague desire for truth
And the mighty fear of it
That makes them turn up
Despite the glorious spring weather.
In the hallway, the old mutt
Just now had the honesty
To growl at his own image in the mirror,
Before lumbering to the kitchen
Where the lamb roast sat
In your outstretched hands
Smelling of garlic and rosemary.
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