Gloomy Sunday - two versions

serge gainsbourg pour le français
(et simplement parce que c'est le dimanche)

bjork for the english/
(and simply because it's sunday)

where would i be

Uphaar Crafts (Hoshiarpur)

where would i be today

without this pain i suffer

and the mental anguish

that comes of it

i remember myself optimiste

burning to rescue the world

out on a limb as far as i could get

without breaking it

in cubicles of busyness

pencil and phone in hand

answering every request

bureaucrat par excellence

or driving in my car

to the far reaches of oregon

to impart the connaissance

to starving teachers

now and then i lay my hands

on someone's cold body

spreading a cosmic force

into frozen molecules

i sat in temples and

meditated myself into ecstacy

chanting the holy name

all 108 or 108,000 of them

washing the deities

washing the feet of mastery

brushing against enlightenment

but never quite merging with it

cradling my infants

close to my breast

as they grappled with their mouths

to get hold it

i remember running

far and wide on the earth

making friends and

eating dirt

costuming myself

in yards of saris

or with the proletarian cap

lodged on my big head

would i be further along

in my quest for the essential

or would i still be spinning

the old broadcloth of dissention

where oh where would i be today

without this pain i suffer

and the mental anguish

that comes of it

designer poems

for ron

a designer poem, for you babe

pour te soulager les reins

pour trouver enfin du bonheur

a designer poem

built layer upon layer

with parfum de gucci

odd summer days

when we lay in your room

foot to head in the heat

how many times

we tried making sex work

but accomplished nothing

here's to the trying

here's to designer poems

to the perfumes of your being

we stayed together

for so long

we became blood brothers

soul sisters

clairvoyant monks

artists in hiding

we became one
with the breath of
designer gods

accomplishing nothing
but the love which has
sustained us

mise en scène: david lynch

a proverbial undoing

this barn needs cleaning out
from cunt to cranium
a vascular sweep
vacuum out the viral load
the glut of sweet feces
all the dreams all the belief
leave it empty
stark and unblemished
the clogged arteries
the poisoned stomach
replace all the earth
with fresh dirt

then plant no seed there
just leave it alone
a sign in the wilderness
bring no vase of flowers
to place in the corner
nor enshrine the undoing
with public symbols
no fat buddha no crucifix
do not write a hymn
no proverb or allegory
on no mountain sing
that she died for your sins

best forgotten or vague
the history of the undoing
children will grow afraid
and dogs howl at nothing
the cult of the fatal must
at all cost be prohibited

Live (for my birthday)

making funny faces

You want to know the truth?

Enjoy yourself

Stop beating around the bush

Find somebody to love

The heart stops soon enough

and the blood grows iron poor

The calcium is gonna flow from your bones

You're gonna look old, really old

So what?

If there's joy in your heart

If there's love in your eyes

You'll survive and

Everyone will thrive

So throw away the alibis and

Reach your bloody emotional prime

Live the risk, laugh or cry

Dive in, the water's fine

February 21, 1998

this bitter earth

un petit don de mon anniversaire pour tous qui souffrent, pour un peu d'espoir et pour l'amour...
a little gift from my birthday for everyone who is suffering, for a little hope and for love...

dinah washington, la reine des blues

la pleine lune

photo by moineau

la lune d'hiver blanche

comme une vierge 

couverte d'un voile

de soie ténébreuse

elle passe silencieuse
dans une vallée brouillard
elle prends tout son temps
sur sa trajectoire

je l'épie pour un instant
puis derrière un nuage
où elle reste toute la nuit
l'aura d'un orbe
 

~ lt, 19 fév 2011

The Poet's PTSD

The story of my rape in 1971 when I was 14 years old...

 
Damn these rhymes
in a damned fermented mind--
Rolls of sea trash
caught on fishing lines--
I sift and peck
like a frantic hen
for a living, breathing catch,
a bit of bloodletting,
a stab at forgetting,
or a birthing song
for a dead poet:
There's my dead fourteen
who through it all--
the vagrancy, the stinging bee,
the cold, hard street, the sex for free--
wrote to live,
and lived to catch
her own poetic license,
a little noble insight
on that damned resting bed
where she could burn to ashes
every scoundrel she met,
yet emerge to invent,
three-lived, tripling in glee,
poems for an unrelenting bent
and the three reptilian men
who caught her eye
in an all-night diner
and saw her need for sleep:
Thanks to them
she's the wreck of the west,
thanks to them
she's transcended sex,
thanks to them
she's dead, yes!

But the poems, goddammit,
the living, breathing poems,
the lines of sea trash,
the noble insight,
the poetic license,
fuck it, take it, it's all for free!
I never held anything back
but this fermented anger
that finished me.

January 4, 1998

love

let love come down

liquid amethyst, eau of ruby

powder of pearl prezioso

let it run in your veins

like lightning and thunder

like snow melting on heather 

your kindness is a reflection

like the glorious sun

in a rainbow

power is in your touch

gliding through your fingers

warm and potent

the crown on your head

was put there by heartache

you are king, you are queen

you are everything

and nothing

you are love

Tonight we are all Egyptians

O youth of Egypt

You called your people out of their fear

You came to Tahrir Square and stood

You would not budge, chanting

"Gone! Gone! Gone!"

Tonight we celebrate Peace

and Liberty with you

What we all hope and live for

The end of corruption and

the emergency state

You have turned 30 years of lies to Truth

You have done it without violence

Celebrate long, sing and kiss your

Sisters and Brothers

We kiss you, we sing you, we love you

blacker night

"At an indefinite height overhead something made the sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast architrave uniting the pillars horizontally." ~Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Ubervilles

 

from where i sit
in this sleepy little town,
sitting in the rocker
your mother found for me
at a neighborhood yard sale

now weatherworn
its seat almost gone

from where i sit
the night sky is
black as onyx
darker than any sky
i've ever known
in spite of streetlamps
and a fogged-over half-moon

we have sat on this porch
mesmorized by stars
and theorized together
for more than decade
is it the salt ocean
perfect altitude
daily-washed air

from where i sit
if i fix my eyes just so
i can see not only
dippers and twins
but distant galaxies
in clouds of light
infinite, infinite

sitting here rocking
thinking about a poem
about how much blacker
the night sky is in astoria
a shooting star roars
in front of me
big as a comet

 

and i think
what kismet
in spite of the enormity
of the universe
and my seedling desire
to write a poem

in memoriam

 

The Ghost

"The Brown Lady" (1936) by Captain Provand and Indre Shira

I do not remember which way I have gone,

I have not developed a sense of time,

My house is embellished with ivy and thorn,

My roses lie dead in the autumn night.

Quick! You see my shadow on the stair,

It mounts in graceful agèdness.

But do you remember the dust and the web

Of houses long before vacated?

(written in early 80s) 

Rest in peace, cher Gary

The guitar great Gary Moore has died in his hotel room in Spain. 

Gary Moore
4 April 1952 – 6 February 2011

Une biographie en français:
http://www.unplugged-cafe.org/index.php/Gary_Moore

A biography in English:
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/gary-moore-p4950/biography




Parisienne Walkways

Helwa Ya Baladi - Democracy for Egypt Now!

I'm standing with the brave, brave people of Egypt as they stand up for democracy. The thugs of Hosni Mubarak have beaten them away from democracy's door long enough, people need bread and work, and nothing the U.S. says or does now will make any difference... The U.S. and Israel have lost all credibility in the eyes of the world.

Democracy Now! report from Tahrir Square:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/3/eyewitnesses_to_a_massacre_reports_from

long winter

countdown to nothingness
my boots are growing heavy
the sky fills with wave after wave
of crazed birds that should have left
while they still had a chance

it's cold, little ones, so cold
the storms are overarching
in northwest oregon
winter offers barren birches
and crows and hungry urchins

we're all searching for
signs of springtime like
little buds on moss-covered
pears and red leaflets on
unsculpted asian maples

open the door and let
the cold air rush in
take a deep breath of
still liquid ocean
then sleep like a bear

it's february, with many days
to the end of endless grays
fill your belly or look for
your thickest wool sweater
try not to scratch yourself silly

Bienvenu le février - Volontaire!