Fast Day 373 August 9 2014 Lilies

Lilies

When lilies of the field are pressed between the good book's pages, in sweet Lord Jesus' raiment dressed, their seeds endure for ages!
refrain   God's seed endures forever, blown on the wind of grace; it will always bloom again and grow to His embrace.

The wheat upon the open plain, stretch forth their heads to pray; costume themselves in diamond rain, and their winnow fan array.  
refrain God's seed endures forever, blown on the wind of grace; it will always bloom again and grow to His embrace.

 Currents of the His saving waters, sweep in the ebb and flow; they bring a saving grace to me, and to the flowers to grow.    
refrain God's seed endures forever, blown on the wind of grace; it will always bloom again and grow to His embrace.

See me at the harvest,
see me at the bee;
lay me up in in bundled straw,
yearning to be free!
And when the harvest's over,
and no more stalks to scythe,
buy some time with lemonade,
and we shall be alive!

--
notes

From my other blog.

This was written in tribute to Fanny Crosby. Her hymns are much better than this crude attempt, but she was a better religious person than me, too. The form is odd; at the end it jumps into a new meter...everything. I thought it a fault, but it is a metaphor for the time when everything will change.

At the end "buy some time with lemonade..." may seem incongruous, to you as well to me, but it just was a picture of those who had passed were sheaves of wheat, cut down and laid up, in a barn or in the fields, where they wait - in barns where the late afternoon sun experiments with cracks and breaks in the carbolineum wall boards, and lights the dusty interior -

and the harvesters take a lemonade break...

and by the time they wipe their lips dry, we shall have been re-born.

Obviously, I require a songwriter to go with these lyrics.
 --

Fast Day 372 August 2 2014 Citizens United

Citizens United


Modern day Terminator!
 Hawking fears A.I.
The Imperial Memorial of 1958 -
when Sarah Connor was born -
spoke of the need for virtue confronted
by non-humans riding motorcycles...
and nude-crashing into biker bars!
and the right to voice your opinion
in a letter with a 3 cent stamp!
Ha!
 3 cents ignores the human costs involved;
Ha!
the corporate voice:
a CONELRAD siren;
pierces the silent holy night,
and grabs and pulls at
Christina's human legs!
desperate for home!

--

FastDay 371 July 26 2014 Fishtown

Leland, Michigan

Fishtown

A cosmic perspective I have none:
through a Beatrix Potter countryside
I drove north to Leland
in the Leelanau
for the July wide five K run.

To Heaven's pawn shops do I go,
to find duplicates of the textile arts;
and wander in antique stores
in the old Fishtown
for embroidered hearts I can not sew.

Lake Michigan has a trillion eyes
and reflects each star a million-fold;
flying images of fire lanterns,
burning like desire!
a new persona bold I'll try on for size!

--

note
finally picking up the pace again after selling mother's house and moving her and my brother's funeral.

so, the rhyme is

a,b,c,a  [L2:b ---> L5:x]

which means the final syllable, b, of the second line shows up somewhere (x = unknown) in the middle of the last line, also.
It's just a toy to play with.

Fast Day 370 July 19 2014 Desert Memories: Aswan

Desert Memories: Aswan


The days when they are held
give their names to the markets -
the suqūq surrounding
at several oases around
this lake made by artifice.

Six napoleons was the price
of horses on that Monday;
sit among the palms,
smoke the censing shishas-
the life of our dream.

--
notes
suqūq         markets

shishas      Egyptian hookah

Fast Day 369 July 12 2014

Winnecke's comet comes around now and then,
a periodical portent of mischiefs
and monstrous births
and discords among the works of men.

It is a sign upon my heraldry,
along with a Canterbury pilgrim,
counting his beads,
in a russet Franciscan jersey.

And the Virgin Mary left-standing,
with cormorant or albatross
over my ship:
Life need not be disappointing

Is the motto there inscribed on the bow,
bone-cruncher and wave-breaker
save our souls!
and heed our diego pilgrimage!

--

Fast Day 368 July 5 2014 Water Is Jade

Water Is Jade


Water is jade;
it's carved like flint,
diffuse and aqueous -
so when I hydrate, like,
when I drink water and nothing but...
when I fast
and eat nothing but the ocean sea...
I kick start my Indian motorcycle
of divinity,
truly if the divine were but
a shark,
a skate,
or a Mocha Dick will-o-wisp
that pulls us on - the Ahabs,
the Jonahs living on streets,
in the belly of the beast.

--

Fast Day 367 June 28 2014 World War E

World War E
(Ebola)

A call to violence flies the wind,
and wakes the sleeping horde;
display butterflies unpinned,
resurrected from their board!

Crack!  The specimen window glass
like a stone back rolled;
life and death in stark contrast,
command as quisling lord!

The rumor’d wars, the pandemics
us to their bidding bind;
we cannot run, we cannot mix,
as the civil knots unwind!

--

(on hearing of President Obama's Plan to combat Ebola.  9/17)

Fast Day 366 June 21 2014 No Victory But Of Love!

No Victory But Of Love!

when Isis was but the name of goddess love,
Aphrodite, Venus, Ishtar –
the city walls were virgin pearl,
and books were ivory.

our love grew like the kudzu of desire,
beneath the bright scratches of shooting stars!
the bed sheets were magician’s charms,
our eyes were like gazelles.

now in a world seduced by war and disease,
the over-ripe perfumes of ghosts!
we can yet bear witness:
no victory but of love!

Fast Day 365 June 14 2014 Going To Work In Ophelia's Limo

Going To Work In Ophelia's Limo


absinthe dawn greenly drawn and filtered
through the corrosion of copper lips
above Ophelia’s wedding gown,
open in the back and revealing
a copulation of tattoos.

Ophelia

up to meet the morning sun again,
and forget the troubling dreams of night!
a clear and sunny day does dawn,
and we will drive our gas-driven tombs
in funereal traffic jams

like a waiting queue of mummies to be,
in air conditioned chariots outside
the reliquaries of Giza:
we sit, we brake, we pull together;
sometimes we write a story

in our dreamy heads, filled with sweet
Apocalypse preserves from childhood...
we used to, like, believe world's end
to break this mechanical chaplet
of endless and continuous transport!

Melancholia

--

pix:  Ophelia:   thebeautifulnecessity.blogspot.com/2014/09/aurora-ophelia.html

Fast Day 364 June 7 2014 Circus Comes To Town

Circus Comes To Town

my mother name, she was Dorothea
and her sister was Praxides,
and my father no one know,
or maybe it was Eber Durham who
owned the bee gums down the road.
I had no name
an I don’t want none
anymore.

This is the time of uproars and clashes –
and the circus comes to town,
and there’s an elephant I don’t wanna see!
the fights of roustabouts and clowns!
Don' wanna see!
Don' wanna see!
after I die shall I live
in a marble kenoptaph eye
and everything I'll see.

--

Fast Day 363 May 31 2014 Heaviness

 http://www.bodhitreemonasteryofart.com/the-flow-of-heaviness



Heaviness

When did my body become hotel furniture?
luggage, baggage, backpacks slightly mildewed?
My life is my neighbor's futon,
uncertain washed,
scrofulous of lint,
balustrades ungainly, heavy, hippo legs.

The air tastes like a cardboard menu from Baja Fresh,
combining spice and chilies with cellulose.
Sun round as gramma's ottoman,
old cockaigne quilts
with preposterous scenes:
calico cats and polyester dogs pant!


--

Fast Day 362 May 24 2014 Economy Of Nuptials

Economy Of Nuptials

"We are to be re-branded..., " they said, faces shining.
"... although Sheila will keep her fam'ly name,
and I may hyphenate... "

This is how our son, John, informed us of marriage
upcoming, and they showed us the logo
designed for wedding rings.

Bespoke intertwine of vines and doves,
sun blossoms forged in gold,
the only gold,
the only bow to tradition,
the only touch of the past
from these Magi who refuse to
dismount their camels,
and leave their gifts
hidden,
scattered,
unopened;
no need for gifts...

They did not register on-line, for there is a need,
for seed and venture capital,
this now their IPO...

entrepreneurs of a child, whose name was chosen
by putting her in the middle
of woven geometry,

parents at opposite ends... the family name
to be that of the parent to whom
that baby chose to crawl...

"Carpet kabbala!" I contemned upon hearing it;
"Shhh," she said, finger to my lips,
"Be not so bearish!"


--
notes

The baby was placed in the middle of an oriental carpet, and the name became that of the parent to which the baby crawled.

Fast Day 361 May 17 2014 Winds

Tassels

Winds

Love is jasmine upon the wind,
lemon on the wind,
rosemary, orange-blossom;
love is sandalwood,
musky is the breeze.

Hunger is garlic on the wind,
lemon-grass breathe;
barbeque satiety;
hunger evanesce
into sweet clover.

Sleep is morphine pepper pollen,
blown on the wind
in the spring, in summer;
sleep is peppercorns,
and the film noir.

Religion is Queen's Anne's Lace,
breathing through the spaces:
white and indigo tzittzit;
religion is hyacinth
and the pheasant's eye!

Politics is tornado street,
tempestuous;
the eye of hurricane,
sleet of ignorance;
hooded aconite.

All these perfumes anoint the wind,
wind four-cornered;
the same everywhere and place,
yet so different!
We are all Wind Riders!

--

notes

tzittzit   =  the tasseled edge of the Jewish prayer shawl.

Fast Day 368 July 5 2014 Михаил кочевник (Michael the Nomad)

 

Михаил кочевник
Michael the Nomad

when did you get home?
and did the ocean roar?

did you see your pals again
at the Georgian shore?

did you look into a store,
did you hold your child high?

and why was he a kid again,
and why was I a sigh?

do you trek a thousand miles?
and when did you get home?

is there a feast to welcome you?
and presents, sweets, a poem?

i have already been there...
i shall not go again.
go and find your future
and sometimes i will send

an email of christmas time,
easter email too,
picnics, woods, and running twain
for life will ne'er run true...


--

birthday poem
reworked from an earlier form.

"Georgian shore" -  Georgia in the Caucasus, not the US State of Georgia

Fast Day 360 May 10 2014 Jobby Nooner

Jobby Nooner

Young girls fill the trees,
climbing and sensuous kites,
forgetting their mothers for a while;
and foreplay falls down
like willow trees that seek
the slap of water.

Young boys' sea-weed hair,
tosses in the rhythmic deep,
sleeping like fathers for a while;
and excitement looms
like heavy flotsam driftwood
cruising on water.

Wake in the present!
Boys and girls together strand
themselves upon the time sands of today;
jetsam from delight,
beer bottles and broken glass:
watch where you step!

--

Jobby Nooner has to be Googled. It takes place where my family used to go swimming every weekend. That was many years before the Girls Gone Wild times.

Fast Day 359 May 3 2014 Island Morning

Island Morning

I sit alone in sobriety.
Today fills my coffee cup
to the brim and overflowing;
Leaves on the river
flow like boats to foreign lands,
and cottonwood seeds
fill the window screens,
brighter looms of my youth!


--

Fast Day 358 April 26 2014 Iron Market In Haiti

Iron Market in Haiti

"As far from heaven as Haiti", the saying goes.
Yet all around the Iron Market in
Port-au-Prince finds Piere Barra, scultptor,
lace, straw, steel, plastic;  forlorn objects lost;
sometime thrown away by the Maîtres,
Masters of consumption,
who ejected them from Eden.

Dentelle, plastique, des épingles, coraux,
os, bois, ivoire, et noyaux.

--

translation last 2 lines:
lace, plastic, pins, coral
bone, wood, ivory, and nuts.

Fast Day 357 April 19 2014 Dharma Dantò

The Veve (Sign) Of Ezili Dantò

Dharma Dantò

comb your hair
pull it up
and tie it with a colored cloth!

take a spoon
filled with rice
and pass it by your white, white teeth!

come to me,
sleepily,
and fill me with your husky breath!


ignorant of dharma,
what am I but a sailor
of your body's sea...

ignorant of buddha,
I am but a thief
of cinnamon and cocoa...
and maybe plantains, dates,
sweet mustard, fennel, and sweet potatoes, too!

 

Black Madonna as Ezili Dantò

--
notes

The Revolution which created the nation of Haiti was inspired by the divine decree of the warrior love goddess known as Ezili Dantò who danced in the head of the great Haitian priestess, Cecile Fatiman, on that famous Haitian night in 1791, on a red hilltop, at a forest thicket in Haiti called Bwa Kayiman.

http://www.margueritelaurent.com/ezilidanto_bio.html

Fast Day 356 April 12 2014 The Big Fallujah

 Wild Hemp

The Big Fallujah

Marijuana is too easy
grows wild!
the slut of cancun
the whore of Babylon, and
the bitch of the Midwest drive-in movies'
snack-bar cantina where
we get ourselves a hit;
no one has respect
for a gift that comes so easy and
whose mystic pizzaz is trifling to uncover

opium is her sister,
you cut her, she bleeds fruity opaline opacity!

Booze is a real he-man’s buzz
takes sweat!
the farmers’ harvest,
copper kettle, and mashing tub,
a half hogshead for the manufactury:
small beer and the fat ale,
grinding malt and barley;
building the fire,
boiling, cooking, and adding
magic yeast to leaven life:
and burying in barrels;
industrial and assembly lines bev’rages
the fill the world with froth.

vodka is a skinny sister
who has a Broadway agent front for her!

Crack cocaine chemistry -
leaderboard! -
is the iPod high:
designed for restoration hardware,
precious gentrification of the crystal shell
that is the bold promise,
body shaved pinky swear,
and star of TV
Breaking Bad the sequel:
sound and fury hidden within
a mophie Juice Pack Air...

a sweet oblivion
and ending to
almost hundred years,
which began with Prohibition,
and ends with the Big Fallujah.


--

Fast Day 355 April 5 2014 Beautiful Camille

Odysseus and Nausicaa By The River

Beautiful Camille

You are beautiful girl, Camille,
the atmosphere and you -
your hair a cloud stretch of cirrus;
the ocean, too,
the sea carries you on its whiteback.

You are beautiful girl, Camille,
mystic - stay a bit,
rest by the limpid stream of haste;
we wash our clothes
side by side, and let them dry in the sun.


--

Fast Day 354 March 29 2014 I Am Legend

 I Am Legend - Will Smith

I Am Legend

I am Osiris
I am Legend
I go a-fishing by the Temple of Dendur
a divine epiphany
Philae is not dead
but drowns nine months of the year
and rises from the waters,
triumphant over death.

Zombies walk
on dry cracked mud
but they are myths of slave rebellions
another epiphany
of another sort:
nightmares of a master race
whose tabernacles are filled
with weapons and with guns.

Emery paper
grinds like anarchy -
boating in the half-flooded hypostyle hall,
we hear the ancient sculptures
become loose and fall
into the water which flows
into the East River where
Osiris' members go.

--

Fast Day 353 March 22 2014 Saint Sauveur Tres Cher

 

In The Mont Gabriel Club In Sainte Adèle

Saint Sauveur Tres Cher 

In Saint Sauveur des Monts they sell
Gucci and Versace,
there's an outlet mall, as well,
and Tommy Bahama.

On the Rue de la Montagne,
a maison p'tite et jaune,
we see all the way to Ste. Adèle,
on vends des oeufs.. douzaine.

--
Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts (1926-2002) est une ancienne municipalité du Québec. C'est l'ancien nom de la section Village du territoire de Saint-Sauveur. Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts fut créé en 1926 par détachement de la municipalité de Paroisse de Saint-Sauveur.
Wikipedia


maison p'tite et jaune   =  a small yellow house
on vends des...    =  eggs are sold there... a dozen

Fast Day 352 March 15 2014 Quebec Summers

Quebec Summers

The little painter's studio at Tremblant contains a cuisine,
full country as if from my grand-mere new sprung,
Minerva like,
a summer kitchen overlooking the back meadow
which leads down to the creek,
which intervenes between the logging road
and the Riviere des Ouatouais,
and all the jumbled perches of rock
where I alone was king.

The road we took to Tremblant has achieved canonization,
and it's bronze foot glows from pilgrims' thoughts,
St. Pete Beach like,
the winter kitchen with its dog and cat before the fire,
a pan frying green bacon,
which will go on Leonard's lunch sandwich,
as we wait for Gerald and his horse,
bringing mail and a large milk jug
of water from the spring.

--

Fast Day 351 March 1 2014 Pueblo de la Madre

Pueblo de la Madre

Pueblo de la Madre

Condos at the end of the world,
beyond the Great Wall faux rock and bricks,
are strangely passive in their receipt of Spring;
the promise of the pastel colors of Easter,
reverberations from the dawn sun,
are eruptions in the eczematic grass.

Wash the Winter from our skins,
remove our fentanyl patches...
Wake, Lazarus!
Wake with those whose portals opened
when the Temple curtain ripped twain,
stupified ghosts of weekend grande jatte
on the isle La Grande Golgotha.


--

Fast Day 350 February 22 2014 Questions And Muhammad Qatta

 Aleppo Street Vendor Of Juice And Coffee

Questions And Muhammad Qatta

Who are the Karaites? the young boy said.

the protestant Karaites of the Crimea

who reject the rabbis and their tradition;

who are the Karaites?

They are Jews, so it is said…

they are Jews, indeed, Jews…

they are the ones who eat chicken fried in butter

and his father spat upon the ground

may their memory be erased!

who are the Shia? the young girl asked.

the protestant Shia of the Iran, the Iraq;

who reject Mu’awiyah and the oral tradition

and remember brave ‘Ali?

They are Muslims, so it is said…

Muslimeen, indeed, they be

sons of the house of faith who hate the Sunni,

and believe when their Mahdi appears

that our Sunni memory be erased!

who are the rebels? the coffee boy asked.

who are these fighting here in Syria?

They are drinkers of good coffee, like all men.

That morning came a band

of rebels, thirsty for the hot,

the black, and the cardamom -

they asked for credit from a poor coffee boy

who said even Muhammad would pay!

and those Salafi erased his memory

for insulting the Prophet,

by their act of devoted killing,

by their prayers of blood.

--

Muhammad Qatta was a 15 years old:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/syria-boy-executed-rebels-blasphemy-aleppo-476670

Muhammad Qatta, 15, was reportedly shot dead in front of a crowd of onlookers, including his parents, for naming the Prophet Mohammed during an argument, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.
Qatta, a street vendor selling coffee in the Shaar neighbourhood, was abducted and tortured by a rebel group operating in the area, after he was heard saying: "Even if Mohammed comes back to life I won't give it as debt."

This is we were complicit in creating by letting Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel Right-wingers, and neo-con minded Americans create the civil war in Syria.

Karaites are a Jewish group in the Crimea.