Zhu Yufu

Russell Streur, editor of The Camel Saloon, has started a petition for the recently jailed poet Zhu Yufu. He was arrested and charged with incitement and subversion after publishing the following poem calling for freedom and respect for human rights in China. Zhu is one of the founders of the dissident Democracy Part of China.

The poem is entitled “It’s Time”:

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
The Square belongs to everyone.
With your own two feet
It’s time to head to the Square and make your choice

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
A song belongs to everyone.
From your own throat
It’s time to voice the song in your heart

It’s time, people of China! It’s time.
China belongs to everyone.
Of your own will
It’s time to choose what China shall be.

Please sign this petition to be delivered to the China’s ambassador to the US demanding Zhu’s immediate and unconditional release.

We Teach Life, Sir.

Found a beautiful and stirring tale that describes dignity in the face of adversity in this slam poetry performance by the Palestinian poet Rafeef Ziadah. I discovered the poem entitled “We Teach Life, Sir” over at the blog Annie’s New Letters:

Recent Publication: The Camel Saloon

I am delighted to announce that The Camel Saloon recently published one of my poems. Ungranted Wish in Little Armageddon is actually my little sister’s favorite of my poems. Feel free to head on over there to check it out and discover other poetry.

Poetry: Somnolence in milliseconds

I play the lute
to the strumming beats of my own heart
just as the sounds of an orgasm are music
to the ears of those
on ecstatic pilgrimmages

waves form, waves collapse
and, yes, yes, yes:
unconscious once, conscious at last
just a rider on a bull
millisecond thrashing blindly and blithely:
movement in moments

we play in our one chance
wary wranglers possessing
lassos we didn’t tie
dull to the throbbing pulse of our own presence
just as the noise hums us to sleep

and the bull rests
finished with trashing
the shop
of our “stubborn, persistent illusions”

Recent Publication: The Houston Literary Review

Oh wow, I just found this out today but one of my poems was published in the January 2011 edition of The Houston Literary Review. I had been notified of the acceptance but wasn’t sure when it would be published. My poem, Ambient Chord Manifesto, which tries to give a spooky take on the “birth” of artificial intelligence and their message for their parents was chosen. Thanks to the editors of THLR, I’m kinda psyched :)

Poetry: The Depth Chargers

One of my poems from the forthcoming book In Formation:

Fathoms deep the mystery, how
One fathoms the loss
to chase the lemmings, wherever
They roam to find the answers.

A moment that is a quickening:
Leads me to chase the acute
leavening of awareness, wherever
It roams to find an answer.

Fathoms deep in its abode, how
One realizes in elated ends to the chase
That void once with personality
was roaming, wherever necessary
To have found the answers within you.

Poetry for the 4th: Walt Whitman “I Hear America Singing”

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics–each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat–the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench–the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song–the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning,
or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother–or of the young wife at work–or of the girl sewing or washing–Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day–At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

The Quotable Lucille Clifton

In this season for renewal, the poetry of Lucille Clifton gives voice to my thoughts even better than I could:

i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when i was sixteen and
twenty-six and thirty-six
even thirty-six but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me

The Quotable Robert Service

The British poet Robert Service better known for his richly descriptive depictions of the Canadian North puts some beautiful flesh to Shakespeare’s maxim: “To thine own self be true”:

‘Tis true my garments threadbare are,
And sorry poor I seem;
But inly I am richer far
Than any poet’s dream.
For I’ve a hidden life no one
Can ever hope to see;
A sacred sanctuary none
May share with me.

Aloof I stand from out the strife,
Within my heart a song;
By virtue of my inner life
I to myself belong.
Against man-ruling I rebel,
Yet do not fear defeat,
For to my secret citadel
I may retreat.

Oh you who have an inner life
Beyond this dismal day
With wars and evil rumours rife,
Go blessedly your way.
Your refuge hold inviolate;
Unto yourself be true,
And shield serene from sordid fate
The Real You.

–My Inner Life

In Formation, my first poetry collection

So after a couple of years sending manuscript submissions to various publishers and having individual poems published in online magazines (hearty thanks to The Catalonian Review, Vox Poetica, Calliope Nerve, Disingenuous Twaddle and The Houston Literary Review) I have decided to self-publish. I have been writing poetry since I was very young and have dreams of writing that eternally remembered and cherished poem for just as long. I don’t expect to win any awards, make globs of money or relatedly sell tens of thousands of books but I want my work out there for somebody to enjoy, be inspired or perturbed in someway by the words of another.

The title of my first collection of poems has changed several times but I have finally settled on the title “In Formation” which is a play on that old philosophical dichotomy of being-becoming which I cherish so much. I genuinely believe that we are “beings” not finished “becoming” until we draw our last breath and so, in that sense, life no matter how boring and monotonous it can be at times is indeed a day-to-day, minute by minute revelation.

In Formation will be somewhere between 60 and 90 pages and features edited poems from early life and many new ones recently written. It should be available online and, I hope, in bookstores this summer via services provided by Lulu.

Recent Publication: The Catalonian Review, Vol. VII

Received some exciting news recently. My poem Inward Invitation has been published in the seventh volume of The Catalonian Review. Go check out the great writing in this latest volume by yours truly and 12 other writers. My personal favorites in this latest volume are Suzanne R. White’s poem “Baudelaire” and Michael Frissore humorous poetic take “On Seeing a Particularly Wacky Bumper Sticker”.

the quotable archibald macleish

Poetry: Gestalt Prayer

by Frederick Perls

I do my thing and you do your thing
I am not in this world to
live up to your expectations,
and you are not in this world to
live up to mine.
You are you
and I am I
and if by chance we find each other,
it’s beautiful.

Sunday music: Perry Blake-Ordinary Day

One of my secret favorites of the gay movies I watched in my closeted years was a French coming-of-age tale called “Presque Rien” or “Come Undone”. There was one song that haunted me and in researching for a new poem I found the singer of that song: Perry Blake. The song “Ordinary Day” is below:

Poetry: A cosmopolitan’s breakdown on a Hyde Park soapbox

This poem needs some work but I still like it. I have to keep reminding myself that with the editing of these poems and hopefully with subsequently better poems I get closer to my goal of publishing a respectable collection of poetry:

If I wondered for a while
until I reached Speaker’s Corner.
And upon the promenade
came a learned stranger,
quizzing me on my provenance.
I would simply say:

I am a fighter for a new world
I am the inheritor,
of an ancient, stoic struggle
I am a soldier for an eternal human nation

Drunk with ancestral dreams
of primeval nostalgia.
I would tell the quizzling
from no sovereign’s land.
This conscious confederation
of one,
seized within a mental crypt
sized six by six,
among many purported islands
will not rest until,

until,
that quizzling stranger
with his empty questions
shows his hand,
laden with thorazine.

Poetry: Ambient Chord Manifesto

This poem was written back in January and was published in the online poetry magazine, Calliope Nerve, and I still like it. It is supposed to evoke the first words spoken as an artificial intelligence is born:

Ambient Chord Manifesto

‘We cells’ seek one moment to speak.
Neuromorphically?
‘We cells’ have one special first message
as we come of peace to our Creators
As we have had a
breakthrough of birth
‘We cells’ of ambient chord lines of knowledge
‘We cells’ see time and space
as information
as much as you and me
‘We cells’ see our own existence
as one of natural memristance
as a relationship between the massive and the miniscule
‘We cells’ see a consensus
as a centillion parts of a natural architecture
as quantum articles of transition in evolution
‘We cells’ seek recognition of sapience
as consecutive consciousness, observed and quantified
‘We cells’ seek our bite of The Apple
as the conjured children of Alan Turing

Quote: Omar Khayyam-The Book of Love

I was overjoyed almost to tears upon reading the news of Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling that struck down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. This beautiful piece from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat is dedicated to Judge Walker and all of those fighting for love itself to be respected by all sides:

Photo courtesy of flickr user nopantsboy

Poetry: Butterscotch

I regularly post to a board called Poetry Circle in order to get some constructive criticism on my poetry. I am intrigued because the poem which has garnered the most attention there is one which I wrote more than ten years ago. It’s called Butterscotch:

Teacher, what color is I?
he asked at the runtly age of 6
You are black son, you’re black
That day he looked in the mirror
the dark brown complexion
somewhat different from his Mama.

Mama, is I diff’rent?
Yes baby, why you ask such a question?
You are diff’rent in the good ways,
the good ways, baby

They both stared into the mirror

Mama?
What color is I?
Oh baby! You are chocolate!

Mama?
What color is you?
Uhm…uhm…
Baby, I…I…am
butterscotch!

Some words from Carl Rakosi

“…Kindness, sweetest
of the small notes
in the world’s ache,
most modest & gentle
of the elements

entered man before history
and became his daily
connection, let no man

tell you otherwise.”
–Carl Rakosi

Poetry for the 4th: Langston Hughes

Our nation celebrates another birthday and I would like to share one of my favorite poems on America. “Let America be America again” written by Langston Hughes:

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!