25.2.24


Ode To Rocks

In pockets and gardens, under
our beds for miners carry
a fair share in long gray
pails with jugs of soup
near shanks and flesh
with crusts plus those
stored in the chests.
The spare parts of the world
cast about pose a craving
as deep as the ocean is long
as the rivers are wide. A record
of perennial harvests hauled
up from stopes through gob-shite
on ladders of iron out the Judeah

the William Jennings Bryan, Red Jacket,

Cole and Cambell

the Eagle Eye Nagasaki to the north

Beloved fountains of slag
pour into banks of remains
where genuflection pays
paper for gold and time with loss.
Poor men fair well in shifts,
forever on the way in or out
with dirt clinging, dirt in love
with the heroic skin, part
ancient shroud part, let me in.

15.2.24

 Time stood still 

The devil had Frankie on a string

Prancing and grinning in the light

of the flames.

22.1.24

Epiphany of Ending

-“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money, possessions, fame, status, or whatever is valued more than the Lord]." - some guy called Matthew

No longer time for real brain 

each touch and switch the antenae twitch

peculiar sound fed into the hand-held

of a dear Pavlov fact-checked inkblot.

I could not put my finger on the special

tinnitus, between gunshot and door slam

used for both hunting and for gathering

yet I heard it, there it was and determined

in true lie-detector fashion,


         the hulking cabal

of our five literal senses produced

yet a sixth, the one I had hoped for

and knew existed:  Eureka!

En la frontera and re-membering

the fundamental block-chain

of the ages Stone to Iron to Data,

how many arthropods it takes

to get to the center of the helix

in state-of-the-art Osterizers


-this last purification hurt

but I've said that before.



19.1.24


Audience of One
I am asked sometimes, "do you still write poetry?" Sure, when there's a poem to be written. Most of the time, there's something to "be done" and if it's the laundry, then I do the laundry. If it's yard work, I pull some weeds. I am fortunate to have a husband that understands the artist in me and he encourages me to do whatever I see fit. We had a conversation not too long ago....we've been married now for 43 years give or take and he's never been under the illusion that I'd be some kind of straight up wife type (but if you hum a few bars I'll fake it). I said to him that sometimes I wish I was like real artists and poets and had dedicated more energy to publishing (photos, poems, etcetera) and I realized (total epiphany, the kind that you always said but didn't really believe but then you say, wow That! yes!) ...that being a mom, a wife, a cook and "chief bottle washer" was just as important and allowed just as much creativity to flow as anything else. Of course, like all art it can also be done poorly and without craft or enthusiasm.
I read this morning somewhere or someplace (on the interWEBS haha) that someone local said a poem doesn't exist until it is published or read out loud which could be said about anything that one wants to share....like a lovely cauliflower stew or a collection of lovely, well-tended pieces of pottery (made by someone else...and I finally purchased and constructed a console table to show off my collection, took me four effing hours to put that thing together). You do want someone to taste and feel the pleasure of the meal, to enjoy the cleanly swept front porch, pee in the shining porcelain receptacle of the Gods. I do not believe that another person is very much interested in how that toilet ended up so miraculous or how the poem was constructed line by line in order to insure that the reader stumbles over the words
"I am
-pretty too"
in order that they should be led, misled and then led back into the thought process with special trickery. And sure, I can give you a recipe for cauliflower stew but I cannot teach you to how to cook anymore than I can know if you like cauliflower. In other words: my standards and preferences as any kind of producer of any kind of work are what matters. It's all that should matter to anyone who is serious about any thing.
I take great issue with the type of self-absorbed mummery involved with a statement like, "oh until it is published it doesn't exist". I sense that the person who said it was trying to say "something important" because, well. People expect poets to have some sort of special power to issue decrees and such.
I decree: when I eat my cauliflower stew, I'm much more interested in how that stew makes ME feel inside, how important that hint of seven spice really is to ME ME ME. I'll sit there the next day with a bowl of leftovers and just languish in the glory of my creation..... albeit if someone else likes it, that's good too. Same for poetry. Any artist who truly understands their own production knows this and by knowing it, has conquered the biggest critic of all: themself. Mean Joe Green a former mentor that I used to interact with quite extensively taught me this, the idea of a poet's "audience of one". He also coined the phrase, "Look, a war all about her." (after the incursion in 2006). It was perhaps the best gift I ever received from him and sadly, continue to receive it now as Gaza is being leveled. The sad gift that keeps on giving.
This little ditty was written in 2006, on 16th Terrace/Center and won a little prize and honorable mention in a group that no longer exists called the Interboard Poetry Contest. Back when message boards and in particular, poetry critique circles performed surgical interventions on poems for other poets and probably destroyed some seriously pristine and honest work. It is one of the last times I ever bothered to submit a poem (save for.a stint of sending things off for $5-10 entry fees and receiving in return, rejection after rejection and saying to myself, if I want to give away five bucks, I'll send it to a Monrovian scammer instead...at least someone might eat 2 oz of macaroni instead of 1). That summer I read the poem "To Beirut" at Central School. I dressed in BHS school colors and had pom-poms (I dreamt of being a cheerleader way back in high school)...the poem features the Fight Song Onward Bisbee Onward Bisbee yadayadayada which, I actually sang to the audience.
Yeah, I still write a poem here and there but more importantly, I am happiest when I make something magic out of nothing. Like a kid with a magic wand, no one else has to believe in magic or for that matter, like cauliflower for me to know that as a human being, the Creator thought pretty highly of us humans, perhaps thought more of us than we even think of ourselves. We were created with free will and the ability to use our intellect in ways that dumbfound the rest of us and even, ourselves. We are given hearts and eyes and ears and taste buds if we only knew how astounding that when the Creator created us, the Creator said:
..even better than the angels.
Sure wish some folks would wake up to that human responsibility right now.
The Song of Bob
-MSwaid
(for Fred Tarr and the Radio Room)
The love affair with stangers began
with morning glories between us, Bob
went to work at the prison at 6:30
as the birds performed their last songs.
He quieted Sarge, Berry and Coco with biscuits
before he left with his radio
on, yet they started barking before
he reached the first stop sign.
I want to be his wife forever they thought,
I thought and we kept barking,
as we chased his car for all time in our minds.
Bob talks to his ex 1500 minutes a month,
he doesn't seem to mind the cost of his past tense.
Why didn't you just stay married? I am
pretty too behind this fence made of chain-mail.
Twenty-one years is all he says
from the screened-in back porch where he keeps
his old partners, ex-police dogs, his detritus.
It is as if 21 years is the official
Americana. There must be one
hundred morning glories from me
to Bob, outflanking the trees
choking them slowly. Bob wants me
to be his wife forever, waiting in my war
torn house next door so he can get home
from prison to say goodnight and wake up
again to say good morning all over.
I am the last sweetheart in town.

We Had No Shadows

-Happy people in a happy world.  Wallace Stevens, Auroras of Autumn



In the beginning we put the sun


up 


in the corner and the grass

a green line across 

the bottom of the page

and a house. The house had

a window, a door

neither could be opened.

There would be a flower

or two or three or four

until we tired of the trying

after the yellow one broke.

Everything was there,

everything that mattered:

beauty, rest, warmth, food, safety

perhaps a God that showed

the 19 fingers outstretched 

and at times

there would be a bird

an M hanging 

a whole big flock of Ms

and at times the rain

shot-fell like sticks

through the air

impaling the hard won star

which wasn't a star

which wasn't the sun

however convinced we were.



 The age at which suddenly becomes suddenly

the light changes and they, the siblings, 

the parents turn to ash and ghost, 

their mementos carry pieces 

forward to balance helix

 on fingertip

scenes 

and clips

meant 

to exist 

only

for 

while 

in

last

little 

drips.


17.1.24

The Creator
When the matter of free
will is abolished,
when all are dead,
evolving into stone
and then, iron,
Will we then understand
even the most finite
change in the wind
was perceived?
Will we then know our own superiority
as living things in a world of stimuli
daylight, moonlight, oven light?
We will understand at last,
the minutiae
of making bread, the notion of the yeast
reproduced and extinguished.
Like
Comment

13.1.24

 The Lease


The pentinents seemed to rush toward the aisle.  Father Pepe was at the head of the church waiting to delicately lay the wafers on their tongues, tongues too mean to be forgiven.  The insurance agent must have been in the line and when I met him downstairs in the rectory, he anxiously told me his lease with us was still in force for three more years.  He left the rectory without bothering to greet any of the other parishioners as he likely knew little about them, the insured who probably paid premium after premium. Hopeful to never have to claim on anything. Insurance is a nasty business and agents either go fishing alot or wear dull dark suits and pop up at church rectories univited.  His rather demure looking wife who looked to be over 70 must have sat quietly in the car waiting for him to run in and lie about the lease to the woman who sublet the space from him.  She came to me a few minutes later saying that I told him that she had to pay him now...a full year after having purchased the building. 

I wondered how many minutes from the church to the lie?  I hope to meet him again. Very much so now. Just hope it isn't his funeral because I'll have nothing to say.

3.12.23

 The Silent Night


Was there once upon a time

when angels were created

before man, before djinn

and then tested? Was there

once upon a time

when they thought

they had it licked

all their batting averages

1.000 to the 10th power?

Allah created Gibreel

before the rest of us,

all the angels, all the djinn

to serve as witness:

time and time again

sworn to secrecy

honest to a fault

willing to take a newborn's

soul from his love lorn mother

if told to do so.

Gibreel did it,

never gave an inch

nor flinched nor balked.

It was necessary

because later on

when Gibreel had to talk

to a virgin and convince her,

Gibreel had to come with some

sort of proof that he wasn't 

just some Adonis or other

bon vivant. To prove

that the very long line

of heredity was about to change

and change for good.

Gibreel has been through the all of it

the thick of it, the ups and downs 

of it. Gibreel wept at long absences

between round trips

saying to the prophets

each and every one of them:

"I missed you so much friend."

But, once upon a time

there was nothing but angels

and stars and night and angels

would not know a lie

because lies did not exist.

27.10.23


26.3.06

Bound to Happen

I thought I was just pretending
all along, saying well, that's
bound to happen and it does and I say
well, that's bound to happen.
We all know that when we leave
the room, the room disappears.
We've known it since we were born
and sometimes we talk about it
with strangers knowing full well
that once they leave
all secrets follow
into the ether or the dark,
same thing and who can tell
time as it passes
when you are asleep,
the clocks looking you over?
It is a strange statistic
and one I am fond of until
it comes to the war zones. concentration camps.

15.10.23

 The Ris(i)k of Grief


Forgive me for seven minutes

of your time, repentance for the hours

leading up to the manifestation

composed as it were of signs

each one in a sequence as if

a spiral began where it ended

instead of toward the center

from which it formed, or 

did it begin before 

it was named and it was numbered.



22.8.23

The Higgs Boson 

This is no ordinary fatique,
looking through the posts 
about Fenton glass, microwave cookware
and sheets through a storm
of boxes and happy birthdays.

 At the same time they were 
carrying your father
from the house to the cemetery
 you scalded yourself with a cup of boiling coffee.

 I'd been warning you of such a mess
for a long time but you insist
on refusing condolences,
 treasuring your sweet secret another day.

As you open the cash drawer/
over and over tomorrow and the next
day and the next, please
think of the pain on your knee.

 Think of the time laspe world
in which we live, in which
fathers and sons try their best
to run the experiment backwards.

 I think a new widow reminds me
of a bride, I think your father
scolded you at a distance 
last night as you screamed out.

 Life is this super collider
and as they lifted his coffin
a bit too quickly, the atoms
and molecules rearranged your DNA.

20.5.23

Sayuri's Joke 

 In fact there are ten 
thunderwords in the honey 
stomach of the bee, fifty million 
partisan donors a day regurgitate 
each to each a brilliant-bronze 
breast milk to cure the cud. 
The baby tells me they make it from scratch.
Sayuri's Joke In fact there are ten thunderwords in the honey stomach of the bee, fifty million partisan donors a day regurgitate each to each a brilliant bronze breast milk to cure the cud. The baby tells me they make it from scratch.

7.3.23

I must accept the permanence of confusion,
the intractable weapons of chaos
or rather, it is the case that death
is the goal, the long lasting aloneness
that I crave, the only respite from years
of service to the systems,
the good mornings, the how do you dos
all of that professional courtesy
and whitewash burying the past
in vacant memories.

I want to tell you dear that I am in a permanent state of confusion now.  It is accompanied by frequent episodes of nausea.  The criticisms are so perpetual that they have become not only a way of life but an expectation of same.  I have nothing to be ungrateful for and this compounds a kind of sadness in which the futility of happiness is coupled with the never ending thoughts of losing each and every thing.  One at a time.  Like teeth. 

The numbness.  Oh the numbness is there.  Somatic or otherwise, it is similar to being a two legged dog or even more crippled than that. 

You never really admitted to anything.  In fact you have formulated a brilliant scheme to force me into the trap of agreement and complicity.  I know how you do it.  That's the worst part maybe, I know exactly how you do it.  Inescapable if you ask me and lord knows, I have tried.  Tried to kick sand in your eyes and then felt the sorrow of cruelty.  Perhaps you know what that is by now but when we played the game with a child, I knew for certain you had no desire that compels the rest of us to lighten up.  He sat there blinking.  Just blinking and wanting to run away.  I know that feeling. How I know that feeling.

I love you still for whatever it is worth.  If I wasn't aware of certain facts, I'd not bother to stick around to make sure that you understood that but as it stands I do.  We have a name for this in my line of work and it's called 'seriousness of threat.

So is this the slow way?  I hope not and it is that small glimmer of hope that I must hang on to.  We all do.   All of us that struggle to wake up each day and march a little further.  I just feel I am marching in a thick and bottomless pit full of decades worth of mudslides. 

28.2.23

Psalm 2023
I imagine there is
no laughing left
in Turkiye, maybe
a little smile on
the outskirsts of
Byzantium, remember
the Bosphorus got the blues
as it split Asia from Europe
yet I imagine there is
no laughing left
in Turkiye, maybe
in Beirut tonight
the assassin holds
his cell and calls
his handler once more
and dupes a grin
yet I imagine there is
no laughing left
in Turkiye, maybe
the elephants in Ceylon
believe the end is near
and stare blankly
towards Java and Haiti,
Chile, Hawaii, Alaska
The. Great. Rift. Valley.
yet I imagine there is
no laughing left
in Turkiye, maybe
the souls of New Madrid
are restless and recall
months on end when
the earth smiled
ear to ear
again and again and again.
Yet I imagine there is
no laughing left
in Turkiye, thy rod
and thy staff and thou
shall not want.
All reactions:
Bisbee Bodega, Raghida Khouri and 3 others

The Mourning
Up there they talk about you
late into the night, ghost
talk but it is good
to be known
by one's brothers' names
even if death has wrapped
its arms around again
the all-of-it and small-of-it
the petrified rock-of-it
the once was a tree-of-it
the hemorrhage of birth
now in a box, the weight
of a small child held.
I'm so sorry, so sorry
to the ash-bones
as if they can hear
a finely working heart
when it says remember
all that stuff
that we thought mattered?
It doesn't.

17.2.23

Periscope
The day cannot see
what the night reveals:
if only, if only, if only
said the dreamer
to the dream.
I used to live
there in the woods
with them,
there on the lake,
on the beach,
I used to own
at least a part of it.
Now I know
which part
it was,
the part
that was not.

11.12.22

The Crazymaker 

 Afterall the fatique despues 
the visions blended from 
a myriad of testaments 
and still after that 
but in the before 
where a silent witness 
that is me and not me 
because you said so, 
I look entirely different 
frowning and sluggish 
more barren than Zahkariah's woman 
perched near a stove 
and her dirty floors, 
no one knows this pain 
quite like I do. Not a soul 
but the before me knows 
anything at all has happened 
between the many days 
that measure the building 
of the pyramid 
where entombed is my heart 
still beating 
down there in the dark 
but just barely.

18.11.22

People ask for prayers all the time and I am not sure what it is they are asking for, prayers or prayers. Kneeling or standing, to ward off evil or speed it up and pass it by. One is in surgery the other is a child with an agressive form of November on Otis road out by the cranes. Cranes never die or if they do their bodies are strung so far and wide we don't see them. As it is in life when we don't look too close to notice or hear the leaves rustling one by one but instead, in a group yet they all go in one direction. Prayers up! they say and I wonder where is the up they mention, the proximal or distal? Do they still want to stop it and why don't they know what it is that they want? Otis stayed alone for four days without water or food looking toward the door, waiting for Claire to come back in. We all wait for that and fear the exception while existing in an exception, the one leaf that occasionally breaks free, walks out that door and does not return. Pray for the door to open or close? The light is on at the neighbor's house where she is getting ready to go but much slower than anticipated. He is up there hiding his daughter and wife because he bludgeoned too many of us on the way up his lonely hill. He never asks for prayers, some never do. It is too late to pray they think, easier to install a grab bar and night light. The Parable of the Tardigrade All the moments fit together like a jigsaw puzzle and there is no use wondering if the detective understands this or not as long as he knows where the edges are, the straight ones. The ones that line up and constrain the rest of it when in reality the big picture is fractal and this the prophets knew as well as Borges. The kind detective practices feng shui and asks for dates and times, when was the last time you saw the victim, talked to the victim...as if people keep notes up on their fridge that say, you saved my leg thank you very much like I do. All these puzzles are set upon table after table extending as far as the eye can see but the detective is on his own surface as well as am I. Once the wind blows it tears down the tin roofs out in the valley, rips then to shreds and scatters them upon the desert floor and we all start over to reassemble, to gather our things into some kind of order. But nay! I swear by the sunset redness,and this too: And when the heaven is rent asunder, and then becomes red like red hide, I dropped the ball. It was too hot to hold much longer than a did. A bolt of lightning can only be held for so long. Nothing more than a stray laser in the cosmos on a journey with the rest of them, walking like ants in self similar lines into self similar tunnels. The ants and Otis know the killers and accept the killing but for some reason, we humans don't get it. Yet. We will one day but for now we toil over the puzzles, ask questions and form conclusions. The KP index was high that day and there will be a time in the future when we'll know when to warn again. As did the aboriginals. For now though, we are just getting this machine up and running with low level contraptions that used to bring water to the surface for cows. Not much progress but when you realize the thing is already running, it isn't about starting or stopping it, not at all. It lingers in the mean, the mode and the meridian at midnight.

29.10.22

One needs to start somewhere. It has to have a beginning. Like Adam and then Eve, a clear concise beginning. Things however, have many beginnings, they do not comply to the standards of a prototype as old as mankind itself. I think, "Otis was alone for four days in an efficiency apartment." That's a good place and I say to the couple across from me in Ray's living room, "I buried him up there on High Lonesome." They said their old dog was on the shelf in their living room, most likely in their manufactured home on some property and in the middle of nowhere. It begins there too. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I caught a snippet from them of their blind son, like getting a whole cold from a little breath from a stranger on a train. On the way home, driving past High Lonesome, I have a feeling that...no...not a feeling. It's more than a feeling because those are subjective. It's a fact and now I know it, it is considered knowledge. The fact is (and when people say that, it is considered knowledge and aspires to become common knowledge)..the fact is, people want you to know what is going on. They start to allude to a bit of this and a bit of that. They hope you will catch on and offer them a bit of your energy to something they have obviously worked quite hard on. Hard work to understand it, to accept it, to share it, whatever. It is an offering, it is an act of special charity going both ways. They don't always flag it like you would in a study guide but the way they interject it almost too casually in even smaller talk, they absolutely want you to know: our son is blind. There's a reason for that. It all boils down to ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It's on their mind. Constantly. As Otis is, on my mind. That's his real name but the other names now, will all be false. They don't matter in the simulation. They just don't. He's the pin on the board, he is the road out west near High Lonesome. He's the bones in my garage that I found outside that one's final place of rest. All very good coordinates on the map. I counted the miles from the shallow grave on the odometer, six. I still remember, it was six miles not counting the short distance to the highway. I'm sure all murderers (for lack of a better word here) do the same thing when concealing their crimes. They mark and measure, they often return and they take mementos. Let's restart it there. Mementos. I saw mementos in Paris. We'd been held up there overnight because of a delayed flight between Paris and DC. I was still drinking then or rather, I restarted to drink after a week of being dry. I'd cut my wrists in Paris and they glowed in the dark at the Smithsonian under the black lights there and several days after the stone-cold adventure at the Muséum National d'histoire naturelle where we took a picture of a skeleton belonging to Siamese Twins who were joined at the heart, where we all are joined but are seldom as acutely aware of it as I was then. We take mementos, we mark our stories and sometimes we say, "This is it, everything goes on from there." But it doesn't really except in rare cases like Adam and Eve and that is because a story, an important story must start somewhere. We as a species, a whole group of related things that share proteins comprised of code made out of 21 amino acids are so specific as to type as to have our own "species", our species has such a regard for death that even our murderers need to retain a memento of the death and it occurred to me while in a state of shock over Otis' solitude for those four days, that perhaps the death sequence creates a heightened state of awareness in the continuously breathing souls that remain behind, that the killers get a high off of the event. It's unfortunate that they don't know the real path to the sensation of grief, the one you wait for, knowing one day it will be yours and they'd be better off waiting their turn. Grief is miraculous. Truly miraculous. And it isn't always because there is a death. It could be the anticipated loss of a leg the day before the surgeon starts his saw. The remaining leg even. No legs left to walk on. A Cat Stevens song goes that way, thanks for making me blind so better to ignore you with my dear, says the Big Bad Wolf that consumes the little girls, talk about dark. Let me start somewhere else if it makes it easier. The detectives ask certain questions. You should be ready for that. These are like people who drop casual information about blind sons but before the son went blind. They are like soothsayers and know the son will go blind. But they want to know how. I asked her, the relatives of Otis, "How did he lose his sight?". The professional in me doesn't say, "How did he go blind?" Because he didn't go blind, he didn't go anywhere. He lost something but maybe gained something else. The detective will always ask, "When was the last time you saw such and such or so and so?" It is unnerving. Such a simple thing but it is truly unnerving. You wrack your mind to come up with a reasonable answer because you saw her handwriting the day before yesterday. You saw it right there where you pinned up the card. Or you talked to her last April or May and avoided talking to her because it would have been too long of a conversation. In this case, you knew if she was dead, there'd be no point in calling but if she wasn't, it would be a long ordeal and late in the night, you had to choose otherwise. I did and I said so. Honesty is always important but never more so in a death investigation which is where we are now on the map. Next to High Lonesome where his bones were retreived many years ago and above the fridge door where the last bit of Clair's DNA might lurk, I'm not good at names but Clair is a nice one and her real name was nice. An old name, one that I like alot because I've known some with that name. Not that their name made them nice but their name gave off a nice aroma like certain flowers do, a powerful one that cannot be mistaken for anything but that kind of flower. This is a Clair, this is a Henry. That one over there is a Mister Ham. Mister Hams are great because they live next door to everyone. Clair lived next door and underneath two other apartments, beside a tennis court and next to a place where my own child lived for a short bit of time. She lived close to where she was found. I studied her pretty well. I study them all pretty well. You have to. They want you to. It makes it easier than having to drop all those hints and answer long questions when they are feeling poor. I learned how to skip over and return to things like a detective. That's how I know how they think. Detection is human nature but most of us ignore it because when we detect, we must do more work to investigate and that is time consuming. Below most of our payscales.

6.10.22

Bona Adnuntiatio By the time you realize it is too early it is too late, the weather is getting cold already, the predictions are neither clear nor correct. The prophet did not mention the procedure to follow for ants yet, with flies it is permissible to scoop and continue to consume. This medium was never mentioned, the recipe for one thing is edited and secrets are lost in the stroke of things called keys so become myths and then, legends. An old poet is found wandering in the parking lot and found the next day buried in snow five years before when passers-by who enforce the laws saw beacons of his light, it is true yet if none of this makes sense it doesn't have to, the 'is it' and 'what is it' question pervails. To exist at once in matrixes is an acceptable plural form, but you can use matrices if you want to show off your knowledge of Latin noun endings it says so right there in revelations. In that moment she stopped a rapist from raping at least for a while but the memory belongs to them, a sad little couple in time is a fact that stuns her to this day, the day a man over there felt ill and died before the shock was delivered inside the maze all the hearts broke, they broke at once like thunder and then lightning, yes like thunder and then, lightning and I know each of them as We awaken, without knowing their names, the day opens with a gasp, a swoon, an Oh-No.
Bona Adnuntiatio By the time you realize it is too early it is too late, the weather is getting cold already, the predictions are neither clear nor corect. The prophet did not mention the procedure to follow for ants yet, with flies it is permissible to scoop and continue to consume. This medium was never mentioned, the recipe for one thing is edited and secrets are lost in the stroke of things called keys so become myths and then, legends. An old poet is found wandering in the parking lot and found the next day buried in snow five years before when passers-by who enforce the laws saw beacons of his light, it is true yet if none of this makes sense it doesn't have to, the 'is it' and 'what is it' question pervails. To exist at once in matrixes is an acceptable plural form, but you can use matrices if you want to show off your knowledge of Latin noun endings it says so right there in revelations. In that moment she stopped a rapist from raping at least for a while but the memory belongs to them, a sad little couple in time is a fact that stuns her to this day, the day a man over there felt ill and died before the shock was delivered inside the maze all the hearts broke, they broke at once like thunder and then lightning, yes like thunder and then, lightning and I know each of them as they awaken, without knowing their names, the day opens with a gasp, a swoon, an Oh No.

22.7.22

You hope to blame it on the barking dog, not the one you saw in the afterboon gnawing a bone or sleeping even though it was in the same location from where the miserable 3 am sound comes. No, not that dog. There are exactly as many Alis as there are dogs and times of the day in this particular village. Not a town which is another class of things with specific characteristics like running water, stop signs and its own school bus. Yes, Jesus did walk here and it ought to come to mind at least once or twice a day but it doesn't, not to anyoneAs lost as everyone is in their current troubles be it an overturned car on the way or lack of an egg, each particular hardship a little worse or a little better, each one marking a path to a greater apathy. This Ali always sits in the last chair near the edge of the balcony and never looks directly at anyone or anything else. His cigarette is always nearly finished,smoked clear down to the tiups of his finger. Not a single one ever needs be stubbed. He leans outward as if made that way in his mother's womb, anxious to travel but not the sort one does for petty enjoyment. His own mother prays for his departure and you hope to blame this sleeplessness on the barking dog whose image doubles and triples through a cone-shaped prism the kind a child struggles to reach and buried in a box of other useless but interesting things yet forgets as soon as they get it, forgetting the struggle almost at once in the mystery of weath

9.5.22

 You'll walk a long long way in the dark

without me, despite me.  You'll take charge

of the gold and diamonds, the dead checks,

pictures and the emergency supplies.

I'm not the easy answer anymore, 

not the num-chuk or the plastic pants.

By this time next year, your tears will dry.

You will walk up to the house 

one last time and see it for just a moment

the way it was and will be forever more.

Take heed, you'll rewrite this poem.

8.4.22


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Shared with James Wahl, Bisbee Bodega, Ali Sowid, Mohamed Mohsen, Fatima Louise and 1 other
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Easter in the Quran. "Not even water." -on a Tshirt
Say what? Yes, Easter is in the Quran. We don't really celebrate it 'as such' but few people really do. I think of all the Christian holidays, Easter is subject to the most scrutiny in terms of secular versus sacred practices by the Christians themselves. In reality, the two high holy-days though are both just as fraught with the impingement of secular and pagan concerns as the other. Easter as a worldwide event is nearly gone though and in that it is different than Christmas which shows little signs of going away although some might be trying pretty hard to get it removed from the queue.
When I was growing up, Lent was a great time. We anticipated Easter almost as much as we did Christmas. I personally loved to go to church, with or without my mom (my dad seldom went to church save for big occasions). How lucky we were to attend St. Patricks and who wouldn't be enchanted at the monumental altar there. We got our ashes on the first day. We dutifully abstained from eating meat on Friday as was the norm back then. We each received a card that had forty slots in it and were expected to tithe a dime each day of Lent and happily place it in the collection basket on Easter Sunday, $4 of our own hard earned kid cash. We shopped diligently during Lent for our Easter clothing (just like muslim children who also get a brand new set of clothes to celebrate the end of fasting on Eid). Collection baskets were carried around by two men of the church that were on the end of long broomstick like handles that reached into the pews on either side. My mom would usually write a check and hand it to one of us to put it in there. We'd leave the church at the end of each service and hope very hard to be able to greet Father Padilla as he waited outside the front doors in the Sunday light like a rock star. If I were a painter, I'd paint that.
There's a reason I am here now and feel the way I feel about Ramadan. It is absolutely related and this year our fasting coincides with Lent to a certain degree (next year it will fall totally within Lent's boundaries). I wonder at children now who are given no religious education....it is not a good thing. I mean, even for athiests, how can you reject something you know nothing about? Perhaps a grown up first-gen athiest knows what they are rejecting but their children likely do not because that old addage of fruit not falling far from the tree is absolutely demonstrable in the nature versus nurture arena. And we are probably way beyond first-gen athiesm as it has existed from day one, Cane versus Abel. Not to mention the people who just don't care and live in a state of ignoring the important historical facts of the matter. We indeed have bred a generation born into ignorance. Is it any wonder society is now falling apart at the seams? It isn't just here in the US folks, it is everywhere now. People are struggling psychologically. Problem is, so many people believe too much religion is the cause but if that was the case, since religion is actually on the decline overall and problems increasing, what's the excuse? I assure you, humanity is much less religious than it was when I was a kid. I defy you to disagree with me.
So...what does the Quran have to say about Easter? I am sure it is surprising to some, even some muslims that it even does....because although many muslims worldwide have given into Christian Christmas, very few indeed follow along with the Easter Bunny fun. It's actually a bit more controversial than buying a few ugly Christmas sweaters or putting up a little tree. I suppose it has to do with how the resurrection occurred versus the 'if' it occurred (Christians say he died, we say he didn't and is literally, still alive somewhere outside of our purview). The Quran does though relegate the main discussion of Easter to a very, very important position in terms of when it was 'revealed'. The Quran, in case you don't know, is numbered in chapters 1-114 however those are not arranged in order of their transcription. After all the chapters were orated, the actual order of them was then dictated. Easter and what is known as the Last Supper is actually given its very own chapter called "The Dinner Table" (Al Maeda) and additionally, it is so important that it was literally the final chapter ever 'received' by the Messenger. (I won't get too much into the significance of this final and critical assertion concerning Islam/sectarian issues here, maybe on another day.). So Islam doesn't deny Easter as such, it clarifies the major crisis the departure of Jesus, SA caused and continues to cause until this day.
This final chapter of the Quran says it is the final one. Just like Mohamed, SA says he is the final Messenger/prophet. It is not fuzzy or unclear and it is not like any other Abrahamic statement all the way back to the Garden of Eden issues. In no uncertain terms even though it is #5 in textural order, the Quran relates that this is the final statement to the final messenger in the final book, the apex of all of it since the beginning of 'known' human storytelling for lack of a better word for 'this paradigm' we find ourselves solidly in now. "This day have I perfected for you your religion and completed My favor on you and chosen for you Islam as a religion." It is a relatively famous line even amongst detractors and Islamophobes. Newsflash, it is not "you" as in already in the fold Muslims. It is the "you" called "all of humanity henceforth" you. That you.
This is where it gets a little sticky.....for some. For the easily annoyed, the brainwashed, the ill-intended and well....for anyone who has an undue amount of belief that a few simple words will manage to suffice as a 'get out of jail free card' even for mortal sins like adultery, murder, burglary and most importantly, idolatry. Believe it or not, idolatry is worse than murder because murder is forgivable but idolatry/polytheism turns out, is not. Yikes.
The Last Supper chapter discusses a great many things about the final and problematic issues of the next to last prophet, Jesus Christ who we know is called Isa, SA, son of Miriam, pbuh. This chapter reveals* the last act of Mohamed, SA and describes the last act of Jesus, SA. Not an accident I assure you. It is always the case that in order to understand the "new" information, an example of a previous situation is quite helpful. But it is and must be painful for some. So painful that they reject our information outright. What to do. This is the part that hurts and then I'll get to the actual description of the final act of Jesus, SA (noting that the entire chapter is referring to the 'at the time of the revelation/real time*' final act of Mohamed, SA prior to his death a month or two later which I am not discussing). The Quran relates the following:
"Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah, He is the Messiah, son of Miriam." IOW, Allah is not "Jesus" a human being. It says, "Certainly they disbelieve who say: Surely Allah is the third (person) of the three." It goes on to say, "And there is no god but the one God." It is very clear and I hope not to offend anyone and the next few verses explain the brotherhood between believers, particularly Christians and Muslims. Of course, this is not the only place in the Quran that this critical issue is described and throughout, it is quite clear and not even a little bit subject to debate in terms of 'real meaning' or the congruency of the assertion throughout the entire 114 chapters, in all Qurans, in all languages. So.
What does it then say about the Last Supper? lt starts at verse 110. It is what we hold to be a 'verbatim' account of what Jesus, SA was actually commanded to do. It starts with a reminder (TO Jesus, SA) about his own ability to orate in the cradle all the way to old age. It reminds Jesus, SA about Allah teaching him (via Gibreel I assume) the entire Torah and then, the Injeel (which is not known to exist in print now or maybe ever as oration was the means of communication in times when printing did not exist). It relates that Allah reminded Jesus, SA about the miracles (clay bird, healing the blind/lepers and raising the dead) performed by Jesus, SA. And finally, Allah reminds Jesus, SA that he protected him from death from his adversaries. IOW, Allah tells Jesus, SA, don't worry about these people that hope to kill you. I'd say that's a big tip off to the quality of our data on the matter.
And then, it gets to his Companions. Oh dear. The companions is where things always go astray. Because not all companions are created equal. And some companions, even those trailing behind Mohamed, SA continued to doubt all the way to the bitter end. And beyond for some of the most notorious. These types have always been the bane of Monotheists since Cane and Abel. Yes, those two early-in-the-paradigm brothers appear in this chapter because of the clear presence of believer vs disbeliever allegory prevalent throughout Al Maeda/Last Supper.
These companions of Jesus, SA (known as 'disciples') wanted one last piece of proof (raising corpses and curing blindness was not enough so that ought to tell you something right there) that Jesus, SA was legit. So they asked for a big dinner. "Food from heaven" which I suppose is a traditional means for cementing faith from the days of Manna and Moses, SA. They said, "O Isa, son of Marium! will your Lord consent to send down to us food from heaven?" Mind you, some folks differed all the way back to the days of Moses, SA in terms of 'faith' too and those Hebrews split off into two sects right after Moses, SA went up to the mountain. As far as I can tell, they are still split over the Golden calf false idol imbroglio. And that event was literally caused by one and only one bad apple (who may have repented)..his name was Samiri.
So, Jesus, SA then prays to Allah to send down a meal that will be "an ever recurring happiness, to the first and the last of us and a sign". So. Allah then said to Jesus, SA "Surely I will send it down to you, But whoever shall disbelieve afterwards from among you, surely I will chastise him with a chastisement with which I will not chastise anyone among the nations. And when I (Allah) will say: O Isa son of Marium! did you say to men, Take me and my mother for two gods besides Allah?" ...it then returns to Jesus, SA response to that "Glory be to THEE(not me as in me Jesus, SA), it did not befit me that I should say what I had no right to say.
In a nutshell. Many of us know that Jesus was then betrayed however this betrayal is a confused issue in the known texts written by these same witnesses who betrayed him. Not all of them but certainly, the ones who betrayed are the ones who violated everything I have explained to you here....perhaps some out of good intentions or misunderstanding. Who knows really and it doesn't really matter in terms of what a person does and believes right now. All of this merely cements the knowledge and how the lack of it has resulted in a lot of bad data leading to bad behaviors in all the world. Sure, Jesus, SA loves you and I for one loved that guy so much while I sat up there at St. Pat's in my Sunday dresses that I absolutely needed to know how to find him again at the next opportunity. Which I know one day will occur. Sooner or later and the way time flows forward all the time, sooner is much sooner than later. Peace.