Fast Day 379 September 20 2014 Hwore Of Cancer

Hworeof Cancer

The Hwore of Cancer came against the hospital
and spread her lofty legs above it all -
batshit all Akkadian crazy! -
from info desk to the parking garage,
like a syphilitic Rhodian colossus;
steaming in the winter’s cold air,
tinted and varnished giantesse
 bids us enter into Avernus.
A mighty apostassy
the heressy of our time.

Is not the cable tv glow a atheisstical plot
to foil and mimic the light of God?
And are not the blond ladies who read the news
honoring Semiramis or Cybele…
the mother of the Babylonian messiah?
the devil is in
the lymph-nodes,
the flesh, the world…
and doctors fail their Turing test
and they scatter to avoid the family eyes -
big eyes, sad eyes,
greedy for more pagan gifts of Life!




--
0i/29/2015

Fast Day 318 July 13 2013 Prodigal Heir

 

Giorgio Di Chirico Painting

Prodigal Heir

Disinherit me, Death,
take away the 'heritance of sin,
that forbids me joy in anything !

Stop buzzing around my head;
May I never eat your fatted calf,
and may His blood extract your sting !

----
notes

Delayed due to being away from electronic media.

Sometimes we get picked up by Rogers in Canada, but it costs a fortune in roaming charges, so everything

is turned off to prevent using it.

Fast Day 316 June 29 2013 Death Skypes At Dusk

Death Skypes At Dusk

I met a young Halo game expert
he said, "My mother died last year, my mother died..."
We were fighting in the Halo amusement park,
lobbing video grenades into buses.

The sorrow and the void -
electronic arts mayhem
fighting, man, in an amusement park ?!

I said my father died this January,
and he wasted away into head and bones
my mother and I cared for...
but instead I felt an emptiness now
transit the entire universe...

like everything's a Theme Park where
everything that interacts is fraudulent,
and the simulated floors drop away,
and I got lovers weapon in my hand.

death skypes at dusk and noon:
we fight and text our brothers;
run through the amusement park of urns
where rest fathers and our mothers.

--
notes
video games and sadness, and just a sense of Burke's Sublime.

The amusement park is featured in a cool violent video game.

Fast Day 300 March 2 2013 { Beautiful Sparks of God }

Vesuvius Erupting Soon After The Landings At Salerno, March, 1944

Beautiful Sparks of God

funeral home collage of history,
unsure whether we be bound or free;
ruins, fossils,
fire-drinkers of the dew:
Vesuvius erupts
and world war, too.

I go through the tomes for what I may see,
and find the works of the old Livy;
beauty ejecta
a baleful rain yields!
not in Elysium
but Phelgræean fields!

photos and videos, like leaves on a tree,
bold brushstrokes of vanish’t conspiracy;
buried in ash
the soot of noon-day,
pyroclastic x-flow
in the streets of Pompeii !

---
notes

I have found the usual ways of talking about the separation from a loved one are awfully opaque and trivial to express what I feel. I am still trying to express it.
My father was at Salerno. Soon after, the volcano Vesuvius erupted.

Beautiful sparks of God   -   "Freude,  schoener Gotterfunken" from Ode to Joy
world war, too  -   world war II
Livy  -    Titus Livius observed the eruption of Vesuvius which buried Pompeii
ejecta    -    things ejected and thrown by the eruption...   I seem to remember Livy was sitting on a boat in the bay watching the spectacle, and probably dodging ejecta.
Phelgræean    -    sulphurous fields, the opposite of Elysium
x-flow   -     extreme flow

we are buried in our remembrances: photos, videos, souvenirs. The soot of noon-day is darkness at noon.
There is an end and the promise of an archaeological beginning in the future.

Fast Day 298 February 17 2013 Lord Cancer and Baron Samedi

Lord Cancer and Baron Samedi

Death - take us to the bone !
Death, head cop in Jar City;
formaldehyde jars -
city of copper,
city of bronze,
metropolis of urns.

Gun -  take us to the blood !
Gun, principal of Slab School;
midnight prom morgue -
school of marble,
school of steel,
stainless of the scalpels.

O, King Cemetery !
columbary smiles and
dance a sarabande
of Baron Samedi,
of Madame Brigitte.

Dantó  - open my eyes !
Elizi, let me danzón !
and hear jazz euphonium !
I read the drum beat signs
that conspire to sap
Lord Cancer’s arpeggio !
--

peinture par Gerard Fortune

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 288 December 9 2012 {The Gardener Passes}

The Gardener Passes

Now the pain blooms with surprising petals,
and the gladiolus of illness
loom large upon the furrows of his despair.
We who dug and cultivated
are harrowed in our time
are we not?

Plow, dig, harrow, spade, and rake;
pinch, pull, trim, slice, and scythe.
Now the surprising petals that form and weld
the chalice of the hibiscus covenant
bend not for us;
what next?

--
late getting this up
I was at my parents and away from internet.
my father loves his garden, and he shall never see another.

Fast Day 286 Nov 24 2012 {Seeds in the Wind}

Seeds in the Wind

the fly-away days, the fly-away nights;
when the wind is blowing,
tumbling and rolling;
squandering old-witch grass,
throwing seeds far and wide;
some find way to grow
as they have for a million years,
far, far older and more ancient
than the math of markets -
markets free or otherwise -
miracle logic:  loaves and fishes!

when Jesus played and Peter laughed
with  the water and the wine -
our fates first entwined -
and all float upon the wind
heedless, squandrous seed heads,
wafting, riding
on roller-coaster Creation,
until stopped by some obstacle,
and we pull back and ponder
germination and genesis;
suddenly students of quick and dead.

--
notes

Life can suddenly become serious, and we face birth and mortality at Thanksgiving time.

Fast Day 260 May 27 2012 {Memorial Day In Goshen}

Memorial Day In Goshen

Holidays are thick with ghosts enough

within the barbecue of spirits:

dripping fats and smokey flavor pork

and collard greens and sweet cornbread,

with broken husks like china plates.

And in this festival sat Pharoah, tail-gating,

feasting on the porcine anatomy

and giving gifts of smells and smoke

to the spirits of his ancestrals.

Pharoah ruled in the Fayum of Bombay Beach,

by the ancient spirit lake of Cahuilla,

by the Temple of “The Luck O’ The Irish”

where liquor went for sapphires

on the shore of the Salton Sea.

Moses said when they first came here,

there was nothing but gang-banging and drugs

and shootings in the cities, in El Centro,

but now it was time to go…

If Pharoah did not agree, plagues would afflict

the land:  the waters would not engender life;

the waves would conceal firearms and guns,

overflow the banks and encroach your ground,

killing first-born, male and female.

Eight million fish died in one day alone

in the piscicidal divine rage on Bombay

Beach:  Death’s tilapia silver carpet

rolling gleam like undulant beer can empties!

Well, in Chicago alone  ten people

died of forty-three that were shooting:

holiday barbecues

zombies in Miami

we’re gonna miss these days sometime…

when Pharoah change his mind...

--

notes

Goshen - the area in Egypt where the Israelites lived

Bombay Beach - a vestigial city on the south eastern shore of the Salton Sea

Fayum - an area of lower elevation in Egypt where Lake Fayum is located.  As it is a depression, there is a parallel to the Salton Sink - where is the Salton Sea - in California.

Cahuilla - the Salton Sink anciently was the lakebed of Lake Cahuilla

Luck O' The Irish - a quondam bar and watering hole in the heyday of the Salton Sea

piscicidal  -  pronounced pis-ki-side-al , meaning the killing of fish. The Salton Sea began to experience massive fish die-offs in the late 1970's due to a number of factors.

This Memorial Day past, 43 were shot and 10 died in Chicago, and there was a real zombie attack in Miami, and I feel very much 'Resident Evil-frame of mind'.

The battle to save the Salton Sea in ongoing. The California Supreme Court most recently hammered another nail into its coffin, however, and water will not be diverted to maintain it. The Salton Sea is in a low depression called the Salton Sink. It has been filled with varying amounts of water over hundreds of years, anciently being an extension northward of the Gulf of California.
It's most recent incarnation was caused by a break in 1905 in the irrigation system supplying water from the Colorado River to the Imperial Valley in California.

It's all about death society and holidays! 

This poem marks the accomplishment of 6 years of this blog. I finally got home from my parents' place  - who are in their 90's and have no internet access - and got this up. 

I have another due for this Saturday, the 2nd of June.

I realize that a lot of this poem requires some familiarity with thje Salton Sea and Bombay Beach, but they are metaphors for the large nation, and there is info on Google and Wikipedia.

Fast Day 255 April 22 2012 {On Meeting Neighbor Knowles In The Cemetery}

On Meeting Neighbor Knowles In The Cemetery

We walked to a primeval grove
of a ripeness passed beyond its time:
Absalom Vandever four-square stood
a funeral obelisk inscribed,
cut with the names of all his wives
and their progeny of his despair:
Afra was the first
who bore James of the three days:
she died in ’75, and the child
followed soon thereafter in the last
two of his toll of days:
he knew, Absalom thought, and inscribed
upon the  face of stone:
The face of God is the first delight!
And the only delight for thee!

On each remaining triune face
was a woman’s name and a child’s
who was born to pass right on,
at least by the testament of this granite here!
Four wives, five children, the last were twins
a final paradox to Mr. Vandever
not fathoming fruit and multiplycation
combined with a cursed division...
Neighbor Knowles says no tomb of Absalom
is hereabouts and no one kens  his farm;
maybe all knowledge has disappeared…
or folks fear the bane of lecher death
that could not wait, and hied them all
to his dance in the Puttygut Road cemetery.

“Being in troubled times, I wonder
what will break the spell
of this profound despair of mine,
this my titanic hell!”


--
notes


True experience...
I use the word "triune" because there are 3 remaining faces; this may be illogical from a certain point of view.
It is sad.

Fast Day 246 February 18 2012 {To A Young Niece}

To A Young Niece

It is in media res;
there is a young girl dying
leaving husband and two kids behind:
one hundred miles of footsteps
in freshly fallen snow...
big-flake and powdery
that leaves plain tracks,
steps abrupt and stop -
in the middle of an open field,
and look around in surprise.

O, Sister, where art thou?
Come back and sit a spell:
annul the sumptuary laws of death,
and evoke the vanity of palaver
around the roaring fire,
talk of love once more,
and boyfriends, beauty,
and love yet again!
giggling around your High School lockers...
cheerleader on the golden shore!

---
notes

To me, she is always young and a kid, so I imagine her again in High School.
She passed this morning.

Fast Day 229 October 22 2011 {Coleman Young's Funeral}

Coleman Young's Funeral
(On a Friend's Funeral)

The many colored uniforms
of autumn line the street,
as we zouaves ramble on,
bearing him to Elmwood;
a telephone directory
of names and tears of your family -
they'll meet you on the other side
as now you fly away!

They came running to tell me news -
I’d heard it on the vine –
radio novelties all day
of our cold jubilees.
On wings of song you will soon lie
amid Egyptian sarcophagi
between neo-classic temples…
marching round Jericho!

--
notes

Coleman Young  -  Mayor of Detroit,1974 to 1993

Elmwood - famous Detroit cemetery

zouave - soldiers, French and others, who wore colorful uniforms; three syllables pronounced zoo-AH-vee.
--

Fast Day 219 August 11 2011 {Counting Twigs} second draft

Fish Traps and Gill Nets

Counting Twigs

I count the twigs of fate.
There are many.
I think about the twigs of fate.
The number... is it odd or even?
I count twigs of fate.
I throw them into the wind,
I throw them into the sea.
The number... is it odd or even?

I count the thorns of life
upon the rose.
If I fall upon them, will I bleed?
Who will wear this crown of thorns?
I count the thorns of life.
Will I bleed real blood,
or will I bleed a dream?
Who will wear this crown of thorns?

I go to mend the fish nets.
There are many.
I think about their spider web:
which salmon lives and which will die?
I go to mend the fish nets.
What has set a net for me?
Who will come to set me free?
Which salmon lives and which will die?

--
originally in Russian:
Я рассчитываю ветки судьбы.
Есть много веток.
считаю ветки судьбы.
это число...  четным или нечетным?
Я рассчитываю ветки судьбы.
Я бросаю их в огонь ...
бросаю их в море.
это число...  четным или нечетным?

Pix:  EdBob  on Flickr.com

Fast Day 218 August 5 2011 {In the Ball-Park of the Madding Crowd}

In the Ball-Park of the Madding Crowd

In Mary Roberts Rinehart’s Yellow Room,
Shiva woke up after taking a snooze;
so there was a young girl dead, just one,
and Floyd the sheriff drove to the cottage
old man Spencer had bought in thirty-eight
before the war, before his own death.

Mrs. Spencer closed her eyes, exhausted;
her daughter, Carol, who’d lost her lover
in the war, resented digitalis,
mother’s med,
mother peevish, invalidish...
lost her lover in the war,

J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Age Atomica
was about a full month away; it was
June of the year Nineteen Forty-Five;
In July Trinity fathered Fat Man and Little Boy
and Shiva was the Destroyer of Worlds!
and Shiva was in the house, the big house!

Mrs. Spencer sipped her scotch and soda
and dreamed of her son, Greg, coming home on
a thirty day to be decorated
by FDR himself,
the President…
and a dead girl in the Yellow Room.

Now in August of Twenty-Eleven
the Dow will drop five hundred points;
now Shiva works for Standard & Poor’s!
Can’t CSI all the dead in all our
yellow rooms: Iwo Jima and Darfur;
in the ball-park of the madding crowd.

Mrs. Spencer sat in a white wicker chair
in the sun porch…
after this great war, things will
never, ever be the same;
the future will be bright:
the future when every TV
talking head will know
who killed whom...
the young lady
named Casey perhaps
in the Yellow Room.

--
Reading a murder mystery, The Yellow Room, by Mary Roberts Rinehart in an edition published in 1945.
Thinking how things are in the past and the present.

Casey  - Casey Anthony

--

Fast Day 18 October 5, 2007 {On Viewing A Child's Grave}

Once a week, usually Friday, I fast and write a poem, apparently under the impression that this will help to end the war in Iraq.

Actually, it will, but for the most part, the people that read this are very rational and they will take a bit of time to understand the dynamic.

On Viewing A Child's Grave:
Coming upon a cemetery while walking through the woods to a vacation picnic.

Give him a hat,
a marble lamb;
no name thereon engrave.
Give him a robe,
a swath of lawn,
alive, we never gave.
Give him boots:
of stoney base!-
he'll no more run and play.
Give him a rose
within his cheeks
to bright this holiday.
Give him heart
and give him vein!-
O, undiscovered bourne!
May he wake
within Your love,
O God of Life eterne!



note:
In old cemeteries, there are tombstones which are small lambs with no name or inscription. I assume these are for babes not yet named. Perhaps for some other incident.
This was the start of this work, this poesis - in the Greek meaning "a work, a doing".

A Poem is a soul's doing. Not all souls. Some do other things. Those that swim in the web of language often do poetry.