My Journey in Illiteracy: Knowledge is Light – Amar Al Noor

I have a doctorate, two master’s degrees, and a wealth of education and certificates, but I was until recently, illiterate: Illiterate in Arabic. Though my native language is English, I had lived and worked in the Middle East, and learned Arabic mostly by ear. I could read enough for street signs, the basics of a menu, and enough to fake it, but I could not really read or write much beyond the most basic level. While that may be impressive to a Westerner, this reluctance or laziness to sit down and thoroughly learn the basics of writing and grammar prevented me from taking my Arabic to the next level. Easy simple mistakes were overlooked because any Westerner making even the most rudimentary attempts at speaking Arabic was considered laudable, but I was faking it. In part, I had been working in a hospital and community setting, I only had to speak and teach, not really write, and though my Arabic was grammatically awkward it was enough to get by and communicate. When I lived in Morocco the language of the street was Dirja, and it gave me less impetuous to learn to read and write. I have only recently confronted the reality that for the most part I was illiterate. In Arabic they say, Knowledge is light.
Now, as I am working with primary grade books, I am forcing myself to write and study every day, and discovering the foundations of grammar that I had glided over. To my surprise, I discovered that my grammar wasn’t as bad as I thought and though solid Arabic grammar is arduous to get down, mine was fairly on target for someone who had learned mostly by ear and with only an occasional glance at a book. In English, I read and write at a University level, Spanish and French at a proficient level, but in Arabic I am the big kid in the back of the classroom slowly forming letters with the correct diacritical marks, words with the correct case ending, and learning to write clear sentences. Though it is slow going, the writing actually, well almost, look like real Arabic.
It is ironic that I have a profound admiration for Classical Arabic/ Koranic script from the time of the early Fatamid period to the inscriptions on the walls of Al Hambrah, but never had the desire to emulate it or learn to decipher the Suras (verses from the Koran) beyond a basic level. The Classical Arabic poetry is pure music, even if you don’t understand a word of it. I was listening to one recitation and I turned to a friend who was a well-educated Yemeni and asked "What does it mean?" He said, “Ï don’t know either, but it is beautiful.”
In the old city of Cairo I was studying the writing on the outside of a mosque from the 10th Century and trying to decipher the (Kuphic) script with a guide book, and it was a delight when the shop owner next to the mosque, who had never bothered really looking at the building, began to be excited as he read the inscriptions with me.
After my recent trip to Egypt, I was inspired to learn the real structure and grammar of Arabic. Though I do not speak Egyptian, my basic standard Arabic was more than enough to get by and hold a conversation. When I a man came by selling cigarettes, he looked a bit shocked when I said (in classical Arabic), “No, I don’t smoke and that stuff will give you cancer.” It is the well-chosen phrase that is sometimes most helpful, but it is far more effective to be able to write that sentence.
I am unraveling my Arabic illiteracy and though I may never get much beyond grade school level, I am enjoying the process of writing clean simple sentences. As I confront the extreme bias in the West, US and Europe, against Islam, and take pains to explain the profound achievements of the Islamic classical world, I am also realizing I needed to hold myself accountable for my own lack of education or maybe it is something as simple as laziness. But, knowledge is light, and I am enjoying the slow dawning illumination of learning to read and write.

O' New America

O’new Jerusalem, beacon of light
on the hill,
filled with the promise unspoken.

O’new awakening of the sleeping
dreams,
alive with hope again.

O’New America radiant with
possibilities
aspiring for its true soul.

Justice

Prisoners:

There are thousands of remote islands in the world, with food, water, and the basic necessities of life. Bare, harsh, vital. I was reading of a prisoner in solitary confinement for 24 years in NY state, I am glad they keep him apart from us, but $75,000 a year or more to keep this person locked up for the rest of his life is not a prudent cost. Instead, give him the choice: Death, confinement, or an island in the Pacific. On the island in the Pacific a thousand miles from civilization, he can fish, eat coconuts, and live out his life at no further cost to the state. What would he choose: The caged savage? The primitive? Or eternity? I would also like to take all the CEOs who have raped and looted their companies: Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Enron, and the War Profiteers like Halliburton,Bechtel, etc., and also place them on that same island. The prisoner and the CEO’s would make make perfect company; though I am a little concerned about the prisoners safety.

$700 Billion Pig Fest Wall Street

Strange dreams last night:

All these fat cats at
Lehman Brothers,
Goldman Sachs,
Merrill Lynch, etc..
all the corporate
gangsters who are
knee deep in the
muck of this latest
corporate debacle

are shackled together
in old fashioned
stocks in front of
Wall Street.Yes,
like in Colonial
times, don’t bother
with prison so
they can hide
away in shame.

Men and women
of Enron, CEOS of
Exxon, Haliburton
and so on all lined
up to join them in
the stocks.

Fat white cats shivering
naked in the autumn
air, arrayed in a circle
around Wall Street,
while the cold wind
blows off the Hudson.
Everyone who lost
money in the stock
market could drop
garbage on their heads
or simple piss on
them.
At feeding time,
long pig troughs so that
the fat cat CEOs
would be cheek and
jowl to munch the slop.

I hope the pigs don’t
get sick from the
contagion.

Some Outrage for the Genocide in Palestine?

It is strange all of this rancor against President of Iran Ahmadinejad, which may be deserved, but at the same breath do we talk about the genocide of the Palestinians, their imprisonment in the walled ghettos of the West Bank, and their isolation in Gaza? As reported on the BBC on 24 September, international communities have condemned Israeli Settlers who illegally have and now continue to take the land of Palestinians. Last night videos of Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians homes while the IDF (Israel Army) stood by.
I would hope that people save some of their outrage against the President of Iran for the genocide against the Palestinians. I really do not see much difference between the Israeli government actions against the people of Gaza and West Bank, and the actions imposed on my Jewish ancestors during and before WWII. For thousands of years, we Jews were persecuted, driven out of our homes, and ironically, thrived in the Islamic countries. We were welcomed. While in Europe to Be a Jew was cause for murder. The holocaust in Palestine is happening before our eyes
Perhaps, when there is a true independent state for Palestinians and the means to genuinely survive, we will then remove any rationale for someone like Ahmadinejad. Iran had a democratically elected President in l954 who was overthrown by the US. The Shah, a puppet leader, created a surrogate US colony, it was a police state that ruled for decades that persecuted and killed its own people. It is sad that when a reformist government was in power before Ahmadinejad, the United States refused to recognize and make rapprochement. When this last invasion of Iraq took place, the Iran government made a public statement that all US fliers if they landed in Iran would be repatriated to the US. Within a week Bush declared Iran as an "axis of evil." This eventually lead to a more hard line regime.
The US Government who is one of the worst propagators of state sponsored terrorism is condemning Iran? The US? Guantanamo? Abu Ghraib? Renditions? The deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, responsible for the $4 billion dollars in military aid to Israel that supports the genocide of Palestinians, and people wonder someone like Ahmadinejad has any legitimacy?
One can understand why Iran might be disappointed in the West. Hey, maybe if we get rid of our own version of Ahmadinejad, GW BUSH, and replace it with someone who is reasonably intelligent, Obama, then maybe we can have genuine progress with Iran.
Let's save some outrage for the genocide against the Palestinians.

Walking the Black Line: The N Thing and Obama

Walking the Black Line: That N thing and Obama

In the movie Blazing Saddles Mel Brooks lays the racist arguments right on the line. The Black sheriff is riding into save a town that is being threatened by outlaws. The people are excited and then they find the “The Sheriff is a N…” Bells ring and no one can hear it. When he finally does arrive, they want to shoot him! Though it appears he is the only one who can save the town, they are more concerned that he is a, N… .

The NY Times recently wrote of Obama’s debating style as, “Cool, detached, and intellectual.” After eight years of a president who can barely speak a cogent sentence; an articulate and intelligent person should be a welcome change, but this is America in 2008: The sound byte reigns supreme, and the Republican convention, like the Nuremberg rally, is filled with obeisant patriotic chants, in this case, USA, USA. As Einstein said about blind patriotism, any one who marches in a parade denies the necessity of the development of the cerebral cortex. In this election, it is imperative, though unlikely; we will get to a substantive debate about the future of the USA. In the meantime, Russian warships are challenging the Monroe doctrine, and the US like Rome in the late 2nd century is watching its world power shrink. Welcome to the 21st Century.

People are primitive pools of emotions, passions, and tribalism. Most of humanity’s march over some 4 million years since we bid farewell to our primate first cousins, has been a brutal struggle for survival, us versus them, tribe against tribe. Despite some rudimentary signs of progress, humans have not really evolved in the fundamental way that will ensure long term survival. Wars, tribalism, us versus them, ideologically driven… Nigger, spic, honkie, redneck, fascist, and so on. We define: other and like us: Friend or foe.

Barrack Obama blows the conventional paradigms out of the water and yet through the lens of red, white, and blue – and too many, we are stuck on the N thing. Yes, the sheriff may be black, but the question is: Does he have the energy, commitment, the intelligence, integrity, and character to lead the nation? The answer is yes. If we can get past the subtext about race and look at the man, we will not see a color blind or white washed version; we will see the full spectrum of the man. A man who is white, black, African, mid western, urban, grew up poor and middle-class, earned his way through college, who forsook a very lucrative law career to be a community organizer, and though he didn’t fight in the trenches, he fought in a more dangerous place, the Illinois Statehouse.

Yes, the Sheriff may be black, but he’s our only choice.

Namaya@vermontpoet.com

JaZ in O positive:

Murder in the Cathedral of Love

“The music business will kill ya’!” said Jack.

“And how!” Said I.

In the cathedral of jazz the cacophony of sounds rolled into the void. A shiftless dreaming F minor flat, boozy, flabby with cirrhosis and sclerotic eyes, peering down the long tunnel where sounds disappeared into a melodic introspection, was lying in a nest of music manuscripts tossed out from the publisher.

It was strange, she said, that the scale disappeared into an alley that was marked with the blood hand print of a C flat minor on a white basement wall next to the Cathedral of love.

Footstep echoed like lilac fragranced notes faltering in an arpeggio. It is always the top of the note that contains the essence of the fragrance, in the middle is the melody, and along the river by the muddy shores is the bass walking line. Bones ossified peer upwards dreaming of the memory of their lives.

Along the river banks in the thick estuaries that lead from the Thames towards Kent are the bones of the martyrs who dream of redemption.

Marlow was on the case, a private dick on a public recollection.

Fragments of lies littered the sidewalk and when the janitor sprayed them with the hose, the small particles of blood tenaciously clung to the calcified particulate exoskeletons. How many corpses of bivalves make up a city block?

Ghosts, permeate every pore of memory? said Mister Jones bojangle jingling a jig of jonesed blues.

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

He took a swig from the corn liquor jug and with the sun burning across the sky in an orange vengeance he drew up a glass syringe and spiked himself.

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

Christ that old offay boy died only once, I die every day for you! Said Jones as the blood rolled down his arm and coagulated every so slowly. It looked like a map of the Upper Nile.

Jack wiped off the trumpet and declared, Jazz in a key of O positive. Jazz is a universal donor. Ain’t it? Or is it huffing and puffing, flaunting itself in drag, willing to provide fellatio to the string section while the jealous cuckold is simmering in the bar trolling for young beauties. It is j A Z after all. Inflagrante! Heroin addicts, pimps, whores, and saints of the mortal coil.
Saints?

Yes, you wouldn’t expect knowing redemption from a satyr posing as a monk. That is why there is Murder in the Cathedral of Love. I said

Mister Jones nodded off and drooled while humming on his Jew’s harp.

A fat sax man in a dipsomaniac roll kept spinning b flat minor rifts up the tube of the drainpipe and fell on the ear of the widow Rosalita an old prostitute whose eyes were devoured by syphilis. She sat by the window with her rosary beads and prayed for the souls of her lovers while serenaded by the bourbon soaked blues.

Sonnets are weavings of time, fourteen lines of ecstasy cut with vitamin K, strands of indigo woven into the coarse lilac of memory as the song of a grey thrush on a June morning in Vermont thrills to the instigation of love. A window to the meadow is thrown wide open. Each memory of love, sex, indiscretion and redemption cherished.

How many memories does a syphilitic spirochete devour before it explodes? How many memories are stored in its cells and fibers before it explodes in a rapturous orgasm?

To be quaint: Is there a price for love?

The quick running steps of memory disappear into the vault of time, as seconds vanish in a fugue of notes, violet burning into indigo, a flame tinged incandescent thrilling blue that inspires love to simply burn and devour itself.

Marlow with the quick white glove whipped the counter faintly and smelled the arsenic, but couldn’t find a reason for Murder in the Cathedral of Love. Four blocks down on St.Vincent’s, a quick jog down an alley where the filtering blues flittered and fluttered with a moaning effervescences of unrequited desire, and goddess Desdemona played the harmonica in a baroque D minor that hummed.

Mister Jone’s did the St.Vitus dance for the homies, a premonition of desire, and the angels on 12th Avenue sauntered down to the water front waiting for the Argonauts to return

“And is love enough?” she asked.

Ibbbidy bibby I bop dice Salve Minore of an E Flat Minor Opus by the punk poet Namaya.

Him? Mad as two melted brain cells under a Sahara sun, said his ex Philomena.

What he think he be? Like Alfred appearing in his movies?

To the Narrative Again:

She was in improvisation artist, willing to do anything for the purity of Art. An arabesque, burlesque where the words dropped to the floor, long winding Isadora Duncan scarves that sailed behind her and threatened to decapitate her. In the final proceeding, the hand painted scarves contained ideograms from lovers, sonnets from sentries who guarded her virginity with the zealotry of Sappho and the pleasing teasing love by the Satyr in the guise of a Nubian eunuch.

Not a tortuous trail, not a cosmic comic adventure, nor a salutation to the mind bending Master Calvino, but a love missive to memory and murder which was the original journey.

J a Z in O positive where the ovulation of vowels makes for the ungulations and utterances poets seem intelligible, but the dah dah dah of darhma ohm ovations defies the resistance of imagination.

Then there is finally, murder in the cathedral of love. While the widow may be seduced by the fat man’s blues, the window may look out to the meadow, in the night club there was a murder.

A saxophonist, pianist and bassist, upright at their posts, bound to their instrument. Redemption in the cathedral of love.

Ghosts, permeate every pore of memory. Said Mister Jones bojangle jingling a jig of jonesed blues.

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

What ya gonna do when the well runs dry?

Hey, hey Sambo?

Jazz in O Positive spiked for transfusion.

Murder in the Cathedral of Love an F minor ovation to the round resonant G descending to O positive in a minor diatonic scale of desire.

Nigger Hating Rednecks in Vermont

In our community in Southern Vermont a group of youngsters who call themselves, “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” (NHRA) has appeared and it is a powerful opportunity to really address how racism affects us as a society and on a personal level. The teens who espoused this “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” should be invited to an open forum to clarify their opinions. Though I disagree with their racism, I’m grateful they aren’t in the closet. I suspect that for everyone of those youngsters in the NHR there are more behind them who say nothing. Do the parents and relatives who shaped these youngsters also feel this way? The problem is when “free speech” offends or hurts someone else, then the person’s right of free speech runs up against a wall. In no case should a person feel harmed or in danger because of offensive speech. But this NHRA reflects a more fundamental problem in society, despite progress over the past decades, the United States is still a profoundly racist and classist society that is evidenced by a prison population that is over sixty percent Black and Hispanic or in Vermont where minorities are ten times more likely to be incarcerated.

I want to understand how the “Nigger Hating Redneck Association” gained their insight that African Americans are somehow harmful to them. Given the population of their hometowns of Brattleboro and Guilford, Vermont are over 90% White: Why do they perceive Blacks or minorities as a threat to themselves? What are they angry at? Not valued? Not respected? Fearful? Alone? I want to sit down and listen to them, and by genuinely listening to them, they may be able to hear my concerns about racism and how it affects my life.

Hate mongering bigots from O’Reilly to Limbaugh fill the airwaves with their verbal flatulence, but those are the obvious examples. In the recent campaign of Hillary Clinton versus Obama, I kept hearing the subtext of the Clinton’s campaign, which was that Obama was uppity – “the elitist,” as they called him. How can you call a Black man whose White mother was on welfare and who grew up poor an elitist is baffling. Bill Clinton’s ranting of Obama as inexperienced and not ready – again, was the subtext that Obama was a boy? The neo-conservatives have no corner on racism. Racism and bias are as much a part of the USA fabric as the red, white, and blue on our flag. Democrat, Republican, Conservative, or liberal the racist rat lurks in every corner.

Let us consider the vilification of Reverend Wright who correctly pointed out that the USA is a racist and classist society, built on the bones of African American slaves, Chinese railroad workers, Mexican farm workers, the genocide of Native American Indians, and the list goes on. The New York Times on a front page rant, stopped just short of calling Reverend Wright “a crazy nigger,” but they were too politically correct to be so overt. If you listened carefully to him, he hit the nail on the head, we are a racist society, and as a Black man he has lived that experience. Though the segregated water fountains have vanished, racism and classism are tightly woven into our experience as US Americans.

Martin Luther King asked, “Do we judge a person by their character or their color?” It is imperative as a community that we draw the students who are involved in the “Nigger Hating Rednecks” into a genuine dialogue. Even when racism is deep rooted there is the possibility for profound change; for example, CP Ellis was a former KKK leader who became a civil rights leader in Durham North Carolina. If a former Klansman can have the possibility of transformation, then we most also hold out that possibility for these teenagers in the Nigger Hating Racist group to be transformed as well.

Day at the Gun Club

I’ve been disturbed by the noise of the adjacent gun club for some time, large semi-automatic rifles blasting away, disrupting my sleep and work. I had opposed the 2nd Amendment’s implied injunction that people should be free to own guns and foolishly believed that people killed not guns. It was difficult to remember the correct bumper sticker of ideology, so I decided instead of railing again guns and gun violence, I needed to seize the day, and come to a genuine understanding of guns and people.
Saturday, in late May, everyone at the gun club was out for their Memorial day shoot, gun members from Connecticut , Massachusetts , and one from Virginia came to celebrate all the skeet shooting, target practice, and good natured noisy fun that a rifle range is open to. I was a little hesitant as I’m a die hard leftist libertarian and realized I needed to challenge some of my assumptions about guns. The guys and the gals at the club couldn’t have been more friendlier, though they did look askance at my “Send Bush to Iraq” bumper sticker, they knew that I was trying to reach out and connect with my southern New England neighbors who love to come up to Vermont to shoot. Liberals only can dream about having so much fun. I leaped on to a monstrous ATV with my 12 gauge shot gun strapped across my shoulders and on my hip was a 44 Magnum that would have made Dirty Harry proud and zoomed away to the practice range. I had finally found my tribe. Little kids were out there with 22’s and a skinny bleached blond girl in a black leather jacket was firing on her little uzzi like a proud aspiring assassin. These are serious folks, no wonder the liberals can’t win an election… they need more firepower. There is little that is more orgiastic exciting than coming out for a day of shooting with the semi-automatics, the shot guns, and a hand pistol. As I saw the American flag in red, white, and blue on the hillside I had a lump in my throat, a tear, as I saw the blasting of rifles on that glorious afternoon and recalled the bombing of Fort Sumter where the flag held through that night. Holding the cool long steel barrel in my hands and feeling the portent of pulsating hot plasma of fire, I knew that I was on to something big.
My new found friend Big Jim and Bubba are two good old southern boys ( Southern Vermont that is) who love to hunt, fish, and hunt. A few swigs from Big Jim’s Jim Beam and I’m feeling in the cozy warmth and familiarity of “my tribe.” Despite all the progress of humanity, bigger firepower, and bombs of all kinds there was something so reassuring about the basic connection with ones own tribe in the hunt. I was beginning to wish there were a few liberals romping across the field so I could feel the real thrill of the kill and asked Big Jim about it.
“I know what ya mean about getting something meaningful, like taking down a beautiful 12 point buck or dropping a big old black bear. Man, there are few things that compare to that.”
“How about sex?” I asked
Big Jim looked at me kind of strange, “What ya man, sex.” Then looked around to make sure no one had heard him.
“What’s better sex or killing a big trophy deer? Or is there that same rush of sex you get when you kill?”
Bubba said, “That’s a might strange way of looking at it. Why don’t you go over to the target range on yonder and think about it a bit.”
“Sure enough.” I’d give them a little bit of time to think about that one. I had my Magnum and was itching to try it. Suddenly I had an epiphany.
“Big Jim! Bubba! Come back I want to try an experiment!”
I walked over to Big Jim some ten feet away from me, raised my gun to his head and fired point blank, took a half step to the right and shot Bubba once between the eyes. Someone else came, I raised a gun and fired. It was the slow dream of carnage in the carnival of death. Then everyone ran into the woods.
“Wait! Come back!” I was so angry. I had made the effort to connect with the club, got over my narrow prejudices about guns, finally made a breakthrough and then they all fled, but I came to truly appreciate Big Jim’s perspective-- guns don’t kill, but people do.
p.s. In lieu of flowers to the Gun Club, please send donations to: NRA Youth Education Fund.

As a White Guy Does Racism Affect My Life?

I’m a White middle class middle-aged man with more than a few dollars in the bank. I see the police and can wave at them and drive safely on by. If I reach into my coat pocket for my wallet and identification I will probably not get shot with forty bullets. I can shout out my magic protective words, “Don’t shoot me, I’m White. Put on some James Brown, see I can’t dance!” Oops, did I just fall into a stereotype? So, as a White guy does racism affect my life?

Being White and of European descent I don’t worry that I’ll be mistaken for a brown Muslim named Mohamed, strip searched, and undergo a rectal probe at the airport. However, given Timothy McVeigh’s role in blowing up the Federal buildings in Oklahoma it would seem reasonable that White guys should equally be suspect and the US should have launched an invasion on Scotland. (Though it is still puzzling to me why fifteen Saudis attacked the World Trade Center Towers and the US invaded Iraq and not Saudi Arabia: A case of the US being geographically challenged?)

When I apply for work and they look at my credentials or college education employers will not wonder if I was successful because of affirmative action. The employer may assume I did it on my own merit or at the least perhaps if I did attend an Ivy League school, it was because I was smart or in the case of GW from a wealthy and well connected family. If I was from that well connected family a gentleman’s C grades will do.
When I go into a grocery store and decide not to use a shopping cart and stuff a few things in my pockets; generally, it is assumed that I was in a rush and the management doesn’t call the police. Because I am a White middle aged man who is not walking around in raggedy clothes mumbling to myself (most times) it’s assumed that I’m harmless, a little careless in not using a cart, but not a significant problem. If I was Black or Hispanic, how long would it take before the police are called?
I can walk into a local bank and cash a check without an ID. They will not ask me for four pieces of ID, even though I might have had a bank account there for years. I will not have the bank guard calling for back up because I get in an argument with a teller over an error in my bank account. As a White middle aged middle class professional, I know she will defer to her manager, and we will resolve this.

If I move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. I don’t need to ask my friend to find an apartment. I can let the grass grow on my front lawn, have the hedges a bit shabby and the neighbors will think “He’s still a bit of a hippy.” But if my name was Gonzales would the neighbors think, “Those damn Hispanics – one moves into the neighborhood and look what happens.” It is the hundreds of small clues during the course of day that says, “You’re different. You’re not quite like us.” If there is a fistfight at the school do they assume the Black or Hispanic youngster is the aggressor?

When an African American friend of mine comes to town, do I need to give them a heads up about our local police department’s history of racial profiling or bias. If he is stopped does he need to do his Black thing?

“Yes, sir officer. I know it looks suspicious being a six foot tall black man wearing a suit and tie waiting on the street corner for my wife. No, I wasn’t casing the store for a robber. Yes, officer I have identification. Yes officer, observe my hands as they are going into my pocket. No, I don’t have a gun or a shiv.”

Do people of color and various ethnicities feel safe and welcome coming into town? Will they spend their money for shopping? Will they buy second homes here? Will they invest their talents as lawyer, carpenter, artist or poet? Will the richness of many diverse cultures that have strengthened our collective national cultures be welcomed and become an asset to our community?

Does racism affect me in my life? On the surface it doesn’t. As a White middle-aged man, living in a predominantly White community, racism can be a ghosted shadow drifting invisibly by. However, racism/ bias/ discrimination, is the sure and slow corrosive acid that that eats away at the fabric of a community. It says there is an “us and them.” It is another wall in the community that divides neighbors, differenced solely based on ethnicity or color.

When Vermont Yankee Blew Its Top

When Vermont Yankee Blew Its Top

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Windy morning in March

when all hell broke loose.

It was history’s fatal arc,

our town swung by a noose

Wind blew the fatal curse

Yesterday’s news was torn,

as fate drove in a hearse

but no one left to mourn.

20 years past its prime

it was a ticking bomb

and in a second of time

our fate was entombed.

20 years past its end

Entergy knew it best

as it lied to defend

all of its failed tests

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Miles of pipe lurking

a coiled snake to strike

fatal chance was stalking,

a lightening quick spike.

Old sagging pipes blew,

from a crack of steam,

a string of mistakes flew

then heard a scream,

“Boys, head to the hills

this one is going to blow!

Grab your families and run!”

The brave stayed to fight

but too few to stave the fate,

as execs quickly took flight,

there was no time to wait.

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Winds blew wild that day

a radioactive wind of fire,

roared each and ever way,

in the skies an unholy spire.

For miles, roads did clog,

too few could flee or run

as if stuck in a mud bog,

light chilled to a black sun.

Chilling and killing wind

seized everyone instead.

The old, infirmed & blind

quietly died in their bed.

When Vermont Yankee blew its top

the whole world turned to stop

Years now since it blew

Brattleboro long gone,

but skies again are blue

with weedy grass lawns.

All seems back to normal,

a few birds wobble in flight,

natural selection is natural,

with the return of corn blight.

Starlight peeks thru the sky,

in the cold fading twilight,

never asking of Man’s why

or indifference to insight.

Suicide and Remembering Life is Extraordinary

Suicide and Remembering Life is Extraordinary
At nineteen I tried to commit suicide and a few times before that with an ingestion of pills. There is a sense of shame now that I was in so much pain that I attempted this and that I felt so helpless. I was isolated, under a great deal of stress and didn’t know how to cope with it. At the age of nineteen it seemed as if I had reached the end of the line. The chronic drinking didn’t resolve the problems and so with a razor tried to kill myself. It wasn’t severe, but enough to send me to a psychiatric hospital for a week. The scars on the skin have diminished, but the evidence is still visible and the pain of that moment is still fresh after all these years. For you who are contemplating suicide-- Reach out, call, talk to a friend, talk to anyone, pick up a phone, and ask for help. Someone is there to help you or even a stranger, because life is filled with angels in all of their guises. The crisis now – a broken heart, a disappointment, a failure…this is life. Life is filled with disappointment, failures, broken promises, and more. Nevertheless, I can assure you this will pass no matter how difficult it is, no matter how shameful or embarrassing it may now appear. Time does heal all wounds.
The medical establishment tells us that our spiritual illness is a mental illness, a stew of chemicals, neuro-peptides, and so forth that need to be regulated. While those pharmaceuticals are stirring the pot, our spiritual illnesses are still simmering and raging. It is rarely about the chemicals in our brains and is far more about the spiritual malaise that festers deep in our soul…the lack of love and care, the loneliness in a sea of people, the isolation in a world of instant connectivity, the simple fears that leave us captive and imprisoned in our personal terror.
There is a shame in madness, but none if you’re physically ill. If you break a leg everyone sends you flowers and cards, but if your spirit is broken, you feel crazy and isolated, people shun you and in some cases make fun of you. Or if you’re feeling depressed they tell you, “Don’t worry everyone gets a little blue now and then, you’ll get over it.” A friend of mine passed me at the store and across her lips was a plastic band-aid, she looked at me terrified, and put her finger to her lips as to say “Shhhhh” and very quietly she slipped past me. I knew the pain, it was mine as well, being alone and isolated.
I have made this long journey away from suicide and though that possibility is always there, the option to end the emotional pain is sometimes tantalizing: Why leave heaven? Why leave this paradise? The simple pleasures of being incarnate: Making love, eating good fresh bread, drinking clean water, breathing the air, watching the flight of birds in the early morning and the dance of a breeze across the pond. When life is overwhelming and I too feel like I should walk around with a band-aid over my lips, I will peel it back and breathe deeply, allowing the sweet fragrances to fill my senses, I will drink from the spring and bathe in the cold waters, and my famished spirit will feast again.
Today some thirty years from committing suicide, I paused to consider this how immensely rich and extraordinary my life has been… I have been privileged to help others and traveled all over the world, There have been chasms of madness that have flooded and nearly drowned me, but I’ve managed in my stumbling way to find grounding and peace, in those moments of clarity, I’ve managed to step back and see the heaven around. I’ve never seen a tragedy or sadness in life that time doesn’t heal.
For those who are contemplating suicide, pause, pick up a phone, ask for help, and if there is no answer – simply look outside to these woods and fields, gaze spellbound at the moon, thrill to the morning flight of birds, hear the whisper of the wind to the new day as it plays across the tree tops, and if that isn’t enough… then take one of your fondest dreams and live it.

Madam Sherri's In Vermont

Madame Sherri’s In Vermont

Friends, I’d like to welcome you to Madame Sherri’s House of Good Repute in a quiet section of Vermont. It’s off the road a bit, but easy to find, and whether you’re a man, woman, gay or lesbian, cross dresser or some such variation there is a place for you. It reflects the best values of Vermont: it’s worker owner and managed, all employees have full health care, excellent pay, and a 40l k retirement plan. Plus, the tips are terrific.
Madame Sherri’s came about several years when I was talking with some friends in the commercial sex industry. We were going to set up a House in San Jose Costa Rica, but decided to open one in our home state. The Dutch solution to the grand old profession works well as it carefully regulates the industry and ensures the workers and customers are safe. In order to combat the horrific problems of international sexual slavery the only solution is to take it out of the closet and make it a legitimate business. After all capitalism is a legal form of prostitution, why should the real thing be illegal?
In Madam Sherri’s we brought in people who had worked in the industry, from the streets to high class houses and everything in between. We had an organizational consultant come in and developed a business plan, and then we filed for an LLC. We designed and built a beautiful establishment, so safe and comfortable you might even think about bringing your mother or dad in for a drink.
Let’s take a tour of our comfortable modern den of happiness. At Madame Sherri’s you make an appointment in advance, screened by the greeters at the door and the rules of the House explained, and the fees discussed. Alcohol and drugs are not served and if you’re intoxicated you’re turned away. We have several section of the house. If you’re gay there is Shangri-La; if you’re a woman and want to meet our young men there is Bali; if you’re a cross dresser or transvestite we have the Club; and if you’re a hetero guy we have the Oasis. We also have three Sex Therapists who work with individuals and couples. There is a host of massage therapists who only do massage, several Nurse Practitioners who specialize in gynecology and men’s health, and a café with live music 5 nights of the week. For five nights of the week this is one happy, fun, and playful place to be. If you want to hang out in the café listen to music, drink a virgin colada, and watch all the folks come and go, that’s fine. The main thing at Madam Sherri is to leave your hat and worries on the coat stand and enjoy yourself.
Madame Sherri’s is a worker’s owned cooperative and it is in their best interest to ensure everyone is healthy. The hosts, as they’re called, know more about STD and HIV prevention than the department of health, and all are screened independently for STDS. In the individual rooms, it’s a safe and comfortable environment. If the hosted aren’t following the rules, she/he is escorted out, but that rarely happens and we have a return business that would make Disneyland jealous.
It’s a shame that New York governor didn’t visit, he would have had a grand time for a fraction of the price and not a bit of hassle. So the next time you drive up to Vermont want a little pleasant detour come visit us at Madam Sherri’s, just stop by at the General store and they’ll point you in the right direction.

T.Namaya is the poet-in-residence at Madam Sherri’s.

As A white guy does racism fuck with my life

I’m a White middle class middle-aged man with more than a few dollars in the bank. I see the police and can wave at them and drive safely on by. If I reach into my coat pocket for my wallet and identification I will probably not get shot with forty bullets. I can shout out my magic protective words, “Don’t shoot me, I’m White. Put on some James Brown, see I can’t dance!” Oops, did I just fall into a stereotype? So, as a White guy does racism affect my life?
Being White and of European descent I don’t worry that I’ll be mistaken for a brown Muslim named Mohammed, strip searched, and undergo a rectal probe at the airport. However, given Timothy McVeigh’s role in blowing up the Federal buildings in Oklahoma it would seem reasonable that White guys should equally be suspect and the US should have launched an invasion on Scotland. (Though it is still puzzling to me why fifteen Saudis attacked the World Trade Center Towers and the US invaded Iraq and not Saudi Arabia: A case of the US being geographically challenged?)
When I apply for work and they look at my credentials or college education employers will not wonder if I was successful because of affirmative action. The employer may assume I did it on my own merit or at the least perhaps if I did attend an Ivy League school, it was because I was smart or in the case of GW from a wealthy and well connected family. If I was from that well connected family a gentleman’s C grades will do.
When I go into a grocery store and decide not to use a shopping cart and stuff a few things in my pockets; generally, it is assumed that I was in a rush and the management doesn’t call the police. Because I am a White middle aged man who is not walking around in raggedy clothes mumbling to myself (most times) it’s assumed that I’m harmless, a little careless in not using a cart, but not a significant problem. If I was Black or Hispanic, how long would it take before the police are called?
I can walk into a local bank and cash a check without an ID. They will not ask me for four pieces of ID, even though I might have had a bank account there for years. I will not have the bank guard calling for back up because I get in an argument with a teller over an error in my bank account. As a White middle aged middle class professional, I know she will defer to her manager, and we will resolve this.
If I move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live. I don’t need to ask my friend to find an apartment. I can let the grass grow on my front lawn, have the hedges a bit shabby and the neighbors will think “He’s still a bit of a hippy.” But if my name was Gonzales would the neighbors think, “Those damn Hispanics – one moves into the neighborhood and look what happens.” It is the hundreds of small clues during the course of day that says, “You’re different. You’re not quite like us.” If there is a fistfight at the school do they assume the Black or Hispanic youngster is the aggressor?
When an African American friend of mine comes to town, do I need to give them a heads up about our local police department’s history of racial profiling or bias. If he is stopped does he need to do his Black thing?
“Yes, sir officer. I know it looks suspicious being a six foot tall black man wearing a suit and tie waiting on the street corner for my wife. No, I wasn’t casing the store for a robber. Yes, officer I have identification. Yes officer, observe my hands as they are going into my pocket. No, I don’t have a gun or a shiv.”
Do people of color and various ethnicities feel safe and welcome coming into town? Will they spend their money for shopping? Will they buy second homes here? Will they invest their talents as lawyer, carpenter, artist or poet? Will the richness of many diverse cultures that have strengthened our collective national cultures be welcomed and become an asset to our community?
Does racism affect me in my life? On the surface it doesn’t. As a White middle-aged man, living in a predominantly White community, racism can be a ghosted shadow drifting invisibly by. However, racism/ bias/ discrimination, is the sure and slow corrosive acid that that eats away at the fabric of a community. It says there is an “us and them.” It is another wall in the community that divides neighbors, differenced solely based on ethnicity or color.

Omega Recapitulates to fellatio

On the Planet Cu – Near Andar:

Omega Recapitulates to Fellatio

A dog disguised as a god by the name of Sam

disappeared down the alley

found refuge in the shadows of love

then slipped away with a girl.

In the intimate revelation of lust, they

did the shimmy shake co co bop

dance and their progeny leaped from the

union of their most exquisite

orgasm.

Cu to 2nd power, squared once, then

flipped over for a sunny side treat!

Cu the infinity of desire taken round to its

natural course and the Shannon leads

to a map of our souls.

Will reverie find its way to love?

Cu to 2nd power, squared once, then

flipped over for a sunny side treat!

Who could possible fathom the depths of

their love besides Captain Nemo?

Intrepid sailors are rowing to Babylon

in paper boats to the gods of the Nile

Winken

Blinken

Nod.

Moonlight’s heavy lidded reveries.

The trolls smoked a joint

guarding Serenity Bay.

“And you’ll get oral sex when that boy

next door lands on the moon.”

If love could carry us home, the saints

of Ireland would lead the national

family planning program and St. Patrick would

chase away the demons from your soul.

WInken.

bLinK In.

Guinness is the god of Nod

2.

We stopped to discuss Real Estate, a condominium

by the side of the Euphrates

War prices are cheap! said Abdullah. Then was

hurried to his armor plated Mercedes.

Not bad for a carpet trader from Isfahan which leads

us back to Cu.

Cu in a voice as velvety as Velveta as undulating

as an uvula, dulcet sotto voce kind of voicing.

A warping willowy wave splashed

on the shore of Maui,

tumbled once and

settled by a palm tree.

3.

Baghdad. Cu. Andar…

The continuum of space revealed

in a oyster. In that pearl that peeled away

every guise

we found ourselves

in the sheltering shadow

of violet

indigo

memory.

The ink mark on the page. My official cache on my letter of

Safe Passage smuggled from Casablanca to the Free World.

“Stamped, checked, whistle clean. Next stop,

Cu by the way of Andar.” said Ishmael

the conductor. “A whale of a time guaranteed for all.”

Cu by the way of Andar.

Absurd?

A psychotic break?

Schizo-disinfective disorders?

Sanitize these words lysolate, antiseptisize,

then roll them into a joint and smoke it.

“The water pipe, you idiot! The hookah! Said the carpet salesmen

who was now hot on to condominiums sold by the King of

Rocco from steps of this Baroque winter palace.

Poet’s are well received. Sodomites! Artists of fellatio, Monica received

more fame than a cigar factory of artists, was

enshrined on Andar where genius is cherished, love supreme,

conflicts decided my mad passionate loving, journey’s celebrated

and hours tumbling by.

Center of Supreme Culture is dedicated to the great lovers and artists

of the oral arts. Khajaraho and the Kama Sutras

are Embassy Portals from Cu via Andar. Step inside a temple

and soon in the coupling mad passionate loving we are released and on the last

shuttle calling us backward in time to home.

Earth is Philistine, not to insult the deeply aggrieved Philistines, but

geeezuz fuking Khrist, sad the Ambassador from Cu. To use an expression

from your place in time: How can you perpetuate the species when you’re killing

each other?

There’s a joke in Galaxy – How many humans does it take to fuk up a planet?

6 Billion a million more of less.

That’s not very funny.

Neither is Earth. said the Ambassador from Cu

“Through the key hole you’ll find your way back to home!” as the last shuttle danced across the phosphorescent waves and wandered back inside a thought.

“A single molecule of water holds every possibility and one tear can heal the world.” said the Prophet Sam while rowing up river.

In the kingdom of Mu ruled by the Queen Aphrodite, a small skiff made from

the unrequited articulations of love left the harbor and sailed out to sea.

WInken. The blind prophet Teresias from Waco Texas where the onanistic

cults still prevail.

bLinK In. Coveting the last ship to leave the Free World we sail onwards

till the cosmos disappear in the depths of the wine red sea as

we to toast Odious the drunken half cousin of the mariner.

Guinness is the god of Nod. Nothing grand or illusionary.

I will raise a glass of stout to you! said I to the ambassador of Cu.

And we row in our boat of love,

in

the Infinity of desire

Omega recapitulates to fellatio.

Heads up!

Up dates January 2008

Up dates January 2008

Justin the multimedia manager and I have been very busy organizing the website and bringing a variety of tracks of songs and performances from the past years up on the Sample page. Also, on the main page is Last Round At the Earth Bar a beautiful piece with Cindy Hellman on vocals, Paul Jensen on guitar, and me Namaya on the narrative.

Blue Heron Pond: Love Song for the Planet is in the very final editing stages. We will probably produce this in a limited run on Cafe Press or another electronic print on demand. Samples will be on the website during the week. Two years in the work!

7 March 2008 a Performance of Benny O'Shea at the Cotton Mill in Brattleboro Vermont. Benny O'Shea is the Jazz Detective story about a cat by the name of Benny O'Shea who meets the Angel of Death. Rain Wilson and Kali Quinn will be dancing in this performance.

Beatnik Cafe will be produced by NPI productions and Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton for a 29 March 2008 P.A.C.E. (The Pioneer Arts Center of Easthampton) 41 Union Street Easthampton, MA 01027 PHONE (413) 527-3700. This will feature Samirah Evans, Scott Mullett, George Kaye, Cindy Hellmann, Carol Smith, Namaya, Erica Nebbia, & Eric Morgan. It is a fun celebration of the Beat Generation.

Tour of Ireland GOD SEX POLITICS TOUR 2008. Namaya will be playing Ireland 2nd week of September with a small world beat combo. If all goes well we will extend that to England on the 3rd week of September 2008.

Sweet Pond Eco Community - My other huge creative endeavor in 2007 has been the Sweet Pond Eco Community at www.sweetpondecocommunity.com

Hopes, wishes, and anticipations: 2007 had been filled with writing and producing the musical Beatnik Cafe which was received with a generous standing ovation at our first performance we are hoping to feature it in NYC in November 2008 for a limited run at a small theater.

Australia January GOD SEX POLITICS 2009 - If the wind blows right Sydney, Melbourne and stops along the way. And, of course, a few days of the Australian Open. We would like to really stretch that dream and take a tramp steamer from Perth to Yemen and do a GOD SEX POLITICS show in Aden.

If you're going to live life, live it hugely, dream immensely, dare the most imaginative of things to do, be outrageous, kiss a beautiful stranger, act as if the next breath was your very last one but you had the eternity of time to savor it.

Stop whining, make a revolution now!

Namaya Jan 2008