Today In The Real Third World

The city on fire
was traffically jammed,
cross circuits of humbled wires
over the intersections of
'used to be a war here'
and
'used to be a war here'.
Struggling their beefy little hearts
out to go on home to their steamy kitchens,
their lousy children and fat wives.
No one any more decent for the excuse
of it all including the rickety
rattan furniture on the balcons
to the beautiful sea on the right
or the left or the center.
Somewhere out there a prostitute wailed
and somewhere else a man spit into a urinal
and still somewhere else out there
was I. In the middle of it all,
chest nearly bleeding from contaminations
fresh from the instructor who hates funerals
(his wife dying in Britain now).
We all hate funerals and burying.
Everyone hates to be in a scene.
Cops are cartoons and stand there
waving this way and that way
so it looks like there are some.
They even wear white gloves!
Life is an illusion, can't you see it?
The real authorities are spies and run
around all day chasing the generalissimos
who aren't all that real either.
The army is a lot younger and unhappier now
in the beds of their jiggling trucks.
I love their smiles. So young. So fresh.
So out there it hurts. So very, very real.


*Of course, Life is an illusion, can't you see it? is from the Quran. I wrote that poem in response to one I read that was just plain awful (somewhere else). Now, it is okay to write poems that aren't that great technically speaking. A poet has to start somewhere you know. What was awful about the poem that I read were two things: the poem itself and one of the critics of the poem. The poem was just chock full of gratuitous and graphic violence. Now, violence is okay but I really hate a poem to get so violent with me it makes me sleepy and fatiqued which I am now, very. Sensationalism in poems however is just awful, especially when it involves so much killing and bloodying up of the set props. Messy. A poem can be violent you see without all the trouble of having to clean up once you've read it. A poem I believe should entertain the reader and entertain them in many ways. The reader ought to leave the poem feeling refreshed or illuminated (to his/her own self because lets face it, there are no new thoughts really under the sun rather, there is just better merchandising). Now, the critic said something truly awful. He said the poem was "Just great!" but that the poet shouldn't be surprised if no one "got it" and I guess I am going to assume that means they are going to say "this poem is awful". Now...as a critic...I would never make excuses for someone else's poem being horrific and lacking in all the things that make good poems good and full of all the things that make bad poems bad (which is usually a general lack of technique).

So I said...here...I'll write you a violent poem in a few minutes and you won't have to clean up after you read it. It might even make you sad enough that it makes you happy because you feel humanly related to it. I think that is the key to good poetry. Relating to another human something very human. Gore isn't human. Gore is taboo. It is just that the TV has made it a staple of the diet and everyone is so amazed at how much blood it takes to make a scene look bloody. I think mine is quite bloody without ever mentioning a shark, a knife, a gun or sheesh, a murderer or the murdered.

Bound and Gagged in a Palestinian Bistro

Now let's see. What is going on in the world of poetry! People taking their clothes off after readings, going from bar to bar to bistro as if that is where poetry comes from. Alas, and the Gaza is now without power or water because why? Oh, because the Palestinians are failing in their DUTY to their oppressor.

Hmm. That has always been the case hasn't it? The world BELIEVES that in the case of Israeli brutality, the oppressed have a duty to their oppressor to PLAY NICE. In fact recently, a friend of mine had the audacity to suggest that he hated religion because it promoted violence and in the same breath explained how he believed Israel always had a dickens of a time "defending" herself. Well sure pal. When you steal land from other people (or their cars or their wallets) and then you stand there slapping them for days on end, they are going to get so angry at you that they might smack you upside the head for your idiocy. Usually, thiefs run away with their prize but in this case, the thief simply chased the owners out of their house and locked the door so the owners couldn't get back in. They called it Israel.

For cryin out loud and poets going from bistro to bistro, trying to get famous as fast as they can.

It is going to take six to eight months to repair the damage to the electrical power plant in the Gaza, nevermind about all the dead that have been piling up without much ado from the American viewing public that is much distracted and now, completely apathetic to it ALL (Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria) because let's face it, Americans like naked poets better than they like to read history. Nevermind about the paraplegics and quadraplegics and blinded and burned humans piling up in the Ghettos of Gaza. Nevermind about the loss of some of the best intellect in the Arab world (Palestinians USED to have the highest per capita rate of people holding PhDs anywhere in the world! Bet that's changed now eh?)

Personally, I believe hostage taking (and treating them well) is part of war. It is expected that when you wage war against a population, they will fight back. Hezbollah defeated Israel doing exactly this. Is it any wonder why Israel is behaving so desperately now? Could it be that the Pals have finally found their calling? I hope so. And I hope they take very good care of their hostages as they must according to Islamic Law. That one hostage was already killed is no surprise.

Israel must have a death wish for itself. Let's be honest. What kind of peace will Israel ever have after all of this? You must be crazy to think that the muslims are ever going to forget this or Jenin or Acre or the fact that many "settlers" are transplants from places like Brooklyn and New Jersey.

I used to want to believe that I could defend Israel's right to exist but I am afraid that that aspect of my character is now just about dead. My apologies to the naked poets of Greenwich Village.

T-Bird at the Gila River


"Advice: learn poems so that you don't have to write them.
Strategies are useless testimonials."
- The Book of Warnings, D. Whitehead

This pretty life is death's comma
and we are between, constructing
the darkest layer in the top soils
over which the eagle flies
with the owl, as same as the bug.

Once I stood on a reservation
for our tribes and thought.
The wild wisdoms entered
like drugs with the cackle
of gypsies and caw of old birds
into the earth's big recorder.

When suddenly! Like that!
The newest grand canyon opened
her secret vaults to receive
the sound and reek of vomit from the throat
of a drunkard who turned in and then sped away.
Ah, the stories the rocks will tell!

Ah yes, Nietzsche.


Zarathustra's Flies

Part of the reason is the desire
to keep pace with the frantic show
of tomorrow, yesterday in the bin
swept toward the infinity of amnesias.
Everything is a deliberate parable,
the fly who drifts away
with his delicious meals, unretrievable -
that wiley thief -
to the great dreams we cannot recall.
Limbo! Oh paradise of purgatories
is the hell of the ancients, this sphere
a masterpiece of vain and partial speeches.
The people come and go, unaware, save a few.
They wipe their brows, carry bricks and lipsticks,
dance their jigs. Everyone is so familiar here
with marks on their foreheads to the tightening
of their ears. Smiles, sighs, puffings.

The sea is only a tremendous bucket swarming
with a few fish where currents are
mysterious maps under the most popular of orbits,
she keeps her gemstones there, near the edges
yet the divers want so much more,
want to see the habitats of the blind.

Limbo is this contiguous shore,
is the great divide between salt and drink,
is this mountain under this dome described
and traveled, such slight migrations to and fro.
We are the weakest birds who fall in April
to be found in those sad positions
without ceremony or feather.
They do die trying don't they.
Smile. They die trying.



*One should not read him until you read the other I thinks:

For the moment though lets shift focus to Islam again, and specifically the Quran. Anyone who has read the Quran will tell you (as I am about to do) that is quite non-linear, composed of independent chapters (or Suras) of incredible beauty which have complex interplays of themes and historical accounts that run through the entire book, and illuminate a topic, character, person, idea, or event in astonishing detail and clarity while preserving the wonder of the subject. Anyone reading a Nietzsche book will realize that there are some parallels between the format of his books and those of the Quran. The partitioning, the complex and intense treatment of subject matter, the multiple references across the text, and the independence of each unit are all striking similarities between these two texts that are separated by over a millenia.

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1163227

Recovery From 1999

To find you here
waist up naked
sentinel of this
worn out shrine
you call home
is the regular routine.
Tipped ashtrays
and open cupboards
spill out
the nothing of inside.
Beguiling you are,
the slope of your yellow stomach
bloated with the void of cold food.
There is nothing you can offer
but the posture at your door,
a precious teasing slump.
From below there
is the urge to reach
inside your gut
and straighten you out.

Open Letter to my One Very Careful Reader

Oh and my good (redacted)...don't worry if this makes you feel uncomfortable (and perhaps it doesn't but parts of it may). Once again, expected. For people who are not muslim, there is not much in the way of 'comforting' notions of 'turn the other cheek' (in the beginning). Those notions happen later once you get the other stuff out of the way. What other stuff? Well..things like the Geneva Conventions of God. Islam speaks directly to acts of war and oppression and establishes very, very clear rules regarding that (and many many muslims do not follow those conventions any more than the US gov or Europe follows the GC or Israel follows the conventions of basic human rights involved in the usurpation of individuals from their own property and the sequalae of all of that). There are many many other details of Islam as well that leave the first time visitor into its halls at a loss for words or leaves them in a position of 'defensiveness'. Like homosexuality, nudity, idolatry, adultery, gambling, drinking, usury, the devil, the hocus pocus of the world 'unseen'...many many things. All I can tell you is that when you fully understand it...you do. What is useful to know is that regarding any and all of these issues, comfort is provided in that a muslim does not have to 'openly' convey his distaste for anything (should he develop a distaste for something as miniscule as dishonesty to something as grand as Sodom and Gomorrha). What a muslim must do though is develop an internal dislike for unjust things and move on from there based on the notion of one God. One God plus an Arab prophet and that is where most people are derailed right away because the prejudice against the darker skinned peoples of the world was seeded long, long ago in our Western conscience. It isn't even our fault! After one gets over that giant hurdle though..there are dozens of others like, what happened to Jesus? Yea and why talk about Moses still? And what's this about marrying a young girl barely able to brush her own teeth (most people don't realize that the Virgin Mary wasn't a legal adult either and they'd prefer to keep their womanly notions of her intact it seems as well as their notions of Jesus being one of the few prophets with no mention of a wife (see Da Vinci Code there)). Well, I don't know if Jesus (pbuh) had a wife because Islam doesn't mention it but neither does Islam mention Chinese Foot Binding in relationship to violence against women who suffer the injustices of genital mutilation. What it does mention is that Africans who hoped to be muslims could indeed excise "just a tiny piece" of the clitoris if it meant that would help them to accept the Creator and his messenger a bit easier. It did not command it though. There are so many topics within it Ozy and I assure you...none of them is an easy trail to follow and the only way of following it is to start with the basic belief.

And I cannot condone people who cannot jump that hurdle. Surprisingly enough...I have discovered most people do believe in one God and were just never alerted to the issue of a prophet of darker skin being the pivotal means to an end "for all types of people and for all time". Not just for one ethnic majority.

That is why Islam has members from all over the world. They know what it is when they get there and we all pretty much agree on a few things but most importantly: you must stick to your guns and there will be alot of folks and devils trying to pull you down into their levels of disbelief. That much is for sure.

But for your sake (redacted)...don't worry if it makes you uncomfortable. That is entirely part of the process of understanding the bottom line of One God and the commandments issuing from same.


Embedded

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 perceived that since we were born
and sometimes we talk about it
with strangers knowing full well
that once the guy leaves
he takes your secrets with him
into the ether or
the dark same thing.
It is a strange statistic
and one I am fond of until
it comes to the war zones.

All is well and I hope all parties are well. Peaceful and happier without me than with.

Peace on those that deserve it.

Sorting wheat grains, 2005. Wheat season is once again, upon us.
Seven years fertile, seven fallow but not with environmental improvements like fertilizers and pesticides. This is my husbands granny and the younger chick is my beloved mother in law. Al hamdu'lillah, how many women can say that!

Chronologically

There is a crumpled bed,
two heat seeking cats,
storm clouds and a strange
pastel sea
puncuated by one small white boat


-

like that.


The day begins
over and over
in parenthesis
(containing footnotes)
one just like the other.

The static of a freeway
permeates our glass and stone.
People go to work
returning through the windows,
as they left,
one after another:
blue cars, black cars, big red trucks,
motorbikes and taxis,
city buses lunging next
to the waves of the great Phoenician Sea.

Their cups runneth over
and there is so much pushing.
Sleep becomes the hopeful journey
and ends with another day.

The Ark

It was certainly
a very dark day to leave
it all behind: the illusions
of trees, country and a son,
as the youth was swallowed
by the hungry waves
full of devils and soul assassins.
No Calypso or friend,
not even a father to save the day
from the notorious tragedies
of the sea, the lesser
known depths where the eyes
of fish gradually disappear.

"Green Green Grass Of Home"

The old home town looks the same as I step down from the train,
and there to meet me is my Mama and Papa.
Down the road I look and there runs Mary hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
The old house is still standing tho' the paint is cracked and dry,
and there's that old oak tree I used to play on.

Down the lane I walk with my sweet Mary, hair of gold and lips like cherries.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly.
It's good to touch the green, green grass of home.

[spoken:]

Then I awake and look around me, at four grey wall surround me
and I realize that I was only dreaming.
For there's a guard and there's a sad old padre -
arm in arm we'll walk at daybreak.
Again I touch the green, green grass of home.
Yes, they'll all come to see me in the shade of that old oak tree
as they lay me neath the green, green grass of home.




We Saw The World, Stayed In The Best Hotels

It is hard to visit the newly dying,
those that feel the thrill
of the grave come suddenly near,
to listen to the confessions
and regrets while discussing
the attitudes of earth signs in June
and the charisma of Aquarians.
Michele hauls out the wedding photos
taken in London, Liz in a chinchilla,
stepping out of a cab, almost Cheever.
I am in the Green Rooms once again
with Tom Alvarez, the last time
I saw him and it was I know, the last time
I ever will. It was summer.
He showed me photos of his young Regina
using his one good arm, lifting one at a time,
turning it over and over again until she was upright.
The stink in his pants unmistakable, pure and so human.
Tom talked about deer hunting in the Whetstones and the war
while he struggled back and forth in his wheelchair
and spoke of her between his hearty sobs
as if he was caught in a terrible disaster,
as if it would never be over, the way we cry in dreams.

Now the dog groomer Liz has lung cancer
and will die and leave Michele behind
with his Arabic students, some old jewelry
and their star charts in his green rooms.
All their riches exhausted long ago
but never, ever their love.
His neighbors will come down and talk
about how things used to be when Liz
was around kissing dogs and running off
in taxicabs. Michele will still have his students
and neighbors, one of us a Scorpio in denial.
There will be no more empty bottles to throw out.
He'll continue to blame her death on the dogs
and begin to hate them for taking his lover away.
Michele will continue to smoke cigarettes
by holding one end between his pinkie
and ring finger while inhaling through the circle
he forms by bending his thumb. His lips
never touch the filter and no one
will comment on the ferocity of his inhalations.
He will want to leave the Church of Scientology
because the manual was all wrong. He might
make it for two more years
if the statistics don't lie about the widowers.


The Green Green Grass Of Home

The wall opposite held a population
of blue Virgins reaching out
and down gracefully with hands open.
He fumbled in the drawers to find Regina's portraits
as I peered into the bathroom from the locality
on the edge of the bed to witness
a commode chair, no rugs and the water heater.
He hoped to give me a reminder, a clear view.

When they were young and I was close to it all,
very inside of their home decorated
with stout Mexican ancestors' souls staring
from the walls, everything smelled green there:
Clorox and wood, the highly polished floors,
a cabinet full of gemstones taken from the mines.
I was just a child then and held no prejudice.
Our neighbor Regina rolled out tortillas
stirred something in the kitchen, always.
I used to be afraid to look into the room
where they slept. Something in it
would have been forbidden to look upon,
the holiest of places I’ve ever known.
I entered the verdure of their room
in Tom's last summer so we could cry,
we had to mourn the only way we could, in a hurry
and the graveyard just full of concretes anyway.
I’d come of age and passed the milestones, had come home
to join the ranks of those in passing to testify.
He told me she would have liked my visit
and began to sob again in the helpless way
a stroke victim out on the left sobs, a man
who had shed very few tears until the day his Regina died.
She never gave him any reasons for regret
and the two of them never violated a single vow.
Regina and Tom were good people, kept
our secrets, sat around our tables.
Regina waited for him during the war, she waited
for him after the hunts in the Whetstones and during
the long stints of western work that took him away
for months at a time during strikes and recessions.
She waited and cooked.
I was compelled to tell Tom that Regina waits for him still.

A Bright Movie* The saris go by me from the embassies. -The Woman at the Washington Zoo by Randall Jarrell Whilst gadding about and on the way back this long story started to end as it should in the middle. Stopped on a corner, saw the same one-legged old man there sitting on the curb. In a country like this no one has a sign: Will Work For Food because that would be just too crowded. It used to be that he'd stand on that one leg to collect alms for himself but now times are tough he has to wait to be called over. Not like the guy in the wheelchair on the East Side who gets out onto the macadam between twelve chaotic lanes, God Only Knows How (probably dropped off by a taxi, must be). Not like the kid up by the Phoenicia whose hands were burnt clean off who smiles and earns so much for that smile. His job is easy. But a one legged man has a different problem in a bad economy. Standing on one leg for hours isn't what you'd call easy. You don't do it for nothing. So I stopped and called him over, I'd passed him by at least five times in three months to avoid pissing off the guy in the rear view mirror. This time though I called him over to hand him a fiver. Five times one thousand equals roughly five thousand. It was good and I noticed the girl behind me doing the same, dragging coins out of the purse that must have been in her lap. It felt good. I knew that if I hadn't stopped she wouldn't have either. I lost her near the airport tunnel. You know how it is in the subterranean tunnel that goes right under the Hariri International tarmac. I was just about to enter when I saw everyone coming out the other way, HCE. Turn around. Lucky today it seems because once you get in that tunnel and there is an accident, you are in there. Full of exhaust and exhaustion, pushing and shoving until two lanes turn into four. You smoke three cigarettes that you didn't need. You get tired of listening to the Eagles sing about Winslow Arizona ONE MORE TIME. You get out and head back up the wrong way on an exit ramp but that's okay, in Lebanon everyone knows what you're doing. They would do the same. Like yesterday's fender bender in the Ouzai. Not paying attention and wham! Right into the back of a taxi. The driver gets out and he's mad. I'm ready to fight it, to say he is a taxi driver and I'm ready to do that when a thirty kg kid squeezes between me and the city bus. "What are you doing there kid? Move away, you are going to get hit." He was just trying to help. In Lebanon the kids settle disasters too, they've seen so much and damn if they don't have the audacity to tell you how to handle a fender bender. The boy did what I told him to do and seemed rather pleased that I'd thought enough of him to tell him to get out from between me and the bus. The taxi driver is there at my window. I just ask him, instead of fighting it all, "What do you want from me? Is twenty bucks okay?" Sure is. I know once I drive away he would have settled for ten and he knows too, he could have asked for thirty. A deal is a deal though and we drive away pleased. Some poor man leans in my window and says, "Hamdu'la sah'lahme" which to me sounds an awful lot like Thanks for the salami. But it means, Thank God you weren't hurt. I agree and he reminds me, "Haram, he is a taxi driver." Means that twenty bucks is like thirty customers and worth a bit of bent chrome. I left the scene of the accident feeling pretty good. Today as I avoided the tunnel wondering about the bodies that might have been there, the ones I could have seen had I had the time for the Eagles and three more cancer sticks, I cruised through the old airport road that starts right by Fadallah's Mobil station, a station that gives everything to orphans (reminded myself to go there next time to buy gas) . I enjoyed the following like popcorn at the show: carcasses of sheeps and goats and cows still bleeding into the gutters plastic balls in net bags voluptuous Shia girls some covered and some not taxis stopping every few meters letting out little old men and haggard old women muffler shops and bread stores until finally I saw what it was I was after. A sign that read: The School of Opulent Knowledge, a little run down but all the same, extravagantly fufilling. **This poem suffered under a horrible name. This weekend while in South Lebanon I watched the movie Syriana with old what's his name...from Ocean's Seven....and boy! What a bunch of plotless bullshit. And the parts about Beirut...so out of context. Since the movie takes place now...post 9/11 and in the Era of so-called "Oil Wars" how is it that in Beirut the stage is set with Freedom Fighters on buildings with machine guns? Now...back in the early to mid eighties there were a few of those but mid to late 90's? Nope. But that is the point of propaganda......to make you confused. Never was there a more beautiful depiction of confusion. But the great part is the hero (in the end) just goes home like Bilbo Baggins with some kind of 'knowledge' ring...we are supposed to believe and that knowledge is that there is no POINT to these things that people do in the Middle East to each other. It's just sort of a crazy game played by oil tycoons. ZIONISM mentioned in the plot? Oh sure...I guess you could call it that "protocols of zion" type of thing and they flash on some old newsreel of the Rockafellers.....right in the beginning. And that's it. Nary a mention of the single most IMPORTANT cause of the crisis in the MIDDLE EAST. A type of racism and bigotry and all out HATRED of a large number of people called: ZIONISM. There you have it. And yes...see the movie. It is worth a scratch on the head and perhaps one in the crotch. (You know Arab men are always scratching their crotches and thank the Lord this is never portrayed in movies...God only knows what devastation that might provoke in the 'civilized' nations...you know the ones...like American that support Zionism and Christian Zionism to the tune of several billions of dollars yearly).

What About Mars?

No more problems says the package
the cure came in, no more
warning labels and the price tag
no longer legible. It began
with flashy children and fast cars
then people started talking
about the leftover stuff
after the move out,
wondered what would happen
to the crystal ball and Japanese flag.
Where to put Mars now?
Whose house next?

Promises promises promises. Yes...Francie's story is not over. She was the Maid of Honor (and I mean honor) at my famous wedding. There were few witnesses that day. Before that point is achieved however we must venture some into the tales of the Lebanese community of Douglas and the flash point that became so many other things involving the court system, the Civil War in Lebanon (and just WHO came up with that misnomer! a Civil war...what kind of war is that!) and on and on like that. Just like the old days when you'd wait for the end of the story and Paul Harvey wouldn't give it to you. One of my favorite Paul Harvey's is the one about the guy who disables a nuclear disaster...a young man. Who, at The End Of The Story turns out to be?

Jimmy Carter.

It is that kind of story but the story is Neverending...so it seems. And the wait is truly long. I usually tell it so fast that the important tangents are missed and I do not want to skip a beat this time. Not a single one. Francie, where are you? You were there that day 25 years ago...yes. You were there.

Damn Fine Poetry Blog...very no nonsense and low key Midwestern.....yet, yet....absolutely unusual. Go here:

http://atticofficewritings.blogspot.com/

Backgammon in Byblos, The Baalbek Valley

Backgammom in Byblos
Originally uploaded by radiann.

More virtual tourism by Radical Ann.

It is only TOO bad she doesn't want to come back here. I keep asking and asking and asking...

...there ain't no war here. Come on over! That's just a lot of talk...er...well...I think it is anyway.

The juice man

The juice man
Originally uploaded by radiann.

A juicer in the southern Lebanese City of Sidon...or Saida as we call it...a beautiful woman.

Image stolen from Radical Ann.
Because I can.
I'm her biggest fan.
We've a great big plan.
We are going to go
to old Mexico
to see the Aztec ruins
some monumental hewin'
the size of the WTC
or the Pentagon in DC.

Prom Week, 1980

And yes...the Cedar story will continue...its very long you know and a very bad cold going on in my nasal passages. So a few poems in the interim and a gentle cry called release for things gone by this week. Very important things resolve in a matter of seconds sometimes and leave you wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place. The mystery of fuss, the release of captives and the forward flight of our feet into the next days and weeks that become the past even as we are folding the last letter and slipping it into the drawer labelled, "Let go now. It's all over."

And still, Time waits for no one in the final hours before the present disturbs the future with its curious assumptions and prophecies.