some stuff on my comp.
i likie this font
it looks like a bit more
as if i'm writing on paper.
i have paper, just beside me
but i want to type. it's my best way
of writing these days. i have to turn off
democracy now, the rich west creating the poor
third world, well it makes me diverted
from the pain in my world.
which is losing you.
yes you. the man who once loved me.
i have to let you go as thoroughly as i let justin go.
i don't want to hate on either of you
but you both don't know how to treat me. apparently.
justin said "the problem is you". i have to agree.
but not how he thinks it's me. the thing i do wrong
is to allow poor treatment, to excuse narcissist behaviour.
that's kinda always been my problem. oh he would do better
if he only knew his lessons. well, busshit. anymore, i'm
'gonna say that lesson should have already been learned.
some of you have learned it. some of you haven't.
i am tired of being someone's memory of how you should have been.
you know how i see portents in birds. how i want the tarot to
be prophetic. how the tarot definitely feels as if it's telling me the truth.
but i ignre the real meanings, too many shadows dappling cross
the page for me to say, ohm y look. that's the thing
i have to let you go. if you love someone, let them go.
if they come back, they love you. if they don't the probably never did.
tired of "fighting for it". love doesn;'t have to fignt. i wonder why the space bar
doesn;'t work. why i can't find an apostrophe. why the mouse is so touchy.
why love in m y life can't be a more balqnced admixture of thrills and calm.
i'm such a drama queen. i wnat what i want and i want it now. i suppose
the lesson you learned is it's good to comparison shop. me, i just take the bargains
as i see them. that's why i end up with touhy mice, feely men.
see i , i was in a love sitution with you when i wrote that about being friends
with exes. and look, you really can't use something i told youa year ago, in
relation to relationship, as my reality now. just like yours, mine has morphed. wk hat,
did you think i'd just sat in a cave since the last time we touched?
i guess the truth is i would have to be in love with someone else to ever be able
to simply be your friend. i ummm, desire you too much.
last nite chris said to me this story:
\
her children broke us up. she was depressive , her ex was a beater. when i sold my place
and moved in with her to help with the bills (on both sides, i was just begginning
my business...) her mother took me out to dinner . "how much will it take, chris?"
exuse me? ' how much will it take to make this go away?" i love your daughter,
i'm not for sale. " we're catholic, we don't get divorced. i can see why my
daughte fell for you. how much?" i don' t think you understand..."you're a very
good looking man, her husband would not stand a chance in comparison to you"
lateri found out from her son how she'd told them , the three kids, the same story.
that their m9m was onl interested in the sex. that if i went away, she'd be back
with thier daddy. never mind he beat her, broke her wrist. catholics don't
get divorced/
after i moved out we saw each other once a week, to watch 'cops' together. we never
saw a whole episode. after about six months of it
she said to me , sharing a cigarette, "i love you chris". i didn't answer. chris i love you.
i just looked at her. come on chris i love you don't you love me?
"I LOVE YOU, i said, i'm just not in love with you"
at that moment i hated you. you were every man, unable to walk thru the fire.
i got dressed and walked out. i never saw you again.
i guess that's what you did to me as well. love comes
in flavors we ca n't appreciate when we' taste them
today i thought about the sAVIOUR funny how that capitalizes
itself. a cricket gives a solitary chip, in a 39 hertz cycle
cars cruise by on orlando avenue, aka a1a in the middle
of cocoa beach. well not quite center. the crowds are too the north a bit
and i have to walk across the road and your ghost haunts not only
the motel but the place i rode you in the dark j =]
in the form of a leatherback sea turtle, but this is not your memory
it will never be yours it's mine. my beach, my state, my home.
++ +
in these rooms i have 2 tell
the story of the ocean in her voice
rise and fall melting both ways
the atlantic is brisk, unlike the pool
or the gulf, invigorating while you wait
for the sea to strike. it's most noticeable
when i have lili, my new favorite girl
in the water. my grand daughter, a daughter
who will always be grand because i am n ot
in charge of her. but i care for her. at work, maria
asks me if i am in love with the grand be be. i smile
and nod, admitting the feeling of blindness
the way the river flows between us, trust in the water
that runs in our greeting. i'm tired now. wish
to sleep but there's so much not been said, so much
not written down, "i am lili, leona the lioness, and i am
seven mosnths old today."
i heard about the floods a few months back
heard about the crop devastation rural
washouts, livestock drowned,homes & lives swept
away by monsoon, la nina they say. glacier melt
say others. the big picture is so huge.
8 million homeless and in refugee camps.
riots for the food caravans. i am a poet.
i believe the personal is political. the politcal, personal.
ordinance washed downstream
collected in gullys, recovered
in mud as waters receed. beware
pimples on the riverbed,
close to the surface, ready to explode.
cholera in mingora, malaria rife.
we need forty helicopters to ferry
people caught in the mountains, with no passage
stranded, winter coming on. the wheat is gone
cotton is gone, but futures rise and green up
specualtion's coffers.
so i thought about what i know about pakistan.
which isn't much. they have shariah law there, don't they?
stone raped women to death, don't they?
taliban trying to win the hearts and minds
same as usa. parthenogenic violence.
their leaders are corrupt warlords
the government
is corrupt, isn't it? aren't all governments?
next door in kabul the american copters take to the skies.
they ferry soldiers to the border, inspectors
but there's no more room for saving flood victims
we got a war to conduct. let the pakistanis and
afghan expatriates find their own way out.
i swam the indus river last week,
followed the water down from peshewar and mingora
left giant stone budhas on the mouontain face
and Rahman Baba called to me as i swirled by
Sow flowers that your surroundings become a garden.
Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your own feet.
oh pollywood, i dove as bridges collapsed but i couldn't
stop you, stranded by the cinema
making love to scores of afghani musicians before the clerics
move in from across the border and silence song again.
a few miles north of here, the rain still falls.
in the canvas tent, farzana is telling mijur "this is how
you clean your baby. this is what causes a rash,
if your breasts are sore,wash them then
rub butter, oil , lard, if that's all you have" as she
bends over the baby to change her diaper
mijur can see tight folded skin along her temple.
she wants to ask if it was oil that the match found
or lard. wants to know if smoke made her pass
out, or if she felt the flames rising like a river
from her burka to her skin. but she doesn't.
she listens as farzana says" i know\
there's so much of it now
but you must not drink from the streams,
they carry cholera. try to get the clean
water, try to get the germ killer tablets."
mijur just learnt about germs. doesn't
know whether to believe in them or not.
i scatter a handful of poppy seeds on the rocky ground
dribble off to a little stream, piece of silt on the move.
R
pakistan's a country of contradictions. unlike its surly
neighbor, pakistan's women have more freedom.
sufferage is in the constitution. they have female
allotments in government (10%), even had
a female prime minister. she was
unable to complete her first term
but was re elected several years later . oy, but this isn't
a history lesson. i don't want to lecture.
a country caught between the excesses of the taliban
and the excesses of india. a country struggling
with its past, trying to move into a future sandwiched
between two entrenched systems, forced into
being a buffer zone between islam and infidel. somehow
women have more freedom there
than they do in almost any other islamic country.
however, there ain't no rape kits.the marriages are mostly
arranged, however, i would like to think
there is, somewhere, love. listen to this pashto poet
and tell me there is not...
"if you give a drop of water to the thirsty
it will become a river between you and hell"
see, i don't want farzana to get raped anymore.
i want her to be ok. i want the fire
to leave a lasting mark on her psyche, the way it has on her skin.
i want that message to be "you can do anything you want.
what do you want"
?
(*&&&
“If anybody asks you, don’t tell them my name; don’t say I had anything to do with it.’ `
farzana's husbands grabs his wife's burnt arms
whispering harshly. she survives
but does not
go to her husband's home. "i did not want to bring
shame upon my family name" she cries
in the burn room," i wanted
to be your good daughter, father". he cannot
meet her eyes. his daughter, disfigured for life
by her own hand. he curses the
medicine for saving her,pays the hospital,
brings her home.
"there is a cousin in pakistan" he tells faranza
"in pakistan, shiriah law is more lax.
they educate women. you are not too old."
he sees the fear in her exposed eyes, above the hajib
"allah must want to use you as something other
than mother, since he let you live."
farzana looked dully at her father. "do you mean i will not
see my daughter? "
what do you care for her now?
"i do not want
to bring shame upon my family." she travels
to mingora with her oldest
brother, the husband of her husband's sister.
she sleeps in her cousin's laundry room
and rises before dawn to prepare
breakfast for the family of six.
her father pays for a private tutor
a woman, an engineer in the soviet days
two hours, one day a week. mostly,
they talk of escape. this is how farzana
thinks of the concepts the soviet woman
has her read. capitalism, communism,
entitlement, fuedalism, rent.
rent
is new concept to her. she rolls it around
in her head, folding cousin's laundry, scrubing
floors, grinding sesame and falafel.
from sun up to sun down, its taste
on her tongue. a woman may rent her own rooms
in mingora. a woman may go to market
without an escort, a woman may uncover her face
but faranza never does.
faranza remembers the helicopters in kabut
on the journey to pakistan. she asked her bother
what the symbols painted on the sides meant
thinking they were names of the huge black beasts.
their terrible thumping of the air drew
her breath first out of lungs intirely
then forced it back down her throat
when the rains came and came there
was no where for the water to go. farzana
waited on the rooftop with her cousins
huddled under the bedframe's canvas.
together they watched the river
invade the floors of their home.
it marched up the stairs quicker than
something that large should be able to.
she clutches the bundle with her few
possessions. the books
from the soviet engineer were wrapped
deeply inside her second hijab
she tried to protect them from the water
but the who bundle fell as she shakily
climbed the ladder up to the helicopter.
later she wept for the books
but during the climb she wanted to follow them.
nothing good comes from calamity.
when will allah let her die.
*)(*
on the outskirts of the refugee camp
we have our tent, covered by blankets
we bartered for in the summer
in the one warm room
our family moves in out in concentric circles
to the core of warmth. we all get our turn to be
relaively warm. holding my hands out
to the fire, i give thanks to allah
for the season . it is good to be deprived
it makes the soul stronger.
*&(&&
)&&
when they ask for volunteers
farzana ignores her cousin's jeers
walks into the camp adminstrator's tent.
i can read. she says. i studied with an engineer.
i want to help."you can aide the nurses
with the women". the hospital tents
burst with babies, women in hijab and burqua
but in mingora a woman may wear a shalwar kameez.
farzana admires the open veil, the lovely circlets
of metal and twined ribbon worn atop so many
shades of raven tresses. she will not cover
her eyes anymore, but she draws the hijab
across her scars each morning, and there it stays.
in the wold of the helicopters, a woman might.
i am a poet.
i believe the personal is political. the politcal, personal.
i take things to hear t
7777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777
feb 2011
\i cannot judge these people cannot put down their lives
as if a story but THEY do. how to say objectify so busy
speaking he cannot hear. he does not. or maybe it's just me
the command of a coaster, the dont scratch the grow up
i just can't get into the level of belief require d
it doesn't make either one of us a bad person.
i just dont fit here. she's not over glamoured, more like
my sister, but smarter. i like her. he's a bore. full of himself.
fine and dandy, he's talented, he does move, he can. he makes things
happen. but he monopolisess the convo. when you speak of alternatives
he becomes weary. i'm beat he says. i think i'm the delusional one
these people are successful. i dont have the stomach to play their game.
you were right. we do not havethe same goals. the same futures.
i cannot stomach listening to the stories of the previleged
is it resentment? at this point i am not sure
a rationalization will probably rear its head
if i delve far enough. but it probably can be distilled
to resentment. i am not a lion. i am the meek, inheriting
the earth. dirt. where ye shall be buried. ah set me free
in the sands of zanizibar, scatter me bones
over landscapes and vistas, set my soul in a constellation
why dontcha?
lol. well, it just seems so.................
i really like this font. heh.
it is his incessancy. it's all about him'
and jonny mathis. i only wanted to smoke
a littl
a little bit.
now they're playing music again
i wanted to do some but he was not pleased
and i can't sing. let me tell you boy
she will drag you down
&((&^^
i don't fit in what you were
what you're travlling toward
see you in the
OIU
sunbeam my keys are sticking
i want to go to the beach but you are
exploring your self-exile.
iin the grass i see my third eye
inner is outer. i try to send healing vibes
because of the rip you insist on making
or just because i need to feel my godness
when the little yappy dog nextdoor is challenged
by my presence on the grass i first try to comfort him
then try to disappear but dogs
are not fooled by the illusions of mind
anymore than humans, and often quite less
because while i walked in my head away from
his territory, i forgot to take my scent with me.
file://his/ barking continues
so i rise in body fro m the grass
and move to another spot, out
of his view. my scent is still the same
but perhaps dissapated.
perhaps.
_____
what i wonder about godness
is environment. i don't wonder
about that at all. we arise in concert
you singing this chord, i sing that.
this chord,dischord it's all relational
does your truth admit this? i am the god
of relativaty, hear my song.
i want to go to the beach
i could leave you here, suitcase and laptop
in hand, make you find your own way home
but it's just a desire and i say i love you
say i need you baby just don't leave me i ;ll be good.
the song keeps playing in my head.
one day, i'll sing it out and it will stop.
you talk control and freedom
not realizing fully their oneness
you want to influence the elephant
ego ego ego
let them be what they want to be
if your questions are rebuffed,
you have their answer.
she wants to know why you would take
such actions if
i wonder if it's moved along beyond
if if if
you understand what his reaction would be
why take that risk? even now, there is movement
to turn you apostate. but you're just not that dangerous
except to faith. except to belief. except you deny the data
that wants support in this realm. until they leave
you do not have a foothold and every gain
you think you make is just stone crumbling
beneath your feet.
()8
the butterfly is yellow
sulfur over kelly
green like february has no right to be.
[paradise is a delusion i hold dear]
you say this is hell
and i say
as you wish.
()***
in the distance, the hiway
makes a surf, ubiquitous,
this wave has no undertow
it just breaks and breaks and breaks
from the pines and scrubs
is a knocking
woodpecker
neighbor with a hammer
repetitive but not patterened
like the second flash of yellow in the brush
smaller this time, still fluttering.
the hawk cries, invisible
roosting birds become limestone rocks
in the afternoon. wild boar spoor
lies down the path. rabbits, snakes.
the flattery begins, the battle ship is earth
and the captain has deputised the bosun
to bring the mutineers back into the fold.
or at least one of them, the one who speaks of it
the one you can let into your life.
always breaking, never receeding
this is how time rolls over my body
traffic on the interstate, blown out
into realities travelling at the speed of desire.
that's pretty fast.
acrossthe pond are more houses you built
screens divide the lawn. manicured agreements.
flash of white and yellow in the sky.
what do you want. that is the question
do yo u think we can provide you with that is that
a truth you can sink your teeth into? then join us
my friend. welcome back , in.
*()(*)*)(*)*()(*)*)(*)(*)*
i still just want to go to the beach
still just want to stand in body
beside the surf, annoint my self
with mother. you would deny
this bliss, . the downward spiral
the actions of the past dictating now
how you need to clear the rubble
so you can climb on, build new.
i once told you i am hitler
but you don't believe me
i am as much he as you
and as much you as me.
my rights, fingertips
how far does that reach?
()***
my upper thigh, at the fold
of skin connected to ass
itches. st augusting will do that for you,
he reminds me of you , in the expression
of geekdom. he reminds me of someone i once loved
and so i love again. he is being reminded of who
he is today. this will make the going easier.
the cotillion swings wildly in the breeze
-- a mild towel , newly dried.
i don't want to intrude upon the paranoia
introduced by our presence. it is time to do
hours ago, i want to go to the beach.
my desire flickers on the
edge of the pond in spots of purple and pink.
the maypole of my longing. the ribbons that wrap
around . i will not lend my influence to the discussion
anymore. i am, at heart, a southerner.
*(&&()
is that the genesis of resentment?
the payment for slavery is to decry success?
perhaps, i feel exploited by corporate ideation
even if i am the exploiter.
OOIU)()*&&&
and then we left
philosophical cannibalism
people like to have wars
that's why we need oil
the postulates attack each other
what's for dinner?
the only response is to join
the opposition party then
murder them all...
then eat them.
*(&7
bose einstein sediments
collect on\\over this waving ness
fuck that. i need a line that uses that as metaphor
we race toward immortality
and simultaneusly our own destruction
you can take that we singularly or plural
whichever viewpoint is more comforting.
i was thinking metaphysical end games
when i finally find myself as god
do i wake up or blow out
and is there a difference
the now is god sleeping
the new is the dreamer
the thread is god seeking
the body ,a schemer.
genetic locks are being picked
it's a race between bombs & eternity
7-4-11
you should never try to relive the high. it doesnt translate.
i need the other key.board. different music if i wanted to be a perfectionista.
life isn't perfect but this ship that doesn't move is.
do you remember when we came here and spent the weekend
cosoling ourselves with the breakup? how could you know
it would lead to three boys and a bruise forever tender.
th e balcony is perched upon a breakwall of coral and shoal.
austrailian pine whips the wind into straws that whisper rain rain rain.
it dots the screen , glittery, a deadly short circuit
i'm waiting for dlophins to appear instead
thunder aserious ly rumbles to the south. how high
the surf under cloudy skies. "he's an idiot!" you shouted
to console me. you shouted to the gods of alternate realities
baffled by the confnes of current and weather
on the way over, pelicans skimmed the lee side of the big
sail where the fight over the bay ends as it begins. if i still
see portents in birds, what shadows compose the tailfeathers
what ghosts in their prehistoric wing? the awning drips
on my keyboard. i taunt the happy disaster that will
fry it. the in your face of it. we're only here for a night.
a week of this would be too maudlin anyway. let's go
to someplace different, some echo of childhood's wide
sugar sand , tidepools of starfish and stingray, a place rain
has forsaken. at least the music has changed.
the ship sails languidly against surf and porous
cumulo nimbus. we turned off the air so we could hear
the coming stom. two feet out, the water's clear as a spring.
a child is in the surf, despite the harley in the clouds.
it's to the north anyway, the dangerous edg e has passed
and the heavy rain approacheth. with it some new grumbling.
you have grin on the mp3, rain comes in earnest now
calming the waves, driving the neighbors indoors.
if it all rains out now, we can have fireworks after dark.
rain and sea equals mist and from it, the prow's view
on the balcony, a pelican emerges, lone and flying
toward the pale yellow south.... we st is wet and sunneling
red hot chili peppers on the raydio.
^&^
-the internet has spoiled more than a few good times
and this time it's playing games that i just dont' like
i'm connected but i need a password. maybekaren knows it.
if we can get connected we can stay.
last nite was fireworks in the water. all my life i've heard
of bioluminescence but i've never quite seen it the way
it was when we swam nude in the gulf at midnite.
i never saw it before. the milky way was pale but the stars
were legion. i cannot describe the joy i felt. we swam for
hours, fucked for a while, standing, floating, the water
an unexpected lube,
it looks exactly like the ocean has stored
the milky way' and with movement
your skin is the dark matter
against which it shine.
if i were a real poet i'd be able to tell you
the way they limned
me into believing in the three dimensional
the small heron with the blond head
feathers i once assigned to you as totem
keeps strutting on the surf below in his yellow
mexican pointy toed shoes. jack white wore
them when he met colbert. they all the rage .
cofee and weed has made me antsy
we're to leave today and barely got here.
i have not seen 24 hours of this place
but for now i 'm going swimming in
the color of your over and over eyes.
i roll my hands over and over
in the water, so i can remember
how this looks. throwing stars
creating galaxys, playing
with neutrinos.
pearl beach 9414732361\
*(&
i can't get the internet
but you you can, and that's all that matters
if i get a flash drive i can upload this to your
comp and connect. if i don't, i can upload when
i get home on sunday.
the important thing i s to have the netbook for
the writing.
i'm tanning my ass in black french cut
lace underwear. the skt is over cast, a tree
filters the sun as well so the white skin
which only dark air has ever touched
is not over exposed. the wind blows
the four loco can across the balcony.
its forlorn clank like a robot arm, uselessly
chruning after the bolt has bolted, p;rogrammed
and interfaced to a reality no longer in vogue.
that's how i feel sometimes in my relation to the world.
on the deck below lizards bob their long necks
at each other, full frontal flagging
in orange & yellow while below them, the gulf
sloshes against rocks in the rhythm we found
a moment ago on the bed. you are neptune
and i am antigone. i have sparse access the acaciac
library here, but i think it's a viable trade off.
the water is just beneath me, burrowing
trying to build a wider level. the sun and wind
kiss the gulf miliseconds before me, there are voyeurs
in the three story anitseptic condo beside me
and i am wearing a sheer scarf and lace panties
my legs not yet gone
to seed, silver highlights my hair, mimicing gold.
we will walk in the phosphorescence tonight
and make love among the stars
because someone has to feed the gods.
*(77
- 4:13 PM 7/5/2011
9*0
i dont RECALL putting the time stam p on here.
now i'm going to load some pics. it's the second sunset here
while i was prepared to leave early on. this place is magical.
we took a siesta then went to get food. when we returned the waves
had begun . you tell me u don't need to surf these puny things
i say the weather's been workin up all day
just to bring some waves to th is sleepy gulf
it looks like a bit more
as if i'm writing on paper.
i have paper, just beside me
but i want to type. it's my best way
of writing these days. i have to turn off
democracy now, the rich west creating the poor
third world, well it makes me diverted
from the pain in my world.
which is losing you.
yes you. the man who once loved me.
i have to let you go as thoroughly as i let justin go.
i don't want to hate on either of you
but you both don't know how to treat me. apparently.
justin said "the problem is you". i have to agree.
but not how he thinks it's me. the thing i do wrong
is to allow poor treatment, to excuse narcissist behaviour.
that's kinda always been my problem. oh he would do better
if he only knew his lessons. well, busshit. anymore, i'm
'gonna say that lesson should have already been learned.
some of you have learned it. some of you haven't.
i am tired of being someone's memory of how you should have been.
you know how i see portents in birds. how i want the tarot to
be prophetic. how the tarot definitely feels as if it's telling me the truth.
but i ignre the real meanings, too many shadows dappling cross
the page for me to say, ohm y look. that's the thing
i have to let you go. if you love someone, let them go.
if they come back, they love you. if they don't the probably never did.
tired of "fighting for it". love doesn;'t have to fignt. i wonder why the space bar
doesn;'t work. why i can't find an apostrophe. why the mouse is so touchy.
why love in m y life can't be a more balqnced admixture of thrills and calm.
i'm such a drama queen. i wnat what i want and i want it now. i suppose
the lesson you learned is it's good to comparison shop. me, i just take the bargains
as i see them. that's why i end up with touhy mice, feely men.
see i , i was in a love sitution with you when i wrote that about being friends
with exes. and look, you really can't use something i told youa year ago, in
relation to relationship, as my reality now. just like yours, mine has morphed. wk hat,
did you think i'd just sat in a cave since the last time we touched?
i guess the truth is i would have to be in love with someone else to ever be able
to simply be your friend. i ummm, desire you too much.
last nite chris said to me this story:
\
her children broke us up. she was depressive , her ex was a beater. when i sold my place
and moved in with her to help with the bills (on both sides, i was just begginning
my business...) her mother took me out to dinner . "how much will it take, chris?"
exuse me? ' how much will it take to make this go away?" i love your daughter,
i'm not for sale. " we're catholic, we don't get divorced. i can see why my
daughte fell for you. how much?" i don' t think you understand..."you're a very
good looking man, her husband would not stand a chance in comparison to you"
lateri found out from her son how she'd told them , the three kids, the same story.
that their m9m was onl interested in the sex. that if i went away, she'd be back
with thier daddy. never mind he beat her, broke her wrist. catholics don't
get divorced/
after i moved out we saw each other once a week, to watch 'cops' together. we never
saw a whole episode. after about six months of it
she said to me , sharing a cigarette, "i love you chris". i didn't answer. chris i love you.
i just looked at her. come on chris i love you don't you love me?
"I LOVE YOU, i said, i'm just not in love with you"
at that moment i hated you. you were every man, unable to walk thru the fire.
i got dressed and walked out. i never saw you again.
i guess that's what you did to me as well. love comes
in flavors we ca n't appreciate when we' taste them
today i thought about the sAVIOUR funny how that capitalizes
itself. a cricket gives a solitary chip, in a 39 hertz cycle
cars cruise by on orlando avenue, aka a1a in the middle
of cocoa beach. well not quite center. the crowds are too the north a bit
and i have to walk across the road and your ghost haunts not only
the motel but the place i rode you in the dark j =]
in the form of a leatherback sea turtle, but this is not your memory
it will never be yours it's mine. my beach, my state, my home.
++ +
in these rooms i have 2 tell
the story of the ocean in her voice
rise and fall melting both ways
the atlantic is brisk, unlike the pool
or the gulf, invigorating while you wait
for the sea to strike. it's most noticeable
when i have lili, my new favorite girl
in the water. my grand daughter, a daughter
who will always be grand because i am n ot
in charge of her. but i care for her. at work, maria
asks me if i am in love with the grand be be. i smile
and nod, admitting the feeling of blindness
the way the river flows between us, trust in the water
that runs in our greeting. i'm tired now. wish
to sleep but there's so much not been said, so much
not written down, "i am lili, leona the lioness, and i am
seven mosnths old today."
i heard about the floods a few months back
heard about the crop devastation rural
washouts, livestock drowned,homes & lives swept
away by monsoon, la nina they say. glacier melt
say others. the big picture is so huge.
8 million homeless and in refugee camps.
riots for the food caravans. i am a poet.
i believe the personal is political. the politcal, personal.
ordinance washed downstream
collected in gullys, recovered
in mud as waters receed. beware
pimples on the riverbed,
close to the surface, ready to explode.
cholera in mingora, malaria rife.
we need forty helicopters to ferry
people caught in the mountains, with no passage
stranded, winter coming on. the wheat is gone
cotton is gone, but futures rise and green up
specualtion's coffers.
so i thought about what i know about pakistan.
which isn't much. they have shariah law there, don't they?
stone raped women to death, don't they?
taliban trying to win the hearts and minds
same as usa. parthenogenic violence.
their leaders are corrupt warlords
the government
is corrupt, isn't it? aren't all governments?
next door in kabul the american copters take to the skies.
they ferry soldiers to the border, inspectors
but there's no more room for saving flood victims
we got a war to conduct. let the pakistanis and
afghan expatriates find their own way out.
i swam the indus river last week,
followed the water down from peshewar and mingora
left giant stone budhas on the mouontain face
and Rahman Baba called to me as i swirled by
Sow flowers that your surroundings become a garden.
Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your own feet.
oh pollywood, i dove as bridges collapsed but i couldn't
stop you, stranded by the cinema
making love to scores of afghani musicians before the clerics
move in from across the border and silence song again.
a few miles north of here, the rain still falls.
in the canvas tent, farzana is telling mijur "this is how
you clean your baby. this is what causes a rash,
if your breasts are sore,wash them then
rub butter, oil , lard, if that's all you have" as she
bends over the baby to change her diaper
mijur can see tight folded skin along her temple.
she wants to ask if it was oil that the match found
or lard. wants to know if smoke made her pass
out, or if she felt the flames rising like a river
from her burka to her skin. but she doesn't.
she listens as farzana says" i know\
there's so much of it now
but you must not drink from the streams,
they carry cholera. try to get the clean
water, try to get the germ killer tablets."
mijur just learnt about germs. doesn't
know whether to believe in them or not.
i scatter a handful of poppy seeds on the rocky ground
dribble off to a little stream, piece of silt on the move.
R
pakistan's a country of contradictions. unlike its surly
neighbor, pakistan's women have more freedom.
sufferage is in the constitution. they have female
allotments in government (10%), even had
a female prime minister. she was
unable to complete her first term
but was re elected several years later . oy, but this isn't
a history lesson. i don't want to lecture.
a country caught between the excesses of the taliban
and the excesses of india. a country struggling
with its past, trying to move into a future sandwiched
between two entrenched systems, forced into
being a buffer zone between islam and infidel. somehow
women have more freedom there
than they do in almost any other islamic country.
however, there ain't no rape kits.the marriages are mostly
arranged, however, i would like to think
there is, somewhere, love. listen to this pashto poet
and tell me there is not...
"if you give a drop of water to the thirsty
it will become a river between you and hell"
see, i don't want farzana to get raped anymore.
i want her to be ok. i want the fire
to leave a lasting mark on her psyche, the way it has on her skin.
i want that message to be "you can do anything you want.
what do you want"
?
(*&&&
“If anybody asks you, don’t tell them my name; don’t say I had anything to do with it.’ `
farzana's husbands grabs his wife's burnt arms
whispering harshly. she survives
but does not
go to her husband's home. "i did not want to bring
shame upon my family name" she cries
in the burn room," i wanted
to be your good daughter, father". he cannot
meet her eyes. his daughter, disfigured for life
by her own hand. he curses the
medicine for saving her,pays the hospital,
brings her home.
"there is a cousin in pakistan" he tells faranza
"in pakistan, shiriah law is more lax.
they educate women. you are not too old."
he sees the fear in her exposed eyes, above the hajib
"allah must want to use you as something other
than mother, since he let you live."
farzana looked dully at her father. "do you mean i will not
see my daughter? "
what do you care for her now?
"i do not want
to bring shame upon my family." she travels
to mingora with her oldest
brother, the husband of her husband's sister.
she sleeps in her cousin's laundry room
and rises before dawn to prepare
breakfast for the family of six.
her father pays for a private tutor
a woman, an engineer in the soviet days
two hours, one day a week. mostly,
they talk of escape. this is how farzana
thinks of the concepts the soviet woman
has her read. capitalism, communism,
entitlement, fuedalism, rent.
rent
is new concept to her. she rolls it around
in her head, folding cousin's laundry, scrubing
floors, grinding sesame and falafel.
from sun up to sun down, its taste
on her tongue. a woman may rent her own rooms
in mingora. a woman may go to market
without an escort, a woman may uncover her face
but faranza never does.
faranza remembers the helicopters in kabut
on the journey to pakistan. she asked her bother
what the symbols painted on the sides meant
thinking they were names of the huge black beasts.
their terrible thumping of the air drew
her breath first out of lungs intirely
then forced it back down her throat
when the rains came and came there
was no where for the water to go. farzana
waited on the rooftop with her cousins
huddled under the bedframe's canvas.
together they watched the river
invade the floors of their home.
it marched up the stairs quicker than
something that large should be able to.
she clutches the bundle with her few
possessions. the books
from the soviet engineer were wrapped
deeply inside her second hijab
she tried to protect them from the water
but the who bundle fell as she shakily
climbed the ladder up to the helicopter.
later she wept for the books
but during the climb she wanted to follow them.
nothing good comes from calamity.
when will allah let her die.
*)(*
on the outskirts of the refugee camp
we have our tent, covered by blankets
we bartered for in the summer
in the one warm room
our family moves in out in concentric circles
to the core of warmth. we all get our turn to be
relaively warm. holding my hands out
to the fire, i give thanks to allah
for the season . it is good to be deprived
it makes the soul stronger.
*&(&&
)&&
when they ask for volunteers
farzana ignores her cousin's jeers
walks into the camp adminstrator's tent.
i can read. she says. i studied with an engineer.
i want to help."you can aide the nurses
with the women". the hospital tents
burst with babies, women in hijab and burqua
but in mingora a woman may wear a shalwar kameez.
farzana admires the open veil, the lovely circlets
of metal and twined ribbon worn atop so many
shades of raven tresses. she will not cover
her eyes anymore, but she draws the hijab
across her scars each morning, and there it stays.
in the wold of the helicopters, a woman might.
i am a poet.
i believe the personal is political. the politcal, personal.
i take things to hear t
7777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777
feb 2011
\i cannot judge these people cannot put down their lives
as if a story but THEY do. how to say objectify so busy
speaking he cannot hear. he does not. or maybe it's just me
the command of a coaster, the dont scratch the grow up
i just can't get into the level of belief require d
it doesn't make either one of us a bad person.
i just dont fit here. she's not over glamoured, more like
my sister, but smarter. i like her. he's a bore. full of himself.
fine and dandy, he's talented, he does move, he can. he makes things
happen. but he monopolisess the convo. when you speak of alternatives
he becomes weary. i'm beat he says. i think i'm the delusional one
these people are successful. i dont have the stomach to play their game.
you were right. we do not havethe same goals. the same futures.
i cannot stomach listening to the stories of the previleged
is it resentment? at this point i am not sure
a rationalization will probably rear its head
if i delve far enough. but it probably can be distilled
to resentment. i am not a lion. i am the meek, inheriting
the earth. dirt. where ye shall be buried. ah set me free
in the sands of zanizibar, scatter me bones
over landscapes and vistas, set my soul in a constellation
why dontcha?
lol. well, it just seems so.................
i really like this font. heh.
it is his incessancy. it's all about him'
and jonny mathis. i only wanted to smoke
a littl
a little bit.
now they're playing music again
i wanted to do some but he was not pleased
and i can't sing. let me tell you boy
she will drag you down
&((&^^
i don't fit in what you were
what you're travlling toward
see you in the
OIU
sunbeam my keys are sticking
i want to go to the beach but you are
exploring your self-exile.
iin the grass i see my third eye
inner is outer. i try to send healing vibes
because of the rip you insist on making
or just because i need to feel my godness
when the little yappy dog nextdoor is challenged
by my presence on the grass i first try to comfort him
then try to disappear but dogs
are not fooled by the illusions of mind
anymore than humans, and often quite less
because while i walked in my head away from
his territory, i forgot to take my scent with me.
file://his/ barking continues
so i rise in body fro m the grass
and move to another spot, out
of his view. my scent is still the same
but perhaps dissapated.
perhaps.
_____
what i wonder about godness
is environment. i don't wonder
about that at all. we arise in concert
you singing this chord, i sing that.
this chord,dischord it's all relational
does your truth admit this? i am the god
of relativaty, hear my song.
i want to go to the beach
i could leave you here, suitcase and laptop
in hand, make you find your own way home
but it's just a desire and i say i love you
say i need you baby just don't leave me i ;ll be good.
the song keeps playing in my head.
one day, i'll sing it out and it will stop.
you talk control and freedom
not realizing fully their oneness
you want to influence the elephant
ego ego ego
let them be what they want to be
if your questions are rebuffed,
you have their answer.
she wants to know why you would take
such actions if
i wonder if it's moved along beyond
if if if
you understand what his reaction would be
why take that risk? even now, there is movement
to turn you apostate. but you're just not that dangerous
except to faith. except to belief. except you deny the data
that wants support in this realm. until they leave
you do not have a foothold and every gain
you think you make is just stone crumbling
beneath your feet.
()8
the butterfly is yellow
sulfur over kelly
green like february has no right to be.
[paradise is a delusion i hold dear]
you say this is hell
and i say
as you wish.
()***
in the distance, the hiway
makes a surf, ubiquitous,
this wave has no undertow
it just breaks and breaks and breaks
from the pines and scrubs
is a knocking
woodpecker
neighbor with a hammer
repetitive but not patterened
like the second flash of yellow in the brush
smaller this time, still fluttering.
the hawk cries, invisible
roosting birds become limestone rocks
in the afternoon. wild boar spoor
lies down the path. rabbits, snakes.
the flattery begins, the battle ship is earth
and the captain has deputised the bosun
to bring the mutineers back into the fold.
or at least one of them, the one who speaks of it
the one you can let into your life.
always breaking, never receeding
this is how time rolls over my body
traffic on the interstate, blown out
into realities travelling at the speed of desire.
that's pretty fast.
acrossthe pond are more houses you built
screens divide the lawn. manicured agreements.
flash of white and yellow in the sky.
what do you want. that is the question
do yo u think we can provide you with that is that
a truth you can sink your teeth into? then join us
my friend. welcome back , in.
*()(*)*)(*)*()(*)*)(*)(*)*
i still just want to go to the beach
still just want to stand in body
beside the surf, annoint my self
with mother. you would deny
this bliss, . the downward spiral
the actions of the past dictating now
how you need to clear the rubble
so you can climb on, build new.
i once told you i am hitler
but you don't believe me
i am as much he as you
and as much you as me.
my rights, fingertips
how far does that reach?
()***
my upper thigh, at the fold
of skin connected to ass
itches. st augusting will do that for you,
he reminds me of you , in the expression
of geekdom. he reminds me of someone i once loved
and so i love again. he is being reminded of who
he is today. this will make the going easier.
the cotillion swings wildly in the breeze
-- a mild towel , newly dried.
i don't want to intrude upon the paranoia
introduced by our presence. it is time to do
hours ago, i want to go to the beach.
my desire flickers on the
edge of the pond in spots of purple and pink.
the maypole of my longing. the ribbons that wrap
around . i will not lend my influence to the discussion
anymore. i am, at heart, a southerner.
*(&&()
is that the genesis of resentment?
the payment for slavery is to decry success?
perhaps, i feel exploited by corporate ideation
even if i am the exploiter.
OOIU)()*&&&
and then we left
philosophical cannibalism
people like to have wars
that's why we need oil
the postulates attack each other
what's for dinner?
the only response is to join
the opposition party then
murder them all...
then eat them.
*(&7
bose einstein sediments
collect on\\over this waving ness
fuck that. i need a line that uses that as metaphor
we race toward immortality
and simultaneusly our own destruction
you can take that we singularly or plural
whichever viewpoint is more comforting.
i was thinking metaphysical end games
when i finally find myself as god
do i wake up or blow out
and is there a difference
the now is god sleeping
the new is the dreamer
the thread is god seeking
the body ,a schemer.
genetic locks are being picked
it's a race between bombs & eternity
7-4-11
you should never try to relive the high. it doesnt translate.
i need the other key.board. different music if i wanted to be a perfectionista.
life isn't perfect but this ship that doesn't move is.
do you remember when we came here and spent the weekend
cosoling ourselves with the breakup? how could you know
it would lead to three boys and a bruise forever tender.
th e balcony is perched upon a breakwall of coral and shoal.
austrailian pine whips the wind into straws that whisper rain rain rain.
it dots the screen , glittery, a deadly short circuit
i'm waiting for dlophins to appear instead
thunder aserious ly rumbles to the south. how high
the surf under cloudy skies. "he's an idiot!" you shouted
to console me. you shouted to the gods of alternate realities
baffled by the confnes of current and weather
on the way over, pelicans skimmed the lee side of the big
sail where the fight over the bay ends as it begins. if i still
see portents in birds, what shadows compose the tailfeathers
what ghosts in their prehistoric wing? the awning drips
on my keyboard. i taunt the happy disaster that will
fry it. the in your face of it. we're only here for a night.
a week of this would be too maudlin anyway. let's go
to someplace different, some echo of childhood's wide
sugar sand , tidepools of starfish and stingray, a place rain
has forsaken. at least the music has changed.
the ship sails languidly against surf and porous
cumulo nimbus. we turned off the air so we could hear
the coming stom. two feet out, the water's clear as a spring.
a child is in the surf, despite the harley in the clouds.
it's to the north anyway, the dangerous edg e has passed
and the heavy rain approacheth. with it some new grumbling.
you have grin on the mp3, rain comes in earnest now
calming the waves, driving the neighbors indoors.
if it all rains out now, we can have fireworks after dark.
rain and sea equals mist and from it, the prow's view
on the balcony, a pelican emerges, lone and flying
toward the pale yellow south.... we st is wet and sunneling
red hot chili peppers on the raydio.
^&^
-the internet has spoiled more than a few good times
and this time it's playing games that i just dont' like
i'm connected but i need a password. maybekaren knows it.
if we can get connected we can stay.
last nite was fireworks in the water. all my life i've heard
of bioluminescence but i've never quite seen it the way
it was when we swam nude in the gulf at midnite.
i never saw it before. the milky way was pale but the stars
were legion. i cannot describe the joy i felt. we swam for
hours, fucked for a while, standing, floating, the water
an unexpected lube,
it looks exactly like the ocean has stored
the milky way' and with movement
your skin is the dark matter
against which it shine.
if i were a real poet i'd be able to tell you
the way they limned
me into believing in the three dimensional
the small heron with the blond head
feathers i once assigned to you as totem
keeps strutting on the surf below in his yellow
mexican pointy toed shoes. jack white wore
them when he met colbert. they all the rage .
cofee and weed has made me antsy
we're to leave today and barely got here.
i have not seen 24 hours of this place
but for now i 'm going swimming in
the color of your over and over eyes.
i roll my hands over and over
in the water, so i can remember
how this looks. throwing stars
creating galaxys, playing
with neutrinos.
pearl beach 9414732361\
*(&
i can't get the internet
but you you can, and that's all that matters
if i get a flash drive i can upload this to your
comp and connect. if i don't, i can upload when
i get home on sunday.
the important thing i s to have the netbook for
the writing.
i'm tanning my ass in black french cut
lace underwear. the skt is over cast, a tree
filters the sun as well so the white skin
which only dark air has ever touched
is not over exposed. the wind blows
the four loco can across the balcony.
its forlorn clank like a robot arm, uselessly
chruning after the bolt has bolted, p;rogrammed
and interfaced to a reality no longer in vogue.
that's how i feel sometimes in my relation to the world.
on the deck below lizards bob their long necks
at each other, full frontal flagging
in orange & yellow while below them, the gulf
sloshes against rocks in the rhythm we found
a moment ago on the bed. you are neptune
and i am antigone. i have sparse access the acaciac
library here, but i think it's a viable trade off.
the water is just beneath me, burrowing
trying to build a wider level. the sun and wind
kiss the gulf miliseconds before me, there are voyeurs
in the three story anitseptic condo beside me
and i am wearing a sheer scarf and lace panties
my legs not yet gone
to seed, silver highlights my hair, mimicing gold.
we will walk in the phosphorescence tonight
and make love among the stars
because someone has to feed the gods.
*(77
- 4:13 PM 7/5/2011
9*0
i dont RECALL putting the time stam p on here.
now i'm going to load some pics. it's the second sunset here
while i was prepared to leave early on. this place is magical.
we took a siesta then went to get food. when we returned the waves
had begun . you tell me u don't need to surf these puny things
i say the weather's been workin up all day
just to bring some waves to th is sleepy gulf
posted by hiccup at 5:33 PM
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