Humanism, Fathered Through A Song of Love

"Laura and Petrarch" by some pre-raphaelite master (anonymous)

I saw angelic virtue on earth
and heavenly beauty on terrestrial soil,
so I am sad and joyful at the memory,
and what I see seems dream, shadows, smoke:

and I saw two lovely eyes that wept,
that made the sun a thousand times jealous:
and I heard words emerge among sighs
that made the mountains move, and halted rivers.

From Petrarch's Canzoniere (Source)

_______

The opaque black void of sky billows in from under the deep sable cloud, a rain stirs, as invisible paint on the windows, whipped off the brush of some invisible painter on an unseen canvas of glass, smoked in the storm-tossed night. Clarity emanates from the computer screen light, an email. The message: you’ve been selected, to read your poem, at this event, congratulations. 

The hotel seethes with the aftermath of meaning, a post-sex ward of incongruous freedom in the squared shell of our toxic, flown might, rubbing against the thigh and heel of the lover asleep in her violent convulsions of metaphysical dream. 

She, transported beyond the narrow night, answers to the inborn possibility, a warming light screaming from her mind with elegant force, enough to welcome me inside, forever flushed with intimate secrecy, at her waking touch. The morning, lifeless in the southern winter, breeds an inhumane scarcity. In the lobby, I meet the event organizers, poets themselves. They greet me shyly. 

Sitting in the amphitheater, encased under the waning spotlight seating, I ask an organizer, only minutes before the show if I can have musical accompaniment. She says of course, after which my wife readies to retrieve her instrument back in town. On stage, a beat boxing, spoken word all star thespian nomad streams in the conscious wisdom of the unprepared emotional night. 

With lofty trespasses, I clamber on backstage, wondering, and waiting, ever patient to hear myself, together with the delicate instrumentation of my wife and me sing in the language of spirit.

_______

Singing

"If you sing in your dream, this is a lucky omen representing happiness, harmony and joy. You are uplifting others with your positive attitude and cheerful disposition." (iDream)

_______

"in the lonely pain of the unanswered desire
to be youthful and free
and not burdened with need

...

in embracing beauty as a gift
shown open to all equally
breathtakingly always

undisguised before the rapt maw
scraping carelessly inside marrow's falling pressure
to meet thee, only mortality"

- excerpt "unspoken love's glare"

Pasolini Dreams of Oedipus Rex

Narrator

“That is the thing that inspired Pasolini the most in Sophocles, the contrast between total innocence and the quest for knowledge.

Pasolini

“It isn’t so much the cruelty that produces crimes but the fact that crimes are committed because people don’t understand history, life or reality…if Oedipus had not been so fatally innocent and unconscious, if he had been an intellectual and had first sought out the truth, he might have been able to alter reality. The only hope is a cultural one, to be an intellectual.”

Narrator

“Pasolini wanted the central part, which is the main part of the film, to resemble a dream. This explains the settings and the choice of costumes, and in a sense, the general rhythm of the film.” 

Pasolini as Poet

______

Immediately, I fall into a field, transformed into a beast with qualities of a saber-toothed tiger, a large prehistoric dog and massive reptile. I fly, as with vestigial wings, across the golden, low-lying field on foot, beside me are other beasts of similar quality. Above us, a helicopter hovers menacingly. We race towards a cliff side and plummet off its edge.

In mid-air, we become human, though prehistoric humans. We wear rough animal hides. The others become topless women with faces resembling famous actresses and a friendly girl who used to live on the same property as me in the Western Massachusetts countryside. She had spiky dreadlocks and was an inveterate marijuana user, yet a tough spirit at heart. I watch as she glides effortlessly down the daring tree trunks, only just evading a branch with spikes sharp enough to impale straight through the bone. We finally reach the bottom, and this reality transforms to me running with my golden retriever through the paved neighborhoods in the suburban coastal woodlands of modern day Massachusetts.

I enter the woods. My dog has since left my side. I find my way onto the property of another identical suburban home as the rest. I find a choice between a kayak and a canoe to flee down a nearby stream. At first I choose the canoe, and then return for the kayak for greater stability and smaller, lighter body. I begin to flow down the stream, and suddenly it turns into a great river. I am on this river, which I call Shaganappi River. I feel safe, as this is a great and mighty river, and it will lead me along its course for days through the gorgeous riverine banks of forest, cliff-side and freshwater island scenery. This river slightly resembles the St. Lawrence, where I once kayaked solo for hours under a deafening thunder of sky and empty spiritual witnessing.

As soon as I sense that I am beyond the sights and feelers of my past, I enter a mucky, narrow zone that I am unable to penetrate through. I feel someone has followed me here, and I am at risk of being sent back to my former life in paved neighborhoods. Yet, I manage to sneak past this murky undergrowth violating the surface of the river with vegetable muck and mire and continue on unnoticed.

I continue on the river as before, for days and nights, sleeping under the floating watery stars, as my subjective eye pierces the veil of Earth’s atmosphere with a unity of being in tune with the flow of the great being below my nightly watercraft and bed. Ultimately, I find a small stand, perched against the unsteady shore. Inside is an on old friend from Calgary, who has since fled this city eagerly for the brilliance of Brazil. She is friendly an offers me a cold drink and an ice slush, which she is selling to passersby. I look ahead and see the river mysteriously turned into highway, a crooked bend of road packed with cars in rush hour. I tell her that I think I will turn back and go upstream against the flow of the great river, back where I came rather than face this void impasse of humanity ahead. She agrees, however she brings up that it would be easier for my friend, an ultra-marathon runner than I, however she wishes me good luck and offers me her plutonic friendship, which, for me, is the greatest gift from her.

I begin upstream, although it may seem difficulty, I see no challenge, and simply row along swiftly until the beginning road. My dream cycle fades, and next I am rising up in an elevator. I meet a local Greek restaurant owner who I’ve been trying to contact and he offers me the funding to organize an event for Greek Heritage and Culture, highlighting the music of Roza Eskenazi. I am delighted. There is a man there who’s working for my betterment, on my behalf, he resembles Poet Tree and I am glad to know his physical dream presence as he is kind and encouraging in life.

I descend in the elevator and next find myself waiting for my wife outside a cinema. The movie house lobby is packed with kids who appear to be nearing the end of their high school, they are a beat group. One walks up to me, noticing me from a music venue, and begins talking to me about how he rides waterfalls. He literally uses a board or foot-born craft of some kind and traverses the verticality of some of the world’s most formidable waterfalls. It is a death-defying sport, yet he is keen to show me.

I walk along a damp dirt pathway. This is Athabaska territory. We are at the largest waterfall in the region. I feel the presence of snakes and other venomous creatures about. They say there is a snake who dwells here that is especially aggressive. As we near the edge of the waterfall cliff where the man dips down into the abyss beyond, I see one of these snakes challenging one guy in our party. The guy is playful, trying to disarm the snake with his experience, however he is bitten, which in my mind is fatal, however no one is panicking. Afraid, I dart back, tracing my steps along the path, meeting many snakes along the way, I manage to avoid their wicked advances. Coming to an outcrop, I look out and see this new extreme sportsman riding the waterfall with prowess. It is a sight to behold.    

________

Man towards Mule

ghost of the stalking whispers of human division blind my inside vision as I stir with personal betrayal over the family history in spirit, the moment's occurrence on this very land, quiet peacemaking, mobility tightly screws the factions of an embittered mind each hour, dying to the painful alcoholic grimace of glum infamy

our brewed, wide, drunken grave stammers, laughing to the holy fix and we are reduced to a liar, crying on man towards a mule

- Calgary Winter 09’

Futuristic Art Militarism and Prehistoric Survivalist Community

Scout Attacked by a Tiger by Henri Rousseau

First dreams of a stitched paper design with penciled flower and writings, common to my writing art idea, however suddenly they are all fixed with images of an androgynous Italian who my wife has grown fond of, as she gawks and dances to his images, shouting Italian phrases and playing Italian music, then I am transported down a highway with McDonalds and other corporate consumer businesses in full color on either side, many of the same businesses are right across from one another on what seems to be a futuristic, yet somehow foreign (European or Asian?) drive down a commercial highway stacked to the fullest with consumer culture venues, and next I find myself at war, in full armed soldier uniform, with backpacks of gear hunching down behind a risen formation on a hillock awaiting the enemy, who suddenly rolls in on big Tonka truck tanks that look almost like construction vehicles, I throw out a grenade but it comes flying back and explodes near our troops though no one is hurt, and suddenly as I’m fiddling through my backpack, only to find culinary knives, the enemy greets us, they are Spanish-speaking and have children with them, I ask one of the children what their name is, speaking in Spanish and it is a long, indiscernible Spanish name, my brother is among the troops, laughing and speaking Spanish as well, all the while I am searching for a pistol in bag

Next dream I am beside a tree in the middle of the open prairie fields in what looks like Southern Alberta, however there are hints of a prehistoric landscape among me, I can sense that there are big animals around, a lion of sorts, a bison, and others in herds somewhere near. I sneak into a dim tavern and I see a whole slew of nationalities and ethnicities. I suddenly feel that I am in Palestine when I see a man with a yarmulke and he is smiling at me, and then I look at the bartender who also has one and I am nervous for them, next I am trying to talk with my friend, a Senegalese musician, but he is on the phone and being uncooperative, yet somehow we are in the middle of a conversation and go to a nearby table, there are people around it, a full table with people drinking, one round man at the end of the table tells me he also plays percussion and enjoys rambutan, laughing at me trying to connect, meanwhile I am at the other end of the table trying to converse with my friend the Senegalese musician, and his African friends, however all I can say is there is never going to be any change ever. I walk out from the tavern and I feel again as if I am in a prehistoric landscape, I imagine pre-ancient man, walking amid the predators and herds of endless animal, fearless, barefoot and with purpose beyond his immediate surroundings, and suddenly I fear the tree that I had just visited, for now it seems to resemble that landscape and I am unable to walk within it.

Wednesday, September 28 2011