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.

Fast Day 199 March 26 2011 {A Schmear on the Bagel...} כשר פיזיקה

-

-

A Schmear of Probabilty on the Bagel of My Life
Poem Against Nuclear Power Industry

My house is built with Heisenberg struts
and joiners and joists and beams,
It requires no maintenance as long
as no one looks!
thereby collapsing the wave function
into Tivoli gardens;
It is a schmear of probability
wide spread on the bagel of my life.

One cannot see the dadoes nor the cuts
only smooth transition seams,
fibers run like termites to prolong
brackets one sees!
force-fields and vector-jackets both junction
and bracket protozoans.
it's the sum of all my ungefillte
wishes, all now fargeyts, in midst of strife.

Challa baked before all time, and blintzes
with spin and strange and charms:
ingredients of house and song!
blessings we view!
quantum cats like matza ball abstraction,
rolled in egg and sold in tins;
Upon a cross of nuclear energy
crucify us now!: husband, children, wife!

Heisenberg

-----
notes
Theme: Nuclear Physics and Quantum Physics.
Heisenberg: Werner Heisenberg, quantum physicist
Tivoli: garden and park in Denmark, reference to Niels Bohr
ungefillte: unfilled
fargeyts: forget, forgotten
Challa: challa bread for shabbas
blintzes: Jewish crepes.
matza: a meal made of crumbled matza crackers usually rolled into balls for dumplings in matza ball soup.
quantum cat: Schrodinger's cat, a famous quantum paradox.

The rhyme scheme/ structure is:
a b c (vision word)  d e f g
a b c (vision word)  d e f g
a b c (vision word)  d e f g
--

Fast Day 198 March 18 2011 {Questions from a Kid in the ICU...}

 Questions From a Kid in the ICU on Valentine's Day

"Father, why did God give us eyes?"

strewn like a quilt across her bed
were crayon'd classmates' Valentines;
his arm asleep beneath her head,
while monitoring vital signs.
He said, "So we can color and can play!
Go to gramma's on Summer Lake,
where we can see the Milky Way!
And count candles on your birthday cake!

Even though we stay outside
and color books with paint carnations...
allergies and gramma's dogs..." he sighed,
her party dress like white impatiens.
Oedipus the same question asked,
dandled on Jocasta's knee;
young innocents put to the task
of dealing with eternity!

"Daddy, I don't know exactly why...
God gave us eyes so we can cry."

-----
draft 1:  http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2011/03/fast-day-198-march-18-2011-questions.html

-

draft 1 Fast Day 198 March 18 2011 (Questions from an ICU Kid...)

Questions From A Kid in the ICU on Valentine's Day

"Father, why did God give us eyes?"

strewn like a quilt across her bed
were crayon'd classmates' Valentines;
his arm asleep beneath her head,
while monitoring vital signs.
He said, "So we can color and can play!
Go to gramma's on Summer Lake,
where we can see the Milky Way!
And count candles on your birthday cake!

Even though we stay outside...
allergies and gramma's dogs..." he sighed.

(O, Crayon robins! Paint carnations!
Color candle-songs with long wicks!
People... peonies of all nations!
Father's love bright pigments mix!)

"Daddy, I don't know exactly why...
God gave us eyes so we can cry."

------------------
notes

final draft:  http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2011/03/draft-2-day-198-questions-from-kid-in.html

I do not know about this. It takes me a day or two of vacation away from being focused before I can read something again.  It was very tricky not to make it sound like something maudlin, like some of Thomas Hardy's ironic poems... he has one I have in mind which is a caution I try to stay away from. I still like Hardy.

Welcome AnNySs

Welcome to AnNySs.
My experience of Malaysia is, unfortunately, restricted to Anthony Burgess' stories and novels set in Malaysia during the period when Britain was still hanging around. My knowledge of the culture and science and society is, therefore, restricted to Brits suffering from the heat and drinking Tiger Beer. I shall remedy this failing soon, and get some overdue background in modern day Malaysia, which, by all accounts, is a super place with rather good food, too.

Fast Day 197 March 11 2011 { Jonah }

Jonah was a Lifeguard


If Leviathan had not swallowed me,
I would have eaten him,
hungry lifeguard of worlds was I
although I hardly swim.

Expectorate upon the beach,
I tried to catch my breath:
what lessons did I have to teach?
or should I leave by stealth?

Words of gold placed in my mouth
as I shiver and I stand,
The angels of the Lord come forth
and warm me on the strand:

Walk into the market place;
do stand-up for the crowd;
cymbal shod and  golden lace
O, pilgrim weak, yet proud!

Riddle, puzzle: whence your strength
to ride across the sea?
How wide your bedrock, what the length
is His love for thee?

Fast Day 196: March 5 2011 {Woodcut}

Woodcut

People are yelling woodcut words,
gouged into beech blocks, the background
chiseled out and black, sticky ink
spread out over the block's surface:
and fourteen weighty stones are placed
to coerce the ink and paper;
the black and white of simple life,
with red ochrous ink for the blood
ever drying, ever needing
fresh supply from my madder veins!

Welcome davis_agie_girl5

I am welcoming davis_aggie_girl5 to the group. We shall send her the oath of secrecy to fill out later, as well as the vow of fasting and abstinence required of us all.

On a more serious note, I am taking this occasion to remark that I am a great fan of comic books and graphic novels. I do not think I've ever mentioned it before. I have a trunk filled with Marvel comics from the 60's and 70's and an original Donald Duck (the large format). For myself, Carl Barks, the artist of Donald Duck comics in the 50's is nothing short of a genius. In fact, I was just re-reading some Watchmen and some adventures in the Halo series.

The android picture is an homage to Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons, and his store, The Android's Dungeon. Don't you just love the word "homage"? I can not get enough of its pomposity.

Humani nil a me alienum puto... Nothing human is alien from me, I reckon, pardner. (I had to through in the "I reckon... so as not to appear pompous.)

--
pix: http://clawfire.tumblr.com/

Fast Day 195 February 26 2011 {Viewing An Old Tree}

Viewing an Old Tree

Upon a hill I saw a tree
with snow and green garbed perfectly;
perfect in its height and span,
hitherto unseen by man -
offended by no mortal blade,
from whose wood no lumber made -
a tree as from the older times
from gentler days and gentler climes,
when his tribe filled the surrounding
mountains with his kin abounding:
men worshipped at this woodland chapel
oak and laurel, birch and apple...
awestruck by this proliferation
dense forests strung across the nation;
but in an age when we kill all gods,
this tree, I wonder what the odds
that it will live on and evade
the holocaust and clear-cut blade?
And as we creep along the brink
of empty hearts... Nature extinct!

Aside: February 20 2011

My friend Ruth made a comment of the poem  http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2010/12/fast-day-185-december-18-2010.html

Wonderful!

Especially the final stanza, and that breathtaking line:
They have forgotten the wind-like face of earth!

I was going through some things this morning, and I happened across it and I read it and I said "Hmm. That is not a bad line. Wonder who wrote it?"
 
So I looked around in the comment, then in the poem for a hint or a reference. It sounded familiar but I just could not place it. It took about 5 minutes before I realized it was part of my poem! (I was reading it something like: ...especially the final stanza which brings to mind the line by so-and-so... that reminds me of this poem.)
 
She is awfully nice.

Fast Day 194 February 19 2011 {On Talking to a Man from Maharahstra}

On Talking to a Man from Maharashtra about 
the Body of St. Francis Xavier Preserved in Goa, 
about Christians in India, 
and about Sectarian Fighting.

there are days when you just need a drink,
and today is one of those:
kick-my-ass day,
snake-in-grass day;
and I don't drink...
a chocolate eating day.

there are days when you just need some love
and today is one of those:
bleed-my-heart day,
fall-apart day;
but I'm alone...
ginger-cinnamon day!

Nutmeg and ginger, cardamon, clove...
float on spring freshets in the river
past my private glass pavilion
in old-time Goa
upon the sea;

anise, cumin and marjoram, they embalmèd me...

I saw every sunrise...  and sunset upon that sea!

It seems the world is so little changed

from my seafaring-gospel days,

I see no point to stay around

incorruptible 

and totemic;

I seek now a funeral: be buried in the soil:

aphrodisyaks and curatives...  turn to holy oil!

--

notes 

St. Francis Xavier   Jesuit missionary to the Far East. He was named Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta to a wealthy family in Navarre. He was a co-founder of the Jesuits with Ignatius de Loyola. In 1541, he left Lisbon to serve as missionary in the Portuguese colonies oversea. On 11 December 1553, Xavier's body was shipped to Goa. The body is now in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa, where it was placed in a glass container encased in a silver casket on 2 December 1637. 

It appears somewhat preserved, although by no means incorrupt.

Spices are metaphors:  new essences, aphrodisiacs, embalming agents, and oils to bless the holy dead.

This took me totally by surprise. It was the work of one fitful night and a morning.In our discussion about the body of St. Francis, we agreed that it might be best that he be at rest, no longer on display. Perhaps he is by now. I have not looked into it.

Fast Day 193 February 12 2011 {When Helen of Troy Was a Kid}

When Helen of Troy Was A Kid

When Helen was a kid at Jones Beach, she did not
launch a thousand ships, only four that followed her
around like her faithful dogs, who hung their heads out
the back windows of the sedan when old lady
Begley drove the kids down the Wantagh State Parkway,
- Helen under towels to avoid admission -
aerodynamic, art deco, Italianate
water tower: sandstone and multi-coloured brick.
Beach grass and sand dunes, umbrella-covered picnics;
just a suntan kid followed by a flotilla.

She grew up and she walked upon the street lights;
she jumped from traffic light to light;
she danced upon the jungle gym of fireworks
that carpeted the harbor, and made that beach sand
Klimtian jewels and islands of deco gold!
All before she went to live with dark myopic
Menelaus, the industrious, of Sparta far away;
he worked late – too late – at the Eurotan palace,
while fleets coursed the sea under her wings!
And Trojan princes pounce the wide Aegean!

----
notes

Helen of Troy, whose face launched a thousand ships (according to Marlowe), as a kid in New York.
The princes of Troy refers to Paris, her lover.

Menelaus - king of Sparta
Klimtian - like the paintings of Gustav Klimt
Eurotan - pertaining to the Eurotas river of Sparta

--

Fast Day 192 February 5 2011 {City of the North}

City of the North

All the places in my dreams

are still down on the back lot:

the dark iron ore cities at night,

the flooding summer cottages,

hills of Donegall and Gdansk;

the reeds that flourish yet

where the city built a park

twenty years ago, or more,

I see them still bow and bend.

I see rows and rows of fam’ly,

and those malignant holidays

when my parents would give to

almost-strangers gifts I held

dearer than any gold ever

beheld by my staring eyes!

That ancient familial house where

the sunroom plantation blinds

were sunlight mandolin, slicing

the spectrum into discrete

stripes, which fell upon my juvie

skin and made it all tattooed

like heart of darkness Kongo

or Maori – and when I was

alone, I would nakedly

hunt the fox-stole of desire!

Nothing ever goes away,

save in my memory for a

rainy day, when the tocsin tolls

and we erupt from our dreary

routines, and rush like volunteer

firemen to a neighbor’s blaze…

some of us never hear the call.

North is the city with roads twain,,

somewhere in America,

somewhere oppression vanishes…

the  dark city finds its morning.

----

The winter is depressing at times. My golden city is in the  north, not down south. North of Lake Superior, I think, feed by two major roads, sheltered from the worst of winter's fury like a Shangri-La. I dream about it, I see the road maps at night.

juvie    -    juvenile

It is about the persistence of memory, the child's growing awareness of a split between parent and child - they are no longer one symbiote!, sexuality's growth, long sleep of life until we awake and going north to find my el dorado.

Dedicated to the actor, Mark Winkworth   (Adams Chronicles-type)

ㄚ琪 welcome

冬天的詩

冷，冷風景

心是溫暖

winter poems,
cold, cold landscape;
hearts are warm

--

I can barely remember my elementary Chinese from a long time ago, so I had to go back to the books and work on this, even as basic as it is. I actually know very little. Small small as my Nigerian friends say. (I did manage to restrict myself to 4 characters per line and probably have made a total mess of it!)

139 of January 30, 2010 temporary posting

temporary posting, original back in january 2010

Fezzan Oasis

She, not She

I smell a flower,
a mallow stem bleeding, perhaps,
then the queen's lace,
and finally lavander and rose,
and I step into Cairo's perfume shop
of eros and imagination
to think of her.

I see the geese,
a group of males in the wetlands,
then wonder where
the females spend intimacies,
so I go into the woods along
the river of woven reed baskets
and remember her.

I feel the virgin palm tree
bend beneath my over-eager grasp,
then wonder why
I am so angry, so perplexed...
so I go mad within the oasis
to drink naked from the spring
of her lips.

I see a mirage of flags
fly from imaginary forts within
the ancient lake:
suddenly my hair whips, running gazelle,
spit flying and panting mouth...
not pennants of war;
her wet dress...drying!

...I arrive at last,
out of breath and dirty as an eland -
where have you been?
she asks, eyeing my drooping fidelity;
Up and down, I gasp, up and down
Afric's paleo-lakes and streams!
they are no more!

she laughs -
like sparks from the Minotaur's flinty hooves -
takes me down a notch! -
phantom symposium of thirsty eyes!
How could the eternal lakes be gone?
And sacrament streams? Or extinct
my hart and hind?

naked gazelle -
go to the window, look about, and tell
me whatever you see!
Forgetting luxuriant nudity,
I strode - a dusty palm tree, a verdant
papyrus - I was numb catastrophe!
I saw the lakes... and then sat down, bare skin
on alabaster.

Her rain was love;
we replenished entire aquifers!
from my dust came clay
mixed with eros' several peculiar sweats;
Will one tumble th'Atlantean towers?
Or intercept and bind our Mother Nile?
No, she said.


------------------
notes:

Minotaur
the offspring of Minos' Queen Pasiphae and a Bull. Anyway...Minotaur is half human, half bull, lived in the Labyrinth, and Theseus killed him/it.
Daedalus designed the Labyrinth, if you're interested; his son Icarus was the first to die in a flying accident.

Afric's paleo-lakes...
anciently the Sahara was a verdant area, having dried up recently in geological time, destined to be green again in 15,000 years. "paleo" is a Greek prefix for "old".

phantom symposium
she says I have seen illusions, caused by thirst...phantom drinking parties ( in this case, drinking water) caused by thirsty eyes.

Some say that within the paleo-system of lakes and rivers, from the Chott el Jerid in Tunisia - in the North- down to the mega-lake of Chad...and even beyond, when the drainage of the Mighty Congo went eastwards, to the Rift Lakes of Victoria and Tanganyika...there was situated the city of Atlantis...and its destruction came with the Great Drying and plate tectonics within the Rift Valley.

The lady of this poem and I live in the magic time to come - or the time past, when the Sahara is green, and mankind is at peace. We interrelate with the present, and she cannot believe the drought that has overtaken her land in the past, which is our present.

Fast Day 191 January 29 2011 {Sweet Water}

our

Sweet Water
 

On Tassili rocks are petroglyphs

drawn by our ancient hands;

paint  a man at the end

of his vision quest here,

through old sahara’s palaeo-lakes:

his head exploding with

feathered sun and

wisdom’s kingly vipers!

Hey! Paint me here!

Show my wife, my clan!

Paint a halo round my head!

Hey! painter! Hey! friends!

I live forever

painted  in our

communal , polished

and granitic halls!

And when the weather began to change,

turn the lakes to sodden

sloughs, and thence to arid

wastes, then to vast empty

amphitheaters of tragedy,

penumbral seeking

populations in transit

from the fire genius:

Hey! Paint us here!

Show our clan’s procession!

Peaceable kingdom exodus.

Hey! Hand-blowers! Friends!

Visions and bison

our entourage

for new oases

we shall farm.

O, our lakes!

O, our lakes!

You are in our hearts!

Faithful water!

Ah, sweet water!

 ---------

notes

Tassili  = Tassili N’Ajjer mountains in southern Algeria

palaeo-lakes  =  “palaeo-“ from Greek meaning “old”; same as in “palaeology”.  The lakes of the Sahara region now gone.

polished…halls  =  an echo of the Odyssey, wherein Circe’s place has either “polished”, “painted”, or “sculpted”  halls…. ambiguity in the the Greek.

penumbral seeking  =  an exodus of the populace from the dry desert, seeking shade and water

peaceable kingdom exodus  =  humanity and animals escape the desert together under a truce of necessity

hand-blowers  = painters who blow pigmented powder around their hands which are pressing against a stone surface. When they remove their hands from the surface, there is a colored outline.

I have touched upon this theme many times recently. I think I see Climate as a vast spirit environment: the fire in which we burn.

Welcome January 27 2011

I have two new friends to welcome, Greeneyes-16 and Stioxomata.
I wish I had something interesting and witty to say. I just got back from the bank and stopped by my auto mechanics to say hello and see if he wanted to go get a "finjan qahwa" (cup of java) at Mrs. Kaplan's Jewish-Palestinian coffee shop. It is a nice place. It is Hallal and Kosher, so everything is very good and fresh. Of course, it is limping along during these times, so we try to stop by and gorge ourselves into doing a good deed.

The Kaplan is a poet, too. I have read her poetry. Puts mine to shame. Instills a desire to write better. I am going to take more time writing. After a while, you begin to notice how you repeat yourself. It takes time to get to the real important stuff of poetry. Sometimes I feel as if my poetry is white socks with black shoes.

High School Confidential

white athletic socks
and black tennies
and my  blue, blue heart
aches for 24 seconds
in the red paint
of sweet, sweet love!

Fast Day 190 January 22 2011 {Planet Seeds}

Planet Seeds

I packed alphabet and seeds in my carry-on bag.

I think it will get past security; living letters,

breathing smooth scaled animal:

made up of 26 thoraces, gossiping

panting tough little bugs

I am taking with me, escaping

to an M-class exo-polanet.

I look up at the moon and it

beckons like a kid taking cuts

in the NASA waiting line.

I shall free them upon the slopes of Olympus Mons

then scatter wide the living seeds

I brought with me from earth:

germination and pollination

no longer blind like Gaza camels

colliding at one water hole.

Like pirates, we'll lust for Quito gold...

and set sail to Jupiter's maelstrom-

Living a life of rumor on islands

adrift in methane atmosphere!

--

I am disappointed that this ended. I shall go back to it frequently now. The idea is terra-forming new "worlds" within our lives.

Olympus Mons  is "Mount Olympus" and the largest volcano on Mars, or in the solar system as far as we know.

Jupiter's maelstrom is The Great Red Spot.

Escape, Rebirth, Joy of Childhood Revisited.......