dimanche 27 février 2011

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



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

vendredi 25 février 2011

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

mardi 22 février 2011

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

lundi 21 février 2011

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

samedi 19 février 2011

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

vendredi 18 février 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

jeudi 17 février 2011

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

vendredi 11 février 2011

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

jeudi 10 février 2011

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
 

mercredi 9 février 2011

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) 

dimanche 6 février 2011

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



jeudi 3 février 2011

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


mercredi 2 février 2011

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!