TIMETABLE 1
All the historical pantomimes
that spelled out subtitles in fractured rhymes
under the movie that unrolled forwards or backwards
were resolved in a blink by the spark of the falling swords
as they clanged into the tree-trunk at the end of time
to signal the cut-off point of the nonsensical pantomime.
A large round table in a large square hall
where men in uniforms stood before their fall
and unrolled a map of the world laid flat
and passed a pencil from one hand – fat
and pudgy with excess of pork in their diet –
to another to draw outlines in a universal riot
of borders and frontiers and nationalities crazed,
then shook hands and sniffed importantly,
leaving the peasantry dazed
for decades in hemmed-in contraptions of death
that counted off heartbeats and charged rent for each breath.
Kaisers and kings and presidents and führers,
shoulder to shoulder under portraits of ancestors
in a chandeliered hall in Vienna, Austria,
an old world country with shelves full of china
and invisible cobwebs behind beer-mugs and plates,
and visible dust on the map of new states
as they left the table to the drawing-room cigar
as flames caught its edges and began the scar
that ran its wound through the human heart
separating mankind into one cubby-holed part
next to another, like several square pigeon-coops set on the globe
as it turns slowly eastward in its cloud-lined robe.
The life of this world
is just a series of skeletons dancing in the dark.
The life of this world
is a series of skeleton keys opening different doors.
_______________________________________
THE FEW WITH ELEGANT MANNERS
The few with elegant manners came as if alighting from horses,
they stepped down and gathered folds of radiance around them
as their feet hit the ground which showed no footprint below them
for it was not solid ground beneath them
— the footprints in dirt were for those
who saw it as gross and solid beneath them —
they went on, straight-backed, to their places
and stood patiently waiting, but their waiting was bird-flight,
wings in the wind, all the flurry of wing-tips that ever
flew in the world down below
fanned now in the air of their waiting.
Their faces were moons assembled on cloudless horizons,
their eyelids were shields drawn down over inward gazes,
their hands rested at their sides, relaxed and pulsing,
no terror shook them, as promised,
no last-minute griefs or regrets,
no sudden anxieties to go back to do something differently.
They cast no shadows as the sun bore down upon them,
shaded by the Throne that stood
immaterially before them.
These were the Chosen Ones









Still Eyeless in Gaza?
February 10, 2009 · 3 Comments
I think many of us are still in a state of shock over the Israeli powered holocaust in Gaza against the Palestinian innocents. The utter horror of such death and destruction, people living with such horrific wounds, in rubble and ruins, in extermination camp environment, barely subsisting, dying. It’s cold in Philadelphia but our old steam heater works, our table is always spread… I can’t just imagine their suffering. Our hope in President Obama is still strong, and his presidency hopeful, but his silence on the Gaza tragedy is deafening, in spite of his extending a hand to the Muslim world, a good sign, but muffled by an increasingly irrational fidelity to the protection of Israel. Why are we so afraid of condemning the outrageous actions of Israel, when we don’t hesitate to do so with regards to Russia or other sovereign countries? Why has Israel made no attempts to harmonize with its (yes) belligerent neighbors all these years? How does Israel always get away with such egregious behavior, and effectively no one says “boo!” Or holds them accountable in any real way? When will beating the drum of their own Holocaust finally be drowned out by the one they are inflicting on the Arabs? And I’m never satisfied with the usual answers. Humans simply can’t be this inhuman… though history consistently disproves it.
___________

Meanwhile, I also mourn the passing of a great Mexican poet, Marco Antonio Montes de Oca (1932-2009) whom I first met in Mexico City in 1962 when I was learning Spanish, and whose dedication to a particularly inspired and imaginal poetry has been an inspiration to me throughout my life. I’d lost touch with him these past years, but recently made a greater effort and found he was very ill and often hospitalized. He died on February 7th. May God grant him ease and forgiveness and nearness. Here is my translation of one of his better-known poems:
INSPIRATION’S FOUNDATION
O singer inspiration, you pierce the dome of trills
with highest noise and most avid song!
Your power is the sunrise that thins out above the hill,
the firmament that dumps its purple baskets over a ravenous precipice,
the foliage of bells you hang in the enchanted wood.
For you, who illuminates my faith,
I clear brush from the path and remove its verdant traps.
For you, who flows on a giant groundswell
as frail as a turtledove’s bones,
as vulnerable as geranium thatch
and as fragile as the warrior who defies an avalanche
with the single bright wafer of his shield,
I now braid my enamored offering.
For you who possesses the required password to reign in the Southern Cross,
the first to hurl yourself between creaking rafters
and escape from the night of the world by a frayed cable,
for you, unique word, solar incarnation of all miracles,
I stretch the stalactites of poetry to the ground
and kindle the heart of mankind with strange light flashes.
→ 3 CommentsCategories: COMMENTARY · POEMS