Matter, Quantum and Otherwise

I must believe that, as long as I am each day trying, that I am making progress on my journey, even when the scenery around myself doesn’t appear to change. That inwardly, there is just as an important advancement, or elevation, as on any material path, and perhaps, that this is the more important progression; perhaps, the entire point of my existence. And, moreso, that whatever small good my clumsy hands and trembling heart have done, will not only repair something vital within the microcosm of this moment, but reverberates within realms I may never here ken; seeding causations now launched into eternal motion, upon a stage much grander, where I have added an essential line, singular in its eloquence, and where afore the silence waited.

(This is a native, wild violet in my yard.)
~
We plot our gardens wrestle
with the weeds demarcate
the sacred from the profane
so it would seem the struggle
to make linear this round
world our triumph of will
to straighten the meandering
path of dreams of life who comes
always of her own volition
surrender to the flood
these winds that carve our valleys
the heaving ground that lifts us
we seedlings of dying stars
have yet to know true splendor.

Listen to “Performing the Jewish Archive: an international project revives the work of persecuted playwrights and composers” on Stitcher

http://www.stitcher.com/s?eid=42841717&refid=asa

Readings for Ashraf Fayadh

I believe in cause and effect. I believe that intention is a cause, and thus also do ideas and words shape this world. If a man’s words may be the death of him, through them so might he live.

Speak the words you believe; free them like angels upon the world.

Speak the words this day of those who are muted by chains and crushed by inhumanity. Free them into the universe; their trajectory no less dynamic than a comet’s.

Join me tonight at Kismet Creative Center, 3409 Iowa Ave 63118 (next door to Yaquis), and speak some words, and be filled by them, and loose them into this world.

I’ve organized this poetry reading/arts event in collaboration with the international effort by the ILB, to speak truth to power, in the case of poet & artist, Ashraf Fayadh, and for the sake of silenced voices everywhere.

The official listing of events is here, but there are many more, and one may hold a reading ad hoc, with friends, or simply by one’s self at home:

http://www.worldwide-reading.com/archiv-en/14-01-2016-worldwide-reading-of-selected-poems-and-other-texts-in-support-of-ashraf-fayadh/teilnehmer

The posters – of participants, and of signatories of the letter of protest – are available for download here:

http://www.worldwide-reading.com/archiv-en/14-01-2016-worldwide-reading-of-selected-poems-and-other-texts-in-support-of-ashraf-fayadh/plakat

Here are some articles about Ashraf’s case, and this international effort by fellow poets, writers and artists, to free him:

http://m.dw.com/en/jailed-palestinian-poet-in-saudi-arabia-gets-global-support-from-fellow-writers/a-18975855

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/20/saudi-court-sentences-poet-to-death-for-renouncing-islam

Newly Translated: Poems to Read for Ashraf Fayadh on January 14

Source: Newly Translated: Poems to Read for Ashraf Fayadh on January 14

A List: Global Readings for Poet Ashraf Fayadh, Sentenced to Death in Saudi Arabia

There are currently events scheduled in more than twenty countries.

Source: A List: Global Readings for Poet Ashraf Fayadh, Sentenced to Death in Saudi Arabia

How to Talk to Your Gynecologist About Euthanasia

Source: How to Talk to Your Gynecologist About Euthanasia

Corvus

The dawn and the dusk
are our kingdoms the jays
do curse us –
The new moon’s courtiers
we feed her chartreuse chords
adorn her in emerald oaks
promise her the sun –
Once we were rainbows
until our feathers reached
for the earth so like leaves
we fell into the dreams
of our oaks our voices became
amber our sorrows shed
into the crimson we were again
taken by the winds our queen redeemed us in cloaks as purple as night –
We bless you with our stories
in staccato punctuation upon
the parchment clouds we are
the first poets, o poets
we are your angels –
Lift your feathers speak
in the deepest violet of life
waste not one portion of this feast
her heart is yours to eat.

A Pair of Lungs, A Few Spoons, and an Elephant–My Life with COPD

Source: A Pair of Lungs, A Few Spoons, and an Elephant–My Life with COPD

TED TALK: For more tolerance, we need more … tourism?

Source: TED TALK: For more tolerance, we need more … tourism?