les patriotes

(for Pat Tillman)

a stupendous handle manipulated
by well coordinated crews
juts from the side of the machine

its thick torqued springs
build a frightening tension
and then exhale their soft release

“slowly, very slowly”, yells the foreman
from the mechanical arm of his perch

workers in sleeveless shirts
bear down, foreheads glazed
drip black to steel tipped boots

the passers-by pause
start to gather
huddle in groups, gaze fixed
upon their own reflection
off the mirrored sprockets

a stout man in swallow-tailed coat
smiles, rouses the band
to play louder…
much louder
than the straining gears

someone waves a small flag
stapled to a wooden stick

young girls paint the air in colors
of leotard and undulating ribbons

and even the knowing
stand hollow-eyed monks
shifting in sparse shadow
of the bradford pears

AJ Morelli

Rhythm Of Words for Social Awareness

Part of 100 THOUSAND POETS FOR CHANGE

September 24, 2011

6-10 PM
Tate Street Coffee House Greensboro, NC
A Free Public Event
Choose an issue you feel strongly about and speak on it

Play about it
Sing about it
Tell a story about it
Use comedy to help heal

Poets
Musicians/Singers
Storytellers
Comedians

Open Mic element intertwined throughout program

Eternity in Gaza by Teresa Chuc Dowell
Khan Younis Refugee Camp, 2001

When the canisters fell, they were ready,
thinking, “More tear gas”, but a white cloud
flowered above, then changed colors and emitted
a sweet odor that made them want to breathe in
the way one breathes in the smell of sweet tea.

The color darkened until it looked like a burning
and people ran to put out what they thought were
fires on their neighbors’ rooftops. Muscles began to
cramp up, constricting as if from the bite of a scorpion.
A woman dropped her child as she scratched herself in a fit

of convulsions. A father attempted to hold down
his son who flailed and moaned until he fell into a coma.
The teenagers who played with the canisters, who taunted
their apparent harmlessness, shrieked and shook in pain for weeks.
The doctors had never seen anything like this before. The villagers

had never seen anything like this before. The convulsions came
like waves for an entire month and family who sat and cried at bedside
wailed in pain almost as much as the victims who looked like rabid dogs.
Some visitors were stunned silent, their eyes inward, heads tilted to the side
as if not looking would somehow make it not truly happening.

In a laboratory far away, were beakers, scientists in white gowns and goggles,
microscopes, and gloves. At the end of the day, they went home
to their wives and wives to their husbands. The tables were set,
the dinner was ready, warm and steaming,
and the children swung their legs beneath the table.

(first published in the anthology, L, by Silkworms Ink)

You’ve Got To Be Fearless

I was born in Israel when it was
only three years old.
First war, I went through at
four years old.
Three more wars to follow.
My grandparents murdered
for their religion.

So, what was I taught?
You’ve got to be fearless.
Much more easily said than lived.

England saved me when we moved
there at the age of six.
They embraced me with history,
architecture, beautiful and natural
countryside.
Then the world’s most amazing city,
London, took over my life,
cared and taught me everything I know.

But, when push came to shove,
Great Britain said
“You have to be fearless”.

Now, here in California.
America my home since 1979.
My life still complicated,
changing, and not quite there yet.
I know I have to be fearless.

Photosynthesis

for my son –

How can I convince you
that you do have chlorophyll,
that you can take the sun’s
energy and turn it into sugar?
Produce something sweet inside of you.
Take the waste people breathe out
and make it into something that
will keep you alive, that will keep
those around you alive, create oxygen.

Why do you say that this metaphor
doesn’t work, that you don’t have
the powers of a plant, that nature
didn’t intend you that way?

Look, how you twist and turn
towards the light.

by Teresa Chuc Dowell

(first published in EarthSpeak Magazine)

…………………………….A Haiku by John Vissers

Look at me now!

Ha, look at me now…..
Thrashing my arms in the sea…
I’m turning the tide!

THE 11th PANCHEN LAMA
By Tsoltim N. Shakabpa

The fake Panchen, Gyaltsen Norbu
Might as well be a mapo tofu*
He is no more than a Gya** Panchen
Sitting on top of our mighty gangchen***
For he’s just a simple stooge
Made to look holy and huge
While for the true Panchen Choekyi Ngima
Whose rays spread wide and bright like the ngima****
The Tibetan people have wept and wept
As under the carpet he has been swept

But cry no more, my countrymen
For Choekyi Ngima I will pen
A lasting tribute for he who
Is our true and treasured norbu*****
To the true Panchen Rinpoche
I prostrate and say “ka drin che” ******

* Chinese dish made of chopped pork and bean curd
** Chinese (a play on the first 3 letters of his first name)
*** Snow-capped range
**** Sun
***** Precious gem
****** Thank you

Copyright: Tsoltim N. Shakabpa – 2011

TSOLTIM N. SHAKABPA is a recognized Tibetan poet and a dedicated political activist for a free Tibet. He is the son of Tsepon Wabgchuk Deden Shakabpa, the eminent Tibetan historian, statesman, freedom fighter and former Finance Minister of independent Tibet.

A PRECIOUS DAUGHTER
(Dedicated to my daughter, Pema Yudon)
by Tsoltim N. Shakabpa

Though I want to relive
The memories of her childhood with me
And freeze every vision of her angelic face
She keeps on slipping through my fingers
Whenever I think I know her
She keeps on growing
Glowing, knowing and going
I know not how to let her go
Though I know I must one day
I recall every moment
I spent with her
Moments when I used to twirl
My finger across her palm
And she would fall asleep smiling
I treasure every instance
She hugged me tight and whispered
“I love you bigger than the universe”
Now she’s grown
And slipping through my fingers
And away she’s flown
Taking with her
All the plans I made for us
But life’s full of surprises
Full of hellos and goodbyes
Thus though sadly I must say goodbye
To a precious child I once knew
I’m so glad I can say hello
To a precious woman I now know
Whose love for me grows with age
And for whom my love knows no end

Copyright: Tsoltim N. Shakabpa – 2009

*The poet is the son of Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa, the well-known historian, statesman, freedom fighter and former Finance Minister of independent Tibet.

Life’s Hell; Heaven is in our hands

People disappoint.
In gorgeous masks of delight
they may charm and amaze.
Ever beneath
vampiric stealth in the night.
Rude greedy mean thief
too overplayed for deception;
too many days self-deceived.
I like art.
The beautiful mask is itself,
when well-wrought portrays
the best of us. Spit the rest,
the unjust, over-blessed,
tawdry fuss, choking fumes,
whingers shaping wounds
on their breasts, unless
their etchings astound, caress the
ideal heart.
Beatific love, despite requite,
beyond petty acts of life,
unbound through crafted coin:
Art’s how we weak-voiced people join

June 29, 2011

Le feu de tout bois

J’ai conforté le pouvoir du pouvoir, car je ne maîtrise pas l’inconnu.
Dieu est dans le ciel parmi les hélicoptères, les avions et les satellites ainsi qu’au fond du cerveau où la lumière réclame un nom.
La créer ou la découvrir n’est qu’une fantaisie. Elle est toute définie : c’est une propriété, un élan de désir, une marque déposée. Et pourtant… la liberté aurait pu être le contour de l’âme.
Se positionner pour croître. Détourner et réduire nos libertés qualitatives, se cristalliser en victimes de nos propres logiques. Liberté du non-partage, Maelström de réductions, cheval de Troie des petitesses, de l’ignorance et de l’incompréhension promues au rang de valeurs. Violences soignées par des violences. Fermeture des horizons, des chemins de traverse et des correspondances. Discipline de la raideur, forme niant son fond, cultivant, nourrissant et excitant ses monstres en colère pour mieux se faire peur et prouver par la preuve que le bien et le mal sont définitifs. Chaque chose à sa place. Notre bien cherche activement son mal.

Défense d’entrer-propriété privée. De l’autre côté du mur, un peu de quoi se reposer. Des chiffres ronds comme des colliers étincelant de zéros multiples masqués sous un loup bleu dans un bal charmant, cache-cash aux îles caïmans, du potentiel concentré en sommeil fiscal sous un petit parasol avec débris de glaçons.

Pratique pour la pratique. L’ennemi est désigné : la nuance qui menace l’immuable. Un immuable de pacotille, fantasmé, petit monde privilégié aux qualités toutes matérielles où l’on se purifie en brulant les conséquences de ses propres égoïsmes dont la noirceur se diffuse et s’étend dans tout l’espace laissé vide des essences perdues. Certaines formes rapides, devenues plus pauvres et identiques, s’élancent dans une dynamique de recherche sans fond, pur mouvement : celle de tous ces faibles qui réclament de la force. Alors on cultivera la force. Elle se nourrira d’elle-même, d’année en année, toujours plus grosse : futurs cadavres oubliés sur les champs de bataille de guerres absurdes et fratricides. La force implosera : ce n’était qu’une énergie éprise d’elle-même, comblant son vide glacial par le feu de tout bois. Holocauste au Dieu des absences.

L’homme (quel homme ?) transforme le monde à son image jusqu’à le dissoudre. Il ne lui restera bientôt plus que des images… Des images et des dollars qui se feront la course. Des images rongées par des images. L’homme appellera son monde aux abonnés absents avec un forfait spécial. Une grande facture universelle pleine de promesses tout de suite après la pub… En attendant le Messie, la Croissance, le tirage gagnant du loto, les princesses, les chevaux blancs, les hommes providentiels, les vaccins, la Révolution et la Finale de la coupe.

De quoi mon âme sera-t-elle faite ? Une âme-mémoire ayant bouffé son monde ? La plupart des essences sont nées de parents inconnus au-delà du ciel visible et des drapeaux. Gamines, encore avides d’amour et de caresses, elles venaient jouer jusque sous nos terrasses et quémander un nom. On leur a dit merde avec de petits riens. On leur a donné les dénominations en boutique, sur l’autel de la caisse pour faciliter l’effet et la digestion. Plus tard, écœurées, elles finissent par nier et se démultiplient en éclairages de basse consommation. On les jette dans la bataille, dans les arènes des experts auto-désignés en maillons faibles pour le bonheur hiérarchique des forts en force. Elles dansent, dansent et s’agitent, offrent leur cul, piétinent leur cœur palpitant… Elles le piétinent jusqu’à ce qu’il transpire de transparence, de maquillage et d’endorphines, pour que le monde fusillé de lumières artificielles change le loup en caniche, aligne les arbres et détourne les fleuves. Puis, désorientées, se cognent aux reflets de leurs collections de miroirs, elles deviennent nostalgiques et remplacent la création libre par des marbres dogmatiques, des âges d’or valeurs refuges et des prières aux images des origines comme un enfant malade appelle sa mère dans la nuit.

Elles dansent sur le top du top, satellites des pulsations du désir dérivé et des prières organisées. Puis on les exporte pétillantes et toutes consommées, démultipliées sur des étalages d’amour en boîte et de sourires en tube. Des sourires qui se conjuguent entre les îles, les détroits, sous le soleil et les orages pour s’échouer un jour, déchets plastiques mal décomposés dans le suc gastrique des dernières forêts primitives, denses et touffues où vivent des animaux sauvages porteurs d’émetteurs sponsorisés par des dons couverts de mousses et de limons. Des voix tendres et douces comme de la crème nous apprennent à les protéger en stéréo sur un grand écran plat, d’une définition parfaite, fabriqué dans l’autre hémisphère et embarqué sur un yacht tropical avec des « amis » (très chers) qui évacuent le stress sur fond de musiques mystiques et de massages coquins pour les générations futures dans un nuage d’avenir, d’espoir, de désir, de futur, de possible, de changement, de compétence, de papillons, d’enfants, de villages, de bons parents et autres ballons de campagne colorés du bond électoral sur la scène sécurisée en saluant la foule moderne qui trépigne et synchronise sa marche vers le synthétique bouillon primitif.

Creusez des sources curieuses et cultivez l’esthétique dans l’instant ouvert de la décision et de l’indécision, n’étouffez pas la respiration des idées et des qualités, tolérez la palette de leur diversité. Et pour l’évolution volontaire, réfléchie et déniaisée des potentiels, osez cultiver la paix, un peu d’amour et de partage. La violence se fatiguera alors peut-être ou, ne se prendra plus au sérieux, coeur en tambour, fleur vénéneuse, dans les cycles ouverts en sursis. Et nous verrons peut-être pointer le museau de l’amour qui viendra nous titiller et nous lui courrons après en riant dans nos forêts, dans les rues de nos villes, dans nos champs, dans nos étreintes fougueuses, sur nos océans, tout autour du monde et au delà… Et en reprenant notre souffle dans l’immensité nous nous exclamerons peut-être : Tout beau ! Que nous étions bêtes… !

Someday, the natural language of the world might be poetry. In that case:

The President’s Poesy State of the Union Address:

I bumped my head on this low hanging ceiling,
looked around at the jackals nipping at my heels
like they hadn’t had a meal and were closing for the kill;
But I knew they’d eaten plenty the last time at this table.

They had their feast of fat and muscle (blood and bone as well) ;
they’d gorged themselves at our expense; looted the pantry,
turned on the spigots of war, and washed in the rivers
of dollars and cents, until it was time to pay the bill.

Now they yell and scream about hunger and lean,
while dismembering whatever is left of the carcass,
declare they weren’t involved in this fable
and pretend their lard-ass nowhere to be seen.

Though Justice be blind and the poor so much prey,
the rest of us bought off, or scared off, or tired,
The State of the Union demands ending this game;
that the people hunt jackal, till that species has expired.

– red slider, august, 2011

[ps. New sister petition to ‘Mission Accomplished’ is at http://www.change.org/petitions/starship-darpa-add-american-poets-to-your-specifications Please sign it. – red ]

LET US PRACTICE COMPASSION
By Tsoltim N. Shakabpa

The practice of compassion
Doth take many forms

Mindful of how despondent
The infirm, poor and dying were
Mother Theresa gave them a loving home

Mindful of how many innocent lives
Osama Bin Laden could annihilate
Obama rid the world of Osama

Let us too practice compassion
And rid China of oligarchy
Let us practice compassion
And let the voices of freedom be heard
Let us practice compassion
And rid the world of Chinese hegemony
Let us practice compassion
And free Tibet from Chinese occupation and repression
Let us practice compassion
And deliver the Han people in Tibet back to their homeland, China

Let us practice compassion

Copyright: Tsoltim N. Shakabpa – 2011

Snow on Baghdad

January, 2008

After another night of bombings, fire and death
the people of Baghdad woke
to falling snow,
fat, soft, lacy flakes
alighting on the fronds of palm trees,
roofs of skyscrapers and tenements,
ruins of ancient buildings,
spires of minarets,
coaxing people out on balconies and streets
bundled in their warmest clothing
to savor the delight
of the dazzling but gentle white.
Who, seeing the wonder in their eyes,
their giddy smiles, could deny
these are human beings –
human beings!
How can we tolerate
their being raped, murdered, plundered
in our name
by an insatiable empire so
much colder than the coldest, iciest snow.

our man Jack

our man Jack
a voice for change
not a voice in the wilderness
not a voice from the mean streets

our man Jack
a man of class
one who let his passion take action
one who gave his voice to justice

justice for one and all

our man Jack
a voice for civility in government
a voice for freedom in society
a man of action

our man Jack
who gave his best for all
we give our best to you.

We give our best to you
oh, Jack
we give our best to you

we give our hope to you
oh, Jack
who gives us a vision to hope for

who gives us a justice to dream for
who gives us the courage to stand
in the face of wrong doing by any
who don’t cherish this beautiful land

who gives us the courage to move onward
keep justice the vision we brand
so our children and their children also
will have children, and children again

DAVID, CHIRIQUÍ, PANAMÁ

POEMA AL CAMINO VIEJO
Maritza Magda Araúz

Por el camino viejo me alejé de mi hogar,
este viejo camino me dio su bendición.
Cuando yo me alejaba, él me decía muy quedo
aquí estaré esperando cuando quieras volver.
Ahora cuando vuelvo, él está siempre allí,
recostado tranquilo en su cama de piedra
y sus viejos recodos parecen sonreír.
Como un abuelo viejo que espera con paciencia,
revivir poco a poco los recuerdos de ayer.
Corrientes de alegría inundaban su cause
cuando los hijos pródigos volvían al hogar,
nuestra humilde casita se llenaba de luces
y hasta el viejo camino parecía florecer.
En las tardes tranquilas, cuando el sol ya se iba,
en sus brazos abiertos se podía descansar,
esperar que el camino mitigara las penas,
con luciérnagas mágicas las sombras deshacer.

NATURE’S POWER
By Tsoltim N. Shakabpa

When the womb of nature
Gives birth to the splendor of life
The true grace of nature glows
As though in a kaleidoscopic vision

When the ocean of death
Storms onto the beaches of life
The true wrath of nature erupts
As though in a nightmarish dream

The whims of nature may be unpredictable
But the power of nature
Makes us realize the value of life
And implants in us the meaning of life

Copyright: Tsoltim N. Shakabpa – 2011

100 POETAS POR EL CAMBIO
POEMAS DE LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE

100 POETAS POR EL CAMBIO
Recital Poético mundial
24 de septiembre de 2011

Contact: Michael Rothenberg, Founder
100 Thousand Poets for Change
P.O. Box 870
Guerneville, Ca 95446
Phone: 305-753-4569
https://100tpc.org
walterblue@bigbridge.org

Sede Chiriquí: Casa Cultural La Guaricha
Organizado en David, Chiriquí, Panamá, por:
Manuel E. Montilla
Fundación para las Artes Montilla e Hijos
fmontillah@yahoo.com
(507) 6687 1607
Pinacoteca de Arte Contemporáneo de Chiriquí
http://www.chiriquicultural.com

COPLAS TAVERNERAS
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

POEMA 1
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Mariana, la de los senos grandes
y piernas gordas.
Castaño ahuecado es su corazón,
duermo en su custodio erótico,
me la llevo al arroyo.
Se seco el arroyo.
Mariana… NO.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 2
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Mi mamá era pobre,
mi mamá era triste,
tenía los ojos secos
como pasas.
Y no tenía panza
porque no comía.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 3
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Mamá creció sola con mi abuela,
mamá no tuvo luna, no tuvo estrella.
Mamá fue solitaria,
mamá parió cocuyos
mamá parió caracoles,
mamá parió arrozales,
mamá parió maizales.
Por eso mamá está seca
como una viruela.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 4
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Hoy he visto pasar frente a mí
aquella que fue mi viejo amor.
Ahora viuda, cabellos revoltosos,
mirar triste, caminar lento,
falda negra, pechos caídos,
la mirada perdida.
No me ha reconocido.
Yo fui su primer amor.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
…………………………………….
POEMA 5
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Cobijada bajo la sombra de un bambú,
la vi en una noche de luna llena,
estaba solitaria, danzando
junto a los vergeles y los nenúfares.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 6
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Calle del Silencio,
calle empedrada
del Barrio bolívar,
en donde el viento
sopla la arenisca,
y el árbol se mezcla
con la noche.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
………………………………………
POEMA 7
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

La vi en el bar,
tomando cerveza.
La vi sola en el bar,
con su tristeza.
No me queda nada.
La vi sola en el bar.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 8
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

La vi entre las brumas,
vestida de rojo,
una rosa en su pelo,
y una sonrisa de muerte.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
………………………………….
POEMA 9
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Me acerqué a ella,
vestida de azul,
sus negros ojos
se fijaron en mi.
¿Quién era?
No lo sé.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 10
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Hortensia, te invito
a cazar golondrinas.
Espero verte
al lado del puente añejo.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
…………………………………..
POEMA 11
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Mariana toca su flauta de bambú.
Un sordo la oye,
pegado a su balcón.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
………………………………………
POEMA 12
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Cobijada bajo el árbol que tengo,
la vi con sus ojos verdes.
Ella, sola y adolescente,
me miró con sus ojos verdes.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
……………………………………..
POEMA 13
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Hermosa chola Guaimí,
Que ocultas bajo tu falda de colores.
¿Un hijo del patrón?

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
………………………………………
POEMA 14
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Cosechadora de algarrobas,
corte jovial…
¿Cuándo te hallaré
a la orilla del río David?

David, 4 septiembre de 2011
………………………………….
POEMA 15
por LUIS TREVILLE LATOUCHE
(Panamá, 25 mayo 1943)

Debajo del nance,
ella dormía.
Yo la vi de lejos.
El nance,
también la veía.

David, 4 septiembre de 2011

Foto: José Amet Caballero Vindas – Cerro Punta, Chiriquí.

ON THE SUBJECT OF LANGUAGES:
The Role of English in Poetry by Tibetans
By Tsoltim Ngima Shakabpa
————————————-

Languages become universal because of the power of the people who speak those languages. English is one such language as exhibited by the British in the 17th to the early 20th centuries when historically their power and language spread far and wide across the globe. Languages remain alive because of the spirit of the people who speak those languages. The Tibetan language is one such language as exhibited by the Tibetans in their unique culture and quest to maintain their great heritage. To bring the ideas of a people struggling to keep their language alive into a universal language is in itself a difficult task; but to put it in poetry is an even more formidable task. Yet Tibetans are doing exactly that.

Tibetans are generally philosophically inclined by the very nature of their upbringing. Buddhism and the philosophy of Buddhism have deeply affected the Tibetan mentality, and by its very power the hearts of the Tibetan people. Bearing this in mind, it is easy to see why generally Tibetans are natural poets. Additionally, the pristine natural environment could have only aesthetically enhanced the philosophical Tibetan mind.

In the past, Tibetans used to write poetry in Tibetan with religious themes only. These poems were deep in thought and classic in their genius. They were the pulse of a nation steeped in religion and struggling to find the meaning of life. These poems were much more difficult to translate precisely into English unless one had an impeccable knowledge of the complex mechanisms of the Tibetan religion. Today, the pulse and emphasis are different. Tibetans are suffering immeasurably under the illegal occupation of Tibet by China. They are being persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Their voices stifled; their places of worship demolished; and their true leader, the Dalai Lama, demonized. They are struggling for freedom from 60 gruelling years of brutal and tyrannical Chinese rule; and writing poems in Tibetan alone is not enough. They need to reach a world-wide audience in their fight for liberation and for that they have to use a universal language.

In the 1940s and 1950s, only a few Tibetans were fortunate enough to receive an education in English. Today, with thousands of Tibetans forced to live outside Tibet, many are fortunately learning English, some even good enough to write poetry in sterling English–and they are using their poetic gifts to reach out, in a universal language, to the world at large about their struggle for freedom. But there also are Tibetan poets who write, in English, about spirituality, family, illness, nature, love and life, in addition to the plight of their country, that adds abundant dimension to poetry by Tibetans. These Tibetan poets are presently few and far between, but their pioneering labour and leadership will inspire more Tibetans to expand their poetic capabilities.

Poetic ability is an inborn gift, and the language of poetry is best employed in the language one is most accustomed to. If Tibetan poets think in Tibetan and translate their poetry into English, there may arise problems in precise translation. But if Tibetan poets think in English, those problems may be surmounted though it may possibly cloud their Tibetan heart. The ideal situation is the ability to think both in English and in Tibetan. That way, the evolution of the two languages inter-mingling with one another in a translucent manner with the heart brings about the best attributes of the poetry in mind.

Yet, frankly speaking, there are times when English has no role in poetry by Tibetans as when a Tibetan writer tries to emulate a western thought. In such instances, the Tibetan mind distorts the western thought and jeopardizes the English verse. They become inundated and perplexed with a false perception of the truth, rather than the truth itself. The expression of thought must first come from the heart and then the language can be used as a tool to express what the heart feels. Rather than emulate a foreign thought, it is better for a Tibetan poet to express his thoughts and feelings in a foreign language, even if it be in Mandarin. At least the Chinese will know what is in the Tibetan writer’s mind and heart, such as his diatribe on tyranny and icy disdain of Chinese rule.

Since poetry comes from the heart, the manner in which the words are expressed are often not easily comprehensible. Thus, the reader too must read into the heart of the poet in order to understand the language of the poet. The Tibetan poet, therefore, has the added task of expressing in precise English what his Tibetan heart feels. This is a difficult task, if not an impossible one – so long as the Tibetan poet has an excellent comprehension of the English language and an empathic realization of what his heart feels.

To summarize, the English language has an enormous universal role to play in poetry authored by Tibetans, but that role must be entwined with the untainted heart of the Tibetan poet as well as the precision and excellence of the language. Poetry by Tibetans in an universal language has an even more crucial role to play now that the Chinese are forcefully suppressing the Tibetan language.

Brave is the Tibetan poet
Who ventures to pen in English
But write he must from his heart
For readers his poetry to cherish

* Tsoltim N. Shakabpa is the author of eight inspiring books of poems, the last one of which is BEING TIBETAN published by Publish America. He is popularly known as “T.N.”, which he says stands for his initials as well as Tibetan National.

I wrote these words in 2002, but they belong to you…

This is not tennis, or soccer
but life,
trial, success, failure
and tribulation
Divided Nations
What’s it mean?
“It ain’t easy bein’ green” Kermit said
and in the past
the trees have bled
from sickness, war
natural and industrial disasters
one and the same as our Somalian brother
and your Mother
We are all One
being spun through space
a cosmic race
traveling at a planetary pace
but
put down the telescope
it’s in your face
genetic make up
cellular break up
The time has come to take up this line
feed this rhyme
and see each other
as pieces of a whole
every soul
a unique and sacred part of this tapestry
this blanket was begun
at the start of it all
every jump and fall
it’s there
so take care
to remember
You are Special
You have your own way to exist
a beautiful pattern inside
not just a double helix
but experience
You’re feeling this
so what’s it like?
Do you flee or fight
fly a kite
sing or bite?
Show your might!
And dazzle those around you with
the incredible unknowable that is you!
We’ll all feel it, our vibrations interconnected
as human relations
and as complicated
And My life is fated
by my own will,
this is my soil to till
my beat to fill
can you hear it?
listen carefully
and you will.

Peace.

September 11 Revisted
(10th Anniversary)
by Chukie Wangdu

The sky was blue and the sun shone bright
Not one angry face was in sight

Or so it seemed…

Monday’s blues were put to bed
Tuesday’s promises lay straight ahead

Or so it seemed…

In the City that never sleeps
A normal day of work, school, and cell-phone beeps

Or so it seemed…

In the nation’s capitol suspecting none
About their ways went everyone

Or so it seemed…

Into the morning sky those four planes flew
Hopes and dreams were to soar, not to bid adieu

Or so it seemed…

Unbeknownst to all
Nineteen angry men heeded a call

Allah taught believers to be kind to one another
As did Abraham, Buddha, Christ and Krishna, brother to brother

It is not a sign of weakness
To practice love and kindness

Instead those nineteen angry men
Heeded the words of Osama bin Laden

With calculated violence in the hearts of this clan
Death and mayhem was their plan

Thousands lost their lives that day
Yet Osama couldn’t hijack our courage away

What you sow is what you reap
Incrementally or in one fell sweep

Sunday, May 1 was D-day for Osama
Hide he could not from his negative Karma

Not only did he bring the wrath of the free world upon him
He caused the vilification of my neighbor — a kind and gentle muslim

On the 10th anniversary of September 11
We remember with love and respect the brave and fallen

A new day is dawning for Allah’s true faithful
Let us join hands to wash away evil

Kindle trust and dignity in your home and elsewhere
Spread respect and fairness everywhere

Be kind and gentle to nature and to each other
Planet earth is at stake …. it’s now or never

copyright: Chukie Wangdu

I spent the day posting 24 poems in 24 hours, starting at midnight Eastern time. Each poem was a sonnet. Each took its cue from a news article about climate change, because I combined participation in this event with participation in Moving Planet.

Here is the index, with live links to each poem and each source article:
http://hurricanecountry.blogspot.com/2011/09/climate-change-poems-index.html

Thank you so much, everyone! — Elissa

Poem I read at the 100 TPC World Poetry Festival during Susan Hayden’s segment:

FREEDOM TO DRIVE

a ton of steel and glass and plastic and rubber
on asphalt and concrete and metal road to reach
a windowed and tabled restaurant to gorge on
cow and pig and chicken and fish to fill belly and
get in car again to arrive at mall steel and glass
and rubber and stucco buildings of opportunity
to try on and plastic card or paper bill purchase
yards of cotton and polyester and rayon and
spandex then plant ass on leather and vinyl
once more to park wheels and chrome near a
convenience store of plastic and chrome counters
to buy a bunch of plastic and paper packages bags
and bottles easily tossed in either receptacle or
ground and subsequently re-enter a stucco and
rubber and glass and steel building wherein clothes
and food and electronics are stored in wood and on
carpet made to outlast flesh and bone occupants

So happy to have been part of this event. Seeing the involvement of the world makes this so much more real, and makes me feel that I really am a part of something larger than me, my city, my state, my “world”. I want to reach out to all of you and shake your hand.

Poetry brothers and sisters.

for change!

_they bring a knife, you bring a pen;
they send one of yours to the hospital,
you send six of yours to the New York Times._

100 Thousand Poets for Change

A shield for those who have the courage to take the risk,
a crowbar for those put in cages, persecuted and tortured,
a megaphone for those who have been silenced,
a memory that will not forget, no matter how stealthy the lies,
how remote the dungeon or how weak the muted voice
speaking truth to power from behind thick walls.

Who would dare to defile the sacrament of word?
Try to silence one of us and a hundred will speak out.
Try to Lock one of us up and a thousand keys appear.
Murder one and 100 Thousand Poets will expose you
in permanent ink, at open mic, on the stage of the world
where we resurrect the souls of fallen comrades
and lay tyranny bare on the open page for all to see.

Make war, and we’ll be there. Refuse food or care to the sick or hungry,
we’ll be there; exploit the poor or the vulnerable or the meek,
we’ll be there. Try to silence the truth and you’ll never hear the end of it.
We will prop open your ears and force you to listen while your lies
confess of their own accord the crimes that swallow your tongue,
unable to scream from within the pain of silence you created for yourself.
No one will bother to listen to tyrants begging for their own death.

– rs, september, 2011

Revolution Cool Place

“We are in the middle of a bloody, heartrending revolution”
~Diane Di Prima

We are the bloody revolution
Called America
Called Beautiful
Called Brave and free
money
paper
plastic
diplomacy
in the hands of no one
who remembers an original concept
of agrarian myth because
agrarian myth is built on selfhood
peasantry
yeoman and rebels
who just want to be left alone

We are the bloody revolution
Called America
Called Wall Street
Called Hollywood
conspicuous
consumed
incandescent
callomaniac carnivores we
the people
dine too often
on someone else’s sweat
and wear our lovers in the open
for the sweet sacrifice of appearance
and malcontent

We are the bloody revolution
Called America
Called Dominant
Called Evil
mongers of war
democracy
god
peace
fully complacent in our brightest
tanks and shelters
beautiful youth and gas gear

‘Art’

Ink and paint

Fused by desire –

Sunlit tango of two.

I sketched rainbows under your eyelashes

You sprinkled my heart with verses.

Kisses echoed the lake:

Art is a vortex of desire

swirling the Universe into nothingness.

ON EMPATHY and how it can seed the world for Compassionate Action

The crisis we are facing, we face as a species locked into the paradigm that civilization, in order to placate itself, must act through selfish means. We govern by selfishness. Business is selfish, corporations are selfish. The whole world operates as if the sole principle was in gaining more. While we are busy gaining, the world is crashing to a halt because it cannot sustain the brutal ravaging it experiences at the hands of over-populated humanity.

I propose that we learn to function by embodying Empathy; that we govern through Empathy; that we measure all our affairs through how empathic we are being for all people and all life around us. Selfishness is traditionally on top and Empathy is trivialized, misunderstood and put last. This must be reversed. That is the Apocalypse in a nut shell. That is the crux of the choice. Empathy must be placed on top, and selfishness put last. As a species it is time to learn to govern for the greater good and not otherwise. Perhaps then humanity will arrive outside of its narcissistic terminal disease of violence and greed.

Often people refer to the opposite of Selfishness as Generosity. Be that as it may, the true functional opposite is not being generous, except in the most general terms, it is being Empathic. When a person becomes empathic they can no longer act selfishly, because selfishness becomes abhorrent to them and is seen as a pathology, not as a practical behavior. Acting through empathy may become not merely a guideline for all future behavior; it may by necessity become the very foundation of a new form of civilization.

It means we have to understand that selfish action is violence and that violence does not have to be our norm, and that it opposes living fruitfully. If someone says that we are violent by our very nature, it is because they exist within and are blinded by a four thousand year old preconception, in which this state of violence is perceived as normal, whereas it may not be normal for human beings in the long run. Violence emerges when people feel threatened due to scarcity, when they feel that others are taking from them, or not respecting their autonomy, or they are fooled into hating others because those others appear different even though they may not represent a true threat. Thus it becomes a psychological problem, and ends up in violence. Violence becomes more than a standard; it becomes a stranglehold, due to its brain chemistry of adrenalin rushes. In this way, reliance on angry, forceful paradigms is actually a chemical addiction.

Masses addicted to the chemistry of anger have caused untold havoc to the Earth, to other human beings, and to the Planet, because part of the addiction to anger is lack of the ability to care in general. Caring in general means one must feel empathy, what others feel, and the pathology of violence obstructs this process.

Which ever way it is viewed it is still a pretext, and that pretext must be discarded. I believe that when we can finally become, if not fully compassionate, but begin the rooting of our perception to Empathy we will gain understanding into how to be truly psychic, how to be in harmony with everything on Earth, how to reach out spiritually to others on Earth and in other worlds, and other realms — the so-called spiritual which the selfish paradigm also summarily dismisses.

How can an ego-centric paradigm ever embrace something so foreign to itself as the idea of a universe which manifests itself in greater harmony and which operates through both spiritual and natural laws, of which empathy for all else is paramount?

Empathy means that one embraces not only a friendly view toward all life and its suffering state, but to spiritual understanding which comes from the kind of spiritual contact as described in mediumship, shamanism, tribalism, the paranormal experiments since William James and the Societies for Psychic Investigation. The denial of this part of
human history is part of the rigid paradigm of denial which pervades the culture of selfishness. It means embracing our fullness, instead of always inferring that we, as beings, are simply icing on the cake of physical bodies in the endless seas of random chemical interactions. It means that the shift in the way we view what we are comes to pass, and that new technologies extend from the inclusion of that awareness, once that awareness becomes our norm.

If religion is rooted to anything, that anything would be Empathy. Christ’s, Buddha’s, Mohammed’s teachings can all be reduced down to that one thought, to feel what others feel so that you act in ways which do not bring pain upon them.
This means embracing what is in another’s heart, body, mind and soul. That lesson precedes cosmic contact in real, nuts and bolts time. If and when it is forced upon us or achieved, it will not necessarily bring us into relationship with occupants of UFOs, but with our own spirits. If one imagines how a world of spirits governs itself, then we must find that in order to exist in finer and finer vibrations, we must govern by dint of our nature, and in the spiritual realms — that nature is empathic.

All the psychic gifts are forms of Empathy. All the most heartfelt and enduring books of wisdom are so, because they are empathic, reaching into the core of each who reads them, and signaling there that sense of well-being and connection which are the earmarks of Compassion and Empathy. For us who must exist in a selfish world, we are made to feel like slaves to a paradigm which simply does not fit. We are not comfortable inside it, and like butterflies wishing to escape the cocoon which confines them, we sense that our escape is immanent. If we discover that death is such an escape, not into oblivion, but into unobstructed beauty, then we can die knowing an adventure awaits, and that in doing so, we will come into a world governed by Empathy and Compassion.

If we die into a realm, adamantly asserting that it will be the same as this, with every spirit for themselves, and the rule of causing pain to continue, then that delusional state won’t be anyone’s achievement, but the foolish extension of the world of the violent and the selfish.

So I will remain among those who envision a world of greater harmony and Empathy than on Earth — and that will be my heaven, nothing less. No one can say what the world of UFOs is really like, but we can say what the world of Spirits is like, because we can empathize with them and know their hearts. Their hearts are our hearts.

This to me is the central issue symbolized by the rude awakening or destruction of humanity at its own hands. Either we continue for a short while longer on the path of violence and greed and selfish action toward ourselves and life in general, and most likely perish, or we embrace something different.

Since there is only one thing which is the other side of greed, that is the answer we are looking for: Empathy. That is what is needed to guide us back to our own hearts, to open them up and keep them open, so that we can reinvent our civilization based on it, and be connected to everything alive and everything which supports life on Earth.

This dream of mine must come to pass. It has to be believed in as an edict of Spirit and ultimatum of Life. The truth of the matter is that it comes off as a pipe-dream. This is due to the nature of the corporate mentality of ruthless betrayal of everything but profit motive. Whether we are speaking of organized drug lords whose spirituality is basically Patrist, or governments that appear on their surface to be liberal, but who in fact impose a scenario upon its masses which benefits the few and denies the security which wealth could bring to the masses.

We must believe in ourselves as a species which deserves the security of health, home, education and arriving outside of the four thousand plus years of angry, violent, power hungry government and religious thinking. In the name of God no violence and only understanding should be meted out. When it is not, then it is a false perception, which does not include the knowledge gained directly from spiritual sources, but only from the fattened and blinded ego of the power elite. The conflict of the right and left, the church and synagogue and Islam, the enslavement of women and children around the world, the extreme poverty of the multitudes which remains invisible, the brutal resource of endless weapons from ones held in the hand to those triggered from the comfort of computers and cushioned in safe havens of the military, and all such symptoms of the modern dilemma are not new. They are the same symptoms of a world which is so used to behaving in this way that it has succeeded in ruling out all other modes of behavior for itself.

So where to begin? Begin with yourself, ourselves, myself, and the children. There we replace violence with problem solving skills. Simple child psychology. The tools exist but we need to teach ourselves to reach for them. On a societal level we may need to rebel, but keep in mind that violent rebellion always yields exactly the same society which the rebellion attempts to overthrow. Why? Because we have yet to fully examine the nature of our emotionality, and the real reason why the culture of violence has been allowed to exist for over four thousand years, and as if that is acceptable.

It is said that to live life fully we must live in every moment. Be there intentionally in each waking moment. The more clever among us revel in their dreams, becoming lucid and exercising control while they sleep, transmuting their inner being to untangle the knots of binding neurosis, and old habits. We are complex and our waking minds, although it is the focus of our identity is not the total self. In some of the more profound spiritual philosophies we are told that we are One with the Universe. Indeed. But that is not the sense of self we experience daily in work, or as a human being through whatever the experience of life. What is happening, you say, is happening to me, not some Universal field of identity or connection with Life, or of the Planet.

In the subconscious fabric of selves operating distinctly, such as in waking and in dreaming, we can see the plurality of being unfold. Yet the cultivation of a sense of universality seems superfluous. Who wishes to bother in a civilization composed almost entirely of exterior stimulation? From the moment we awake from sleep, to the moment we return to it, we are occupied, completely exteriorized into whatever it is we behold.

In the rich countries that exteriorization takes place as endless object fascination. Among the helpless third and fourth world peoples that occupation is in the deep agony of suffering states brought about by the antithesis of the worlds of bounty. Our contentment, our fatness results in the destruction of those people who go without. Only an unfeeling fool would argue that their state of being is their choice. That is a rationalization so that no caring is justified in the conscious minds of the society of bounty. Call any effort to redress, to rebalance this horrific inequity Socialism, which is demonized to mean the new Communist threat — while the actual new Fascist threat, the only fascist threat, is ourselves, as we consume everything to keep ourselves selfishly placated. Why is it we don’t hang our heads in guilt and shame? Instead we find that the majority vote is pro-selfish and anti-humanity. However, the process of rationalization covers this in direct assertions as sleep covers the conscious mind.

Our escapism is in supporting the troops, which is good. It shows the limitation of our caring. That it is nationalized, that we cannot reach any further than what the media shows us and instills in us. That is why we need Empathy, because empathy extends us beyond the parameters justified by media and the ego it is in service to. Empathy takes us beyond the shell of self into another’s heart. Empathy moves through us as a breath of connection to that which is outside of our bodies. Sympathy is contained within the self, as a reflection of sadness for another’s pain, but through Empathy we not only can walk a mile in another’s moccasins but feel what they feel.

Telepathy is a step even further out into the unknown vagueness which empaths know. Here the hint of someone else’s thoughts can be clearly understood. You can receive their message and respond in kind. This is not something human beings have yet to achieve. Instead it is commonplace practice among many ancient cultures, aboriginal, Maori, tribes all over the world who know how to communicate in this way.

Believe or deny, the fact is plain: telepathic communication happens; shit happens. Clairvoyance is yet another deepening aspect of Empathy. Instead of just hearing, one is also seeing, and perhaps, as in Clairsentience, feeling what others see and feel as well. The selfish cannot comprehend these possibilities which bring us closer to others, and also to all things. But this is the path we each inevitably take at death.

There, in dying we feel, see and hear spiritually, and the weight of our suffering is either lifted as we move on, or that same weight grows heavy upon the soul to drag us down and pin us to the place of our self-created illusions. Those rooted to the physical cannot glimpse the fleeting nature of the soul’s journey. Those who would concretize this process of becoming spirits say it is not possible and therefore cannot be. Like Scrooge before the ghosts who come to aid his transformation, the Scrooges yell, “Bah! Humbug!” They refuse to acknowledge what has been told and retold throughout millennia, calling it old wives tales, urban legends, delusional thinking, a dream, a downright, blatant lie. But then, let them define Empathy and make it work for us all!

“Love is the poetry of the senses.” ~ Honore de Balzac

slider, nana and magdeline…
first I laughed. then I thought. then I related (somewhat). I needed the first (medicine). I am blessed by the second (thanks). I appreciate the third (corrections, ahhh.)

THIS LIFE
By Tsoltim N. Shakabpa

This life, this life
This changing life
Taking us on a journey
On the mercurial river of life
Gently and pleasantly at times
Lifting us to heavenly heights
Roughly and irascibly at other times
Smothering us in its waters
Passing through lush green fields of joy and glory
Ensnaring us in precipitous gorges of toil and trouble
Churning out lustrous successes to celebrate
And hurling fated failures to bemoan
Twisting and turning
The river dispenses healthy doses of euphoric feeling
Which make us jump for joy
Then injects painful fluids of sorry sickness
Which ensconce us on beds of virulent thorns

O what a life!
This journey on the river of life
That ineluctably ends in the ocean of death
Which envelopes us in its depth and vastness
And delivers us on the fertile shores of waiting wombs
To be reborn once more to ride the waves of the capricious river

Copyright: Tsoltim N. Shakabpa – 2011

[file]https://100tpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SomethingforWiesenthalTheSunflower.doc[/file]

LA SOCIEDAD DE POETAS ESTÁ DE FIESTA

FELICIDADES PREMIO NOBEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7 poemas de Tomas Tranströmer

APUNTES DE FUEGO
Durante los meses tristes, centelleó mi vida sólo cuando hice el amor contigo.
Como la luciérnaga se enciende y se apaga, se enciende y se apaga- a medias puede uno seguir su camino
en la noche oscura del olivar.
Durante los meses tristes, estaba el alma desesperada y sin vida
pero el cuerpo caminó directo hacia ti.
El cielo de la noche rugió.
Sigilosamente ordeñábamos cosmos y sobrevivimos.

C-MAYOR
Cuando bajó a la calle tras la cita de amor
Soplaba la nieve en el aire.
El invierno había llegado
Mientras hacían el amor.
La noche brilló blanca.
Él caminó rápido y alegre.
Toda la ciudad inclinada.
Transeúntes sonrientes-
Todos reían tras los cuellos alzados.
¡¡Era libre!!
Y todos los signos de interrogación cantaron la existencia de Dios
Eso creía él.
Una música estalló
Y cruzó en la nieve arremolinada
Con largos pasos.
Todo en camino del tono C
Un tembloroso compás dirigido a C.
Una hora sobre las heridas.
¡Era fácil!
Todos reían tras los cuellos alzados.

Con regocijo, mdr

The Earth and the Sand
the wind and the trees
the beings that be
the things we can’t see

are all connected
through you and through me
by inner love and harmony

you must first close your eyes
and then you can see
the forces of loves energy
open up. awareness. listen. be

Soneto de Julio Augusto Zachrisson (Panamá, 1930)

Japonería

Atravesó la estancia triste y quedo,
de su kimono entre los pliegues rojos,
fingiendo con sus pies el dulce enredo
de lirios que anduvieran entre abrojos.

El verde claro de un farol de Yedo
besaba con su luz llena de antojos
las negras cuentas que entornaba el miedo
entre la roja ojiva de sus ojos.

Pasó cerca de mí, pálida y sola;
besé con ansias su coturno viola
para quedar entre misterio y sombra,

porque los pasos de sus pies traviesos
se fueron apagando como besos
sobre las flores grises de la alfombra.

[img]https://100tpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/MANUELMONTILLA-ARTE-NYADE1.jpg[/img]

Poema de José de Jesús Martínez (Panamá)

Tú no eres….

Tú no eres lo más bello que hay en el mundo.
Existe Grecia dentro del mismo género,
pero tú le sigues de bien cerca.

Cuando caminas, cuando fumas,
tú no eres la que tienes el estilo más aristocrático del mundo.
Existe el vuelo de las gaviotas que es aún más ligero,
pero tú le sigues de bien cerca.

Tú no eres la cosa más real que hay en el mundo
aunque para mí seas su luz y casi su pretexto.
Existe la cuchara del pobre, sus necesidades y sus botas,
pero tú le sigues de bien cerca.

Tú no eres la cosa que me ama menos en el mundo
y que puede herirme, avergonzarme, humillarme.
Voy a morir….Existe la muerte.
Pero tú le sigues de bien cerca.

[img]https://100tpc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/MANUELMONTILLA-ARTE-NYADE5.jpg[/img]

On poetry.

Poetry is the purest form of art.
Poetry alone gives the beholder an ability
To find the exactness of a place
In the artist’s heart.

UNTIL DARK
for Saul Landau

I see through the open window, the trees are trying to avoid the gray sky.
To their embarrassment, there’s no getting away from it.

Those trees are in it until dark when everything will relax.
Until then, they must whisper to each other
as conspirators will do from separate phone booths.

My friend weeps at night. It is the way he relaxes in the dark—crying over the lost revolutions and the lost soldiers and the lost farmers and the lost families.

My friend has declared an allegiance to humanity that upsets the governments—present and past. He is apt to vomit at hearing too much foolishness.

His anger is hypnotic, but he waits for dark to weep. Who has been dragged off to prison, he wonders; who has been beaten until dead; how many junkies can dance on the head of a needle?

He knows that everything built in the desert soon becomes sand—another reason he weeps.

Blessed are those who give away kind words. Blessed are those who do not take academia seriously.

Blessed are those who know that Hitler and Nixon and Al Fatah live in the bathrooms of their neighbors’ houses (and they still hold back their tears until dark).

Cry for the CIA,
cry for the prisoners,
cry for the DEA and the police—secret and public,
cry for the gang lords and children of the gang lords,
cry for Korea and Vietnam and Iraq and Palestine and Chile.
Cry because Castro is getting old,
because buying has replaced learning,
because the last drink and the bar’s closing is so fucking final.

Blessed are you, friend, writing letters to those who have forgotten how to read, pleading for Nirvana to find the young and for Transcendence to embrace the old.

In a dream, I saw you slog through Chiapas to get to Xbalba, then returned and wept.

The sky is gray and tired. It recognizes you, understands that, whether it offers ink or water, you will swallow the world.