"this edition of the Morning News"

"we love you and show the real world. 
your own life is illusion.
you are powerless.
we can show to what to aspire.
give us your anger and we
will tell you where to express.
you are powerless..........

next is Buffy with sports and weather  ........ " 

............ and that's The Sedition of the morning news.





"the sedition" ?

:)

I like your poem and thanks for the welcome.

 

I wrote the following in a boring meeting at work today.
It's great to write poetry in meetings.
Everybody thinks you are interested in what they are saying because you are frequently writing.
The trick is to look up once in a while and appear interested.



a Perfect day

As lost as
a gull in the fog,
fog in a cloud and
a cloud on a perfect day.
As despised as
sleet in a breeze,
a breeze in the wind and
wind on a perfect day.
As lonely as
a shadowed moon,
the moon at noon and
midnight on a perfect day.

            Indeed

in a boring meeting, I wrote
work today, at the following
 — write poetry, in meetings

    "it's great to look up"
the trick, Everybody thinks 
   is to appear interested                 

you are interested, because
they are saying, once in a while   
you are frequently writing —

        And in what?

                                        .  .  . 

a Perfect day

As lost as
a gull in the fog,
fog in a cloud and
a cloud on a perfect day.
As despised as
sleet in a breeze,
a breeze in the wind and
wind on a perfect day.
As lonely as
a shadowed moon,
the moon at noon and
midnight on a perfect day.


                                      .  .  . 



This has been a perfect day. The new surveillance CCTV has (as you did imply it would) proved to be a success — DR's wet-dream! He rang to say he would be back from Miami, Monday next.

His #1 concern is the question of copyright. He needs a feasibility ASAP, on the correlation of low-level b/s vs. strategic collective poems. It may be worth your time to find an exit strategy, plus a few kind words in prep. for collateral damage.

Also, I need you to sign, or at least initial, your future input — it has become an issue, on not so perfect days. Have a good weekend.


Entertainment Committee
Colonia Dignidad
Chile





Hi Scott

As you can see, today is a good day. I love your work and company, most of all I understand. Words. Words are black nails — bury me standing. Bon dia, amigo!

— DR     

why I say not in such style.

very nice.

now what can we do with this ?

talking sport at length with the boys in the cafe only to avoid talking the important topics that we should but know nothing about.
a pretty girl sits close only to expose the married man's hypocrisy.

talking sport at length with the boys in the cafe only to avoid talking the important topics that we should but know nothing about.
a pretty girl sits close enough to expose Married Man's Hypocrisy.

Scott — sport took a hike when I first hit a lung shot with a Park Drive — a staple British smoke. That was back in the day, when a boy choked on his own disability and a farmer could call a frost a frost without a stutter.

Those five final words of yours — boy-o-boy. You can do this, Scott. Try, anyway. Think "Carmen" or at least the thrust of its performance — self-set somesuch of a place. What do you say from the pit of your soul about its fantasy dance — this rattle snake and the torment of a bull.

Meanwhile, I must bang the board with a wild lady from Brazil and some boys from Kansas City — catch you later, then  .  .  .

— DR

Carman, Carman, who knows of such ?
sound thinks too much that is of another, I think.
the wake, in every second, offers pure sponge gold.
will the offer cease when it is held, will the offer stand ? 
all moments have scarcely become anew.
until I can know the dust beneath my feet,
I have no use of Carman.
   
*************************************************

Carman, Carman, who knows of such ?
the wake, in every second, offers pure sponge gold.
will the offer cease when it is told,
will the offer stand ? 
all moments have scarcely become anew.
until I can know the dust beneath my feet,
I have no use of Carman.
   

talking sport for two moments too much
hides the fear of nakedness.
men are always afraid of nakedness. 
a pretty girl sits close, exposing the
Married Man's thin veneer.

Carman, Carman, who knows of such?
sound thinks too much that is of another, I think.
the wake, in every second, offers pure sponge gold.
will the offer cease when it is held, will the offer stand ? 
all moments have scarcely become anew.
until I can know the dust beneath my feet,
I have no use of Carman.

 


Bravo, son
 — you're too modest, Scott
Smashing. Thank you
Good to have you here


Dax

floating upon this cloud,
feeling no pain, surrounding
tumultuous humanity.
that part needs its lovers,
needs its poets.
needs the rain.


a pretty girl, to
the married man's bluff,
sits close.
life, too abundant
for one strike.



good fences make good neighbours
good neighbours return the football.

Great.

g

somehow close, a pasture away,
the exotic, the madness swirled in Spanish,
knows her tango. 
the lie of fences and vegetation
comes to mind.

dearest sir-vent

if the leg horse was not so encumbered with the whitewash of undone and undoable laundry, this fear would be consumed with intended banefulness.
in light of the heavy, upon my already depleted pen, I request meeting taken at your enticement.
the issue of who or whom, depending upon your level of enlightenment and education, shall carry the added mass.
- etched upon the whiteboard.

no rhyme intended
   

the rain

mist invades every private inch,
enough so as to convince garment
to revoke its desire to cling -
and part - as memory does of
long ago.
slowly : tenderly.
in this way, the artist inhabits cloud,
using sparks of brilliance to startle inhabitants below -
jarring memories of greatness.
Earth needs its lovers,
its poets -
needs the rain.

thank you for the rain.

the Solution

daily, early doves awake him, 
to examine the beauty of his still sleeping wife.
only his dreams contain such vision.
this is the moment, daily,
he remembers to make waking hours
- ones of peace.

the moth

the moth on the desk
lead the annual parade for Spring's arrival.
barely remembering, it awkwardly stumbled
through air. the summer breeze
was in its wind - in the effort
of its wings -
the sound of barbecue,
the smell of the pool.

why did I kill it ?

sol
y
sangre


asi es


g

I owe a debt of gratitude to Scott
 — for his gusto and glee. He makes
my life a brighter place.

I seldom show it, but for what it's worth
— a sincere thanks to you my friend.

It's fascinating how the same silence
shatters in quite different ways — you
have a fan, Scott.

Dax

poetry - the language beyond word.
-thank you.
the puffy cloud surrounding  humanity.

poetry - as good as words can get
-thank you.
beyond the debate of storm clouds.


encouragement - soft
as mist from a thousand mile waterfall.

12:45

the power cut around 12:45,
don't know why.
the clock awaits me -
tomorrow, tomorrow.
this day is for fantasy.
sensing the delay, the neon signals
his demand - then warning - flashing -flashing -
reminding - anger - confusion - worry -
embarrassment - flashing
-pleading - pleading - pleading.
Got him !
it's that moment when factory worker finds
pink obsolescence in the mail slot -
all that remains of his flashing is yesterday, 
tomorrow will again be for clocks -
but today....

***************************************************

12:45
the power cut at 12:45,
don't know why.
the clock awaits -
tomorrow, tomorrow.
this day is fantasy.
sensing delay, the neon signals
demand - then warning - flashing - flashing -
reminding - anger - confusion - worry
- embarrassment - flashing
- pleading - pleading - pleading.
Got him !
it's that moment when factory worker finds
pink obsolescence in the mail slot -
all that remains of his world is yesterday,
tomorrow will again be for clocks -
...but today....

    caesura of pure awe


I'm what they call a memory keeper
I never got to bathe in yoghurt soap
or drink soy through a straw, but I did
they say, steal a chicken from a house
before — a long, long time before.


— DR 

poem - as good as words can get.
words - order yours today.
terms available.

step write up.

Pinche ladron, Don Ricardo! Sinverguenza!


Don G

fully aware of the attractive quality of magnets,
the writer,
anyway,
proceeded.
words draw - ironically.
inked intent forms .

 

          Senor Scott y Don Guillermo


A garnish of damnation in the gazette of friends
poets, pols, with the exception of one or two hacks
makes is worth a thousand smiles — not to mention
credible copy, for a garrulous toad like me, I take
no laurel, or lust after whores, just give me the nod
and by levy — I'm yours.

          — Don Ricardo Reyes-Dax

the idea of "poet" seemed absurd
to this writer of short yet precise notes
and rebuttal of half truths. the one voted
most likely to misspell "aluminum".
speaking at times, mid sentence stalled - speakers block -
the audacity of polish on prose
- (his demons prodded.)
to one whom never kept a diary - never
felt to express in first person singular.
the prisoner imagined the chains to be silk
long enough to find letters forming words.
   

she pours her heart with frightening
brilliance, staggering invention - free.
the tap is on - flooding.
But who has need of dry feet ?
well, here's my story. I've seen the thin ice.
I've taken the dangerous route seeking passion,
using patience.  poetry has warmed
my beloved's eyes -  my words draw silence.
not of invading emotion, the silence of
dawning confusion - my beloved's eyes - a sunrise
away and a culture deep.
how exotic.
where is the tap ?
who was the damned plummer that tightened  ?

the manner in which to play a drum
since before man could speak 
- or even cook his kills
has been discussed, ad nauseam.
as in any hunt, you don't approach timidly
- there is enough instinct left in the drum to sense this.
you need to know "why" you are punching the skin
and there is no time for epiphany in mid-fight.
the drum is primal - wood, skin and steel.
elements devised in primordial Mind.
they gave with dignity and chase, 
pounding and fire.
the drum responds only to these virtues.


**********************************

the manner in which to play a drum
since before man could speak 
- or even cook his kills
has been discussed, ad nauseam.
as in any hunt, a timid approach is not advised
- there is enough instinct left in the drum to sense this.
you need to know "why" you are punching the skin
and there is no time for epiphany in mid-fight.
the drum is primal - wood, steel and skin.
elements devised in primordial Mind.
they gave with dignity and chase, 
pounding and fire.
the drum responds to these virtues - only.

Hi Scott

Good job.

Eg of what to be on the lookout for:

the manner in which to play a drum
has been discussed, ad nauseam,
since before man could speak 
- or even cook his kills.

 Look:

the manner in which to play a drum
since before man could speak
 — or even cook his kills
has been discussed, ad nauseam

                         What flows in the English river is often splashed about for affect!

 — smashing, Scott.


Dax

much friendlier.

- experimentation must be the idea.

I think I shall steal that toot-da-sweet.

Yeah. Any time Scott. I mean if you want some input about your stuff just say the word — then take with a pinch in good faith. The eyes of the world are upon you — foes and copycat stealers, friends and readers, strangers, moms. Be yourself, true to form — quotes beware! The future. The past. Scott be on record — me, I drive a truck.

 — Tomas 

Any input you are willing to give - is a gift.
- or anyone else.

SkaaDee(at)gmail.com

sacred ground

entering slumber
is as treading sacred ground.
the air thickens and time slows.
the same air a Buddhist monk
might breath upon approaching a Master.
by day I see the well meaning father
in him. but by night - he is perfect.
at night, the bedside becomes
sacred ground.

I feel the need to grab a shovel
or climb a mountain, or hear the song
on a wind with whiffs of tea — then
cut to size.

  Women of Darjelling   

Canadians have siphoned their passions
into more controllable things
like hockey and Springs.


[expressionism seems impolite and gauche.
we are impressionists, as in,
"here's my impression of an unarmed American with healthcare.".  ]
 

of Carman, snakes and bulls

a clean, crisp guitar cutting chatter.
only-child's play day screams of delight.
the thrill of the fight - denied.
the unexpected rhyme.
Tom Waits moving among the words.
these are things that stir.

Down in the forest
something stirred.
Was it a dame
or was it a bird?

State the alternative
preferred,
with reasons
for your choice.

I've read the name. 
I think it's a play.
Is it about
Carmen McRae ?
I sense its passion
I think it's of love
but my heart was
listed above.


A room filled with chatter
is dissonant vibration.
a crisp guitar will
focus imaginations.

I wish the world
a youth like mine.
an only-child
deserves play time.

Ego and pride
reign our days.
The truly wise
walk the other way.

You know better than I
when the gods move the hand
an unexpected rhyme
is from another land.

Tom Waits is clever,
he twists a mean phrase.
he lives the life
others only portray.

I don't prefer -
I wouldn't know how
my flower grows
with dung from a cow.


My friends, plead your case
what need have I for her ?
when my life is richer than
nineteenth century fir.


(now we've done it,
I'm unprepared to stop
to spend the rest of day
spewing rhyming slop.)

do you love your poems as I love mine ?
regardless of which stage of evolution they are in. 
regardless of how silly or confused.
 - love them unconditionally -
as parents love their children ?

How about I show you something I'm working on and we tear it apart.

  — fill your chops, Scott
Though, I may sound hip
or just plain dumb, may we
rest in peace.

               Please take note: A#

  — I talk via my mouth
from the heart. Wellness.
If I go AWOL for several days
panic not, leave that to me.


Dax

what can be done about this ?


surrender to mammon


What is it about chomping teeth that disturbs ?
at his partially bald head - I glance.
with eyes only, it need be heard. intense.
a ritual sacrifice of sustenance.
but is it ?
it could be something in need of address,
in myself - into reality, manifest.
these people often are.
do I despise the consumption of food ?
- but - the manner, unabashed and absolute,
in which he flosses teeth
between reading the journal and
feigning production, compels disdain.
his phone calls with feet up for all the world to see.
the cubical has become his home not a prison.
it must be this - he is the embodiment of my failure.
he is my surrender to mammon.

or could start from scratch.

I had this idea while out for a walk with my son tonight.



I tried to tell my son that the river is talking
he already believes it is not
I had so much to learn from him.
where does the time go ?

context.

poetry site alone
the ground of nine thousand
feet past - great !
three weeks gone, nobody home
mine the only play in town
as others look on.
eerie and inspiring.
running amok to regain activity.
something very strange -
happened
but for now it is a ghost town.



Upon a Ghost Forum


My poetry is in how I take
this forum, twisting and turning like
worms before dawn. if you look on you'll see me
spreading wings. ghosts, welcome to my town.

I'll need to be jailor, jury and judge.
the tired even now look with fear.
On a personal dare I've become Fred
Astaire on a highwire dancing around -
with the edgiest act in town.

I'm sure I'll be tagged a malcontent
running amok. the apparitions
in the mist will watch me rhyme f---
freedom seldom goes unabated for
long. the informed know
I'm taking this forum.

I'll wear a demon but dress a saint
and pose as the Pusher of Man.
I'll be planting wild flowers and
watering brown green ,
riding twisted bikes left here for Spring.
I may be a saviour
- but for now -
I'm taking this forum.

[/size]

They stand in dirt and beg, go hungry, you see them for miles in rain — it's a ritual, for millions. At a glance, a light flickers. These people. Those people. But I am different. I must be insane. And they are not sunflowers .  .  .   

you're a paella food fight.

forever before me, the mirage.
the work of others - the show - to paste upon
the very ones that are to be robbed.   
lined in the rain so thieves can claim.
soldiers - soldiers - soldiers.
the sedition of the morning news.
 


 

ever since Cain raised his hand
spirit weaves exotic sand
tipping quills of ancient plans -
blood inked with that of his brother.





.

— DR     

tick                                                       tock
        tick                                     tock
                 tick                  tock
                        tick tock
tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick
 
tock



g

We
   we
      we
         wewe?weehehehe he he hehehehthee thee theesheshe she she
                                                   she  she she shesheshe?shebebe be be be
                                                                                                  be be bebebe free
                                                                                           

me ?
me
       

                                                                                   
                                       
                                 
                                             

 





dr

.


you you you youyouyouysyousyousyous us us us.





.

Hi Scott

This is fun. Being on the same level as the pavement hurts. This is for boys in care like me.





— Ricardo Reyes-Dax

fun is good


if you wanna dance,
you gotta wear pants.
don't take a chance
if you're gonna dance.




.

expecting skies

I'm with the rain - the storm -
the violence freely born from
blood and nature.

darkness takes the day with
mother nature's violent rage
like robbers take a bank with bangs and warnings.

I hold expecting skies when
birth water darkly breaks
with breaths and countings.

I watch the infant rain in the
midst of birthing pain and
await the cries of clapping.

a birth is like a storm
with the husband waiting on
the goddess slaving.

the slap of sparking cloud
brings song and breath aloud
with scream pained thunder .

from the uproar taking place
the sun reveals his face to
the spellbound father.

 Hi Scott


 I've often been along the Offa —  on business  :-X  of course. Thx for the Offer, slpendid. I'll be seeing you amigo —

DR

your energy is my food

whispers

Can the heart be found at the
cinema with breezes and buttered
air ? hope takes the nightly seats
with longings and a prayer.  
vision guides the writer's
scheme so magic spells
the actor's dream.
Are promises kept at the cinema
whispered on that screen ?
I think our pen moves the words
the screenwriters dream.

excellent poem.

in the wind


Green and gold hold sway
beneath the red, white and blue in this
black and white world.

in the sky and on workers' backs
there will be stars and stripes forever.

what's up the pole is on the ground.
what's on the ground is busy minds.
what's on those minds is green and gold.

Hi Scott

 y tu, caio







— DR

Women hold all the cards,
but one and
play all the other jokers
just to fill their straight,
inside of course.

Everyone is waiting to see what
you are going to do and want to be
a part of the play.
This is man.

All the world is a stage -
coach
with a bar car.

NB: We now enter a deep dark cave. I hear the distant voice of G




 mf (from me)

With blurry eyes
within Plato's cave
I raise
my sight to Sol
and wave
while looking beyond
the valley of the shadow of death.

beautiful.

the New Rage


I must assuage
my rage
in this nihilistic age
where rage is all the rage
... with reason.

Some thoughts have come of age
on this wicked world stage
which may soon engage
... us.

If a soldier shuns his wage
and refuses to engage
I see him as a sage
... and a hero.

I believe it is most sage
to expose then turn the page
with no need to cage our
... sons and daughters.

Peace is the New Rage.
Get used to it.
Engage.

!Y tu, Scott. Bien! My pleasure.

it's a great way to be.
you go to do something but never arrive at destination
or even remember what it is you were looking for.
I was fetching a microphone cord when I couldn't resist the drum set on the way.
ah yes -
this seat holds me with the pride of a father
bringing home the kill to his excited tom tom sons.
as I peer at the drums they seem to remind me of the life we've shared.
of the exciting ways to use the molecules we've been given from birth
- what can be done with them -  and
we needed each other because
a drum can't play itself.

as I began reintroducing myself to each of the drums and cymbals,
even the cowbell, they started shaking me the Latin way.
the hot, low cut, swirling, short skirt streets of
San Paolo  in the afternoon - that's where I was.
at least in my mind -
at least ?
I'm not sure if I would enjoy those streets anymore than I was already
except for the unpredictable new
that can change the permanent brew
of memory.

after I had eaten my fill of that dripping Samba stew
I wanted to strut my heightened 'yea yea' on
the streets of New York at night.
although there's always light.
The sophisticated sway of the swing beat
with the in your face - why can't I - snare counterpoint
presented itself.
it's Birdland all over again.
I'm playing for all the boys who offered this up.     
You'll never die - I remember.
it's a great way to be.

now where was that cord ?


********************************   

it's a great way to be.

the way across the room seems a mile. 
You don't arrive at the destination or even remember
what it is you were looking for.
I was fetching a microphone cord when
I couldn't resist the drum set on the way.
ah yes -
this seat holds me with the pride of a father
bringing home a playmate for
his excited tom tom sons. 
as I peer at the drums they seem to remind me of the life we've shared -
what their sound meant to me at specific points in my life.
- exciting ways to use the molecules
 we've been given - what can be done with them  -
 and we needed each other because
a drum can't play itself.

as I began reacquainting to each drum and cymbal,
even the cowbell, they started moving me
the Latin way.
the hot, low cut, swirling, short skirt streets of
San Paolo  in the afternoon - that's where I was.
at least in my mind -
at least ?
I'm not sure if I would enjoy those streets anymore than I already was
except for the unpredictable new
that can change the permanent brew
of memory.

after I had eaten my fill of that dripping Samba stew
I wanted to strut my heightened  'yea yea' on
the streets of New York at night.
although there's always light.
The sophisticated sway of the swing beat
with the in your face  - why can't I snare
overcame me.
it's Birdland. 
I'm playing for all the boys who offered this up.     
You'll never die - I remember.
it's a great way to be.

now where was that cord ?
 


 

This one has a great resonance with me. Wish I had the guts to print it out and use it.

Best,
Joe

  fill your boots, Joe — honest! My treat.

 — DR

you're a mystery tingled with lime
spraying jazz across the page
as a battle in some quasar
known only to a mind
aware.

oh, I'm not much of a poet
but I've got ideas.
crazy, nutty ideas.
crazy, nutty, magical ideas.
heavy, flashy, profound, taxing ideas.
silly, twisted, crazy, wild and nutty ideas.
I'm not much of a poet
but I've got ideas ...

... and a pen.

dr

*

Chaos

Into a room I'm pushed -
filled with talk pollution and
music pain, enough to scatter a sieving brain.
Pervasive faces and peacock dresses
shuttled me among grinning suits of leisure
as a bead would tumble through a kaleidoscope
seeking form. 
I pour them the attention they seem to crave
to satisfy their lascivious thirsts.
I have no choice.
This cocktail carousel  is hypnotic
and I'm drinking Alzheimer and stares.
The ritual seems to time loop
and someone walled the door and
the pervasive faces want to know
me more and more.

cherish the lumber which gave its life
to be held by a higher love.
still in shock, the army
boots and chainsaw buzz
gave way to your warm hand. 
 
 

To SLM


Your honey yin sweetens my coffee
like a prom promise on a school night.
I've noticed that the grass is only as green
as the fence is high.
So, it is with new eyes,
daily,
that I will see -
and see only
you.

dr

drodrigo

drodrigo

from the amazing sparkle that has been conjured
by you,
this is the rarest gem within the chest.
it's doesn't sound as a trumpet,
it is a trumpet,
moving and polished. 

If you need someone to come down
and tell you there is a God -
then there isn't a God.
it doesn't really matter anyway,
I'm pretty sure He's forgotten about the Milky Way.
I mean, He's got so many.   
But He did leave a least one clue
and I'm sitting in it,
beathing in it.
look around
look down.
Tell me where you do not see God.

Look at me.
I'm a musician convinced to become a techy who
is really a philosopher trying to be a poet.

Now I ask you,
is not Earth the land of opportunity.

dr

dr

the smile of a mask hides
the mask of a smile
on a face confused.
be careful
the faces may be mirrors.

boom and pop

I get like this with the beating of a drum.
Take that ties that bind !
this fire burns
rope.
thank you Taiko.
thank you god of sizzle.

the work of the stick is not downward -
attempting to return to Earthly systems
where the worm and compost scrounge -
the focus is upwards
flowing from wand
to sky.

the boom and pop is not a show,
it is real -
as real as anything loved.       

the Taiko master knows
she is not to accept praise
- it is the sizzle.

I will not praise
I will not worship
I will not even clap.

Instead, I will throw
myself into the stream
and hope it takes me.

a child's life is all methane gas and candy.

if you're gonna skip
make sure you strip
you don't want to trip
if your gonna skip.

dr


it's a jungle out there

 

New York Times

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 11, 2008

Music Issue | Rockin' the Casbah
Rockin’ the Casbah

By STEVE DOUGHERTY


FROM his perch on a rooftop terrace near the crenelated western ramparts of the walled city, a visitor from England watched the sun set in spectacular display over the Atlantic Ocean. As it disappeared on the cloudless horizon, the sun’s rays cast a golden glow on a rising crescent moon decorated on the eve of the summer solstice by a silvery alignment of planets and stars.

“Nice touch, that,” quipped Bill Corbett, a 39-year-old London photographer, D.J. and music fanatic whose visit to Essaouira, an exotic, wind- and sun-swept Moroccan city on the northwest coast of Africa, for the 10th-annual Gnawa and World Music Festival, would prove a transforming experience. “This really is a midsummer night’s dream.”

And one with an exhilarating soundtrack — courtesy of 25 Moroccan Gnawa musical brotherhoods, whose exuberant, hypnotically rhythmic and joy-infused music drew an estimated 400,000 fans from Morocco and across North Africa, Europe and North America to Essaouira (pronounced ess-ah-WEER-ah) last June for the five-day festival. Midsummer revelers heard more than 30 other jazz fusion, rock, reggae, African, Brazilian, Afro-Cuban and hip-hop acts from more than a dozen countries — as well as Hoba Hoba Spirit, a crowd-wowing multilingual “Moroc ’n roll!” band from Casablanca — performing on nine festival stages scattered in and around Essaouira’s walled, maze-like medina.

Unlike festivals staged, à la Woodstock, in muddy, middle-of-nowhere pastures, or worse, in vast, overheated football stadiums, the Gnawa’s setting, in a small, friendly and almost impossibly picturesque, wind-cooled seaside city, is as magical and mesmerizing as the music.

“I thought about going to Glastonbury,” Mr. Corbett said of the popular rock festival outside London that was being muddied by cold, drenching rains as he spoke. A sharp-featured, good-humored fellow, my new-found friend was ensconced on the roof terrace at Taros, a watering hole popular among tourists and expatriates, as well as a surprising number of Moroccans who felt unconstrained by Islam’s admonitions against alcohol. “Why see a bunch of boring new rock bands when you can see amazing ancient ones?” he said.

He made a sweeping gesture that took in the stars, the moon, the walls of the ramparts silhouetted against the sky and the gleaming superstructure of the main festival stage below on the Place Moulay Hassan, Essaouira’s central square. “And in a setting like this?”

We were both still buzzing after catching an 11 p.m. concert by a Gnawa group led by the maalem (master musician) Abdenbi El Gadari, on a small festival stage in the Marché aux Grains (Grain Market), a square enclosed by colonnaded arches where, until little more than 100 years ago, slaves were bought and sold at auction.

A descendant, like almost all Gnawa musicians, of black African slaves who for centuries were brought across the Sahara to serve the sultans, pashas and wealthy families of Morocco, Mr. Gadari sat on a floor cushion at the center of a stage covered with lush, colorfully patterned Moroccan carpets. Arrayed around him were more than a dozen members of his musical brotherhood: drummers, steel castanet players, dancers and singers who wore ankle-length white satin robes and tasseled fezzes beaded with white seashells.

With the commanding presence of the American Delta bluesmen with whom he shares musical roots and mojo, the maalem thrummed and plucked bluesy figures on his guimbri — a three-string lute, much like a bass guitar — and sang a gospely call and response in a rich baritone.

The music built slowly to an exhilarating crescendo of intricate rhythms and cross rhythms created by propulsive beating on hand-held drums and large, tambourinelike bendirs, staccato hand claps and the incessant, syncopated clack and clatter of the steel castanets. As the spirit moved them, musicians put down their instruments and stepped to the front of the stage to dance, displaying footwork and moves that resembled those of their African-American cousins, from the Temptations’ stylized line steps and James Brown’s knee drops to hip-hop’s exaggerated lopping turns, as well as whirls, leaps, back flips and hussar-like two-legged kicks that defied choreographic categorization, not to mention gravity.

Like all Gnawa brotherhoods, Mr. Gadari’s group performed music that for centuries was played only in secret spirit-possession and healing ceremonies called lilas that have evolved from ancient African animistic and Islamic Sufi rituals. The brotherhoods continue to perform in such religious rites — though only in strictly private gatherings — in which conjured healing spirits are said “to mount” the possessed, who whirl and writhe in ecstatic trance, during which they often cut or flail themselves with ceremonial daggers or iron batons.

“To me, these spectacles are filled with great beauty,” Paul Bowles, the expatriate American composer and writer who spent much of his life in Morocco, wrote of often bloody ceremonies that most Westerners would find gruesome to behold, “because their obvious purpose is to prove the power of the spirit over the flesh.”


“YOU’RE American?” the unsmiling young Moroccan manning a closet-size shop in the Spices Souk demanded. I balked, wondering if it would be wise to say I was Canadian, as advised in a post on a travel blog by a countryman concerned, as I was, about anti-American sentiment stirred by the war in Iraq, 3,000 miles east.

Though not an Arab country, Morocco is a Muslim nation with a diverse population and a long history of tolerance and openness to the West. It is a monarchy, and its present king, the 44-year-old Mohammed VI, has liberalized many of his long-ruling father’s more repressive policies. A far less severe form of Islam is practiced there than in more conservative and puritanical Muslim countries, where an event like the Gnawa Festival — with music fans, foreigners and Moroccans alike, dancing and singing in the streets and where women wear whatever they want — would be unheard of, if not illegal.

But there were bombings in Casablanca in 2003 and 2007, and the State Department’s warning in its information about traveling to Morocco that “the potential for terrorist violence against American interests and citizens remains high” gave me pause.

But my anxieties evaporated as soon as I arrived in Marrakesh, where the cab ride from the airport to my hotel in the center of the red-hued medieval city was a senses-jolting experience. Minicabs and motorbikes sped through ancient streets filled with horse-drawn carts, donkeys laden with bulging sacks and pedestrians dressed as though they’d been plucked from the streets of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.

The next day, after a two-and-a-half-hour cab drive west through forbidding desert landscapes where funnel clouds of brown dust rose in the distance and a goatherd sought refuge from the blistering sun in the nearly nonexistent shade of a lone and scrawny tree, I arrived in Essaouira. Its sprawl of white homes and apartment buildings was spread along low hills overlooking a broad, blue bay and the tall, sand-colored walls that enclosed the medina, the heart of the old city.

“You will love Essaouira,” a young Moroccan woman who is studying architecture in Florida assured me before I left. “It’s magical.”

I understood what she meant after a single afternoon and evening walking around the medina, with its dramatic, castlelike battlements where ramparts bristle with cannons pointing out to sea, its dark, serpentine alleyways, hidden courtyards, graceful archways and sunny, colonnaded squares and its souks selling spices, oils, aphrodisiacs and the makings of potions said to cast spells.

At first glance a bewildering maze of circuitous, tunnel-like side streets, the medina, commissioned by an 18th-century sultan and designed, by a French architect, Theodore Cornut, with two wide boulevards as central axes and thoroughfares linking three main gates, soon proved easily navigable.

From the humanlike cries of gulls reeling in the cloudless skies and the cooling Atlantic trade winds whistling through the streets and rustling the crowns of the ancient palms, to the staccato chatter of street musicians’ steel castanets and the muezzin’s musical, mystical call to evening prayers, the city was alive with sound even when the festival stages stood silent.


After an hour of aimless wandering, I found myself in the Spices Souk, where the young merchant demanded to know if I was an American.

“Yes,” I finally replied. “I’m from New York.”

“You came all this way to visit my country?” the man exclaimed. With that, he poured heaping tablespoons of powdered saffron into a plastic bag and handed it to me.

“This is a gift — for America,” he said with a smile. “Here. Take it. And now come in for a glass of tea.”


“I was 19 and a hippie among thousands of them who came to Morocco in those days,” Loy Ehrlich, a French guitarist who is an artistic director of the Gnawa Festival, recalled of his first pilgrimage to Essaouira in 1971.

Then an out-of-the-way, off-the-tourist-map town with no rail or regular bus service, no good roads to accommodate it if there were and only a handful of hotels, Essaouira, formerly known by its Portuguese name, Mogador, was beloved by Moroccans for its beauty, its near-perfect climate — even in the depths of the African summer when the interior swelters, ocean breezes sweep clouds from the sky and keep the so-called Windy City pleasant in the day and cool at night — and its friendly inhabitants. (“Essaouira people always smile,” said a Gnawa fan from Fez).

Artists like Bowles, who visited in 1959 while recording Gnawa music for the Library of Congress, and Orson Welles, who spent nearly two years there off and on in the late 1940s and early 50s filming “Othello,” using the city’s ramparts, hammams and arched gateways as a fitting North African backdrop for the tragedy of the Moor, were also charmed by the city’s beauty.

But it was a sojourn by Jimi Hendrix, the guitar idol who vacationed in Essaouira in 1969, a year before his death, that inspired visits by Mr. Ehrlich and countless other musicians and fans, many of whom believe that Hendrix’s song “Castles Made of Sand” was inspired by Borj El Baroud, the ghostly, turreted remains of a Portuguese fort decomposing off the beach south of the city. Like most of the legends surrounding Hendrix’s brief visit, when he supposedly spent weeks jamming with local musicians and fathering children among his many lovers, the story is a pipe dream. Hendrix, who arrived without a guitar and spent a single night or two in the Hôtel d’Îles with his girlfriend, recorded the song two years before he arrived in Morocco.

It was Hendrix’s star that Mr. Ehrlich followed to Essaouira. But it was Gnawa music that transfixed him when he arrived. Terminus of the ancient desert trade routes to Timbuktu and sub-Saharan Africa, where the Gnawas’ enslaved ancestors had their origins, Essaouira remains home to the largest concentration of the musical brotherhoods in Morocco.

“When I first heard Gnawa, it was like a discovery, like something was revealed to me,” Mr. Ehrlich said. “I felt the power of the music and its connection to the blues. The Africans who were brought to America created the blues; those sent to Morocco created Gnawa. It was like two worlds mixing — the African and rock ’n’ roll.”

Performing on the third night of the festival with a group formed for the occasion in homage to Hendrix, Mr. Ehrlich led the Band of Gnawa (after Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys), a cross-cultural mix of musicians playing electric guitars, guimbri, bendirs, electric keyboards and castanets, through renditions of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” (with a maalem in emerald satin channeling Jimmy Page on his guimbri), as well as Hendrix’s “Stone Free” and, yes, “Castles Made of Sand.”

“In a crazy world where rich and poor, black and white, Christian and Islam are divided,” Mr. Ehrlich said, “musicians try to create something to unite the world.”

In keeping with that creed, he rewrote the refrain of a familiar Beatles singalong. “Come together, right now,” the vast crowd gathered on Place Moulay Hassan sang along with Mr. Ehrlich’s Band of Gnawa, “Essa-Weer-Ah!”


“IT’S positively biblical,” Bill Corbett marveled on the last day of the music festival as he sat in the shade of a tree outside L’Horloge, a popular cafe on a side street near a graceful clock tower. “Everywhere you look you see Marys and Josephs and wise men.”

He was watching the passing scene of colorfully turbaned men in ankle-length tunics, caftans and djellabas; brightly robed women, some in burqas and niqabs, some veiled and others with their hair wrapped in elaborately rolled silk head scarves (hijabs). Mr. Corbett, who arrived from England wearing a T-shirt and cutoffs, now looked quite New Testament himself in a long, white hooded djellaba, a knitted skullcap and sandals.

Besotted by Essaouira’s beauty, he would extend his stay for a week after the festival ended, fall in love with a Muslim woman and return a month later to court her and to explore the possibilities of starting a business exporting Essaouiran argan oil to Britain.

“I came for the music,” he said, “and found the magic.”

A WORLD OF MUSIC, AND A BEACH

The 11th edition of the Gnawa Festival (www.festival-gnaoua.net) will take place June 26 to 29. Admission to performances on outdoor festival stages in and around the medina is free.

Visas are not required for Americans traveling to Morocco, but visitors are advised to check the State Department international travel information online at travel.state.gov for up-to-date security information.

While almost all Moroccans speak French, many also speak English.

Essaouira is a small city with limited hotel accommodations; unless you are willing to barter with residents for spare bedrooms or sofa space or to sleep on the beach, be sure to book early. Most accommodations are sold out well before the festival begins, but you’re bound to see dozens of men and boys shake key rings at passing cars as they come into town, a signal that they have rooms to rent.

Because Islam takes a dim view of alcohol, it is kept out of sight, served only in hotels and restaurants that cater mostly to tourists, and never in sidewalk cafes or restaurants. Brown-bagging is almost unheard of and no beer, wine or liquor is sold at festival concessions, with the happy result that the high spirits of Gnawa are generated by the music and not the bottle.

Even so, the large festival crowds coursing through the narrow streets of a city with chronic poverty and unemployment attract pickpockets and drug dealers among other petty criminals.

GETTING THERE

Royal Air Maroc (www.royalairmaroc.com) flies from Kennedy Airport to Marrakesh through Casablanca. Fares for the festival week start around $1,450 round trip.

Essaouira is a three-hour bus ride from the Marrakesh rail station on the Supratours (www.supratours.ma) express bus. At festival time the fare is 65 dirhams, about $8.65 at 7.5 dirhams to the dollar; no reservations are taken. Taxis from the Supratours bus terminal usually make the drive in less than three hours for the equivalent of about $50.

At Bab Marrakesh, the main gate to the medina, porters will load your bags into pushcarts and guide you to your hotel in the medina for 40 dirhams.

WHERE TO STAY

The chief attractions at La Casa Del Mar (35, rue D’Oujda; 212-68-94-38-39; www.casadelmar-essaouira.com) are dramatic views from the whitewashed roof terrace of sunsets and offshore rock outcroppings. While clean and affordable (doubles in high season start at 750 dirhams), this small bed-and-breakfast is in a sector of the medina behind the crumbling north ramparts, where visitors should be cautious after dark.

The Palais L’Heure Bleu (2, rue Ibn Batouta; 212-24-78-34-34; www.heure-bleue.com) offers spacious, sumptuously appointed rooms, fine courtyard dining (prix-fixe dinner is 60 euros) and a rooftop swimming pool, as well as a hamman, Morocco’s version of a Turkish steam bath. Doubles from 300 to 540 euros.

With its stone archways, lush courtyard and wrought-iron balconies, the Riad Al Madina (9, rue Attarine; 212-24-47-59-07; www.riadalmadina.com ) looks like a colonial-era haven that might have inspired Graham Greene. Doubles are 814 dirhams.

Riad le Grand Large (2, rue Oum-Rabia; 212-44-47-28-66; www.riadlegrandlarge.com) is, despite its name (the big big?), a small hotel with friendly management and quiet, simply furnished rooms. Doubles from 550 dirhams, with breakfast.

Villa Maroc (10, rue Abdellah Ben Yassin; 212-24-47-31-47; www.villa-maroc.com) features simply furnished but charming rooms with wood-beam ceilings, common rooms with fireplaces and a roof terrace overlooking one of the main Gnawa Festival stages on Place Moulay Hassan. Doubles from 950 dirhams.

WHERE TO EAT

Le Mogadorien (7, place Chefchaoni; 212-24-47-49-50; www.lemogadorien.c.la) is an inviting, well-lighted grotto of graceful archways and comfortable dining alcoves serving traditional fare, including excellent tagines, fish soups and colorful salades Morrocaine. The three-course menu is 175 dirhams. Alcohol is not served.

Taros Cafe (2, rue de la Skala at Place Moulay Hassan; 212-24-47-64-07; www.taroscafe.com) is housed in a restored mansion, complete with a dark-wood library-cum-dining room. It is better known for its music than its food ( I had soggy prawns, an O.K. Moroccan salad and crème brûlée); meals cost 250 to 300 dirhams. On the rooftop terrace, rocking American music by bands and D.J.s helps make this perhaps the most popular bar in town.

Dar Loubane (24, rue de Rif, off Place Chefchaoni; 212-24-47-62-96) offers wonderful beef curries (95 dirhams), fish tagines (115 dirhams) and Moroccan salads (42 dirhams) in an eccentric setting: the courtyard of an 18th-century mansion filled with kitschy, eye-bending artwork. Much of it was collected in the flea markets of Paris by the Casablanca-born proprietor, Jean-Claude Dulac, gregarious host to lively gatherings of the young and hip, locals and tourists alike.

Cafe L’Horloge (Place Chefchaoni; no phone) provides a shady refuge from the heat and tumult of the medina. The service is friendly, if not exactly like clockwork; a cheese omelet and sweet mint tea set me back all of 25 dirhams.

Snak La Mouette (110, rue Mohamed Ben Abdellah; no phone), one of countless storefront snack shops in the medina, was a favorite of locals and festivalgoers, many of whom lined up at 2 a.m. for delectable post-concert chicken and pepper sauce baguettes (35 dirhams).

(STEVE DOUGHERTY has written extensively on popular music, including an article on Bob Dylan’s Minnesota for the Travel section.)

didn't your journey
begin and end
with you ?









.

there is no reason to let a question like that bother you.
a perfectly valid response is, "no, my journey involves the outside world".
but I would argue that the outside world acted only as a catalyst to change something inside.

for myself, my journey to greater fulfillment involves
- filtering my shadow
- taming my ego
- enlightening my darkness.

some of my more enlightened moments occur when I'm working in the garden.



By the way
thanks for sharing some of your experiences.

greetings friends

I've been fighting a foe most hideous
yet legion and tiny.
Its desperation for existence can be felt
throughout my body in the way it surrounds my lungs
and is now taking siege of my sinus. This is a battle
it must not win.
The army that is me deals with this foe
in a most peculiar way.
It escorts in sweat and vivid dreams while the world sleeps.
I can smell the battle,
soak in the corpses and
assess the progress,
as any general would
upon dawn.



...  and how are you ?

the Wall


I cut the grass as a soccer field,
the roar of the crowd on his face
said thanks -
but it's not enough.

I repotted the flowers near
our hanging garden.
the lift it gave her was apparent -
but it's not enough.

there's a wall I climb,
daily,
at the foot of my bed.

I rearrange my surroundings
so beauty will work its way in
like a fortune cookie in champagne.
but these things are never enough -
for me.

Hi Scott,

Good to hear your voice in splendid form. Thank you, sir.

dr

In light of recent darkness
and temporary writer's block
I sense this need to check in.
Energy builds and my time is not yet up.
Certain moments,
my head splits and words parade
as if awaiting cue. 
That is the only time to write.
One hundred words can be arranged
a thousand ways
a dozen times a day
in vain
without that
one spark.

 
I would like to link to a truly great poem.

 http://poetsanctuary.proboards47.com/index.cgi?board=SpotlightArchive&action=display&thread=92523
 

I'm drawn to this pain
like a moth to a flame
fulfilled as it flickers.

Bolts,
like lightning,
splash the promised land
with bursts
upon my mind
like single thought water balloons.

Is this clear ?
Do you also get wet and flicker ?

never come back,
boy.

don't.

the chips and clothes
sleep,still, on the floor
where a wild night
hustled

but

it's someone else's game
although your hearts are big.


the diamond coin saw
the straight flush
as it landed on its edge.

they both suited
and saluted you
as you folded
and left.

wander in gardens,
scuffle in mud,
tromp in the rain
to a place where enthusiasm
never meets lack
and failure is merely having a tank
with something left,

and never come back.




.

off balance
slowly falling
a single finger could put it right.

I

unplugged
broke the silver cord 
of the pendulum used by hypnotist's
and Moguls.

yet 
no
genuine
and
deliberate
path.

save
this feeling.



**************************************

(when a poem really sucks, minimize it)

you know that moment when
you're off balance,
slowly falling
and all you need is to put a single finger on something stable,
semi-stable or simply on a different path,
to take your place once again
in the world of the upright ?   

well

that is my life.

ever since I unplugged
from the TV,
broke the silver cord from it.
that pendulum,
used by hypnotist's
and Moguls,
I've yet to replace the illusion
with a genuine
and
deliberate
path.

the only thing that is certain is
this feeling.

speaking of Miles,


blackbird

the spotlight hugs as gabardine,
both destined to be worn by the
Man with the horn.
the seer, aloof
In
the
Light of a warm friend,
with brass and attitude blend. his moody, brooding brew
Emits a cool magnitude, alchemy, that he invoked from
shadow to gift light. prepared with
Shoulders curled,
the blackbird takes flight

Really nice Scott!

B.

thanks Brian.

infant. 
power.
not of that kind.
in its presence
respect
bombs,
reverence in napalm.

infant
power
a different sphere.
purity.
respect and
power.
     


(I'm pretty sure this is the worst poem I've ever written. :)
I'll have to check the archives.)

America


I'm gonna' take this bat
and hit that ball
only because you dare to throw it.

America,
the dusty new horizon
for those in the game
and moving.

Fields cleared
of the growth from
a thousand years
with bare hands and dreams.

City nights hustle
with the sound of horses
reflected by lamp light
in steam.

Action -
cheering on the sound
of trumpets and violins
in dimly lit store fronts

... saying
"yes we can too." -
fudging back home melodies
into new.

I'm gonna' take this stick
and hit that bundle of tar, twine and leather
because I can
and what are you going to do about it ?

Just now discovering your journalese Scott. Really interesting!

thank you.
It's a little belligerent, I suppose, but great fun. 

I find myself rereading DR's contribution often. 

I forgot to say

thank you.

Inch by inch
measured in shot glasses
I pushed forward.
Thrashing the tangled never-to-be-named vines
of green and brown
I felt unafraid of the unkown
I was encroaching.
Although weary.
The bustle
leaving paths as strings
attached to tacks on police maps
must have thought me mad
in an Edgar Allen Poe - Jerimiah Johnson sort of way
although for only a short time.
I thirsted another scotch
as I laid path.

"sexy lady.
 first
 she kisses you.
 then
 she gets naked  and rubs against you.".

his seven year old eyes just don't lie.

"most things",
to his chagrin
I calmly explain,
"are not as easy as on TV.".

but I still cover his eyes.

Hi Scott

Emile
— and that's the plain truth

Dax

I don't understand.

I gave up TV,
junk food and fake belief.
I no longer complain of the little things
nor fear to ponder the grand.

In exchange
I share the happiness of trees surfing wind
and the flux of meadows
attempting the impossible.

Rivers foam secrets
that were not secret
until ears stopped listening.

Elements
trapped
within wall and glass
smile upon me
within futile bondage 

but

today

so many poems confuse me.

As a major leaguer scribbling
on balls and programs,
your poems are cherished
yet
offered freely.
(Jose Conseco not withstanding.)
 
they are the jazz escaping
the horn
in that moment language
becomes art.


what is a poem ?
what is a poet ?
what is not a poem ?

Who is not a poet ?


 

Who is not a poet?

Superb question.

Isn't poetry
when the poet says to
self,
"I like the way I expressed that." ?

... but everyone
is always expressing
- self -
in all ways.

when does self expression become art ? 

... or does it matter ?

"when does self expression become art ?  "

Another excellent question. To answer it, one must define art.  To define art, one must eliminate some things as not being art and, gosh darn it, I just can't bring myself to do that. :)

:)

His burnoose wrapped tight round him in a cold dawn, my friend Bouchaib pointed to the disk of the rising sun: "Mira, la madre de los povres".


g

Oh,
I see
you speak computer.
Bits and bytes and deliverables.
Still smile at my jokes, though.
Nice fella.

breathe deeply.


let the airborne green
awaken -
yours.

let this rich current of memory
stimulate -
yours.

some balk
they take cover in plastic
and convenience 

... but ...

let foliage in the autumn of its life
and the spring message of flowers
fill -
you.

it's a beautiful day.
friday afternoon.
boss is gone and
I sit clicking Poetry Circle poems about
beautiful bossless friday afternoons.



have a good one DR.
or two.

I lied.
I logged on at home -
not part of the poem.



I'm gonna open that bottle of wine -
holy shit,
that's a good first line -
and celebrate the way it should be
and toast those before  -
who are.
I won't reason
if I shouldn't or should
but
hoping also you would.
 

A poetry wind
ripped
through my trailor park
this perfect afternoon.

Why I began to babble
the first syllables in
the language of poetry.

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

the mate

a female cardinal with mate
grasped the garden fence long enough
to rob me of sound and breath.
frozen
I cherished the seconds
until their startled egress and then returned
to my journal as my wife closed
the gate.

take your finest pen
and proudest page
then stir with your youngest wine.
fermentation hastened
for the likes of this.
other than the actor
no artist travels lighter
and is more clandestine.

Courage Amid the Storm

Angels fill the highways when
the demons take the beach. 
The five o'clock shadow is due soon 
to roll the beggars and the thieves. 
You try to close your eyes but
you know there ain't no peace
'cause the church bells only ring
for those brave enough to sleep.

Change in the Embers


The Washington Post and TV Guide will be
the first things to engage the kindling
when the power goes out -
forever.
One giant breath from Sol.

Groundhogs and squirrels will no longer
be looked upon as a nuisance and life
will once again start deep within.

There will be rumours of kingdoms and
ill conceived plans and today's roast
and tonight's pillow will once again
take their rightful places.

I bet when early man summoned the dream
from deep within the campfire he
never thought the vision involved loss.

discord

fine. but why sound so Hellenistic
about others. worse, make the help
you got sound silly, even trivial
and yourself? somehow less in need
of a hand than others first imagined
my mistake, I never dole out pity
not to anyone, even lost sheep, being
fools in the first place, not worth spit
  — on a bonfire in a hurry


 

Una sonrisa por la manana

g

I've kept my ear to the ground
and gaze to the cars upon your every pass.
The draft of your engine and the stretch of the tracks
has  pulled me forward as "Carmen" and other commands are proffered
from the caboose or bar car -
I can tell not -
through windows or into mirrors  -
I can tell not -
perhaps Doppler is playing tricks -
perhaps fire has never understood ice
but the curse or praise of strangers is nothing to fear  - 
worn moccasins and empty flasks are.
His true foe.
You've kept mine soled and full -
thank you.
I'm aware that the master hides intent behind words and
the bull breathes in the glory of his kind only upon a waved red cape
before he losses his ear
and life.

I'm all ears.

Where's the tail?

g/m

Gabriel's Oboe in D


sun

    light

— fields of home

      pebbles



remorse

                  full

— no room

left



      shadows

        clouds

— anytime soon

           come d'amore




Cristo
       . rain


— forgive!


this mission 

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dr
 

Memories of William Blake - whom I don't know

Up ahead seemed the right way to go, although
I could not understand why standing still
need be thought of as disgrace or idle pastime.
Swirled stalactite provides passage for some.
Greyness lends itself to this flushed canvas
and to it, I am familiar.

The Sun is a fable
passed down through eons
as an explanation for the gift of sight.
This bleak land holds fascination and why some call
its loneliness and dank challenges,
hell,
I don't know but 
you must watch your step
or suffer the fate on the sharp granite below.

The light bearer ahead, as he is daily, serves as a companion
to discuss pastures and glories of other realms.
Everyday he invites me to join -
we shake hands and he goes his way.
I would not say this rocky land needs me
but what holds me to its core
is that my love for it has yet to be expressed.
. 

womb to tomb


where

      am I

to risk

      all

that I

      want


                           to be

      with?
 

             . . .     happiness

      dans

      le

      tombeau

avec 
      toi