Rubaiyat

From a poem entitled Rubaiyat by Mahmoud Darwish:

10.

I see what I want of death: I love, and my chest splits
for a horse of Eros that leaps out of it white, running over clouds
and flying on endless vapor, circling the eternal blue ...
So do not stop me from dying, do not bring me back to a star of dust


11.

I see what I want of blood: I have seen the murdered
address the murderer who bullet-lit his heart: From now on
you shall remember only me. I, too, murdered you idly, and from now on
you shall remember only me ... you won't bear the roses of spring

Drinking

The drug of our species; a cultural tradition in every culture that has ever developed; and so eloquently expressed over a thousand years ago:

(translated from the original latin)

we do not think how we will go to dust,
but we hurry to gamble,
which always makes us sweat.
What happens in the tavern,
where money is host,
you may well ask,
and hear what I say.

Some gamble, some drink,
some behave loosely.
But of those who gamble,
some are stripped bare,
some win their clothes here,
some are dressed in sacks.
Here no-one fears death,
but they throw the dice in the name of Bacchus.

First of all it is to the wine-merchant
the the libertines drink,
one for the prisoners,
three for the living,
four for all Christians,
five for the faithful dead,
six for the loose sisters,
seven for the footpads in the wood,

Eight for the errant brethren,
nine for the dispersed monks,
ten for the seamen,
eleven for the squabblers,
twelve for the penitent,
thirteen for the wayfarers.
To the Pope as to the king
they all drink without restraint.

The mistress drinks, the master drinks,
the soldier drinks, the priest drinks,
the man drinks, the woman drinks,
the servant drinks with the maid,
the swift man drinks, the lazy man drinks,
the white man drinks, the black man drinks,
the settled man drinks, the wanderer drinks,
the stupid man drinks, the wise man drinks,

The poor man drinks, the sick man drinks,
the exile drinks, and the stranger,
the boy drinks, the old man drinks,
the bishop drinks, and the deacon,
the sister drinks, the brother drinks,
the old lady drinks, the mother drinks,
this man drinks, that man drinks,
a hundred drink, a thousand drink.

Six hundred pennies would hardly
suffice, if everyone
drinks immoderately and immeasurably.
However much they cheerfully drink
we are the ones whom everyone scolds,
and thus we are destitute.
May those who slander us be cursed
and may their names not be written in the
book of the righteous.

This poem is from Carmina Burana, profane poetry of the middle ages set to music by Carl Orff.

Sampling for Surrealism

We had two hours of mandatory training in our new problem/incident tracking system. I took random bits of speech from the instructor and made a surreal poem out of it. I strung the lines together and added my own punctuation:

this is my process flow wizard in orange:
i put in my summary, put in my notes.
you can go down as far as what you need.
nothing's broken, but you still need help (so)
let's have somebody claim it.
others of you may carve out a whole block (of)
reasons to use as to why
nobody dies without that.
i can also squeeze or widen the columns;
you'll notice this is integrate computer.
when you called you said you needed something
and just because. we are live (and)
i can still do all my classifications, categorizations.
a lot of guilt:
i know rebecca, that's the only reason.

What do you think, sirs?

Michigan in The Spring, Pt. 2

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

-T.S. Eliot

Buds throb red.

Cold raindrops cling
to bare branches
after the first
April storm.

My fingertips swelling,
my body pulses:

the center
of this old wound,
still fresh.

Still, I don’t
pull off my gloves--

There are no leaves
opening
from this tree.

-Justine Nicholas

my backyard is honey
and a bumblebee sweeper
broccoli wood, memory of a previous year

chilled wet grass
almost Eden

it’s spring, a celebration
that will pass too fast

-Margaret James

I don't mean interspersing sublime poetry with my mediocre photographs as any attempt to strengthen the latter. These verses simply portray the feelings exhumed by a warm spring storm.