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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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

A True Saint

Haruki Murakami on the Weirdness of His Birthday as a Public Event

The last item on this list of public events was an announcement of the names of famous people whose birthday fell on January 12. And there among them was my own! “Novelist Haruki Murakami today celebrates his **th birthday,” the announcer said. I was only half listening, but, even so, at the sound of my own name I almost knocked over the hot kettle. “Whoa!” I cried aloud and looked around the room in disbelief. “So,” it occurred to me a few minutes later with a pang, “my birthday is not just for me any more. Now they list it as a public event.”

A public event?
Oh well, public event or not, at least at that moment some of the people throughout Japan – it was a nationwide broadcast – standing (or sitting) by their radios may have had at least some fleeting thought of me. “So, today is Haruki Murakami’s birthday, eh?” Or, “Oh, wow, Haruki Murakami’s ** years old, now too!” Or, “Hey, whaddya know, even guys like Haruki Murakami have birthdays!” In reality, though, how many people in Japan could have been up at this ridiculous pre-dawn hour listening to the radio news? Twenty or thirty thousand? And how many of those would know my name? Two or three thousand? I had absolutely no idea._extract from blog.longreads.com

Haruki Mukarami,  A leaving Legacy

” One of the side effects of the saints is that they can make the rest of us feel crummy, or even annoyed “_in Good Prose, Kidder Tracy

Also,” The list was  clearly jocular. But I had the feeling he had said something important. I thought I got it…This view of drowned farmland…was a lens on the world…”–TR

I found such singular similarities in narrative  about Saints, in reading the essay of Mr. Haruki Mukarami, and the book” Mountains beyond mountains of Kidder Tracy.

“ln any case, he seemed to think I knew exactly what he meant, and I realized, with some irritation, that I didn’t dare say anything just then, for fear of disappointing him.” So, I am in this situation as he was, save that I’m one a reader of  Haruki Mukarami

The list that Mr. Haruki Murakami is of other register of different events related to each epoch and people, but its finality is in rapport to celebrating an anniversary or a birthday of a celebrity among others names born on the same day. ” On this day is born…”

I guess, what pleased him the most is to open a “Jack London ” bottle of wine in his honor and to say: ” cheers, Mr. Haruki, and happy birthday to you

• Kalimelo

Another Place, Another Time

We only exist, by the moment we live when we are conscientious of it, in the now. Cogito ergo sum. We think, therefore we exist. At anytime of our existence, there is a turning point, a hinged door that opens, and swings between the tow instances, the very last pasting moment, and the next immediate future one; we sit in between, as we breath, we first exhale, than inhale. In Zen Buddhism meditation they call it zazen. That is, an unconscious movement, that performs behind the scenes, while we’re occupied doing things, in our hand, walking, eating, or whatever else. And here resides the secret of what the golden years that had left in our memory are made of for remembrance; the  satisfactory of their accomplishments, and the pleasure we have in indulging that moment.

Biss’mil’Allhi; It had been a long road since then, we strive along the path to get in there we are now; the road not taken, the falls and up-and-downs, then getting back on track._ Alhamdoulallahi

Tranquil Toughts

 

Yesterday, it was Super Bowl Weekend, in the City, 34 st, It was crowded like crazy, then I woke up this morning, outside it was lovely, cool, snow falling on Brooklyn, and the branches, wires and street side-walks were sawing as the snowflakes piled up on them, I have read a Blog of Someone  complaining about the weather down there in Florida, then I got a gleam of this following passage on my mind, of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Nature”:

There are days wich occur in this climate, at almost any season of the year, when the world reaches its perfection, when the air, the heavenly bodies, and the earth make a harmony , as, if nature would indulge her offsprings; when in the bleak upper sides of the planet, nothing is to desire that  we,have heard of the happiest latitudes, and we bask in the shinning hours of Florida and Cuba; when everything that has life gives sigh of satisfaction and the cattle that lie on the ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts.”

Global warming, climate change… who cares. Tranquil thought

A Lone writer|snapshot-stories

The Lone Writer

Taking the slow road, and The Road less traveled

Memory-on-the-menu:

Memories, Speaks_Vladimir Nabokov

_Chalk, Ardoise*, Violet Ink, Fountain Pens, Pencils, stained fingers, Falaqat*, and the like…

 * a flagellation on the sole of my feet! with a long, and thin stick crop from a limb of an olive-tree,  wich I still remember till to today.

_a quick mnemonic method of no harm, used a longtime  ago, by a Taleb, a teacher of sort, for teaching kids the Koran, in Algiers of old. Usually the momentarily little burning on the little soles, it passed  a little while after it was flicked, but the learning of the Koran by rote will last forever. Similarly  to that a method, in Zen Buddhism teachings_  Bashõ, the Zen Master used ago his stick to strike a naïve monk, for  to let him remember his scriptures, it is called Satori. See Zen in Japanese Culture_Suzuki

"The more I read, the more I am itching with words for writing, " 
_G. Flaubert

“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.” _Jane Austen

Then, it was unthinkable for me, of such thing to be on affair with writing; a would be-writer, some forty years ago. Because, it was an affair.

Ardoise 
 noun ar·doise \ärˈdwäz\
  : A slate, a stone cut, of a grayish purple that is stronger than 
telegraph blue, bluer and deeper than mauve gray, and bluer 
and paler than average rose mauve, used for handwriting with a piece 
of chalk, for initiating children in Pre-k,in those golden years

The first time when I started doodling Arabic calligraphy with a piece chalk on a slate; it didn’t occur to me then, nor having the slightest thought to be one day a writer,  rather I was in awe before the white chalk handwritings on a blackboard, that I rewrote meticulously on my slate tablet, at first, then on a double-ruled lines handbook, later on, like any other kid on my age, a longtime ago, at the madrassa of the small village, where I spent the precious years of my childhood.