Ames Progressive

On December 5, the Black Student Union at the University of Iowa announced its boycott of a popular locale in Iowa City, Brothers Bar and Grill. The boycott comes in response to photos posted on the bar’s website showing three men wearing blackface at the bar during a Halloween costume party. One photo shows a [...]

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Bolshevik tart
You smudged your revolution across the face of that boy.
You sent him stumbling out of the bar
Like a child scattering his sweat out of the ruined village.
Years after, he’d feel phantom pain in the center of his chest
when it rained or snowed
or broke out a few splinters of sunshine.
He’d feel your words like shrapnel.
You [...]

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A group is an army or a dissembling cause
&
A leader is a demagogue or the first defector
&
A cause is a leader or an army
&
Its employment is armed or vocalized
&
The wasps are an army
&
Their leader is a lung alive with air
&
They don’t dissemble they assemble
&
Cohesion is the hand—always bite
the hand that feeds you if you’re hungry.

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1.
The mirror must forgive the face,
that the
razor may forgive the nose.
The wall must forgive the nail,
that the
mirror may forgive the face.
2.
The street must forgive the shoe
that the
shoe may forgive the foot.
The field must forgive the street
lest the
feet stampede the field
3.
The tooth must forgive the sweet
that the
mouth may forgive the tongue.
The mouth must forgive [...]

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There once was a word on a page
- a dead actor on a white stage -
that, touched by an eye
was enabled to fly
into meaning from out of its cage.

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Number of years Iowa has held its “first in the nation” caucus status: 31
Estimated dollar amount brought in to Iowa by the caucuses in 2004: 50-60 million
Estimates for this year: 100-120 million
(http://www.iowacaucus.org/iacaucus.html)
Percent of party nomination Bush received in Iowa in 2000: 41
Percent of party nomination Clinton received in Iowa in 1992: [...]

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