Poem for today: ELEPHANT - from Carnival of the Animals

Elephant

I’m large as a barge,

legs thick as a tree,

I’m chubby in the middle,

but fit as a fiddle,

or a piano for that matter,

yeah I’m fatter,

‘cause I’m built for comfort, not for speed,

except when there’s a need,

then stand aside, give a wide berth,

make way for my substantial girth,

or end up smushed all over the place,

but I’ve got grace, and elegance I’d say…in my own way,

I mean, look at this this sizeable snout,

it’s a hunk of trunk, this snakey sniffer,

it’s a handsome honker, 

you couldn't ask for a better peanut picker,

and these ears, big as Bhudha’s…hey…I just heard a pin just drop in Bermuda,

I have no fear of forgetting, like letting birthdays slip,

or the grocery list,

or the name of that great acupuncturist,

I’ve got it all up in my noggin,

I don’t need a computer, and never have to login,

welcome to my wonderful world of XXXXXXXXL,

I happen to enjoy it very well.

See more HERE

NY, NY, it's a hellvua town.

GREAT PHOTOS OF NYC -- MAGNICICENT IN B/W.

Poem for today: TORTOISE (from The Carnival of the Animals)

Tortoise

With that shelly ‘round your belly,

as you meditate in place,

slow and steady most definitely

won’t win the race.

They say for you every hour

Is like for us like a day,

and that all of creation sits upon your shell,

well, then take us for a ride

show us, bestow us your ancient lore,

“Slowly, to see more,

slowly, to feel more,

to know more,

to live more.”

 

Ah, Great Master Turtle,

I slow down

to catch up to you.

Poem for today: WILD HORSES (from The Carnival of the Animals)

Wild Horses

Wild horses galloping,

cascading flash of hooves

striding streams, dashing

grasses, bounding boulders,

majestic mountain of mighty muscle,

speed-spirit,

Run, run, run!  Run!

arrow shot across the horizon,

one more mighty leap

to reach the starry pasture

of the heavens.

Poem for today: HENS AND ROOSTERS (AND THE EGG)

Hens and Roosters (and the egg)

What came first - the chicken or the egg-cellent plumage of the rooster’s head peck-pecking, scratch-scratching…ooh! a grain of corn, no a pebble, gulp, it’ll come in handy, dandy ruler of the roost gives a boost to the day when he opens his mouth to say cock-a-doodle-do, or kikirikiki, in Spanish, kokekokko, Japanese, if you please, And the egg, the International sign of breakfast; scrambled, poached, fried, on a roll, in an omlette, on toast, the gooey yellow pre-chick is the most, it makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round, the barnyard is busy with flutter and feather, clucking and dashing, the corn, the corny rooster, the corn-ish hens, sitting upon the simply magnificent, totally terrific, egg-salted and peppered, egg. 

(Part of Carnival of the Animals, which I perform with the brilliant Frederic Chiu on piano)

Poem for today: THE LION - from The Carnival of the Animals

Lion

Here he comes, the mane-man,

swaggering, swinging low,

bring him a chair, no, a throne of his own,

he’s the boss of the jungle,

head honcho, macho, the king of the ring,

doesn’t need to prove a thing,

he’s a natural born leader,

first-in-line eater,

deep sleeper,

female keeper,

sunbather, soothsayer,

never gets ruffled,

barely gets in a tussle,

lets the ladies use their muscle,

he’s got gravity like the center of the universe,

this cool cat is the feline felon, the witness, the jury and the judge,

order in the court! order in the court!

the lion is coming,

listen to him roar.

(see more here:  Carnival of the Animals video demo with Frederic Chiu on piano )

Sleeping Beauty - article from Washington Post on show for Special Needs kids

Great article about a special performance for Special Needs kids at the Kennedy Center last week.
 Sleeping Beauty -- Special Needs Show article

Whoa.

Can barely catch my breath...Sleeping Beauty, Cuentos, Aesop Bops, and City of Dreams at Chicago's College of DuPage McAnnich Theater, straight to 12 sold out shows of Sleeping Beauty at the Kennedy Center, with a reading of a new work-in-progress at KC too.

Remembering Joplin

Almost a year since my visit to Joplin, MO to help with the tornado relief.

Poem for today: EAGLE CLIFF

Eagle Cliff

Stuck and holding on,

a bloody knuckle grip into the Miniwaska granite,

a toe-hold with the right foot,

the left on a one-inch ledge,

spread eagle thirty-five feet above

rock shards that slid off this mountain

before sound was born on earth,

I am scaling Eagle Cliff alone,

when a bee buzzes my ear

and returns again and again

in tight chaotic orbits.

Why am I here?

going back is impossible,

...there...a rotted pine shrub,

barely within reach of my left fingertips...

I grab for

it, seems to snap even before I touch

it, falls out of my hand to the rocks

(below, I was immortal, now I’m

not on terra firma any

more thoughts of my

kids don’t have to prove to themselves that they are young

forever)

shoulder elbow wrist and digits jerk away from the mountain my right hand digs deeper into its crack hips and thighs push against the wall I arch my spine in a convulsion.

In this infinite moment

dark oblivion invades my lungs,

and leaves the etchings of her claws

on the chambers of my heart,

as a warning.

Poem for today: YOUR GLANCE SCATTERS SEEDS

Your Glance Scatters Seeds

Your glance scatters seeds,

They jump at the asking of your eyes,

It is their reason for being, that moment of springing

outward.

(after Octavio Paz)

When we exclude we betray ourselves,

Generations of immigrants, itinerants and explorers

Are within this blood,

Within this history,

When we include

we find ourselves.

(after Carlos Fuentes)

This necklace as beautiful as a dream,

Tooth, husk, bead, skin,

Silent in the thick forest,

A prayer before the sacrifice,

The bow, the arrow, the howl.

(after Dom Helder Camara)

I have no brakes,

So make my horn louder.

(after a traditional Cuban saying)

Light winks at me,

I blink back,

It goes like that,

I can take just so much at a time.

(after Roberto Iuarroz)

At the beginning, mother and light are a single entity,

In the middle, a thousand thousand refractions,

In the end, a luminous heart.

(after Pablo Neruda)

(First line quotations taken from Revelations: Latin American Wisdom for Every Day)

Poem for today: THE LEARN'D ASTRONOMER

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

By David Gonzalez (after Whitman)

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

when the board filled with the arcs and symbols of the craft,

when invited to enter the idea-world beyond all I see,

when I opened the eye of my mind to the heavens

for the first time,

the astronomer curious and quiet before the mysteries,

how my heart quickened,

how my thoughts raced,

possibilities jumped headlong into the moment,

till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself

into the night-air,

to gaze upon the brilliant puzzle of diamonds in the sky,

perfect in their silent beckoning

for understanding.

(Here is the original, tell me your thoughts dear reader)

When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer

By Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer; 

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; 

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; 

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, 

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;        

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, 

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Poem for today: ENTANGLEMENT

Entanglement

Now that the scientists have caught up with us

will love catch on like the hundreth

monkey with the sweet potato at the beach?

We knew from the beginning that entanglement was the only efficient way forward,

The elegance and ease, the instantaneous tranmission,

The recognition from afar.

Somewhere in Pasadena, locked in a research lab

Bare but for a candle, two solitary souls sit facing one another

In silence,

Experimenting with the new technology that says

What happens here, can happen there,

When I move, you move,

When you move, I move,

We are connected.

Poem for today: ECLIPSE

Eclipse

Neither Nostradamus nor Edgar Cayce could have predicted

last night’s full lunar eclipse –

their visions reached just so far.

At first she was bold,

sailing even-keeled across the heavens, keeping watch,

then she was touched,

then stained slowly, like ink bled into a napkin

till all her light slipped off but for a slim crescent at the bottom of her bowl,

like the eye lid of a sleeping child,

and then even that shut,

so that she disappeared,

gone, vanished at the height of her radiance like a fairy princess

run off between courses at the ball,

determined to live a life of adventure.

It has taken astronomers and mathematicians,

Eye to scope and graph wrestling gnarly calculus,

Buoyed and propelled by the accumulated knowledge of a hundred generations

To know that she’d return,

Once again gathered in her silver silks,

to continue her vigilant sojourn of the night.

Gopala with me and friends in a poetry concert from Madrid, 2/12

The first in a series of clips from a wonderful concert in Madrid earlier this year.

Gopala - original poetry
Andreas Gerber - hang and percussion, and piano
Lorenzo Solano - sax, flutes
David Gonzalez - guitar and piano

Gopala with me and friends in a poetry concert from Madrid, 2/12