On Heat Emergencies and Propaganda

The air today has the cadence of a lowland voice. It echoes with dogwood, willow, magnolia and spanish moss. The haze mutes all color to lazy pastel, the heartrate of the city slows just a fraction. Yankees have visions of palmettos, of slowly waving fans, of linen and seersucker.

As I sit here slowly melting into the puddles of my thoughts, these thoughts of Charleston and Savannah run to thoughts of the hearts of their people. I've found myself recently involved in a number of discussions about the concept of propaganda. About how terrorists indoctrinate their children into their culture of hatred and violence. It is horrifying.

And yet, I reflect in my southern swelter that this concetp is by no means a new one. Hatreds are often passed to the next generation. This great country came close to collapse not quite 150 years ago and its scars still show, in the inherent distrust that my brisk words will stir in those lowland climes. And in that ungodly struggle children were sent to fight and die for a "cause". What the mid-east now boils with is a stew of fury much mor ancient and refined. Their propaganda is far more complex and intricate than "cotton, slavery and states rights!"

I know also that those arrid baking sands are not the only places in our modern world where children are fed on hatred and clothed in violence. There are Chechyn and Basque children, Irish children still being taught the hatred of the previous generation. There are pockets of hate all over the globe where hides the spirit of hate behind the faces of the innocent.

And let us not forget our own Southland, where in some the hot anger and resentment of a hundred years has not simmered down to flavoring as with most, but where there are men of cloaks and weapons teaching children their dogma of hatred.

When I dwell to long on these thoughts I take on the face of the Romani (the gypsy), who knows that nowhere is there haven from hatred and suffering and who retreats into himself and his own, showing only defiance and distrust to those outside, living on the fringes, scavenging and secretive.

But bury me not standing, I come up from my knees, blessed with the phantom embraces of hope and faith. I will stand tall in this life for that which makes us as man different from the beasts; that in which can flower beauty, art, and achievement, for the part of us all that can reason and love and swell with emotion.

When I hear the echoes of the southland, I can lose myself in the beauty of humanity, the symphony of love and hate, glory and suffering, the cruel exquisite life of man.

And then my heart can sing the song of the downtrodden, the oppressed, of the slave in America and in Egypt, the prayer which is for all peoples, our enemies as well as ourselves, "let my people go". My prayer today is that good, loving men and women around the world can join in that refrain singing their hearts out for the love of all.

From 8.2.06

What grows in Brooklyn

Today he feels the last of the winter's chill leak from his unaccustomed bones. The air is heavy with moisture. The pavement shimmers in the haze. For him it is a silver pathway back into time. The faded graffitti holds hidden codes that will transport him home.
He hears the cry of a tropical bird from overhead and he feels it is his kindred, a feral misfit in this place, who has fought the hostile climate and managed to thrive. Its voice recalls his childhood paradise, where lush vegetation masked the scars of poverty and the songs told tales of sea and land, of the power of ancient spirits that fuel love, hate, life, revolution, peace, meager commerce, a brightly hued history that mesmerized the herded tourists.
A distant siren sends its call, no sea maiden of legend, rather a screaming red demon of steel, rushing on some heroic mission.
He chuckles to himself and casts a sideways glance toward a faded ruin of Victorian prosperity. It is not often that he has the leisure to take a good look at his surroundings, but on this lazy afternoon when even the rush and bustle of the city slows down to wipe its brow, he notes that the porches here deep, not so much as in the islands, but crafted with the same purpose in mind, to capture the breezes of the sea. Or here at least, the remnants of the breezes that find their way through the crowded mesh of development.
But these porches sag now, undre the weight of times turned sour. The paint is faded and chipped from the facades, leaving them raw, naked, covering themselves where they can with the encroaching forest of vine and weed. Trying to regain the modest spirit of their builders.
Yes, underneath the grime, the turbulence and decomposition of recent times, there remains the framework of other men's dreams, still sturdy, but lost to the ages in the foot traffic of millions of tiny histories.
He wonders about the man who built the house he studies. Had he also come from afar? traversed seas both tranquil and angry? faced hostility upon his arrival?
Perhaps a ruddy Irishman, the scorn of the then Anglo ruled city. But, that man had found a way to prosper, had applied his hands where they were best suited and built his dream here in wood and brick. Built it with hopes for his descendants, that this world would treat them with a dignity and respect that the old world had denied to him.
'I know this man, his hopes and thoughts.' he realized. 'They are my own. They are all of ours. They belong to all of the mulit-hued faces and many musiced voiced of everyone I pass each day.'
And for a moment, he felt pure exhileration, a simple and touching connectedness with every soul that had ever come to this puzzling place of numerous sights and smells that would dazzle the most jaded of souls.

A bit more of my inner bard

Untitled


wall crumbles
velvet envelops
horizon expands
history shifts in orbit
learn it anew
blink
has the very quality of the light changed?
begin the fool's journey
pilgrim?
warrior?
ambassador?
heart swells, senses dazzle
treasure,
glory,
toys,
the waking dream,
legends fufilled
yet;
men are but men
history may crack,
paradigms shift,
moments flare and fizzle
ghosts linger
walls are more than bricks and mortar
old and bitter lessons learned anew
faithlessness endures,
men remain pawns
shadows gather on either side
left
kings and dissidents
right
small gods, martyrs in modern dress
I
other
my face is my oppressor's
they will not see
words have power
words are illusions
I
smothering, drowning
reaching out through clashing currents
hold myself afloat
exhaustion
paralysis
play the role as cast
melancholy dane
brat prince
I
not a hero
I
me
who?
who are you?




Untilted 2.0

a graceful stride,
power masked,

a secret glance,
atom of a memory,

ask not of me
I'll ask not in return,

take comfort in another's struggles
they reflect Your own,
revel in another's glory
it stirs my blood,

the magic hand of fate relies not on spectacle
but timing,
synchronicity,

events not kinetic,
but etched on souls marks of hidden majesty,
Muses in cosultation,

release control,

dreams in action,
triggers,
fancy skates the line of ethereal and concrete,

ships pass in the night
haunted lights reflecting in the waves
guiding our course,

bolstering faith,
Angels of flesh in turn.




When I run dry....


winding journey
tiny guards capped with cones
swing wide the gates
these woods know my heart
my flesh
green green green
flash of stone and steel
what king crowned this vista?
what mortal god did bless these lands?
elemental music
arranged as symphony
green green green
cobbles
a vantage where this place feels human
like a waiting embrace
enter the maze
know the puzzles and fancies of the land
ambition
comfort
home
seduction
glamour
achievement
reflection
humor
the familiar placed delibratley to be exotic
all threaded
woven in spirit
native mysticism
old world wisdom
the explorer's vision
tranquility of the east
here there be ghosts
not of men but of their dreams
who failed to wake?
that I might traverse this landscape of the unconcious
how did they know?
the corners of my heart
the planes of my mind
the angles of my life
the whimsy of my spirit?
the impossible is tangible
its surrounds
oddly humble in fruition
and I am
humbled
inspired
carry this with me
the vision of beauty
the texture of stone
the strength steel
the odors of growing things
the tastes of nobility and granduer
the echoes of Falling water.

Lake Ponchartrain Jane Doe

Because I am both morbid and sentimental, I penned this piece of verse which is dedicated to an unidentified female found in Louisiana in 1986. www.doenetwork.org search Lake Ponchartrain Jane Doe for more info.

Lake Ponchartrain Jane Doe

Lies behind the levee
flesh melting,
merging with the lake,

can the depths wash away terror?
cleanse Memory?

You...shattered.......scattered

swirl through the depths

o're the levee is beauty...
joy

Danger creeps...
shadowed alleys

Danger looms


beyond the levee

here light and darkness meet,
enchanting, seducing, whispering

Souls listen

seek kindred in crowded streets

in tiny whitewashed cities within


Secrets...
the levee knows
some keeps in
some holds back

rhythms serenade Secrets
zydeco...blues
keeping them transfixed,
languid in the swelter

Saturn approaches
thundering his winds like comus drums

Dreams Crack
levees crack

slumber disturbed
Secrets let spill

Horrors in seeps then torrents
Disembodied Faces
fragmented cries

Jane Doe swept away
the world would forget

Soul-sister I Dig
I drain
rubble
debris
all
pieces of you

agony surrounds

put You to rest
swamps next time
currents stagnated
memory evolves
lets not loose to destroy again
rebuild this city
backward glance to the lake
awed of its power
respectful of its undertow

Jane Doe goes unnamed
I see her
floating in the swamp

Name her
not Katrina
not her fault


Ophelia among her flowers
write a song to her Memory

Jane of the lake
take that name of the ages
restore to you your Dignity
pieces whole in a Memory.

And so it begins

Hello all...So I finally got around to starting one of these blogs...I'm going to start by transferring some posts from my myspace blog so that this has a bit of flavor. Don't expect any central theme. I tend to blog everything from socio-political rants to dirty poetry and everything in between.