Thursday, November 30, 2006

I Feel Christmas

A poem by a fellow member of the Wole Soyinka Society - Folu Agoi.

I FEEL CHRISTMAS

I feel Christmas in whispering winds
Thirsty winds bathing homeland with gold powder;
I feel Christmas in gold-washed homeland.

I feel Christmas in chilly breeze
Freezing breeze breathing fresh mist
Mint mist venting piquant scents
Spicy scents stifling stale sweat-stained scents.

I feel Christmas in heat haze
Hot haze scorching spent beings
Bent beings bowing slowly
Slowly yielding life to virginal seeds.

I feel Christmas in furious gales
Fuming storms fanning forest fires
Irate fires swallowing squalid lodgings
Sleazy lodgings shielding feral creatures.

I feel Christmas in trustful toddlers
Trusting toddlers stalking sauntering Santas
Strolling Santas sowing hope of bounteous banquets
High hope heightened by blank carols
Bare carols blazing round famished Santas.

I feel Christmas in treasured homeland
Forested homeland of immortal hope.

– Folu Agoi

Saturday, November 25, 2006

"On the road to...". High times and beyond.

Good morning.

Althought it is already midday. Today, just like promissed last week, I will continue the story of The Self-Claimed Poet enclosed on the pages of his self-issued book with poems named "On the road to...". As far as the first part of it was self-depicting, the second one is rather disturbant... Why? It is not hard to guess, that even The Young Guy has gone through what our (western) culture has got to offer to young people. And what it has got to offer, then? Drinks, drugs and dame... Fuck that. Eventually, the strong will not get cought.

I will release my objection today, and show you how The Self-Claimed Poet struggled to not to get nailed into the trap of three dimensional living (existence), to be strong...

This first poem that I wanted to quote today has no title, and it talks straight about this struggle of the self-claimed poet to escape from a world, in which he is submerged since his return from Caracas, which is the world of emerging vogue for consumptionism, and even relishing with consumption of a western kind, consumption of everything, which of course in most cases affects mostly that of a lower kind.

* * * (07-02-1998)

I run away
I run away from my Morrison

He overtakes me
He overtakes cuddles lets go

And he sings
He sings “Moon of Alabama”

Look
Look left lonely sexy mama

Eat it
Eat it
Eat and smoke
Eat and try

Ignite yourself
Burn

“..I tell you we must die…”

trans. Rafał Gadomski, 01-11-2006

And if you have had any doubts about, if american way of live affects the lifes of the citizens of newly westernized states of the old communist block in the worst way, you don't have to burden. The dissease spreads easily, along with McDonalds restaurants and shoping malls...

The second piece is something a bit more personal. It is, I guess, a picture of some mental sickness or degenaration, caused by this style of living; parting, smoking, drinking, clubbing, chaos... But today I feel that this was not only my sickness, but the social one, which of course has got to be cured, and I consider this piece very rewarding. I wouldn't remember those states of mind today, I would forget...

* * * (17-03-1998)

i revive only while i’m transforming
from fluent state into liquid
and liquid to wash and conversely
it’s too much of this
dream
wakefulness
not dream
dream wakefulness
it’s to much to dimly

i revive only when i’m befalling
not myself maybe her or else neither
and conversely
very not different then yesterday
not appointed not wanted
most often inside a bus
once in tube, in state of vigil

i revive only while considering
that it’s now it’s time it came it will be
i revive like right about now
and conversely…

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 01-11-2006


And the third tune for today is a little bit more intense, but it talks about the same problems, just seen from a different angle, from the point of view of a witness... Have you ever killed a mosquito, or a spider, a fly, whatever? Everybody kills mosquitos but, are you aware that you kill while you do this? For some people killin' a mosquito is something like checking the hour on their wrist-whatch...

* * * (19-02-1998)

i’ve waited for the bus today
i’ve waited…
i’ve waited…
and i came by at least
they arrived two at the time
they will go different routes, but they will stop were they are supposed to
in the place where i’m living
i don’t mind…
i don’t mind…
i have taken place
i see, a gnat flutters somnolent
at this season he is a spinaker
the mob gathered round
why does he fly so slow? maybe he is drunk?
(yes, he was drunk a little)
is he drunk? maybe a junkie?
(yes, he was bit stoned)
yes
yes
and bechanced the execution
bang death
five rifles on one soldier have become
what has been done?
what has been done?
it has resorbed and that’s what has been done
it’s become
dead

just maybe
just maybe
just maybe he was herold of the fall
whispered the innocence
in fine it’s the end of february
no…likely a drunkard
no…likely a junkie

laugh though o laughers
the spring will come anyway
and fulfill its obligation
will increase the rats
will increase the cocroaches
will increase the mosquitos
will increase the expectance
expectance
laugh though o laughers

trans. Rafał Gadomski, 02-10-2006

Well, was I the witness, or maybe it was me, the mosquito? I still bethink this one today...

And the last one for today, is something which goes beyond that chaos. I think that, for this collection it is a kind of a road sign... It has no date, suprisingly, and it was the penultimate piece in the album.

* * *

I’m coming back to home
Where the sky is navy blue
And the grass dulls during spring
The oranges grow at the Christmas tree
And they astride with the orange all the other sweets
Where every television set is in colour
And the songs are sculptured in the vinyl
Like the smile of Beethoven to the dimension of rustle
Wind is singing the moods
And the sun delights at autumn the pastel coloured leafs
Every wander is
The wood
The wall of Citadel
Or a wondering puppy
Where our settlement is round and it rotates around the sun
And all around it rotate the galaxies
Where candies sweeten
And the sea is salty and it licks our heels
Where I am a sphere
And where we are all rotating round the Sunday dining table

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 03-11-2006

And that is how this chapter of the story is closing. The self-claimed poet finally is on the road... He have set, left his friends, and beauty quenns from his area, empacked his papers and gone. Where will his road lead to? Hell? Home? Maybe some other area? Who knows...

I will be back next week, but this time I want to tell you a different story... See you next saturday then... Bye.

RG

For continuation see:

"Dreams and Expactance". Another chapter.




Thursday, November 23, 2006

Update



Here are a couple pictures I have posted recently at Natures Wallpaper. I also started a group for Photoholics Anonymous for anyone you would like to join.




My recommended viewing, please take some time out and watch the video, it is amazing that these scientists will put their face on camera...

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Tainted One

I will do something very unusual and turn away from the topics I normally address and post some of my writings...

This psalm called "Tainted One" is one I wrote when trying to gain insight to my own life...I was in a state of anger at the time...enjoy...

With the anger of my life I have tainted my soul. It is the impurity of anger that weighs heavily, and to again breath, the weight must be lifted. I turned to the Sun, the father of sight, to show me the path. The Sun became brighter than my eyes could stand and an image of me was burned on the ground. I sought mother Moon and asked her to hide my anger, but my anger blacked out the stars and I could no longer find my way. I turned to the Mountain, the silent guardian, for the answer. But my anger was so heavy, the rocks beneath me crumbled even as I climbed to the answer. I stood in the rain, hoping that its pure waters would cleanse my spirit. The rain could not wash me, my anger was too dry to accept the water. I went home defeated. I stood in front of the mirror and confronted anger. I complained to anger that he was too heavy, and commanded that he leave. Anger then responded: "Release me".

Saturday, November 18, 2006

"On the road to...". The beginning.

Welcome friends.

The series about the life and inspiration of The Self-Claimed Poet continues, as I promised last week, it enters today a new stage...Within the scattered and loose pieces that he composes, many still are dull and of no value (at least for himself), but then there are more and more pieces among them, which he begins to consider important for him. And there are enough of them to make a selection. Today I don't remember, where this idea of gathering the few poems into a compilation came from. But I still remember the keynote of this book. It was, of course, describing myself. Released (xero-copied) in "very limited edition", it was eventually given as present to a very limited group of friends and familiars...It contains 14 poems, which are ordered in a way that best fits its goal.

I don't want to present all of them, (and I've translated only some of them), but I still have to divide those into two tematic groups. This first one I called it "The beginning". It describes well the principles of the self-claimed poet...Today I see them as the routs of a beautiful tree which is growing until today, and eventually bares fruits...

The first piece with no title, is the one which opens the collection:

* * * (01-02-1998)

Write out all your letters today
Dispatch the heart
And all the kisses
Tommorow is hiding past the moon
And the moon behind your window
When you have had the morning shower
Another of the good men
Took his pill for the eternal
Enternal is a dread fever…
Weep out all your tears today
Only Earth goes crying…
Have an ample supper
Drink some good vinous…
And if you will wake up tommorow
Write out all your letters today
Dispatch the heart
And all the kisses

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 29-10-2006

The second piece is very self-depicting:

* * * (07-02-1998)

it’s so few that i possess

a few words
some sounds
some of the colours
insidious flavour
and the dewy morning
wind blow on my cheeks
comfortable longs
with two trouser pockets
myself

it ain’t many, just this one world as demesne

my own stars
the moon
streets full of nightmares
on the private fall
the rose that I’m loaning
my own three side-tracks
and my own fires
between the two temples
in me

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 30-10-2006

And it continues with this third piece:

* * * (01-03-1998)

the clouds
my ambassador nowhere nil
the uniquely…
a straw helmet
a steely sombrero
cap with feather
the play
in two acts of infiltration
a classified message about a childbirth
coder of each moment
for several
all museums of everything
for every
overhead and around
beside the speech
and beside…
the barnacles of the clever eye
my ambassador nowhere nil
and beside…

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 31-10-2006

The piece below is very beautiful (at least I stil consider it so). It is called "The letter", and it talks about something which is common to every man, which is the quest for love, the one and only...

„The letter” (25-01-1997)

I seek you…
I seek in an opened book
And in the aureate droplets of cofee gamboling on the table.
I seek in the intense notes,
Putting out to the air idely with a stream of azure tinted satin
From the exhausted trumpet of an old gramophone
And in hand,
Stretched out at night-time for the welcoming of the brand new day.
I see everyday into the heart of an old wall clock,
Which murmurs low voice in the corner with unbroken bas.
Maybe you sit there,
And you row with the cuckoo that the time does not live.
I once have waken up a lamp, which slept in the corner,
Looking for you one at a time
In tones of the cigarette smoke,
Which sauntered around below the lampshade philosophizing in silence,
Tightely wraped in the starry robe of the
midnight.
I’ve quested on and on…
And I got so tired with the seeking,
That it was sufficient that the dream have pulled me softly
And I rolled into his warm opened-arms.
But I’ll start to seek again tomorrow,
As soon as I will wake up…

I do promise…

Trans., Rafał Gadomski, 01-11-2006

And the last one, indicates something which is common to our modern societies...Sites full of passersby...And it has no date. Pobably something about 1997-1998.

* * *

people people

in me

to me

seer off me

beside me

good morning

or then less likely

do i meet them

or maybe i only omit them?

and well what for…

actually?

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 31-10-2006


Within those pieces, I still find today elements which are characteristic of my personality today. Is that because there was some of the truth in them, or I just long to be somene like him...? I can't say...Of course almost everything changed since, but not everything. And, of course, that is not yet the end of the portrait...Expect continuation of "On the road to..." next saturday...See you then...Bye.

RG

For continuation see:

"On the road to...". High times and beyond.











Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Chasing Coyotes

I stare at the map almost in a mindless haze...I do it every day. I know instinctively that the dots represent, not just a crime, but a victim. But there's something else...

The dots...are you agitating my dots? No, actually I'm attempting to understand the dots. The dots talk...

I come to realize that the dots are more than dots...each one is its own life...coming together with all the others to form a single large life. It grows, it changes, it begins, and it ends. It is ever evolving...

What is it? I don't know exactly...maybe I'm catching the face of insanity. But it has no face, it has no name, so what is it?

In our world where the sun beats down the weak and is survived by the durable and the intrepid, there is a creature that fits such a description...he is a paradox...he is a coyote.

The Native Americans call the coyote the trickster...he is the bringer of chaos and fault in man. The trickster plays with my mind...I know it is the coyote in the great map but I cannot see his form...

I hear the coyote crying in the wind...but the tears that flow come from the victims of chaos and disorder.

The coyote, he moves...I can see his tracks but I cannot find him...

Ultimately, I can only beat the coyote by playing his game...I play tricks back...and take little pieces of him away. I will beat him at the great game, one piece at a time...

Saturday, November 11, 2006

A portrait of the Self-Claimed Poet. The emerging beauty.

Dear Friends.

I did promise to continue the story of the Self-Claimed Poet, the story of my own inspiration for the poetical trials, of a path which I followed in the search for my own self, which eventually led me to... And here I am though.

I called this second chapter of the story "The emerging beauty". It regards to this part of the process of forming conscieusness of the self-claimed poet, in which he begins to develope certain aesthetical skills. I guess every man owns this kind of sensibility, some fully discovered, some waiting for a revival... Just recall the primitive paintings from cages in southern France, or the Venus from Milo sculpture... The man is an artist, you just need to give him a chance...
Thus the self-claimed poet improves his techniques through the process of purgation and, at the same time, his sensibility is improving... Still he writes many pieces, to cover and archive his impressions about the being, but among them some are more interesting, then the others...

This first piece that I wanted to recall today, tells about a misterious adventure with the being, expierienced by a young man, which is something that I don't ever go through today with all my schedules, duties and faked promptness... But still recalling this expierience pervades me with a sense of something more than just "life sucks"... Nothing happens twice, Guys...
And take notice, from the technical point of view, at the changes in the tempo of this little piece.

* * * (03-03-1999)

the city runs
i run faster then the city
i dive into the flood of sidewalks
i spread involuntary pidgeons
i curse the red light
and invoke the God of double-deckers

but the bus is not coming
it disinforms with voices
of the risk of fancy
disarranges

the world swells and bursts at seams
and time blows up the narrow cage
point B zooms out from point A
and dissapears far beyond
horizon of my daily schedule

and again
i observe well known places in search
of the unknown
(i mix with it descretely)
and apparently by accident
i come across people admitted defunct

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 28-10-2006

This second piece talks about the rising sensitivity for beauty of the self-claimed poet... The beauty, the national culture which he begins to aknowledge, through reading, listening... Just enough for a sensitive student...

* * * (11-06-1998)

between Chopin and Szymborska
i light
the first cigarette of tomorrow
jamed into a backlash
and wraped
i copulate with a fresh piece of paper
redolent
teared into half-tones
i’m sinking
rarefied
i begin and i end
smoky i adore
half a second away


Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 27-10-2006


Copulating with a piece of paper... I guess it is the quintestence of all this adventure of the self-claimed poet... :)

And the last example for today. There is something else about the Self-Claimed Poet, which I still didn't mention which, of course, is very important... The writing is rarely enough for him... The fire which burns within him is just to big... Writing isn't the only bull that he takes by the horns... He tries to draw, paint, but most importantly, he is fascinating with the music... He studies music, and he spents hours practicing on his favourite instrument... And he listens...

There comes this piece, entitled (!!!) "MILES"... Don't have to explain this title, cause the piece talks for itself... I don't know how will this translation, but I still consider this one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever written during that period...

„MILES” (27-08-1997)

the trumpet
penetrates with a dream
into unscent
passageways
and it propagates silkily
a cold metal
but it burns
and it gilds pearly
like a drop of honey
on a spoon of crockery
it’s that motive
from air foundry the bull
from the spanish circus
served on tray
like spinnaker
steals air from the breath
and it wants
that the sound does never die
and the day it never comes

Trans. Rafał Gadomski, 27-10-2006

The beauty which begins to emerge from within those pieces of paper which the self-claimed poet encovers with his writing, is transforming the world around him into a better, and more beautiful place to live... But here is when the problems begins. Well guys, don't be to hypocritique, the world is not the perfect place to live... And here starts the challenge which I want to tell you about next week... The challenge of a young man, conscious and sensitive, in search of love and his own space within the corrupted society... And this is the one which does not sieze until today...

See you next Saturday friends,
RG

For coninuation see:

"On the road to...". The beginning.


Friday, November 10, 2006

A stain of honor

My brother and I stood silent vigil as life slipped from his body...With tears flowing down, I stood at attention. My father had to leave the room.

It was a cloudy, stormy day when our boys...his friends...landed in France to face the Great Evil of Our Time. He was lucky, he arrived three days later. Still, under one George S. Patton Jr., General of the Third Army, life would not be blissful for long. For they were tasked with entering the lions den, and pushing the bloody sword back in its sheath...

With a 70% casualty rate the Third Army boldly attended to its duty, smiting the enemy with cruel steel and small points of lead. Outside of Germany on the French boarder my Grandfather was wounded doing his duty when his friend stepped on a land mine...I keep his Purple Heart. He didn't know it at the time, but his grandson would be serving in the Third Army 50 years later.

My father and I followed proudly in his foot steps, giving three generation of love for our country through the United States Army. There are many paths of patriotism and national pride, but we chose this one...it is in our blood. Every morning when I checked my uniform, my Father and Grandfather would greet me in the mirror, I would feel their strength, and their love and pride for yet another generation standing on the alter of freedom.

I was 19 and in the last week of Basic Training when the Gulf War began...I trembled to my bones and called to spirits of my father and grandfather that have remained in the Army (every soldier leaves his spirit, its why we are strong), to give me courage that I should not falter in face of my enemy...I was lucky, I was never called upon to perform my duty, but I would have...I would have...

I love you Grandpa and I miss you...thank you for your service...
I love you Dad, you have been an inspiration...thank you for your service...

Saturday, November 04, 2006

A portrait of the Self-Claimed Poet. Awakening consciousness.

Hello Everybody!

Finally I managed, to translate those poems I've been promising earlier into English. There are about two dozens and only chosen ones, so I must publish in footage, though they form a certain story, that I wanted to tell you. It is a story of an inspiration of unknown source, and of insatiable desire for creation. It is a story of the Self-Claimed Poet. But first, who is a self-claimed poet? Lets define the frames of this idea. It is a person who without any plan or outside persuasion, starts a long-going process of creation of an artistic (ideological) kind, making progress and aknowledging self, who's unique fuel is the fire that burns within, the unknown source of inspiration. Being this a talent, a gift, an alien radiation from outa space? Whatever...

It has all begun at 08-03-1996, with a philosophical motto, and a poem named "The Rose". Was that march or august? I don't remember today... Then it was dozens of poems. I still have them all stored but, they are not too interesting. First one which riveted my attention, while revising the notebook in search of candidates for the translation, was the one below. It is interesting. Althought a cripple from the technical point of view, it contains those germs of awakening self-consciousness, which is one of the most important features in telling a self-claimed poet from a versemonger. Suprisingly, this one has a title (most of the later poems does not).

"A Fairtale about an old man", 22-12-1996

on one sunny day
i came along a little stream
and i glanced at my reflection
carried with the lively current
in milions o copies
like a warrant of caption
which the live has sent after me

painted with watercolour
on a lacklustre canvas
an old grey-haired man wearing rags looked at me
you could tell he knows about life
but a little’s what he lives
curved around with his own beard
like with chain of past expierience and nightmares
which constrains him
suffocating eyes it steals his breath
he looked just puny

fed two times a day with daily handful of illusions
he have barely had the force to think
therefore the thoughts of his
sailing high like kites on the wind
dirty they were and exhausted
like himself he was
and their weight didn’t ever let any of them climb high enough
to flash in the sun for the solace of an old heart

i took out a small copper box
and i scarfed the old man straight in his face

perfect rings have spread effulgent on the surface of the water
tearing it to hundred pieces
and the current duplicated in milions of copies
the message about the birth of a new man

trans. Rafał Gadomski, 25.11.2006

If you wonder what was inside the small cooper box, it was the one in which i stored my weed. And of course it was pathetic, but i still think it is pretty Buddhist like. Don't you think?

This other one tells a little bit about the way that this strange poetical inspiration worked. That's why I consider it important. And, of course, it has no title.

* * * (18-12-1996)

it usully acts at night
when i lay quietly
and think
and the words flutter around like little birds
sometimes one of them knuckles down
and begins to peck his name
with white syllables
in the navyblue mistness of my mind
sometimes
they knuckle down a few
and then emerges a poem

trans. Rafał Gadomski, 26-10-2006


This one that I present below, is a characteristic piece of something that I would call a separate stream in this early output. It was connected with some psychological expieriences concerning females. None of flash, just the hadache. This one is, I think, the most elaborated.

* * * (30-12-1996)

prostrated in half
and the strenght sets off me
like from a broken bottle
it is berely enough
to write down incrimination
against myself
formerly the owner
today i only rent
this house
set upside down
paying a steep price
in tears
which flow like waterfalls
inside my head
spreading havoc
and tearing out all
priorly planted trees
along with their roots

trans. Rafał Gadomski, 26-10-2006

This one has no date (another exception), and it is preety pathetic too. But it reflects again that element of will and conciousness, which emerges slowly from within the other, not important works, and is so important for a self-claimed poet.

* * *

i am looking straight
my eyes are horizontaly
it is me who burns
it is not the shrubbery
i stand and brace myself
i’ve chosen
certain standpoint
i’ll be whom I want to be
the world is changing
when we are missing

Tłum. Rafał Gadomski, 26-10-2006

In the poem below, we can observe another interesting process in the work of a self-claimed poet. His technique is improving. Nobody is reading his poems, and he barely receives any feedback. But he reads himself. That's how he improves his outcome and, at the same time, he improves himself. He is the writer, but he is also the reader. He can improve what he does not like in what he reads. This influence that he has over his creation makes him improve, and eventually, develope satisfaction.

* * * (11-02-1998)

i’m a drop in the ocean of needs
a drop of insatiable desire
to be
a drop which could appease
somebody’s else desire
a drop of chance
within chance
and by chance
in the chance ocean of another
drops
an ocean which parry
by chance…
divine…


trans. Rafał Gadomski,
27-10-2006


And the last example. Take notice at the elements of humour.


* * * (27-06-1999)

first star
what am i about to ask you for first star?
first star
don’t fulfill my desires, please
(they tend to be to greedy)
shine
let me know you
point direction south
let me love you
first star
perhaps you’re just a communication satellite
signed with a serial number?
it is so hard to tell you both these days…
shine
first star first satellite
shine
on the road…


trans. Rafał Gadomski,
28-10-2006


Awakening consciousness of self, through writing, and reading, and writing again, and reading...
It is a very long process. But it is worth. Eventually, from the mess, a new beauty is about to be born. But this I will tell you about next week...

See you friends

RG

For continuation see:

A portrait of the Self-Claimed Poet. The emerging beauty.










Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Ifa oracle diviner

Have you ever heard about the african oracle Ifa? I find this blog, made by my college from Wole Soyinka Society Toyin Adepoju very interesting from the artistical, philosophical, and poetical point of view...