Neighborhood scenes

On my way back from tai chi this morning, ran into a pumpkin man, getting ready for Halloween I presume.  He had wires running out of him and there was a mini speaker hooked up to the porch roof.  I can only imagine what he has planned for little ghosties and goblins coming 'round for trick or treat next weekend. (That is a leaf blower, not a wood chipper at his side, right?)  A second before I clicked to take the photo, the black cat appeared out of nowhere and got caught in the scene.  [insert soundtrack from the Twilight Zone, ha ha]

How autumn leaves are like people -

Some go out in a blaze of glory, notably transformed.

Some stay the same as they ever were, unchanged.

All get scattered, equal.

Tree cycles, recycles, leaf cycles, life cycles

they, we

Speaking of scattered . . .

Last leaf, standing

This is Maurice, our baby (now pre-adolescent) yellow birch tree, originally the size of one of those twiggy limb sprouts.  As of yesterday there were 17 leaves left on him.  (I counted them.)  This morning -- one left.

It's not yet cold enough but I smell snow in the air.  We had snow before Halloween last year.  Out walking I took four deep, long breaths, as if trying to absorb a music sensed but not yet heard.  There is something life-enervating about the air in late Fall and winter.  Like gas to a car, or a window out of complacency, it's like energy rushing through again, can't explain it.

People here groan once the foliage passes and frost sets in. Quite a few head for Florida.  Five months of snow/cold/longing for spring, etc., something to escape from, complain about, endure. Once the geese leave (and they have already, weeks ago), the air changes. You can smell snow coming.  Even when the weatherman says it won't, you can tell when you breathe in outside, he's wrong.  Is this an inherited thing, or something you acquire through affinity?  In any case, it's always invigorating, that first felt hint of arrival.  Not the fact of it, but what it awakens, vis-a-vis consciousness. Hard to explain but without it, certain fires inside would just plumb go . . . out.

Chat with a Poet

Samuel Menashe (from Life is IMMENSE) from Neil Astley on Vimeo.

A short 2009 film by Pamela Robertson-Pearce.  Here Neil Astley visits Menashe in the tiny New York apartment where Menashe lived for 55 years, from age 31 to 84. He could still recite every one of his poems by heart.  He died on August 22 this year at the age of 85. [Obit/review].

Duped!

Where are you, V – you hide from
me you make me look I can’t discern
if that is you it sounds like you but then
it’s not -  I can’t decide which you is which, of
course just when I stake my claim and take
the plunge you re-emerge, you mock and say
well looky that, a different tune but it won’t fit you
know it won’t so why don’t you come back, you just
can’t just leave me you’d be voiceless, so      said     V.

Side of Le Lupin resto, au centre ville last week

An Art-Official Flower

Their violetness drew me –
such perfect alignment
that day – where the wind was wreaking havoc,
ripping fragile petals from pansy stems
sending street grit into my eyes.

I realize (they’re so discrete, these lavender gems –
peeking mavericks at play!)
I must rescind this counterfeit sign sent.
Their fakeness knew me.


Bled Dry, Oh My

Inkless pen :: wordrust

______________
*V = voice

Ten Days of Poetry

The 27th annual International Festival of Poetry

Trois-Rivières, Sept. 30-Oct. 9, 2011

Ten days of poetry, all day, every day, from 9 a.m. to midnight.

       93 invited poets, from 5 continents

              320 separate events, taking place in
                     cafés, restaurants, theaters, schools, art galleries,
                            museums, libraries, bookstores, the park

Strung across from tree to tree, sheets of poems

from regional & national poets, school children, senior citizens.
[click on photos to enlarge]

Winner of the $15,000 Grand prix Quebecor this year was poet Louise Dupré ; a $1,000 top prize was given to a teacher for innovation in teaching poetry; $2,000 prize to an unpublished poet, $1,000 for best poem from a senior citizen, & other cash prizes. One is encouraged not just to come hear other poets but to participate and submit poems as well. A woman [not in the photo] looking for her poem among the hundreds hanging in the park, told me over 400 were submitted in her particular category alone.  I was especially moved by a 7-line poem from an unnamed 12-year old child, who wrote of realizing, for the first time . . . that "life is not eternal".

Park bench sitters commenting on one of the poems

 Parc Champlain, a veritable garden of words last week.  Each poem was encased in a transparent waterproof pouch, in case it rained, which it did the first few days.

Continuing on with the virtual tour -

If you visit downtown Trois-Rivières you will see these permanent little plaques all over the place - 300 of them to be exact, outside of restaurants, in walkways, on walls of buildings--even  the sides of houses--extracts of poems by Quebecois poets, as well as 100 poems in 21 languages on the Poetry Walk down near the port. 


This one, by poet Anne Hébert,  says:
"You and me, island in the city, 
under the rain, into the world . . ."


"Into the
world . . ."

as in:

 Four wall poems hanging out together, their only audience that day:  the three waiting bicycles [below].

A slim little 100-page booklet with details of all the reading events was available for free at local libraries, shops and restaurants. One poet told me, on Friday, that she'd given 26 readings so far and was having the time of her life meeting and spending time with other poets, townfolk and poetry lovers.  

With so many events going on simultaneously, it's sometimes the case where you'd go to a scheduled reading and find 5 poets lined up to read but only three people in the audience.  If you happened to be one of those three, you'd then have had a chance to sit and talk, individually, with each of the poets, from as far away as Russia or Japan or Argentina, whom you might've otherwise never gotten an opportunity to meet.

Muffins et poésie at Café Morgane inside the Clément Morin bookstore, a rainy Sunday morning at 11:00 - U.S. poet/translator/publisher Andrea Moorhead (seen here with Gérald Gaudet)  - reading and discussing all things poetry.  Especially interesting to me was the discourse on the difficulties (and joy of discovery vis-a-vis  nuance in language) encountered in the process of translating poetry.  Andrea publishes a journal called Osiris, out of Deerfield, Massachusetts, which features international poetry in original language and English translation.  

Wednesday morning poetry breakfast at resto Le Sacristain, with poets Marius Daniel Popescu (Romania/Switzerland); Nathalie Handal (Palestine/U.S.); Rei Berroa (Dominican Republic/U.S.) and  Sedley Richard Assonne (Mauritius Island). I will be posting some of their work at the cove in the near future.

At noon, Diner-poèsie in the foyer of the Maison de la culture - with  Dmitry Legeza, Olga Khokhlova (Russia), Felipe Garcia Quintero (Colombia), and François Guerrette (Québec).  This was a "Bring-Your-Own-Lunch" affair.

On the way back to the terminal to catch a bus home I passed Le Lupin restaurant where yet another reading was taking place upstairs - and through the open windows on the top floor,  poetry floated out onto the street below. Ahead of me, a puzzled passerby stopped, looking up at the sky, searching for where that melodic voice was coming from.

 

Six poets reciting poèmes en langue anglaise at St. James Episcopal Church on Friday.  Left to right: Nela Rio (Argentina/New Brunswick), Christine De Luca (Scotland), David Musgrave (Australia), James Norcliffe (New Zealand), Alice Major (Alberta), and Anna Swanson (British Columbia).

Christine De Luca read poems in a Shetland Island dialect; one of Nela Rio's poems was an imagined dialogue with 16th-century poet Leonor de Ovando;  James Norcliffe entertained us with an animated recitation of Yippee!, about a bunch of escaped podiatrists who can teach one something about frustration/ irony/ scorn/    . . .  and hate.  Poems from Alice Major and Anna Swanson will appear in an upcoming Salamander Cove posting.

I also went to diner-poèsie at Le Manoir  and heard poets Coral Bracho (Mexico) and Jean-Phillippe Bergeron (Québec).  My only regret is that I did not have the time or opportunity to get to more events this time around.  Of course there is always next year, different poets but same times, same places, same ten whole days and nights of poetry; you just have to choose (and plan ahead!).

A small sampling:

Sedley Richard Assonne,
"Madame Eugene"  read/sung in Creole

Rei Berroa

Marius Daniel Popescu

François Guerrette

Some photos -   taken while walking from one poetry reading to another:

A sidewalk mural as part of a peace exhibit

at the Museum of Popular Culture

sign at top:   "Justice for All"

October leaves blown & scattered:

gathering, unnoticed

TreeSplash

Water from the park fountain, bursting by

 

Alleyway graffiti

Up close and personal

Monument to the unknown poet, in homage to poets worldwide -
in the plaza outside Le Bibliothèque Gatien-Lapointe

Reaching to the sky

"Open - Prison".   There are no inmates incarcerated there--this refers to an historic building that once  housed Trois-Rivières' criminals in the 1960s and '70s.    The guides  who give the tours and answer visitors' questions are former inmates.   Originally built in 1822 to hold around 40 prisoners, it was sometimes  packed with over a hundred. When it closed in 1986, it was the oldest functional corrections establishment in Canada.

You are invited, should this be of interest,  to experience a one-night sentence  behind bars:  You get booked, spend a night in a cell, and receive  breakfast fit for a prisoner. (You can go in a group of 15 to 39 others  if you'd rather not do this alone.) 

La vielle prison de Trois-Rivieres

Before you leave, you get a discharge paper with your fingerprints and mug shot (to take as a souvenir).   At least that's what happened when I  took this tour some years ago (though I didn't do the overnight-behind-bars part of it).  I did, however, step into the dark and dismal dungeon, and hear some very harrowing tales about what it was like to  have been a prisoner back in the 1800s.  Just imagine, you could be sent  to prison then for inadvertent impious utterances or swearing on the street.

 rue des Ursulines

 A bit of house history
[for the white house in photo above]

Outside St. James, en route to yet another poetry reading

 Inside St. James church, at the baptismal font, this sculpted bird descends from the ceiling on a kind of pulley when the font is opened.  Erected in 1764,this Anglican church served as a garrison chapel, a hospital, a court and a prison.  Today services are conducted there in both French and English.  Across the street is an Ursuline convent built in the late 1600s. Down one street and over a hill takes you to the port.

Three minutes away by foot,

a shady grove with dancing sun shadows

Earlier, at Végétarien, autumn squashes!

Tree-limb Rorschach on pine needles

Scene from last year's poetry festival

A fine week, all in all.  [A belated happy birthday to Sedley A., we would have toasted you on the Friday at table had we known!]

____________________

*street photos © awyn photography

Real and Not Real, Voices, and the Layers in Between

In a brief conversation with a poet recently, the subject came up of the poems and stories we write as creative imaginings versus those based on things personally experienced.   "A lot of my poems are made up," he told me.  "Sometimes the ones made up seem real, and the real ones seem made up." Getting fired from an ice-cream factory for bleeding on the fudgsicles, for example, actually happened; a poem about his father dying--which elicited condolences--was entirely fictional.

Speaking of the real and the imagined in our writing, here on my desk sits fellow blogger William Michaelian's recently published novel, A Listening Thing, of which I have copy #84--of the Tenth Anniversary Authorized Print Edition.    "I am Stephen Monroe: a fictional character," says Michaelian  in the Preface. "And yet I'm also Stephen's creator, and the author of his harrowing introspective tale."

The Afterword repeats this affirmation  quoted in the Preface:  "I am  Stephen Monroe" (with the  "I" italicized), and is signed "Stephen Monroe."   (Me, not that Michaelian dude, I felt his italicized "I"  insisting.  As if to imply: Well, he might've created me but he's not me!  I'm me. I  am Stephen Monroe.)  If you've ever read any of Michaelian's reported dreams you will not find this sort of situation unusual.  He has many faces, and his writings, like his artistic renderings, keep evolving.  This first novel is ample proof.

The book is by and about Stephen Monroe, as he reflects on himself and his life past and present.  Above and beyond the story itself there's a pocketful of insights about those things we sometimes wonder about but can never quite figure out--such as the possibility that  "Everything that is, isn't" and "Everything that isn't, is." 

Truth to tell, I have known people like Stephen Monroe--lonely, unhappy individuals holding tenaciously to a particular remembered time/place/relationship, unable to stop looking at it, mentally re-living it, feeling it important to preserve, describe and explain, wishing it could be reprogrammed for a different outcome in the now.  "It is in speaking, that I am able to figure things out", Stephen  says on page 133.  His marriage has failed; his wife, and the world, have moved on but he remains stuck in a memory warp, unable to let go.   ("Are you coming to bed?" his ex-wife Mary (who'd left three years before) beckons, in a familiar scene still playing out in his mind.)

"If this isn't real, then nothing is,"  says Stephen.  "And if I am real, everything is."  It's true, though, I thought as I read that.  We construct our own 'realities.'  The past is an integral part of Stephen's reality and his identity as well. "It would be healthier," he admits, "to let go" of it.  But he can't.  Stephen, like his mother with whom he visits on a weekend described in the book, feels "obliged to take care of things"--the way his father did, and the imagined loss of the family home, as with his loss of Mary,  to him signified  "there would be no meaningful place left to go."   Home, family, one's traditions and memorabilia and routine, are everything.  You lose that, and you become unanchored, the "I" part of you suddenly severed from the "we" or "us" that's been dissolved or taken away.

I found in this novel unexpectedly significant little nuggets of perception vis-a-vis universal parallels above and beyond the confines of the narrative, echoing what Tim Hinshaw (the author Michaelian's friend who died last year), noted about the book's "insight into the human condition." How many of us attempt to understand, much less reflect on why we "always do" what we always do, or question who we really are.   "You failed, son", Stephen imagines his father saying; "You always put your foot in your mouth", an everybody's grandmother scolds;  "You always say it's your fault", says his ex-wife.  Always, in all ways, that "always" part exudes.  Everyone screws up at one time or another - who can  not-relate to that?  We disappoint and hurt people, without intending to.  Stephen struggles with a sense of failure and the need to make things okay again.  Unlike his parents' house ("a tight little ship that could weather any storm"), his is on shaky ground. And Stephen is sometimes his own worst enemy, it seems, because his own brain "instinctively ridicules" his efforts.  "Think before you speak!" he reminds himself.

I had to laugh at Mary's habit of piling stacks of Readers Digests next to the toilet.  My mother did the exact same thing!  Reading Stephen's hilarious account of his dread of visiting the bathroom because of those hated magazines and his playful accusations that Mary just did that to annoy him made me think of the idiosyncracies we lovingly tolerate in our loved ones--and those habits we can no longer abide, and in ourselves as well.  In Stephen's and Mary's case it resulted in what Stephen calls "an intellectual divorce." 

Mary chose to leave; Stephen chose not to let her go, even though he couldn't prevent it.  The novel also illustrates something we all recognize but which brings little consolation when returning to an empty life:  the fact that both parties still love one another, that it may be nobody's fault, doesn't change anything. Some things can't be worked out, "fixed", or ever solved.  That, too, is part of life.  All we can do, as human beings, is "muddle through, the best we can."  For some this means changing course; for others, staying put, even if staying put means mostly "Stuck"; and comes a time when we might get tired of words like muddle through, which grip like a verbal harness we wish could be replaced by images of flow or glide or soar.  Can one just decide not to be miserable? Stephen asks.  (Is chronic sadness or clinical depression a choice?)  His reflections elicit even more reflections.  

Just as there's more to the problem of depression than one of attitude, so is there more to reluctant but necessary departures to escape what amounts to an emotional vacuum.  I love you but I can't help you. And he loves her but he can't help being who he is.   Stephen confesses to not understanding what "love" is.  Upon which an image of Tina Turner singing "What's love got to do with it?" immediately began ringing in my mind--and here came another unexpected idea--that maybe, if both parties still love one another, maybe it's not really about love but about . . . self preservation.

What makes A Listening Thing something which its author says we should read?  Because, he explains, "we need an honest look at ourselves, and the freedom of a second chance."   Michaelian took an honest look at himself--and wove a story around it.   It's not autobiographical, he states, but "the personal experiences and past events related by Stephen are really my own."  ("Life is fiction and fiction is life." )


Michaelian and Stephen Monroe invite us to listen as they tell his story, cautioning that if you think you know the answers, well, you're to be pitied. You don't.  This is said with love.  (Psycho-nibbler-babblers, take note:  Stephen Monroe is not a psychological "project", as he was, for years, to his ex-wife.  He's simply a man explaining who he is.  He's brutally frank about it, and intends to devote his life to exploring and maintaining that sense of self and to his writing.  "I am Stephen Monroe.  I am Stephen Monroe!")

Longing for a second chance free of failure and depression, he harbors hope, though neither one is going to cancel out the other.  Which made me think of the sheer duality of all that is, hinted at in this passage where Stephen is reminiscing about "Uncle Leo":

Poor Uncle Leo.  Poor everyone.  Not a happy thing exists that is untouched by sorrow. And yet, there isn't a sad thing we know that isn't sweetened by laughter and light.  Triumph and downfall . . . Love and hate.  Confusion and enlightenment.  Jealousy and serenity.

Included at the end of this passage is the word Possibility, italicized.  ("Possibility.  Dear Uncle Leo.  Dear Everyone.")   Stephen admits he has trouble maintaining optimism, but the mere entertainment of the possibility of Possibility trumps pessimism, one would think.  So too, even with Stephen's daily struggle with depression as a down/up, up/down, down/up, up/down affair; its eradication is graspable.

This is turning out to be far more detailed than I'd intended.  Like the fictional Stephen Monroe, it is in writing, that I am able to figure things out (although he actually said "speaking", not writing).  When a reader listens, not just to the story but to the thoughts that arrive while reading the story, connections can be made, parallels discovered, differences noted--in short, there is engagement on a second level corresponding to the fictional character's own introspections.  A very wordy way to simply say that much of what Michaelian wrote (in the voice of Stephen Monroe) soundly resonated.

So, three things I took away from reading this book:  (1) a reminder of what it's like to have been Stuck in a "harrowing" situation, unable to change things no matter how hard one tried;  (2) that things don't go well when you are prevented from, chastised for, or not accepted as . . . being who you truly are (and no amount of compromise or suppression or denial will keep that self from resurfacing); and (3) who you seem to be--even to yourself--as Stephen Monroe pondered,  may have nothing to do with who you really are.  He likens this to "an identity comprised of layers pretty much all the same"--like an onion!--whose skin you have to peel, one fragile piece at a time, to get to the inside.  And depending on how close you get, what's there might make you cry.

Michaelian's novel made me aware that choosing to be who you are can be revolutionary--and life altering, not only for you but for others.  Whoever said life was easy. "Life itself is a work in progress."   Stephen Monroe's story is just one example.   But somewhere in the process of listening to the listening things, whispers of connections to something larger emerged, kind of like hidden voices beyond the written voice, threading through to make themselves heard.  I'm not saying if you read A Listening Thing you will start hearing voices.   But reading is a form of hearing, no?  Words on a page are like songs to the eyes.

Wait, wait, I hear a voice from behind the fig tree:

 "I will go on singing"

William Michaelian - July 24, 2011

I rest my case, ha ha.

By the way, there's an excellent interview at the end of the book worthy of its own special mention, of particular interest to writers -  of William Michaelian in conversation with Paul L. Martin, teacher and writer, whose excellent 'observations on literature, culture and the life of the mind' can be found over at  The Teacher's View.

Hear ye Hear ye

Simon Bridges

     Philip Dacey
          Rick Daddario 

                                     Margaret Eddershaw

                                         Grant Hackett
                                              Dave King

                                                                    Charles P. Ries

                                                                         Alaka Yeravadekar

                                                                              Vassilis Zambaras

Nine poets, 13 newly posted poems up at

                 Salamander Cove

                                                                    today

October the First is Too Late

More years ago than I care to count, a friend gave me this book to read.  When I awoke this morning the first thing that came into my consciousness was its title. I still have the paperback.

Written 45 years ago, this little science fiction story that explores the nature of time and the fate of mankind--prophetic, disturbing, sobering--oddly enough, contains passages that've paralleled my own thinking in weeks past watching my birth country, the environment, and the world in general, on so many levels, seemingly imploding.

Is it, really, too late.

Click on title below to read an excerpt:

October the First is Too Late

Day-of, Week-of -- Reminders, & an old Photo

  September 24 (today)

100,000 Poets for Change 

September 17 - 25 (last day: tomorrow)
 Adopt a Less-Adoptable Pet Week

September 24 - October 1 -- Banned Books Week (starts today)

[Banned Books List 2011]

On my way back to the homeplace once
my rider stopped for gas.
I'd fallen asleep and woke up to discover -
there really is a Promised Land

WONDER-Full

To view in full screen, click here.

Have you ever seen something that absolutely renders you
speechless - that reaches inside and grips you, and makes
all the crap and pain and nonsense disappear - instantly

Little penguin families, being penguins - My sister sent me this
this morning - A day in the life of a penguin colony.
Another cute video about penguins - I love penguins. Okay. I'll watch.

Baby animals--being groomed, fed, taught, by their parent(s);
penguins playing, preening, being totally themselves - especially
with accompanying pretty music, warms the heart, makes us go
"awwwwwwww," with a warm smile spread across the face.

I was not prepared, however - in this one - for the overwhelming
depth of feeling it evoked - filling me with the most incredible
sense of - AWE . . . and sheer appreciation -
for Life

Thank you, Sis
How can I not share this

Addressing Reasonable Doubts

Troy Davis

1968-2011

The State of Georgia executed Troy Davis last night at 11:08 PM by lethal injection.  He had been convicted of killing a policeman working as a security guard 22 years ago.  To his last breath Davis continually maintained his innocence.  There seems to be no physical evidence proving he did the crime, seven of nine witnesses later recanted their testimony, saying they'd been coerced by police, and three jurors have since retracted their "guilty" verdicts. Plus another person was said to have confessed to the crime.

Thousands of people worldwide, including, Amnesty International, the Pope, former President Jimmy Carter, a former GA Supreme Court Justice,  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 51 members of Congress, and even death penalty supporters, including former FBI Director William S. Sessions, as well as  many more called for Troy Davis to be spared the death sentence. Over 660,000 petitions were delivered calling for the Powers-That-Be to spare his life.  Around 500 protesters stood outside the prison entrance last night, waiting for a decision from the members of the Supreme Court of the United States, which refused to grant a stay of execution.[1]

In a court of law, you often hear these words:  "Innocent until proven guilty" and "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt."   There seems to be no concrete proof  that Troy Davis committed that particular crime and  more than enough strong doubts,  to suggest that this man may have been innocent.  In the end, it didn't matter.

"Justice is done", say the family of the murdered policeman.  But was it justice? 

I don't know whether Troy Davis committed the crime as charged, or whether he was, as he steadfastly maintained, for 22 years, truly innocent.  What bothers me is that someone can be put to death when grave doubts continue to remain as to his innocence, and that because of legal technicalities, possible incompetency, willful neglect, or sheer indifference important information can be and is often disregarded or suppressed.

When the decision is made to deliberately end someone's life, wouldn't it serve "justice" to make absolutely sure all questions about his/her guilt or innocence have been thoroughly addressed and/or resolved?   That facts later coming to light that contradict those presented at trial as evidence may be reason to reconsider the terms of punishment?   In the case of Troy Davis serious questions still remained.  Testimonies at trial were later recanted, some jurors' guilty verdicts retracted, report of another person confessing to the same crime for which Troy Davis was convicted.  It was decided this was not sufficient to overturn the original verdict or rescind the sentence of death.

I was once called for jury duty at a murder trial.  One of the questions they asked me, in choosing who was to be on the jury, was:  "Do you believe in the death penalty?"  A fellow prospective juror, who'd apparently been called before to serve on juries, later told me as we were exiting the building, neither of us having been chosen as jurors, "If you ever want to get out of serving on a jury at a murder trial, just tell them you're against the death penalty."  I took that to mean that people who sit on juries voting to decide whether or not a person is innocent or guilty, where the punishment may be death, are not considered good choices in a jury selection, because they would have difficulty accepting the idea that a proper punishment for killing is to then kill the killer.   An eye for an eye comes to mind. 

How powerful are words and how many meanings pop up around the word 'justice'.  Jurors are supposed to listen and observe at trial, and based on each side's presentation and argument (prosecutor and defense attorneys') decide the truth of someone's innocence or guilt.  Too much doubt results in delayed decisions; "hung juries" can result in a mistrial; mistrials can mean a criminal goes free.  But jurors are not allowed to simply raise their hand during trial and ask a question when they feel a lawyer has not asked a question of a witness that the juror believes is pertinent.  It's annoying to be told, "After everything you've heard today, you MUST come to the conclusion that ...." (meaning the particular lawyer's interpretation), etc.  Uh, no, let us make our own interpretations, please.

Only the judge can allow or suppress a particular line of inquiry.  If you've ever read trial transcripts, you can readily see sometimes, where the focus is being strategically directed (towards or away from certain areas) more for  the benefit of the jury than to actually unearth the truth, often resulting in a distorted (or skillfully projected) perception.  Some lawyers are better at jury persuasion than others.  The judge must abide by the jury's decision as to guilt or innocence but only the judge has the power to say how the convicted person is going to be punished:  "You're going to jail" or "You're going to die."

The Double Jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment prohibits a person from being tried twice for the same offense, unless required by the interests of justice. But even then,  the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, if I understand it correctly,  bars second and successive petitions and limits the power of federal judges to grant relief.  So there's not a whole lot of hope, even with a dedicated lawyer calling for a new investigation or massive public outcry for a reversal of the death sentence, that you will succeed.  And as we've seen with Troy Davis, even the Supreme Court can decide your case ultimately has no merit and you will lose.

It seems to me there is something terribly wrong, though, with a system that allows someone like  Luis Posada, a former CIA agent who admitted involvement in a string of bombings in 1997, and for which evidence of his role in the mid-air bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people aboard, "is strong", to go free--yet executes Troy Davis, for  killing a policeman, though the evidence against him remains questionable. For example, the statement of one witness (that Davis confessed to the crime) is accepted as an indication of guilt but when the witness later recants, it's discounted; and the testimony of another witness (declaring that someone *else* admitted to committing the crime) is disregarded based on a technicality.  That other person was never put on the stand.  I say, you say, we all say hear-say, now swear under oath that ... (except one of the witnesses, who was illiterate, was asked to sign a statement he couldn't read,  which should have made it invalid).

Both Posada and Davis were judged by a jury of peers--one was found innocent, the other guilty.  "Although he [Posada] has never been convicted for his various acts of violence, Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive has referred to him as "one of the most dangerous terrorists in recent history."  But apparently to the anti-Cuban exile community in Miami, Posada is a hero.   So, an admitted terrorist gets aquitted; a man proclaiming his innocence gets convicted and awarded the death penalty.  I keep hearing those words, "Justice and mercy for all" but in this case it sounds like "Justice and mercy for some, depending ...."  Depending on the jurors, the lawyers, the judges, the system--and of course, who you are or are not.  It is this aspect of the justice system that seems to need tweaking, in my humble opinion.

I honestly don't know whether or not Troy Davis really did what he'd been convicted of or not--my mental jury's still out on that one.  But I'm not ignorant of what sometimes happens in a courtroom vis-a-vis prosecution and defense presentations and the politics and manipulation of perception that comes into play.  Too, Judges are powerful beings: they can ship you back to your country of origin where you risk being tortured or killed, denying your request for political asylum; they can give you a second chance to turn your life around and get some help; or they can send you to be lethally disposed of.  If Troy Davis was innocent, as so many believe he was, may this injustice be righted.  May the truth some day come out, not just about this but about other past investigations still being questioned, years after the fact, for which the public still would like answers.. Beyond a reasonable doubt.  So that true justice, not revenge or payback, can be accomplished.

Just because the world is changing, getting darker and scarier by the minute, doesn't, I think, mean that we should change with it and react by ourselves becoming scarier.  Rule of law:  innocent until proven guilty. Allow all sides to be heard.  Sounds fair.  If information comes in later that radically contradicts an earlier investigation's report, examine it.  Take the time to get it right. Correct  it.  Set 'the record' straight.  The bottom line shouldn't be speed it up to get a conviction, imposing impossible-to-meet deadlines or restricting access to or sharing of information just to one-up the other side or as part of some turf war or just because you can. 

In a perfect world, perhaps.  I'm still in International Day of Peace mode, I guess  (yesterday was International Day of Peace). But I don't get the prevailing mindset in some quarters sometimes:  That it's okay to kill in certain circumstances, but not in others. That killers must be punished by killing them to show it is wrong to kill.  That innocent children who happen to be family members of someone "suspected" of "insurgency" in a foreign land can be sacrificed as collateral damage, so long as the bad guy gets 'taken out.'.  "Thou shalt not kill" . . . except (list the exceptions). All's fair in love and war (they say).  Drone on.   Kill or (maybe) be killed.  When in doubt, pre-empt.  Shoot first and ask questions later.  Better yet: Stop asking questions. 

Uh, I'm not gonna go there. This just in: I heard on CNN where somewhere in Mexico a drug cartel pulled up in the afternoon in front of a busy shopping area and dumped 35 dead bodies on the pavement, as a warning, I guess.   No one stopped them, apparently, or pursued, much less was able to arrest them. They've done that kind of thing before, leaving headless bodies in public, to show that they 'can'.   That's what having power does.  No one can touch you.  The word lawless floats in a bubble inside my mind.  Kind of like what they used to call frontier towns in the old West where bandits just rode in and shot people and rode out again:  lawless.  The modern version I guess is drive-by shootings, individually or in bunches, only the shooters get younger and younger.  We have laws but this still keeps happening.  But even in lawful (full of Laws) societies, and even though scores of people (thousands and thousands, to be exact) are behind bars today, justice has not solved the problem, nor is real justice necessarily a given. Define 'justice' -- shooter-type justice, or innocent-type justice.

What is one to make of the news anymore.  So many conflicting reports, misleading stories.  People still hungering for . . . the truth.  As if knowing it would change anything. But it might.  If the truth were known, "justice" could be served.  And if injustice is being intentionally ignored, allowed or perpetrated, that could be corrected.   In a perfect world.  But since we're not . . .

No reason not to not care though.  Media overload and it can all just pass over one, in one big blur, occupation here, terrorist attack there, governments in crisis, this one bankrupt, that one starving, failed schools, infrastructure crumbling, earth being raped, execution last night, news at 11.  It's enough to make you . . . tune out and stop listening.  Turn the observation meter off a bit,  redirect it.  Or go take a nap.

Not everyone's asleep, though.  Granted, even with the whole world watching, atrocities continue to happen, regularly; injustice continues. I'd hate to have to live as an empath, you know, those people who absorb and carry around the pain and suffering of the world on their backs, so to speak.  I've known people like that, who've sacrificed any sort of personal life to go help others--not just volunteer here and there or  send money, but actually leave home and go off somewhere for years, putting their lives on the line, because they care.  No naps for them.  I like that you can't stifle that kind of awareness, that even when it's mocked, defunded or physically crushed, it doesn't stop.  Maybe for some.  But not all.  Which seems a good thing to know.

As for doubting, all thinking beings do that at one time or another.  Well, most, anyway.  Sometimes you're encouraged to question things, other times you're told to just accept what is for what it is and don't trouble yourself about the details. Leave the details up to the experts.  Both sides have merit.  Troy Davis won't have to worry about things like that anymore.  In a week's time other news will fill the airwaves and the 'justice system' will plog on, everyone will go back to their everyday lives, doing whatever it is they do every day.  It is amazing to me, how many supporters Troy Davis had.  How many spoke out in his behalf, how many abhor the idea of capital punishment. 

Perhaps those laws that permit us to kill, as punishment, are more and more raising reasonable doubts as to their, well . . .  reasonableness.

Peace for All. If Only!

          The Peace of Wild Things

          When despair for the world grows in me
          and I wake in the night at the least sound
          in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
          I go and lie down where the wood drake rests
          in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds.
          I come into the peace of wild things
          who do not tax their lives with forethought
          of grief.  I come into the presence of still water
          and feel above me the day-blind stars
          waiting with their light.  For a time
          I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

          ~ ~ Excerpt from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 
                Northpoint Press, 1998.

A Bee, Being

 bee on

bee at

bee in

___________________________

Photos taken in my garden, Summer 2004

*Actually, it's a wasp.  But 'bee, being' sounded better than 'wasp, wasping'. When I was a child we used to catch bees in our hands and run around with them closed inside our fists yelling "Bzzzzzzzzz, Bzzzzzzzz!" , then let them go.  Did this dozens, hundreds of times, and never got stung.  The next door neighbor boys told us "Yellow heads sting--but whiteheads don't"--whiteheads being a much lighter shade than the deep yellow of the yellowheads.  So it must be true.  Or else we were just lucky.  I just looked it up on line and apparently the ones they called whiteheads were actually male carpenter bees that may seem aggressive but are not able to sting.  We girls just accepted, after observing four or five demonstrations of "See! It didn't sting me!" that what Lloyd and Rollie next door said was true.  They also taught us which of the "monkey vines" on the hillside were safe to swing from and which would break off and land you on your butt if you tried swinging from it.  Ah, childhood!

Lifemarks, unanticipated

Harm

on

y

not

______________________

So I'm not getting any better at Mr. Doob's Harmony Drawing Program but I find it interesting what emerges when the intended sketch takes an unexpected turn and an entirely different subject appears.  This started out to be a young girl reaching for the stars, but morphed into a sad man with a scarred face and an elongated chin.  I gave him some hair and a high-necked sweater but must have pushed a wrong button somewhere because Harmony saved the drawing before I had finished correcting it.  The face reminded me I'd forgotten its ears and eyebrows and positively detested the hairdo I'd chosen, complaining it looked more like a woman's ill-fitting wig.  This happens sometimes, a different entity emerges from the one you'd intended, wanting to say its say.  So I let it.

Thank you, poets

I've been in kind of a creative writing slump lately, wishing I could weave words like the ones I read sometimes from others, that make the world stop and get my attention, that make me see something I never considered before, bestow an insight, or resonate so deeply it stuns.

Three poets got my attention this morning--two that've been interviewed by SmartishPace, the other sharing on his blog the words of a favorite poet.  In an imaginary get-together I sat in the back of an imaginary room and took mental notes.  I've extracted and am quoting liberally from what was said, addressing specific points that speak to my own oft unspoken wonderings.

But go read the original interviews and entire Rumi poem referenced (the links are embedded in each of the three poets' names--just click on the name).  Interesting . . . and for me, very helpful.  Especially--and in another context--after reading all the horrible world news lately.  ("Find the antidote in the venom" -- Thanks, Don and Rumi!  How can a single sentence like that . . . have such a dramatic, yet positive, impact.  How the words that we read wake us up, enlighten, motivate and  energize us.)
 
Rae Armantrout:

On writing poetry:
Don’t write about what you think, or what you think you know, write about what puzzles you.

On language poetry:
Anything that will make us all stop and do a double take on what we hear (and see) instead of accepting it as natural is a positive exercise.

On not "getting" a poet's meaning in a poem:
For the Reader: If you have spent a good bit of time with the poems already and you still don’t get anything from them, I suggest you give up. You aren’t required to like everything!

For the Poet: As to whether people will get it, you can’t think about things like that while you’re writing. It would be too inhibiting.

On writer's block:
After about two weeks, if no writing has surfaced, I start to feel nervous. Then I go looking for it. I do that really by just maintaining a certain state of alertness. I’ll read things that might get me going. I’ll sit outside somewhere with a notebook . . . make notes on the things I see. I find that, if I keep at it long enough, something will emerge. I take notes in my journal not knowing whether those notes will end up in a poem or not.

The notes will be jotted down on different days in different places. At some point, I’ll notice that several of these notes have an affinity for one another. They seem to establish a kind of dialogue. So I’ll put them together and edit. If the poem still doesn’t feel finished, I will wait for more material to appear. By then, I have at least a vague idea of what I’m looking for – still, I won’t recognize it until I see it. Things have to come to me from elsewhere.

On the risk of being a poet:
Most people in America really see poetry as a joke or a sign of childish narcissism.  I am still reluctant to tell a stranger that I’m a poet. I can see that it makes them uncomfortable. So first you have to be willing to be ridiculous. . . You won't make any money directly from poetry – or at least not much. You have to find some other sort of work. And you may tend to resent your day job because it takes up time that you could spend writing.

Stephen Dunn:

On the state of poetry today:
The under appreciation of poetry in the U.S. frees the poet to do whatever he wants. In another sense, he can do what he wants because what he does doesn't matter. No Mandelstam-like repercussions here for writing an important anti-government poem. But it's important for me to write AS IF everything I write matters. And AS IF I have a concerned, intelligent audience. To not turn my back on the willing, intelligent reader as much as contemporary poetry has. The poet needs to make gestures to the willing intelligent reader. That same reader must make serious gestures of attentiveness to the poem. 

On all the published poems out there:
At any given time in any culture most of the poems in print will be mediocre. Don't worry about it, it's a given. Just keep an eye out for what's wonderful.

On writing poetry:
Write the poems that you need to write. All other concerns are tertiary.

Advice to young poets:
Take your enterprise as seriously as other would-be artists do. No short cuts. Try to be as engaged and as disciplined as, say, a violinist or a dancer would.

Don Wentworth, after reading Rumi:

On not giving up:
Find the antidote in the venom. The secret is in plain sight. Open your eyes. Light up. Smile until you can't smile anymore. And keep smiling. Find the antidote in the venom.

Jottings that escape while you're not looking

A damp, chilly day
rain-splattered windows, having a mug of
tea made from hawthorne leaves & berries.
Not the windows, dummy, windows don't drink tea
okay Miss Grammarchek, where was i ...

oh yes, listening to an ancient, now departed
voice, from 1978, recalling the escape from Vienna and
the Nazis, she loses her train of thought at the podium.
I like transcribing oral histories, so many scenes
you never imagine, absent from the history
books. Speaking of, my notebook is empty, the pen out
of ink, the writing warehouse filled to bursting, why do
you procrastinate, why?

Only one cat showed up to eat this morning, our
oldest visiting stray, name of Blackie.  The house is too
too silent.  It needs music, not the klack-klack-klacking
of a keyboard mindful of deadline.  This
is not a poem, just an impulsive wordtrain
sneaking in whilst I'm sipping tea and
eyeing rain on window, cut it out, get back to work, you


. . .

Caption this photo

"State of the Union"

"The retirement age will now be raised to 84"

"Obama has OK'd the Keystone XL-pipeline"*

"The computer just crashed and lost all your 

unbacked-up files containing all your writings"

I met the charming gentleman above in an aisle of the pharmacy this morning and his face expressed how I feel sometimes, reading the latest "Can-things-get-ANY-WORSE-in-the-world?" news.  He was propped up next to a witch having a bad hair day on his left.

Him I understood.  Her--frankly, she gave me the creeps.  Those maliciously malevolent red eyes and blackened, clawey fingernails were enough to scare the bejesus out of anyone, though even kids are so inured to frightful images these days, most just laugh. (Not the little babies, though--they haven't quite reached the age where they can distinguish fake from real. One little glance and that witch's beady red eyes could return, let loose in a nightmare.)

Over at the Dollar Store they were stocking rubber severed limbs with dye-bloodied red gashes, gigantic decorative spider webs, and of course, glow-in-the-dark skeleton keyrings.  (Did I mention the edible gelatin eyeballs?)

It's not even Halloween for another month and a half yet, and the shelves are already being cleared and racks of expensive hobo, princess, dragon, devil, witch, Hulk and zombie costumes put into place.  When I was a kid we rummaged in our grandma's attic for things to dress up as, and we'd get more apples than chocolate sometimes, in our little trick-or-treat bags.  Now it's a retailer's heaven--a fun thing commercialized to death.

Once a year we get to spread phoney Fear and celebrate Greed.  (Zombies!! Zombies!! Run for your life!!!  Buy your jumbo size, orange candy bucket NOW, kids--before they run out!!!  Hey Moms--sale in Aisle Four on chocolate Count Draculas, shipped straight from China.  Flashlights, purple hair dye, wigs, teeth and fake blood in Aisle Six!

A man, unable to afford to buy candy for little Halloweeners potentially knocking at the door, embarrassed and ashamed, turns his porch light off and watches behind the curtain at his window, smiling, as a gaggle of little ones trudge past on the sidewalk: a Batman, a Spongebob, a fairy, and a bumblebee with an umbrella.   He could be the man in the photo, in his reflective moments, mutely screaming at how he's forced to have to decide whether to buy food this winter, or get heat.  "Let's see," you can almost hear him thinking:  $4.69 for a bag of mini Hersey bars or marshmellow tarantulas; a handful of change to split for a package of Ramon noodles for him and a can of cat food for his cat.  He wishes he could buy the candy.  He wishes he had an apple to give them instead. This story is made up.  But it's also not, for many people.  I look at that store manikin's face and I imagine stories like this.  I only went to the pharmacy this morning to buy toilet paper and look what happens, ha ha. It took me by surprise.  A look that haunts, reminds.  I've screamed inside like he's screaming. Haven't we all sometimes. I hear ya, bud.

The kid in me still loves Halloween.  I once saw a  ghost riding the bus, an adult probably going to a party, but it was so comical at the time (20 people's heads visible from the bus windows--plus a guy wearing a white sheet--all sitting there riding along, no one thinking it odd.)  Okay, you had to have been there.  I cracked up laughing and that scene still makes me smile.

Well before Thanksgiving this and other stores will probably begin displaying plastic Santas and reindeer.  You begin thinking you're in a time warp.  "Can't I just enjoy NOW now?" (Now, now,  the robed wizard in Aisle 2 hushes me).  (Monk costumes were very "in" last year, too, I forgot to add.)  I can't believe I'm posting all this stuff about Halloween  a month and a half before it even gets here, making fun of merchants who drag out all their Halloween merchandise a month and a half before it even gets here. 

Wait.  My new gentleman friend is trying to get my attention:

"Help!! I'm stuck in this photo!!  Get me outta here!!!!!"

__________________
*[Over 500 people were arrested during a week-long protest in front of the White House asking President Obama to reconsider and not allow the massive XL-pipeline to transport  unrefined oil from the Alberta tar sands in Canada down to Texas, which could result in an environmental catastrophe and which oil will likely not be for the U.S. but sold elsewhere).  Asked about the protest, Obama said he hadn't been aware this week-long sit-in took place.]

*photos by awyn

Seeing a Thing with New Eyes