Dr. Omed: Poetry

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 03:05:04 GMT

Today is 12.19.15.5.1, 8 Imix 4 Wo.

JONAH, UP A TREE, EARLY 1980S

DR. OMED, FROM THE SAME ROLL OF FILM (REMEMBER FILM?)

1699 shopping days until 13.0.0.0.0, 4 Ahau 3 K'ank'in.

Friend Jonah of Love During Wartime posted a poem back on April 12th, which I think is a very fine "last" poem, as he calls it, if indeed it were to be his last. I like the humor and the history in it. Jonah and I have been friends for thirty years, so I have a headstart on the rest of you. But you'll catch the drift, if the drift doesn't catch you first. I think all poets start writing their last poems at some point, some when very young, others when in their dotage. Last looks back "o'er travelled roads," as Whitman had it, after he rehearsed himself into the role of the "good grey poet." Rimbaud wrote his last poem, Une Saison en Enfer, threw down his pen and abandoned his muse at what--age 19? So I ask my fellow poets--Have you begun the work on your last poem(s) yet? I think I was about 39 when I started writing my first last poems--my first real last poems. Accomplishing the virtue of lastness in poetry is a not straightforward pursuit, it is devious, tricky, and oblique. It helps if you have reached middle age and your brain function has begun to decay. Metaphors have to be jury-rigged, and they must "shine in use." Here's the last of Jonah, and may there be many more lasts for him:

MY LAST POEM

My last poem
will walk under storm-green skies
past haunted duplexes
through echoing culverts
through knee-high grass.
It will walk from New Jersey Pine Barrons
and coast up Gravity Hill;
it will walk from mother's horror
to father's death;
it will walk from the myth of Saturn
to the mouth of the whirlwind.
It will walk all this way
to sit on my chest,
some cat-like Buddha,
to flip through the uneven pages
of my unjustified heart.

My last poem and my first poem
will sit on the front porch
and tell tall tales
about the neighbors.
They'll compare rhetoric
and the scope of their rhythm.
"You've got a charming rhyme scheme,"
my last poem will say;
"You've got a mysterious metaphysic,"
my first poem will reply.
And they'll write sketches of the wind
while drinking green tea
with a pinch of fresh mint
and a spoon-full of local honey.

My last poem
may have forgotten every cherished image;
it may have lost
its connection to each borrowed symbol
and 40 years worth of repetends.
It may find itself confronted
by each unfinished stanza,
every half-begun epic,
each muse in passing
and muse in waiting -
each shopgirl, waitress,
movie star, pew mate,
class mate, anima projection -
all the false goddesses
and true harridans,
all the true goddesses
and faithless lovers.
It may have forgotten
their names in eternity.
It may have lost its breath
and its measured lines.
It may not want a song
or need one more sip of beer.

My last poem
will shake your hand and greet you.
It will welcome you like an old friend.
It will walk with you anywhere.

Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:29:39 GMT

WOLF ROSARY

Hail, Mother of Howls,
we who have ears hear you.
By the chill down the long bones,
by the quaver of the pulse,
we know your song,
and we know this song has no words.
Forgive us our words.

Hail, Bitch of Bitches, Alpha to all packs,
Blessed are you among she-wolves,
and blessed are the litters you whelp,
the river of wolves that runs in our blood.

Hail, Mother Fang, you bite deep
into our brains, past the clot of memory
and language, you bite deep
and we know again
the smell of your must
and the taste of beestings;
we know again
the tang of iron in hot blood;
the communion of snarls
over a fresh killl;
we know again
the taste of snow in deep winter
trickling to a hunger-knotted stomach.
Fangs of your fang,
tongues of your tongue,
feral children alone in the night,
we give voice,
and what music we make!
We know the song has no words.
Forgive us our words.

Hail, Bitch of Bitches, Alpha to all packs,
Blessed are you among she-wolves,
and blessed are the litters you whelp,
the river of wolves that runs in our blood.

Note: The above is work-in-progress, or rather, liturgy-in-progress. As some of you know, Mrs. Dr. Omed has charged me with the task of composing what I like to call an Atheist Feminist liturgy, a body of work that will eventually comprise a sort of Book of Common Prayer for the unchurched--those who live their lives outside any church and without reference or recourse to god, or what the churched think of as god.

Wolf Rosary was written for a friend who was recently diagnosed as Bipolar—a Manic Depressive. The metaphor she and her husband use to refer to Bipolar Disorder is Lycanthropy—she is a lycanthrope, a werewolf. Since I have survived to my jubilee year (49) with full blown Manic Depression (and without diagnosis or treatment until age 37), I feel a bit like a hoary old village elder to all the bipolar lycanthropes round about. Want to see my teeth? I still got 'em.

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:48:26 GMT

The Willendorf Polka
O, you can't have her, I will keep her

She's not too fat, not too fat,

Not too fat to be my Venus,

Not too fat for me.

My love is prehistoric,

And so caloric, not to mention ad valoric—

An order older than the Doric

and so much more heroic…

O, you can't have her, I will keep her

She's not too fat, not too fat,

Not too fat to be my Venus,

Not too fat for me.

Feed her up, feed her up,

I feed her stacks of pancakes,

give her cupcakes and 'nilla milkshakes,

give her all it takes, with extra syrup…

O, you can't have her, I will keep her

She's not too fat, not too fat,

Not too fat to be my Venus,

Not too fat for me.

Can she zip up her pants?

No, no, no, no, no, not with all those ants.

Can she climb the stairs?

No, no, no, no, no, only at state fairs.

O, you can't have her, I will keep her

She's not too fat, not too fat,

Not too fat to be my Venus,

Not too fat for me.

She's so plush, she's so lush

I still have a tragic crush

She's the butter in my cornmeal mush,

Only she can tell me shush…

O, you can't have her, I will keep her

She's not too fat, not too fat,

Not too fat to be my Venus,

Not too fat for me.

Note: Mrs. Dr. Omed LOLed when she read this, so it's good enuf for you lot.

Most of the images you see of the Venus of Willendorf make the figure look massive, almost threatening with psychic weight. The real thing is something you can hold in your hand, a bit under five inches in height. Since she has, literally, no feet to stand on, perhaps she was meant to be held in the hand. She is very old, as human representative artifacts go, maybe 24,000 years old, found in 1908 in Austria. She was carved of oolitic limestone not native to the place where she was found, and tinted with red ochre. Some have suggested that she was carved from the perspective of a woman looking down at her own body.

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 00:05:48 GMT

Dr. Omed reads another damn poem.

TEXT HERE

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 18:05:06 GMT

POEM OF THE DAY

Heptad To Elspeth, on the 7th anniversary of our marriage

Seven is a happy number
in that it returns
upon its squares to one.

Seven is prime.
Divisible only by itself and one.
Seven is a self number:

It cannot be generated
by any other integer
added to the sum of its single digit.

Seven is one
of a series of integers
each the sum of two previous terms

converging on the golden ratio.
Seven is a lucky prime
sieved from the sea of integers.

Seven is a safe prime;
in a discrete logarithm,
a key to the cryptogram of love.

Seven is both cardinal
and ordinal, a special well-ordered set
of all that came before it,

resolved from an infinity
of non-empty sets
by the axiom of choice.

Finite and unrepeatable
these seven years
will not fail of an itch.

Dana Pattillo

PoD 122

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 01:19:32 GMT

POEM OF THE DAY

Magnificat

A shadow
in the loom of her presence
this ghost rejoices

that she holds me
in her regard,
takes my rough hand

and tells its whorls
down to the last generation.
My soul proclaims

her mercy, my spirit is proud
to be broken
and scattered in the imagination

of hungry hearts. Holy
is her unspeakable name.
Saints fed on prayers

have starved in unsaying it.
Gods have died
in the hearts of the faithful,

the rich in spirit cast out
of their conceits,
dead in their reckonings.

Those who call themselves blessed
in the sight,
Those who magnify themselves

in the fear,
those who bow down to thrones,
who wreck the rod,

who glorify the strong arm,
who fail of every promise they keep,
even them who call her him,

hymn to her.
Holy, holy, holy,
is her unspeakable name,

unbroken is her necessity,
all her promises kept,
all her dread mercies

rehearsed in our dreams
all the nights
of all our days, forever and amen.

Dana Pattillo, 2007

PoD 121

Sat, 26 May 2007 19:23:18 GMT

POEM OF THE DAY

Cold Moons

Like a fiddle bow

on a flexed saw

my bones twang.

I rise from the bed

of the woman

of my dearest nightmares

and wake up

beside my wife.

My father walks

out of the cracked mirror

and without a word,

kisses me on the left shoulder:

I wake again,

beside, again , my wife.

How many wakings left to go?

I am no longer a young man.

Seven times seven

are the winters I have seen.

No longer the chosen lamb,

I still dream dreams

but I am not the son of these cold moons.

I never rode with coven

or Joan of Arc

and I never was a fickle one

tho’ all cats are grey

in the dark,

and a coat of many colors

is all black

in the Great House

of Mother Night.

A mercenary not for hire,

an assassin who does not kill,

worth no one's salt,

I take my pay in sand,

sands of sleep and time,

and spend it all

in the precinct of harlots

in the temple of the Crone.

She lays me down to sleep

drapes me with her cloak

of many daughters

so that I may be stabbed with sickles of light,

sore afflicted

with a pox of moons,

so that I may walk in other worlds,

in new wrinkles

of laminate verse,

and this is not a sin.

Dana Pattillo, 2007

PoD 120

Wed, 11 Oct 2006 02:17:00 GMT

"PROVOCATIVE ACT"

FROM THE OFFICIAL TEXT OF MR. BUSH'S STATEMENT:

Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security. The United States condemns this provocative act. Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond. (VIA NPR)

DIRECT FROM HIS WINDOWLESS CUBICLE IN HELL, DR. OMED RIFFS ON

Provocative Act

It’s an extremely provocative act.

It is a mad provocative act by a government which has lost all restraint.

It is hard to think of a more provocative act than this.

It is an unfortunate, provocative act that we cannot in any way encourage.

It was a provocative act that does not serve the cause of peace.

It is inconceivable that such a provocative act could have been undertaken.

It is the most dangerous and provocative act of folly.

it is quite appropriate to condemn this provocative and dangerous act.

It's very appropriate for countries to put sanctions on

to punish the provocative act.

We cannot say we cannot do anything.

We think it is a provocative act.

We view this as a deliberately provocative act.

We say North Korea did a provocative and unwise act.

We have here, then, a provocative and irresponsible act.

We point out, and object to, the oppressive and deliberately provocative act.

We stand next to you condemning the cowardly provocative act.

We strongly condemn any kind of provocative act, from whatever source.

We severely condemn this provocative act.

We lodge a strong protest to condemn this provocative act.

We condemn this provocative act and urge that it not be repeated.

We are truly facing a provocative act.

We cannot say we cannot do anything.

Our message is that this is a very provocative act.

You could hardly have had a more provocative act.

This provocative act violates a standing moratorium on provocative acts.

Washington warned it would be seen as a provocative act.

Britain said it would view any nuclear test as a highly provocative act.

We are consulting with international partners such as Russia and China

on the next steps uniting the world’s united opposition

to this provocative act.

Expect an impotent act of international self-stultification.

Do you have a position on whether this would be a provocative act or not?

I find it hard to believe that calling a provocative act

"provocative" constitutes effective deterrence.

We cannot say we cannot do anything.

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 19:34:44 GMT

COMING TO YOU

FROM HIS WINDOWLESS CUBICLE IN HELL

DR. OMED READS A CLEAN, WELL LIT POEM.

Note: It's somewhat disquieting at times to watch and listen to oneself on the viddy. All the tics, fumbles, mumbles, and mispronounciations are there in not quite living color and 'puter speaker sound for me to see and hear. It's instructive, for the same reason. I'm not quite satisfied with the reading I gave, but it wasn't too bad, and I wanted the florescent-lit ambience of my workplace, the aforsaid windowless cubicle in Hell.

Sun, 03 Sep 2006 09:04:29 GMT

Poetry after Midnight

In the month of Remember...

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 03:10:00 GMT

GUEST POET: EUGENE ZANDLER

Jonquil Thunder Not?

On D.P.'s photo, "At My Doorstep"

A slack of a which of a winter

barked up to here with insults

laid bait under axioms of iron-

their steels nor torpid bent,

their jaws nor hopeless pinned.

Come Aesir, come patricides

and nordic Abrahams dentata ,

come you aerogel Caligular, you

squad of death white grackle

you .forty gauge petrificant

you Calvin's gravid vengeful clutch,

pay out your particular disgrace

lay on your mortal crust.

Stalk sundered, leaf spat, bloom felled,

this Februant seems the perfect patsy

quartered unawares, laid low

by stratagem, by arctic blow.

But virga gone to sleet does not dream

berserker petal tatoos its jaundice,

its apostacy, its hornet spank

its tincture of xerophyte

its naturopathic remedy

its d-nucleic xanthene acid

asmoke upon such braggart ice,

its aestivant allele inserted

that latency of water yet harbor suck,

summer agfachrome, surety of sun .

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:04:36 GMT

FLARF POEM COMPOSED ON A GOOGLE OF "WAR IS NOT A TIME OF JOY"

Call President Bush

for quick deployment

of international force.

Uphold the fragile

cease—"The need is urgent," Bush said,

"War is not a time of joy,

These aren't joyous times.

These are challenging times,

and they're difficult times,

and they're straining the psyche

of our country,"

The President said.

"Sometimes I'm frustrated,

rarely surprised.

Sometimes I'm happy."

The President said.

I believe the next verse is

"I thought of, this is, you know…

War is not a time of joy."

Quite the bout of finger-pointing

is underway. Really.

There is absolutely nothing wrong

with being frustrated.

Bush is human. Really.

These are challenging times,

leaving now would be a disaster.

Pullout is impossible. Got that?

"Nobody wants to turn on their TV

on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists."

The President said.

Well, he did say he just finished

the plot against America.

War hurts. I want my Jesus back.

"War is not a time of joy," he said,

Thrilling linguists everywhere

by speaking an entire English sentence:

The President said,

"Nobody likes

to see innocent people die."

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 13:58:24 GMT

FLARF POEM COMPOSED ON A GOOGLE OF “FOG OF WAR”

The fog of war
conceals much more
than can be seen.

In the fog of war,
chips can fall
in different ways.

Why not
have surrogates
do the fighting and dying?

The fog of war,
of course,
is thick.

Clausewitz, and probably
every military theorist since,
has spoken of the fog of war—

The difficultly of telling
what’s happening
when you’re in the field.

The war happened,
and then what happened
happened, and the timing was just right…

Tragic mistakes happen
In the “fog of war.”
Soldiers have since time immemorial died

from friendly fire
and other lethal errors.
In war, stuff happens.

It is devilishly difficult to follow
the ricochets
amid the incendiary fog of war.

But I suppose
we shall have
to try

not to see it as a failure,
attribute the negative outcome
to the fog of war.

On the positive side…
defined goals have melted
into the fog of wars gone by.

Other consequences
of the invasion
are still shrouded
in the fog of peace.

DR. OMED'S DAILY KOS DIARY:

The Fog of War and the Fuzz of God on Hard Facts Ave.

Fri Aug 04, 2006 at 09:41:42 AM CST

Human beings are not moved by facts. This is the closest thing to a true fact that you will ever encounter in your human existence. The facts, ma'am, just the facts are just too boring, too inconvenient, too depressing, too...factual--or as Mr. Colbert may already have said (Dr. Omed doesn't have cable)--too facty.

We, as a people, as an allegedly sentient species, don't want too much factiness. We do not want to be told the facts; we want to be told a story, a story with a happy ending; or at least a story with a good moral. I don't blame us; the facts are hard. We want some factric softener added to the wash, so our thoughts about them will come out fuzzy and warm. "God" is our favorite brand of softener when it comes to the really hard facts. God comes in many brands, and each brand claims unique and exclusive features and offers periodic enhancements to keep the devotion of its customers, but mostly what we want is to make those cold, hard facts fuzzy and warm.

CLICK HERE TO READ IT ALL.
COME BACK AND TELL THE DOCTOR WHERE IT HURTS.

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 18:09:32 GMT

A Google collage cut and pasted from a search on “clarifying moment”

The war is a tragedy for its victims,

but it could also be a clarifying moment

if the world draws the proper lessons…

But if we are in a state

of perpetual self-development,

of endless becoming,

then perhaps there is never

a clean moment of arrival,

or a clarifying moment.

But in reality,

a clarifying moment

is unfolding.

The patriotic tensions

generated by war and recession

spawned a “rare clarifying moment”

or some other kind of turning point—

to no longer "manage calm"

but instead to become a revolutionary force

and to permit violence to become a clarifying moment

and its aftermath as a clarifying moment

taught a sharp lesson, to me, it was a clarifying moment

on the dishonesty of identity politics,

on the identity of dishonesty politics.

In a clarifying moment

of insight approaching epiphany,

I now see that we can't realize a clarifying moment

as a clarifying moment should be realized.

Dear Leader longs for a return of the clarifying moment.

Political compounds can cause turbidity

and reduce clarity in sparkling beverages.

When a Christian departs

from a gospel of love and forgiveness

to advocate murder,

his example provides

a clarifying moment

for anyone. You'd think.

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:42:34 GMT

A special reprint of POEM OF THE DAY 24 posted for SPIKE

Lions Tigers and Bears Oh My

Maps of your body

are being tattooed

on the inside of my nostrils.

I close my eyes

and follow my nose,

become a pygmy in Plato’s Cave,

my head humming

with the polyrhythms

of your spectral odor.

A scented succubus

like a bad head cold

has taken a lease on my nasal tract,

and a whiff of a houri

is renting my crotch

by the hour.

The goddess has so ordered, and so ordained;

that I be smothered

in peonies.

The armless lady

picks no flowers

in this ghostly garden of olfactory delight.

No, she wrinkles

like the muzzle

of a senile bloodhound.

She twangs

like a tuning fork

struck on a piano lid.

She bucks and dips

like a tuning fork

struck on a piano lid.

She bucks and dips

like the crossed stick of the dowser

over deep artesian water.

She buzzes,

like the vacuum in god’s eye,

with the static of virtual particles

dancing in fragrant genesis,

to the probabilistic music

of the spheres.

The armless lady sings, in a weird baritone

like a digerri-do

talking to aboriginal drums in dreamtime,

and she throbs, with pins and needles

most appropriately,

like the phantom limb of an amputee.

So I go tapping my lingam

like a white cane

in this game of blindman’s bluff,

lost in a formal maze—

Man or minotaur,

I am threaded on your aroma, Ariadne—

It smells of myths in here.

“…the first step, the Crone

who scried the crystal said, shall be

to lose the way.”

Dana Pattillo, 1997

Note: The last three lines are quoted from Galway Kinnell, The Book of Nightmares.

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 17:37:17 GMT

POEM OF THE DAY

Day of the Dog

In the army of the dog

we don’t need

no fucking ponies.

In the army of the dog

we lift our legs

to salute the flagpole.

In the army of the dog

four legs

still good.

In the army of the dog

when the tail wags

it wags for thee.

In the army of the dog

old wags

teach new pricks.

In the army of the dog

we sleep in mangers

and rise with fleas.

In the army of the dog

we will have our day

and we won’t have to see a Man about it.

Dana Pattillo

Note: See Poem of the Day 117.

PoD 119

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 05:03:48 GMT

Poetry after Midnight

Tonight's poem: ALSO WITH YOU

Thu, 22 Jun 2006 21:35:20 GMT

THE POEM OF THE DAY

Mockingbird War

A parabola

drawn by the quick of the eye

on summer morning blue

sags into wire

strung between utility poles,

two pines

lopped and stripped,

dipped in creosote and planted so that

electricity can flow,

so that we can have

our light and power,

so that two mockingbirds

can perch on each his own lookout

and oppose the other

in song.

Their stolen notes ring

like battle cries at Troy

or Shiloh.

Stolen notes are flung

like a trebuchet flings a volley

of severed heads over the enemy’s walls.

Stolen notes spray

like bullets from a Maxim gun

cutting down charging Zulus, or doughboys.

Stolen notes rattle

and gurgle

like a sucking chest wound.

Stolen notes assemble

A nocturne in daylight,

A weird chorus

like that of wounded soldiers

left in the field

under the shivering light

of the Aurora Borealis

the night of the first day

of the battle of Fredricksburg.

All these things I hear

in birdsong.

My ears are not peaceful anymore.

At the end of each burst of song

the mockingbird

on the shorter pole

leaps straight up into air

higher than the other mockingbird’s pole,

and drops back his perch

a warrior taunting his foe: here I am.

The song goes on.

The song goes on and on.

Will this song of war ever end?

Dana Pattillo

PoD 118

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 05:53:16 GMT

Poetry after Midnight

Tonight's poem: The Long and True Music of Her Name

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 04:35:34 GMT

A little touch of Dana in the night...

A cold reading of Poem of Love/La Duen' de la Casa

...this is a test, it is only a test...

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 05:04:50 GMT

A GOOGLE POEM

dedicated to Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Commandant of “Gitmo”

Searched on the words:

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

The concept of

“asymmetric warfare”

developed in the US.

Asymmetric warfare

is a military term that describes

warfare War.

Asymmetric warfare

includes operations

that confer disproportionate advantage

on those conducting them

by using some capability

the adversary cannot use.

Asymmetric warfare

describes the potential

for an optimal interaction.

Military victory

in asymmetric warfare

can be virtually meaningless.

The implicit premise

is that asymmetric warfare

deals with unknowns, with surprise

in terms of art. As a term of art,

asymmetric warfare

now dominates public attention.

Asymmetric warfare

has sometimes been defined

as "not fighting fair.”

Asymmetric Warfare (AW).

What is it?

David and Goliath warfare.

Small and nimble players consistently

find innovative ways

to strike big against the Goliaths.

Asymmetric warfare

includes having the media

in your corner.

Asymmetric warfare also requires

the political devolution

of moral obligation.

Asymmetric warfare

can be carried out in peace,

but it is more easily used

with telling effect

in the theater of war.

The terrorists are themselves the weapons.

Military affairs are replete

with asymmetric warfare.

The concept of asymmetric warfare

has been around for centuries.

A bust of Sun Tzu

has taken on a new relevance today.

Dana Pattillo

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:01:31 GMT

POEM OF THE DAY

Army of the Dog

Ready to bite the hand that feeds you

this your daily kibble?

Ready to piss on all the rugs and shoes of the world?

Join the army of the dog

Pee all you can pee.

Want to say hello with a snarl

to all the assholes

and tight crotches in smart pants?

The army of the dog

is looking for a few good nose parkers.

Can you hop a high fence,

elude Animal Control,

set an improvised excremental device

for the foot of catcher or master?

In the army of the dog, the world is your toilet.

Want to bark all night,

show shining eyes to the flashlights?

You already see it all in black and white

and you got smell-o-vision too.

The army of the dog wants you.

Do you want to taste blood,

keep the running dogs on the run,

see fear in the eyes of owners?

Are you the son of a bitch

who can run with the pack, in the army of the dog?

Dana Pattillo

Note: This poem was inspired by a passage in Philosophies for Sale by Lucian of Samosata (circa 120-180 C.E.), in which he speaks of "all the men in workshops...will leave their trades deserted" to join "the army of the dog." The name of the ancient philosophy Cynicism (and the words cynic and cynicism in English) comes from the Greek word kunikos, which means "dog-like." August Strindberg said, "I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."

PoD 117

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 04:55:21 GMT

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

WAS BORN JUNE 5. 1898

WAS A POET

WAS A SURREALIST

WAS A SOCIALIST

WAS A HOMOSEXUAL

WAS EXECUTED

BY THE RIGHT-WING FALANGIST "BLACK SQUAD"

FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE

DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

AUGUST 19, 1936

LORCA ONCE SAID:

"I AM A POET. NOBODY SHOOTS POETS."

GHAZAL OF THE UNEXPECTED LOVE

No one understood the fragrance
of your belly’s dark magnolia..
No one knew you martyred
a hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand Persian ponies slept
in the plaza under the moon of your brow
while for four nights I held
your waist, enemy of the snow.

Between gypsum and jasmine, your glance
was a pale branch of seeds.
I searched about my breast
for the ivory letters that spell always,

always, always: garden of my agony,
your fugitive body for always,
the blood of your veins in my mouth
your mouth ready, without light, for my death.

GACELA DEL AMOR IMPREVISTO

Nadie comprendía el perfume
de la oscura magnolia de tu vientre.
Nadie sabía que martirizabas
un colibrí de amor entre los dientes.

Mil caballitos persas se dormían
en la plaza con luna de tu frente,
mientras que yo enlazaba cuatro noches
tu cintura, enemiga de la nieve.

Entre yeso y jazmines, tu mirada
era un pálido ramo de simientes.
Yo busqué, para darte, por mi pecho
las letras de marfil que dicen siempre,

siempre, siempre: jardín de mi agonía,
tu cuerpo fugitivo para siempre,
la sangre de tus venas en mi boca,
tu boca ya sin luz para mi muerte.

I couldn't find the book with my favorite English translation (by Ben Belitt) of my favorite Lorca ghazal, so I had to cobble together this one myself, as none I found online would do. This translation doesn't do, either, so we'll just pretend. I read a great deal of Lorca, Juan Ramon Jimenez, and Antonio Machado during a crucial period in my formation as a poet, and though that was a long time ago, my brain is still groved with the rhythms and imagery of their work.

Sun, 28 May 2006 21:06:15 GMT

GUEST POET: DICK JONES

STILL LIFE

Each morning they organise your bones
into the wheelchair, stack you leaning
out of kilter. Thus I find you, wall-eyed,

feather pulse and mouth ajar. This is
a stillness you are learning as silence
silts up your blood. I name you. ‘Mum’,

I call, quietly at first, as if this were
only sleep and you might resent the passage
interrupted. But your shade is walking

a broken road on the far side of dreams.
I keep my coat on, lean in the doorway,
breathing in the alkalines and salts

that are your presence in this world.
Beyond, through narrow windows, rain
drifts like smoke. The trees shift

their high shoulders, hefting their leaves
like heroes. I can see the lift and fall
of their evergreen breath, the slow,

dispassionate pulse. Such senseless beauty,
propping up the sky as if there were no
tides turning or falling stars, no ashes to dust,

no time at all. You speak – a half-word,
cracked in the middle. Syllables drift
like fumes. Somewhere in that steam

of meaning, the filaments of memory:
the horn’s tip of a lover’s moon,
a song’s dust, the eye’s tail catching,

not quite catching, doorway phantoms,
window ghosts. Grief crosses my mind:
its hydrogen release – from local pain

to lachrymae rerum, all in one ball
of fire. Easy, it would be to cauterise
this lassitude, here against the lintel,

watching not the rise and fall of your
fish-breath, your insect pulse, but
the immortal trees beyond. Too easy;

but death visited and turned away,
indifferent, and now it’s down to me,
the blood-bearer, to wish away your life

for you. The house ticks and hums.
A voice calls out, thin and querulous;
another coughs. I turn down your light.

There, against the window, dusk outside,
you are becoming your shadow
cast against the shifting of the trees.

Wed, 19 Apr 2006 01:43:43 GMT

POEM OF THE DAY

Flower War

Tlachinol xochitli

zan iyyo tonequimilol

yahoxochitl

Flowers of fire;

only they can be our garments:

Flowers of war.

Put down your weapons, soldiers.

The flowery god,

the plumed serpent

is gathering spring blossoms

in green meadows

and mountain gorges.

He is gathering fresh fire,

the little flowers

that bloom from spent shell casings.

Put down your death spitters,

ugly and depleted.

The god will give you weapons more beautiful

and honorable—Lances,

tipped not with the dark glitter of obsidian,

but with bright plumes.

Tlachinol xochitli

zan iyyo tonequimilol

yahoxochitl

Flowers of fire;

only they can be our garments:

Flowers of war.

Take off your helmets and armor.

The god will cloth you in fire,

flowers of fire, the bright rainment of flower war.

In the flower war,

you can be heroes,

you can be the champions.

The gods will be nourished,

the people will celebrate your sacrifice,

the glory in your capture.

you are the teotl ixiptla,

the divine images,

the flower warriors.

In flower war,

there is defeat with honor,

death will not sting, death will drink

for you are rich with octli,

the nectar and pollen

of divinity.

Dana Pattillo

Note: This poem is based on the "Aztec" concept and practise of Flower War. I can't find my little moleskin memorandum book with all my notes in it, but you can Google or Wiki up more infomation on the subject if I have sufficiently intrigued you.

PoD 116