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Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Fast Day 239 December 27 2011 {Susan's Christmas Tree 2011}



Susan's Christmas Tree 2011

Fill in around the manger scene,
bringing forth the fragrant reeds;
carols singing,
and gifts bringing;
daughters of the music rule,
enchanted in festive weeds!

Susan plans her Christmas tree
to inflate Time’s trifling show
of past year’s
alarms and fears -
left behind on Twelfth Night
with all her stars aglow!

----
notes

weeds  - clothes, attire

I am getting ahead to keep time free for people coming to town and visiting and such. This should take us up to the week beginning with January 1, and a New Year's poem of some sort.
Happy Holidays.

Fast Day 238 December 20 2011 {Wildflower Girl}



Wildflower Girl


Daughter, oak and pine
of Christmas time!
Beyond the Jordan and within
the forests of Carmel;
handsome evergreen oleander girl;
upon the dried river beds
when gentle rain brings a flood
of gaudy tulip and blue lupin,
and fragrant winds blow to Bethlehem,
we embark and our confident bows
bite the foam of hollyhock!

---- 
notes

bows  - bow of a boat
bite the foam  -  the white water of a boat's bow cutting through waves has been often compared to a dog biting a bone, hence bite the foam indicates a boat's progress... usually upstream, hence the turbulence.

even though the rivers may be dry, a rain brings a bloom of flowers like a botanic flood... and we launch our boats upon this torrent and wend our way to Bethlehem... 
Our prayer for the future this Christmas:  although the waters may be gone, send us a river of grace.

pix: feminocracy.wordpress.com

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Fast Day 237 December 17 2011 (Navidad en Belén / Christmas in Bethlehem}

 Near Manger Square in Bethlehem, December 2010


Navidad en Belén

Estos no son los androides
que ustedes buscan;
trucos mentales de los Jedi...
estos no son los pastores
que ustedes buscan:
estos no son los ángeles
que cantan en el cielo alto;
este no es el tesoro de oro,
este no es el incienso,
y este no la mirra ...
pero sí, es brillante y resplandeciente ...
como el amanecer incendiario
en los cedros abrasadores del Líbano;
y Belén,
la casa de pan duro,
la casa de carne roja,
espera un año más

--
"These are not the androids you seek"
Jedi mind tricks;
these are not the shepherds you seek,
these are not the angels that sing on high;
this is not the golden treasure,
this is not the frankincense,
and not the myrrh...
but it is as brilliant and shining
as sunrise burning
among the burning cedars of Lebanon;
and Bethlehem,
the house of coarse bread,
the house of red meat,
waits for yet another year.

--
notes

Bethlehem   - Hebrew: house of bread and in Arabic a possible translation could be house of meat

Nothing is what it seems,,, as if we had Jedi mind tricks being played on us constantly.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Fast Day 236 December 10 2011 {Mami Wata: How Government Began}



Mami Wata: How Government Began


Be careful where you step
by the river or by the sea:
Water,  she get no enemy.
Do not tread upon the old one.

Mami Wata was the ruler
of Sahara’s rosary:
lakes to the sunrise ceremony,
all the way from western ocean

Papa Legba of the crossroads
was land born from the sea;
fenced in, he believed himself not free:
riparian earth and sediments.

He gathered land-men far and wide
to go to parliament,
claim equality of descent,
to break the circle of Mami Wata.

They swore a suicide a month
until they got their way,
to reduce the mothers’ sway
and establish patriarchy.

Mami Wata ebbed and withdrew
to her palace lazuli
far away from the crazy
genocide of the dusty men.

Such is how we got government…
and Sahara desert…
leaving just aquifers covert…
and children soldiers bearing guns.

--
notes

Mami Wata  - goddess of the waters (West African, Haitian)

Sahara's rosary - the string of paleo-lakes and rivers of the once lush Sahara. Of course, we mean all such ancient waters, ocean and all, and referring to the "rosary" of the Sahara is using a part for the whole.

Legba      -    a male god of the crossroads (West African, Haitian)

The picture is supposed to be a depiction of a lwa. (pronounced "L-WA"), and perhaps Mami Wata, although it does not resemble the usual depictions of her.

SYNOPSIS
Mami Wata is goddess of waters. Here I picture her primeval spirit of the world. The land came later, and it is pictured as male, as seen by Papa Legba. To break the matriarchy of the goddess - and goddesses - of the waters, the oceans, the lakes, the rivers, Legba and like-minded men threatened to kill themselves until they were granted power.
The Mothers could not bear to watch their children kill themselves, so they withdrew from the places of mankind's power and authority, and the patriarchy and all it entails was set up.

(I am late getting this up. I have been back and forth between my parents' place; they had a cat crisis and we had trips to the vet.)

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Fast Day 235 December 4 2011 {Vietnam And Other Wars}

Buddhist Monk Self-Immolation, Vietnam 1963


Vietnam And Other Wars


binge drinking is a multi-task
and is done by appointment:
on Saturday we party;
poisoned by too much booze,
overcome by a dark corner,
we followed a bouncing ping-pong
ball over the balcony
of the Amityville dormitory

or was it in Iraq
that a plate went through my head
and split my hemis into
double rockers,
and now I’m just a flathead grunt…
my hero was Connie Kalitta
from sulphurous Mount Clemens
but now I can’t even drive.

maybe opium from old Bactria
where we fight our war for
datura botany near Kandahar;
old men and children in the fields
ready to be harvested by
the fire of imprecise drones,
and wedding parties gone
to precocious funerals!

I came home and fell down
upon the beach and lay there
amidst unseen blood
from my hundred-eyed
Argus of wounds…
as transparent as an astragal
of hammered iron panels on
the plaguey windows of your houses!

--
I never wrote about Vietnam before today.

I don't think I'll explain anything.