I went to Chance Operations. It was JK Publishing night. This is all local poets. www.jkpublishing.org
They published Bob Reuter's new book. I really enjoyed hearing Bob! He is a true Renaissance Man and is always doing something interesting. Photography, radio show, musician, poet. He is also the subject of a movie! He is a genuine St. Louis unique, nowhere else in the world, man.
Chris Parr read from his new book. Going to Find It.
I read Seamus Heaney's "Undine". I also read two poems of mine. I posted them seperately.
The first was from my Holiday Greetings in 2004: Birds Of Prayer
And one I wrote with in the last week or so, mostly today. (Chance Operations inspires me! :)
The Moonlight Tells Her Secrets. I might be editing this one a bit.
As always, it was a great night!
Monday, December 3, 2012
POEM: THE MOONLIGHT TELLS HER SECRETS
I have shone upon you, and
upon all of your grandmothers,
every one.
I have lain among the fragrant
sandalwood forests with
dark-eyed men
and made romantic
the guilt edges
of their sharp scimitars.
I have caressed the breasts
and smooth thighs of
lush maidens on the floor of jungles,
and danced across the thorns of thistle
on moors
inhospitable and alien
without me.
I have touched the
rarest flower as she bloomed,
and also as her last petal withered and fell
to the ground.
I have ridden
the broad whale's back
as he spiraled above the ocean,
and as he disappeared into
the water again,
dove back down
far below
out of my reach
and left me to mourn on the surface
of the smooth sea,
for stormy weather and white capped waves.
You ask me
how can I love
such an ordinary place,
average people,
undistinguished streams and woods
without distinct character?
These few ragged weeds in an urban sidewalk
crack?
And ghetto palm trees,
their scent
blending with the stink of the sewage-runoff
wash that is pregnant with trash,
dry and stagnant,
rarely clear with stream--
How could I love such as this?
You ask me
because you think it would be better
if I had found you
gazing at me from the base of
the Taj Mahal
or beaches of Bora Bora.
Can you not see that
I love you all
equally?
The scimitar and the palm fronds
and the sea and the
dry wash, I love them all
the same.
I love you. And I love the kings,
and the sandalwood forests
and the soft bellies and backsides
of agile maidens. And I love
the sleeping larks,
swooping bats,
mating frogs, and
the drunk man ordering tacos at
jack in the box drive thru at 2 AM,
wondering if his wife will let him in
when he gets home. I love him and I love
the self-immolating monk
in Myanmar, lighting
the predawn capitol streets
with a glow that seems warm
and inviting,
from an ignorant distance.
I love the piles of rubbish,
and the empty lots,
and the ancient icebergs in the Arctic seas,
and the bloody battlefields
filled with fallen heroes.
I love the maggot and the murderer,
the wolf and the lamb,
the cockroach and the Kephri,
I love them all the same.
I love everything that you are,
and I illuminate everything
that you might choose your
path, and make your way.
I love you so much that I
would spend eternity
in the darkness,
my gaze mesmerized, turning,
undulating
over you as you stand beneath
those ordinary cottonwoods,
by that undistinguished creek,
in an uneventful city.
All have my blessing.
All are part of the night.
All may share the bounty
of my light.
I love and I find love.
I love and I find you.
I shine upon you,
and you shine upon the night.
Copyright 2012
upon all of your grandmothers,
every one.
I have lain among the fragrant
sandalwood forests with
dark-eyed men
and made romantic
the guilt edges
of their sharp scimitars.
I have caressed the breasts
and smooth thighs of
lush maidens on the floor of jungles,
and danced across the thorns of thistle
on moors
inhospitable and alien
without me.
I have touched the
rarest flower as she bloomed,
and also as her last petal withered and fell
to the ground.
I have ridden
the broad whale's back
as he spiraled above the ocean,
and as he disappeared into
the water again,
dove back down
far below
out of my reach
and left me to mourn on the surface
of the smooth sea,
for stormy weather and white capped waves.
You ask me
how can I love
such an ordinary place,
average people,
undistinguished streams and woods
without distinct character?
These few ragged weeds in an urban sidewalk
crack?
And ghetto palm trees,
their scent
blending with the stink of the sewage-runoff
wash that is pregnant with trash,
dry and stagnant,
rarely clear with stream--
How could I love such as this?
You ask me
because you think it would be better
if I had found you
gazing at me from the base of
the Taj Mahal
or beaches of Bora Bora.
Can you not see that
I love you all
equally?
The scimitar and the palm fronds
and the sea and the
dry wash, I love them all
the same.
I love you. And I love the kings,
and the sandalwood forests
and the soft bellies and backsides
of agile maidens. And I love
the sleeping larks,
swooping bats,
mating frogs, and
the drunk man ordering tacos at
jack in the box drive thru at 2 AM,
wondering if his wife will let him in
when he gets home. I love him and I love
the self-immolating monk
in Myanmar, lighting
the predawn capitol streets
with a glow that seems warm
and inviting,
from an ignorant distance.
I love the piles of rubbish,
and the empty lots,
and the ancient icebergs in the Arctic seas,
and the bloody battlefields
filled with fallen heroes.
I love the maggot and the murderer,
the wolf and the lamb,
the cockroach and the Kephri,
I love them all the same.
I love everything that you are,
and I illuminate everything
that you might choose your
path, and make your way.
I love you so much that I
would spend eternity
in the darkness,
my gaze mesmerized, turning,
undulating
over you as you stand beneath
those ordinary cottonwoods,
by that undistinguished creek,
in an uneventful city.
All have my blessing.
All are part of the night.
All may share the bounty
of my light.
I love and I find love.
I love and I find you.
I shine upon you,
and you shine upon the night.
Copyright 2012
POEM: BIRDS OF PRAYER
From Within and from Without, keep Christmas a cardinal bright,
Among the evergreen boughs of Hope, the stars crowning us with Light.
On Christmas Day in the morning
Send not sailing ships of three,
But Peace doves, a pair for mating,
East and West o'er the sunrise sea.
From the North and from the South
Let the Happiness bluebirds fly,
In mighty flocks, soaring forth
Across the innocent pink-dawn sky.
And if it were true as Above, so Below,
No more would the war crows find
A place to nest or a place to grow;
At first light Joy to earth would bind.
As in all Seasons Past, until Evermore,
Sweet sparrows and wrens sing Good Cheer!
Hear this, my prayer, on Christmas Day morn,
For the newborn sun, blessed babe, and New Year.
Copyright 2004
Among the evergreen boughs of Hope, the stars crowning us with Light.
On Christmas Day in the morning
Send not sailing ships of three,
But Peace doves, a pair for mating,
East and West o'er the sunrise sea.
From the North and from the South
Let the Happiness bluebirds fly,
In mighty flocks, soaring forth
Across the innocent pink-dawn sky.
And if it were true as Above, so Below,
No more would the war crows find
A place to nest or a place to grow;
At first light Joy to earth would bind.
As in all Seasons Past, until Evermore,
Sweet sparrows and wrens sing Good Cheer!
Hear this, my prayer, on Christmas Day morn,
For the newborn sun, blessed babe, and New Year.
Copyright 2004
Monday, October 29, 2012
AUTUMN WEARS A RED DRESS
Tonight I went to Chance Operations. I heard two poets and I read three poems.
http://chanceoperationsstl.blogspot.com/
I bought a book by Drucilla Wall, and I already love it!! The Geese at the Gates! She invokes the genie locii of every place she visits- a true Shameness!!!!
Also hear a wonderful Frenchman expatriate, Marcel Toussaint. Loved his poem about the lady driving the red car, and collecting speeding tickets!
The first poem I read was The Magi, by T.S. Eliot. I gave "quite a different reading of it, than as is usual" and I knew where I was going with it, and "it was very good to hear it new," was the verdict.
And that is good because I love T.S. Eliot a lot, and in a way I cannot describe, short of loving him the way I love the colour green, or Venus shining in the twilight. And when I read something great I want to be worthy of it, of course.
Moreover, along with all the other spirits- and right now it is every spirit that ever walked the earth!- T.S. Eliot is here and roaming the poeted and poetic haunts of his old home town. So it was wonderful to read some of his poetry so near to his birthplace.
And the poem, The Magi, is fitting for this period in history, when those of us that are shifting into the New Age, are indeed "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensations" and the "alien gods" are being clung to fiercely.
I also read Los Angeles poet, writer, and editor, Marie Lecrivain. I read her great poem "Manifesto of a Sexy Librarian" last time I was there. Tonight I read one of her latest poems "Shamanic Dreams Via The Internet And Prolonged RNC Coverage".
I also read my own poem. It takes me a long time to finish a poem.
Edit: This was originally written just after Katrina and dedicated to the annual Red Dress Run in New Orleans (which actually occurs in Spring.) This is a poem that seems born (or bourne) by hurricanes. I finished this and read it on October 29, 2012, as Hurricane Sandy was arriving in New York City.
EDIT EDIT: This poem, however, is NOT about hurricane Katrina or any other hurricane. It is about both the season of Autumn in nature, Samhain, and also about women's bodies, if nature and the four seasons were the same woman.
http://chanceoperationsstl.blogspot.com/
I bought a book by Drucilla Wall, and I already love it!! The Geese at the Gates! She invokes the genie locii of every place she visits- a true Shameness!!!!
Also hear a wonderful Frenchman expatriate, Marcel Toussaint. Loved his poem about the lady driving the red car, and collecting speeding tickets!
The first poem I read was The Magi, by T.S. Eliot. I gave "quite a different reading of it, than as is usual" and I knew where I was going with it, and "it was very good to hear it new," was the verdict.
And that is good because I love T.S. Eliot a lot, and in a way I cannot describe, short of loving him the way I love the colour green, or Venus shining in the twilight. And when I read something great I want to be worthy of it, of course.
Moreover, along with all the other spirits- and right now it is every spirit that ever walked the earth!- T.S. Eliot is here and roaming the poeted and poetic haunts of his old home town. So it was wonderful to read some of his poetry so near to his birthplace.
And the poem, The Magi, is fitting for this period in history, when those of us that are shifting into the New Age, are indeed "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensations" and the "alien gods" are being clung to fiercely.
I also read Los Angeles poet, writer, and editor, Marie Lecrivain. I read her great poem "Manifesto of a Sexy Librarian" last time I was there. Tonight I read one of her latest poems "Shamanic Dreams Via The Internet And Prolonged RNC Coverage".
I also read my own poem. It takes me a long time to finish a poem.
Edit: This was originally written just after Katrina and dedicated to the annual Red Dress Run in New Orleans (which actually occurs in Spring.) This is a poem that seems born (or bourne) by hurricanes. I finished this and read it on October 29, 2012, as Hurricane Sandy was arriving in New York City.
EDIT EDIT: This poem, however, is NOT about hurricane Katrina or any other hurricane. It is about both the season of Autumn in nature, Samhain, and also about women's bodies, if nature and the four seasons were the same woman.
AUTUMN
WEARS A RED DRESS
Autumn
comes gaily clad,
Cooling
the skin, but enflaming the eye;
She
is the raucous harbinger of
Winter’s
silent and unprotesting
Final
death; the immodest,
Elderly
grey,
Corpse
to be concealed
Reverently
beneath
Modest,
white morgue sheets
Of
snow and ice.
Autumn,
she comes,
Crying
and wailing;
Beating
her chest,
Exposing
her distress;
She
can not be consoled,
Until
that tantamont tango,
Naked
and whole,
At
last.
From
the Debutante Spring
That
grew like a wallflower;
Danced
bare-legged and
Gawky
limbed;
Rode
her Papa's toes
Like
an awkward colt.
Through
to Summer ,
A
Fine and Generous Lady
Ample
bosomed,
Carnal
and knowing,
Her
skirts full and lush,
Fertile
and green;
Her suitors, potent;
Her suitors, potent;
Her
children, many.
Comes
Autumn, then, finally,
Liberated
from decorum and duty,
By
the windsong echo of
Death-bone
rattling drumbeats
Of
thanks and praise;
Blessings.
Autumn
hosts a feast! A party!
A
festive Crescent City Wake,
Held
just before the
Last
rites will be given.
Autumn
dons her gayest dress;
Flaunts
her harlot fashions,
Taunting
like a Hollywood starlet
The
phantom that approaches
To
claim her last dance.
Bare
legged again,
But
veined now, and thinner skinned;
Shedding
her accessories
Coyly,
one by one,
She
boldly leads
Mourners
dressed in riotous color;
And
Dixieland bands,
Trumpets
gleaming, toot sweet,
Through
dream-soaked streets,
Announcing
The
Year’s last breath.
Dressed
in bold finery,
With
nothing to celebrate
But
certain death,
The
Old Year is carried jubilantly
On
the shoulders of the parade
To
the Midnight of the Seasons.
On
this Eve
The
pyre is lit;
The
uninvited and the dead
Feast
with the living;
And
the soul of
The
unborn New Year
Runs
mad with prophecy
And
redemption in the streets.
The
Old Year's breathe rattles
Like
kindling,
And
under a sickle moon sky
She
lays to rest
Upon the dead wood crackling orange
Against the smokey black night.
Upon the dead wood crackling orange
Against the smokey black night.
And
Autumn wears a red dress
To
the funeral.
Copyright
2005 and 2012
EDIT: You can hear me read all three of these: http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-readings-of-poems-from-29-oct-2012.html
EDIT: You can hear me read all three of these: http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-readings-of-poems-from-29-oct-2012.html
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Thursday, November 11, 2010
HARVEST TO HEARTH
Samhain is passed. All the of the spirits have been appeased for the year. And even if they haven't, their yearly visa to this dimension has expired, and the last transport has left.
Just the living and the ghosts remain. (And maybe the aliens... are humans, collectively, ready for the uniting "other" to appear in the sky?)
Samhain begins at sunset because for the Druids, a new day began when the old one went to bed-- in other words, when the sun set. As the day began in darkness, so must the year. Samahin to Yule was the dusk to pre-dawn twilight of the year.
And from Samhain to Yule there is rest in all endeavours in the other world. There is far too much to do in this one, this mundane world, especially in years of abundance.
The harvest is over. But there is still plenty of work to do. Preserving, putting up, planning for the winter ahead.
And Yuletide dreams are beginning. Soon there would be only the small points of light in the darkness, and time to rest from the labours of summer.
There will be merriment, and new beginnings. And gifts, coloured lights, candies, much drinking and toasting, great logs to be burned with fragrant herbs. And long nights for reuniting with old friends, and sharing the year's adventures.
But until then, there are memories of the things we lost this year. Mourning for those that have died.
And the hearth to clean after summer's neglect. There might be a chill in the air. A moment of sharpness, until the fire is lit.
Stay warm.
With love from my heart to yours,
Lady Rae
ladyrae@gmail.com
Just the living and the ghosts remain. (And maybe the aliens... are humans, collectively, ready for the uniting "other" to appear in the sky?)
Samhain begins at sunset because for the Druids, a new day began when the old one went to bed-- in other words, when the sun set. As the day began in darkness, so must the year. Samahin to Yule was the dusk to pre-dawn twilight of the year.
And from Samhain to Yule there is rest in all endeavours in the other world. There is far too much to do in this one, this mundane world, especially in years of abundance.
The harvest is over. But there is still plenty of work to do. Preserving, putting up, planning for the winter ahead.
And Yuletide dreams are beginning. Soon there would be only the small points of light in the darkness, and time to rest from the labours of summer.
There will be merriment, and new beginnings. And gifts, coloured lights, candies, much drinking and toasting, great logs to be burned with fragrant herbs. And long nights for reuniting with old friends, and sharing the year's adventures.
But until then, there are memories of the things we lost this year. Mourning for those that have died.
And the hearth to clean after summer's neglect. There might be a chill in the air. A moment of sharpness, until the fire is lit.
Stay warm.
With love from my heart to yours,
Lady Rae
ladyrae@gmail.com
Sunday, September 19, 2010
THE FAMOUS 2008 SUPERBOWL EMAIL
Superbowl prediction
Saturday, February 2, 2008 6:58 PM
From Rachael XXXXXXXXX Sat Feb 2 16:58:46 2008
Received: from [70.130.172.122] by web81508.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:58:46 PST
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 16:58:46 -0800 (PST)
From: XXXXXXXXX
View contact details
Subject: Superbowl prediction
XXXXXXXXXX (I erased the email addresses that I sent this message to.)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-435351477-1202000326=:70172"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Length: 2106
Compact Headers
Well, if you remember the incident last year where I predicted a team that wasn't playing, you will see this as the expirement I see it as: can I get good enough with numbers to live a lazy gamblers life?
New York Giants 17 Patriots 14
That is what I kept seeing. Then I saw
Patriots 22
I don't know. I am not confident enough to hit "everyone" on this mail, but to my friends and football fans, well, you know I don't follow the football, especially the American kind.
Friends in LA, I must tell you, I have not seen one betting sheet with the little squares. Who knew I would be homesick for something so silly?
Go Team!!!
EDIT: My 2012 post
http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2012/02/superbowl-psychic-performance-anxiety.html
Saturday, February 2, 2008 6:58 PM
From Rachael XXXXXXXXX Sat Feb 2 16:58:46 2008
Received: from [70.130.172.122] by web81508.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:58:46 PST
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 16:58:46 -0800 (PST)
From: XXXXXXXXX
View contact details
Subject: Superbowl prediction
XXXXXXXXXX (I erased the email addresses that I sent this message to.)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0-435351477-1202000326=:70172"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Content-Length: 2106
Compact Headers
Well, if you remember the incident last year where I predicted a team that wasn't playing, you will see this as the expirement I see it as: can I get good enough with numbers to live a lazy gamblers life?
New York Giants 17 Patriots 14
That is what I kept seeing. Then I saw
Patriots 22
I don't know. I am not confident enough to hit "everyone" on this mail, but to my friends and football fans, well, you know I don't follow the football, especially the American kind.
Friends in LA, I must tell you, I have not seen one betting sheet with the little squares. Who knew I would be homesick for something so silly?
Go Team!!!
EDIT: My 2012 post
http://laladyrae.blogspot.com/2012/02/superbowl-psychic-performance-anxiety.html
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