I track a red fox
through smiling black faces
posed on the steps
of St. Michael's
a frail white woman
rocks back and forth
hands shaking
voice begging
for spare change
like an animal
startled by winter
I walk on
by a body
wrapped
in newspaper stories
of bombing in Gaza
and Bernard Madoff
paces his Park Avenue
pent house
as I track
the red fox
down onto the three
a Lebanese clerk
on fourteenth street
tells me
that in Beirut
only Hezbollah
wear orange
I say
I wear orange
so I will not
be shot
tracking red fox
in the northern
reaches of Central Park
where a coyote lingers
in wait
and all that is left
of the light
of the day
is the moon.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
TEOTWAWKI 12/21/2012
65 million years ago a 6.2 mile diameter asteroid crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula resulting in a 100 million megaton explosion that excavated a 112 mile wide crater that brought the dinosaur world to an end.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
55 million years ago, 20 percent of the world's frozen methane reserves melted. Global temperatures rose by 13 degrees. 80 percent of all deep sea creatures became extinct.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
75,000 years ago a supervolcano erupted in Toba, Sumatra sending thousands of cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight for 2500 miles. Global temperatures plummeted 21 degrees. The human population decreased to several thousand. Three quarters of all plants in the northern hemisphere died.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
The Supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park is 40,000 years overdue for an eruption.
The Cumbre Vieja Volcano in the Canary Islands is unstable and could collapse into the Atlantic Ocean sending 500 billion tons of rock plunging into the sea creating a splash more than 2100 feet high and 25 feet across and a wave racing across the Atlantic at 450 miles per hour.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
The dinosaurs disappeared.
The Mayans disappeared.
The Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo Bird, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker
The American Lion, the Puerto Rican Shrew, the Sea Mink, the Snow Leopard.
Every twenty minutes a species disappears.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
55 million years ago, 20 percent of the world's frozen methane reserves melted. Global temperatures rose by 13 degrees. 80 percent of all deep sea creatures became extinct.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
75,000 years ago a supervolcano erupted in Toba, Sumatra sending thousands of cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight for 2500 miles. Global temperatures plummeted 21 degrees. The human population decreased to several thousand. Three quarters of all plants in the northern hemisphere died.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
The Supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park is 40,000 years overdue for an eruption.
The Cumbre Vieja Volcano in the Canary Islands is unstable and could collapse into the Atlantic Ocean sending 500 billion tons of rock plunging into the sea creating a splash more than 2100 feet high and 25 feet across and a wave racing across the Atlantic at 450 miles per hour.
December 21, 2012
The End Of The World As We Know It.
The dinosaurs disappeared.
The Mayans disappeared.
The Passenger Pigeon, the Dodo Bird, the Ivory Billed Woodpecker
The American Lion, the Puerto Rican Shrew, the Sea Mink, the Snow Leopard.
Every twenty minutes a species disappears.
Ninety-nine percent of all the species that have existed on Earth are now extinct.
December 21, 2012.
TEOTWAWKI
How many worlds have ended?
How many?
How?
Sunday, December 28, 2008
HOME
Intention
determines
focus
Intention determines focus
in a convoluted conversation
conserved in the candle flames
of ice
expanding
in a universe
within a universe
galaxies colliding
with a universe
of stars
until ALL
ends
in the same place
in the dark.
HOME
determines
focus
Intention determines focus
in a convoluted conversation
conserved in the candle flames
of ice
expanding
in a universe
within a universe
galaxies colliding
with a universe
of stars
until ALL
ends
in the same place
in the dark.
HOME
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Solstice Morning
Somewhere people are shopping
caught in the frenzy
of the Sunday
before Christmas.
After a week
with no electricity
reluctant to reenter the
twenty-first century
I hide
from the madness
on Main Street
where possessed people
forget the bounds
of human dignity
to focus
only on
the present.
In the heat of the wood stove
I watch the snow fall
with a cat curled beside me.
Beyond the clouds
I know the sun has risen.
Somewhere people
are shopping.
The snow hides
the ravages of an ice storm
the fire crackles
as the cat sleeps on
I focus
only on
the present.
Somewhere the sun
has risen
people are shopping
and we are all
One.
Happy Solstice!
caught in the frenzy
of the Sunday
before Christmas.
After a week
with no electricity
reluctant to reenter the
twenty-first century
I hide
from the madness
on Main Street
where possessed people
forget the bounds
of human dignity
to focus
only on
the present.
In the heat of the wood stove
I watch the snow fall
with a cat curled beside me.
Beyond the clouds
I know the sun has risen.
Somewhere people
are shopping.
The snow hides
the ravages of an ice storm
the fire crackles
as the cat sleeps on
I focus
only on
the present.
Somewhere the sun
has risen
people are shopping
and we are all
One.
Happy Solstice!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Contraband
In smoke and snow
I wander a world away
where spring blossoms
and dried fruit
spell contraband
I stand guilty
before a judge
in Santiago de Chile
where thousands
are gathered for execution
in a stadium
I am only a yanqui
a gringa, a contrabandista
an imperialista
in this thread
of a nation
strifed by machine guns
I am left free
to wander the streets
where Victor Jara's clear voice
still rings
Correle, correle
por aqui, por alla
correle, correle
que te van a matar
his mutilated hands
dance before me
caminando, caminando
walking, walking
Monjitas and Merced
San Antonio and MacIver
in the Plaza de Armas
mimes drum the beat
of rogues and pickpockets
as a gold medallion
from Lourdes
takes flight
into an expressway
of diesel fumes
that choke out
the Andes.
El Zonda
whips my paper identity
into the desert
and leaves me illegal
in a country
filled with gendarmes
and a bureaucracy
built upon stamps
Victor Jara still sings
correle, correle,
por aqui, por alla
correle, correle
que te van a matar
run this way
run that way
run run
por aqui, por alla
they are going to kill you
por aqui, por alla
correle, correle
que te van a matar.
I kneel
before a widow
stuffed into a plastic water bottle
I carry a blood red ribbon
as I pay a peso
for a piece of toilet paper
while a dust devil swirls
and a saint rises from nowhere
whispering always,
te amo, te amo
por aqui, por alla
te amo, te amo
so many voices
speak in so many tongues
each one etched
in a layer of stone
the days disappear
into stars
the stars into galaxies
I sail into the unknown
a paper
on a spirit wind
a name
lost to the desert light
singing
always
singing
correle
correle
por aqui
por alla
correle
correle
que te
voy a amar.
( Notes: translation of Victor Jara's words: Run, run, here and there,
run, run, that they are going to kill you.
and te amo-I love you
que te voy a amar-that I am going to love you.
Victor Jara was a Chilean poet, playwright, singer who was arrested and taken to the stadium where his hands were cut off and he was executed after the coup of September 11, 1973.)
I wander a world away
where spring blossoms
and dried fruit
spell contraband
I stand guilty
before a judge
in Santiago de Chile
where thousands
are gathered for execution
in a stadium
I am only a yanqui
a gringa, a contrabandista
an imperialista
in this thread
of a nation
strifed by machine guns
I am left free
to wander the streets
where Victor Jara's clear voice
still rings
Correle, correle
por aqui, por alla
correle, correle
que te van a matar
his mutilated hands
dance before me
caminando, caminando
walking, walking
Monjitas and Merced
San Antonio and MacIver
in the Plaza de Armas
mimes drum the beat
of rogues and pickpockets
as a gold medallion
from Lourdes
takes flight
into an expressway
of diesel fumes
that choke out
the Andes.
El Zonda
whips my paper identity
into the desert
and leaves me illegal
in a country
filled with gendarmes
and a bureaucracy
built upon stamps
Victor Jara still sings
correle, correle,
por aqui, por alla
correle, correle
que te van a matar
run this way
run that way
run run
por aqui, por alla
they are going to kill you
por aqui, por alla
correle, correle
que te van a matar.
I kneel
before a widow
stuffed into a plastic water bottle
I carry a blood red ribbon
as I pay a peso
for a piece of toilet paper
while a dust devil swirls
and a saint rises from nowhere
whispering always,
te amo, te amo
por aqui, por alla
te amo, te amo
so many voices
speak in so many tongues
each one etched
in a layer of stone
the days disappear
into stars
the stars into galaxies
I sail into the unknown
a paper
on a spirit wind
a name
lost to the desert light
singing
always
singing
correle
correle
por aqui
por alla
correle
correle
que te
voy a amar.
( Notes: translation of Victor Jara's words: Run, run, here and there,
run, run, that they are going to kill you.
and te amo-I love you
que te voy a amar-that I am going to love you.
Victor Jara was a Chilean poet, playwright, singer who was arrested and taken to the stadium where his hands were cut off and he was executed after the coup of September 11, 1973.)
Saturday, November 22, 2008
La Querencia
In English there are no words for La Querencia, an act of love, or the return to one's roots. It could be the last vibration of a sound that travels on the Andean spirit wind, el Zonda, and ripples the red cintas of the Difunta Correa, unofficial patron saint of travel, who died in the Argentine desert on her journey to recover the bones of her martyred husband. In route to La Querencia, our Kia sputters and shakes over the hours of ripio from Upsallata to Barreal in search of the Southern Cross. This is the place where the Nazca Plate converges with the South American Plate and the deepest layers of the Pacific Ocean sink beneath the continent and push the purple, red, orange, green, and yellow sedimentary layers twenty two thousand feet into the sky and then the winds sculpt the pre-cordillera of the east into monuments that leave us all with one voice exclaiming, "Holy Shit!" as we turn the corner and our gaze meets the Cerro del Alcazar. This is La Querencia where the tumbleweeds are carried by dust devils across hard packed sand flats and an astronomer sits with his five telescopes and tracks the expansion of the universe and the paths of asteroids. We follow a cantoring horse through the dark night in this place where a post card stamp costs two dollars and there are no telephones. Our hostess whispers to me as she hugs me on our departure, "I will not say good-bye to you, Amiga. I will only say, 'Welcome Home.'"
Sunday, October 26, 2008
First Frost
Life comes down to the first frost at three a.m. I feel like the wiring in my brain hangs on the moonshadows dancing among the trees and I brace myself for the ice as the cold creeps in to expand the cracks in my world where the skeletons leap to light in the cross quarters of the sun and the trees open themselves to the stars and we all surrender to the slumber to come.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)