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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Fast Day 170 August 31 2010 {Litany for Mary}


Litany for Mary

Mary, Miriam, holy Mother...
autumn tanager!
pray for us
passenger of time,
pray for us
owl of foresight,
pray for us
goldfinch teenager,
pray for us
child-sung blue of robin,
pray for us
habitat and grassland,
pray for us
prairie falcon eyes,
pray for us
niche on high places!
pray for us
bluegrass and winterfat,
pray for us
squirrelgrass, wheatgrass,
pray for us
tumbleweed and sage!
pray for us
Lady sachem paint the world
with the autumnal palette!
I want some cloth of this color!
Hey! A cloth to give my sweet one!
She will make a coat of it!


--

Fast Day 170 August 31 2010



 Litany

Mary, Miriam, holy Mother...
autumn tanager!
pray for us
passenger of time,
pray for us
owl of foresight,
goldfinch teenager,
child-sung blue of robin,
habitat and grassland -
prairie falcon eyes,
niche on high places!
bluegrass and winterfat,
squirrelgrass, wheatgrass,

tumbleweed and sage!

Lady sachem paint the world
with the autumnal palette!
I want some cloth of this color!
Hey! A cloth to give my sweet one!
She will make a coat of it!


notes:
early this week... early is good.

To be a precise Litany, each line, such as "owl of foresight" should be followed by a "pray for us", but I'm not sure if that's too unwieldly... so I merely put in the first few.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Fast Day 169 August 28 2010 {Voyageurs}



Voyageurs

I dreamed bees made a hive in our canoe;
came there flying daily, nectar laden;
buzzing heroic hexameters
of epic poetry ultra-marine.
Launch the ship into the wind, bearing north!
with sandwiches and tea.

Oars that deeply drink of argent liquid
of morning, carrier of the hopes of men,
deeply into a cartoon jungle,
to fabled shores chryselephantine.
Cruise among the Atlantean condos-
outspread like Trojan lunch!

We ate upon the Island of Tall Reeds,
drank martinis mixed well with sweet words,
and napped within papyrus' golden house.
Our sorrows drop away like clothes
strewn around the delight place of new lovers:
the light winds gossiping.



notes

argent liquid  :  the morning sun drips like silver from the oars.

chryselephantine : a Greek word referring to an object make of gold (chrysos) and ivory (elephantine). I use it to make me feel the northern Mediterannean - Greece - and the south - Africa, where the elephants live.

papyrus :  commonly paper reed,  image of late summer tawny shafts, sunlit and tall.
goldren house  :  sun on the tawny papyrus and Nero's Domus Aurea.

bees :  there is this business of bees and the hive and honey... and fermented mead , eventually in the ancient, ancient myths of Dionysos, and the notion of resurrection.

Atlantean condos : houses on the water front, and beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the western end of the Mediterranean.

Trojan  : refers to Troy at the eastern end of the Mediterranean

Canoeing on the St. Clair River. In the delta of the river, there is Dickinson Island, Harsen Island and Russel Island, with many small islands scattered. In the northern part of Russel, there is a cut from the South Channel to the Middle Channel with another canal heading to the northernmost  part of the island which has various signs and icons of jungle animals here and there among the reeds.

I like the notion of our sorrows being like lovers' clothes: a hindrance, yet there is the possibility to cast them aside and transcend their limits.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Fast Day 168 August 20 2010 {Miller's Crossing}



 Miller's Crossing

I was born in the green of Silvermines,
I grew in the Knockinroe;
The end of the earth was the Dublin Road,
from Shallee to Kilbo' .
I will never...
ever...
return...
from here;
never to smell my sweetheart's hair !

I worked in the mines of Bellagowan
and never saw the light;
made love to a girl of my own tender age
in a cock, cut and scythe'd.
I will never...
ever...
renew...
that love;
exiled from those lands of desire !

My mother cried when I took ship to sail
to work with pick and hoe;
A lock of her hair to America,
the gowan of my soul.
I will never...
ever...
see her...
again:
yet ne'er again to see her cry.

The streets they were not paved with gold;
I worked down in the mine;
and man fought against man as Goshen old;
my table set with line.
I will never...
ever...
forget...
my dears:
Thou loved my things, as I did thine.


----------
notes

Kilbo' :   license with the name "Kilboy"
Bellagowan:  the old name for Silvermines was Beal Atha Gabhann and Bellagowan.
cock: a place to store hay
gowan: a daisy flower
Goshen: where the Hebrews lived in slavery in Egypt
table: a tombstone
line: linen
things: in the sense of whatever is conceived to exist and as an assembly, a coming together in one person of many aspects.

first draft; I found this exhausting but in a good sense... it fills me with evanescence. 

Tempo
The first 4 lines are to be read normally.
The next two are to be very slow and mournful:
"never......ever......see her.....again "   
with a slight quickening and rise on the last syllable "again" ; 
it goes long-short long-short long-short short-long, the last long syllable rising back up.


The last line is a bit slower than the first 4, and is realization: fulfillment of understanding, yet far from fulfillment of desire. 

Later: I came back and changed the form in the lines 5 through 8 to emphasize the slow and heavy punctuation.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Fast Day 167 August 12 2010 {What'll I Tell the Widow?}

Rain


What'll I Tell The Widow ?

The hay burned in the fields that year, beaten down
by the oven of the wind; I stood stock still
by the Rattle Run which was
hardly a trickle in August.
Danny looked at me like queer,
but I just throw my Johnny Deere cap down,
and said nothing until he drove over
left his motor runnin'
I could not hear him but I saw his lips
movin' , and I said "Enough".
He cup his hand to his head,
like he can't hear, so I make a universal
translate "turn the friggin' engine off" sign.
and when I could hear my heart beatin' in my ears
I said "Enough".
It took a century to walk out of that field,
leavin' Danny with the two tractors,
him gaping at me,
smoke and sun
But he took off at a trot
caught up with me in ten years
sayin' "You know, there's nothing out there.
The worlds end at Palms Road and Chick's Barbeque..."
where the yawning gap between our dreams
came to an end in aught-8, leaving me
a Mad Max with ethanol
a girl friend with 4 kids
widowed twice at 24
the Widow Greer she was
and her breath was hotter'n this wind.
Ah, what a future we had had !
We used to dream of crop circles
I went on walkin'
He yelled "Hey!... ... Hey!
What'll I tell the Widow?"
I ponder, "It's a hard rain falls..."


----
climate change poem

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Fast Day 166 6 Agosto 2010 {Noon Prayers}


Noon Prayers

Say,honey,have a margarita,
drink a little pulque,
drive with me a little way
until we reach the sea.

So let us toll the rosary;
five tequila mysteries:
trust the diligence of dunes
and discretion of the trees.

She says she does not drink at all,
she says she does not swim;
she left the molten city
so she will not stop for me.

Tres milagros de ma vida, tres...
deja mucho a desear,
travelers on a desert road
my car, the Virgin, and me.



note:

stanza 3 three miracles of my life, three/ there is still much to desire

odd prayer

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Fast Day 165 July 31 2010 {The Uncertainty of Soccer}






The Uncertainty of Soccer

Sun Chopper with long hair runs, streaming like a breeze;
Sandwich Girl collides with him again... and again;
Snail Kid, climb Mount Fuji, but slowly, slowly,
Giacometti Leg, Pablo's Bathers, Demoiselles d'Avignon
and Bearded Miro, Pollack Spit and Arp Nose:
Mayan Ferlinghetti, Popeye, Sheer Pony Ass, surreal;
Max Ernst collage of running boys and girls...  and tattoos.

Run, slicers of the sun! Run, max quanta ! Kick neutrinos !
Run through all the levels and the states of being !
Run to your civil war ! Kick your way into the maze,
labyrinth of woodland god, disguised as bush of ghosts !
I hear the vuvuzela of my faith and parents !
I see the spider-goalie spin and guard his web !
Sun Chopper smiles: surreal panic erotic Magritte !



---
notes:

written after watching a soccer match on Belle Isle, Detroit
on Saturday, the date of record.


we also discussed the destruction of the Constitutional
and Enlightenment view of Man by the recent Supreme Court
decision setting Corporations up as "individuals"
equal to men and women.

More like ideas to be worked on later:

Surrealist paintings,
Amos Tutuola,
films of del Toro...especially Laberinto del Fauno
Spanish Civil War and civil wars in general
The young who will fight the wars...