Saturday, June 30, 2007

Prayer


Ymoja of the Great River
Yemaya of the Great Sea
My beautiful lady of the waters
Hear my wish addressed to thee
Yemaya make me (my life) fruitful
Yemaya bring my desires to me
Lady of the Magnificent Oceans
Hear my wish addressed to thee

Labels: , ,

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Buena Vista

Chan Chan

De Alto Cedro voy para Marcané
Luego a Cueto voy para Mayari.

El cariño que te tengo
Yo no lo puedo negar
Se me sale la babita
Yo no lo puedo evitar.

Cuando Juanica y Chan Chan
En el mar cernian arena
Como sacudia el ‘jibe’
A Chan Chan le daba pena.

Limpia el camino de paja
Que yo me quiero sentar
En aquel tronco que veo
Y asi no puedo llegar.

De Alto Cedro voy para Marcané
Luego a Cueto voy para Mayari.

Francisco Repilado

Buena Vista Social Club: Mil gracias

Labels: , ,

The Teachings of Don B.

From Donald Barthelme's essay "Not-Knowing":

"Writing is a process of dealing with not-knowing, a forcing of what and how...The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by not-knowing, without the possibility of having the mind move in unanticipated directions, there would be no invention...The not-knowing is not simple, because it's hedged about with prohibitions, roads that may not be taken. The more serious the artist, the more problems he takes into account and the more considerations limit his possible initiatives."

Labels: , ,

[truant me gusta]

sizzle me timbers
in a make haste sort of whey

airy syllables, vaca negra
tempestuous beryl octopus

after the gold rush
congeal your passle of hassle

into a mountain of mornings
vent your consent

in a fresca of time
a patron of carbonate awaits, you

classy guy, you Tennis Handsome,
visionary soda pop

down by the riverside,
strange mangy chow chow

kowtows to no one.

[patina:6.25.2007:for alan]

Labels: , ,

Monday, June 25, 2007

Story to Follow

Now, everybody just settle down. It's a story germ, see? And a birthday present to boot. See below.

Labels: , ,

Crème de la Crème

“Whipped cream and other delights?”

“Well, naturally. Herb in his gaucho pants and mariachi jacket. Who’d a thunk?”

“Who, indeed.”

“Sergio Mendes? Equinox?”

“Oh, so now we’re actually talking music? I thought the topic was adolescent sex.”

“You mean fantasies.”

“There’s a difference?”

“After Lani Hall got tired of Serge, turns out she took up with Herb.”

“You don’t suppose—”

“No, I don’t. The woman sang in Portuguese, for God’s sake.”

“And that disqualifies her from whipped—”

“That and a whole lot of other things, Buster.”

“Getting awfully canonical there. Buster? Thought it was my birthday.”

“7:05 yet?”

“Close enough, don’t you think?”

“We’ll wait the five minutes, thank you.”

“Oh, we will, shall we?”

They waited.

7:05 came, cathedral bells in the distance.

“You pay the Archbishop for that dispensation?”

“He knew Dolores Erickson. Baptized her first baby.”

“Dolores?”

“The woman on the cover.”

“Back to that are we? We’re how old now?”

“I don’t think I take your meaning. Besides, you’re the year older now, Buddy. I’ll languish in my youth a few more months, if you don’t mind.”

“By all means languish, mon frere.”

The bells rambled on.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

“Something tells me we’re not finished with the album cover. Yes, the song sounds vaguely familiar.”

“I admit, the bells throw you off. ‘A Taste of Honey.’”

“Well, I’ll be. I don’t suppose the Archbishop did Herb’s bar mitzvah.”

“As a matter of fact—”

“No, please, spare me.”

Whipped cream boy “sang” along with the bells.

“You do a pretty mean trumpet there, muchacho. Pick that up from Al Jarreau, did we?”

“Sarah Vaughan.”

“The Divine One? My, my. You are the clever one.”

“You want, I can do ‘The Lonely Bull,’ too.”

“No, no, this is fine.”

The bells were tolling something for the lactose intolerant. Bach? Brahms? Mantovani?

“My mother hated Mantovani.”

“Mine, too.”

“Really. I’d always heard he was very big in Dubuque.”

“Never trust a city named after a technique for cutting carrots.”

“I’m sorry, who’s being obtuse now?”

“Julien. Dubuque’s first name was Julien.”

“That almost borders on funny.”

“Well, it is my birthday, after all.”

“Touché.”

Whipped cream stood to go. To birthday boy, he said, “Guess it’s time for you to get to work, eh?”

“Getting there. Might take in one more round of the bells.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t get Nyro. The Bish wanted twice as much for ‘Wedding Bell Blues.’”

“I can imagine. You know—”

“Yes?”

“Well, I was just thinking—”

“Dangerous thing, at your age.”

“At my age, is it?”

“Well, for a few more months.”

“Want to be the junior senator, do you?”

“If that makes me Hillary, so be it.”

The bells tolled off into minor oblivion.

“No, I was just thinking, Ms. Erickson, she’d be, what—”

“I don’t like to think about it.”

“Oh, you don’t, do you?”

“Besides, she married an attorney.”

“That is dire. My condolences.”

“To her, or to me?”

“Why, to all of us, yes?”

“1937.”

“1937 wha—…Oh. My. Doesn’t seem possible, does it?”

“Nor for any of us, you come right down to it.”

“I suppose you’re right. Well, it can’t be helped now, can it?”

“No, I guess it can’t.”

“So, chica was 28—”

“And three months pregnant—”

“And three…really? Well, good for her.”

“Son’s name is Brett.”

“Well, of course it is. So, chica was 28 year old mother of three month old little Brett, and we were twelve year olds awash in whatever twelve year old Texans and Iowans are awash in, be it whipped cream on a cardboard album cover or whipped cream in our wistful little twelve year old hearts—”

“Wistful. I like that. Makes me feel better.”

“I thought it might. You know, wistful’s got no statute of limitations.”

“I like that, too.”

“Well, good. Consider it an early birthday present.”

[for Alan's birthday, 6.25.07]

Labels: , ,

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Looking

This from Integrity USA's "Where Do We Stand" document:

While resolutions from General Convention are important aspects of our polity - the process through which we govern the church - they are generally perceived to be recommendatory and therefore lacking the force of a canon or law. The only canon to deal with the issue of homosexual orientation in any specific way was adopted in 1994:

"All Bishops of Dioceses and other Clergy shall make provisions to identify fit persons for Holy Orders and encourage them to present themselves for Postulancy. No one shall be denied access to the selection process for ordination in this Church because of race, color, ethnic origin, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, disabilities, or age, except as otherwise specified by these Canons." -- Title III, Canon 4, Section 1 of the Constitution and Canons for the Government of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, p. 60

Thirteen years ago. So, what's the "season of listening" all about?

Labels: , ,

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Unmoving, austere, implacable.

Again, from McCarthy's The Crossing:

He nodded. He knew her well enough, this old woman of Mexico, her sons long dead in that blood and violence which her prayers and her prostrations seemed powerless to appease. Her frail form was a constant in that land, her silent anguishings. Beyond the church walls the night harbored a millennial dread panoplied in feathers and the scales of royal fish and if it yet fed upon the children still who could say what worse wastes of war and torment and despair the old women's constancy might not have stayed, what direr histories yet against which could be counted at last nothing more than her small figure bent and mumbling, her crone's hands clutching her beads of fruitseed. Unmoving, austere, implacable. Before just such a God.

Labels: , ,

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Rounding

From Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing:

In the end what the priest came to believe was that the truth may often be carried about by those who themselves remain all unaware of it. They bear that which has weight and substance and yet for them has no name whereby it may be evoked or called forth. They go about ignorant of the true nature of their condition, such are the wiles of truth and such its stratagems. Then one day in that casual gesture, that subtle movement of divestiture, they wreak all unknown upon some ancillary soul a havoc such that the soul is forever changed, forever wrenched about in the road it was intended upon and set instead upon a road heretofore unknown to it. This new man will hardly know the hour of his turning nor the source of it. He will himself have done nothing that such great good befall him. Yet he will have the very thing, you see. Unsought for and undeserved. He will have in his possession that elusive freedom which men seek with such unending desperation.

Labels: , ,

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

[days uncounted]

when only was only,
you ask,
was never ever?

babes lined to pool
at the corner:
xelena’s pool
yemaya’s pool
the holy waters of
north saint mary,

mary standing
behind the shattered
marquee, a

shattered bliss,
a portion of eternity,
& the babes are jumpin’, &

your hand back
to your son
is a portion,

a blessing to

the babes you’ll never see:
the only never you’ll ever.

Labels: , ,

Saturday, June 09, 2007

"The Hours We Are Separate"

11.11

by Rufus Wainwright

Album: Want One (2003)

Woke up this morning at 11:11
Wasn't in Portland and I wasn't in heaven
Could have been either by the way I was feeling
But I was alive, I was alive
Woke up this morning at 11:11
John was half-naked and Lulu was crying
Over a baby that will never go crazy
But I was alive
And kicking through this cruel world
Holding a notion of you at 11:11
Tell me what else can I do
What else can I do?
Woke up this morning and something was burning
Realized that everything really does
Happen in Manhattan
Thoughts were of characters and afternoons lying
And you, you were alive
Oh the hours we are separate
11:11 is just precious time we've wasted
So patch up your bleeding hearts
And put away your posies
I'm gonna have a drink
Before we ring around the rosies with you

Labels: , ,