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Monday, December 31, 2007

Fast Day 30 December 28, 2007 {Iceman Hickey}

Iceman Hickey

There is a cadence and a beat
The foot goes up, the foot goes down.
The foot up, the foot down
Leg up, leg down:
Racing to a chevron!
Racing to a curb!
Anxiety to proceed is
balling up your feet!
Linear procession:
Motion, motion, like a dada
Like a master of unknown legs
Cracker jack of winter!!
Goosesteps in my heart!
Drummers on the street!

I pause and look and see the street.
My heart beats fast, my heart beats slow.
amphetamine recessional depleting...
The pulse abates, the tide is down...down...
Sudden: red light! green light!
Shimmering in motion!
Running for your life!
Spider master bojangles
stepping to a cakewalk war!
Eight-legged beltway drummer!
Like Hickey and the ice man
running to Harry Hope’s bar
leaving life’s cadaver behind,
like a painted whore.
Drink up boys and girls
from the mason jars...
crystal jars of wretchedness!
I know your pain...and more!


Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Fast Day 29 December 21, 2007 {Creation Tale}

Creation Tale


Notes on the poem:
1)Yggdrasil is the great tree from Norse Mythology, Mazdah is light and fire from the Persian.
2)"Kukeon" is a drink or food of ancient Greece which Demeter is mentioned to have drunk while in exile here or there. Heracleitus asserts that the Universe is layered just as is the kukeon which segregates when not stirred.It has been likened to a fondue. Fondue has been attested to have come from Vaudois, Switzerland in testimony from 70 or 80 years ago, before the dish's fame spread.



Demeter, great Mother in Olympus’ kitchen:
the great and continuous stirrer at the stove,
whose wood is Yggdrasil
whose fire is Mazdah.
Great dame of the world falls asleep and ceases the endless
Whirlpool of her wooden spoon which comes to rest
like Noah’s ark forgotten
upon a snowy mount.
The Kukeon on the stove begins slowly to separate,
Slowly at first, then more rapidly it layers;
kukeon like Vaudois fondue,
a dish from heaven:
Dionysos good red wine and Demeter’s own barley,
mixed with divinely grated cheese , white cheese,
made from the milk of a lionness;
a cheese whole and unbroken and
eternal as the albined Moon.

As she slept the fondue spread wide;
From Demeter’s pot spilled out the Earth
the mountains and the sea;
and the inhabitants thereof.
Out spilled the four rivers of Eden and
Its garden filled with cautionary blooms:
the poppies first,
whose blood gives dreams.
Then the lilacs and lavender and roses
Lastly fell the marigolds and lowly vetch
which actually tricked
our mother Eve to sin.
From the bottom of Demeter’s kettle came
Weighty the sandals of beauty, sandals of freedom,
great running sandals far ,
filled with thee outstanding!

(Homer wished for 2 voices to sing
of thee!)





Kore, or Persephone - the daughter of Demeter, sitting as Queen with Hades, king of the underworld.
Note that the symbols are associated with life and growth. Also note how much the chair upon which they sit resembles Egyptian chairs. This one reminds me of Tutankhamun's chair.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Fast Day 28 December 14, 2007 {Susan's Christmas Tree}


Susan's Christmas Tree

Susan's Tree, enwrapped in needles' mystery;
starry visions shining in the skies;
gifting-time, either honey or the bee;
hope-weaver of our lives!

Druid sylvan, motionless in prayer;
with what eyes solstice now observing;
on mountain tops, once and forever
which ancient feasts partaking?

Susan's Christmas Home, filled to overflow
with good food, wine, and sweets embroidered;
weaver of delight our gifts bestow!
All our fears occluded!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Note on December 7, 2007

At this time, I suppose one might say something about the progress to peace.

The plans for Iraq envisage a long term presence there.
This will be a source of constant friction.

It seems almost as if we must absolutely crave the continued debasement and destruction of various peoples, such as that for which the Palestinian situation since 1948 provides a template and paradigm.

Fast Day 27 December 7, 2007 {The Wedding}

The Wedding

She came to me with bed clothes
and bed coverings that were new.
our bodies were new and so our love.
our dowry was new things and old,
some good, some maybe not.

Bed coverings that are new
speak of the newly wed;
speak of the newly born;
speak of those gone away;
and speak of those who are free
from this slavery.

The coverings are like eye lids
anointed in egypt's desert.
the coverings are your lips.
take your dowered things along; take
the golden earrings.

Reflections in a gilded mirror,
burnished and cuprous multiply our number;
we are two, then three, then more.
we dance holding the mirrors of
marital increase.

She comes to me all new;
new as the bed coverings,
sewn with pictures of star and moon;
sun and birds, arrows and beast.
Her breast is a new pillow with colored beads!

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Fast Day 26 November 30, 2007 {A Winter Storm At The Cenotaph}

A Winter Storm At The Cenotaph

I stand waiting within the antechamber
of the Spirits, buffeted by the echoes
of the living.
I touch the marble classic columns
with my tears; the cold stone sucks
my water in.
We fear the storm of those voices,
an unsought handsel clamorous to reward
our departure.
Rain does not wet us, nor does
the ice nor snow of atheistic fury make
us shiver.
We are beyond all that; we only fear
the echoes because we lived our lives
in fear
and like a dirty sin, this habit we trail
along behind us like Marley's chests
of empty gold.
When I thought I could stand no more
and sought the oblivion of the marble's
now succulent veins -
an eternity of seeking past- yet my Love
was sudden upon the horizon where used to be
the Moon,
and I broke free from my renown prison
and my voice burst mantic from my breast and I
was reborn!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Fast Day 25 November 22. 2007 {If This Be Life}

If this be life, oh, twist the DNA from its helix,
burst the flaccid walls of lipid cells,
set it free to wander to some other planet
where are men and women; love and worship
fight and die; young and beautiful.

If this be my cross, oh, vomit it like treacle
from an over-heated Sunday's room!
Let us go to the heart of darkness
and dispell the gloom by joyous pilgrimage
to the temple of our Love.

If this be our reward, oh, spurn me from heaven
like great Milton's ethereal antagonist!
Let me warm my body at the middens
of the heart where we lay in bed,
thrust under a quilt enthusiastic!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Fast Day 24 November 15, 2007 {Dante Anansazi}


Dante Anansazi
note: Danta Anansazi is my pet winter spider


Dante Anansazi pries open multiple eyes
and takes 8 cups of joe;
I see him and jump, spilling mine,
so he laughs.
He lights up a cigarette
and exhales.
You ever see a spider smoke
a cigarette before?
Neither I, but there he is,
bad sign I think,
this Dante Anansazi, winter spider,
mostly white
mostly drained of blood and waiting
for the spring.
Halfway down to the filter he stops,
and sez
Is it rainin' out?
No, sez I
Been stuck here, fool, since you don' let me out...
he stretched 8 arms.
I want to see the whirled series I heard so much about.
how about it, sport?
how about the whirled series?
I am
speechless, sure.
If I am a good boy, ok?
If I don't destroy the whirled, you let me go
see the series?
OK, I said. You don't destroy the world,
you good boy,
then you and I shall go.
But me, I shall not go into a subway wit'
that Dante Anansazi,
No. We walk or take bus. Not below the ground
wit' Dante Anansazi.
Two go down an' one come back!
Two go down an' one come back;
I ain't wishin' to be no Virgil soon,
wit' dat Anansazi"s Dante!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Fast Day 23 November 8, 2007 {My Southern Rose}

A day early.
My Southern Rose


The willows stand as stiff daguerrotypes:
Generals of the War
between the States; their beards so full
and majestic in their stance.
They maintain their verdant burden and
bow low in gallant boughs!

chorus
My rose of Maryland! Bloom forever!
The South’s own herbal honey!
The Balm of Appalachia;
sweet liquor of Antietam!



The wild flowers strewn up to the sky;
Soldiers of the war;
eyes bright with youth and filled with hope:
adolescent gods to be;
Within their temples they stand in silent witness,
like reeds in ponds unnumbered.

chorus
My rose of Maryland! Bloom forever!
The South’s own herbal honey!
The Balm of Appalachia;
sweet liquor of Potomac!



We’re coming east from Morgantown,
from the Cumberland.
We stop to eat at Hancock where you can stand
and throw a stone apiece
into Pennsylvania’s green fields
and into West Virginia’s land.

chorus
My rose of Maryland! Bloom forever!
The South’s own herbal honey!
The Balm of Appalachia;
sweet liquor of Patapsco!

Monday, November 5, 2007

Fast Day 22 November 3, 2007 {I Dream Port Au Prince}

I Dream Port Au Prince

A chopping block of slaves beneath malign verdure;
I wish the god would give me a break,
a minute or two lifetimes.
The Bawoun Samedi, he says that he has given me 100 years…
and he gets little for his invest! Ha!

Miss Danto spoke to me once about pauvrete
but I saw only the dais and the pulpit;
stadia and agorai where slaves were sold.
There stood priest and general and the president
grinning like Duke Death and his dog.

A panorama of capital and benefit unrolled
before our eyes; limitless weal.
a sleight of hand…
and we fall back into the abyssal einstein lens
of our patrimony: you see me…you don’t!

How many the private mansions of our souls were lost!
our tongues inhabit tenements.
The West cannot encompass me with palisades of science;
dry tinder box technology, buried under monoliths
of the Reasons on Salisbury Plain.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Fast Day 21 October 27, 2007 {For Peace}

For peace



My love is not low-cost;
and love is not efficient.
My children burst into my time
and cause me grief and anger.

My friendship's not insured;
it has not been assayed.
The exoskeleton of love
is filled with just our touch.

My baby is not digital;
my devotion has no logic.
My children are uneconomic
unthrifty, unfrugal and squandrous.

My fear's not fully invested;
my prayer is not for sale.
My grandfathers' honor is wasteful
of the food and drink we offer!

My love is unscheduled;
my lover takes too much band width.
My children are the pilgrimage of everything
I am and everything I'll ever be!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Fast Day 20 October 19, 2007 {Magician's Calendar}

Fasting and 1 poem for peace in the Middle East.


Magicians' Calendar


the sunshine strained through dimity
steals through the panes of fall;
a world made close and still’d of voice
beat on the windows’ pall.

the feller strokes of chopping wood,
that clocks within a face;
the hired man, the open road
and the impotence of lace!

try and find that which was toss’d
along horizon’s fence;
discover unknown graveyards
among our scattered sense.

the power of your nakedness
arboreal erotic play!
the forest gasps at your withdraw
the sweet, o sweet, manticore!


note:
manticore as used here has 4 syllables, ending in a long e and rhyming with "play".
Etymologically we use it as if it were derived from Greek "mantis, manteos" -one who divines, a prophet, a seer - and "kore", a young maiden.
Following the examples of "mantikos", the adjective, and "mantipolos" a combined noun, we create "manticore" = a young woman prophetess or seeress.

One may think that the meaning of "manticore" as a man-eating monster is rather far afield from this interpretation. However, we prefer to think of that particular meaning being given by fearful males spying upon Mysteries not meant for their eyes, whereat they were rendered impotent as if by Medusa or Artemis.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Fast Day 19 October 12, 2007 {Bygone}

Bygone

In times gone by, some girl gave me a flower;
My lover gave me a magnolia, many-branch and fragrance.

A teacher handed me a lamp;
My lover gave me the various moon.

I was given wine by many;
My lover gave the vineyard and hope of Dionysos.

A friend once gave me a boat;
My lover gave the journey along the river.

I have prayed with many;
My lover is orant in an ancient cave.

I was given a kiss;
My lover gave me labyrinthine delight.

Friday, October 5, 2007

Fast Day 18 October 5, 2007 {On Viewing A Child's Grave}

Once a week, usually Friday, I fast and write a poem, apparently under the impression that this will help to end the war in Iraq.

Actually, it will, but for the most part, the people that read this are very rational and they will take a bit of time to understand the dynamic.

On Viewing A Child's Grave:
Coming upon a cemetery while walking through the woods to a vacation picnic.


Give him a hat,
a marble lamb;
no name thereon engrave.
Give him a robe,
a swath of lawn,
alive, we never gave.
Give him boots:
of stoney base!-
he'll no more run and play.
Give him a rose
within his cheeks
to bright this holiday.
Give him heart
and give him vein!-
O, undiscovered bourne!
May he wake
within Your love,
O God of Life eterne!



note:
In old cemeteries, there are tombstones which are small lambs with no name or inscription. I assume these are for babes not yet named. Perhaps for some other incident.
This was the start of this work, this poesis - in the Greek meaning "a work, a doing".

A Poem is a soul's doing. Not all souls. Some do other things. Those that swim in the web of language often do poetry.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Fast Day 17 September 28, 2007 {Viewing Xiang Lake...}

Viewing Xiang Lake from the Pavilion of the Four Great Ministers


Yang Shi and Zhao Shanqi;
Gu Zhong and Guo Yuanming;
they created the lake
for benefit of farmers and
the people of the districts and townships.

The Sun and Wu usurped the lake
and built structures large
and illegal for themselves
and brought ill times and ruin to
the people of the districts and townships.

Weeds choke the water and lily pads are unseen.
The smoke from the kilns fills the air;
its odor is everywhere, night and day.
The Earth is changing;
The Times are out of joint:
In 1551 the plum trees of Xiaoshan
had oranges hanging from their boughs.
"If trees produce what is inappropriate,
farmers and citizens will be robbed."

The Ice no longer forms in the North;
great fires sweep across the plain in summer;
the sea is starving and whales have disappeared;
the Earth cries out to its Mothers, the light and the dark:
who knows what will happen?
War and its rumors are everywhere;
no one easily lays a head to one's pillow now.
The ministers no longer serve the people and
all government is up for sale.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Fast Day 16 September 21, 2007 {Maha In The Reeds}

notes for the poem:
1) shiqq : a half, a double, an exact image, a doppelganger. related to shaqeeqa=a full sister on the father's or mother's side. The verb shaqqa means to cut in half, bisect, leaving us with two equal and exact parts.
2) "She said the only time I was a good Muslim/ was when I surrendered my head to a pillow." a pun here: muslim ra'isee 'ala wasaada = laying (present participle) my head upon a pillow.
I am a bit late in posting.
I forget how this all came about. I remember writing it. The impetus lay in a night time forest.

based on the first poem here: http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2007/06/news-from-war.html


Maha in the Reeds

We went looking for Maha
where the reeds grow.
Layla, her mother, was sick
all the time and uncle Yusuf
had disappeared, unseen since
Maha went away from us.
So Ahmad and I went looking
for our little cousin by the water,
by the reeds.
We got up before dawn
and took food and rope
and herpecide for any snakes
sleek and soft and so quick.
We cat crept into the street
that runs through town,
darkness on our left and
the river on our right and
no light anywhere but dead mens eyes
shining in the distance;
the eyes are bugs…
and the light is too cold to bear.
We walked along the Kourniche
running by the wall by the river,
heading to the sea of reeds
where Ahmad said he had seen
Maha and she had seen him,
bared her teeth and growled.
I told him it could not be her,
but…she was nowhere else…
we’d already gone through the dumps
and pools of garbage and,
praise Allah, we had not seen her
nor any emblem of her brief life.

We went through an ancient door.
The hint of dawn filled the reeds
with what seemed like spirits,
but they were only insect ghosts,
a weevil, a roach, pelting us
like powder and seeds
hurrying in the dust,
fleeing the onslaught of the sun,
hurry up, signs of dawn,
moving as ghosts do.
Ahmad and I did not believe
much in ghosts; but we did not smile.

The Lady of the Reeds
was still dark as pitch,
as dark as the bitumen
between the planks of Noah’s boat.
She saw with eyes as bright as saucers
and as large and round as lanterns.
She wondered at the boys,
a wonder like amphetamine,
and moved in her secret ways
until she pounced like a wild beast
and descended from the far space
through a sallow and pallid light
directly towards the boys,
coming down with all womanhood,
falling like a mighty chevron
multiple, like a hard neon arrow;
her hair streaming snakes
and meteoric screams.
Too late for poisons, she thought
too late…until she enwrapped
them within the deep and sounding
sheath of her presence.

I remember you, she said to me.
I was her faithful devotee, and
of her sister-like, of her shiqq, the Inanna.
Now my amazement took flame
and flared as fear, and I said:
No, oh, Uzza! I am a good Muslim!
She laughed at me and bared her fangs
in a motion as graceful and slow
as a deadly snake in its way
across the quiet courtyard of a house
on its way to a catastrophe
of languor and venom ejaculate.
She said the only time I was a good Muslim
was when I surrendered my head to a soft pillow!
She threw her hair back and it was
veils of gold in the rising sun and
she winnowed it with her fingers
and she had the most beautiful face
or smell we had ever seen.
At her invitation, we told her of Maha.
She seemed to think…
She seemed to remember…
She flew with us to her other sister,
Ereshkigal, the queen of those awaiting
that Day, Yaum al Qiyahma.
She left her clothes, a piece at a time
at the nine fold gates of the palace
of her mighty sister whom we saw
as we lay as if within a dream.
Her sister laughed and denied passport
to any of her charges.
The Lady, not demure, spat poison
as her sib. It seemed that this
had all been done before
with tragic outcome, either here
within the gates or on the way
returning to the world of light:
Orpheus condemned to ever seek
his Eurydike, condemned ever to glance
a forbidden glance, driven by love and loss.
Ereshkigal grew silent and said the one
we sought was not there…
she saw her nowhere, either
under the sun nor beneath
the clay-like ground, and she
had never felt ignorance before.
The Lady of the Reeds flew back
through all nine gates and took
her garments from the porters
who stood with empty skulls
and empty orbs of amazement…
as they always did…forever.

She was in the reeds again
and we were with her.
She said our cousin was somewhere
but unknown, her fate was unparalled
in heaven and on the earth:
her sister had never been at a loss
to know the whereabouts a soul,
quick or dead, was hidden.
Something was changing.
The evil of man was evolving.
She invited me back to her worship
and I denied having known her
when I tossed at nights in summer.
She laughed and was gone
and Ahmad and I walked back
along the river, stumbling against
the parallel wall, the white-washed
wall along old Kourniche Street;
exiting back through the ancient door,
into the ancient ways,
into the ancient town,
where evil was comprehensible
and could be contained within
the ambit of a man’s hand.
Where to Maha would not return.
It was our old town no longer.
All had changed, just as She had said.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Fast Day 15 September 14, 2007 {Penelope Dreams Of Odysseus}

There's no end in sight for this fasting.
Worse yet, now the entire World of Islam has started fasting for four weeks.


Penelope Dreams of Odysseus

Penelope knew that trick thing he did on the beach...
lying there naked and quite exhausted,
feigning sleep or comatose
condition vegetative,
yet hardly so...
a "mast" of his wreck'd craft,
sunken, invisible,
yet lofted a soggy pennon, remnant
of a shirt.
They laughed.
That's when she fell in love with him.

Now he's been gone 10 years and she's gotten used
to his image naked of touch and smell,
stripped of memory
almost; deep roots
she cannot reach.
He's either dead this long time...
(wait)...or does that Beach Blanket Trick thing
for some trampy
Nauticaali whore on a
Cancun golden beach.
She listened to the birds' morning news!

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Fast Day 14 September 7, 2007 {Morning Fishermen}

 Morning Fishermen

morning fishermen wear hats
and warmer gear
as we rush to autumn.
poplars hoist their yellow flags;
saffron banners
and emerald’s memory.
there are a million mirrors
upon the river’s face
filled with summer’s audit.

changing times and promises
and newer things
and a great foreboding.
I’ve been away for 2 days
to make a buck
and she works this afternoon.
I am struck by how the place
is filled by her,
absent, though with promise.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Fast Day 13 August 31, 2007 {Dreamcatcher}

Dreamcatcher

dreamcatcher, dreamcatcher,
revolve in the wind
dissolve in the sun
keep what evil comes in what I see;
dreamcatcher.

medicine wheel, medicine wheel,
band of ancient north
sand of colored grains
see the universe inside a black hat;
medicine wheel.

goldfinch August, goldfinch August
the young ducks fly
the year gone by
a young woman works with beads;
goldfinch August.

Ke sakihitin, ke sakihitin,
woman works with beads
caring for my needs
kesowayaw, warmth in autumn;
I love you, River Girl, Sepe Iskwao

Monday, August 20, 2007

Fast Day 12 August 25, 2007 {Going Extinct}

It's a hard rain and a bloody heck lot of poems gonna fall!



One thing about fasting, it makes one grouchy. With me, nobody catches on to the difference.





Going Extinct

It means not having to get up in the morning and go to work;
you may wear a sweat suit all day
(and not even sweat)
and people treat you a lot nicer than
they ever did when you were quick
and in their face
and competing for limited resources

People offer you a seat on the subway or on the bus.
Everyone says “Yes, sir.” and “No, thank you, Ma’am.”
and “Fine day, sir.”
and they don’t give you dirty looks when
you mistakenly think them manure
or even worse
a carnivore’s meal, yum!

People sit around in bars and say what a great guy you were.
while you willow-whisp like Patrick Swayze,
looking for your Whoopi
and she not there…
and you go and cry in yer beer
so amber colored
and see your phone number in the john later!

Nobody returns your phone calls anymore. No one cares.
Ever the passenger pigeons of your desire
go unanswered.
The Yangtze dolphin and the Dodo sit and drool
ignored in the corridor all day
and you gaze forever
at Hasim’s Curry Palace across Lawrence Street.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Fast Day 11 August 17, 2007 {My Cell Number Is...}




The day after the Feast Day of San Rocco, or Saint Roche as he is known in France.
It is, I believe, also the day after the Feast Day of the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joachim.
On looking at Catholic sites on-line, I do not see St. Joachim listed. Perhaps they have demoted him.
Or, perhaps they have found a scandal. Scandalum magnum! I can just see St. Elizabeth throwing a amphora at his bald pate!

St. Joachim, ora pro nobis, stultis et loquacibus.

Anyway, here's the drill:
(1) no eats
(2) 1 poem
until the infamy called the Unpleasantness in Mesopotamia is ended.

I estimate that to be 200 poems and minus 500,000 calories away...at a minimum.


My Cell Number Is...

If I had a cell phone, I would try to learn
to talk on it and walk across a busy street;
I would jump into my antique car
and turn it on and dial a recording
-if I had no friends-
and talkkk at allll the rrright spots
while driving over the potssssholes
that are in my mondo condo.

If I had a cell phone, I would hold it close
and have eargasm with it
and flip that codpiece up that
covers the lcd screen where I text
and push it in my head
and close my eyes in bliss like the
monorail riders in Fahrenheit 451
who ride in hot, hot solitud-i-nie!!

Sometimes I think that God
is out to get me, for when I leave
my driveway, a big, black SUV looms up
and there's a lady driving, talking
on a cell phone, and
she don't see me!
If my cell phone were to ring,
it'd be her, death angel!

People walk with Borg implants
or so I thought,
in their heads...and then they speak
so I answer "Oh, I'm fine. How're ya'll?"
But they ignore me and I puzzle...
but they're on their phones.
And what I thought cyborg
was a cochlear hands-free.

So since I could not stop long enough
fer Tech, it kindly stopped fer me.
It ran me over with its love
and the black lady's SUV.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Fast Day 10 August 11, 2007 {The Geometry of Desire}




Until there is peace in Iraq...
I think I shall be writing rather a long time.

Please keep in mind that I do not have a surplus of poetry in a vault somewhere, so I have to do these poems on the fly each week. Hence their rather unfinished and junior high school character.



The Geometry of Desire

if I took weeds
and planted them in rows
interspersed by borders
of a lowly shrub
and placed large ribbons
of a prairie grass to blow
in secants of gold
you would say
oh, what a beautiful garden!

if I took men
and women homeless
and gave them food
and shelt’ring walls
three meals a day
and a key to
a mahogany library
you would say
oh, what wisdom there is!

if I took the drawings
of children from war zones
and littered them with
the mothers’ tears
and matted them in frames
of the understanding,
and hung them in
a gallery of knowing silence,
you would say
god, what have we done!

Saturday, August 4, 2007

Fast Day 9 August 4, 2007 {Homeless in the Market of War}

Fast one day a week until this War - an outrage to God and mankind- ends justly.


Homeless in the Market of War

This is an age when no man goes about in finery.// This is the age of our debasement.
When our hearts are noble, even the rags of the poor//shine like silken finery upon our backs.
Five years ago the powerful usurped their own //worst dreams and became ignoble beasts of prey.
Richard Cheney, William Krostol, Richard Perle and // Douglas Feithe, Michael Ignatieff and Strauss
sneered at us in our drab clothes and straggling band//saying how will you endure? there are so few of you!
And we answered, Lo, indeed you are fools! // for the number of noble men is truly small!
Not like your band of discord and war, motley garbed// in opinions outrageous and ravening.
The noble have a fortress mighty whose //strength gives increase to our small band of heroes.
It is a disgrace to lie. They ignobly spread lies like seeds.// Would we not rather die than live their fabrications?
We mill about in the midst of the market, looking//at the wares. To which seller of souls shall we entrust our lives?

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Fast Day 8 July 27 2007 {Poem for Fast Day 8}

The War continues.

Saw the movie "Gandhi" again.
God must have an odd sense of humor. He says "Every time I send a good person to you humans, you kill 'em! What's with you people? I mean, I even sent my own son...and you CRUCIFIED him!"
God shakes His head in disbelief.








Poem for Fast Day 8
When the City came to destroy the vegetation along Adams Road.

every growing stick has a face
wild flowers grow…like wild, you know.
diverse populations…
they piss some people off. I forest walk...
the legs of my pants smell like mallow
and stem juice white.

men come to spread death’s carpet.
wet lands with cats tails eight feet tall…
looking down on our heads…
they beat them down. broken.
my shoes are muddy and smell like herbicide;
I hear raccoon breath at 3 a.m.

If I care, I feel so sad; so why care?
why should I care…or connect.
a gas powered weed whacker comes,
mighty roar of fossil fuel. We run.
my shirt fruity with sweat
and hot memories of Adonis.

who cries for Adonis? am I his keeper?
there are weed control laws.
you are a weed, too, if you piss us
off! Free...you forget your clothes…
you walk nakedly trees…
the forest remembers you!

Friday, July 20, 2007

Fast Day 7 July 20, 2007 {Ferlinghetti's Big Bang}

Ferlinghetti's Big Bang

I didn’t get much sleep last night,
thinking about dark matter.

I mean, what if it isn’t there after all?
suppose we have to back to square one
and start all over?
sometimes I think that my cosmology
should square one back to Apollo
and his sister Artemis;
to Zeus and Hera enthroned
upon heighty Olympus;
where I would wear a long locked wig…
and rest upon my weighty book;
a sybilline caricature of rest,
captured in a toga net…
Sybil of mantic prose...
Sybil of the Day...

Peregrinus expectavi
pedes meos in cymbalis

weary from my writing,
hung-over with heavy eyes…
wine stains splashed upon my prophecy!
Ahhh…what’s the use?
let me see…where is that scrap?
that thing foreseen?
If I could only remember…or find the
damned cocktail napkin of the gods
where I chained my promethean thought
in a wicket of adamantine inks!!
I’ll get a ticket to Cumaea
and go by Greyhound bus
to the dark matter casino
and act like Apuleius’ ass
bewitched by powers I cant resist!

Friday, July 13, 2007

Fast Day 6 July 13, 2007 {Holy Poverty}

Yesterday there was an interim report.

We shall squee-e-e-eze something out of those Iraqis which will make us feel justified.

The Australians have admitted that their participation is for Oil.

Yawn...and die.

Six foot iambics...like a Greek Tragedy, only not nearly as interesting.



Holy Poverty

The bull who weeps the stars, says Antoine Oleyant,
he has a rope of Kongo beads and chromo-lights.

The triple horned bull resembles Guernica;
the three-fold horns a triptych halo of Bon Jesús.
So we go where the young men are, and desmoiselles:
the House of Elegance, a great White Way of life!
We only rent this dump; we have no medical:
Our lives - installment payments, interest adds up.
Our assets we cannot allocate; we have none.
We are the poor and bear the vision of grandes personnes
who look upon us down from haughty skyscrapers
from black eye slits of windows, blind to all below.
We see the good we cannot buy with credit cards;
we see the loves we cannot touch, nor ever hold.
So we go voguing: college students, Wall Street types-
the kings and queens of dreams – and “Metropolitan”.
A subway series madness; a subway flight from pain!
No ticket, nor a respite, pity, nor reprieve.
O Simbi of the horn, O Simbi of the sea;
and like a bull of many horns he spins
the night away, a pinwheel parlous turning.

The bull who wears the starry sky is named Bosou,
he has a rope of Kongo beads and chromo-lights.

Friday, July 6, 2007

Fast Day 5 July 6, 2007 {Father Ghraib and Mother Gitmo}

I am looking forward to another fast day.
I cannot wait until the first chance to turn up my nose at a platter filled with french fries...or some other equally nauseating carbo deep fried in grease.

We had a large thunderstorm with hail as big as...not grapefruit, blueberries.
The acequias of my garden ( water channels) are undoubtedly breached and will require labor in the hot sun.
I shall take shovel in hand and repair, carry water if needed, and the only canal left empty will be the alimentary.

I read a poem about Guantanamo yesterday. I did not take a fancy to it, so I wrote my own:


Father Ghraib and Mother Gitmo


Behind the garage there is a garden,
in the wastelands. The builders
stole the soil; they sold it
to pay the landscapers crew!

Water channels dug into sand and stone,
through broken concrete and asphalt,
recycled crap from everywhere.
Experiment to see what will grow…

builders just throw trees into holes,
toss flowers into trenches…
no mindfulness, no husbandry
no botany, no lasting beauty…

trees…symbols on an architect’s sketch:
seen from above
pointillistic circles with bent branches
twisting around a circle
like swastikas deformed.

But something grows in this waste land!
A tree surrogate with leaves like elephant ears
of a wide florescent green on a stem
thinly veined in burgundy kermes;

a desert spike with compounded eyes
of saffron lids bepetalled;
walking sticks with purple crowns,
mille foil clouds, creeping parasols,
great pendant hearts, explosions of the briar,

Hemlocks where we hang our hearts;
covert agents of desire,
spies of reproduction,
texting with chromo-semaphores.

The fairies pippin, Mab’s nonpareil,
spanish pearmain, grizzly muscadine,
early Margaret and scarlet crofton;
all fruits of rich imagination!

In the midst of this, on the verge
of a small isle in the streams,
stands a vulgar hyssop unseen
among the vibrant pageantry.

United around its upper course
juvenile aphids clutch and huddle
in prison suits of blood-orange:
silently there and nowhere else…
and wait for the time of their fulfillment.

A denumerable crowd sits as if
in dreaming prayer, bidden to the masjid
of stinging nettle and menthol,
alone and stripped of their imam
whose sermon they cannot ken.

I watch in fatal fascination
this epithalamion symbiotic,

not knowing if we rise
as ladybirds to dry our wings…
or swarm to our demise.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

June 29, 2007 4th Fast {What Would the Anti-Christ Do?}

The fourth fast is over as we swing into the holiday week.

What's "on tap" for the fourth, as they say on the news shows around this neck of the woods.

I like the way they use slang from the bar room, the casinos, and the public urinals in this general area to make their communications clearer.


My creation this week is a mosh-mish, but it is the best I could think of.

I call it "What Would the Anti-Christ Do?" ... or "W W A-C D?"
Note: "Dajjal" is the Islamic name for the anti-christ, meaning "deceiver".


W W A-C D?
dajjal sits in falluja town
drinking the wine-red blood,
feeling down and desperate,
betrayed, misunderstood.

He’d won the Uruk lottery,
a date with the queen of death.
dolled up like a wedding bride
within a veil of Meth.

She bared her ugly fangs…
he would not fall for that.
he ran to dusty red Samarra
where she then left him flat.

And now he yearns for lovely death,
no voice to fill his ear,
no taut skinned bulemic body
to orgone this time of year.

Oh, allegory of appliance!
bacteria of the mind!
an iPhone for your thoughts, my dear!
and what we’ve left behind!

Friday, June 22, 2007

The 3rd Week {Creation}

I have a shaddouf...
a one camel shaddouf.
It's not much to look at,
but it's all mine.
And it brings water like 60
to the terraced field
where I "crash"...
my manzil...
my landing place
place of quiet
place of rest
place of sakeena.

There is a snake there
and there isn't.
sleek as a sheath and
sharp as a sword.
She whispers in my sleep,
brews black coffee,
sees the USA
in my Chevrolet...
ma amlasuha!
how sleek she is!
shining like a jewel...
...my Chevy...
not the snake.

I have a jihaaz...
it's more like a whatchamacallit...
it's very gold rubeberg
and it's all mine.
And it does it's...thing.
It's the best thing since
the Mullah took a mudya
to a loaf of bread...
and sliced.
bread of life
bread of love
bread, gift of Allah.

The 3rd Week


Today is fast day, faestdag if you are an ancient Anglo-saxon.
So...I suppose this would be peace fasting day..hoooray! Frithfaestendag...hoooray!
(You may well wonder about the juxtaposition of Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Gandhi and fasting. Suffice it to say that only glucose deprived brains may fully understand.)
Darn.
I hate fasting.
Along about 15:00 hours you begin to seriously decompose. Food, it seems, is the glue that holds the self together. Food is the soul of man.
There, I have been up for a couple hourts and already I am singing paeans to food.

The picture of Gandhi is there for IRONY.
The meaning is that I am not Gandhi.
I like that.
I like the sound of it.

I AM NOT GANDHI!
WHAT WOULD JESUS NOT DO?
I AM NOT THE CALIPH OMAR!
I AM NOT LINCOLN!
I AM NOT KAIZER SOUZE!
It sounds wonderful. It reaffirms what schlemiels we all are for letting this Administration run rough shod over just about everything.

Friday, June 15, 2007

June 15, 2007 Second Week: {The Party Store Of Peace}

Faest or Faesten sound a lot like Feast or Fest(ival).
Appearances are deceiving.

Fasting is rather gruesome.
I allow myself tea and - in the afternoon- one or two cans of soda pop. My brain really needs the glucose by then.



Second Week Poem


The Party Store Of Peace

They were tearing up the roadway
by the party store of peace.
(no esta bodega…cerevisa no se vende aqui)
The sidewalk had been swallowed up
and there was no place to park,
so we drove around the corner,
by the flood plain,
it hadn’t rained for a while and
global warming gives us places to park.
So we got a meter with time on it,
near the killer colored tiles from
a mural made in oaxaca-
broken into pieces and half buried
that had lain next to the electrical transformer
ever since the city threw it out…
every year some kid stumbles onto it
for the first time…
and wonders what the hell!
and wonders what the oaxaca?
and then forgets.
I’d forget all this, too,
if it wasn’t tethered like Paris Hilton.

We walk by a ladies’ store
a fossil found in stone,
with clothes in showy windows
as you funnel to the door.
Inside the Andrews Sisters sing on the PA.
Finally we arrive at the party store of peace:
(no esta bodega…cerevisa no se vende aqui)
the a/c is on the fritz,
the peace owner is wearing an orangey plaid shirt
with striped shorts and hot pink alligator shoes-
his white hair as long as that
of a guy that makes candles and soaps
for the farmers’ market-
somewhere a woman screamed.
the supplier in Carolina had a new batch of ink;
the crescent moon silver is now
a battleship grey…I mean, don’t you think you’d
let us know?
2,000 cards! she will call! we will hear about this!
and mrs. ormond’s order wuz never even shipped!
called Virginia myself…liar!
fedex got zippo from zip code there to zip code here!
bupkis! kis my bup!
So I said, yeah, my suppliers used to change quality
and leave it for us to find out…
it is so damn hot!
May I get a peace card?
all out.
When…? Next week for the fast?
dunno. haven’t paid the peace bill…
It was so hot; we went
to drown our thirst
in the ABM Sports Bar
next to WMD Books.
Drinks were on me
and I paid with what little was left
from my peace dividend.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

News From The War Fast Day 1 {Dream Girl Weaving}

Dream girl weaving, dream boy running
these are the residue of life.
On both sides of the street
there were doors of iron
but the hinges were of straw.
The reeds along the river
shu-shu in the voice of ghosts.
I saw a ghost once,
I thought it was my sister's daughter,
little Maha, her only child.
But she snarled like a dog
when I came by
and she vanished...
I heard a splash and ran to the river.
But there was only a widening ripple,
widening into a tsunami of regret...
I cannot eat the food and chocolate
I had set out for myself.


First fast day.

I believe the number of US troops killed surpassed 3,500.
The number of Iraqis killed are uncountable.
This is our doing. I trust it will be worth it.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Why?

4-color totalistic cellular automaton with rule 600116
being used to represent a weaving process





I posted this in my other blog today:

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2007/06/peace-quickening-peace-weaving-and.html


This site will record my effort to end this war.

Is that insane?


I suppose so.


However, in an insane world, I'd be a fool to be anything other than insane.

Once a week on Friday, or any other suitable day, to fast for peace; in Anglo-saxon frith faesten.

I am quite alone here, although there are others doing many things, and many much more effective than this.