Fast Day 125 October 23 2009 {Hanukah, Christmas, and Miracles}

Irrigation Circles on the way to Denver

Hanukah, Christmas, and Miracles

Imagine Hanukkah and Christmas
strung together on a rosary of beads
of endlessly profound onyx black,
one after the other.
Imagine geld for Mom and Dad
and toys for Billy and Sue!
Imagine the magic snows of Medical Denver
that melt off by ten A.M.
as we dreidel: tee-to-tum!
to tinker-toy clinics,
model train hospice,
and doll
and toy soldier
hospitals!
Where menorahs hang,
scissored from
construction paper,
colored in with crayon;
and green paper Christmas trees
with lights circular red
and asterisks of yellow.

Imagine an aeroplane from Detroit
from ancient aerodrome where
people dressed to the nines
and all was holiday flash!
The high and the mighty! -
cruising at thirty thou'
all the way to Magical Denver!
The early ice on the Mississipp'
cuts my barefoot eyes
like sun-light shards
that fell into
the embroidered carpet
of irrigated circle crops -
one after the other -
green laid-work of silk
on the back of Grandma's chair,
that my brother and I
knocked over
onto the floor
on Lakepointe Street...
and no one spoke for 20 minutes,
or more...
did we ever speak again?

De-iced planes
are like candy canes,
sugared in glucose curtain,
of that I am certain:
sweet aeroplanes!

It was a quick trip to Medical Denver,
not caring if I lived or died.
Go right down into those green circles
and we
would be
always together
for eternity!

Get up at three A.M.
drive to the airport;
but before that,
decorate the Christmas tree ahead
of time so it will be ready when we return
on Christmas Eve
or so;
but before that, I bought geld  for the god-kids,
chocolate,
and forgot it;
melting in my pockets,
messing up my cashmere...
but before we did that,
we couldn't imagine how sick she was!
No...couldn't imagine anymore
before
but now we do.
Imagine

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notes

geld
Geld is Yiddish for "gold". Hanukah geld was gold for the kids, chocolate wrapped in gold foil.
If you do not disburse it to the children, it stays in your suit pockets with tragic results.

menorah
the candelabra for Hanukah

dreidel
a top with four faces, marked N -nichts, G-ganz, H-halb, and S-stell ein

tee-to-tum
the word "teetotum" used as a song or invocation. A teetotum is a top, of which the dreidel is an example.
Edgar Allen Poe had a story of a madhouse where an inhabitant spun in his frenzy like a "teetotum".

laid-work
a type of embroidery
Here we're talking about a chair with laid-work decoration on the front and back.

Fast Day 124 October 17 2009 {Venus Rising in Aspen Grove}

Venus Rising in Aspen Grove

We took the road to Aspen Grove,
and turned off where the interstate ends:
where the funds ran out
or where the vision stopped
like the Cinema Palace when
the projectionist fell asleep.

The earth and sky come together
here, as close as spit -
and the misty net of moisture
cools the fevered lands
where sticks and kindling
once were houses.

Inside the brims of our white hats
we are circumpolar stars
in a time lapse photograph;
we cut through heaven
like quantum mandoline
picking a steel guitar.

Wild trail, ocean trail:
prison of the morning sun;
warden of the misty glen,
saving all time's elements together
for Venus to rise up again
before we Hummer home.

Fast Day 123 October 9 2009 {My Own Private Falluja}

My Own Private Falluja

Cleave the Sea with a sword!
or pierce the Mountain's black basalt heart
with a lance that's stoutly thrown!
Spit and douse the fiery Sun
and light the passion of the eunuch Moon!-
with tender lies uniquely told!
The lies of love, unnumbered,
rise from my body's parts like steam and fog! -
burning like Falluja furnace! -
Like a cigarette whose smoke
I gulp down like Ramadan-starved men
who break the fast
with food...
with drink...
with sweets and more.

Bodily forms from afar!
I sense the Boundaries of my affection! -
their circumference I invite.
Yet my eyes are empty;
your face has set into the West, and has
not yet arisen in the East!
Scatter the treasures of
Byzantium with phosphorous white delight!
Count the gold as sand! -
without value...
without hope...
without your jewelled arm!

note
written with more passion than clarity.
it is filled with desire and anxiety.
any meaning expressable in words escapes me.

Fast Day 122 October 3 2009 {Ramses Entreats His Coy Lover}

Temple of Abu Simbel

At Abu Simbel, Ramses Entreats His Coy Lover


Before I ever saw thee sitting there,
I sensed your presence,
the sandy ore of your chestnut eyes
that fall on me
like a meteorite falls
in the waste lands: fire and iron!
So much has changed; it was so long ago
that nations bent their dusty heads
and obeyed on bended knee...
They prayed to Great Rameses!
Ruler of all you survey!
...
I forget. I forget the fragile thread
of our lives together...
O, when the ibis took wing!
O, when the figs grew in the Fayyum!
O, when first I sought to break the gold
plate inlaid with lapis that lay glacier-like
upon your breast, I panted as Anubis
and hunted the fierce brown kernels
that lay symmetrical
upon that ivory ground!
A thousand years I wait in pain,
and then a thousand more
until you come up the Nile...
until Sirius runs his course...
until Geb desires Nut again
and heavens and earth combine
your beauty to create -
beauty so fleeting -
impossible to carve into this stone!
Let me be a servant of immortal Isis, and
I shall sweep away the flowing sea of sand
from the bourne of your cruel resting place!
O, come to me in spring,
Daughter of the Heavens!
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notes

Rameses was the pharoah who constructed the temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt.
The Fayyum was an area in the Egyptian desert anciently and modernly irrigated and bearing fruit.
Geb and Nut were the god and goddess of the earth and sky. Their embrace brings forth the world.
Sirius is the Dog Star.


Whereas Rameses could capture his grandeur and power within the huge carved temple for all eternity, he could not capture the beauty of his lover, whom he awaits endlessly.