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the sea gulls chanting,
the sun rising

shooting fields of fire
dancing across
the rise and fall of the sea.

she is standing by the shore.

the beautiful loser
floating lonely
like a storm cloud
ripped from the night sky.

she smiles the sorrow away
with a beauty so hidden and delicate,
distant eyes as grey as the sea at dawn.

she robs my head
sending my heart

floating
like a feather lifted
by a wayward wind.

she does her sky dance
on the sea shore
jumping
here and there
like sand fleas
across the beach
and wants for nothing more.

beautiful loser,

I see she is crazy.

and I want some of her madness.

her blessed madness.
Absence palpable as
An avocado stone-

Flesh delicious but
Roots are filling a
Far-off Jar-

White filaments lighting
Clear cool water
nobody tells me what to do with longing
unquantifiable as only the sand is
exulted light dives in my hair
my shoulders are amazed like a cactus flower
your blood self-absorbed rehearses abysmal cascades
tigers are still asleep in your dreams
will you chase the moon on my surface, will you, tell me,
leave your silence on a chair
what if love is this cypher for the mystery of time
what if the pulse is a form of photosynthesis
we have to stay away from any fire since
we would exhaust its thirst
a step into a surreal second that augments me
second after second  the one who loves
disturbes time in its mazing grace
the sky this gestational field
the space between each word a cosmos
a white truth will repeat itself
again and again bearing witness to
life hand in hand with death
Your grand memorial, all engraved,
Your history gilded, iniquity paved.
But each new eye who stops to read,
will know the less your wrongful deed.

"Erected here for future’s view,
By friends to make you shine anew."
The weight of grief, the tears once shed,
offset by a plaque that says you are dead.

Still, neath this stone, to make it clear,
Your marker says, “Yep, I was here.”
For all your fear of being erased,
In stone, your ego seems misplaced.
Trying out a little sarcasm. Monuments can often veil wrongdoing in gilded narratives
Sing joy to me of May and rose
along the tree lines shade and grove
let stride and time slow with noon sun
while hold of hands become as one
know heart and mind are with you dear
and fear us not of stone marks near
for love will steer our hearts with cheer
until the stars sleep sound wu wei

-cec
Let's begin our song with its music coda
Nahua elders, of an agricultural peoples of ancient America
weaving their way into history's braided tail
with a relevant document of late fifteen hundreds
communed with a Spanish Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún
suspending time and space onto European paper
writing, a general history, of the things of New Spain
the Florentine Codex (1575-77), during the Great Pestilence of 1576

Meeting to collect the remains of the day in Colegio Imperial
on the Aztec bones of a city now called Mexico
it was ends of eras, community, culture, ghosts
a Rosetta stone of Spanish steel and Nahua blood columns
laid out so even Pliny the Elder would be proud
thirty plus years to account, thousands dead
now resting at Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy
this profane tomb still wet from the voyage of conquest ...


Nahua, you plant your staple crops, still
beans, maize, squash, tomatoes; still
the maguey plant calls to your weavers, still
remembering your hands and hearts, still
crushing life may come and go
but the elders foregoing forgetting
released their spirits to print your song


-cec
Na/GloPoWriMo: Prompt- As with pretty much any discipline, music and art have their own vocabulary. Today, we challenge you to take inspiration from this glossary of musical terms, or this glossary of art terminology, and write a poem that uses a new-to-you word. For (imaginary) extra credit, work in a phrase from, or a reference to, the Florentine Codex.

I found it most important to give some history here ...
Tied into taut lines of poetry
bridging the chasms of thought
these entangled ideas in words
sometimes spliced or braided
weave suspension into a prosaic world
stretching it with loops and rosettes
then tighten and measure, rhyme/rhythm
in action crossing the great divides
testing strength of imagination's thread

-cec
Na/GloPoWriMo: Prompt- Write a poem that obliquely explains why you are a poet and not some other kind of artist – or, if you think of yourself as more of a musician or painter (or school bus driver or scuba diver or expert on medieval Maltese banking) – explain why you are that and not something else.
In the afterglow of your beautiful loving heart
lives a flower that blooms each and every day
Planted deep within, you are the great thou art
of my living soul's reveal, you are the way !

Dazzling me with brightness and effulgence
you are a glowing candle in the thick of night
With luminosity you touch on my resurgence
helping me revive, a long lost dormant light;

You are a gleam, a glint, a polished diamond stud
an opalescent being who grants prismatic hues
Seeded in your garden I know that I am loved
above all else, ... and it is I that you did choose

You are the afterglow of love's most precious gift,
the bridge across forever, that never goes adrift.
A little bird has flown the nest
                     to seek a world of wonder
and spreads her wings 'neath skies possessed      
                     by lightning bolts and thunder.

She flees approaching hurricanes
                     her feathers, white, aflutter,
and travels over vast terrains
                     of broken stones and clutter.

And though she swoops to skirt the curse
                     her hopes are torn asunder,
for on the ground’s a universe
                     of raging death and plunder.

The sands below have hid all trace
                     of olive trees and clover
where splintered bones now span a space
                     which rolling dunes pass over.

In search of silent secrets stored
                     by enemies uncertain
the loons will surf with waterboard,
                     well masked behind a curtain.

Beneath the bats that flee in fright
                     from hell that’s in the making
(so hot, the corpse of night ignites),
                     the thread of life is breaking.

A sudden burst and numbing noise
                     (replacing sounds of laughter)
lead army boots o’er children’s toys
                     debouching towards disaster.

Barrages break and rivers bleed
                     in everywhere down under
but nonetheless there’s flesh for feed
                     wherever buzzards blunder.

The aged, youth and embryos,
                     through wanton death, are waning -
the vultures, hawks and ebon crows,
                     well fed, are not complaining.

As carnage spreads (like ancient plagues),
                     a virus cruel and schlepping,
the lanes are lined with shattered legs
                     where e’er the goose was stepping.

A ducky quacks in hot pursuit
                     while seeking help and shelter,
but wizened owls give not a hoot
                     in worlds so helter-skelter
                    
The consequence of pillages,
                     where love of man surceases,
are craters, onetime villages
                     reduced to tiny pieces.

The gardens, white, where lilies bloomed,
                     now fallow fields of ashes,
are catacombs of cities doomed
                     'neath sonic booms and flashes.

Survivors traipsing place to place
                     like nomads forced to wander,
are searching for a piece of peace
                     within the distant yonder.

A savage world in smithereens
                     with olive branches burning -
disgruntled doves endure these scenes
                     through endless years of yearning.

The Gods of birds are of no use,
                     inept like Those of others -
so foes attack, with blessed excuse
{both sides claim right inside the night!}
                     while earth, in embers, smothers.

                     Epitaph

The cuckoos covet kingdom come  
                     while roosting on a rafter -
there’s food for all, though only chum,
                     in birdy-land hereafter.
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