Chaotic_Passions's Xanga

Friday, September 15, 2006

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 13:01:09 GMT

Late Summer Blues

There's a time, not a long one, everyday

When you're very much alone.

Only lasts ten, twenty minutes, everyday

When you're very much alone.

And your heart slows down to a subtle hiss,

And you focus on a certain place in the ground

With dry brown leaves, from early fall

And the wind whistles by with barely a sound

There's a time, not a long one, everyday

When you're very much alone.

Only lasts ten, twenty minutes, everyday

When you're very much alone.

And it doesn't matter if a friend is a half a foot away

Doesn't matter if a larger crowd is near,

Doesn't matter if he goes, wouldn't matter if he stays

The grass is rustling too hard to hear.

There's a time, not a long one, everyday

When you're very much alone.

Only lasts ten, twenty minutes, everyday

When you're very much alone.

And you love that time, even if its just a moment,

And miss every moment that its gone

It's the funny time o' day, when the yellow grass is grey

And nothin's right, but thank God, nothin's wrong.

There's a time, not a long one, everyday

When you're very much alone.

Only lasts ten, twenty minutes, everyday

When you're very much alone.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:44:33 GMT

Haifa, July 26, 2006

My friend took a bowl today,
with soapy loving hands he washed
his white shoes, didn't hear the warplanes
flying overhead, roaring overhead.

His shoes were as white as the fluffy clouds
That hid the rockets falling on the city
Just a half an hour's walk from wher eI sleep.
People slept and died, as I awoke, afraid.

His shoes ran him to the shelters each time
The sirens tore into our lives ... he was
Proud to scrub at dusty laces that may yet
Save his life, and take him underground.

He's lucky, my friend, his shoes as cruelly
White as the sky ... sneakers, like clouds
That take him far away. He's lucky because
for his work, he earns the right to fly.

But I must look to the clouds for hope,
As I was taught to all my life
And I must look in fear as I was taught
by just two weeks of war.

And I will ponder the strange sameness
Of a bomb shelter and a grave,
And think of my war, the sirens, the clouds,
The fear, beautiful Haifa,

And my friend, squatting on the floor
of our balcony, polishing his dusty wings.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 16:00:58 GMT

It's hard to write in your head, walking
under steel bridges, the dog pulling, listless,
to his own poetic endeavors ... your eyes
dribbling with tears ... forgetting the lines.

Not so easy, either, sitting in a train watching
Girls who watch other men, over the margins
of books, whose pages never turn, whose lonely
word remain unread and idle.

What should a poem say, after all, when
the greatest poets are the cruelest liars?
When will a poem earn the distinction, the honor,
the right to be shot and killed in the streets?

No, not easy to write at home, unless your hand sobs
in ink, only when it should be doing something productive.
A true poet will be read by everyone, when he dies,
But understood only by strangers and lovers ...

Because they are also lonely, and all so useless.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Thu, 16 Mar 2006 01:49:06 GMT

I started to cook my pasta that day at 5, knowing that with my penchant for causing trouble, i'd be done by 6 ... I'd boiled the water, watched the simmering foam boil up from the inside of a black pot, pushing aside the lid as the water comes up inside and pours over and makes the gas fire sputter in indignation.

Of course, the pasta is overcooked ... I don't stir it at all, and I'm watching TV instead of watching the damned cooking ... so the pasta's so soft it follows apart on the fork ... which is just a little gross. But it's okay ... the pasta sauce is good after I cut up a few tomatoes into them, since I'm a crazy tomato fiend ... so I cut up tomatoes and dump it into my canned pasta sauce

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:27:12 GMT

Ode to Misplaced Love, the edited version

Her eyes are closed, her breathing ragged, harsh

And if they open they are glazed and can’t

Look further than the neck, her eyebrow arched

Her fingers dancing as she groans and pants.

Your mind, though, won’t be fooled and grabs your ear,

And whispers softly, trembling with a grief,

It’s frightened, knows that you’ll transform a leer

Of concentration into love’s gold leaves.

Her fingers may cause magic, may cause sounds

That titillate the soul and heal the heart,

But don’t permit sweet music’s tones to wound

Your love with one who loves only her art.

Your mind must stop your passions, give you peace,

Your love for music keep, for her release.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:26:50 GMT

The Last Words of Kaschey, without a Death.

Remember, bard, the days when you and I

Would spar for power, strength, control, and pride?

And battles we had fought, old minstrel, where

The hail of words and arrows in your song,

Made stories with a certain ending, break

From their predestined path and once or twice

I’d take a tale, and win a little time

From heroes and the sons of kings, who sought

To break me, I would sometimes steal a drop of blood,

A few more miles to add to my domain.

We built my palaces together, bard,

And hid my wooden heart behind their walls,

Though you, my loving traitor, often brought

The warriors, princes, fierce young bearded men

To break my walls and steal my daughters love

And find the simple oaken box that holds

My pulsing bleeding heart, and I would beg

My friend, my minstrel, and would fight as fierce

As angry wolves, for my harsh life.

But friends we are, my singer of tales …

Though you may take my life from time to time

You cannot tell a tale without my name

So I will live, and die, and die and live.

As long as you shall sing, and tell, and dance

My heart will pump inside its wooden chest …

And I will fright the souls of ancient kings

And peasant children’s eyes will gleam, afraid,

Defiant, hearing of the serf revolts

That just my name could bring to life.

But in these times, my minstrel, traitor, friend,

You fall, you die, you pass away, the fog

Of age does claim your singing voice, your harp,

The barking poet takes your place, who writes

Instead of singing, and my name, Kaschey

Will be foregone, for names like Godunov,

Onegin, and the soft and dreaded steps

Of this old, ragged mage, who walked the plains

And taiga in the night, shall die once more,

Forgotten with the building of brick roads.

Friday, February 10, 2006

Fri, 10 Feb 2006 06:39:46 GMT

I have a feeling this one's gonna get long, and a little ardent near the end. here're the first 3 stanzas ... i want them to be calm and loungy, to show the build-up, even more ... should give you an idea of how long this thing is if these are just the preamble to the crescendo of the poem.

(a titled one .... oooooh)Ode to a Friendly Coffee Shop

The smell uncurls slowly, pressing tendrils 'gainst
you as the noise pushes at your face as the
door opens ... this little place with all its
hipsters crowding tables the one of many dens inside
my house, which is the street where one will
find a crass young man with dev'lish hair and a tattered shirt
drinking a hot coffee in the warm days of Autumn.

They stand out, these many little rooms, by all
their purposes but this shop, jampacked with people
quite unaware save one that the are all my friends,
chatting on the weather or the love affair or sharply,
crudely cursing at a neighbor at a diff'rent
table for the crime of stealing another chain, and all the
while my eyes, framed by the rim of my coffee mug see
only my pewter mug of raspberry tea, cooling on
the ledge of my balcony with a friendly, burning cigarette.

She sits, alone, just for a few moments while I
amble to the little rais'd floor and clear my throat
and speak ... she is a friend to me and loves my words
e'en when they're foreign and speak of childish things,
and sits, assured and confident that when they make a book,
she'll be one of the quite a few that will receive a copy with
a note from me, for free in the mail, and my little lies will
have another one to read, with an amused smirk dancing on her lips,
fiery lies, tender lies, vicious, painful, lying lies, my words.

My fingers twiddle, frantic, as the little slaves

revolve and rearrange inside me, clawing to

be first, to be whispered into the shouting crowd, knowing

that the hiss of words, from the garish corner, will have

the might to mute a dozen speaking voices, though

my words are uglier, sometimes, more irrelevant than the din.

Yet though they slither, whisper b’hind his steaming eyes,

while he chatters with his soft and smiling friend, he knows

not what he must say, when comes his time to rise

and change the world, as best he can … or cause the flicker

of an eyebrow on a man with a scarf and a complex coffee drink,

and plant a dormant dream, or maybe fail.

And though, across the saturated stream only an image of

smouldering ash, the paper twisting as it burns and mixes gray

smoke and silver steam, the last of dying gasps, my tea chills

and belches, e’en while the man that walks the streets with

broken legs and shivers in the cold and shakes a grizzled paw,

“put out your smoke” he grunts, and walks on. It is enough.

Enough it is, it must be, there is no more, I smile as the child

with sad eyes rises to his height, a man with blazing hair

And sets the pudgy cup down noisily, with shuddering hands,

and runs his fingers across his shirt to dry a sudden dampness,

and walk, erect to take his, my place upon the dim stage,

survey the crowd, clear the throat, smile and tremble.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 05:36:56 GMT

Quite possibly, Turkey’s most definite quality is the unique blend (and sometimes, the clash) of Western and Eastern cultures and ancient and modern influences that exist in its boundaries … the original glories of Byzantium compounded by the wonders of the Muslims, the ancient world of the Persians and the Greeks complementing the brick of colonial times and the steel of the modern era.
To Kurban Said, also known as Lev Nissbaum, a Russian Jew who had early on become infatuated with Muslim and Turkish culture, something that was not altogether astounding in the earlier part of the 20th century. He hid with a great number of other Russians in Constantinople after the end of the Russian Civil War, who were escaping from the newly Bolshevik Russian empire. It was here that he cemented his love for Turkic culture and converted to Islam.
In fact, the Jewish community of Turkey is one of the most ancient communities in the world … ruins of synagogues near Izmir have been dated back from 220 BCE, and the Jewish community in Izmir has been constant since then. After the Ottomans conquered Byzantium and, having discovered small and relatively oppressed pockets, encouraged them to grow and prosper. Bursa, taken in 1324, had a synagogue constructed that year that was run till just 50 years ago. Other communities were discovered and encouraged, and the Ottomans welcomed Jews exiled from France in 1394 and from Sicily in the early 15th centuries. When Constantinople was finally taken in 1453, Jews welcomed the Muslim leaders, and just 10 years later, Bavarian Jews found refuge in the Ottoman lands.
While actual legislation making all Turkish citizens equal under the law were applied only in the mid 19th century, a great number of high government positions were Jewish, especially in diplomatic and medical circles. And even during the Second World war and the Holocaust, the Jewish communities of Turkey were the ones that gathered information about the atrocities in Europe, both to try to rescue the Jews and for future historians to use.
What I’d like to research is not just the ancient ties between the Muslims and the Jews, but whether these ties have weathered not only the centuries but also the past few decades, with Muslim and Jewish tensions rising all over the world. Are the Turks and the Jews as close as they were before? How do they explain this separation to each other, if it exists? And if it doesn’t, what common transcending factors draw the Turks, Jew or Muslim together?

Friday, January 27, 2006

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:49:22 GMT

His face is old ... hard to see his jutting

jaw line, his bronze skin puckering and leathery

such a man is my grandfather, his peaked

cap sitting, pushed back on his skull

forcing your eyes into his, no shadows on him.

He needs glasses now, though his eyes

are steady and hard, earnest on the road as

he drives ... I see them, shining against the

windows, unwilling mirrors, to watch them

losing luster, the coals burning hard and slow ...

I watch him as he drives, his mouth a

restless slim cut across his face, inclined to close

like a good wound, not to spill too much ... I

wish his lips would open, spill his lifeblood in

my lap, spill his words to me.

When I was small he brought a bike for me,

in his suitcase, when he came ... we built it together

in an afternoon, he bought me candy to celebrate.

He had no money, but a lot of magic ... I didn’t

know what money was, then, anyway.

HIs hands always smell like garlic, it rubbed off

on the candy bar ... I hate myself when I remember

that I hesitated to share ... he laughed and said

I was young yet, I had to learn but I had time ...

when he cuts apples for me, they smell like garlic.

His eyes push me away, so near and close as

he contemplates the road signs, mine

are far away, watching his squarish

hands, remembering the chocolate in his sleeves,

his hands pushing me on my bike.

When I was smaller, his fingers grabbed

my mother’s lipstick, to write our names on

suitcases, in red, always thinking straight as we

sat in our plane, and mother cried because

it’d be a while before we’d see him again.

He’s old now, the skin heavy

with old baggage, but his eyes are still near,

and sharp, watching the road as I watch him,

his hands taut on the wheel and me,

wanting to see his eyes.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 03:01:41 GMT

Untitled #2, On futility in love.

The fingers clutched, yet again,
At the empty air, as he dreamt,
His eyes like pale raisins clenched,
Of silvery sweat on her throat.

He dreamed in frenzy, trembling
With fury, at but a few miles, and
An infinite space of rules and
Propriety, that thrust him back.

He knew her, in his mind, knew
Every line, every gasp, every perfect
Step, her passions, her shames.
He loved them, he loved her.

And he could only curse the fabrics of life
That he knew her not by face,
Not by smell, not by step,
Not by anything but a name.

My gods, my readers, does he now
Commit another fault, one more mistake,
Of writing chants without a pulse,
For his pulse is in another’s breast?

Does she shiver, quiver with desire,
With his love of soul if not of flesh,
My lords, my readers, let her not be troubled,
That I love her, yet want to love her.