Tag Archives: compassion

Prayer, a prose poem

Prayer

Oh! It happened with the first naked, helpless chicken in the oven I recognized… Mommy, get it out, let it out, I cried… chickens have their own heaven, my mother lied.

At six, I dressed as Saint Teresa of Avila for Halloween… that year, I felt sinful accepting candy. More than anything, I yearned to bless their dear hands moving with generosity toward my outstretched pillowcase.

Later, I tried bright blue skin, leading my perfumed cows to drink. I wore robe of scarlet and gold, a red galero atop my head. I wore fragrant saffron in my hair, eating nothing except fruit from the ground, sweeping the earth bare before my steps… with a broom I made myself.

I danced in green meadows, wrapped ribbons around a Maypole, reached high for a golden ring. I sank into plushy new grass. Once more, the earth herself said to me, you will be all right, you will always be all right, as I lay upon her — a small, breakable doll. I lay on my mother like that (like that) (like that) (like that) for hours, eyes shut, and felt her words eternal lift off the roof of my skull and cleanse me of my fear and shame like fast-running, silvery water.

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Jasmine

The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings? 

So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god. 

For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.

She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue. 

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Mercy

Every moment of her life had been marked by her soul, waiting and restless, trying to elevate itself.  Yearning.  In the end, she had done what she had HAD to do… she recognized herself only from a great distance.  Was she Mary Poppins?  Pollyanna?  A doe-eyed Disney princess?  She remembered driving across Western flatlands, as fast as she could, her head out the window, her face into the sere wind.  

She, an Air Force pilot’s daughter, felt bad for the poor stewardesses, who knew what was coming in a way mere passengers could not know… stoically dumping everyone’s shoes in the bathroom.  Collecting all sharp things, taking people’s eye-glasses away from them.  She remembered walking along the edges of the Atlantic, feeling the cool sand under her toes.  Mother Universe keeps her eyes on us all.  

Someone reached out to grasp her hand, solid & firm.  She grasped back.  She looked at the sun through the little window, a flashing brilliant light, and lightly closed her eyes.  It would be quick, merciful, and good.  And right now?  Right now she was still alive.  She was still a witness.  There was no other way to get through life.  Mercy was revealed, and blinded her.  Everyone was waiting.  

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Rain for Remembrance, a poem

illustration rain for remembrance II

Rain

The woman sits up all night, listening to it rain.  The woman  has often sat up all night waiting for one thing or another to either leave or arrive: bandaged fingers, whooping cough, her own lookalike grandchildren.  When she can, she sleeps next to her dying mother in the king-sized bed; she bangs her own shins on the high rails, climbing in.  Her arms and hands are able to lift the wasted body of her dying mother with amazing ease.

She watches & waters the great rack of African violets in the living room; grows wheat grass for her mother’s cat.  Other times, she sits in a high-backed wooden chair, needlepointing forests in wool, chain-smoking for hours.  Her mother will die very soon; then the daughter will put on her navy dress with a large, elaborate organdy collar and fail to draw a deep breath for several days.  The woman’s several brothers and their children will fly in from all over the country, and flower offerings will dwarf the grave itself.

After the burial, the woman will pack all sorts of mementoes into her mother’s old cedar “hope” chest:  yearbooks, diaries, photographs, diplomas, invitations, programs, baby booties, baby spoons, baby cups, even a rather grisly alligator purse, complete with the head, legs, tail & feet and sharp black claws.  When she has nightmares, more often now, she sits up all night, her fluffy gray tabby queen on her lap like a hot-water bottle.  The cat’s purring leads the woman away from the perilous mountain passes & rocky cliffsides inside her head and back to level ground, so she can help her mother die properly.  That is what proper love looks like, she thinks.

 

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Columbus Park

Older Chinese men playing Chinese chess, Columbus Park, Mulberry Street, Chinatown, New York City, New York USA.

Columbus Park

Layers, on this island the pearly nacre of creation — darkness,
light swirl for my attention. Walled around the park are giant
buildings, shades of gray and brown, windows glinting,
dark mirrors. I traveled a thousand miles to get here,

to find something, the heart of something, heaven,
earth, sore feet, my own heart. I am a dry sponge,
tramping from one street to the next, darting eyes
quick to latch on, transcend movement, freeze-frame

all in memory. The benches call out to me; I can’t refuse,
down low in Manhattan, where Chinese congregate,
playing some fast game. Like mah-johngg, like dominoes,
like poker, like checkers.  And a wino passes out on the bench

next to me — his mouth gapes, his teeth darkened with decay,
his tongue moving as he breathes. I am here on my bench
otherwise alone, trying to remember my divine nature.
The fact I don’t feel full of knowledge is sure evidence

I am. Nobody ever talks about how in his twenty-ninth
year, the Buddha left his wife and child in the middle of the night
without even saying goodbye. Nobody speaks of the tears
they shed next day. Buddha’s sobbing wife

is the mother of all things, and I have never known
her name. And I know without knowing I have two
souls — the one that will die with my body, the other that will
wander the world. Everything here becomes holy;

I take the wino in my arms, feeling his foul breath
grow sweet, becoming perfume of heaven. The world blooms;
I am its soul, dancing upon the knife-blade, bleeding, but not
falling. No, not falling. As I understand, so shall I be delivered.

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Scatter Peace And Love, a prayer

Now a day man is impatience in the earth. We have no sympathy to others. Though we need to be kind as a greatest creature in nature. Because we are not beast. But lot of our activity is as like as animal. We are same blood colored human. Whereas we need to bond strong […]

via Scatter Peace & Love — Monjur Alam Rubel

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Notes From The Unconscious, a poem

illustration-notes-from-the-unconscious

Notes From The Unconscious

Run me languid over a rusty road,
and you behind, laughing to pursue…
Take only my smooth love chain,
kiss me softly, without injury.

I am essential and lusty…
I will drive through it for her leg diamonds,
and use him at those bare places.
To sea and gone were the sweet peach thousand.

The blood goddess is frantic…
She knows how hard loving is.
All delicate language has arms of iron, so
sing elaborate love from your tongue.

How have I dreamed sordid roses?
Rob them of a tiny pink eternity….
As bees nuzzle, so shall I dive into you,
and sniff your scent like a mama bear.

A man I used to know lives less than anyone
under wool suits. He rips up rocks
as meat, then he must finger petals.
He has no idea this is happening.

For years, I floated bitter in a black lake…
I said, please, no beating,
leave out the ugly juice,
don’t make me drink any more.

No one listened. My eyes turned
red like woman vision…
I am still weaker & falling,
after death, beauty may ache raw & blue.

He let a void crush what we incubated….
Did it in my white bed.
One milk moan from an infants’
fresh red lips, haunting me forever.
Boil away the mist with lick power.
Heave away or use an apparatus….
Near the TV, these fiddles cry for feet
to dance and obliterate pain.

Our sad summer was like a repulsive
shadow of fluff. I floated like a dandelion seed.
But winter could recall a sweet day chant
with cool water, trips to the country like lazy sun…

Did the purple smear on the wall show size?
Why can the mad beautiful boy shake?
I watch a friend produce a luscious lie.
None trudge after me, but time will swim easy…

Blow your smoky symphony,
my green cloud angel,
and put the sacred blaze against a woman,
melting her like caramel.

Dirt will come and time bring ice,
so heal your broken voice, shed the marble
surrounding you like a deep bone prison,
while I bleed champagne.

Ask your heart to squirm, remember
the ship of spring, seek air blue kisses,
pierce the morning, know the color of liquid
magic, speak in a velvet stream, and love me.

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TRUMP is an informative guide on Donald Trump presented in a comics format by Ted Rall, published by Seven Stories Press. It is not a satire, nor is it a bombastic attack on Mr. Trump. In fact, if you were only to read a brief passage here or there, you might even warm up a […]

via Review: TRUMP by Ted Rall — Comics Grinder

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She Hates Numbers

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DJI is letting people override its software that prevents its drones flying in restricted areas — Quartz

DJI, the largest consumer drone manufacturer in the world, announced July 5 that it was releasing a new version of the software that controls its drones, which will allow operators to fly in areas that the company’s software previously did not. DJI said in a release that this could aid those who want to use…

via DJI is letting people override its software that prevents its drones flying in restricted areas — Quartz

I think this is probably a TERRIBLE IDEA.

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