In Memoriam
1914-1918como: remembering kmerdatouescutando: The Flowers O'The Forest / June Tabor |
Yes I remember it all
the first time you flew me abroad
introduced me to strangers
showed me statues of crocodiles
of impeccable classic credentials
and I have alligatored them all
and
forgiven you somewhat
I am cloudier
on your rambling ethyl-laden vagaries
about new worlds
and "now there's only you and me lad"
But those tears have longed to be shed
ever since
evermore
nevermore
And there was (I wonder if you recall it)
this modest revival gothic church
in some unmentionable station of the Northern Line
where you took communion
and I drank the wine
and you surrounded yourself
- ever after-wards - with the sheer joy of it
and I fell into a slow-motion love
with anonymous graves
and grandiloquent mausoleums
and pitied their taste in eulogies
and their loneliness in death
respectively
Wonder (do I) if you would still know me this very day?
Excuse my features, criticize them, give me directions
your way
as ever was even before and ever-after shall be
all your roads lead back to some kind of wold
all mine to some memory of Mecomo: None kmerdatouescutando: None, or other |
I found myself today being voluntarily compelled (as oxymorons go that's a fairly reoccurring one in my life) to listen to some online jazz site/station and it was so absolutely filled with not to my liking but worthy of respect (mostly, some only worth of contempt or pity) pieces&songs that I felt obliged to use an old communist scheme (used to great effect in 1970s Prague, I might add) of "redeeming" it by introducing my national folk song as related to jazz. I mean Fado and I do so abhor it as a rule. But the site unquestioningly took my advice into consideration and a whole new bunch (branch, to be fair) of jazz ranging from shitty-awful to brilliant was added. My point? My point is that I am pretty sure no one bothered to scrutinize my somewhat valid reasons at all. My point is that literally everyone can add content to their favourite sites (mostly a 'good' thing) but I feel huge amounts of GUILT when I do so just for a laugh or an imaginary witty reply and not from the heart thing. I also feel guilty because I do not think of myself as in anyway "qualified" to perpetrate such acts and then feel "unamerican" not to perpetrate them more often...
I know. Quite the conundrum
Quite the interesting entry my friends were so eager to read? Well ... they are down to six and I haven't heard from 5 of them in years so... cool by me. fine. awesome. fore-out.como:  blank kmerdatouescutando: Victoria Spivey's entire bachal catal. |
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Jun. 1st, 2009 @ 01:47 pm
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this melodious cacophony
is telling me
i never belong
any era,any circle of friends
and it begs me continually
"tell me more"
and i am stumped
down-something
not dumbfound
but downtrodden
I dream of overcast skies
and buggers sodding
there is also in my brain
voices of a bridge
images of a friend
qualities of treasuring hopelessness above all else
and rational, unwelcome thoughts
of treasuring everything else
but not the loss
of hope
imagery
bridges
dreams
friends
words
the courage to play the fool remains
though the audience is gone
they must be happier
eating, fucking, breeding
sleeping, dancing, feeding
for feeding far different from eating I find to be
and the judges say old ivory is not immoral
but my father's only gift to me
is
of ivory
of post 1960 ivory
and if I dare dream of tragedies in the key of ebony they are all human and I am a racist
and in the key of ebony I can only think of skating through northern scandinavian woods
cattle bones beneath my feet
cattle bones on my leftover plate that rots away
so ...
too
slowly
and fast
and impossible to convey but so easy to describe
i will bet you there is a universe of poetic injustice right there
or perhaps
not so
perhaps
merely a vacuous pretense i have rounded well with words
or emptiness at the core
(and nothing more)como:  lonely kmerdatouescutando: none |
Yes. She had read about it countless times before and in her own self-effacing, self-excluding way she had even seen it as a boring piece of televised fiction or a half-moving detail in some well documented historical act. She had never been close to it physically but she thought she knew what gamut of emotions human beings went through at such times if they should ever have the misfortune of witnessing them. She had got it all wrong. The deathbed scene at which she was present was not exactly unreal, it had after all been founded in medical expectations and a long enough time to practice the use of her usual shield for others to get hurt against if not long enough to develop a more intimate sort of protection. Now it was all here. Now and here. A loved one. Herself. Both coinciding in a moment and at a place or at a moment and in a place when she should have been not entirely defenseless and wherein she should have prepared herself to show the outside world no such aloofness as her silence might imply.
No tears, no shock. Just a realization. She knew that would take far more time to sink in and too much trouble to cope with until for her too it would be too late.
What does one call cleaning ladies nowadays? One of them walked in. Her badge of Meaningless-Technician worn with something approaching shame. Perhaps she was new at this. New to this, as was she. Perhaps she was not a lady. The features seemed androgynous enough and the presumption too common an error of perception.
Both stood over the corpse long enough for silent to be made disquieting rather than comfortable or polite.
"Your nan, was she? I can always tell."
Her mind dismissed the not unkindly meant breaking of the unbearable silence by reflex
"Excuse me?"
... and so the figure retreated.
Leaving a sense of frustration at not being able to connect as it most times did but granting her a few more stolen minutes to mourn in private as she would never mourn as soon as the fist doctor, lawyer, brother or friend walked in.
"Perverse of me." she thought. It was. So very perverted too that no one would ever grant her sympathy or allow her grief or try to comfort her. She knew it. She would have welcomed it in most cases. She was unsure, uncertain of her needs, almost unaware of her responses. A first time for everything? Obviously. Why the here and now and whom? Understandable. Why the nausea then? Why? Why? Why? Why?como: blank kmerdatouescutando: hated sunday/black box recorder |
Is this how one loses friends?
Unaware and unashamed
Lying open-veined
Oblivious
Is it carelessness the word for it?
or is just a trick of time
of fate
a quirk
merely something to be dismissed
by the few
the few
so few
who once heard
who once read
who chose silence insteadcomo: suicidal kmerdatouescutando: the music has stopped |
como:  none kmerdatouescutando: Happiness is a Warm Gun |
Riding metaphoric moonbeams
I will descend upon all ye guilty
of cruelty, forgetfulness and Love
but of these
the once upon Lovers
I will chastise and torture
in the most rewarding of ways
I once was... so many, so much
But now I read underneath lines
long written to each long one me
I still have hopes and dreams and hunger
but of these
Hunger is foremost and allied with Furies
and there will never be any rest
for me, past selves or anyone
once I thought myself blessed
now we are merely gone
decay, decay,
sweetest decay,
I shall make you my deity
and have little shrines
in your honour
underneath all the lines
in past and future letters
and shall worship my betters forever
never
That is true Wisdom come too late
That is our own doing not Fatecomo: blank kmerdatouescutando: white noise |
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Jan. 31st, 2009 @ 04:23 am
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poem #11
Try to believe
I understand all you did
was aimed at private ghosts
not at me
Still
Try to move on
or walk all over me
step on each withered memory
and keep going
dead ahead
dead
I shall always retain
the image of you I conjured up
those from long before we met
(did we meet?)
and spill my blood over it
spill the blood-red cum, sweat and tear
and treasure anniversaries every other year
Try to go home
find your way among the crowd
for these endless instants
are nearing their lifespan
and all endings
Still I do know you can try
though never imagining why
to keep quiet, to hush and be still
(You never will)
Yet try to believe
I understand all the phases
you felt you had to go... visit
Were they perchance a pilgrimage
back to one single second
we knew how to grow from?
Yes
I understand those divisions of time,
moment, lifelong, second, instant
and I am
and you are
and we seem
no longer so very distant |
I am awake now
walking on embers
fearing the coal
that sweet winter bestows
I am awake now
almost lucid in fact
reaching each shore
I've ever swam for
towards
something
I am not the king
not now
dying, the embers,
long past
beloved December
I am on death row
now
and somehow
this is where
all my red cardinal blue cadet nights
told me I would be
come January
of a distant here
a distant year
I reached by foul
and
well...
'tis the here & year nowkmerdatouescutando: when we die / b4s |
What, you mean no new year resolve / resolutions?
Yes, that too.
What else, what do you mean, truly?
I mean just that.
como: expectant kmerdatouescutando: none |
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Dec. 26th, 2008 @ 07:35 am
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You're not a rhyme in my poem, no
You are the past that I still breathe
A memory, a forgotten dream or so
You are a funereal wreathe
At my beginning, wherein I end
you are that dubious gift one can send
to the dying and lying and bereft
No longer my redeemer
merely presiding over theft
of identities and wonders
Things I help precious and
kept hidden from this universe
You are my reverse
my looking-glass self
who ventured too far from home
... much too far
In my ending is nothing, zilch, nil
other than darkness and a standing still
You are my alter ego that never dreamt
of endless wheatfields savage, unkempt
in the home that accident named mine
in the place where all passion died
I still exist
persist
resist
somehow
but it is not for your platitude
my self-serving gratitude
or any misguided notion of possibilities in Life
there is no such grandeur
only strife
where I remain
and you abstain
and my presence
and your absence
traps us for Eternitycomo: desperate, lonely, passive, sa kmerdatouescutando: Broken Man's Lament/Emmylou Harris; 17 Again/Eurythmics |
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
(by John McCrae)
Move him into the sun -
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds, -
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved, - still warm, - too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
- O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
(by Wilfred Owen)como: contemplative |
Might have headlined this entry as "what do I care?" a few months ago... or 8 years ago. The US election, I mean. Not the hundreds of oddities that would be voted for separately (senator, proposition this, that & 8) in any functioning/functional democracy. But the real risk of voters picking up a once honourable now completely brainwashed by campaign advisers from Hel..Bush into being as nasty as he can be, picking a running fiend to pander to what he once thought of as a loony religious fanatic fringe and not telling me anything I need to hear as a citizen of a world in which the US of A still are the only military Super Power, though no longer the economic powerhouse that benefited millions of people (amongst them some members of my family I love dearly).
Were I a US of A citizen I'd vote Green as I do in my own country. Except if I thought there were only two parties running for real. Then I'd go Obama but I would ask myself if a duopoly (in politics as in most other things) is such a good thing? Or even - dare I ask - fair?
Anyway, I had my mind set on my Green Party candidate unless D.K. won the democratic nomination (yes, I am that naïve politically). Until Palin happened. I don't know about you "folks" and "joes" out there, American or not, but she scares the hell out of me. Not for shooting whatever and being corrupt posing as squeaky clean, very likely without religion (just read her pit-bull-mode attacks on Obama about things that are simply not true) and posing as a Christian (not by my standards and I was one well into my teens). Well before my teens I had a certain spirit of curiosity and a sense of wonder about the world outside my hamlet that she doesn't have. Am I the only one thinking that being Governor of the largest state in the Union is not very significant when said sate does not contain 99.98% of "my" people?)
BTW: couldn't care less about this week's expenses on clothing thing. It's pure sexism. If Hillary had been the democrat candidate (far worse then DK, slightly better than BHO) she would undergo the same scrutiny. It happens in societies that are male-dominated I am told.
My point?
I have none but if you are an eligible US of A voter please go Democrat this November. I am sure you will eventually graduate to a multi-party system. As it is... swallow your high-minded ideals and keep the Sameness out of office. Only now I come to think of it W's (lousy movie, nice insight into things we already knew about, no bite) V-P had a more complex way of looking at LGBT issues (for family reasons) than Palin - but then, who wouldn't in a sane world?
Bye.
P.S. I think Sarah would be great as a celebrity contestant in Survivor. She does have some spunk and all the testosterone of a white fascists male of 40 and all the wisdom to go along with it (don't try to "Mastermind" or "Weakest-link" her. It would be just too cruel.
P.P.S.
como: indifferent kmerdatouescutando: And the band played waltzing Matilda / June Tabor |
Step one
the very first
yet again
as ever
No sense of self
no dreams some dreaming
no sleeping
some slips
I stay put, stay quiet, stay
I invite thee to the final feast
sup, dine & wine with no one I know
I remember them all
and you more clearly
They have long ostracized me
and you more perfectly
have done so
not aware
not knowing, not caring
not consciously
or
would you be so daring?
not much of a challenge
I am the embodiment of all
friends expendable
I am
I am, I am, I am.
Not for long, though
gladden thyself so
as this may be a threatened exit
or a quiet fail-safe device
either way you will be alright
either way I will write
from time to time
expecting no reply
delighting in any
charity never having been my thing
at either end, giving or receiving
or perhaps it has and I know not
what my limits are
or what your patience is
who is to say and who is left to care?
me? I would never dare |
I have no sense
no sense of memory before the day we met
and we have still to meet
I long to show you my open wide fields of oaks and nothingness
I keep hoping they will look beautiful to you
as they never were to me
sameness of location,
sameness of half-living...
Yet I keep hoping to share
all things we may not have the chance to so
at the very first or latest concrete sight
Lover of my dreams come true?
In many ways that would be an affirmative, longing yes!
Life gets in the way of living, though
so it is more a vague hope that our bond
still hasn't broken and our mutuality stays so
I have no more songs to sing but many yet to listen
I have no more rage to act upon
yet so many longings
for nothing so risible and confrontational
for nothing much
perhaps merely a virtual touch?
flowers burn all around the portrait I never painted of you
bridges and ridges collapse so we can be leveled by man and nature
yet I have no sense of ridicule
or of time
just a perfidious reason not to rhyme:
look up!
I have raped your intimacy
did not mean to
I suppose I was just wondering
if someone would go to such lengths for me
as I unintendingly harmfully go for youcomo: nostalgic kmerdatouescutando: San Francisco Bay Blues / Janis Joplin |
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exiledsemfiltro's journal
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