Chimera, Thalia, Erato, my muses

“Out and beyond ideas of wrong and right doing,there is aplce. I’ll meet you there.” _Muwlana Rumi

While I write 

Chimera:

_A thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.
—&Θ&—

“She’s not “maternal,” she’s dangerous.”

                       —Jamaal May

Chimera

BY VIEVEE FRANCIS

“I have no charms. Admittedly.
No gold comb can move through
This mane. My skin is not translucent.
Mine is a tail to fear. I know.
And though a mother may destroy,
She too sees fit to create beauty
That would eventually grow into forms
I would swallow if I gave in
To my hungers. But, up from my wounds—
From this goat’s body—
Up from my wood-smoke lungs, from
The milk of me, comes a song, a melody
To open yours, then lick them clean.”

♣

My Muse, She said I said

My nights are more beautiful then yours_
she said

Then fallen asleep in Morphée’s arms

I hate you Morphée, I said_

you have no charms
you steal my beauty from me,

of her dreams a trophy you made

how sweet sorrow and dolor I dreed

I wish I could have been with her

in her mind and in her dream instead

We have all the Eternity to sleep

Then we will rest as time elaps

Now that I am left with my muses

while my beauty gently sleeps

looking at her as hours leaps

Calliope, my dear

my muses I south you 

Thalia, you laughing behind your mask

I know life is a comedy

you used to play people from dawn to dusk

and my sadness amuses

Mélomane, I don’t want a tragedy

for a wish from a witch is not that I ask

Alas am I the prince Valiant

a toad in disguise 

Venus the evening star so brillant

or Diane the lone hunteress

you witness my distress

Clio, Erato, please help me write

these fleeting memories until twilight

Another day another dream, for tomorrow

Will be to live in pain until the night

A kiss, a wish, with such delight

my beauty, a tale to write

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Often I am permitted…

Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow
BY ROBERT DUNCAN

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
an eternal pasture folded in all thought
so that there is a hall therein

that is a made place, created by light
wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

Wherefrom fall all architectures I am
I say are likenesses of the First Beloved
whose flowers are flames lit to the Lady.

She it is Queen Under The Hill
whose hosts are a disturbance of words within words
that is a field folded.

It  only a dream of the grass blowing
east against the source of the sun
in an hour before the sun’s going down

whose secret we see in a children’s game
of ring a round of roses told.

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of the mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.

---

Often I am permitted to return to a small town 

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,
 that is not mine, but is a made place,

that is mine, it is so near to the heart,
 an eternal pasture folded in all thought
 so that there is a hall therein...

How much I only love

those verses would have been mine

That I could have written them

it is so near to the heart of mine

an eternal pasture folded in all thought but I kept

so that there was a hill and val

there’s between a fold I was told

But no more I am permitted to return to a Meadow

that is not mine but a  place of that exists no more

so that I sat on a stone near a river and wept

Of all that  a place and a bird that nestled it’s home

where I was born is a small town but none of which

it is only a dream of the grass blown

and a river running through it

All I needed was a blog

As I begin a novel I remind myself as ever of Camus’s admonition that the purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. And even while thinking, well, fat chance! I find courage, reach for the heights, and if the rock keeps rolling down again so it does. What the hell, start again. Rewrite. Be of good cheer. Smile on, Sisyphus! _Faye Weldon, Writer

When I opened my Blog this morning, what a surprise! look a this award below:

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 6 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

Isn’t refreshing?

So, thank you WordPress team fist, for hosting my blog gracefully for the longest and for all your support during this wonderful journey of writing. And  thank you dear reader, the loyal, and the passer-by as well for stopping by.

I smiled at the sole quote above from the writer Faye Weldon that came well àpropos in an email to me, as well, for from WPress team.

 I had no fat chance, ever 6 years ago. i just started a blog, with a vain idea.

It happened that I wrote sometimes a couple of months ago a post, blogging about the writer Albert Camus”s admonition that purpose the writer to keep civilization from lost of its memories, remember the time back to Neolithic era, when writing was not yet created, only left with some carved painting on stones and caves (The Grote of Lascaux) and the punishment of Sisyphus by the Gods of Olympus, the rolling rock, and the encouraging  the team to me, to keep on writing.

At the beginning, it was a chimeric idea that came from a Daily prompt: Imagine an a special holiday, and it was the first day of spring, and as I just came back from Algiers, Algeria, I had in my mind a thought about the goldfinch_it’s a national pet out there, don’t be surprised. The thing is, it became an endangered species, and although it is protected, thanks to the environmental authorities, it is still targeted and captured by aficionados and smugglers.

So, I just hold on that thought, and  post my first blog in gibberish languages some sort, in the hope to grab the attention of a passer-by reader hopefully from Algiers.

Recently, I saw on YouTube that young people out there started by launching individually a campaign to free the caged  bird, I felt that somehow, and somewhere I wasn’t so vain.

That we come to think about a main subject, at the same time, in any part of the world, of common issues. Sisyphus, is still calling, although from a vale that had no echo. we just keep blogging,  right? write…

Sailing Off the safe Harbor

Public domain http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:

Winslow_Homer

That’s all about: A Cap Jib: in the brisk,” Avoir le vent-en-poupe”,
in French
_a jib set on a stay to a bowsprit cap, astern._Dictionaries

Sail
I am thirsty for words
At the sole thought of writing I cuiver
When I put my pen to paper, I chiver
Off the safe harbor I leave
For when I put pen to paper,
It’s like riding a wave
Standing on a deck onboard holding a sail,
Facing the offing It’s not so facile

saddling the wind
All the frigates, all the boats,
And all the yachts

The goelands, and the seagulls, in my thoughts.
The Islands, and the seven seas,

the seashore
The gulf I need to drop my anchor
All the words I need to write,
Under the sheltering skies
The parade of the stars over my head
When I write, it’s when I’m lonely
The ocean is my deck in the open,
Sailing I am, writing is my way
With words painting them often
So, Sailing I am, off the safe harbor

Have you ever felt the brisk on you face,
the sun burning your skin,
the specks of sea-salt in your hair.
And its taste on your cracked lips;
Off the Grand Large,
the offing is bleeding,
It’s saying it low
can’t you hear it?
I’m calling you.
At a distance, a boat,
Had blown her toot.
Sailing is in the air
The ocean crushing at your feet,
standing still on the seashore
His ebb and flow,
Has skimmed his batter
in begging you.
can’t you see it!
What’s the matter with you?
what are you waiting for anyway 

If a chance was given to me, I’ll  sail away
How much I loved I have been a skipper,
You may say that I am a dreamer
Better than that, I want no more
From sailing away I won’t refrain
I thrill at thought of sailing again
I am not the only one 

“So throw off the bowlines, and Sail away from the safe harbor.” _Mark Twain

Thank you

Re:Dancing at the edge of the hearth

Dancing at the edge of time

What a wonderful journey, and photos

I was transported at the edge of delight, after I had read the blog,  I was glad, and happy,  like Ulysses, he had done a long voyage, he visited towns cities, far mountains, and villages.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and right doing, there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.
― Rumi
Until after I have read the fist paragraph, then I had that feelings, something that, when you feel like, they didn’t understand your message, your audiences, after having finished your presentation, or your stand-alone show although they applauded,warm and standing, you stay still, on your hunger, and crave for more.

So, Out and beyond of wrongdoing, and right doing, of bias, and stereotypes, preconceived ideas, thanks to mass media corollary,  love it’s only the truth

I am moved to tears by the love. 
I am also moved to tears that women are not included
– there are no female dervishes.
Like most religions, even the mystical branches of them, 
it is by men for men. 
The exclusion makes me both sad and angry.

It’s Just a small contribution to the text, to explain some meanings of the very word Sema; it means elevation, spiritual transcendence, to elevate oneself, and meaning also, sky ceiling, roof, and summit, to reach for, to climb, it’s both a quest for the purifying of the body and soul, like yoga, and Zen, and climbing a cliff,and running for a cause. It’s a spiritual dance with a perpetual whirling movement to the transient edge of ecstasy.

I understand your anger about excluding woman from the pratique of dervish whirling, the ritual is some sort of prayer and meditation, peculiar to sect of Sufism, at the same time, part of the Sufi way routine to occupy his mind, besides writing poetry and essays, like Rumi, and Omar Khiyam

Secondo, woman has a great deal of respect from Moslem man, she is the mother, the sister, the daughter and the wife, besides that the Quran allows him, to have 4 wife, that is, to be understood, a way back to the early stage of Islam, it’s with some strict rules, and rights, and consent of the wife, to marry another woman. So, in that he is very jealous, and protective of the intimacy of his people. She is like, the family jewels, to be kept of reach from the eyes and hands of a stranger. Not an object of convoitise as a curio exposition for public auction.

Tersio,

So, imagine, out of all, these beautiful  women, and as respectable persons as they are, as dervishes women whirling among men in the same farandole, with respect to their husbands, each one of them accompanied with, it would be a rather a folkloric dance, than a meditative quest for a transcendent spiritual attainment to the edge of oneness with the beloved one, with love and pure mind, and soul.

Finally, would you be angry about a congregation of Tibetan monks, somewhere in Shambalah, in their saffron robes, _women excluded, reciting their sutras? There is couvent for nuns, and monastery for monks, that’s all.

My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
― Rumi

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
– Rumi

Have great day, enjoy your trip, and happy reading

A source please, I thirst for writing

The Myth of Sisyphus, and me

I write from memory most of the time. So, because only now and then, that as memory speaks, when the source is withered, the rivulet is tarried, we realize that is, in reality; we gather our thoughts, to scoop a handful of water from the brackish pond  along the bedrock of the river, as I stood there for a moment. To a wisp that gathered and resumed itself to continue its route, to that singular instant of our life, so, I  got Hiraeth, it’s a feeling what you call it, a rush, I felt the Blues, the last time I went there.

The landscape of the country side had changed dramatically since then. Ago  there was a stretch of land, bosky woods, gardens, and meads, that run along the range. The scenery became  a parched bedrocks   where ago It was rivulets, the rushing waters from the spring , and shady and leafy trails, I found it had been compound   in to a magma of concrete, pods and Iron rods pointing to the sky, and dusty roads strewn with potholes that continue anywhere the asphalt had stopped without, which  lead to a labyrinth of unfinished walls, higher enough to cast shadows on other walls, that the sun could never throw it ray beam  again across the streets, and terraces, and to closed doors behind furtive shadows with oblic regard. Instead of what I had expected to find: where  are they? Those fig-trees, pomegranates, ( for instance, the small town bore its name from the proliferating trees, and fruit), vineyards and orchards, with syrupy figs, and grapes on the vines, dangling at reach of hands, and awaiting harvest,  gazebos, and wisterias  casting on the limestone wall of the houses painted in white, with the terra cotta tiled roofs, the  frutescent fragrant bushes, of lavenders, and daisies, skirted on each side of  a vicinal road,  that lead you to the blue  entry door to the house.

 

I used to wander,  a flaneur , through the laced roads that leads you hill and dale, to villages with evocative names of old Franch colonies. On each side  of the road, rows of pine trees, eucalyptus trees , and tall reed  along the rivulets that hide behind, oranges tree fields, orchards, and vineyards, so it was like rolling on a runner with perspectives that faded off to vanishing point straight ahead, to infinite View blue sky, until you reach suddenly a fork of roads, with similar rows of trees, at each sides, until it bifurcated to a small village entrance, and into its public place, where in these times of yore, dancing balls and parties where thrown each Sundays, and sweet Thursdays. Sometimes, it you take the seashore bus, it continued its way going downhill to clear up to a wide  view with sea beaches on the side, and vineyards that went grappling to the hilltops.

All that  had disappeared or in instance of escaping completely from the landscape. That what left me Sodade

Why I write? The rage at heart,  It was by accident that I came across a book from the author Albert Camus, The Myth of Sissyphus in English, at the Library, the last time I had returned some borrowed books. It’s not that, by being nostalgic upbringing the past, while I had read only The Stranger, and The Plague, it was an assignment then. And it was the near past, in the mid-60s, not that long after the accident the author died in. Therefore I had never read it before, save the passage, The Myth of Sisyphus ; it was Ok, and in the Air-du-temps, to talk about it, to have an apperception about it, to demonstrate  that you have an interesting intellectual style  and to bring the subject in a mondain conversation, the existentialism era was still in it the best of it times. Algiers was the Mecca for all the revolutionary adepts of the motto changing the world. So, the world never change since then, and all the adepts passed their way, and faded from memory. So it was by curiosity now, that I reread  it after that half a century or so had passed , to see as everywhere in the world is the same, that had endured the effects of time, wich is the natural progression and processing moment of erosion and rebuild, life and birth of all living beings and usage of things.

So, after having read the book, apart from the philosophical passages, the  most beautiful thing I have read is, Return to Tipasa, and Summer in Algiers, were it was, like anchors dropped to the port d’attache, to tie the bowlines with the seashore to be moored, for having to live again, moments by moments, and words for words, à-mesure  of the turning pages, it’s a delicate balance between the instants in wich the author discribs the scenes of where he evolved, and the pleasure to rediscover the place you already know  surely  what you have left  was the first and the same  sensations as the author had, body and soul, the changing of colors during the day, the light and the darkening of the tan of bodies the juxtaposition of one’s own experience with the shared the moments of delight and sadness and solitary confinement for a writer and to prove solidarity with him in that singular and personal attachment to both motherland.

“It took me years to take my place among the ten thousand things again. To be the woman my mother raised. To remember how she said honey and picture her particular gaze. I would suffer. I would suffer. I would want things to be different than they were. The wanting was a wilderness and I had to find my way out of the woods. It took me four years, seven months, and three days to do it. I didn’t know where I was going until I got there.

It was a place called the Bridge of the Gods.”

What I’m Digging Right Now

The place of mine, it is called Oued-Rouman

That’s why I write. Writing is my drink, and the glass is emptied now, so it’s time to fill it up to the rim, time and again

And, yes  it is like Sisyphus, condemned by the gods of Olympia, to roll the rock to the top of the mountain, then let it roll back to the feet of hill, and push it again and again, to the top and watch it rolls down hill, then to go after back and forth, without state of mind, in resilience, to not offend the gods again

Writing, that’s all I need

It’s said, elsewhere that it doesn’t matter where you sat, and what time it is, essential  is to be ready for when inspiration strikes, you don’t miss out the train  of thought, at the  station where you are, ceise the thing and get the hell out of  it, and put  it down to  paper

on creating-the-physical-and-mental-space-to-write

Seven is enough of, for  a family members  living in a house  of 2 bedrooms, that you are always in quest of a quiet place where to read, write, and as the usual routine had absorbed your time at work, for  when you get  home, fed off  of computers you  want only to  just relax. As Mr.W. Somerset  Maugham’ quote said, to read you only need is  a secluded cocoon like, or just to shut down your ears, and cut yourself from the  world outside noises, and continue reading, like when you commute and usually do. Save that in your house, besides your  domestic duties, cook, do laundry, and errands, at the end of the  day, the only place of your  realm where  to gather yourself, thoughts, and pains parts is the little corner of the  shared sofa. It happens that I  have that little Eden,  with a imprenable  view of a safety-escape rusted iron stairway that stop right on a the asphalt of street.

It’s a nook where I have written   about all of my blogs and  posts, on my  iPad, and sometimes, my laptop, late in the  night when  the tribe  had joined the  pillows, I write for an hour  or  less –I told you  that already, It’s  mansion of  2 bedrooms, I did? Oh! Yeah, Sorry for  repeating  myself, so that’s it. At wee hours You  can see through the  curtain time flies, and season playing at seek and hide, for  your  eyes only, and a visit of whimsical bird stopping by the windowsill to read you blog? Peering atop your shoulder perhaps, than rises an eyebrow and flaps  his wings away. Good  morning  sunshine, it’s  Sunday morning, I got to sleep

Thanks for sharing reading

Daily Prompts: Ritual|à Mes Augusts soles of my feet|tiles-topkapi-palace-circumcision-room

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/how-to-bring-your-voice-to-life-in-personal-essays

I tell you this not as aimless revelation but because I want you to know, as you read me, precisely who I am and where I am and what is on my mind. I want you to understand exactly what you are getting: You are getting a Man* who for some time now has felt radically separated from most of the ideas that seem to interest other people.

*_a woman, in the text with respect to the original _Joan Didion, “In the Islands”, emphasize added

_A refreshing and quite place, that once you enter in, you’re lulled and inspired, and you left, circumcised and circonspect.

“The places you walked in once, you pass through them, as they pass though your mind, you take with you each time some dust of wonders, at the soul of your shoes, and leave there a little  of your life”_kalimelo

Primo, I embraced religion, or more precisely I would say quite so as people say, I entered in religion tip-toe-in_not like a thief, stealthy entering a church, loin-sans-fault, that is, (because there is no such church clergycal meaning in Islam,) but rather, an empty mosque, with just a few straw-stressed mats spred on a bare floor, whitewashed limestones walls, and domed-ceiling, and a minaret enclosed aside, with nothing to steal from, doors open to the winds, and always a welcome shelter for a night errant passer-by. Then, that I was painfully straight walking, to join the bunch of kids sitting on the floor, a round the Taleeb, after I had received a warmful  greetings; a Falaqat_which consists of a series of strikes on the soles of my little angel feet, with a riding crop, cut from an olive tree; it was a well-spred  practice then, a sort of mnemonic method, that a Taleeb, an Arab teacher, used ago in Algiers of Old, for  teaching  young pupils Quran, to correct them from the missing words, or even a nifty character from verses,  they forgot while they were learning the Quran, by rote.

However, as much effective  it was, so that I didn’t forget any of it after that; neither the numbers of Falaqats, nor the number of chapters of the Holy Quran; which are Sixty two chapters  and with more than a  million arabic characters. After that, I grasped  some meanings of what we call it a sense of a sin; for being forgetful, I felt guilty of stealing my self moments of escape, and having a wandering  mind. And of not being a thief, like the “Saint.” Or Arsin Lupin, the Gentleman Thief

Secondo_Just after that, followed an experience that I lived down to the skin, and it was all the same, ardently burning too, of instant pain, presently; a circumcision,  with pumps and circumstances, that had left on my little body, a lasting trace, and of being circumspect of all things, left me skeptical for the longest of my life. Trust nobody.

Solemnity obliged, the day preceding the event, we went shopping together,  my father and I, with in a shopping list in hand ; a Gondura, a sort of white traditional gown, with Chechia_a cap, and Babooshs shoes, then followed, a visit to the barber shop for a hair cut, and in the evening, when back home, a ritual coin of Henna and fist wrap that my grandma put on my hand palm, and tied it up with a scarf around. The soirée was entertained  by the Zorna group and dancers, a  music band with drums and pipes, accompanied by the strident Yuyus, shrills  of the Moselmeen women. That is, each step is a ceremonial of its own, and most of all, it was intended to divert me from thinking about the tomorrow’s awaiting event.

Grandma kept it tidy and gorgeous, an elevated little 3×3 feet-square garden, in the middle of the courtyard, the kind of ryad, a patio you find usually inside the houses in Morocco, and Spain,  which was a lounge inside doors with its charming landscape  and secrets, where luscious Cyclamens, Geraniums, Begonias, and likes, that disputed the exiguous space, with a gorgeous jasmine  vine, wisterias, where its secrecy was kept tight-waterproof  together, although the flagrant presence of a brass bowl, finely chiseled, with a couple of other terra-cotta bowls, on top of the border of the small wall, at reach of hands, but then, put there for an intended purpose. Tither, the little hands of kids like us, and adults can reach them as well, those hand of insouciant kids would be grown up by then, nevertheless they will be acquainted with the rituals soon.

Tersio_The ritual, a family secret heirloom, that I have a dull  suspicion of the existence about it, for a quite sometime now, that I recall, that my grandma was somehow the accomplice of my grandpa, in the way that she kept it, and feigned to ignore, even though, as it really existed. My grandfather who was the author of thousand circumcised kids, still, he remained above suspicion in their eyes, and of mine too, a saint with his  jovial charisma  of always. He professed  circumcisions, and was faith healer of repute,  from father to son, since passed generations. They were gifted with blessings; that they healed even animals, and concocted potions with medicinal plants for the relief of the poor; it was said that one of the earlier great-grandfather was a disciple  follower of the great Averroes, Avicenna or some great savant in the time of Al Andalusia, in Medieval Spain, that’s how they got the knowledge of things. The problem with saints, the moment of being annoyed, that is you can’ show it, but while still embarrassed, when they talk, it is considered as the intrinsic Truth as is, what they say, and that you have to take it as granted.

I was confident in fairy tales, that my grandmas recounted me by night, until I felt asleep, dreams, thus I took it for granted, until the day of a circumcision ceremony during  of which I sneaked a peek, a little by chance, and more by curiosity, to what was going on under the white bedsheet that was thrown on the lap  of the would-be circumcised boy, to cover the scene from the sights of the little cousin, who was candid enough, and all smiles to everybody; he didn’t even paid attention to what was going on under the white bed sheet, without knowing that he was at the very moment ready to be circumcised; thence, I discovered that my grandfather was the mystery instigator, under my own eyes scrutiny, I kept  wide open,  and the secret was then in to the open, too. I was terrified, suddenly my groin felt the burning cut of a razor, at the same time, the band that was playing joyfully  the Zorna an instant before,  stopped a moment to a complete silence. A word: “boqalettes” was highly uttered; game is over, the terracotta bowls full of water, that two young men were holding high, while standing aside of  the man who was siting there on a chair and holding on his lap the little cousin all the time, while my grandfather sneaked furtively a just a while under the sheet; the bowls were thrown to the ground, broken in thousand shafts,  at the same time, as the boys uttered  “boqalettes,” the circumcision was done, the music to resume forth, and the  brass bowl with some dirth in it, on top the little cut of intimate innocence, went  handed over the heads in a flight directly to the Garden of Small things. It joined the multitude neglegeable quantities of little things, subjects of passing pains,  already forgotten, in a place worth of  poetry, and watercolor paintings of the Orientalist’s Era, otherwise.