Going to the Tenth Continent

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Air –
mountain
peaks cut through
thick fog banks: black clouds shaped
like mountain peaks drift above: a glimpse
of fabled continents:
Immortals go there:
home.
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Sea:
the other
shore: a hidden island:
the rippling wind breaks off the quiet
sand: wave after wave: they
roll away:
now.

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Response to Rilke

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The following poem responds to Rainer Maria Rilke's poem from A Book for the Hours of Prayer titled "I have many brothers."

Response to Rilke

I, too, have brothers in the South –
they pray inside a frame, these men
from the high hills, with leather skin,
who set themselves against the world
and are a world unto themselves,

and I have brothers in the West
with stone cold churches
built for the ages to communicate
the ageless truth of their belief,
which they believe more than they know,

and I have brothers in the East
with wisdom held in books
for the common person’s good,
but the words can’t be understood
unless one can stand without words.

Yet, no matter how far I go
on my inward journey, my power
is neither light nor dark,
but clear and cold as a winter
night, as broad and deep as space,

and though my soul does drink as roots
of trees with need, it doesn’t claim much,
but joins as drops do to water -
with affinity - so I come to return
to that early hour, clear and clean as dew.
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Commemorating Columbus Day

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Christopher Columbus

came in the Santana Maria – the Pinto and the Nono
not far behind. He stepped ashore the island, Lucayos,
and immediately announced, “I have taken possession
of this land for the King and Queen, (Queen Isabella of
the big hips and weird collar): they hid a financial under-
standing, the two of them, under the cloak of adventure
and discovery. Next thing he knew, Columbus was torturing
the natives for knowledge of the whereabouts of the gold.
“But we have no gold,” the naked men protested while
their fingers were twisted and broken, their lying faces
beaten. A goodly sum of the Guanahani was slaughtered.
Later, the native chief was discovered hiding in a pit.
No gold at hand, Columbus put them to work exploitatively
and thus the “Day of Discovery” brought us the new world
and established the first principles of foreign relations.

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Kreativ Blogging Award

Award winning painter, Rosemary Sexton, awarded me the Kreativ Blogging Award. It's nice to have someone let you know that you have inspired them or brought a little art into their life. Thanks, Rosemary.

A Poem for John

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188th Street

I remember well
the kid with polio
who hid in the bushes
and flung rocks
with his good arm, his body skeletal,
covered with pale flesh:
who, in his rage and loneliness,
with his corpse-like visage,
scared me to a hollow gut.
You came with me
the next Sunday morning:
I could tell that you were scared, too,
but took up the older brother’s
duty to be brave
and charged in blindly
then punched him away.
When you saw and turned,
and I saw, too, what was done
in the name of fear,
we were ashamed
to be so dumb
and never spoke of it again.