20.8.06

Ode To The Gully Washer
(for James Corner)

When it came down we'd bow
our heads and utter each to each
the plain-spoken dialogue
of the deluge. Years' worth
of waiting over in a flash. Resurrection's
aisle cleaned up, mint and grass
combed out properly in three directions.
A kicked ball would turn up
near the corner in a stretch
of wild rasberry wholly out
of reach, no trespassing sign needed.
Tadpoles and water walkers,
giant red dragonflies called snakefeeders:
everything with a description
sorting origin and function, a collection
of results-specific identifiers
for the concerns of our people.
Wasps with addresses and vendettas,
rocks with names beside
bean vines and China Berries,
pop beetles and walking sticks.
A host of communion eaters
and seekers, drought prone to river wise.
Our contempt reserved for the fires.



http://bisbeedailyphoto.blogspot.com/

The second photo is taken a hundred yards from where I am living, displaced by Israel. I'd say it is one of the most unexpected things that could have happened to me thus far. Bisbee is now a town full of affluent Californians who have literally "bought" a piece of timeless real estate. What did they buy? Do they know our stories? Why me? Well, why not me? I must be here for a reason...to write the Glory Hole Ode and others (to Buckets and Leaks) based on xenophobic fantasies, as all the Odes are and ever were. It is such an important detail....and such an evocative tale.

How hard it is to walk around with miracles inside of one's head. Is it any wonder why there are so many insane ones on the streets in America? Back in Haris, South Lebanon, I only ever saw one. One solitary insane man who always wore a coat, winter and summer, rain or shine.

8 comments:

Erin said...

As much as I have always enjoyed your poetry, it's apparent that you've given in to the circumstances around you, that you're full of anger and hatred that, at least on some level, is displaced.

It's also obvious that you write some large part of your entries in a way that is unfairly biased and prejudiced against Americans. You do that because you know that a huge percentage of your readers are americans, and think that you've accomplished something by offending some/part/all of them. It's sad to see you degenerate as you have, and difficult to watch as you transform from someone whose poetry has always had the mark of an intelligent and generous person, into something fanatical and bent on vengeance.

Most of America disagrees with the way our country is being run, and with the practices being put into play in the middle-east, and yet you feel as though you're justified.

I am sorry for all you've experienced, for all that Lebanese AND Israeli civilians have endured, but Americans are not to blame for centuries of warfare in your country, and your countries would have/will continue to be at war, with or without America's involvement.

Carmenisacat said...

I imagine Erin that you are referring to the "notorious" two thousand year old war fought between the Jews and Arabs. Am I correct?

This is an oft quoted MYTH Erin. The war between Israel and the 'rest' started when Israel became a state, a fictional state imposed on the Arab countries approximately 70 years ago now.

As far as Americans...well...there are good and bad Americans. Mostly though, there are poorly informed and oppressed Americans that have been fed a steady diet of anti muslimism for just about as long as the state of Israel has existed. And prior to that, the Europeans suppressed Islam and by Europeans I mean, Christians mostly.

I'm sorry that you have mistaken my UTTER DISGUST at Israeli war criminality with hatred of you or someone you love. I am also sorry that you have mistaken US foreign policy with the foreign and domestic policy of Israel proper.

I am also sorry that you don't have the time to research these things properly and come to your own conclusions. I've found that a generous portion of American society is like you, hard at work and oppressed and unable to spend time beefing up on their Middle Eastern history and is left with no choice other than to mirror whatever CNN is telling you to think or not think on any particular day. Usually, from what I've seen so far, the TV is used to terrorize you. I'm not the first to notice that...you may remember a very important movie called Columbine.

Now, as far as a society giving advice to another society and doing it using bombs, bomblets and cluster bombs...I think the US has a long way to go and the society here as measured by the public school system is in grave disrepair. Had I known how bad it was...I might have come back a little sooner in order to be a spokesperson for my own "kind" in the midst of a gargantuan oppression:

that would be the oppression of Americans. Simple, good people with little time on their hands and too much debt to pay to their task masters.

Like I said though, I always welcome your comments but would caution you to avoid attaching HATRED to my commentary. That in itself is not very good Erin and is indicative more of your stance than of mine. My POV is based on witnessing a 'so called' democratic country DESTROY another one in a vicious crime against civilians and civilian infrastructure using mostly banned weapons of mass destruction like phosphorus and cluster bombs.

Erin said...

I have stared at this reply screen for quite some time trying to respond to your comment here, and find it impossible to do because I know that you'll continue to be accusatory and manipulative with my words because you need to feel right.

I will say only this: I'm not as uninformed as you'd like to believe, nor am I one of the herd who believes what the media feeds me. I have come, absolutely, to a conclusion, all on my very own, that there are innocent people, children dying on both sides of that border, and that isn't going to stop until BOTH sides worry more about being at peace, and less about being right.

My opinion on US involvement in the Middle East: We have NO place there, it is completely about our reliance on oil in addition to political rhetoric, governmental scare tactics, and manipulation that has us involved in the Middle East.

I'm not an idealist, and I know that Americans aren't going to park their cars and buy bicycles, but I AM intelligent enough to know that people would stop dying if we did.

Carmenisacat said...

No offense Erin, but it isn't really fair to state openly that you are offended by my opinions and then, offended by my defense of them.

If you have specific examples of how the US behaves and why it is 'not' their place then you must certainly know that the US spends and has spent over 3 billion dollars a year on Israel since the second WW. In other words, you fail to see "US" involvement in Israel as "US" involvement in the Middle East and this is clearly a part of your opinion and your sense of 'disillusionment' with not only my political opinion but now, my poetry as well.

It is not pleasant I know, but honestly, unless you can cite specific case examples of "the US doesn't belong there" then I'll have to believe that it is a generalized and 'populist' notion.

That generalized notion is almost as harmful as a pro Zionist one. It has been used to divide Americans against America and against themselves. America is at war in its mind. I didn't cause that...facts caused that and results happen due to facts.

Israel didn't just suddenly 'decide' to ethnically cleanse in South Lebanon....they've been at it for over half a century.

I believe that Americans are only just starting the long process of familiarizing themselves with the details. I am relatively sure you cannot discuss MUCH of what is key to understanding the conflict or you would have done so to substantiate your feelings of 'pain' over my "hatred". Instead, all you can give me is a guilt trip as if I knowingly misled you to read my poetry and now you are angry at me and want to withdraw your support.

That's fine Erin...I understand. Believe me. I'm a muslim remember?
My perspectives are not like yours, a non muslim's. You need to remember that. That is called perspective. I do not expect a non muslim to understand or fully comprehend the level of disgust most muslims feel right now towards the fictional state known as Israel.

I can however empathize with the notion that this whole thing has 'come to a head' and it is forcing many people to re-evaluate their views. My only hope for you is that you don't re-evaluate only by labeling something "hate" when in reality, it is 'disgust' and in particular, "disgust with hypocrisy" because then and only then will you begin to understand the stance of the resistance fighters of Lebanon who cannot join their government because their government is IMMENSELY CORRUPT and has been so for generations. That government isn't a muslim one (although many believe Lebanon to be a state like Saudi Arabia, I assure you, it is more like the Las Vegas of politics).

Hezbollah has never blown up school buses Erin. Nor have they used 'suicide bombers'. They have always fought Israel in man to man combat and yes, sometimes by lobbing ill equipped missiles into Northern Israel. They have NEVER done that without first being attacked with high tech Israeli weapons of mass destruction provided courtesy of the US government.

I oughta know Erin, my daughter almost lost her life to shrapnel and last year, we dug up an Israeli land mine in our back yard...the ones Israel REFUSED to provide the map to as they were supposed to according to UN resolutions.

Carmenisacat said...

It is unfortunate that my blog became the target of a personal fight between a few of my own friends who felt they also had been somehow betrayed by my political vision.

My politics have always been a part of my poetry but for some reason, this was not noticed. That reason is due to the universality I employ in crafting poems that suit all kinds of people, war torn and otherwise. Sometimes they are disaster torn.

I do regret focusing any attention on the victims of Katrina who are also victims of the Bush oppressions. That was inexcusable but in the first few weeks of the Israeli brutality against Lebanon (all of Lebanon, not just the Shi'i of the south) NO ONE SEEMED TO CARE on your side of the border.
Too busy it seems "minding their own business". In fact, this is called Isolationism and you are a victim of a public school system that indoctrinates US citizens to "mind their own business" and ignore world history and foreign policy...unless of course it is about WWII and the Holocaust.

That said, I will tell you that I have been involved with politics and political discussions for a very long time and have done exhaustive amounts of research into the question. For the past few years I have consciously WILLED myself to try and see the Israeli point of view and developed an opinion that I felt to be suitable and that was that a religion, the Jewish one, REQUIRES a Qibla. The Catholics have Rome and the Muslims have Mecca. The Jews need one too.

Now however, as Israel has pummelled an ENTIRE country into the ground, I must retract that sentiment. Israel isn't a Jewish state, it is a Zionist one. Pure and simple. If the Jewish religion promotes the destruction of ENTIRE societies in order to protect its 'so called' right to exist, then I cannot support that and I question anyone who does support that. I feel most do not know what they support and that would include the majority of Jews worldwide. I would hate to think that they promote war criminality.

The ends DO NOT justify the means when the means are so grave and will mean decades more of poverty, disunity and war for a neighboring and SOVEREIGN country such as Lebanon.

Hezbollah did not start a war. It has been continuously DENIED negotiating power outside of Lebanon. It does have power inside of the Lebanese government and runs candidates on a 'ticket' much the same as your very own Democratic and Republican parties do. Believe it or not, many of the candidates who run on the Hezbollah ticket ARE NOT EVEN MUSLIM. Wow.

Hezbollah is a legitimate part of Lebanon and its policy has changed from one of desiring an Islamic State to one of cooperating with the existing government (for better or worse) in order to provide for a more stable society that addresses the needs of all Lebanese citizens. Not just the Shi'i and not just the Christian Maronite minorities who until now, have been backed almost entirely by Israel and have committed PROVEN acts of treason against their own country.

Lebanon is a complicated place but not so much so that a little research into places like Khiam will help you to understand the vile acts perpetrated ON Lebanon by its neighbor, so called Israel but in reality, I just call it "Utopia" and what a utopia it is!

Carmenisacat said...

Schadenfreude in the City

Where did this problem start,
this stuff about wondering where
a siren goes in the dark
or during the rain, the curtains
pulled aside and you want to see
mainstreet, hope to see a fire
or the headlight of someone's car
dangling like an eye out
of its socket, all hay-wires.
Here, it is night and a plane
ascends, banks then disappears.
A siren peals through the almost silent
predawn cold and continues on.
Then another. It is always
the second one that gets you going.


How The Ants Got Famous

They stood on their hind legs
congratulating themselves. How
they did, the ants, become famous.
Lifting six times their weight:
grains of sugar, wheat capsules
and so many types of resins
called capitulations. Even
in the love generations, men
were heartier than their women,
chosen very well, as it is always
the case, for their breeding:
Connecticut to New Hampshire,
Wilshire to Orange
and Pinal to Greenlee county.
The march of these creatures
was not very long to us
but to them, it was
a very long and hoary deal.
Tree trunks to consider, alimony,
panhandling and no hole to crawl into.
It was a very long way to Mecca.

Erin said...

See... manipulated my words. But then I saw that coming. Thanks for being so condescending :-)

Carmenisacat said...

Come on now Erin, I didn't manipulate anything. I'm a nurse and perhaps a skilled communicator. Maybe what you feel is the shock of truth as it is reflected back at you?

You feel angry too it seems and you know...you also have been through many things. :( You know what anger does to a person do you not? And grief, and acceptance...

I went through acceptance before the anger...the anger lasted a few days and was exacerbated by personal attacks and here I am in grief.

Perhaps you don't see me as you see yourself, as a person who has LOST something. I am. Do not forget that. I am homeless right now...comfortably so al'ham'du'lillah...but homeless all the same and far away from people who I don't have to explain anything to. Away from my people, my animals and my things. Some of my things were not only destroyed but what was left of my home was viciously vandalized. Hatefully vandalized.

I don't know what it is like to lose a child but as a nurse, I know that there are similarities in the coping process regarding all loss.

I don't want to victimize you Erin but I also have first hand experience regarding MY loss. Not yours and I would never rush in to correct your understanding of your own loss. Not to get so personal but it is the only way you might understand the gravity of the situation in Lebanon. Many people there DID lose children and there will be many more. They lost everything...washers, photographs, chairs, books...all of it. Not only that, the ENTIRE country was basically destroyed Erin. I believe that you cannot conceptualize the depth of that loss to a NATION.

Hatred isn't the key word here. Disgust is. It isn't pleasant to read (for you or anyone) either and that is the nature of war criminality.

All my best and don't take it so personally. I'm not the leader of a country and you are not my adversary. You are however a brave person and deserve a lot of credit for being so.

Salaam wa alaikum

Meg