Solar Eclipse Poem, 6.21.20

The marriage of the sun and moon
is brief, but that glimpse offers a sign
of eternal hope, a manifestation of 
alignment beyond a symbol - 
Sun, Moon, and Earth,
rings of circular motion
and uneven time, equalized.
A boundless harmony without 
a mirrored face, just so.
A warmth around a spinning 
rock of dust; a marvelous transmutation. 

A drawing I made this morning inspired by the Solar Eclipse last night - probably will get this as a tattoo on my arm. I'll have the artist tidy my sketch up a bit. 

- F

Poem No. 13: Inclination

Fiercer would be
those parched yet
growing greens
between cement slabs
on ancient rooftops
and the modern walls...

Settlement is talked
of as a colonial enterprise
and it's looked down upon.
But it's not inherently bad;
what would be wrong with
halting that seething commerce
simply by staying put? No one
knows how to stop moving,
even when they're sitting down.
To stay in a house and let
its structure haunt you until
you feel it in your bones.

There are creatures
who are called to move,
move, move. I mean
not to discourage it. Just
to say I am not one of them,
not at this time, not now.
I want to settle, as oil settles
at the top of water, as sand
shifts and settles at the bottom
of the ocean, occasional
currents, stirrings, motions
until the same restful finality.
Silt to sediment, deposited to
be broken down, ever finer.

Oh! But it's wise to know when to move. When you see a scene no longer needing assistance, or an incapability to rectify your place in a scene. Once, in a poorer part of the world, I stopped in my tracks in the middle of a back road alleyway. I could not fathom what I was seeing when I was seeing it: a massive host of black flies buzzing, loudly, on the ground, like a black hole. Finally my eyes penetrated them. They were eating, feeding on a dead dog on its side, no longer able to be recognized as a dog but for its bony legs, ears, doggish shape. I stared, my heart caught in my throat. I couldn't speak, not really, for a few days. Places like that where people forget to stop, look, and notice the tragedy hidden in plain sight... places like that ensure that perhaps there is reason to move, move, move...

Poem No. 12: Mute

Last year, one apartment in a building of over one hundred apartments burned, flames reaching every which way and thick black smoke rising. I watched from my window, two parking lots across from the building. I saw the fire spread from one room to the next, escalating. I watched the firemen drive up, fumble with the equipment, and finally, after hours, put out the fire. 

Last week, one apartment in a building of over one hundred apartments burned, flames reaching every which way but mostly thick black smoke. I watched from the ground below, on the sidewalk in front of the building. I saw the fire emerge from the windows, dragon-like, orange tongue licking the air, fumes escaping, dark and blind, making the neighborhood smell foul. I heard the firetrucks come, walked away, and never saw the fire put out, knowing it would take hours.

That first time, I shed tears. The second time, I was reminded of something like stolen rage; the all-consuming fire of the one who must witness their pain manifest in another, rage becoming something one can no longer act upon, the rage that becomes dumb and stuck, like you said, but even farther, the fire that keeps mounting, against its' will, catching and catching, waiting for water. 

The water comes too late, the air already toxic with the things never meant to be burned, things no longer. Still, it ends, leaving its scorch marks on the surface. Or if those go, there's still the smell that soaks into everything and never disappears. Boarded up windows, shattered glass, until something bright and new and hideous takes it place, leaving a sense of the place where those rare clairvoyants will walk and know something's wrong. We can only hope they try to fix it. 

I don't know if anyone died. Would it make a difference whether one house was set on fire and the other was an accident? Which story would be more tragic? Or if one inhabitant was a brilliant scientist and the other a gun-wielding gang member? And I really don't know if there's a difference between the event of history and the smaller events that trivialize our feeble days. 

Poem No. 11: To Be Held

A shape then,

the carrier;

an interior

structure of 

support:

ribs holding

our lungs

holding

oxygen;

like bowls holding

sound holding

resonance...

it is no cage at all.

Exhale.

The masses;

of which this 

is a part -

its' tightening and

winding, its tentacular 

mess... must snap to 

breathe; as a dragon

breathes fire - the 

matchstick friction.

(a mallet releases timbre,

the hammer that starts it all,

the color-producing tentacle

in a moment of fear or)   

We poisoned ourselves

for years on waste and

smoke; becoming

busted, broken,

babbling,

only to

inhale, only

to breathe.

All of it, 

a gasping for air

with nowhere 

to reach;

swimming without 

knowing the feel of

water. 

Yet, found atop strange reservoirs,

we float. We float

chock full of stardust, ether, 

your words and mine, hair 

soft seaweed; limbs smooth brine. 

Unleashed

Poem No. 10: Learning

Maybe what we're working towards
is in actuality
a working away from:
the process of work
in reverse.

Away from merely fitting in,
away from impositions
of meaning, away from
power, authority, and
all opposites.

Instead we work towards
communal navigation,
the creation of values
not assigned but
produced through
the hard labor
of action,
thought,
reaction,
sensation
emotion,
intention,
intuition,
elucidation,
illumination,
on and on.

(Hard work
finds rest
in its softness;
the unknown result.)

Don't initiate value;
it arises on its own
from our minds, bodies, hands,
wingtips, tentacles, veins,
hair, claws, manes -
all seeking something inherently beyond it,
uncovering what's true, making it real;
a finding out; a discovery.

Spells and Enchantments (Pink Supermoon in Libra April 2020)

Last night I cast a spell... though I'd like to keep most of it private, there are two elements I'd like to share. The first was preparing myself for the night and for being able to witness it. I cleansed and adorned myself in a slow ritual. 

Secondly, I gathered the ingredients; pink rose petals and my jasper heart stone.

Finally, I cast the spell while the thunder roared and the lightning sparked the bruised sky... humidity enveloped me until the rain broke gently, softly, quieted and stopped. 

Before bed, I wrote down a poem as I glanced through the blinds at the glistening Supermoon... rising higher and higher in the sky, just a little shy of pink...

She doesn't stand alone.
For our eyes she is laced;
the delicate lace protects her;
the lace of clouds, wispy, 
the steadfast, transient boundary  
of the heavens 
and of the Earth. 

She is charmed so
simply, yet never plainly, 
sharing light from an abyss 
threatening to withhold 
its mystery,
its secrets.

Our moon reveals one truth:
the absolute annulment
of that which is meaningless. 

- F

Poem No. 8: Dusk

It is dusk as I write. 
Deep denim blue jean dusk,
little molecules of white in the darkening sky
showing through the blinds before night. 
In the clutter and clatter of inside,
the bulb of a single lamp sheds itself 
on days years ago written down,
talking about how things come together.

I don't like to throw things away, making garbage,
more trash for the pile. This goes especially for all those 
gifts, like the tiny lime-green plastic Buddha I received,
five birthdays ago from the waiter at a Chinese restaurant
who saw how sick I was, ill inside as I celebrated another year
surrounded by friends and family and coworkers, some who 
I've lost contact with, some who I've cut off, some who are still
very present in my life. So many odds and ends, special rocks, even,
treasures to remember trips and happy accidents, 
small pieces from the ground. 

I don't collect -
but I save every last bit waiting 
to prove worthwhile in the long run.

Today, I put Buddha in front of a candle
for a photo and it looked awful. Buddha's
head was on fire with what looked like a 
flaming feather; the whole thing looked like
a mockery of Indians and Buddhists and Asians 
alike. 

It's the lens that scares me. It's OK to notice it,
its' cutting to the core, its' wideness. That uneasiness 
you feel makes it OK to intervene too, to fix it, make of it
something better, something soft, something 
not needing to pierce with its sterility, but a shaping -
needing not a clearing out and hauling away,
but a reassessment, rearrangement, a remaking of it all: 
a coming together. Only then, after all of that trying
and testing, trial and error, one actually has a chance 
to look and see what it is that simply needs to go 

Poof! Like magic.

Completely

I want to empty you.
I want to drain you.
I want you to look at me
with vacant eyes - 
knowing - 
that I'll just fill them again.

- F

To Shatter, To Crash, To Cry

To shatter is a sudden breaking, a violent severance of a whole, a unification, into many pieces with sharp edges: what once was a thing to hold singularly in the hand, close to the body, becomes weaponized, each individual part now gleaming, showing off its knife-like sharpness, letting you know that it can now cut. When something shatters, it usually happens by accident, a small moment to save the thing already falling while the mind is still in shock as to how to grasp it before it hits. Yet the eyes are too mesmerized and slows down all other activity, until consciousness only snaps back to real time when the crash occurs. 

• 
  

To crash is when, no holds barred, you're reeling too fast and wanting to stop, but you are being hurled into a moment... after moment after moment, each too hot to process, repeating error after error, fuses burning up. A crash is a feverish ache everywhere with no source, stirring from some core that has been inert, until now, this very now, amplifying itself unmusically, creating curves like the ocean, and the tears fall, slowly, dripping, then all at once, a true rupture, unceasing. 

• 
  

To cry is not a weeping. To cry means to stop everything. Crying is stopping everything while it goes on - the crying - whether or not you want it to stop. Eyes get wet and you don't have any say in it. To cry is to instantaneously accept a revelation with no chance at having forethought. That revelation is hurt, a laceration that wishes, at all costs, not to be seen. Crying lets all the shattered pieces come together, swiftly, just to let it all go. 

• 
  

- F 

Two Poems

For What Binds Us
by Jane Hirschfield

There are names for what binds us:
strong forces, weak forces.
Look around, you can see them:
the skin that forms in a half-empty cup,
nails rusting into the places they join,
joints dovetailed on their own weight.
The way things stay so solidly
wherever they've been set down -
and gravity, scientists say, is weak. 

And see how the flesh grows back
across a wound, with a great vehemence,
more strong
than the simple, untested surface before.
There's a name for it on horses,
when it comes back darker and raised: proud flesh,

as all flesh 
is proud of its wounds, wears them
as honors given out after battle,
small triumphs pinned to the chest - 

----------------------------------------------------------

Scaffolding
by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points,
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone. 

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be 
Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall
Confident that we have built our wall. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- F

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams...." - W.B. Yeats / Rubber Soul/s

Something that I perhaps may have learned anywhere else but learned specifically while on my honeymoon in England is a perspective and philosophy on walking. I'm talking about walking within natural landscapes, the organic environment which we mostly now typically see presented in the form of public or private parks and gardens, including national parks and national gardens. 

I went to England bringing these clunky, heavy, and loud boots thinking they would be apt for the myriad outfits I brought - I even saw some people in London wearing boots similar. By the second day of the trip, however, I threw them away:

When we visited Oxford Street, I bought these (on sale, and much more comfortable) instead:

All this is to say: it dawned on me that walking through nature has always been a complete pleasure for me. I never, never thought of the natural landscape as merely a background or a pretty backdrop. It is landscape alive and full of life, history, growth, death, and rebirth. 

It dawned on me thus: while walking through our forests, gardens, or parks it is important to stop and let myself be within it. Not to run recklessly through it, the trees whizzing past my eyes and ears in a blur. Not merely a place to pose by trampling through brushwood. It is a place to be honored, to be lived with, beside, and among. Going there is an intentional activity, and because less and less of us have it right outside our back door, all the more it should be revered.

Weather permitting, why is it that so many of us, everywhere, need hiking boots, overly technical coats, spandex everywhere, etc. etc. to enjoy nature? Simply because I think for many it is a health exercise for them - with no concern for the environment per se. It is a means to get fresh air. But what of the very wildlife that lives there? Stamping on the ground with heavy feet and the plastic (or whatever it is) that swishes through our windbreakers are not necessarily the most conducive to a real appreciation of nature. 

I know. I'm a bit close to the line of pretension. I understand. People like to exercise outside, and for some people, it is a must (the military, the long-distance runner in training, the explorer who must be prepared for harsh conditions). OK, fine - 

Do what you will, but let me bask in the environment, minding everything about me, noticing it's every move as it would, as it does me. I would like to be one with it, represent it, camouflage myself in it... because in times of peace, why dress for war? Why dress for trekking? I like to breathe the air freely, not at force, and will do this wherever I choose to go. 

(at Kew Gardens in Surrey)

(at Hyde Park in Kensington)

(at Richmond Park in Surrey)

(smelling heady roses outside the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace)

- F

Yes! No!

Always feeling relaxed and happy, smiling to myself and laughing, reading Mary Oliver's poetry.

- F

Wings of Desire

Wings of Desire:

People are distracted by objects of desire,
and afterwards repent of the lust they've 
indulged,
because they have indulged with a phantom
and are left even farther from Reality 
then before. 
Your desire for the illusory is a wing,
by means of which a seeker might 
ascend to Reality.
When you have indulged a lust, your
wing drops off ;
you become lame and that fantasy flees.
Preserve the wing and don't indulge 
such lust,
so that the wing of desire may bear you
to Paradise. 
People fancy they are enjoying
themselves, 
but they are really tearing out 
their wings
for the sake of an illusion. 

Short review from me, here: https://feliciareviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-pocket-rumi-by-rumi-edited-by-kabir.html

- F

Everyone

I'm currently reading The Pocket Rumi translated by Kabir Edmund Helminski. 

It doesn't sit well that a lot of his poetry is not something we might call a common humanity or shared human values, though I know there are many that follow his writing and what it teaches. I know, for me, a lot of what his poetry talks about is something I feel that I've always strived for and towards, somehow innately. But not everyone has experienced what I have and has seen the things I've seen in the body that I possess.

Tell me, what historical struggle, what coming together of societal conditions, what political events urges a person towards love? Rumi doesn't believe in good and evil, in the moral sense, but he cannot deny his striving towards goodness. It's in his work, this combining of goodness and love and also, quite differently than the Christian messiah, equality between the material and immaterial possessions of the rich and poor. And the cause? Why does he write such things? He looks down on no man, not thieves, not the wearers of gold, not the drunkard, not the mad. 

Again, it doesn't sit well that people - what I feel to be more than that "many" that do - would not and cannot see the value in following his teachings, not as a Messiah or Prophet, but as a poet, one of a great many. 

Here is my question: is it in the structure that the power and magic lies? That this is not sermon, but poetry, but art? 

(I didn't think I would, because I don't typically "review" poetry but now I might, given more thought.)

I'm reading his work quickly and I don't feel guilty about it. There is much to do, much to read, much to write. I stopped for a minute on this verse:

- F

Where Does The Dance Begin, Where Does It End? by Mary Oliver

- Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

On Cultural Detritus (1)

A few days ago at work, while sorting a book cart that I filled with three rows of PN (Library of Congress call number) books, I came across a book of poetry by the now popular poet, Lang Leav. And then I came across a similar looking book by the author Michael Faudet:

I had a feeling these two were partners, after flipping through the poetry - Leav's I had already been acquainted with - and after looking through Faudet's I realized that they must be together. I opened Dirty Pretty Things to its dedication page. I don't remember it word for word, but it was dedicated to Lang, and went something like I hope this is as beautiful as when you slowly open your eyes in morning. 

I turned to my colleague and said, "Awwww, isn't it cute that these two poets are dating?" And my voice, as were my feelings, bordering on sarcasm but not quite there yet.

He says, "Who?"

"Lang Leav and this guy... Michael Faudet. They have similar poetry," I replied.

"What's it like?" he asked.

My immediate, unthinking, off the cuff response was, "It's like that stuff you see on social media and mostly on Instagram and Pinterest."

"Ah," he said. "Like Rupi Kaur."

"Yes, exactly," I responded. 

He walked over to me and took a look at the Lang Leav book. I read him Faudet's dedication out loud. 

"Oooooohhhhh noooooooo," he exclaimed.

"Yeah," I say. "Yeah."

He opened up Leav's book to the dedication page and confirmed that hers was dedicated to Faudet. Hers went something like you are the sea. The sea in the sea of strangers we supposed.

He sat back down.

After thinking back to the one Lang Leav book I read, The Universe of Us, I remembered that it wasn't exactly my personal idea of good poetry. I knew of it precisely because of social media. It floods the feeds. Similar poets include Rupi Kaur, Nayyirah Waheed, Nikita Gill. Look them up and you will see that they all follow similar forms. 

"What do you think makes poetry like this so popular?" I asked my colleague. 

"Not to be mean, but it's the kind of stuff you would read in a high school kid's personal diary," he said.

"Agreed. But I wonder what makes it so popular now. I wrote stuff similar to this in high school, and I bet that no one then thought it was... cool. Certainly not popular," I reflected.

He shrugged. "It simple to read. It's poetry for people who don't want to look for a deeper meaning."

Our conversation ended there but I'm still thinking about it. This kind of mass produced poetry - mass produced now because it includes many, many more people besides the poets I've mentioned, along with all the positive vibes and encouragement and it's okay to be sad bullshit fed into the social media machine by various organizations and individuals, businesses and apps, etc. etc. makes it hard to take any of this seriously. 

Of course, it works, to a certain extent. When I was still in the throes of mental illness I was given a book of motivational quotes that did indeed help me. What worries me is when an individual sifting through social media can find just the right saying to piss someone particular off, or give their flawed argument power, or read something to instill a false sense of confidence within themselves. And this stuff isn't used sparingly. It's a constant flow of this, never encouraging deep thinking or thought at all. 

My response to the above poems: (What is so special about our hearts surviving so much physical pain and emotion? Or it is not special at all? Have you forgotten death. You're alive, yes you are alive. I'll stay soft alright, if I don't have to shoot you down first. Tell me how to be strong not just what it looks like. And what, exactly, is worthy of strength? Don't be a victim to your emotions. I'm glad you like your gift.)

If this type of poetry is so popular we should all try it. The creation of one's own content. This form of poetry, if you can call it that, is not difficult. Your thoughts are streamed onto the page in a rhythmic set. You vocalize your emotions, thoughts. You don't need a creative writing instructor to figure this out. Maybe we can try for something better, more personal, more direct. 

There was a comment my colleague made that I almost forgot about. Look up Rupi Kaur memes. Here are some.

- F

Was it light?

Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?

A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.

- Theodore Roethke

your mind is a slow burn"

from On the Infinite Fault Lines of Contemporary Life by Asiya Wadud (published by Literary Hub)

Wadud's new book of poetry, Crosslight for Youngbird, captures rich slices of existence, as well as our shared, insoluble dilemma of geography and history or self and body. I finished it today. Some fragments:

Doom is walking on your own two feet to a clean expanse. Resolve is the ready supplication, a pilgrimage to a church on your knees. Resolve is the rain-hewn path, it glistening high against the black asphalt. Resolve is a needle's eye, with a single way in. Carrion is the twin stench of doom and resolve.

...

Little bear, you spent 77 days with your own black thoughts,  chasing a scythe, a sickle, a sepulcher, sentry. You spent all those days chasing your own slippery tail, fishing for carrion.

...

your mind is bright and wild as a snail's / your mind is a slow burn

 - F

Regards

Sure, the clouds had already shattered. And now they've coalesced together and a bit too tightly, without a trace of patchwork, billowy and cold, refreshing all the same, leaving space for just two traces, one spread in flight, the other a piercing heart, both made of light, the splinterest difference of truth between them and their cover. 

Here, above my humble abode the other day:

- F

Pensées de la lune (Moon Thoughts, a poem by me)

The shadows of the moon
are not her choice. 
The clouds sympathize;
they want to embellish her,
while she just wants to shine,
bask in the cold light,
of her strong glory,
owing it all - 
every bit of her presence -
to the heat
of the sun. 

When the sun dies, 
as he will, 
as all stars do,
what will this rock
of infinite shadow
feel in the truth
of its darkness?
Being a blank slate,
scars visible to no one.
No mere human
at least.

(Objects feel.
They must,
at some infinite depth.
For they are alive
only after
some form of death
by technology
or otherwise.)

- F