30.1.10

The Good Investment

First installment appeared in the afternoon
edition of the daily paper and was written
by Agnes Upchurch on her deathbed
or so it was thought before Miss Upchurch
showed up the very next day at the Post
Office to collect her mail and proceeded
to the newspaper office to receive the balance
of what she was due which amounted to
three dollars and ten cents. She clenched
the money in her left hand that was swaddled
in the left pocket of the coat which
belonged to a dead woman before her
and said to herself, this is for you Edna.
The coat had been sold to the local thrift store
by the dead woman's ungrateful brood of children
who didn't appreciate that it was made
of herring bone tweed with a nice black collar
that could be turned up against the neck
during cold weather. Miss Upchurch
paid fifty cents for her old friend's coat
with the comfort that she
had been right all along and for this
she was paid well enough to purchase
a pound of coffee, loaf of bread
and half a dozen pencils with which to write
the second installment of the series
which she named The Red Herring.

29.1.10

Movie clip from the stunning movie, Waitress

"Bad Baby Pie"





Ron Silliman and Marilyn Crispell
Live in Concert!


This is gonna be great. Although I have gone through some personal life difficulty (quit my damn job again) this past week, I am enthusiastic about this reading. I am hoping to see something quite wonderful, enlightening and mesmerizing. Anything less than that and I'll write to Mr. Silliman personally and request he get my money back from Chax Press who is sponsoring the event which will be at Pima Center for the Arts, Pima Community College West Campus on Saturday January 30, 2010 at 7 p.m..


I still have two tickets to give away but am having some difficulty finding the right recepients.


I wonder, do you think I could SCALP them?





The Sweetest Parking Lots in Town

Should we dye our hair or sharpen
the claws, tend the roots maybe
bring a gift, some kind of wrist watch?
Saw her in the store today
and her friend came up to us
and agreed that things tend
to change over here
but the same old secrets
that aren't even secrets anymore
except that they are spoken
about quietly in places like these
and tell each other,
we are the secrets
but no one tells you before
the ambush and then
it's all out in the open
and saying, didn't you know?
Knew she'd be there
knew alot of things
about the weather
over there, the last blowout.
Don't you just love how
some people don't let you down
by letting you down?
It's really great that way,
you can go on turning up
showing off or filtering,
sleeping with every darn thing
in town at least once.
My hands feel cold
the eyes say look out,
they are over there,
again.

23.1.10

The Tree Omen

Falls as if the wind
Took it down
In the night it lay
Dying, taking its last
Breath, wondering
How so many things
Go wrong, the roots
Hurt as they tear
Opening up the ground
Easily, how unbearable
The signs can be
Unwarranted dramatic
Dirty tragic
All those saplings
Between her fists
Under her arms.
Contagion the wind blows
Star weather and genius
Over the lawn
Past the mud ankles
The if and when pulse
Missing pecans dried
Canary cases
The drowning books
Our fixed up years
The ready pollution
Honors those the most.
NY dairy farmer kills 51 cows, commits suicide

COPAKE, N.Y. – State police in New York say an upstate dairy farmer shot and killed 51 of his milk cows in his barn before turning the rifle on himself.

State police found the body of 59-year-old Dean Pierson in his Copake barn on Thursday. A visitor found a note Pierson had left on the barn door that said not to come in and to call police.

State police would only say that Pierson was having personal issues.

The Columbia County hamlet of Copake is about 115 miles north of New York City.

Local farmers buried the cows outside the barn Friday. They would not discuss Pierson or what had happened, but one of the men said these are hard times to be a farmer.


LOS ANGELES – A firefighter splashed into a rain-swollen river Friday to rescue a German shepherd and managed to hang on safely, even after the dog furiously bit his arm and hand.

Joe St. Georges, a 25-year Los Angeles Fire Department veteran, said he received a "real bite in the thumb" but was otherwise feeling fine.

LONDON – A pair of British children who lured two other youngsters to a secluded area and subjected them to a horrifying catalog of near-fatal abuse were sentenced to at least five years in custody Friday.

The attackers, 10 and 11 at the time, were convicted of robbing, beating, and stabbing their victims with sticks and bricks. One child, 10, had a sink thrown onto his head, while his nephew, 9, was forced to eat nettles. The violence included sexual degradation, Justice Brian Keith said during the sentencing.

14.1.10

HAITI RELIEF FUNDS

Please remind your friends and family to donate to at least one of the following organizations that are helping the people of Haiti. I have found that it is helpful to remind people who sometimes procrastinate over issues like this. You'd be surprised at how spreading the word can and does make a difference even ten bucks at a time.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

How you can help:In addition to providing emergency relief, these organizations are providing the following aid to those in need:

Providing Basic Needs:• American Red CrossCAREWorld VisionUNICEF USAInternational Relief TeamsSave the ChildrenCatholic Relief ServicesSamaritan's PurseAmerican Jewish World ServicesClinton FoundationYĆ©le HaitiWorld ConcernMercy CorpsOperation Blessing InternationalUN Central Emegergency Response Fund (CERF)Mercy & Sharing

Providing Shelter:ShelterboxHabitat for Humanity International

Providing Medical Aid:Direct Relief InternationalInternational Medical CorpsMedical Teams InternationalDoctors Without BordersOperation USAMAP InternationalThe International Committee of the Red CrossWorld Health OrganizationAmericaresProject Medishare

Providing Food:World Food ProgrammeThe Salvation ArmyCompassion InternationalFood for the Poor

12.1.10

The University of Arizona Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents:










Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think, a new documentary film from Unity Productions Foundation, explores the expertly gathered opinions of Muslims around the globe as revealed in the world’s first major opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, the preeminent polling organization.

Focused on the issues of Gender Justice, Terrorism, and Democracy – the film presents remarkable data deftly, showing how it challenges the popular notion that Muslims and the West are on a collision course. Like the research, the film highlights a shared relationship that is based on facts – not fear.

Experts Featured in the film: Dalia Mogahed, Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, John Esposito, University Professor, Georgetown University, Rami Khoury, Editor of the Daily Star (Beirut), and Kenneth Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, among others.






11.1.10

Saginaw

I have to say, we laughed hard
at the no pants romance stories
after Christmas dinner, the fire
roaring and Dick there with his
wooly layers. We just started
up about the no pants romance
and kept going. Now each of us
calls the other and asks
How'd we get started on that?

I think it was with the bright
idea I had at three in the afternoon
about a week before when I called
up Dick and said, what are you doing
for Christmas dinner and he told me
he'd be washing his socks. I was per-
plexed that a famous poet
would be washing his socks on Christmas
and anyway, delighted because
I wanted to invite my old friend
over for dinner. So that's the story
of the no pants romance
and you'd have to be there
to understand, you'd have to be
one of us or interested
in pants, in socks, in the hard
won loneliness of old poets.

7.1.10


Marlene Dietrich - Lili Marleen
by Pigasus_Power




Does she or doesn't she?

Glory by Nada Gordon

It is advised to find Lili in English because it is equally wunderbar to listen to. My father sang it in German usually. The following hadith apply (not Quran) but have numerous citations in Islamic history alongside Quranic ayat (proofs) from a Sunni website here:

http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=1786&CATE=142

“If a singer gathers people around him only to entertain them with his voice, then he will not be considered a upright person (a’dil), even though if he does not consume alcohol, as he will be considered the leader of sinners. If however, he only sings to himself in order to eradicate loneliness, then there is nothing wrong in doing so."

“Those who witness no falsehood, and if they pass by futility, they pass by it with honourable avoidance” (The Glorious Quran, Surah al-Furqan, V. 72)....in other words, keeping such things as music in perspective and tasteful...sometimes even motivational.

Abd Allah ibn Mas’ud (Allah be pleased with him) reports that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) said: “Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage” (Sunan al-Bayhaqi).

Which is true and the reason some music is banned/censored/protested even in the United States where freedom rings to cop a phrase from a well known patriotic tune.

The Shariah has possibly been misconstrued and one thing that muslims ought to be told is that the same type of over-policing happened in the Christian culture leading to the monastacism of priests/celebacy and even to the crisis of the church who harbored criminal pedophilic priests in their midst and with their knowledge.

“Unlawful (haram) singing is when the theme of the song consists of unlawful things, such as the description of a particular living person’s beauty and features, the virtues of wine that provoke wine-drinking, the details and particulars of family affairs or those songs that mock and ridicule others."

Lili Marlene is a song about war-time sex and ergo-prostitution which, believe it or not, has some regulatory points in Islam i.e. allowances. Is it then haram? I certainly don't know but I listen to it when I feel lonely or remember the loneliness that war creates among a variety of people, cultures and ideologies. It is also a case of underestimating the genetics of fathering children with the daughters of one's enemies...powerful idea and not mine to go into here except to say that it is a common thread throughout history and particularly, Greek history which is foundational to so many things including Islam itself which had to respond to the status quo of Greek mythology as did Christianity have to...without er...absorbing it via innovation and integration of practice (as the Christians did).

Sunni muslims have created a conundrum for themselves however because a well known hadith from Sahih Buhkari indicates that the prophet listened to singers and watched some young girls dancing...the hadith was narrated by the infamous Aisha whom the Sunnis regard as one of the holiest of women and the Shia regard as a special enemy to Islam itself...perhaps even one whose sole purpose was to separate the wheat (Shia) from the chaff (Sunni). I doubt that the hadith is accurate and instead it is one of those created either deliberately by Aisha herself or by others who followed and noted a good opportunity to spread vicious gossip.

The Sunni justify this exception because if they don't it leads to the discrediting of Buhkari's collection of quotes en toto:

"Firstly, theses young girls were singing without any unlawful musical instruments and secondly, the content of the song was regarding war, thus perfectly lawful. Also, they were not professional singers as the words of the Hadith clearly indicate."

I've read that hadith and it absolutely does not mention war but actually alludes to something pernicious and evil toward the prophet as do many Sunni hadiths and this is the crux of contention between Shia and Sunni is that the Sunni exhibit no remorse in relating false hadith if it means their side of the story "sticks together" better.

I mention it after viewing Nada Gordon's very interesting multimedia poem on her site today and after having mentioned Lili (again) in one of my own poems. I find it significant that this generation probably has little memory for such things as Marlene and her turncoat ways, her ultimately successful 'late in life' ascent to stardom via pseudo-usurious means i.e. war song. Her music was generally metrical and the lyrics could be read as poems just as well as they took off with music.

Black Market is one of my favorite tunes.....incredibly profound especially if one has had the luxury of reading In Praise of Older Women (as Lanny called it, 'Fleeing Hungry' riddled with Feeling Hungary).

Illusions is also a beautiful war time poem....quite romantic.

See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have is great war buff stuff and she says, "tell them my crime" which for those who have any knowledge of Marlene's refusal to serve the purposes of Hitler's Germany is staunch evidence about which side she was on and she knew it, communicated it in a widely known song as a type of war taunt.

A few samples from Amazon here.



2.1.10

Magician_dove




The Boys Between Us
-Kiai o ka lewa (Guardians of the Upper Realms)

Would that this poem might submit
the wondrous headline there,
the problematic endings
and beginnings where
things go round and round
but who would believe
the announcement of sharp
air in the lungs below zero
tonight in North Dakota
and how that made my heart
begin to bleed and rejoice
as you drew your breath in
and stood up to walk
to where you are right now,
so far away from the past two
weeks, the first furlough
and this unorthodox,
sentimentally muslim Christmas.
I put that tree up for you
to make it seem more
like the movies and feel
more like a dream,
the real logistics
of history, ours and theirs.
There is fury in my heart
for you son
with whom no blankets
were sent, no glass tears
delivered and your friend
shows up to this house
a few hours after you left,
this house that feels like those first
few moments after a funeral.
He tried to hide
behind the pencil thin
brown-like-a-foreigner body
girlfriend of his, standing
at the door ringing the bell
thinking he could surprise me,
but I knew he'd come.
They all belong to me son,
your friends, their lives
and their deaths.
Her little promise ring
was too big for her finger,
this great big love
you kids know so much about
running between them,
his head shaved and skateboard
literate bandana (paisley)
wrapped as he always did it
back when he fainted
and slumped to the floor
like some people do
when they see their own
blood. I asked him
what was next
and the new infantry
is all he understands
with the skate park fading,
his first pack of smokes
you bought him when
you turned eighteen,
that's Dustin for you,
he doesn't look too bad
without all that hair
and his neck is thick, muscular,
like yours and everyone else's,
you can tell what he's been thinking.
I'm glad I watched
All's Quiet but not really,
not when a dead boy's guitar
is slung over a handle in
your old room
and Mary's brother's coat is
tucked into your duffle
alongside your orders.
Her parent's honored you,
don't forget that,
John's been dead for five years now
but his coat, son. That
is their son's coat, the son
that they lost when he
careened his brand new car
into a rocky crag on his way
back from Rocky Point
just after he'd made pilot.
Not sure if they hoped
to curse or bless you buddy.
And Jeremy shot himself
just last year and we all know
it was drugs that got him,
same war, different strategy
in the disingenuous battle
for a person's soul and then, their body.
Your voice shook when you volunteered
a eulogy up at St. Pat's,
seventeen years old is too
young to offer such a speech
but you did great that day,
the whole parish sobbed
and we aren't even Catholic.
Neither of them perished
from an IED
neither of them is buried
where they died
but they are still gone
and as gone as you are right
now, that first call home
is the hardest because the story
keeps on going.
It is nightfall on New Year's Day
and I play Jeremy's guitar
to the tune

bury me son, t'abreneh in'sha'allah,
please bury me with your heart on fire,
just don't bury what I've said.

I'm just a woman you know
but I've seen war from
several of its infinite angles
and I want to tell you
it looks different from every
one so far but I know
the last look we take
might be the one
that lasts the longest.
The war, son, is in man's bones,
it troubles the arteries
and fills the heart with steam,
purples this mind with agony
and drags our legs
like a grizzly bear on a rampage
whether we go or not
we drink the elixir of Free Will.
It takes girls and makes
them women, adultresses and widows,
draws lines around our eyes
and mouths, leaves boys
without mothers, fathers,
sisters and cousins - it places
us in perspective, drives
certain people to drink
and others to flee,
or like Dustin's girl
she signs up too damn it
because times haven't changed
and my own mother
peeled and placed bandages
at Bethesda Naval hospital in 1943
because times were tough then too.
If you'd have asked her
it was her culminating factor,
the one that drew and colored
the rest of her life, some
sort of redemption and reminder
when my dad got liquored up
and sang Lili Marlene. Everyone
looks good in uniform mister,
just not all of the time.

They sat there on my couch
this afternoon, he took
his bandana off and twisted it
over and over and over,
his mom told me he's afraid
of both things: killing and killing.
We all are.

We made polite conversation
for three whole hours,
he leaves tomorrow,
to "Misery" as they say
and its cold there too
but by May he'll be
shipping out and we know where,
just don't know if or how or who.
I knocked him on the head
with my knuckles
as he left, the same way
I did the day he passed out
and I tried to wake him up
as I washed his little cut
a couple of years back
when all we cared about
was whether or not
I had enough stew
to feed them all, your friends,
all your precious friends
who to me were
chosen especially for you
and more precious than gold.
For old time's sake I rapped
him on his hard head, for you
and him and Jeremy and John,
for my father and my brother,
for my mother and my uncle,
for the citizens of the earth
and those that have died
or who are dying today
and those being born,
for the rabbit I ran over outside
Benson on the way up
to send you on your way,
you and your Mary snuggling
in the back seat and crying,
for Mary, poor Mary and your sisters,
for your father who has delegated
to me more than I am capable
of delivering,
and for the havelina I shot last
night on New Year's Eve with
the beebee gun I finally bought
you after all those years
I denied you one, and that impervious
beast looked at me as if to say
bug off and then sauntered away.
For our enemies and our friends.
For your cousin who thinks
the Marines will do for him
what my brother never could.
Yes, war puts us all into perspective
and it never stops and never will my little boy.
Strife is justice said Heraclitus
and I have to agree
but it depends on which side you are
and if you know you're on it.