Ghazal Parade

March, as they say, “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” will be roiled in the tumult of change—seasons like continents overlapping. So, here’s the idea: let’s march through with Ghazals—Thrown like confetti—Plenty of ‘em—Risky bushels of ‘em!

Here then are some words borrowed from Jim Harrison on the genre:

Notes On The Ghazals

Poems are always better than a bloody turkey foot in the mailbox. Few would disagree. Robert Creeley once said, partly reconstituting Olson, “Form is never more than an extension of content.” True and sage. We choose what suits us and will not fairly wear what doesn’t fir. Don’t try to bury a horse in a human coffin, no matter how much you loved the horse….

The ghazal is an antique form dating from the thirteenth century and practiced by hundreds of poets since… I have not adhered to the strictness of metrics and structure of the ancient practitioners, with the exception of using a minimum of five couplets. The couplets are not related by reason or logic and their only continuity is made by metaphorical jump…

And since we are free to drift, lets pause on Walt Whitman's, "A Persian Lesson":

FOR his o'erarching and last lesson the greybeard sufi,
In the fresh scent of the morning in the open air,
On the slope of a teeming Persian rose-garden,
Under an ancient chestnut-tree wide spreading its branches,
Spoke to the young priests and students.

"Finally my children, to envelop each word, each part of the rest,
Allah is all, all,all - immanent in every life and object,
May-be at many and many-a-more removes - yet Allah, Allah, Allah is there.
"Has the estray wander'd far? Is the reason - why strangely hidden?
Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world?
Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life;
The something never still'd - never entirely gone? the invisible need of every seed?

"It is the central urge in every atom,
(Often unconscious, often evil, downfallen,)
To return to its divine source and origin, however distant,
Latent the same in subject and in object, without one exception."

and twist

down broadway
over
to the Chicago Jazz Composers Collective II

om shanti shanti
shanti
thanks to the guide
to radiance drenched in
bathed in
awash in invitation
to louder strike open
hold my hand
don’t give it back
its better given over
to again
and laugh more
thanks
here
this is Kalyan Pathak
aka Jonny Bongo
with Jazz Mata
and the singer who’s song keeps changing her name
how many angles can ice skate on the head of a pin?
thank you
keep it
run off with it
cut the string
of the kite
thank you
but there’s so much
my fingers tugging
horse no fence no rider only blue horse
diamond eyes prancing evenly with will
thank you
go your way
you are without answering
held through bold turns
how happy
how liberty
dreaming the ember of a dream
take me through thunder
all
all empty
feel generous with your destruction
in fissures expansions splits
vines reaching opening and forgetting
and breathless how?
you spell breaker
slow and devouring
swing open channel
swing cool
shadow warm
sun close
rhythm and voice
look feel go
you as you are
away unlocked
with the key nonchalant
so brightly dancing palms pressed together
striking with bare feet
light in two
stunning golden and also
deep emerald
under wet leaves
i resisted i once
and i was angry
only it’s the wound
always open through
which comes to know
to be
made paper kite
thread tugging wind
while skipping coyly stones
over
cool water

Written at and inspired by:
Chicago Jazz Composers Collective
Febuary 25, 2007
Featured composers: Kalyan Pathak & Jazz Mata:
“Indian Classical Raga and American Jazz”

Don Tisch and Expansion Project played next;
but Pathak’s set was so rich and powerful that i left
so its resonance wouldn’t be diluted by any other sounds.

r

"it used to go like that, now it goes like this"--zimmie

that cough... the kind that loosens all the unused parts of illness
it has moved around and taken various portions of my skull...
a disappointment... i don't believe in sickness

january was a battle. a rehearsal process which seemed quite hopeless,
cold temperatures, distractions to creativity, and not enough latin music.

i drove around for a while this morning listening to the los llanos disc which
l'aro had made for me some time ago. it did my heart good.

february had brought the opening of the play... Sweeney Todd
all indications were for a shit storm... however, as these things tend to do,
hearts were pulled inside out and a small group of performers and workers
put forth a wonderful tale. we stopped with all the strife, negativity, and doubt
and simply told a story... from the guts. it has been a great run. we will close
with four shows this weekend.

april is on my mind these days... i will visit thailand april 6-23rd. it will be nice
to work my life with a little less distance for a while... sometimes physical seperation
weighs heavy... from both my lady and my fellow friars...
as we talked of for a small bit at the new year, there is a great sense of anticipation and
transition in the air, i have a tendency to live in thought rather than action... i'm working on it

do not fade

--vikingo

Administrative Announcement

It made me switch to google blogger. That means we all gots to log on with the gmail account: this one: losfriar@gmail.com. The password is the same as before.

So, post away! What's everyone up to these fringe of spring days?

In the meantime, here is some short fiction:

Everybody shows a respectful deference to certain
sounds that he and his fellows can make. But about
feelings people really know nothing... Nobody knows
what suffering or sacrifice mean--except, perhaps
the victims of the mysterious purpose of these
illusions. Joseph Conrad, "An Outpost of Progress"


Sleeping in Sparta (or, dreaming on a shield)

Last night I had enough ammunition; bullets weren’t the problem that they have been in those dreams. This time they attacked, the Vietnamese. It has been all sorts before, creeping up I suppose, from under the bed. But this time they were Vietnamese in full frontal attack; but me, I was on the flank. If I’d learned anything I guess it was “one shot, one kill.” And I’d learned my sights are low, and so to compensate. But my A2, which could have been named by Caeser, wasn’t so good. And I had to rotate out of, and then back into single-shot each time I fired. I was positively gleeful when I saw the first head explode like a melon and the body crumple over into a heap on the ground. And because of the thick green foliage, and their going sideways past me, my muzzle flash had to be pretty well concealed.

Then I missed, and he was hardly moving, standing there like he had time to set-up his shot. Were things about to take their turn? As I had to rotate the selector lever out of and back into single-shot, because the A2 was sort of jacked, I left it in three round burst. The first made pepper of the ground before his feet. He turned looking across the jungle floor—as if he'd see me. There was something sort of familiar about him. Being on burst the barrel had naturally crept up, and the next group thumped him soundly in the chest. His expression didn't change, but his eyes both went lazy. Full auto opened-up on my friendly left—the 60—every fifth round a red streak. And as quick as that, they were all toppled over and I was trying to hide under water. It was that kind of dream.

Usually, I run out of ammo and they keep coming, or my shots have no effect, even with my 1911; I remember once, magazine after magazine, putting it into his chest. Just some him who looked so bored he might yawn. He didn’t look so different than me, as I sometimes look. I asked if, since I couldn’t kill him, if he wouldn’t mind coming with me, just to see where I wanted to take him—as if he had anything else to do. While we walked, I told him a story to keep him from asking me why I wanted to kill him; it was about a man who was trapped in a war, and how since he couldn’t die, kept fighting, until he got to a man trapped in a war who couldn't die and how he kept fighting until he had gotten to a man... He all the time looked at me the same as before. And when we got to the place I was taking him, we were separated. But we were both there somewhere, forever in that same place.

l'a-ro

where the wild things are

by him->
































































& by him-->

some pittsburgh

World Press Photos of the Year

They request that the photos not be copied, which saves me from choosing. Amazing, human; we are savage and beautiful.

From them, the administrators: "First and foremost, World Press Photo is known for organizing the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest."

Winners Gallery 2007

windows

last night it was so cold the blue fluid froze on my windshield
and we sat, her and I, in a small bar, talking for the first time

she was all about windows
family’d come from a house with shutters,
tin roof, no glass

and her first memory was upside down
looking up at a window
leg twisted in the spring of a rocky-horse

next, in a car, locking the door
rolling up the window, maybe three years old
curling into a ball, crying, rocking
her sister who doesn’t remember
soothed her with songs

now floating outside
like heat escaping through the cracks
the self, a maybe illusion,
of see through walls
drifting over the seldom said
as if reflecting, “if
I’d a known
that it would all come to nothing…"

r.z.