The Nature of Daylight

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Summit And Gravity



There's a motionless tree
And another one coming forward
A river of trees
Hits my chest
The green surge
Is good fortune
You are dressed in red
You are
The seal of the scorched year
The carnal firebrand
The star fruit
In you like sun
The hour rests
Above an abyss of clarities
The height is clouded by birds
Their beaks construct the night
Their wings carry the day
Planted in the crest of light
Between firmness and vertigo
You are
Transparent balance

Octavio Paz

Thyme Suites

I

They will bring the singer to the bungalow
past the caution tape, the inviolable red trees,
in the town square where we can find
crisp food from the country; and those who
wear Blake's arrows lounge on the steps, hearing
stories of a herbalist in stages, having been
trapped in their otherness a while, or in
a plan or the help or an idea.
Their methods for observing interiors like looking
over the edge of a star's rim where
inside the spirit world there's a scrannel moan
or in the spirit origins an alternating beauty--

II

Three times the ringmasters tell you to jump;
you didn't like their spinning cycle, did you?

They've gone north with their charts and disappearing
brides to drill for fuel in the tundra.

A horizon lifts when you breathe, a cloud
tilts through the brutal perpendicular; there's a void
halo in the wedding planet. When will it stop
raining, do you think? Rope and candle.

You work like a phrase among phrases, mostly shadow;
threads between phenomena pull light from gravity--

III

If the net of the universe is fixed,
Indra's net is a shigra of beads. Rusty

trees were stuck to twin suns all winter; now
the tricolored mask faces back into eternity

and we're out here to avoid being sold
something else with the leftover seeds preparing to

jump except the gravid ones who thought
a garden was a thought; there's a stubble

in the fields again, Tuesday glitter on our

heroine. All flames she was, then water,
then air. There you are; so it grows.

:Brenda Hillman



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Litany" by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon


You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

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Home
By Kazim Ali


My father had a steel comb with which he would comb our hair.

After a bath the cold metal soothing against my scalp, his hand cupping
my chin.

My mother had a red pullover with a little yellow duck embroidered
on it and a pendant made from a gold Victoria coronation coin.

Which later, when we first moved to Buffalo, would be stolen from
the house.

The Sunn’i Muslims have a story in which the angels cast a dark mark
out of Prophet Mohammad’s heart, thus making him pure, though the
Shi’a reject this story, believing in his absolute innocence from birth.

Telling the famous Story of the Blanket in which the Prophet covers
himself with a Yemeni blanket for his afternoon rest. Joined under
the blanket first by his son-in-law Ali, then each of his grandchildren
Hassan and Hussain and finally by his daughter Bibi Fatima.

In Heaven Gabriel asks God about the five under the blanket and
God says, those are the five people whom I loved the most out of all
creation, and I made everything in the heavens and the earth for
their sake.

Gabriel, speaker on God’s behalf, whisperer to Prophets, asks God, can
I go down and be the sixth among them.

And God says, go down there and ask them. If they consent you may go
under the blanket and be the sixth among them.

Creation for the sake of Gabriel is retroactively granted when the group
under the blanket admits him to their company.

Is that me at the edge of the blanket asking to be allowed inside.

Asking the 800 hadith be canceled, all history re-ordered.

In Hyderabad I prayed every part of the day, climbed a thousand steps
to the site of Maula Ali’s pilgrimage.

I wanted to be those stairs, the hunger I felt, the river inside.

I learned to pronounce my daily prayers from transliterated English
in a book called “Know Your Islam,” dark blue with gold calligraphed
writing that made the English appear as if it were Arabic complete with
marks above and below the letters.

I dindn’t learn the Arabic script until years later and never learned the
language itself.

God’s true language: Hebrew. Latin. Arabic. Sanskrit.

As if utterance fit into the requirements of the human mouth.

I learned how to find the new moon by looking for the circular absence
of stars.

When Abraham took Isaac up into the thicket his son did not know
where he was being led.

When his father bound him and took up the knife he was shocked.

And said, “Father, where is the ram?”

Though from Abraham’s perspective he was asked by God to sacrifice
his son and proved his love by taking up the knife.

Thinking to himself perhaps, Oh Ismail, Ismail, do I cut or do I burn.

I learned God’s true language is only silence and breath.

Fourth son of a fourth son, my father was afflicted as a child and
as was the custom in those days a new name was selected for him to
protect his health.

Still the feeling of his rough hand, gently cupping my cheek, dipping the
steel comb in water to comb my hair flat.

My hair was kept so short, combed flat when wet. I never knew my hair
was wavy until I was nearly twenty-two and never went outside with wet
and uncombed hair until I was twenty-eight.

At which point I realized my hair was curly.

My father’s hands have fortune-lines in them cut deeply and dramatic.

The day I left his house for the last time I asked him if I could hold his
hand before I left.

There are two different ways of going about this.

If you have known this for years why didn’t you ask for help, he
asked me.

Each time I left home, including the last time, my mother would hold a
Quran up for me to walk under. Once under, one would turn and kiss
the book.

There is no place in the Quran which requires acts of homosexuality to
be punishable by lashings and death.

Hadith or scripture. Scripture or rupture.

Should I travel out from under the blanket.

Comfort from a verse which also recurs: “Surely there are signs in this
for those of you who would reflect.”

Or the one hundred and four books of God. Of which only four are
known—Qur’an, Injeel, Tavrat, Zubuur.

There are a hundred others—Bhagavad-Gita, Lotus Sutra, Song of
Myself, the Gospel of Magdalene, Popul Vuh, the book of Black Buffalo
Woman—somewhere unrevealed as such.

Dear mother in the sky you could unbuckle the book and erase all the
annotations.

What I always remember about my childhood is my mother whispering
to me, telling me secrets, ideas, suggestions.

She named me when I moved in her while she was reading a calligraphy
of the Imam’s names. My name: translated my whole life for me as
Patience.

In India we climbed the steps of the Maula Ali mountain to the top,
thirsting for what.

My mother had stayed behind in the house, unable to go on pilgrimage.
She had told me the reason why.

Being in a state considered unacceptable for prayers or pilgrimages.

I asked if she would want more children and she told me the name she
would give a new son.

I always attribute the fact that they did not, though my eldest sister’s first
son was given the same name she whispered to me that afternoon, to my
telling of her secret to my sisters when we were climbing the stairs.

It is the one betrayal of her—perhaps meaningless—that I have never
forgiven myself.

There are secrets it is still hard to tell, betrayals hard to make.

You hope like anything that though others consider you unclean God
will still welcome you.

My name is Kazim. Which means patience. I know how to wait

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the sky fills and to lay empty to fill again....
eternum.

As night cascades on daffodils
Made of love, lust and bricks,
the rains shall fall with raiment.
From the lost lords of government-
a hand shall rise with effortlessness;
apples to cider turned,
and all the while the sun shall set
to greet the eternal morn.

Lewis Dowell, III


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I've noticed children cant stop themself from dancing when they are subjected to live Jazz as well.. years ago my child was bopping away to mozart while at a horse auction, she was 2, all the grown ups looked on in wonder, it was an unforgetable moment.


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Pretty snappy tune there siteless!


Here's another version....

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~~

Come,
let's scatter roses and pour wine in the glass;
we'll shatter heaven's roof and lay a new foundation.
If sorrow raises armies to shed the blood of lovers,
I'll join with the wine bearer so we can overthrow them.
With a sweet string at hand, play a sweet song, my friend,
so we can clap and sing a song and lose our heads in dancing.

Hafiz (Ghani-Qazvini, no 374) ' the Shambhala Guide to Sufism' Carl.W Ernst, Ph.D.

terrific, it's just what the world needs right now and how old is this? TIMELESS

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beneath a steel sky
blossom rains down;
fruits fall before
they grow fat.

[link to www.bibliotecapleyades.net]

I feel enriched for having listened to that


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The sky opens to a vast cave, where a dragon breaths fire upon our heavens.
Earth lays over the entranceway; at night, the holes a brave knight left thoughout the day gleam.

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green
spilt out into the meadows
running into every being
filling us up with spirit
tumbling
the pulsing red life of the earth
in the smoke of the firecircle
i saw my demons scatter to the skies
dissolving into the midnight air
there is nothing but the sun
the moon
in perfect equilibrium
unreal yet grounded
alone in body, full in spirit
love


by Lady Lissar

I think about the life I live
A figure made of clay
And think about the things I lost
The things I gave away

And when I'm in a certain mood
I search the house and look
One night I found these magic words
In a magic book

Throw it away
Throw it away
Give your love, live your life
Each and every day

And keep your hand wide open
Let the sun shine through
'Cause you can never lose a thing
If it belongs to you

There's a hand to rock the cradle
And a hand to help us stand
With a gentle kind of motion
As it moves across the land

And the hand's unclenched and open
Gifts of life and love it brings
So keep your hand wide open
If you're needing anything

Throw it away
Throw it away
Give your love, live your life
Each and every day

And keep your hand wide open
Let the sun shine through
'Cause you can never lose a thing
If it belongs to you

Throw it away
Throw it away
Give your love, live your life
Each and every day

And keep your hand wide open
Let the sun shine through
'Cause you can never lose a thing
If it belongs to you

'Cause you can never lose a thing
If it belongs to you
You can never ever lose a thing
If it belongs to you

You can never ever lose a thing
If it belongs to you
You can never ever lose a thing
If it belongs to you

Beautiful Nrg


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The water cascading over the falls
looked like an angel, arms outspread;
gossamer robed from afar loud as a lion.

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relief from the gentle anguish of apricot jam and gently spoken words.

a poem of poems
in an ocean of words,
a sea side hut, torn curtains
old lounge and a story,
his name was William I believe.


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Winding Roads,
more here than there and
that which slips away must have been balancing precariously on the edge to begin with; oh look, the precipice.

watching you brings me measured peace,
stoic satisfaction.



gladness for the oceans
and hour-glasses.

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From Pent-Up Aching Rivers

From pent-up aching rivers,
From that of myself without which I were nothing,
From what I am determin'd to make illustrious, even if I stand sole
among men,
From my own voice resonant, singing the phallus,
Singing the song of procreation,
Singing the need of superb children and therein superb grown people,
Singing the muscular urge and the blending,
Singing the bedfellow's song, (O resistless yearning!
O for any and each the body correlative attracting!

O for you whoever you are your correlative body! O it, more than all
else, you delighting!)
From the hungry gnaw that eats me night and day,
From native moments, from bashful pains, singing them,
Seeking something yet unfound though I have diligently sought it
many a long year,
Singing the true song of the soul fitful at random,
Renascent with grossest Nature or among animals,
Of that, of them and what goes with them my poems informing,
Of the smell of apples and lemons, of the pairing of birds,
Of the wet of woods, of the lapping of waves,
Of the mad pushes of waves upon the land, I them chanting,
The overture lightly sounding, the strain anticipating,
The welcome nearness, the sight of the perfect body,
The swimmer swimming naked in the bath, or motionless on his back
lying and floating,
The female form approaching, I pensive, love-flesh tremulous aching,
The divine list for myself or you or for any one making,
The face, the limbs, the index from head to foot, and what it
arouses,
The mystic deliria, the madness amorous, the utter abandonment,
(Hark close and still what I now whisper to you,
I love you, O you entirely possess me,
O that you and I escape from the rest and go utterly off, free and
lawless,
Two hawks in the air, two fishes swimming in the sea not more
lawless than we;)
The furious storm through me careering, I passionately trembling.
The oath of the inseparableness of two together, of the woman that
loves me and whom I love more than my life, that oath swearing,
(O I willingly stake all for you,
O let me be lost if it must be so!
O you and I! what is it to us what the rest do or think?
What is all else to us? only that we enjoy each other and exhaust
each other if it must be so;)
From the master, the pilot I yield the vessel to,
The general commanding me, commanding all, from him permission
taking,
From time the programme hastening, (I have loiter'd too long as it
is,)
From sex, from the warp and from the woof,
From privacy, from frequent repinings alone,
From plenty of persons near and yet the right person not near,

From the soft sliding of hands over me and thrusting of fingers
through my hair and beard,
From the long sustain'd kiss upon the mouth or bosom,
From the close pressure that makes me or any man drunk, fainting
with excess,
From what the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood,
From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in
the night,
From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms,
From the cling of the trembling arm,
From the bending curve and the clinch,
From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing,
From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling
to leave,
(Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,)
From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews,
From the night a moment I emerging flitting out,
Celebrate you act divine and you children prepared for,
And you stalwart loins.



: Walt Whitman

The kids feeling it, he's sooooooooo got it.

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four birds will circle the universe; becoming
a sound.

beneath the climax of a wave
my children are black otters.

...


I bring out the silence in you.

& bits
of me go in
& out of molecules.

the world is struck

&: i am stopped- for the evening.

kinesis (i forget you go barefooted)

i).

the realization
will be
that movement of
a shoe-lace

given the whorl of you.
to follow you a day,

as warrant, to the incendiary (and the world will watch).

what follows:


a bench, where you sat-
huddled with yourself /
ground-reaction
to. the asking of your shadow-

silver grasses /
early -in the morning.
here,
i forget: you go barefooted.


ii).


What conceptions are these? Salubrious. Kinesis. &. Teleportation.
Love is vast. i am not
Scientific.

iii).

the lungs go out, leave me with their
effort -- yet it
is you, i imagine. you-

eventually.
the sun will kiss us brown
and we will vanish.

:D B



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White noise: from the-static. I authenticate.

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tired in the way that only bones know
how
but
knot so tired as to not offer up salaams.

it's a bended knee thing that few others truly get.

yet...

:Keith

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... this Alchemy of Awe, in every meaning of the rook
that sweetest sap, those sunless innards, oh my, a favourite book
that runs from roots within my chest,
and seeps to branch and leaves of Wonder,
to where it is that I still ponder ... is let
to this pen and writes with words of Love
on wings of letters to your eyes reflecting all the world ...

In a thousand letters, graceful cranes bow in majesty,
looking toward ends to the travesty of feudal man.
If your eyes reflected the world would they bleed?
Would they not drown in a neediness toward blindness?
Would they stare into wishing pools gently rippling;
trembling at the coins tossed
yearning for a pebbled bottom less crippled?


:siteless