June 2019 Voicing Art Poetry Reading + Poems

[written during the ’10-minute break spontaneous poem challenge’]

Politics and Poetry, 2 P’s in a pod.
Each striding to convey beauty in their own ways.
A drone strike in one sparking a pen stroke in another,
A stanza from one ringing in the thought of the other through campaign, office and memoir.
Singing a duet on stage, sometimes like a Voice battle song,
Each with many beautiful scripts still to be voiced and written.

ABOUT ANI:

Ani loves poetry, being in nature, meditation and working with young lives in creative ways. He was born in the south of India and moved to Australia at the age of five. He is in currently in Brisbane, Australia after having recently travelled for 20 months through parts of the United States of America, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. He is currently working on consulting- and education-related projects. He has also co-stewarded a business and a philanthropic endeavor, as well as working as a high school teacher.

the militants march in a terror parade
carrying cannon gun and rocket grenade
killing innocents in a publicized raid
in a thousand year war, the latest jihad
where children will suffer, their concept mislaid
so I wondered after the latest tirade
where is this weaponry bartered in trade
and it turns out that the very countries afraid
are the ones that supply the terrorists aid
for war is a distant board game to be played
while we sip our wine, safe on the esplanade
profits are won but the true costs are delayed
as a spade will continue to be found as a spade
and our created misery nowhere near a charade

here comes Long Tall Sally
sneaking through the alley
hoping that good luck would stop and linger
but she passed a doorway
and found one more way
to satisfy an itchy trigger finger

you know for Long Tall Sally
losing every tally
left her cold and mean
a bee with a six gun stinger
and then one bad day
she shot up the cafe
to satisfy an itchy trigger finger 

they took Long Tall Sally
to the hangmans rally
where the mob put her
through the wringer
there was no excuse
not to drop the noose
to satisfy an itchy trigger finger

they say when Long Tall Sally
faced her finale
she smiled and knew
what death would bring her
then she spat on the floor
to even the score
to satisfy an itchy trigger finger

The Old Man is back!
The Old Man is back!
He does not enter on temperate tiptoes.
Noooooo!
He stomps in from high peaks
Wearing nob-nailed boots.
He crushes the last foolish flower,
Kicks away all memories of leafy color.
Beats at doors, raps on windows,
Freezes fingers, nips noses
The Old Man is back!

We adjust …gradually…swaddled in down
Mittened, gloved, scarved, mufflered
The less hardy, balaclavaed.
We talk of witches breasts,
Well digger’s buttocks.
Then, with the curtain still up on Act One,
Act Two opens on the same stage. 

Sheet after sheet of bright white percale
Floats down from above.
It is the monstrous mother of all January White Sales.
Sheets pile up and up and up.
Will this sale never end?
The Hawk spreads his windy wings,
Bares his talons, swoops too and fro,
Screams in our ears, tears at our clothes.

It goes on and on and on and on and on and on.
The Green Mountains are still across the lake,
But the White Mountains, once far away,
Now loom large in our yards,
On porches, along driveways.

Roads disappear cars refuse to leave garages. School buses sit idle and empty.
Children and teachers rejoice.
Mothers and fathers weep silently.
The whether or not man lies again and again,
Tells us a break is in sight,
But he is in a warm studio looking at a camera.
We are in cold houses staring at frosted windows.

Then it happens, mirable dictum!
The sun, for many arctic moons a stranger, Appears in the sky and beams down.
Adults go outside and smile.
Small children say “Mommy, Mommy,
What’s that shiny ball in the sky?”
We laugh, confident that we will survive.
We wax skis, order snowshoes from L.L. Bean,
Talk a great deal about exercise.
But, alas, a heavy gray cloud cover
Draws itself over the percale.
Everyone goes back inside
To read, to wait…and to drink.

Eternity downshifts into low gear.
We shovel, we scrape, we slip, we slide,
And, when cabin fever
Approaches epidemic proportions,
A change springs into view.
Our world warms.
The percale is peeled away one sheet at a time. Hearts and minds and ponds begin to thaw.
A few small white mountains remain,
But now there are green valleys to walk through. Children and teachers are back in school.
Mothers and fathers rejoice.

As Act Two slowly fades from view
Act Three rumbles onto center stage.
It offers a light and sound show.
Some remember Woodstock,
But spirits dampen.
We droop from downpour after downpour.
Moss grows between our toes.
Goldie’s locks go straight.
Even non-believers walk on water.
There is talk of ark building.
A baby is born…he is named Noah.
He thrives, but the downpour continues.

At last the gods grow weary of their sport
The big spigot goes righty-tighty
And we see…dry land
The primal fluid that poured into our lives
Now gushes and rushes down rivers and streams Until it ends where it always ends,
At the lake’s edge
An edge now closer than ever before,
Or so we are told.

Large chunks of lakefront real estate
Drop away and disappear in a muddy miasma. Owners wonder, “Will my taxes go down
Because I now own less land…or…
Will they go up because I am closer to the lake?” The Wise Guys of Whallonsburg opine
They will go up… because they always go up.

The lake heads west,
engulfs the ferry landing.
Tourism and interstate commerce tread water
The Old Dock is too old to move to higher ground
The marina is afloat without a boat
The Rudder Club loses its liquor license,
Again
Act Three appears to be endless.

Then Allah be praised, there is a plan
Salvation is at hand
We awake one fine morning
We dress in shorts and t-shirts…for
The percale sheets have drifted away.
No primal fluid drops from the sky.
The edge of the lake creeps east.
The most divine of plans is at hand.

When we thought we could go on no longer, Endure another minute of
The Old Man, The Hawk, Piles of Percale,
Pelting Primal Fluid, and a lake
That didn’t seem to know its place,
The God With Many Names gives us…
Summer!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT #1

couldn’t sleep
got up
wrote short poem
thought
need a snack
balled up poem
ate it

FOOD FOR THOUGHT #2

     poetry          
       my medium          
       and                            
               on rare occasions                    
        i say to myself                                        
          well done

I’ve been with you
since before you existed.

You rose from nothing
– or actually something
– that came before.

Waiting till after 11 pm
to escape the smothering fug,
I ran through your future self,
dripping substance
through my sweat
to the burnt-toast fugue
of fertilizer factories
fanning fumes.

My weight
landing in molted mounds
as one day,
the field’s flank
on the route of my run
rose ripped prone in the dark
with the clods of sod
piling into a modern Mayan mountain
of sky, bleeding memories of music.

I went away for fresh air
and a baptism by fire
in the desert forests
of Dripping Springs,
where the waters chose
to absent themselves in my presence,
and the flames ate into the blank space
left behind.

But I arced forward and around,
and you were complete.

The altar of a new sacrifice
soaked through the soil,
and weight,
and fumes
shot into the ether overhead
– light as mist,
ponderous as poison.
Life to the baptized
who have gone away,
to burn in return
with the story etched of stars.