Behind your eyes you lived and in your legs.
It was as if your spirit had emulsified
It was as if your body had let you down
Lover dying fighting for freedom in Spain.
That bridge in Zaragoza, guns and fires.
Wires cutting and cutting, searing bone.
Your body’s blood crying in a bad transfusion.
You had to spin your language to sharp, your mind to pun
And spawn your odd oracular silence
which kept us all quiet, so your mind could play its ways
You lived in a utopia all of your own
You had activated heroes and heroines.
The rights of man singing with Paul Robson, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger
Malvina Reynolds, Miriam Makeba, Joan Baez.
For the average man and woman. Your eager brilliance
You kept under wraps, under your eyes.
A woman of many secrets, you longed for
That outrageous freedom, where women can let loose
To be without any precedent or precedence to slow her,
You broke through roles to model a glowing chance for freedom
And you always told me in your shaded eyes to go deeper:
deeper and further that anyone says, you can stay.
Whenever feathers lying in the grass I spy
they remind me of my dwindling days.
For all too soon I too could fall and die
and how would you know I passed though this maze?
Each quill is the scar of a leaving behind,
the remnant of some bird’s flying away.
And when I find one I hope Life may be so kind
that you might find mine when I fly one day.
So I leave these feathers of a heart taken wing
and a soul that never found a nest.
They’re dipped in black and songs they sing,
so you might know my soul’s at rest.
Haunts of people intense in spring light,
Straw fields and thatched roofs,
Wood fences standing at a slant.
The strangeness of people surge.
Your pale hat whiter than the hills and the sand.
The white of uniqueness. An unsullied tone,
Like you were, holding on to my red shirt
Your body planted firm in my mind—
Woody Herman swinging with Django Reinhardt.
Soulful on syncopated. In that strange balance
We made, standing out in the straight.
She believes in stones,
their tales of megalithic glory
told by the silence of the ancients.
At Avebury, spiritual omphalos,
she rushed to greet them,
hugged them like long lost friends.
Warmed by the sun
they breathed, they were alive,
they hugged her back;
Princess of Albion.
Seated in the Devil’s Chair
I watched her, pink hair,
zips and leathers a warrior queen.
Many silver bangles sung
as she danced, wove a spell
through the avenue of stones,
standing waiting for her
for thousands of years.
At last! she has come home;
Princess of Albion.
From the temple’s sanctuary
hand in hand along the ceremonial
avenue across Malborough Downs
to Silbury Hill, and why they were called
the Downs when they lifted her heart so
she couldn’t understand.
Having stepped on Neolithic footprints,
we kissed in a Druid circle of flowers,
this was when her laughter became sunshine
daughter of Mother Goddess;
Princess of Albion.
The cave beyond the edge
lies in the land beyond attachment.
I didn’t know that the cave beyond the edge
lay in the land beyond attachment.
I didn’t know that the cave beyond the edge
lies in God’s Heart.
How little I knew.
I didn’t know that the swimming
would be so rigorous,
the need for fitness so great.
I swam there.
I climbed there.
I didn’t know that the cave beyond the edge
would require so much vigor.
I stayed there.
I prayed there.
I waited there
in all the silence.
Now, how glad I am
to have swam and climbed there,
to have stayed and prayed there,
to have waited there,
in all the silence,
for amidst it all,
I am glad,
to be in the cave beyond the edge,
in the land beyond attachment.
O Gracious God, how glad I am
to be here, where You are,
in my heart, here.
For I hear,O Gracious God, I hear
Your Voice rising from the silence.
“Thank You,” I respond, “Thank You
for the freedom, the choice,
of entering here, with You,
into this deepest chamber,
this deepest living space
of my heart, Your Heart,
where together we live in peace,
in the joy and jubilation of knowing one another
and all others, heartfelt, in harmony,
together, in LOVE.
Similar to the crazy quilt, the log cabin is also an old pattern. . . . the difference is the structure of the patches; the pieces are cut into straight patches or “logs” and organized around a center square. Some speculate the pattern developed as the woman’s counterpart to the man’s building of log cabin homes years ago.
Or the shape of a Quaker meetinghouse,
benches ranged around a hollow square.
Or the hollow square deeper within,
where I learned to watch what stirred,
and called it God, or breathe with it
now and call it something else —
only what is. I remember my own
past, or the past long ago, easier
to imagine gracious, as if its suffering
were a progress though a stately lane of oaks.
Breathing through the summer morning
while the world falls apart, and a friend
says she can barely hang on with it,
destruction invisible but so close,
obscene. The wish then not only to
resist but build, hands aching in the lap,
to make something fit to last, to live
by. Sunlight moves on the eyelids,
as on the floor of a meetinghouse,
sifted through oaks past a window I imagine;
logs of light then, angling on the ground,
each one a line, a line, a line.
There was an interval
When we ascended
Stairs in a dream
Referring the rose pink light of dawn
To cleave apart that golden drapery
Silently waiting for
the pictureque azure
in the sky
Whereupon we sight
the silver lining
Whilst the gate of empyrean bewray
For us
To reminisce our first sacrament
Survival of the fittest
Political temperatures dictate
Fight, flight, freeze
Been frozen for a few years
Chronologically too old for fight
Adrenal glands choose flight
Travel with jars of natural
Peanut butter and jelly
Crackers withstanding staleness
Jugs of water
Rolls of toilet paper for trips
Behind hedges
Baby wipes hygiene
Oh, why did I
Get rid of the travel trailer
Can I live on 4 wheels with 3 dogs
And a driver?
Icy dawn heading north
Wind whipping long hair
Through minute window cracks
Canine scent-sense tells me
When we pass salty or loamy aromas
The truck a speeding bullet
Of movement
Until yawning stars give way
To a cloudy dawn
Where have I gone?
Flying away to safety
Bicameral brain
Merely a strain
Logic says no safety in denial
Creativity says
Draw, write, sing SAFETY
Until it is real
for those who don’t know the chocolate
the children of poverty
and the sleepers in the corners of the ancient streets
for those who survived from the famine but still hungry
for those boys who never dream
cause they never sleep
for those who don’t know the chocolate
and heard more news about its sweet
the people with half soul
and lack food and the imaginary house
for those who crawled on the sharp platforms in the mid-night of every day
seeking for the warmth living
for those babies who never taste the milk
with wide eyes looking for any help
for the hands of charity
and the sensitive hearts which cry and bleed
for those who gathered in the torn tents around the world
waiting from a long time
for those who don’t know the chocolate
and haven’t the ability to imagine it
the innocent faces washed under the rain
the seekers for the smell of humanity in each alley, place, and content
for those who kiss the sun through their contemplate glances
for those who write with heavy heart and smashed dreams
the climbers of the existence shoulder
looking for the justice face
for the dancers with bare feet on the top of Everest
who do their best to bring the joy and the peace
for the sun of tolerance which touching our bones
for the bloom of the flowers
and the skies gloom
for those who never taste the chocolate
but they still hearing about its magic
the crawlers on the earth with a great desire
to make the difference between the past and the future
for those who draw on the sand
with belief in the friendship with the waves of the sea
for the killed persons in every battle
for the injured soldiers in every war
for those women who haven’t the right to vote
for the fishermen in their ships
for the highest star in our sky
and for the rainbow
for those people with disabilities
and for those players with the wool ball
for the little boys who sell the water
for the little girls who feed the roosters
for the nations which suffer from dry
for the victims of racism
for the dead from the terrorism
i write these poems for those
who don’t know the chocolate
the poetry is the deep philosophy of the cry and laugh
it is the unseen language which touches our soul bitterly and joyful
the poetry is the skin of the sensibility and the incredible race among the clouds
it is the pouring of the sky blue in our opening hearts
the poetry is the art of the mess
that far world which told you what behind the galaxy
it is our previous feelings and the forthcoming ones
when we believe in spirit and science and madness
the poetry is finding the details in eyes of someone
it is means this amazing ability to read the maps of souls
it is the smell of honey and the necessary of wings
and the tragedy of nights
it is the long walking in the land of the imagination republic
the poetry is more than contemplating the moon through a poetic night
it is more than rhythm and free verse
more than the extraordinary words and the visual scenes
the poetry is more than the silence of beauty
and the gossiping of people
it is what beyond breath
it is what beyond the sea
it is what beyond the legends
the poetry is discovering the hidden smile of the orphans!
I remember when we woke together in the ancient streets of Spain
I remember I felt a strong shiver which could heal any pain
when the fantastic windows whispered in my ears ” hello ”
I couldn’t dare to reply
I thought that voice came from my fellow
so I began to spy
here, I discovered the magnificent magic
her shape take more than my like
when I jumped like a child in the street
because I fall in love with the windows of Madrid
this a romantic story escaped from the old age
and rapidly came to me and wrote its secret on my page
the beauty windows of Madrid
inspired me to write in Casa Maria plaza mayor
it makes my soul singing for the coming light and also for
the ancient art of Spain
which could heal you entire of suffering and pain
“Just minutes after President Donald Trump called for unity in the wake of attempted bombings targeting a number of Democratic officials, he took a swing at ‘globalists’ and used the phrase ‘lock him up’ while chuckling. Trump was responding to a crowd yelling to lock up George Soros, a victim of the bombing attempt.”
—Nicole Goodkind, “Donald Trump Repeats ‘Lock Him Up’ Chant About George Soros Minutes After Calling for Unity Around Bomb Threats.” Newsweek 26 October, 2018
Etz Chaim עץ חיים — Hebrew for Tree of Life [return to poem]
In Israel, the roll back to Daylight Savings Time was the evening of the shooting, motsei Shabbat, the evening after the Sabbath, which is the beginning of the week. In the Jewish Calendar, days go from sundown until sundown. So, Shabbat (the Sabbath) begins on Friday evening at sundown and ends Saturday evening, after sunset (defined as when three stars can be seen in the sky, in the past, more typically about one-hour after Shabbat began on Friday, in modern times). [return to poem]
Her nightmares began in the week before Christmas;
screaming, fearsome trespass into the child’s mind.
The news of the day had infringed with no conscience
and stolen a bit of innocence from the six-year-old,
waking her from a terror that others could not escape.
“I don’t want Santa to come into our house,”
she said one night. “It scares me.”
“You’ll be safe, hon,” her father whispered.
“Mommy and Daddy will protect you,”
her mother said. “And your Guardian Angel, too.”
“Why didn’t their Guardian Angels
protect them?” she asked,
in the direct distillation of thought
only a child can accomplish.
Her father closed his eyes and drew a breath
before telling her:
“Because so many little kids
and their Mommies and Daddies
fear this world more than we used to,
God needed more brave little angels
to help them feel protected.”
As snow fell outside the bedroom window,
the little one lay down with her mother,
satisfied for a bit, sleeping safely in her arms.
Her dad thanked God for her and that
she heard not the door open and close twice.
When she awoke in the morning,
little Emma called into the kitchen,
“Daddy come see, come see.”
There in the night-fallen snow, a score
of snow angels had ringed their blessings
upon a home and a little girl.
I’m sorry if this doesn’t really sound like a poem. I’ve been struggling with these feelings for a long time and I have difficulty expressing such things sometimes except by writing them out for myself. Some folks say I’m some kind of storyteller, but I often lack the emotional capacity to couch thoughts of such horrible things as the Newtown tragedy and other mass shootings in words. As a father and grandfather, this piece helped me gather a few in one place. May all our angels rest in the peace of this season, and all the seasons to come.
I have learnt to decide,
nor my inner self trouble,
since I have learnt to analyze;
it is easier now to get over feelings
hurt or saddened, painfully burdened-
I walked and walked and walked,
and thought…one more step and
I would reach the pure water spring,
brief known journey came to an end
my feet touched Mother Earth-
it was a beautiful afternoon-
there was a time I had transport in which,
I would be dropping friends, colleagues
and their kids that was my time, I could do that
that was my memory, this, my experience,
that came wafting touching the clayey frame,
painlessly, then flooding the heart-
I stood for a while, looking,
as the water flowed, in the river
under the bridge, the vulnerable bridge…why are
bridges made? to connect? No.
To break connections?
cannot say,well , just to pass over to the other end-
looking at the Korang River, for a while I lost
sense of time-the water flowed and I stood still-
water always did, it always will, sometimes high
sometimes low-I did not know where
to go, I did not feel the Earth under my feet
how long was I in that small seat,
moments not long, but the last ever to be
I saw Nothingness staring back at me-
till I could no more see, nothing red,
till the trembling subsided,
nothing white, nor blue..
Hey you? can I drop you?
many cars passed, people stared through
the windows, unsmiling faces raced by
hurrying to their destinations
a strange lady with a bag, changing hands,
shifting the load, had to be carried,
walking all by herself-
looking peaceful but carrying a turbulent storm
‘turn now, move on, like the river, be like
the bridge, connect and remain in quietude-
I walked…felt numb, thoughtless with acceptance,
happy moments are brief, short lived,
yet they come leaving fleeting memories-
walking helped the heavy spirit but lightened
not the load…mistake mistake, mistake-
‘you crossed the line-turn turn turn’
walk walk walk…till you can…the sun came closer,
pouring love with its rays, drenching me
in a comforting warmth-
Nature Loves us deeply, we know not…
I turned stepped on, step by step, step by step
distance unmeasured, no desert can be measured
deserted desert ,mirage unseen, this is The Unseen
The Nothingness became visible, I walked -I felt Peace
I saw the Unseen I saw Peace I saw love descending
from above-then more -the resurrection,
the road the river and I were moving, walking flowing together
in the same…..direction
At eighteen, I stepped into the other world,
the one that sounds fantastical but is not.
Drainage pond at the bottom of a hill on campus,
behind it a small straggle of winter woods,
beyond that, a path towards the sports fields.
Grass still green in the mild mid-Atlantic,
twiggy dried milkweed standing and fallen,
plain as plain, just hidden, just waste.
An ordinary afternoon, and I felt surfeited with reading;
walking down the hill, I cast away my mind.
At the water’s edge I looked at the surface;
the water looked back at me. The world had eyes:
perceived me as I perceived it, all the same.
The bare treetops in the distance moved in my arms.
I felt the cawing of the crows that rose inside my chest.
But no crows there, no chest here, only that cawing,
that burning and empty annunciation
of how we too are the shine in the tufts of the cracked pods,
falling and lifted in the wind through everything.
All of this I could see, while I rubbed my eyes,
as if to dislodge a film that was not there.
This happened. I was a freshman, with no one to tell.
Why do we seek imagined worlds? We know nothing
of what is real, how wondrous and complete.
Japanese tea house: reflects the wabi sabi aesthetic, Kenroku-en Garden
if only i knew
what the artist knows
about the great perfection
in imperfection
i would sip grace slowly
at the ragged edges of the creek
kiss the pitted
face of the moon
befriend the sea
though it can be a danger
embrace the thunder of a waterfall
as if its strains were a symphony
prostrate myself atop the rank dregs on the forest floor,
worshiping them as compost for fertile seeds
and the breeding ground for a million small lives
if i knew what the artist knows,
then i wouldn’t be afraid to die,
to leave everyone
i would be sure that some part of me
would remain present
and that one day you would join me
as the wind howling on its journey
or the bright moment of a flowering desert
if i knew what the artist knows,
i would surely respond soul and body
to the echo of the Ineffable in rough earthy things
i would not fear decay or work left undone
i would travel like the river through its rugged, irregular channels
comfortable with this life; imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete
In the ever-Summer glare and heat
I found my life’s pain and regret
sanctified into something replete
with but little Hope baptized in sweat.
So the torment, no matter how holy,
still rips around my beaten heart
as if it was something mad and solely
bent and intent to rip it apart.
Perhaps I can hallow my vessel so hollow
with the heat from a different kind of light,
as good for my soul as the heart to follow,
soothing all my pain with its godly might.
And that’s why I’m here dipping pen in ink,
the black sprung from my soul to my heart.
Drawing pictures in words so we all might drink
of this sacrament that heals me called Art.
As I like to say, completing these pieces I share does not make me feel better. But all the time spent immersed in the process of writing them does. And that, my friend, is the miracle of Art, no matter how poorly rendered.
If you want to feel
the passing of night to day,
take my hand.
And if you would know
the road best travelled
see the lines on my face.
If you wish
the greatest gift ever,
lie beside me, feel my heart
and if you want to know
what lies behind the stars,
look into my eyes.
If you would feel
the world shift, then accept
happiness from my soul.
And if you want
a place always to return to
join me.
For this is not
slavish devotion.
Without thought.
Nor a storybook rhyme
that ends happily, regardless.
This is love.
As simple as it can be.
When we love. Truly love,
our skin becomes thin.
A fine, tender membrane.
Sensitive, delicate.
That leaves us vulnerable.
Open to the blade and scour
of a harsh word
or thoughtless gesture.
Yet that same skin rebounds.
Strong in its flexibility.
Allows healing and repairs
the sore spots of wounds
unintentionally inflicted.
Fear has teeth, weight, venom,
that permeates every cell.
Brings paralysis of limb and mind.
Saps strength,
steals appetite and sleep.
Yet, it is a figment.
Has no legs, no substance but that
which we offer from our own minds.
Imagination
that pushes thought forward
to explore worst-case scenarios
that we touch and poke
like a tongue probes
a tender tooth.
Yet fear is insubstantial.
Allowing it bones hardens it.
Gives solidity to make a weapon.
One which we painfully use
against ourselves.
In the midst of nuclear insanity
In the midst of natural calamities
In the midst of hatred and harm crisscrossing the land
In the midst of hostility riding in cars emasculating our civil liberties
In the midst of blood spattered into the streets…
In the midst of people crying…people dying
America Still Sings of Freedom
In the midst of Black Lives Matter
In the midst of limitations set on Muslims’ immigration
In the midst of white supremacy poisoning the tender tendrils of democracy
In the midst of Native Americans wanting to save the earth from greed and destruction
In the midst of dreamers’ dreams vanishing in the wind
In the midst of chaos and confusion
America Still Sings of Freedom
In the midst of immigrant children being wrenched from their parents’ grasp
In the midst of the vanishing affordable health care act
In the midst of the oppressed screaming for justice from the callous and the cold
In the midst of the stranglehold of the school-to-prison pipeline
In the midst of the vines of violence choking aspirations
In the midst of mass incarceration
America Still Sings of Freedom
In the midst of earth’s disintegrating atmosphere
In the midst of conflicting attitudes towards a solution to pollution
In the midst of profits leading to the desecration of our planet
In the midst of socio-economic terrorism
In the midst of religious fanaticism
In the midst of man’s obsession with power
America Still Sings of Freedom
In the midst of the sunrise greeting a new day in magnificence
In the midst of the stars twinkling eminence throughout time
In the midst of intergalactic connections singing in eternity
In the midst of the courageous voices of the many standing together in unity
In the midst of joy infusing hearts of stone
In the midst of peace in search of a home
America Still Sings of Freedom
Learn this lesson: assume the supplicant’s
position, low before the arbiter.
Hang your petition on the ox’s horn and
pray as it turns and plods inside the keep.
Forty two days in the wilderness, longer
than Christ’s self-chosen stay. Time to go home
and count the copper pennies in your palm, time
to scour the bins for corn cobs overlooked,
scraps on bones, nubs of bread, hide candles
and kindling, beg remission on your rent.
Time to forage hedgerows, scrape bark for baking
bread, claw the furrows for potatoes, hush
the hungry child while you lie clamped and clemmed,
fashioning hope from feathers and dung.
You may be lucky: beneficence
parsimonious may be granted or
day on day on days delays will find you
in winter’s shadow outside the castle walls.
The title of this poem relates to a new UK Social Security single benefit ( to replace several others). Its rollout has been very expensive and is causing great hardship for the poorest people in this country. Many have to rely on food banks.
got folks outside the candy store staring at opaque glass they can’t really see the sweets they’ve heard about and will most likely never taste but they’ve got some pretty pictures like promises painted for them on the glass outside pictures carefully crafted by those who own the store who offer free tenants a lifetime of servitude to buy a lottery ticket for the chance to
come inside
The woman I am
Is the woman I was
The quiet one,
The smart one,
The bookworm,
The one who ran a high school mile in 20 minutes.
The woman I am
Is the woman I was
The hands in my back pocket,
I can conquer the world,
Let the party begin,
I can pull off an A paper in 4 hours Co-ed,
Who wasn’t self aware enough,
Who wasn’t practiced enough,
To know alcoholic lies.
The woman I am
Is the woman I was
The trusting in a good world,
How did this happen to me,
Despite my negative words,
Against my feminist will,
It must be my fault,
Forgive me, understand me lover.
The woman I am
Is the woman I was
The grieving mother,
The don’t get too close so it doesn’t hurt mother,
The oh it could be fun and easy mother,
The I didn’t realize boys were so different mother,
The stay my baby a little a lot longer mother.
The woman I am
Is the woman I was
Angry and hurt,
Confused yet hopeful,
Spurned into action,
Despite fears of rejection.
I am the intersection of
My gender
My ethnicity
My religion
My race
The intertwining of identity and history.
The woman I am
Is the woman I was
Is the woman I will become
Jaw set
Brows coming together
Looking straight ahead while around her
Kids are squirming, tearing, jeering
She rubs her forehead, right above her nose, and closes her eyes
The gesture of acceptance
Out-numbered defeat
Head tilted to the side
Eyes squinted
Staring into a face that doesn’t believe in her worth, her rights, her existence
She crosses her arms, juts her hip, and taps her foot
The gesture of defiance
Disbelief that in this day and age
Mouth agape
Neck outstretched
Listening to advice and false promises yelled by witnesses to her body’s treachery
She swings her arms and shuffles forward
The gesture of persistence
Knowing pain is temporary
Afterwards, she sits still
Listening to the quiet sounds
Of trees swaying and not breaking
Her breathing deepens
Her arms raise to the sky
The gesture of triumph
Self determined
Amorphous clouds engulf me –
My true hand unseen
My heart frozen, unloved
My breath stilled and unworthy
My solid form deemed weak
What was supposed to shade me
Protect me
From the bleaching hanging sun
Now hurts my skin with its
Wispy viper tendrils
I thought you were my friend
But I missed the forecast for
Cloudy with a chance of
selfish entitlement.
Its leaves are near-ochre,
yellowed with age and changes
in weather and geography,
like the pages of memory
I un-shelf along with it each year.
I bring it out like a swimsuit
each summer since I found it
on that beach in that place from
that side which did not prevail.
Today, a page fell like a memory.
It tells a tale of the push and pull
of a time when men could be
paid for and sold, or lined up in ranks
to pay their last full measure
of devotion to a cause each held sacred.
As I run my finger down the page,
I am present in my place and time
as I am in theirs, though I smell
the aroma of a musty old book rather than
of Hell’s own sulfur and smoke.
And I am at peace reading of war and death,
vaguely secure that such a conflict
couldn’t again slash my nobly scarred nation.
Then all these men would have given
that last full measure for nothing.
It’d be our most-mortal sin to allow them
to have lived and died in vain, knowing their
new birth of freedom, and government
of the people, by the people, for the people—
all the people—did perish from the earth.
Rambling draft inspired by reading, breathing, feeling, listening to the pages of my old paperback copy of The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara’s fictional narrative of the actual men and events leading up to, within and following the days in July of 1863 we know as the Battle of Gettysburg. I find myself reading more of my Civil War books these days.I love them, but that I feel so viscerally compelled concerns me a little.
“Once upon a time there was a town where all the people were exceedingly lazy.”
—The Lazy Townspeople
It’s true of course as we all know those
Lazy folks just down the road will do
Just about anything to not do just about
Anything, hoping some nincompoop
Will show up just in time to rake up
All the trash, bag it, maybe recycle it,
And send all that is not wanted on its
Merry way. When even that didn’t
Work out, the old folks were just beside
Themselves to get themselves going
So the place might look a bit more
Spiffy when the man in the white house
Who now owns everything and everyone
Will drive by for a view, and toss a few
Coins to those whose waving hands
Are the highest ever for free handouts.
That was at least the plan. The old town
Though just got older, stinkier, trashier,
And big bugs soon arrived by the millions
So no one could get a night’s rest without
Bites everywhere and anywhere but as
You know, no one knew quite what to do.
We could all make rakes, a ratty man said.
I’ve got a bunch of mowers, said the long
Beard. The smelly old one even kept empty
Bottles of Clorox and Windex just in case.
Everybody said let’s get started, but no
One really started, as no one had ever
Known how to bring spring to the old town.
A well-kept girl crawled under the hedge
That kept those in and those looking out
And she knew right away what might spiff
The place up, shiny and brassy as before.
Follow me, she said, and everybody did
Just that, and soon the town was not ever
There, no one could even remember it,
And then, what nature does best, a big
Wind came through and the wind coughed
It all around the world as it was most
Disgusting with all the dust, and mites,
And those terrible bugs that get into
Everything, and soon the man in the
Big white house drove down to see
His priceless town, and it was so shiny,
Smooth, and not a trace could be found
Of the terrible people who once called
What once was trash, what once was home,
A fine place to wave his tiny, clean hands.
On looking how she was. Staring
always, as though there were
depths and hollows to see through
somehow all into. Something to stay with her
little girl hands twisting and then the warts.
She would always try to pull
The world into her fingers.
To play the sounds closer.
She was just oblivious
To her difference.
But behind, they knew her
for the witch they thought they knew she was,
Jude, Commie, sick-to-stick-out little girl,
Pale-wincer-in-the-sun with that heavy coat.
Cassie and Lassie, those twins,
they knew fast just what to do.
lasso a tip of her hanging braid
and soak it slow and silent in the
ink-well behind. Well, she just kept her still.
Her long eyelids shuddering in her quiet.
Little girl on the edges, locked inside in.
No Howdy Doody times, no way to say it.
She just fought to gaze hard to look straight
beyond the puppet land of the 1950s.
She had to come home to hide
behind the tv and the cooking.
All the time life opened up for her
savage saddle markings.
I go blind from then I go
here now so into Franco-free light
where I don’t know
how to turn my eyes, spent scars of second skin,
years of no and fury,
now the clean air breaking in
to be real in this to breathe it
all in and then to die in Madrid.
Tempt it not—I surely do not
Not too. No Franco and his cops
Nor his tiny stamps, unwritten laws
And truncheons at the ready.
I did not come here to die
but to be home here
where I can get lost again free
in a landscape of
words drifting oh words! Hombre que te pasa la Republica Zaragoza libertad.
Find the bridge, the path,
to cross over to some-
where the verdict words cannot. Qué bonitas son Son las flores
No, not just pretty. Knot not.
When I go blind,
“good I cannot see them”
(as the words once were cords
even to touch their fury)
The pain of sound.
Clackety clack.
Let the air out
of this flat tire.
I’m breaking in
to be real again—
the Guadarrama mountain range
splendid low about the horizon
white-scarred muses
women scarring Fascism.
Late afternoon glory with them in Madrid.
The air so pure it stings to settle.
At the beginning of before.
Here it is: are we in the right
spindle bobbing away?
Are you a fable resting in the sun and wanting?
Tell me how your dreams are.
Tell me what you might mean to yourself in their fury,
Now, skirts forever in a night wind
Yesterday spins yellows around tomorrow
Whatever did your mother tell you about
late at night when you put your book down
on the bed and she came in soundless
with a tight face to sit in the dark with you
while you wheezed and you waited.
Violence in the coal mines.
They always told me
La Pasionaría was brave no pasarán, she said. With her vision
she was defending Madrid’s mountains
they told me and I heard her when
she spoke with that spike of passion
indomitable: she said no pasarán
and in the foothills there were cheers all dressed in black.
Your father I learned took a gun with him
there at the beginning of before
to protect himself at midnight
on the picket lines in the dark
to protect himself from hit men
who hated his vision out west
in the fog in those long flat parking lots .
Low in his left cheek a muscle quivered
within, at the end of a smile that wasn’t.
He took a gun and she went kitten silent on your bed.
The quiet of her heavy sitting
at the beginning of before
reminds me of an old dream,
her telling you of crossing the street
because of the scar on her skin
because she wanted to hide it from all eyes
Was this a mingled message
to fight with all the passion the rains pour
or to scurry away from feeling?
To hold the front line or to flee into a hole?
Camus who believed in solitude as his struggle
And Aragon whose masses were transcendental
Tell, tell me more please before the end is over.
No matter how much we enlarge it,
that photograph snapped by a German soldier
of my grandmother in Lida, 1916,
remains perfectly clear. Her eyes
register her cold measure
of the soldier who could decide
Lida, 1916 photo
to shoot her instead of her
picture if that
was his hobby
instead of photography.
This is what war
is like – I taste her fear
even though I’m seeing her
now from the eyes
of the oppressor.
And I know the shame of both.
What brought the Israeli poet, Karen Alkalay-Gut, to post this on FaceBook, about the poem above?
Sepia: The poem is about 1916—there were no Nazis back then. By writing the poem about this scene I am doing what the German soldier is doing—taking advantage of the person in a helpless situation without their permission. That’s what the poem is about. Anyone who sees politics in this poem is paranoid. But if some people were hurt by this poem, especially because it was in a place so honorably perpetuating the memories of such persecuted people, I do apologize. —Karen Alkalay-Gut
A controversy led to this statement, of course, based on misreading the poem. The misreading, though, mattered because of the context of where the people that Alkalay-Gut mentions “were hurt by this poem” encountered the poem. The poem appeared in the exhibit “Flashes of Memory – Photography during the Holocaust,” at Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center (Jerusalem, Israel). Although the photograph from the poem came from 1916, and the year appears in the poem, the context suggested to others that it was about a NAZI soldier. And rather than understand that Alkalay-Gut recognized that her own gaze at the helpless Lida, her grandmother, in the 1916 photo formed a kind of oppression (related to something called scopophilia in critical theory), viewers/readers saw in it a criticism of Israel that likened Israelis to NAZIs.
One might agree that a reasonable reading of the poem could be that those who benefit from military oppression are like the soldier who oppresses with his camera in the poem. The soldier had the choice to use a camera or a gun, and that those privileged to be in the class benefitting from soldiers’ guns also have a choice to use cameras or (let others) use a gun. The poet could be seeing her gaze as privileged and potentially oppressive (of her grandmother / grandmother’s memory, of others held at camera-gun point). But the soldier in the poem came from WWI, not from the Holocaust, and that is not a minor distinction.
Another distinction that matters is that Karen Alkalay-Gut lost her family during the Holocaust. She recognized that the hurt that could occur from encountering this poem in this context could be genuine and deep. She responded, as quoted in Israel HaYom newspaper:
“It’s a personal poem, I write from the heart, and it’s not a political poem, despite the fact that there are many ways to read a poem—and it could be read in such a way,” she explained.
“If this poem is hurtful to someone, then it should be removed from the exhibit. I did not mean to offend anyone, heaven forbid. I lost all my family in the Holocaust, and if it offends someone then I have no right to say something else,” she said.
“I think Yad Vashem needs to handle the matter, and if it appears to someone as political and insensitive – the poem must be removed from the exhibit,” she reiterated. —Israel HaYom
The poem cannot reasonably be read, on its own merits, as comparing Israel to NAZIs. It could be seen as being critical of oppression and military violence. It could be seen as drawing a parallel between the WWI soldier and the poet. On its own merits, yes. The context, however, created a different reading than the poem by itself would. And Israel does not appear in the poem, except if you know Alkalay-Gut is an Israeli living in Tel Aviv.
This is a strong poem, by a strong poet. She does write from the heart, as she says, but she also writes with a sense of justice. This poem is about justice in a very personal way—her grandmother is a victim of the soldier, as the speaker in the poem implies (the presumption is that he is exercising his power over her), and a victim of the poet looking at the photo, many decades later, when the grandmother can no longer say, “No. That is not for you to see. It is private.”
‘The spirit of the wolf resides in my heart Mostly peacefully, but ever wild Running in time to the blowing wind, Dancing in the clouds that drift in the heavens The spirit of the wolf resides in my soul.” – Gretchen Del Rio
The Howl or How Wild Women Press Came to Be
by Victoria Bennett
Snow Owl by Gretchen Del Rio
At twenty-six, I met an owl. It turned out to be one of the axis moments on which my life pivoted. It was a cold January day where frost lingered in the shade but the sun was shining, the kind of day where things seems possible because you have survived the darkness of winter. The trees stood bare of leaves, branch-fingers stretched out expectantly, waiting for Spring. I was waiting too, holding a sense of change quietly behind my eyes. I watched the crows fly, black wings against blue sky, looking for carrion, listened only to the sound of water and wind and some crow caw above. This was what I was trying to remember – the feel of my touch, the scent of the sky, the hopeful warmth of sun just after the midwinter. My life had become so much darkness, so much noise and pollution and not seeing. This was the counterbalance and so far, it was working. Slow, slow days, allowing the words to surface and sound and where words could not come, allowing the brush to paint or the body to move. All was changing. I was changing. The woman I was underneath was beginning to take shape, and to my surprise, I liked her.
But first, the owl. I was stood beside the ash, eyes closed, when I heard a scratch from above. I opened my eyes and saw the owl, white feathers thick for winter, watching me. Awake. Not daring to move, I simply looked and allowed it to look at me, until after a few moments, it flew away. The owl came, and I was listening because I was ready to hear, and I was ready, it seemed, to shift shape again.
One week after the owl and I met, I had a dream. In this dream, I was with a woman walking along the river. She told me I was to call the Wild Women together. This did not seem strange or unusually prophetic. I had found a deep resonance with the stories I had found in the Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book Women Who Run with the Wolves and so the archetype of the Wild Woman was something I was familiar with, but the sense of purpose was surprising, and so, the next morning I got up and started to write the posters for what was to be the very first of the Wild Women workshops.
“The reason that people awaken is because they finally stop agreeing to things that insult their soul.” Gretchen Del Rio
Six weeks later, I stood in my living room, the fire in the stove burning and the tea hot in the pot. Before me sat twelve women, very different in ages and styles, but all sharing something special: they had all responded to the call. And so it came to be, the Wild Women group was born and I was to be their mother-wolf for this journey. As I stood there, faced with women whose individual and collective ages outstripped my own, I felt petrified. Who was I to stand here and say “this is the way of being woman”? Yet, that is exactly what I was to do. I did not know where it would take us, take me. I was just willing to begin, brave enough to speak out and hopeful enough to believe.
‘”Welcome…”
… and in that one word, I started something that would sustain me through my twenties, thirties and into my forties. I had met my clan. Together, we found the courage to stand up and say, “This is who I am…”.
That was nearly twenty years ago. Since then, working with the Wild Women, I have gone on to set up Wild Women Press, published several books of poetry from the group, worked with over 2000 women (and some brave men) on a number of amazing projects, hosted the (in)famous Wild Women Salons, made creative connections around the globe, and performed live at events around the UK and USA. It is a space of celebration and activism. There is no business plan or professional career path. It can lie dormant, hibernating as we nuzzle down and grow our ideas in the dark, or it can awake with passion and create for change on a global scale. We have used our creativity to create positive change, to be part of the world we want to live in andleave for those who follow. Sometimes we act on a very local level, sometimes on a global one.
Recently, I have been collaborating with the creators of the #MeToo poetry anthology. This is a very important movement for me personally, and for us as a group. As soon as I heard Deborah Alma was wanting to put together an anthology of poems from this movement, I offered my support, and the platform of Wild Women Press. It was obvious from the very beginning that there would be many more poems than there were pages in the book, and so #UsTogether was created, to give a platform for some of these other voices. Alongside the launch of the book, Wild Women Press are hosting a selection of these poems, in honour and celebration of the courage and sisterhood of all those who have spoken out as part of the #MeToo movement.
One of the core aspects of the group is the respect and celebration of each individual woman. Although in the beginning it was me who stood at the front of the room, every woman in the group was to go on to inspire and lead, using their own experiences, passions, talents, and knowledge to guide them in how they would to do that. In a similar vein, we will be launching an online Wild Women Press blog later in 2018, sharing our ideas and perspectives. Over the next year, we will be gathering Wild Women from around the globe to contribute, extending our circle of clan further. We would love to hear from other women, who would like to be part of a clan of contributors.If you are passionate about something, and would like to be part of a global group of Wild Women writing, creating, and being part of a positive change, please do get in touch.
In 2019, it will be our 20th Anniversary, and 20 years since we published our first book, Howl at the Moon: Writings By Wild Women. To celebrate this, we will be publishing a new book of poems by Wild Women – and this time, we are extending the howl out to others. We will be putting out the call for submissions soon, on our website, Twitter, and Facebook page.
For now, we continue to meet as a group every couple of months, and once a year, we spend four days at our Wild Women Gathering, celebrating, creating, and sharing our stories (and eating way too much food). We have witnessed births, marriages, divorces, unemployment, career changes, graduations, new beginnings, and painful goodbyes. What began as a workshop group, has become a place we now call home, and a wild family. You can sometimes find us on the fells or beside fires. We howl often, laugh lots, and when prompted, bare our teeth. Our coats are all a little more silver, and our eyes a little more wise, but we are still discovering. We are the Wild Women, and we welcome you.
Poet, publisher, activist and wild woman, Victoria Bennet
VICTORIA BENNET (Wild Woman Press) is an award-winning poet, creative activist and full-time home-educating Wild Mama to her son, Django. Originating from the borderlands below Scotland, she is the Founder of Wild Women Press and has spent the last quarter of a century instigating creative experiences in her community. Her poetry has appeared in print, online and even in the popular video game, Minecraft. She has published four collections and performed live across the UK, from Glastonbury Festival to a Franciscan Convent.
Poetry publications include:
Anchoring the Light
Fragile Bodies
Fragments
Byron Makes His Bed My Mother’s House – a Poetry & Minecraft Collaboration with Adam Clarke, that explores grief and letting go
What We Now Know – digital VR music collaboration with Adam Clarke and The Bookshop Band, inspired by the #MeToo anthology
returned to bite through the umbilical of tradition,
to flick her tongue
and cut loose the animus-god of our parents,
like a panther she roams the earth, she is eve wild in the night,
freeing minds from hard shells
and hearts from the confines of their cages,
she’s entwined in the woodlands of our psyches
and offers her silken locks to the sacred forests of our souls ~
naked but for her righteousness,
she stands in primal light,
in the untrammeled river of dreams
the yin to balance yang
the cup of peace to uncross the swords of war ~
through the eons she’s been waiting for her time
her quiet numinosity hiding in the phenomenal world,
in the cyclical renewal of mother earth,
whispering to us in the silver intuition of grandmother moon
watching us as the loving vigilance of a warming sun ~
she, omen of peace birthed out of the dark,
even as tradition tries to block her return,
her power leaps from the cleavage of time
Illustration ~ the lovely watercolor painting by Gretchen Del Rio with its girl-tree, panther and other spirit animals was the inspiration for my poem, Her Power Leaps, on the return of the divine feminine. The back-story on the painting is interesting. Gretchen says, “I painted this for a fourteen year old Navaho girl. It is for her protection and her power. She sees auras and is very disturbed by this. She is just amazing. Beauty beyond any words. You can see into the soul of the universe when you look at her eyes. She has no idea. I loved her the moment I saw her. My blessings for her well being are woven into the art.” Such a delightful piece. I purposely posted it full-size so that everyone can enjoy the detail. Bravo, Gretchen, and thank you. / Jamie Dedes
I store sorrow seeds and bitter roots
in gold jars where memory breaks
their pain into parables I’ve risen from.
Hell prefers the unaware, the wound
and not the scar, but the candle of my spirit
has been formed from match strikes at midnight.
My childhood stolen by hands of harm
caused me to swim silently in a river of threats
until trust carried my voice to freedom.
I reject brutality’s attempts to pour me into a victim’s mold
or chain me to the barbed wire of ghosts.
I am a survivor resurrected whole from affliction.
I’m on my way home from the Lucidity poetry conference. I learned a lot from fellow poets and from Nathan Brown. I highly recommend if you have a chance to go to one of Nathan Brown’s workshops, do it! He teaches through music, storytelling, and poetry reading.
As per one of the requirements I wrote a poem for Lucidity‘s Annual poetry contest. At the time I didn’t know why I was being led to write such a personal poem about abuse. When the awards were given out it earned an honorable mention. As with anyone who enters a contest the hope is to win. I was disappointed but stood up to read the poem not expecting to be emotional. I felt a bit overwhelmed but managed to read it and then sat down. After the ceremony a man came up to me in tears. He thanked me for being brave enough to write it and to read it. He said he was going home to tell his daughter about it. He said she had suffered abuse and he thought it would speak to her, help her. I leaned over to the table picked up the poem handed it to him,and told him to give it to her. He wrapped his arms around me and we cried together. I then knew my reason for writing it and my reason for reading it. Susie
I bring you time
wide, unbridled,
seamless as seas;
the fragile vee
of fledgling’s beak;
the solidness of shapes:
oak, tower block, petrol pump;
a coupling, tripling,
quadrupling of souls;-,
the still small pureness
of alone;
of colours, every one;
an ample mixing palette,
deftness of touch to conjure
your own shades.
An ear tuned
to the furthest whisper
of the furthest corner
of all your life might hold,
and every decibel step
and variation from this
to the loudest brain roar;
a hundred eyes to sperm
innumerable words;
the knowledge-gift
and mystery of saying
all you need to say
in one, or two
ladybirds, beetles and bugs
worms and platoons
of white maggots
with bluebottle generals in charge
turned the corpse
inside out
upside down
and bit by bit
spirit eased itself free
of tissue remnants and bones
squeezed between stones
until it stood proud of the earth
an aura of wishes still clinging
wondering why it felt
so lost, so alone
wondering
Never starving artist, for we feast on what our father has made
Infinite of beauty.
This poem is about my reaction to the protest and gufaws at the die hard simplicity my husband and I attempt to maintain. Green is in but sadly simple joy and the appreciation of nature, human experiences and connection is not. So, if you see a petite, brown skinned cellist busking on a street corner near you, give her a hug. If it is not me, I am sure she won’t mind. If she does…it will give you something to write about.
There used to be craters on the moon, now the moon is a crater. Carved out, mined of all its juices, it remains derelict. Too light to continue to orbit: it just hangs, skeletal and listless. Unable to wax or wane, its cycle broken.
Tidal-confusion grips the ocean below. Trapped, neither flowing in nor out, unable to turn yet trying to. Turning itself one way, then the next, like an uncomfortable sleeper, too hot inside its own shape.
I sit, bare-footed, on night-dewed grass, sniffing out the hot-salt of the ocean that cannot rest, the orange-rind moon above. I too am neither one thing, nor another. I whisper to the blades of grass, tap on the earth, and wait for the flowers that will never come.
Carbon Footprint
In my lifespan,
so far reaching 22 years,
I have owned 3 computers,
3 games consoles (despite the fact I don’t really use them)
and 3 mobile phones,
the first of which would have lasted forever, but,
in a freak accident my dad ran his car over it.
I can’t drive, but I did have a moped –
but I crashed twice and got rid.
I have voted in 1 election – (you made me)
but I won’t say who for. (Yellow)
I can ride a bike, swim (just about), speak French
and have that crazy allele that lets me roll up my tongue.
I have drank 0 cups of tea, smoked 0 cigarettes –
the only nail polish I own is black.
I have eaten:
1516 Apples
1232 Loaves of Bread
243 tins of Baked Beans
3125 Carrots
669 kilos of Spuds
181 kilograms of Chocolate (mostly without you)
and 345 Chickens.
I have bought over 2000 books,
borrowed over 3000
and never returned at least 5 (one’s yours, I’m sorry).
I have spoken 32,301,600 words
written nearly as many,
but lost most of them in workshop.
I have had 30,025 dreams,
most of which were nightmares,
some in black and white,
some sound-only, (but always your voice)
and some so real – they remain
like false memories –
when I wake up the next morning.
I have blinked 119,376,303 times,
walked over 4450 miles,
cried 34 pints of tears (25 pints were for you),
shed 588 skins (but for you I haven’t changed once),
experienced over 834,200,000 heartbeats,
I have lost my virginity once,
had sex with one person,
and (I think you should know this)
have only ever fallen in love once.
To name a purple flower—hubris;
To call red a rose. A rose is a rose is a rose,
She said.
The fruit of purple.
So like an apple—
so unlike an apple—
poison to eat. —Sodom’s apple milkweed—
A rash thought that
blisters my skin. A rose is a rose is a rose,
She said.
[1] “Calotropis procera, a milkweed native to the Dead Sea and Sodom, Israel and other desert regions” (Wikipedia). Known also as Apple of Sodom.
Which is also the title of a Marilyn Manson song written for a David Lynch film, Lost Highway(warning: strong images in this YouTube music video of the Marilyn Manson song):
This poem originally appeared on Instagram, in an earlier version.
Shaken earth weeps
floods of ice in all lands,
attempts to cleanse itself.
We diseased cells have
metastasized, eaten
its forbidden flesh,
perforated its bones.
What it cannot shake
off it sweeps away
in wind or burns
off in fires. Glaciers
wear down what remains.
Everything known is now
extinct. Only new forms
emerge, scathed and
transformed from death
by cancerous greed—
into a fallen grace.
And these words, which I command thee with this day, shall be upon thy heart…
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall be for frontlets before thine eyes.
—Deut. VI:6, 8
I.
My beloved whispers in my ear; she reveals herself to me—
her Words, jewels upon my breast, upon my hand, upon my forehead. When my beloved walks in the field, the heron flies up with cackling praise; she inspires the crane to laugh as it rises into the sky; the swallows dance for her.
I have come and gone with uncertainty and doubt; but my beloved inspires constancy:
Though in times of drought the hill dries out, the hollows hide some mud, remembering. My beloved brings rain into the high, parched fields that have forgotten her; she walks among the swaths and sheds her tears for each cut stalk.
The hollows swell with water to quench the beasts and grow the iris;
my beloved reflects their grace as they mirror the sky among the grasses.
II.
The storm was terrible: the thunder rumbled long in the night; the lightning terrified;
a wind blew through the window of the house and tapped upon the walls. Yet, my beloved whispered in my ear and I wore her words like jewels. In her arms I rested as the fields drank deeply, the dry holes filled with sweet water.
In the dark I am drawn to my beloved; she is even more glorious in the light:
She is a stand of gentian unexpectedly found near the edge of the willow. An eagle flies above the goldenrod and pines; I know my beloved thinks of me. The thought of my beloved eases my burden as I toil on the road to her house:
Her kisses, sweeter than blueberries freshly picked, inspire acorns to rise toward the sky;
her caresses provide strength to the birch, the aspen, the maple, the oak, but also to grasses.
III.
I hold my love; she holds me. I have studied her in the willow, the iris, the thistle:
finches, warblers, and wrens feed and live in her shelter, so my love feeds and shelters me. The oats have been cut, the hay rolled and stored for the winter. My love comes to me and whispers in my ear; she reveals herself to me.
The geese gather and call, flying over the trees, landing in the pond:
my love sighs and the grasses bend; the aspens sigh and my love bends to me. Her kisses build the temple; her love holds me and I heal: My beloved is mine, I am hers. She points to the flowers off the path:
small white bells, tiny blue trumpets, vetches, paintbrush; I don’t know all the names.
My beloved knows the Names of the Flowers; she whispers them to me: I embrace her.
והיו הדברים האלה, אשר אנוכי מצווך היום– על לבבך… וקשרת לאות, על ידיך; והיו לטופפות בין עיניך
-ספר דברים, פרק;, פסוקים ו’-ח;
I.
אהובתי לוחשת לי באוזן; היא נגלת אלי-
מילותיה, תכשיטים על חזי, על ידי ועל מצחי. כשאהובתי פוסעת בשדה, הענפה אצה מקרקרת תשבוחות: לעגור היא נותנת השראה לצחוק במעופו אל השמיים; הסנוניות רוקדות עבורה.
באתי והלכתי עם ספק וחוסר ודאות: אולם אהובתי משרה השראה בלי הפסקה:
גם אם בשעת בצורת הגבעה מתייבשת; הנקיקים מחביאים קצת בוץ, זוכרים. אהובתי מביאה גשמים אל הגבהים, אל שדות קמלים אשר אותה שוכחים; היא מהלכת בין האלומות ומזילה דמעות על כל גבעול שנגדע.
הנקיקים מתרחבים ממים שמרווים את החיות ואת משקים ומצמיחים את האירוס;
אהובתי בבואה לחֵינם באותה מידה שהם משקפים את השמיים בין הדשאים.
II.
הסערה היתה נוראית: הרעם הרעים לאורך הלילה; הברקים הבהילו;
הרוח נשב מבעד לחלון ונקש על הקירות. אבל עדיין, אהובתי לחשה לי באוזן ואני לבשתי את המילים שלה כמו תכשיטים. נח בזרועותיה בעוד השדות בשקיקה שותים, הנקיקים היבשים במים מתוקים מתמלאים.
בחסות החושך אני נמשך אל אהובתי ובאור היא אפילו עוד יותר מופלאה:
היא גבעול גנציאן סגול הנמצא במפתיע בפאתי הערבה. נשר חג מעל האורנים ושיחי שרביט הזהב הצהובים; אני יודע שאהובתי עלי חושבת. המחשבה על אהובתי מקלה על המשא שלי בעוד אני עומל לעשות אל ביתה את דרכי:
נשיקותיה, מתוקות מאוכמניות טריות, מעוררות השראה באיצטרובלים להתעלות מעלה אל רקיע;
ליטופיה כוח נונתים לליבנה, לצפצפה, למייפל, לאלון אבל גם לעשב.
III.
אני מחזיק את אהובתי; היא מחזיקה אותי. למדתי אותה בערבה, באיריס, בחוח:
פרושים, גדרונים וסכבים ניזונים ובמקלטה חיים, ככה אהובתי מאכילה ועלי מגנה. שיבולת השועל נחרשה, עובדה ואוחסנה לימות החורף. אהובתי אלי ניגשה ולי באוזן לוחשת; היא מגלה עצמה בעבורי.
האווזים מתאספים וקוראים, עפים מעל העצים, באגם נוחתים:
אהובתי נאנחת והאווזים רוכנים; הצפצפה נאנחת ואהובתי רוכנת לעברי. נשיקותיה בונות את המקדש; אהבתה אוחזת בי ואני מחלים: אהובתי שייכת לי ואני לה. היא מצביעה לעבר הפרחים לצד הדרך:
פעמונים קטנים לבנים, חצוצרות זעירות כחולות; מברשות, מטפסים; אני לא מכיר את כל השמות.
אהובתי יודעת את שמות הפרחים; היא לוחשת לי אותם; אני אותה מחבק.
In reading that word – sustainability – cradling the head of our current Guide Dog puppy in my hands, her deeply pleading eyes looking up at me, I am reminded that this word not only describes what we at The BeZine – and indeed many, many more people around the world – more commonly come to understand of its meaning.
I have hitherto thought of sustainability as the fundamental process, nay philosophy, that needs to be adopted in order for the Earth to continue providing for all the life that inhabits it. But it also reflects human behaviour; it expects a certain attitude; it assumes that an essential ingredient to the achievement of a sustainable World is that the human beings, who inhabit the Earth become determined to adopt a way of life that is … well, sustainable!
It is an unfortunate character of the human condition that it is not until we lose someone that we become much more conscious of their value to our own life. It seems, whilst they are still around, that we prefer to focus more on their faults and shortcomings than on their virtues and strengths. We are even more prepared to abuse or betray their trust, than to respect them. So too, our Mother Earth.
As I regularly drive the roads around us, particularly the lanes of the beautiful countryside that surrounds us here in Yorkshire, I am reminded also of one of those human faults, anxiety, and of all the consequences of that condition: stress, impatience, fear, anger, aggression, depression. All too often, when I glance in my rear view mirror, I see another car race up behind me and sit so close to my rear bumper that I can’t see their number plate; at speeds and in situations in which it would be lunacy to contemplate overtaking. It is as if they are tempting me to yield, give in, pull over into a ditch and let them pass … and claim me as another victim! It isn’t necessarily that, I know, but it feels like that and, even in my advancing years, with the wisdom and insight of the road that I’ve gained in fifty years of driving, along with lowered testosterone levels, I sometimes feel like retaliating … and we all know how that could turn out.
The Dalai Lama it was, who attributed anxiety or agitation as the root of all conflict in the World. There is no doubt that he is right. Yes, I hear the academics, anthropologists, psychologists and any number of other -ologists, state the obvious, that Darwinian principles of evolution and survival in the animal kingdoms, of which human is one, dictate this behaviour. Our base instincts are therefore not to respect any forms of life outside our own sphere, outside our immediate survival zone; to consider them a threat to our survival.
… Really?
We are beyond this, surely, aren’t we? Can’t we exert more control over our behaviours, or are we simply hopeless victims of our own psyche; our individual intractable personality. For many in the Western World, the need to survive, to subsist on what our local environment can provide us, has long since turned into higher and higher material expectations. Each generation starts with more, but wants still more than the previous generation. Our survival instincts have turned into greed; at the expence of those on the margins, particularly in the overexploited so-called Third World. Are these expectations a consequence of some out of control unconscious driving forces within us, or could we re-educate ourselves. I believe the answer for some, sadly, is ‘no’. For others it would be ‘yes’.
I contend that the World could continue to support all life, even with its currently burgeoning (human) population. If only we were able to overcome our unreasonable expectations, there is one overriding benefit that could accrue from vanquishing our own greed … we could begin to feel what it is like to live with less poverty in the world, and less debt; less personal debt; less corporate debt; less national debt. Currently the only way Western governments can see to pay off the latter, is growth, economic growth, which has become the unquestioned Demi-God of economic and political policy objectives; growth is, I believe, a largely misunderstood, overused and abused tool of political rhetoric. This is, unfortunately, a vicious circle. I’ve heard growth described as a means of servicing our national debt. Long term, this does not make economic sense and surely cannot be sustainable!
So, what are we to do? Save more? Conserve our resources, however modest they may be? Adjust our expectations and those of our children? Their generation and the ones that follow, will otherwise only continue this roller coaster of a suicidal ride into debt and debt slavery; a World in which the super wealthy few have more and more control over the increasingly debt-ridden many. Freedom from debt, however you achieve it, whatever the cost to your expectations, your dreams, has to provide the way to a more sustainable World, and …
It. Is. Liberating.
Otherwise, our greatest and only means of survival, our patient and beautiful Mother Earth, will expel us, rich and poor, forever, and no-one will inherit anything! Space exploration to find a new life sustaining planet somewhere out there in the vastness, is pure fantasy … and vanity!
What can be done to reduce your anxiety? A starting point for me is to have a hug with your best friend, be they human … or puppy dog.
Photo: Barbara Anstie. Creative edit: Dave Anstie
“The Great Divide“
Crossing the great divide
between the dark age
and a brave new world,
sailing from the safety
of knowing your place
into uncharted waters.
In a deep and sickly swell,
an ocean of uncertainty,
struggling to recall
the purpose of the mission
for control of life, of lives,
and death by ownership.
From a certain time when
the have-nots had not
to one in which they have
a chance to trade their life
for aspiration, for riches,
for stuff and things,
for dukes and knights,
for castles and kings,
in suits that shine
with lights and bling,
but didn’t see the price
they’d have to pay.
Rivers flow with mighty force,
and carry away the memory
in a flood of whys, for what
and where will this all end?
Where are we now,
where will we be …
may be Utopia, the place of dreams
that while away our wild ambitious schemes?
We fail, as long as we can feel the pain
of having less than someone else’s gain.
Or we, by virtue of the coin’s toss,
have more by far than someone else’s loss.
The Wolf River, Kansas by Albert Bierstadt, c. 1859
I sometimes dream of eastern Kansas,
in those days before the wars,
when the white men fought each other
to be the right men behind the doors,
deciding the lives of men red and black,
to remain the preeminent beast,
over this land he said God was his alone,
from the left coast to the east.
I think of the man in the village,
sitting on the bluff above Wolf Creek,
and how once he ruled wherever he stood,
a wandering Pawnee being anything but meek.
And I know his time is passing,
his wandering no more his choice.
Soon the white man will fight everyone
over the black man who still had no voice.
In my dream the lodges moved westward,
if they ever moved at all.
Because illness, greed and the great lord God
seemingly turned on the Pawnee, Otoe and Kaw.
And that’s why I dream of eastern Kansas
in those days before the wars,
because a native man might still call his own
his land, his freedom and his lores.
Free-write rhyming thing, an exercise I tried to get the juices flowing. For whatever reason, the name William Stafford and the words “Lawrence, Kansas” kept clanging in my head. I searched for some art that might help stimulate some creative spark and found that picture by Albert Bierstadt of Wolf River in Kansas, circa 1859. Then I let loose the reins and my claybank muse cantered me here.
Once in a while you excel yourself.
Are you blue, because we thought no more of you
as the driving force for life on Earth
or potency behind the waves of bitches and whelps
Thrilling moments … or contemplative
of a thriving, muddy, salty, riverine universe of life
waiting for you to draw the pelagic
covers repeatedly over the fruits of sustenance.
A force of nature, fully formed
yet so much smaller than the mother of your birth,
you hold sway, in countless ways
you touch our lives and drive us through our days.
Humble, unassuming, even unnoticed
by those who hurtle, mindlessly, and make no time
for the wisdom of our insignificance
or feel the difference between our age and yours.
As necessity tramples over truth
most days, we hide in fear of the darkening,
of the madness that ensues.
Does not the hunter choose your waning dark
to spike the nervous memory,
and remind us of the untamed wolf pack?
We may not ever tame you
but your mother is dying a slow and painful death.
Oh super blood blue moon,
does not your God and our God sing the same tune?
Like seeing the sun rise
over the week ahead,
mind full of penitence,
a righteous child, wrapped
in reverential warmth and
a sense of duty fulfilled.
That place of comfort,
as short lived as chocolate,
such pleasure lies in this;
some selfless, priceless
kind of self-indulgence
in your own kind of God.
Who can resist that path
to an easier peace where,
one day a week, the ad-man
cannot get to you; where
you miss nothing; where
those urges play no part.
Rocking next to the Christmas
tree, the child in my arms sleeps.
Colored lights slide over his face, our peace
as reverent as if we knelt in church.
Let his breath come even and soft, let him
fidget, held beyond waking and dreams.
Let his brightness never fade, let him be wild
as the stars slung across the sky.
Let him reap the fruits of love. In his tiny hand
sugar cookies leave a sticky sweet.
I think carefully on this world he has
entered. The TV tells me all
I need to know of grief: shattered homes
from last month’s storm, gunshots ring
out in bloodied streets, foreclosure notices point at
where a family once lived, moved on to some other sorrow.
But snuggled safe, this child knows
neither hunger nor fear. The worst that has
happened is a tumble and a pinched thumb, a brother
leaving him behind a shut door.
I intend to keep it that way but we can’t keep him
from life. His heart will be broken—he will lose
and be lost, cry with rage and pity. But with
his brightness around him I pray it is not too soon,
nor lasts any longer than he can bear.
Al tell thee best dream av ad
in any midneet while folk were fast on
a sees a reet cross tree,
a ghoast in plated gold
ringed by shiny moon fascinator,
jewels like worth summat glow worms
rahnd base, five more ont cross beam.
Throngs o’ God’s angels tacked on it. This were no scam artists cross but every heaven spirit and earth folk had peepers on it: a see universe agog
And me, aware of wrong doing,
that native wood-beetle, eyed it too
felt a shiver of glory
from that cross barkskin beaten gold
wi jewels suited a cross a Jesus
and tha knows through all that gold barkskin
rattled folks bloodless yammering
how bleeding as stained crosses rightside.
Harrard an horrored
a that sullied wi leaked blood.
a lay there yonks
in agog sorrow fort Saviourcross
till me lug oyles heard glimmering cross pipe up:
“Ages since, I fetch back I were hacked
dahn at holt-edge, lugged off, hauled
shoulder heaved, squared top on a hill
adsed to a cross to carry wrong doers.
Then I see Christ, his balls ready fort hoisting. For us there’s no flitting, no shirking on God’s mind to: I might a fell on these folks. Then
God himsen, med himsen naked, to naked balls,
laid on us afore throngs of eyes
when saving on folks flitted in his bonce.
A shuddered at his touch, afeard splintering,
A had hold, I were raised as a cross,
hold heaven king high, afeard cracking. They tapped dark iron in us: scars tha still can see,
A cannot bear ’em stroked. They jeered at both on us. A felt his blood seep from his side
as he sighed himsen upards.
Av seen pain on this hill
saw Christ as on vicious rack
then roilin’ storm clouds, death to sunblaze,
covered o’er that blaze on God: a glowering gloom creation’s sorta: Christ on cross tree.
A see folk come forard, a felt splintered
as if added, but gev ne sen.
I were in their dannies, gore-wet, nail gashed.
They laid him art, a dead-weight atter ordeal,
final knackeredness. Then afore
murderers peepers, those folk mrd
a stone oyle and set Christ inside it.
Then late int day flitted knackered : left
Christ by himsen.
Long atter soldier’s lottery natter and cold rigor on Christ’s limbs,
us kept our places, drahned wi blood.
Then they sets to
felling us,
bury us in delved grahned, but disciples, friends fahned us…
put on us barkskin o’ gold an silver.
so nar tha knows, how sorra warped
me flesh, how malice worked with spintering iron. Now it’s time for earth foak and whole marvel on creation to cow eye this sign.
God-son were racked on us, so now ma glimmerin’ haunts heavens, can heal
all who afeard for us. Am honoured
by Christ above all forest trees as God favoured Mary above all women folk.’
Then by mesen, thrilled, me spirit high, let mesen rave that I can seek what a av seen,
saviour-cross: a peace with mesen that yearns a help on earth. Few mates still livin’ nar : most are int manor on heaven, av fetched upards. Now, daily, I listen art
fort cross-tree in my earthly nappin’,
to lead us from this flitting life
into great manor of heaven
where God has set a right feast.
May God-Son and Ghost be mates,
who were nailed to death for folk ages since :
a saviour as gin us life,
that we may put wood int oyle in heaven.
does it bloom, this horror,
from my nonEuropean roots
from the scent of cinnamon in my blood?
the brown and yellow tinges of my skin?
or is it just your old soul and mine and
this intuition we share on the ground
of one another’s battles, witness the fuming
anger feeding disenchantment in the street
and the acquisitive tendencies of the elite,
cowardly saber-rattling, cut off from authority,
from that innate expressively honest power
of our erotic selves, our instinctive selves,
the non-rational knowing that embodies
strength, nothing weak or pornographic
in its expression, a profound antithesis
to the pornography of war and hate that,
in the end, is about impotence, about the
emboli of narrow minds, grasping oligarchs
fomenting tribal dissents for their own ends
or dropping bombs like a child bangs pots –
to overwhelm the fear of thunder, a game
of chicken, of the hawk-hawk play toward
a mutually assured destruction . . .
just a matter of time
as we stand the ground of one another’s
battles where peace would be revolutionary and
the unholy alliance of wealth and fear-mongering
might burn itself out, find its way into justice,
but here we are, once again, in thrall to the
sociopaths that have us bloodied and bound ~
their eyes are the aged face of clockwork orange,
numb to the obscenities of maim and murder …
where is the will of the cup to overcome
the sword? time for the temple whores to
sleep with insanity and take the war out of it
And then G-d regretted
that G-d had made man on earth,
and G-d’s heart was saddened. —Bereishit (Gen.) 6:9–13
…neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain —Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
On this dark morn, while we sit by
where gulls are heard, the boats asway,
swells rising high on trembling bay,
I yearn to say— please touch my hand,
caress this old frame, kiss me again.
But no voice stirred. So, in cold storms
two faces cast gazes where form ends.
Masks fly for bait to make hearts sigh.
For conversation, we seek words
that toss olive twigs as bread for birds.
Pleas out of phase— touch me again,
kiss my old shame, caress my hands.
No reply justifies tumbling waves,
foghorn echoes, our souls’ dismay.
No warmth wraps us. The last doves’ve died.
In the positive sense, a conceit originally referred to an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. —Wikipedia
Less conventional, more esoteric associations characterize the metaphysical conceit. John Donne and other so-called metaphysical poets used conceits to fuse the sensory and the abstract, trading on the element of surprise and unlikeness to hold the reader’s attention. —The Poetry Foundation
I knew her when I was younger,
she’d smile at me every morning
when we’d stand up in class and
talk to the flag and the cross.
She was so pretty then, adventurous
and friendly, the Supermodel-in-training.
She helped all the kids, even new ones
transferred in from other neighborhoods.
But some big kids mistook her friendliness,
for weakness, twisting it into some
unspoken promise of a good ol’ time.
They used her in indulgent perversions
of power and possession.
When we got older, those big kids
corrupted her, trotted her around, showed her off,
gave her a new face, new boobs, new persona.
My friend became so addled by all
of their push, prod and promises that,
in the end, she’d do whatever the big guys said,
even nod hollow-eyed when they lied about her.
I barely recognized her in her obit t’other day.
You may have missed it, being so busy
doing what they let you think you want to do.
I’m told they laid her next to her mom,
who men used, debased and scarred until
she was unrecognizable, too.
I wrote most of this poem, originally titled “Liberty Has Fallen,” almost four years ago. I based it on my friend Kellie Elmore’s prompt of a picture called Fall of Liberty, which I think was something like the one illustrating this marginally updated version. In four years, not much has changed. Maybe just the volume’s turned up.
My elder brother, why do you love to hate me,
Neither am I a boxer or a punching bag,
Yesterday was just about a mere comment that graduated into a serious conflict,
Must we fight to showcase might,
Why don’t we just sit down and reason like men and not just big boys,
I fighting back from slavery to bring peace home.
Sister, why do quarrel over quagmire questions,
Must we agree on everything for us to live harmoniously together,
Don’t we have to disagree in order to learn from the wiser,
Then why do we fight over opinions and errors that can be corrected,
I am rowing too hard to bring our big brother peace back home.
Dad, I miss mum fulfilling presence,
The ugly squabbles have drowned the beautiful love,
Our age refuses to buy into your exchanges,
Please don’t shout over over our heads,
I can’t stand my parents fighting in the 21st century,
Please go sell all your treasures and buy peace and then sleep in peace,
With tranquility of freshness blowing gently on your home.
Oh, what is sweeter than sweet peace of mind and soul overshadowing the struggles of life.
There is no calmness quite like it,
its warmth caressing
your tumultuously tumbling mind,
a damp cloth on a fevered forehead.
All the white noise behind your eyes
suddenly ceases
with the decision made,
the route mapped,
the end in sight,
The end of it all,
an unholy trinity
of pain, noise,
despair,
all done,
gone,
as you will be gone,
nothing of you left
but the body you once inhabited
and the memories
alive in the minds
of those
who didn’t really know you
after all.
Any one of us
could change the world,
simply by turning to the stranger beside us
and saying hello;
a stranger could become a friend,
a silence a sound,
a gesture a levelling
of these walls we build around ourselves,
creating our own narrow worlds
within the greater, wider world.
We, humans,
all of us human,
need only one world,
as big as it needs to be,
while as small as the distance
between us and a stranger,
not these millions of unideal worlds,
noiselessly colliding with each other,
fragments of ourselves
lost forever.
still we sing give peace a chance still the young die for the ghosts under old men’s beds and for flag draped corporate greed once our voices were strong and could be heard throughout a generation our arms were linked for human dignity but time has eroded the bedrock of our song and death has pried our arms apart so many of us stand alone repeating those words as if the dead will rise if we but only say our life’s mantra for every life lost to the lust for domination oh we have sung these words so very long
A regiment of leaves dry, dull, dark, dead,
Flying, flapping, fluttering in the wind,
Rustling, rattling, flattering, sputtering
And a small piece of advice stuttering
About how once they were so vividly green,
Glittering, glistening, ah what a scene!
They were so excited to have eavesdropped
To the the secret of love and never stopped
Until they dropped dead like shot down birds
Or buffalloes or any hunted herds.
Yet I don’t lament their fall and absence
For next spring they’ll come back to existence.
They’ll come back as green as ever again,
Canopies to cover the naked plain.
Oh those young regiments who won’t come back,
Confined before time in graves cold and dark,
Sent to fight in futile wars and battles
And got killed in everlasting struggles.
They won’t be seen next spring or any spring,
They’re gone forever but the pains still sting.
Hemmed in on all sides, left and right closing like a vise.
When the gauntlet is thrown down, you better think twice
about your plan for freedom, because they’ll strike you down.
Violence births violence, it all comes around.
Venezuela and Cuba are examples of this, how a people downtrodden
take the party’s whips, until fed up with utopia, they push back and are killed
for party, for community, for unity, ideological blood spills…
Hemmed in on all sides, left and right closing like a vise.
When the gauntlet is thrown down, you better think twice
about your plan for freedom, because they’ll strike you down.
Violence births violence, it all comes around.
American values are shipped the word round, we infiltrate cultures,
raze them to the ground, then rebuild in our image, a slow-bleeding wound…
Hemmed in on all sides, left and right closing like a vise.
When the gauntlet is thrown down, you better think twice…
Photo by Yasin Akgul/AFP/Getty Images – Guardian.com under a Creative Open License
When war is your “normal”,
How do you find peace?
Is it the breaths between bombs,
When the dust motes circle,
Sparkling in sun beams?
Is it the silence of the dead,
The lack
Of thudding thunder,
Or bloodied wonder of whistling
Missles overhead?
Is it as simple as securing
A safe path through the tumbled
Rubble of what used to be your school?
Is it found in the tiny, yellow flowers
Heads bobbing in the breezes
In the middle
Of a minefield?
Is it the warm comfort
Of a hot meal on nights
When you dared to light a fire?
Is it the softly repeated prayers,
Whispered balms for a tired mind?
When war is your “normal”,
You find peace in the small things,
In quiet moments of reprieve —
Of “not war”.
The kinds of punctuated pauses
That had no drumbeat,
No percussion,
“Before”.
When war is your “normal”,
It is hard to remember
That there ever was a
“Before”.
We all have heard the moral
That one should always be honest
Because honesty is rewarded.
Yes! We all should be like
That honest woodcutter
In the story ‘The Woodcutter and the Axe’.
But is it only about rewards?
Is it only about getting a silver axe?
A golden axe?
Honesty is not about getting more
Or receiving the best.
It has more to do
With our character
Being our true selves and
That which helps us find
Peace within ourselves.
Sky
When I look at the sky
I don’t think about its vastness
Nor the changing colours.
I only think how I can
Climb so high
How I can touch it
With my own hands
How I can colour it
With my own painting brush.
The marchers rally behind him.
His left hand flashes a peace sign.
The right brandishes
a sign like a sword:
“War is Fascism
Fascism is War.”
A reporter asks a
question. He sidesteps.
Instead he parodies
the President:
“Without peace
there is no security.”
That night he pulls into his parking lot.
A Lincoln straddles two spaces,
including his.
The street lamp illuminates
a Trump Pence bumper sticker.
He keys the Republican’s car.
Her bumper sticker proclaims:
“Visualize world peace,”
which should surprise no one
who sees her driving the
tie-dyed Tesla with
peace sign on the hood.
At the Elemental Fern
a waitress spills a latte down
her $500 Reformation coat.
She rattles the table with her fist
Screams for the manager,
demands the waitress’ dismissal,
abandons her check.
No tip.
“The peace of the Lord,” he says
as he clasps the hands of the couple
in the next pew. “Peace of the Lord,”
he repeats to the grandmother and
the soldier and the smoker with
nicotine stains enveloping her hands.
In a moment he will lead
a reading from Isaiah,
“They will beat their
swords into plowshares,
their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up
sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war.”
His wife stayed home,
unwilling to show off
the black eye and bruises
adorning her cheek.
We demand peace from nations
but ignore the
consuming rage
within.
It was the blessed of cities
It was the cursed of cities,
A city located halfway between heaven and earth
And a city halfway between earth and hell,
A city where stones are cool and soft
From evening breezes and countless feet
A city where stones are hot with blood
And sharp with crashing down on heads,
A city purchased with the blood of David
From Jebusites for more than it was worth,
A city worth more today than the blood of all our children,
One city’s Mount Moriah where Isaac was bound for sacrifice
Another’s Al-Masjid al-Aqsa where Mohammed ascended,
A city protected by youthful soldiers
And a city defiled by youthful soldiers,
Jerusalem the capital of Israel
And al-Quds the capital of Palestine
But in truth the capital of no earthly nation,
A city twice destroyed
A city indestructible,
A city about which everything said is true
And one about which nothing said is true.
It is written that whoever saves a life
It’s as though he saved a world
And whoever snuffs out a life
It’s as though he snuffed out a world,
And why is that?
It’s because that when we walk
We walk with an entire world in front of us
And we walk with a whole world behind us
On either side of us
Above and below us
So we are six worlds saved or destroyed
And who can know from whence will come the savior
How he’ll look or what he’ll do,
So whoever saves a life
It’s as though he saved himself
And whoever kills a life
It’s as though he killed himself.
“Shortly before Colin Powell’s February 5th 2003 UN Security Council fraudulent power point presentation – where he made the case for invading Iraq – UN officials, at US request, placed a curtain over the tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica, located at the entrance to the Security Council’s chambers. As a TV backdrop, the anti-war mural would contradict the Secretary of State’s case for war in Iraq.” Saul Landau, from “Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica”
in the formal glass & steel palace
of power, Guernica is infamously
draped so power and its plans will not be embarrassed
by all those inconvenient very famous screams
or by that equally famous walleyed pall of death, suspended
in the air like a steel claw
over Guernica
the wild-eyed horse’s famous scream is draped, his long
teeth are draped, the famous one-eyed man looking wide-
eyed up into his own tiny but also very famous
death is draped, and the big wheel of pain
is draped, and the shame we ought to carry like
a ball and chain is draped and the god of unintended
consequences who steady dogs the gods of war with bad
dreams of futures, unforeseen, is draped, is draped
is also draped
and who or what will carry that scream, always,
already further into our memory because
our memory is now draped and our memory alone
is the true habitation and the secret name
of that horse, his teeth, that one-eyed
man, that claw diving down on us from
a sky, torn and dark, and that long, and for-now,
very famous scream
(This poem was formerly published by the Sonoma County Peace Press (Feb/Mar 2014, Vol29 #1)
I
After fuddled in thought,
Around 12 a.m.,
In the serene night
I depleted my thought
Which was flitting through my mind.
My thought I proffered no ears
But nature reasoned with me.
When depleted,
It was just like a cannikin tipsy with water
And then disgorged.
II
Night piggybacked me
Decoying me to drift off
And letting me not to take to heart
The scene of dratted, bloody war –
Which my eyes caught
In the placid gyring screen
(Men were moved to war)
III
What stirred men to bloody war ?
What impelled men to gyre in war ?
In the serenity perception of mind
Heart will proffer them answer
After the taste of juicy ZOBO-BLOOD
Running spill from their heart.
Look!
Hey, look up
see the sun sitting still on the cloudy sky
flaring on the days of worry
and slitting through the sky;
eyeballing on the earth
with a beautiful smile
and then gyring on the placid sky
Look!
Hey, look up,
the sun is still sitting still on the sky
as the cloudburst withdrew
like a bat that must flinch In flinch
from the morning-rosette.
Look,
all you who draw hot tears
from its sad face
all you who draw sword
against your neighbour
all you who feed fat on bloody wars.
Look at the gyring sun;
sunny, while rain drizzled the earth
and unmoved by the cloudburst:
It glisters all day in serenity
and bring harvest to men.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Emma Lazarus
Plaintive song sung in childhood, beloved melody that touched my heart,
Often tired, sometimes wretched, always poor, though not homeless
Before I understood the words, I knew the yearning
to belong, to fit in, to be accepted—we were outsiders
Immigrated to the west, escaped, searching for a better life
I left family behind, severed ties for years, survived
He was forced to flee the genocide, board the boat,
Fighting his friends to go to his wife and child, already dead, they said
Landed in New York, no English, cooked for men like him in the hostel
Once a proud Armenian, now a conquered, bereft, shamed man
Reluctant immigrant to a strange land, mourning his home, far away
Arranged second marriage, nine children born on a farm, a life lived, survived
Trauma lived and re-lived, DNA passed down the generations, his story lost
No golden doors for him, just a desire to blend in…and forget
Grandfather to father, father to daughter, I stop the cycle of abuse
Exiles that no God, no Lady Liberty could return home, sheltered here
Safe now, loved, loving others, a good life carved out of pain and shame
He survived that 1915 holocaust, I am, we are, his legacy, immigrants yet.
There was an interval
© Gretchen Del Rio
