Fast Day 295 January 26 2013 All Across Africa

All Across Africa

Vacation on the inland sea
south of Kilima Njaro,
beads and wives of necklace flow
and no thought of tomorrow.

I wish I had a TED talk
to tell me what to feel;
else within a dream I ramble
aimlessly surreal.

Launch then evening news like terror,
while arrows and bullets flee;
like a banana republic
seeks white and black iv'ry.

Provocation and the attack
subterfuge and gallant men,
pass the powder and the ammo
to the missionary children.

-----

notes:

some people feel themselves under siege, like missionaries of the 19th century in a hostile territory. Thank goodness we have people in various media forms to tell us what to think.

This needs a lot of work.......

Fast Day 294 January 20 2013 {Alone On Navy Street}

A Street Almost Lonely

Alone On Navy Street

All alone on Navy Street
all men walk to their ships,
birds take flight and they do not hear them,
the morning star remains unseen;
they cross the line of no-return.

Permission to come aboard!
officer of the deck:
Yeoman, take this man to the Captain.
he remembers vividly and sudden
Halo wars of tenuous youth!

He wields gravity hammer,
blasts the plasma cannon;
and laughs to rout the enemy!
watching all lines of their approach,
strums the warlike guitar’s neck.

Thirty-six hour furlough
ashore in New York City;
leaving his dying father alone
to maintain the convoy
like the sea’s Good Shepherd.
--

Going home for 36 hours from the house where my father dies. He was in the Navy.

Fast Day 293 Janaury 12 2013 Animal Graveyards

 Victorian Foyer With Ivory Statues

Animal Graveyards

ivory ornaments in an elephant graveyard…
how commonplace a disaster may become!
even death falls to desuetude
and has no dominion
over the mundane.

like old fur coats imprison'd zoo of the hall closet…
like vinous fox stoles with agate, beady eyes;
vestibules of my grandparents
where Adam’s television
made gray-fingered dawn.

knock upon the door; it will not be opened to you!
animal skin, bone, and hide within our homes
prayed for magic; the spirit cares
naught for doors… and gets a
panoply of portals!

 

Elephant Leg Umbrella Stand

--

notes:

imprison'd zoo  -     imprisoned in the zoo  =  imprison = in + prison  =  in prison, that is, the zoo


Adam's television    -   early tv sets with black and white picture, the light of which breaks like dawn, but not "rosy-fingered" dawn.

"Knock and it will be opened..."
This is misinterpreted usually and conforms to a magical way of thinking: how we force a god to do our will.
Only by disdaining all thought of doors will one fall into a forest of doors.

I am late getting this up; I was at my parents, assisting my mother care for my father, and they have no internet. I pray that his pain may go away, but I suppose I must disdain the presence or the absence of pain in order to have power over it... our prayers are infinite.
--

Poetry Blogs

I like art blogs. Even the ones with the worst taste in anything have an incredible vibration of life...
except poetry blogs. They are sort of drab. Drabulous... a new word made from drab and crapulous.

Poetry blogs are drabulous.

Give me a poetry blog with a splash of Watson and the Shark, eh, Mate!

J.S. Copley's Watson And The Shark

Not a drabulous pixel anywhere.

--

Fast Day 292 January 1 2013: Joyful Season

 

Joyful Season

For most of this undancing year,
for Easter,  Candle-time, and Michaelmas,
may the mercy of the Lord -
or the scarcity of liquor - keep us sober ,
but let us wassail this Christmas eve!

I do not want for busyness
nor diligence in summer, spring, and fall;
but the holly of the season –
or the holm, the ivy, and the bay festooned -
make love spring up like tender plants!

Porter, punch, and the hot negus
turn our minds to your beauteous romance:
we hear the carol of the Waits -
we remember then to give thanks for thee,
Joseph - humbled -  and cherry tree.

--
notes

We are giving thanks to Mary, mother of Jesus, and refer to the story of Joseph and the cherry tree: Mary asked Joseph to get her some cherries from the tree, and Joseph - in a bad mood - replied that the fellow that got her in a family way should get those cherries. At this, the cherry tree bent over and bowed down, bringing its branches and fruit within Mary's reach.

negus  -   a type of hot punch.

the Waits  - these were the town criers, who had their own types of songs to sing in Christmas. These songs are vanished and the tunes and structure are unknown.
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