Fast Day 204 April 30 2011 {Heroin}

A Squall Line in the Florida Keys

Heroin

What color am I now? Umber and sienna...
What color are we now? Umber and sienna...
like the sweet hashhish resin,
we shall soon be silver fog
and dreamlike boats
upon that Sea...
where all the waves are bass beat...
where all the waves are bomb.

What color are my eyes? Eglantine and rose...
What color are we now? Madder and sweet brier...
catch the eyelid of a storm
that winks upon the squall line -
like diamonds hang
below her face...
where the waves are lines and rows...
where the rain is needles.

What color is the sun? Vermilion and cinnabar...
What color are we all? Cochineal and rubia...
the crumpling of gracile tin foil
brings us back to where we want to be:
we divine, godlike
coloured crayons;
where waves are gangsters on parole...
where wind is hollow tip.

--
notes


the rituals of heroin, particularly the tin foil and the symbolic meaning it may have. even the most ordinary sequence of events may, with repetition and reward, create a profound ritual that points beyond the everyday...
it reminds us of Good and Evil around us everyday... 

I wrote this remembering a converse I had with my brother about how the ritual he remembered was greater than the drug itself.

--

Welcome, Christophanie Julien and Coolguys

 A Bothan Poet-Soldier

Welcome, travellers, to the Peace Blog! The Only Fast-induced Visionary and Poetry site on the web that has lasted (almost) 4 years!
Many Bothans have died in bringing you these poems! The Elomim have mined, and the Drovians have transported these goods! The Echani have protected their labors! The Boltrunians sweated blood so we may sing these songs!
Even the bumbling Otolla Gungan attempted to help in the fight against Darth Sidious (... even from a young age he dreamed of ruling the Galaxy...)

Welcome, Coolguys and  Christophanie Julien! But... we shall not yet teach you to manipulate the midi-chlorians!

--

Fast Day 203 April 23 2011 {At Brandon Plantation, Virginia}

At Brandon Plantation, Virginia

Slavery is gone
but its memory lingers:
potteries ceramic fired in indentured kilns
repeat great odes of naked Greeks and gods.
The childhood of our nation gone,
lapsed in wisteria laden alleys thronged with
anemone and adonis' blood and peony...
a ceaseless wand'ring along the James,
river of our quiescent madness
and river of sacred mud and sand.

The adolescence of the country past,
but still remember the gods and goddesses
who once learnt us with rose-dawn fingers
and lavender stamens and pollen feet!
In the adulthood of our discords,
the eros of our youth inspires!
We yearn resurrection again
and drop the stonewalls of our lives!

--
notes
Easter
At Brandon Plantation along the James River, Virginia.

Life and the Hope of Resurrection defeat the evils of the past...

--

Fast Day 202 April 15 2011 {Susan Welcomes Revolution} {شوشانا ترحب الثورة}

Susan welcomes Revolution
in the month of Nisan:
she smokes without matches,
she drinks without wineskins;
when she cries,
she is not dieing...
as are we...
but she is creating the rivers of Eden!

Susan is a Visionary
in the Spring of the year:
not drinking from poisoned wells,
not eating of forbidden foods;
when she sleeps
she does not slumber,
as do we,
but remains vigilant for her tribe until dawn!

Susan is an desert shaman
in the April of time:
the scorpion of heart's desire
makes her strip off all her clothing;
when she loves,
she is not at peace,
as are we;
nightly hunts she leads with the campfire's greyhound smoke.

Susan welcomes revolution;
in month of Tammuz:
reflections in eternity,
encased in Persian mastic
as an ant
encased in amber:
but not we
who east of Paradise must live until all men be free!


--
notes

the poem is about new life and new intuition and Arab culture and the events of 2011.

--

Welcome Rai

I noticed a new icon denoting another friend has thrown caution to the winds and decided to go on record as needing a weekly dose of poetry. Welcome, Rai!

At this point, of course, we are all thinking, like, Wow! "Rai" sounds a lot like "Rra", and maybe we should say "Dumela, Rra!", or "Good day, Sir!"... or "Dumela, Mma!" or "Good day, Ma'am!" as the case may be.
I was running on the treadmill the other day and some exercise bunnies had preceded me into the exercise room, so they had the stereo blasting at a volume sufficient to expel gamma ray bursts from our galaxy at exactly 245.78 second intervals.
A song was playing. It was English first, then everything changed a bit, and it struck me maybe it was Afro-Beat music, for the language was maybe African... hard to say when you are pounding the treadmill and the bass is way up.
So when the girl who was playing the radio was leaving, she turned off the tunes. I asked whether she would please turn it back on, which she did. We chatted briefly about the music and the station. We mentioned the song I believed to be a type of Afro-Beat, and I mentioned it seemed that it was partly non-English, and she agreed.
Then I went too far.
Then I crossed the line.
Then I did the thing which makes me liable to be charged with harassment.
I said that I thought it sounded like Setswana, the language of Botswana... you know, used to be Bechuanaland or whatever...
End of that conversation.

--

Fast Day 201 April 9 2011 {Beau Ahmad}

Beau Ahmad

What do you see and what the news from here and o'er the sea?
What is said in Paris, what said in Brussels, and done in Benghazi?

Sand dunes of cars and pickup trucks
wadis of oil and money,
wadis of fire and death,
the brave rebels stand by the sea:
Ma Ahsanuhum!
How beautiful they are!
And beau Ahmad, a skilled welder!

Drivers, refiners, mechanics:
Beau Ahmad captains them
along the metalled roads,
eating macadam kilometers;
bound for Sirte, the vipers’ nest
to overwhelm the Jinn
and stubborn men:
mercenaries of Gaddafi.

what do you see and what the news from here and o'er the sea?
what is said in Paris, what said in Brussels, and done in Benghazi?

Libya’s new army drives on;
rebels like locusts,
thick as the newly raised
upon that fateful Day to come!
Chase the dogs back to Tripoli’s
kennel, where their leader
grooms himself by Sidra
licking his wounds in solitude.

The mirage of midday flattens
down the fortress
of our schemes and hopes;
Lacking fuel, we move like camels
wounded in the hoof; noon… we pray
to God, the Clement;
fire rains from the sky
over the head of Ahmad, beau.

what do you see and what the news from here and o'er the sea?
what is said in Paris, what said in Brussels, and done in Benghazi?


---notes
why “beau”?
in the future, there will be epics celebrating the heroes of today, and they will be depicted as handsome and brave, and the villains will be craven and base. I’m just speeding it up. And “beau” is French because the future will be an amalgam of the past.

Ma Ahsanuhum means “how handsome (or perfect or well-formed or nice) they are”

There are various place name in Libya; Sidra is the Gulf off Tripoli.

Jinn are what we call genies. They are constituted from smokeless flame and are just below the angels.

The fateful Day to come is the day of resurrection.

ما احلى

How Sweet It Is!

My newest favorite expression, pronounced with a strong "H":    ma  aHlaa'  !

Three syllables, accent on the first and second syllable.

Fast Day 200 April 2 2011 {When NATO First in Libya Struck}

When NATO First in Libya Struck

When NATO first in Libya struck,
I felt my soul’s exuberance -
saw the Colonel’s intransigence!
The rebels in their pickup truck
watching oil flames rise to the sky,
the world drank champagne in Dubai!

The price of gasoline will rise
and so will price of wheat and bread;
news flash mixed with video games,
while Bouazizi greets the flames,
with Fatimid speed now widely spread
before the Almoravid eyes!

Now history no longer shocks,
seen from the world’s tallest building:
a mere tempest in an X-Box!
Immune in Andalusia,
await Isabella’s wedding!
Street vendor, martyr, gloria!

Does anyone recall the day
when the Khaleef Omar would spend -
full half the world beneath his sway! –
with needle, thread, his own shirts mend?
beyond the pyre of dogma’s fires
the sun sets not, but now expires!

What shall we do upon that day
when we find out, to our dismay,
that furrows dug no longer fruit,
and weapons aimed no longer shoot?
how that extinction will we tend
if God’s blessing no longer wend?

----------

notes:

My consternation watching violence. Everything is on cable TV and seems unreal from my perspective of my youth.

The Rhyme constantly changes.

Bouazizi – Muhammad Bouazizi, the street vendor in Tunisia whose self-immolation started the Middle East uprisings.

Fatimid – a dynasty originally in Egypt and an offspring established the dynasty in Spain. The speed is the speed of a blessing or good luck, because the Fatimids in Spain endured and those in Egypt did not.

Almoravid - a old North African dynasty.

Andalusia - the final Muslim kingdom in Spain at the late 15th century.

Isabella’s wedding – to Ferdinand. She was Columbus patron. The royal couple defeated the last Muslim kingdom in Spain and also expelled the Jews from Spain.

khaleef - standing for “khaleefa”, which means “successor”. Usually spelled “caliph”. ‘Umar or Omar was a khaleefa of strict probity and displayed no ostentation nor love of money or power. He also mended his own garments.

world’s tallest building – Burj Khaleefa in Dubai. Tower of Babylon type thing. Dubai is used as an emblem of pointless and soulless wealth.

wend – “expected”; past participle of “ween”, to expect. Used by Chaucer and now considered archaic.