President Obama's speech is tonight.
I shall be occupied through the weekend with other matters, so I am posting early. This is possible since I happen to have a poem. This poem was written between 4:30 and 7:30 PM, last night, Monday evening. I did a 3rd go-over this AM. For better or worse, here it is:
FORECLOSURE
nothing was forbidden now -
even drawing on the walls.
her rental space of happy time at end,
and the gaily painted crayon hours passed
in silken caravanserai of her dreams
and a children's beauty pageant!
she twirled her baton!
Julia Adams lives here;
take note: this is her room!
all you monsters and ghosts beware!
and whatever ills may come!
the house on cottageview haven
was bought with sub-prime money
and furnished without payment for three years;
she could walk to the school two blocks away,
beyond the inconstant traffic light seen
from her upstairs bedroom window.
how they loved that house!
Julia would run with dogs,
and snuggle with the cats;
go sledding on city park's hill of snow,
whip a fierce snowball, swim the swimming pool;
t-ball; soccer, and then little league;
and play xbox "resident evil" :
does something this way come?
Julia Adams lives here;
take note: this is her room!
all you monsters and ghosts beware!
and whatever ills may come!
that life died and was not buried
in the year of zero-eight;
the re-po man took back their joy, and then
the chifferobe of swollen, weeping eyes,
and all the wicker, wicker rocking chairs
to a dark uncharted forest
where the zombies dwell!
when foreclosure came to them,
the sheriff came to tea;
and alice-like, she cried: no room, no room,
until the xbox lay out at the curb;
she took poster paints and magic markers,
and on the wall above her bed embroidered
scream thread in crimson tears:
Julia Adams lives here still;
take note: this is her room!
all you monsters and ghosts beware!
and whatever ills may come!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Fast Day 90 February 20 2009 {Najeemy and James}
Najeemy and James
Najeemy sits in the restaurant.
She is the only African there.
On either side sit Maha and Alice,
thin and white enough to be ivory
earrings on Najeemy's head.
James stays with the children
wearing basketball shoes with neon;
He puts his right hand to his narrow chest,
the armoire of his heart and its desires,
and says that he is honored to meet me.
Intense Jamaican smile.
She met him in Jamaica.
She had an all-night party and returned
to her hotel at dawn to see him nude
within the reflecting pool, washing
as if he owned the place!
Najeemy could not speak.
As he dried himself off, and began to dress,
the boney lightning began to fade from view,
joining the black uniformity of
Jamaica's daytime streets.
They married the same year.
Najeemy sits with us in Al Ameer's,
with me and Maha, Alice and Miss Basheer,
and talks about the age of days and stuff
but wants to be so Sunni!
But a Sunni Lady never
extends herself to shake hands; she withdraws
her hands to rest within the sanctuary
of her breast, hands washed and pure - fluttering
like fearful hummingbirds.
Najeemy yells from afar;
she runs across the street to pick you up
and hug you in her great embrace until
you both are panting and out of ev'ry breath!
forgetting Sunni etiquette!
>>>><<<<<
notes:
Najeemy ( not her real name ) is a ebullient African-American lady with whom I studied Arabic.
She loved to read, wrote love poetry, and read tea leaves - among other things.
At one time, she wanted to be a teacher at an Islamic Academy. The academy was Sunni. The basic split in Islam is between Sunnis - such as Saudis, Northern and Western Iraqis, Egyptians, etc. - and Shia - such as Southern Iraqis and Iranians.
Both are pretty conservative.
We would tell her that she would have to become very conservative, if she were to teach. No more reading tea leaves, which would be very much frowned upon as fortune-telling.
Najeemy sits in the restaurant.
She is the only African there.
On either side sit Maha and Alice,
thin and white enough to be ivory
earrings on Najeemy's head.
James stays with the children
wearing basketball shoes with neon;
He puts his right hand to his narrow chest,
the armoire of his heart and its desires,
and says that he is honored to meet me.
Intense Jamaican smile.
She met him in Jamaica.
She had an all-night party and returned
to her hotel at dawn to see him nude
within the reflecting pool, washing
as if he owned the place!
Najeemy could not speak.
As he dried himself off, and began to dress,
the boney lightning began to fade from view,
joining the black uniformity of
Jamaica's daytime streets.
They married the same year.
Najeemy sits with us in Al Ameer's,
with me and Maha, Alice and Miss Basheer,
and talks about the age of days and stuff
but wants to be so Sunni!
But a Sunni Lady never
extends herself to shake hands; she withdraws
her hands to rest within the sanctuary
of her breast, hands washed and pure - fluttering
like fearful hummingbirds.
Najeemy yells from afar;
she runs across the street to pick you up
and hug you in her great embrace until
you both are panting and out of ev'ry breath!
forgetting Sunni etiquette!
>>>><<<<<
notes:
Najeemy ( not her real name ) is a ebullient African-American lady with whom I studied Arabic.
She loved to read, wrote love poetry, and read tea leaves - among other things.
At one time, she wanted to be a teacher at an Islamic Academy. The academy was Sunni. The basic split in Islam is between Sunnis - such as Saudis, Northern and Western Iraqis, Egyptians, etc. - and Shia - such as Southern Iraqis and Iranians.
Both are pretty conservative.
We would tell her that she would have to become very conservative, if she were to teach. No more reading tea leaves, which would be very much frowned upon as fortune-telling.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Fast Day 89 February 13 2009 {A Trip to Les Cheneaux, August 2008}
A Trip To Les Cheneaux, August 2008
We went up north to dance nude on the sand
of a place of wonder and shameless trees;
blinded in the new moon's total darkness,
wearing only reeds and the tails of cats,
we heaved the floating dock
and heard our bodies' band.
The viole of your hips upon the chair,
softly played sweet music of unsung lips.
We run through the peninsular forest to
the erect hill of one recluse pine
whose wind swept brows curtain
our lovely Eden nakedness.
So did jump Adam's heart upon that day
he stood atop that limestone perch coniferous
and gazed at Eva's discovered beauty
and found they were alone, yet not insular;
and the eros of their smiles
and eyes would bridge the bay!
Let's forget the days of lotteries or
football, forget the joy of criminals!
O, unruly parliament of our desires,
each clamouring to catch the Speaker's eye!
standing on our benches,
yelling points of ardor!
Life descends from the genital Sun,
and warms the coldly libidinous Moon;
each light descends to the tidal pools where
we swim in dolphin arabesques of love.
This boundless horizon
no greed will harshen.
We went up north to dance nude on the sand
of a place of wonder and shameless trees;
blinded in the new moon's total darkness,
wearing only reeds and the tails of cats,
we heaved the floating dock
and heard our bodies' band.
The viole of your hips upon the chair,
softly played sweet music of unsung lips.
We run through the peninsular forest to
the erect hill of one recluse pine
whose wind swept brows curtain
our lovely Eden nakedness.
So did jump Adam's heart upon that day
he stood atop that limestone perch coniferous
and gazed at Eva's discovered beauty
and found they were alone, yet not insular;
and the eros of their smiles
and eyes would bridge the bay!
Let's forget the days of lotteries or
football, forget the joy of criminals!
O, unruly parliament of our desires,
each clamouring to catch the Speaker's eye!
standing on our benches,
yelling points of ardor!
Life descends from the genital Sun,
and warms the coldly libidinous Moon;
each light descends to the tidal pools where
we swim in dolphin arabesques of love.
This boundless horizon
no greed will harshen.
notes:
Les Cheneaux are in northern Lake Huron; all limestone, sand, and pines and cedars.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Fast Day 88 February 6 2009 {President Obama's Stimulus Bill)
President Obama's Stimulus Bill
The Senate's consid'ring the stimulus
package to jump start the economy,
to give help after the drive-by shooting,
or so I said, reading the B.B.C.
She laughed, "Now they sit in Washington
like untrusting customs agents, trying
and discov'ring illicit smuggled cash
for the arts." She shook her long hair, and said,
"It's a man thing: the metaphor of jump,
and hooking electrodes to fix things up...
like Frankenstein", she softly hissed, snakelike;
"Dig up th'industrial skeletons of old,
unnoticed from the mass graves of today
on the roadsides of our Burma Shave memory!"
She laughed loud, and sat up straight: "Scarey, eh?"
Yes, I said, to vampire and to zombie,
to resurrect and stitch the body of
our rust-belt past, like Re-Animator
or The Night of the Living GOP,
while we townfolk stand with torch and pitchfork.
Later we went to Grandpa's old Garage;
as old as Henry Ford it stood with eyes
of glass panes, like a bee's multi-facets,
broken here and there by boys' tossed stones,
the Tracker Brothers Trucking of right now.
We break the seals and open doors,
whose hinges protest: Go away! Away!
like Samuel's shade did protest the wicked
Witch of Endor, filled with resentment, yet
unable to prevent the enchantment
of determined Van Helsing intrusion.
Past the crescent noon of time we stood
and viewed the treasure house of our grandpa's
tools: thresher, binder, cross-cut saws and tongs;
a Fed'ral truck, and two floors of dusk.
A device of lunar breastplate iron
stitched together with cobalt rivets hung
heavily inert from a heavy hook.
Who is a tool and die guy? anymore?
Where's the engineers of these hieroglyphs?
To clean it up, we took brooms with besom
from straws of Olympos and Avernus;
bronze rakes from Benin, ponderously long,
forged from old cometary copper;
we scrubbed from east to wet, and north to south,
until it gleamed again, like auroras;
and with those rakes, the peoples of the world -
The Senate's consid'ring the stimulus
package to jump start the economy,
to give help after the drive-by shooting,
or so I said, reading the B.B.C.
She laughed, "Now they sit in Washington
like untrusting customs agents, trying
and discov'ring illicit smuggled cash
for the arts." She shook her long hair, and said,
"It's a man thing: the metaphor of jump,
and hooking electrodes to fix things up...
like Frankenstein", she softly hissed, snakelike;
"Dig up th'industrial skeletons of old,
unnoticed from the mass graves of today
on the roadsides of our Burma Shave memory!"
She laughed loud, and sat up straight: "Scarey, eh?"
Yes, I said, to vampire and to zombie,
to resurrect and stitch the body of
our rust-belt past, like Re-Animator
or The Night of the Living GOP,
while we townfolk stand with torch and pitchfork.
Later we went to Grandpa's old Garage;
as old as Henry Ford it stood with eyes
of glass panes, like a bee's multi-facets,
broken here and there by boys' tossed stones,
the Tracker Brothers Trucking of right now.
We break the seals and open doors,
whose hinges protest: Go away! Away!
like Samuel's shade did protest the wicked
Witch of Endor, filled with resentment, yet
unable to prevent the enchantment
of determined Van Helsing intrusion.
Past the crescent noon of time we stood
and viewed the treasure house of our grandpa's
tools: thresher, binder, cross-cut saws and tongs;
a Fed'ral truck, and two floors of dusk.
A device of lunar breastplate iron
stitched together with cobalt rivets hung
heavily inert from a heavy hook.
Who is a tool and die guy? anymore?
Where's the engineers of these hieroglyphs?
To clean it up, we took brooms with besom
from straws of Olympos and Avernus;
bronze rakes from Benin, ponderously long,
forged from old cometary copper;
we scrubbed from east to wet, and north to south,
until it gleamed again, like auroras;
and with those rakes, the peoples of the world -
grasping with eager sinews their brazen shafts -
pulled cool drinks of darkness from the blist'ring
Sahel sun - the killing genius of the drought;
and alternately pulled warm draughts of sun
from the unyielding cold - killer by ice.
And when it was done, we had a party
to celebrate our secular novelty
with all the flags and pennons of the world.
No one got drunk, and no fights broke out:
and we were not so tired we could not love.
pulled cool drinks of darkness from the blist'ring
Sahel sun - the killing genius of the drought;
and alternately pulled warm draughts of sun
from the unyielding cold - killer by ice.
And when it was done, we had a party
to celebrate our secular novelty
with all the flags and pennons of the world.
No one got drunk, and no fights broke out:
and we were not so tired we could not love.
notes:
Burma Shave memory: a simple recall that floats by like the indicated signs.
Re-Animator etc: old horror films.
Tracker Brothers Trucking: an abandoned facility in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher.
Witch of Endor: asked by Saul to summon the shade of Samuel.
Dr. Van Helsing: entered the ruins of Carfax Abbey to destroy the evil of Dracula.
Olympos and Avernus: mountains in Greece and Italy, respectively.
Benin: country in Western Africa with a history of metallurgy. Together, Olympos, Avernus, and Benin refer to the influences of their respective cultures upon our country.
Sahel: African region south of Sahara desert, drought-striken for years.
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