When Hamlet Saw Sri Anandamayi Ma

What an uncanny phenomenon is this woman!
How penetrating in perception!
How infinite in faculties!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel!
In apprehension how like a god!
The beauty of the world!
The paragon of  the wise!—
How may I remain close to this quintessence of bliss?

You're the Beautiful Resistance

There’s something about your sharing with me
Tears usually are the result

Not sadness as in Ach
But gratitude as in Ah

I’ve known  you nine years plus
So, of course, we inter-are

Muriel Ruykeyser: The universe
Is made of stories not atoms

You were a theatre wiz
Sassy smart aleck

Devotee of Boal
Proud hoosier

Companion to the refugee kids
Evoker of their stories

You used theatre to touch them
And so helped them to touch us

You read Mev’s gospel at LBB
Which sealed the deal for you, for me

Mev: Putting our bodies before the wheels of the great machine
That crushes the bones of the poor, blacks, gays, ...

For a couple months we meet week after week
At 6 North Coffee on Laclede

You making your jottings in your notebook
Me sharing scenarios, possibilities

You know the theatre of the absurd
Yeah there we were, Lucky and Pozzo

Trying to prepare for that
Which is beyond preparation

Then you performed the play about your alter ago Rachel Corrie
You fucking were Rachel Corrie

Summer 2006
Right before you left for the West Bank

Then you phoned me at some crazy hour
You were about to get on a plane

“Professor-friend, I’m scared shitless”
You admitted as Israel was leveling Lebanon

“What should I do?”
And then you accompanied your fear and soon got a taste

Of some of what the Fayrouzes of the world
Endure as they hold on to their humanity

Zora Neale Hurston: There’s no agony
Like bearing an untold story inside of you

And you transformed your months
Into not just one, but two plays

I’ve long been impressed, relieved, and inspired
By how honest and raw and real you are

Like when you sent me three pages of comments
About Dear Layla

I felt so honored
By you soul-probing reading of it

(Of course you inhabit the characters
Of Carla, Nirmala and Natasha)

Harold Clurman:  Theatre is
Propaganda for a better life

One day I promise
I’ll come to New York

Come see you in a performance
Then stay out regaling you till dawn

Today I got your postcard from Harlem
Your spirit and spunk radiated off of it

That’s why I’m writing these lines now in my notebook
Remembering a few flash moments

Of the goosebumped and glorious blessings I've known
Courtesy of the Indomitable and Tender Miss Magan Wiles

Would Someone Please Start an Institute for the Cultivation of Slowness?

Rushing is a way of life
We’re speed freaks
Yeah it’s a drug
Move the mind
Faster and faster
Get more done
Faster and faster
Our lives are one long Stair Master’s routine
The pace ever increasing
The intensity more than the week before
Go
Go!
Go!!
Go!!!
Day in
Day out

Cece's Smile

A while after Mev died
I went to a gathering at Jesuit Hall
In honor of Guadalupe Carney
Who had lived in Honduras with the poor

Scores of people were there
Across the crowded room I saw Cece Weinkauff
Who must have been 14 at that time
She saw me and let loose a smile to raise the dead

That beam of eyes and mouth and hand wave was familiar to me
I felt instantly at ease
Happy and grateful
To behold Cece (to remember Mev)

The Miracle of Beng Cheerful

Years of nausea
Anxiety
Affliction
Heart being battered
Hourly taking up your cross
And carrying it
Night after day
Day after night

And when I've seen you
Always that smile
Always that glow
Always that effervescence
Always that mirth
All the while being intimately familiar with agony
Your embodied miracle:
Not being bitter

Mary & Lindsay

A Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Boeing Company

O Lord God
We joyously thank you
For the many gifts
You have provided us in Saint Louis
With the Boeing Company
Who sees to it
That we are gainfully employed and
That our community is the recipient
Of its generous philanthropy
In the arts and education

Leaving the Comfort Zone

When we get bored and complacent
Playing it safe
Staying stuck in our routines of "I, me, mine"

May we remember and act on that phrase

Which can immediately enliven us
Bring out our daring side
Free us from the grind of self-preoccupation:

“Seventy times seven”

News from Bella in New York

Dear Poet Who Summons Other Poets,

I wrote this on July 4th at 12:50am and I think it relates to some of the questions you asked me in a recent voicemail.

Come see me,
Bella Levenshtein

Words for America,
New York specifically

new york you have taught me i can make it anywhere
new york you have taught me how to stand on a moving subway car
new york you have taught me the color of my skin
new york you have taught me the colors and stars of the puerto rican flag
new york you have taught me not to get fazed
new york you have taught me about section 8
new york you have taught me how to say no
new york you have taught me about ghettoization

Weekly Poem - Week Three

Burrito

I'm a burrito

unfolded

you are hot sauce and salsa

Sprayed, burning my insides

I'm folded back up

so thick, I am

bursting out my seams.

Grow Saint Louis Vietnam

Grow Saint Louis!
Monsanto gives charity
20,000 dollar grants
To those local organizations who compete against each other
To get the most votes
Charity (and competition) has its place
People will tell me

Grow Vietnam?
Monsanto won’t even give token charity
Much less countenance paying compensation
To generations of Vietnamese children and adults
Diseased and deformed by its Agent Orange product
Besides that’s ancient history
People will tell me

Ah, the lucky winners!
Oh, the unlucky losers

Gratitude Makes the World Go Around

Dear Brother in the Uprising against Shmegeggedom

Thank you for the times in Café Voltaire (I feel privileged to be able to steal a weekly spot in your schedule)
Thank you for being a clown sometimes and making me laugh from the saddest zones of my soul
Thank you for letting me read your heart breaking new book
Thank you for faithfully encouraging me to express myself
Thank you for beholding Me
Thank you for all the random pieces of snail mail over the months
Thank you for sharing your poetic inspirations with me
Thank you for introducing me to your teachers
Thank you for introducing me to Palestine and letting me stew and sob without trying to fix me
Thank you for appreciating my forays into watercolors

What You Understand Depends on Where You Stand & Where You Stand Depends on What You Understand

for Ellen

Mev looked up to Ann Manganaro
Co-founder of Karen Catholic Worker House
Sister of Loretto medical doctor
Compañera to Father John Kavanaugh

When Mev went to El Salvador in 1993
For the annual meeting with CRISPAZ
She sought out Ann for an interview
They spent hours together in  Guarjila

Shortly after Ann’s death that summer
Mev prepared that interview for publication
For a Catholic health magazine
She was not pleased when she saw the final result

The editor had cut out something Mev deeded crucial
The part about Ann’s consciously choosing
To go to El Salvador
To act as a small counter to the evil of U.S. policy--

A million dollars a day for the decade
Going to the Salvadoran government
That was crucifying its own people--
So Ann went there to be with them

Ann was a witness to their agony
And their courage
She is still fondly remembered in El Salvador
And ought to be better remembered here

I'm Getting Better at This

A beautiful sunny afternoon 70 degrees
Dear Bella Levenshtein

For months
I've wanted to visit with you

But packed schedules
The oddities of time and noncoincidences of space

Emails unresponded to
It didn't ever happen

Till today, at last!
We planned to take a walk in the park

An hour to expand, radiate, dissolve
Together

Then while waiting I received your text
"Something's come up ... reschedule?"

I admit I was very disappointed
For about six seconds

--from novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris

4 Years

4 Years

4 years has taught me what Steinbeck said,  “now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good”.

4 years taught me my worth is not measured by my GPA, the programs I am rejected from, the programs I turn down, or the awards I do and do not receive.

4 years has taught me that a personal poem means a lot more than an award announced by a man in a suit and bow tie.

4 years has taught me that I do not need approval, I just need love.

That the ones who really matter won’t tell me what is right and what is wrong.

That they won’t judge, or roll their eyes, or tell me I’m not being rational.

4 years has taught me that my mom will always be my #1 fan

4 years has taught me that I will always be hers.

4 years has taught me to dream

and to also be here now.

4 years has taught me I love brick

4 years has given me a coffee addiction

and more importantly coffee shops

The quiet solitude that comes from a black coffee and Keroac on a cold winter morning

and the exuberant life that comes from discussion with Che’s in the making.

4 years has taught me to slow down

and to procrastinate.

4 years has taught me to not be okay

and to be okay with not being okay.

4 years has taught me to read cancer facts out loud, to a group of strangers, without stuttering.

4 years has taught me to act on a whim

Playing outside in the rain, dancing to the sound of tornado sirens are definitely risks worth taking

that 3 am sledding is never a bad decision.

4 years has taught me that people matter

and their stories matter

and sometimes the people that seem the strongest, are really just about to crumble

and sometimes you just have to hold them really tight

and believe they’re going to be okay

4 years has taught me that home grown tomatoes

will always be better than store bought ones

and that eating fresh food is great

except on tax day when roller grill items from the Quicktrip are free

4 years has taught me that distance doesn’t need to mean anything.

4 years has taught me to not sit still

4 years has taught me to not be quiet

4 years has taught me “gracias a dios” and “que dios te bendiga” and that faith doesn’t need to be a scary thing.

4 years has taught me that moccasins are more comfortable than heels

and dirt is more fun than cubicles

4 years has taught me to be skeptical

and to not believe everything people say

to question the norm

and work to change the norm.

4 years has taught me who Mev was and who Ann was

and who I am.

4 years has taught me to be me

4 years has taught me to be happy

4 years has taught me that candles can create energy strong enough to move fans

and that nature can create rain strong enough to destroy lives

4 years has taught me that being afraid of dogs is better than being afraid of inadequacy

4 years has taught me that vulnerability is not a weakness

4 years has taught me a lot in social work classes in Tegler

4 years has taught me even more outside the classroom

4 years in North City, South City, El Salvador

4 years has taught me what not to do, who not to be, who not to follow

4 years has taught me how to write grants,

theology papers and even research papers….with passion

4 years has taught me that having more than one home

to say goodbye to is not painful,

it’s a gift.

4 years has given me a million reasons to say thank you.

So thank you…mom, dad, family, best friends, SLU professors, SLU faculty, Mark, Writing to Wake Up Companions, Sharers of Wealth, Sara, Mama Angelica, the Portillo family, coffee shop workers, Janiene, Mona, Geri, Kingdom House clients, Kingdom House staff, man that sits outside Kingdom House, Maria, casa Romero, Mev, Oscar Romero, Padre Dean, William, SLU casa family, the climbers and the crafters, the Tortillas for Tepecoyo supporters and so many more. Thank you.

The Summer Goal of Finally & Boldly Confronting the Basement of Smug & Multifarious Chaos (Or Is This Simply Another Delusion?)

To pitch 200 pounds and 30 years and umpteen teetering stacks
Of nostalgia, Weltschmerz, and saudades

("Les jours s'en vont je demeure")
Into the recycle bins and trash dumpsters of Saint Louis

By noon, 8.22.2013
Yo, good-bye, my Desolation Angels, it's a new life for me

After Reading Chapter 6 of the Bhagavad Gita

You won’t find It
At Cafe Napoli or down on Washington Avenue
On Telegraph Ave or at the French Laundry
In an apartment overlooking Central Park or a long vacation at a Cannes beach

You won’t find it
In Greta’s gorgeous eyes or Max’s robust portfolio
In the third wife or the fourth Mercedes
In receiving a second doctorate or securing a huge grant

You won’t find it
While ingesting this or bingeing on that
Accumulating trinkets or amassing honors
In the throng of chanting citizens or the concert crowd of devotees

Stop wandering out there
Close your eyes
Start meditating
You’ll find it

Weekly Poem - Week Two

Kentucky's Capitol

Sitting in front of the Capitol

of the Kentucky Commonwealth

in Frankfort.

Limestone

grey with touches

of light brown

dirt, mud

With nary its vote

we extract our ground

and stack it

high

higher

farther out

sprawling about

farther

and farther out.

Lyrics of a bird 

suggest this mud will reign, 

outlive even this

irrational?

faith in humanity

save we stack this trust

in us,

humanity,

higher

and higher

and paralleled thus

with a workhorse derby

standing on strained hind legs,

neighing for change,

messages that

massage our earthen mother

and instead of constant

lefts and circles

there is no more gambling

there is the message

spreading

farther

and farther out.

After Reading Levertov’s Poem on the 1972 Christmas Bombing

For Suzanne Renard & Andrew Wimmer

Haven’t you had such a fantasy
Sure, a different decade
A different civilization being destroyed
Different men
The same crimes
Getting away with mass murder

Mind movies of righteous payback
(But like the Vietnamese woman said:
“The Americans cannot repay this debt
Because it’s too big”)
And after the phantasm runs its course
The stern daily discipline remains:

Channeling rage into the work of
Memory, resistance, and eutopia


Sources:
Martha Hess, Then the Americans Came: Voices from Vietnam
Denise Levertov, A Poem at Christmas, 1972, during the Terror-Bombing of North Vietnam (Poems 1972-1982)

Father Daughter Bond

She was an undergraduate at Georgetown
Her father was a successful, ambitious, and wealthy man

She and he had an arrangement
That was based on total candor

Mid-evening her would call her from New York
And she would give an accurate report:

If she had kept her weight below 108 pounds that day
Then her father would pay for all the students on her floor

Food and drinks of the highest quality
Theoretically each such night could be a little spring break for the crowd

This paternal largesse made her a very popular girl
Even though she was reluctant to partake

Because the next day if her weight was more than 108 pounds
Then there was the silence on the other end of the phone

A cold, hard, calculated silence
That would make her sick to her stomach

It was for her own good
He reasoned

If she didn’t develop the requisite self-discipline
How could she ever become an über-model?

–from novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris

It’s Pounded into Our Heads since Kindergarten

It’s pounded into our heads since kindergarten
It gradually inflates the metallic balloon of the self

It feeds delusion 24/7
It renders invisible the needs of others

It's A.P. everything
It's resumé padding

It’s the guerrilla infiltration that brings ruin to families
It’s the acceleration lane to hell

It's a mantra chanted constantly
It's the journey and the the destination

It’s the rock in the wingtips that you forget is there
It's the 140 item To-Do List on the Smart Phone in the Coach purse

It's what makes apologies unimaginable
It’s the backbone of imperialism

It’s vice masquerading as virtue and honored hourly
It’s confirmation of the First Noble Truth

It should be included in the next edition of the DSM-5
It warrants a sustained, serious, systematic, and sophisticated de-tox program

It’s Ambition


In the notes to his translation and commentary on The Sutra of the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh lists ambition as one of the five worldly desires.

The Lake House Prayer: sun, stars, trees and breeze

The paper grocery bags stuffed with spinach, syrah, and sunblock jostled on the hips of the women climbing down the steps to the lake house that weekend, favored veggies and cheese being one thing this collection of women held in common. Another was that despite Eastern, Native, or ancient approaches to healing, each considered herself to be of God, and considered Jesus' roles in their lives to include guidance of their journey. Their prayer was to celebrate a weekend in this haven, nestled in a small cove, protected by old trees, with the lake just steps off the warm deck, the sounds and warm smells of nature almost blurring the threshold between indoors and out.

Prayer for the Women Learning to Heal

Come Holy Spirit…

Surround and breathe through the women gathered here

Bless this holy place, Your light and protection ever near

As the energies of the universe are revealed, keep our focus clear…

On You, God

Guide us Lord Jesus…

Our daily lives and trials will no longer lead us to forsake

The special gifts we’ve been given to serve in Your name’s sake

Specially named, specially called, to ease another’s burden or ache

We set adrift our injuries and fears, cast to the bottom of the lake

And we bask in Your loving arms at each daybreak…

Thanks to You, God

The sun is our skin, the stars our hair,

The trees and the breeze form our lair

Borrowing from the earth, from rocks or leaves

Use us as vessels to bring relief

With the help of all who have gone before us, and who believe…

In You, God

Grant that we meet again in other holy places

In our journey of love and to learn our graces

Each a treasure of the Father, with all our hearts and faces…

Turned to You, God

Amen.

Norman Morrison

Now, maybe some U.S. citizens over 65
Remember the name “Norman Morrison”

But many people in Vietnam of all ages
Know that name

This young Quaker immolated himself in 1965
Deliberately close to Robert McNamara’s office window at the Pentagon

(Two years earlier Thich Quang Duc did the same act in Saigon
To protest the repression inflicted on the Buddhists)

One Vietnamese person said “We were such a tiny little country
It was like a gnat fighting an elephant

But someone from that huge country
Cared enough for us that he gave his life for us”

Now, gnats are still fighting an elephant
Or haven’t we noticed?


Source: Christian Appy, Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides

First Weekly Poem

I'm going to post a poem on a weekly basis, Fridays for now. So if you are interested check this blog on Fridays or check my facebook where I will post a note with the weekly poems each week. 

Hot Water

Hot water

my fast friend,

my charlatan rain

I intercept your lesson

showering over me

before you vanish

used and forgotten 

clearly having bestowed,

I am shown

suddenly,

gift

in your filtered, traveled,

made hot history.

Filtering my charlatan thoughts

Travelling down my fleshy shell

Making hot the at hand,

each motion performed.

I am Costa at the Beginning (Could I be Costa at the End?)

1.
Costa’s a film producer
A Spanish gantser macher
He can feel good about himself
By helping the idealistic director Sebastian
To realize his dream of making a revisionist movie
About those dissident, trouble-making priests
Las Casas and Montesinos
Who challenge Columbus’ mission in the “New World”
“This film’s gonna be great”
“Fucking epic, man”

Costa’s preoccupation
Is how to save money at every turn
When the director’s assistant Maria
Sees that the Cochabamba people
Are rising up against the privatization of their water
She asks Costa if she can make a documentary about it
He refuses
Says “I’m not a fucking NGO”
“It has nothing to do with me”
And Maria retorts
“But you’re right in the middle of it”

American Political Morality

The Nixon tapes record the following urging
Of President Richard Nixon to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger
During the Vietnam War:

“I just want you to think big, Henry
For Christ sakes the only place
Where you and I disagree

Is with regard to the bombing
You’re so goddamned concerned about the civilians
And I don’t give a damn

I don’t care”
If Nixon were still alive
Wouldn’t it be appropriate

For Boston’s finest police officers
To arrive at San Clemente to arrest the terrorist Nixon?
Would his fellow citizens cheer and applaud his captivity?

Would we chant, "USA! USA! USA!"

Bella Levenshtein's Jewish Litany

Dear Shimmelstoy
I’ve been thinking about our last conversation

And while I have some sympathy
For those who agonize about Jewish identity

For me anyway it’s gotten clearer
In these past few years

Thank you for challenging me to articulate my views
Here goes:

The essence of Jewish is
Opposing idolatry with a fierce intensity

The essence of Jewish is
Traveling the path of Arendt’s conscious pariah

The essence of Jewish is
Remembering that we were slaves in Egypt

The essence of Jewish is
Irritating the celebrants of the status quo

The essence of Jewish is
Questioning authority, including divine authority

The essence of Jewish is
Meaning “never again” for anyone

The essence of Jewish is
Recognizing my brother and sister in anyone who is in need

The essence of Jewish is
Being unfazed by Mammon

The essence of Jewish is
Reading forever

The essence of Jewish is
Writing forever


--from novel-in-progress, Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris