A Rendezvous with Memory Memory is a linear equation joining dots on the graph of reminiscence. Memories, moments and a rendezvous with tales of yore! An emotionally turbulent jigsaw, perambulating through life's shores. Surfing through the ocean of samsara, memory is the grass sprouting on the gravestone. On a lonely winter afternoon, it keeps you warm It acts as an amulet in the race of life. The colour of memories is lilac. It spray-paints our lives with its incandescent hue. Memories shine like fireflies on gloomy days. I am in love with the memories that didn't love me back. Like the wind sketching the afternoon, memories draw life's portraits with acute finesse. Memory is the sawdust gradually settling on the old wooden furniture That lies untouched in the corner of a room. Memory is like a drunken lullaby That puts the moon to sleep on a low-tide night. Memories are footsteps to the cosmos Bearing the chalice of yesteryears. Memory is like the mist settling on the leaves on a winter morning. Like a rusty evening immersed in carmine bohemia! Memories leave your unfinished stories on the bosom of the sky Very often memories make you fall headlong Into the mire of wistfulness.
Category Archives: CHAOS
Story from Alison Owings
Before the monthly Native Alliance potluck dinner in the church basement got underway, Dede (Hoopa) carried a smoldering chunk of sage in an abalone shell around the room. Dede was thorough, offering the smoke to anyone who wanted to smudge. At the front table, which held the donation basket, flyers advertising upcoming powwows, and information packets about diseases and various kinds of help, she paused to let a group of women standing there each take their time. She then strolled into the kitchen where people warmed up their food contributions on the church’s stove or arranged cookies from a bag onto a plate or poured themselves a glass of juice.
Next, she walked over to the drum circle in the back of the room, where Norris (Choctaw), offered traditional rhythms and songs. He wore what he always did, work coveralls stitched with Norris on the left breast. This evening, the circle seemed less energetic than usual, the singing less robust. Norris kept pausing, patiently helping a teenaged girl, a beginner having trouble keeping the beat. The fact that a female was allowed into a drum circle would not have sat well with some tribes, especially if the female were menstruating. But this was an open-minded group. Another drummer, Charles (Lakota) expressed particular gratitude to Dede. He was having arthritis problems, he said, and after gesturing the smoke over his head and shoulders, lifted each leg to let the medicine go under his feet.
When Dede finished her rounds, including various clusters of people already claiming their dinner places at one of the dozen or so round tables, she joined a table herself, of three other women. After smudging themselves, they resumed their conversation, typically about life. Sandra (Coastal Miwok) asked Dede about her ex, still in prison. A newcomer didn’t know about him and expressed concern. Dede shrugged. “Three strikes, just drinking, we’re Indians of course, then boom, 25 to life.” Nods and head shakes accompanied her recital.
“Anything violent?” asked Sandra.
“Nothing,” Dede answered. “Never! And now he’s grey, turning into an old man. Not that cute grass dancer I fell for.”
The subject turned to the powwow last Saturday. “Chuck went, I couldn’t get off work,” said Roseanne (Yurok). “Work meaning babysitting my granddaughter.” Work and no work led to talk of health insurance, as it often did, and this evening to the urban Indian clinic, its pluses and minuses.
At a shout (“Okay!”) from Anita (Kiowa), who founded the Alliance decades earlier, people stopped whatever else they were doing, got up, and formed a hand-holding circle, unclasping to make room for stragglers. The circle this evening included some 30 people, two with walkers, one with crutches, and five children.
Anita asked Norris to say a prayer. He raised his head, his long black hair brushing his shoulders, closed his eyes, and spoke at length in Choctaw, which he then translated. Part of it went, “Thank you Creator, for making me an Indian.”
Many prayers followed his. For individuals with cancer. For families of the individuals. For the drought-stricken land. Happy announcements came, too. Celine (Yakama) said her daughter just got accepted to Dartmouth.
As usual, the circle included a few non-Natives, brought along by Native acquaintances. Sometimes strangers showed up, uninvited. One difficult evening, a banged up blond drunk staggered in from the church parking lot. The elders conferred, then sat him down on one of the pews lining the basement hall and brought him a plate of food to help him sober up, even though – a significant consideration – a prayer had not yet been offered. He was absent tonight. So was the sad-faced wannabe, a thin woman who felt she was “Indian in another life.” A few regulars were wary of her. “Needy,” said Daniella (Pomo).
This evening the group comprised more or less the regulars. An accountant, an engineer, a seamstress, an occasional media celebrity, a nurse, a counselor, a museum employee, retirees, a number of people between jobs.
Following the prayers, the circle broke up into a line for the food (“Elders first!” shouted Anita). As usual, the two food tables, one for desserts, one for everything else, were covered. This evening’s bounty included several casseroles of such dishes as spaghetti cut small, with hamburger. It was not the only contribution that had the look of leftovers used inventively. Something else with chicken, it looked like, and celery. There was also tonight the taco melt Diane (Sac and Fox) usually contributed, and the tossed salad a white guy always brought.
At the table where Dede sat, conversation continued about the Indian health center. You have to be eligible for medical first. Disgusting, said Sandra, after chewing on a piece of chicken Thomas (Ohlone) brought. Thomas always brought chicken. She said she herself is lucky, having health insurance through her pension with the state. Even for teeth and eyes. “These glasses, seven bucks!” Murmurs reached over the hominy stew and Lina’s (Onondaga) chocolate cake. Each woman had placed a square of it on her paper plate next to her main meal choices, in case it disappeared before she went back to the dessert table. Lina’s baking was always a hit, even when she tried a vegan pie.
Sandra, the enviably insured, used to drive truck for the state, she said. An 18 wheeler. This impressed no one at the table. Roseanne had been married to a truck driver before Chuck. “15 gears, right?” she asked. “High range and low range.”
“My rig had 10 forward, two reverse.” Sandra shrugged. “Some had more.”
The women hooted about drivers of little Hondas who think you can stop on a dime if they dart in front of you. “You’re lucky you don’t run over them. Literally. Turn them into a pancake,” said Sandra. She now makes jewelry she sells at powwows, and wore several bracelets of her own design. Truck talk led to recollections of shifts and rest stops, of truckers getting robbed in some overnight truck stops, not to mention the presence of “lizards” – prostitutes. Lina liked the fenced in places where you could pull in for the night, be safe. A fastidious woman, she had placed a piece of her own cake on a separate plate to take home to her husband. Lina oversaw cleanup after the potluck, too.
“Showers,” she added.
Showers, the other women agreed. Sometimes that is all you want.
In Canada, the rest stops, camping places, too, are unbelievably clean, added Dede. Harrison (Cherokee) from the next table heard her and agreed. “Spotless!” he exclaimed. Dede said that’s where her ex wants to go if he ever gets paroled. Canada. Some of his people are up there.
The drum circle started again. Harrison, finishing a cookie, rose to join it. Tonight there were six drummers: five men and the teenager.
At the table of the four women with and without insurance, husbands, and jobs, conversation stopped entirely. Nodding in time to the drum, they moved on to their chocolate cake squares. Some evenings they and other women pulled fringed shawls from their big purses, wrapped them around their shoulders, and danced slow swaying movements, circling the drummers. This evening nobody danced.
“It’s been a long day,” commented Roseanne. “I’m pooped.”
More about Alison Owings here. She's an editor and oral historian who has just completed a book about a formerly homeless man.
Poetry from Shine Ballard
i-fifteen Sourdough and sharp cheddar— enter the daily entry into the journal— a quick lunch with a politically kneaded history. ii–three Say cozened, repeat. The red-tail on green carpet. Only in pencil. iii–two Cornstalks stalking, four to six feet, A chorus of scolding greets steps. Twelve days of abundance won’t quench. Cornstalks stalking, four to six feet, A squirrelish racket among the leaves. There is no song titled “Plight Of.” Cornstalks stalking, four to six feet, A chorus of scolding greets overstep. i-nine (so servile have i lived to my fears) for a short while i’ll have a cookie— ii–one Reminisce at the padded rataplanning of flam taps. Ruminate. Lament my atrophied sticking. The nuisance dog notices it’s been making no noise. Resent my easily exhausted grip. Notice the Chinaberry tree newly leafing. Mimic the mmmzing of the bumble bee at the screen. Another pickup pummels down the road.
Poetry from Mark Young
klvat
Namaste, all.
Yelp is a fun & easy
way to find that the
official web site for
inputs used in inter-
state sales out of
Kerala is a low-power
television station
licensed to a
nun living in sin
in Garfield, Texas.
locale
Precis a place by its
skyline. In this case
microwave & water
towers, the smokestack
of the sugar mill, the
elegant but dated shape
of the old pump station,
in its current iteration
sitting idle as a simple
sign post for the stacks
of fertilizer & gravel &
sand that lurk beside it.
From the Pound Cantos: CENTO XXXV
Flame leaps from the hand, the
rain is listless. The backswell now
smooth in the rudder chains. Ply
over ply, thin glitter of water
quiet in the buff sands. Topaz,
I manage, & three sorts of blue.
Souls stained with recent tears —
first ill fate & then abundant wine.
The talks ran long in the night
& many things were set abroad
& brought to mind. Wherever the
speech crept, there was mastery,
an ear for the sea-surge. In the half-light,
mead & then sweet wine.
For Martin Edmond
Much more
cuckoo-
looking than the
male, with
its / barred tail
& brindled
body,
a
female koël
moves rapidly
from branch
to branch in the
large tree which,
incidentally, has
just come into
flower,
a
fact that is of
no import to
the bird, even
though, judging
by the attention
given her by the
two male koëls
that alternatively
trace or try to
anticipate her
movements, she
is in much
the same state.
Trapped in the ballet barre
Claiming to have more
than enough expertise
to transform the
marketing potential
of the space available on
the inner t-shirt into
venture capital, a
consortium of lentils
& lean beef has launched
a so-called “lads’ magazine”
which examines the
spiritual & therapeutic
benefits of taking
retreats into metaphysical
darkness whilst wearing
only flimsy underwear
Poetry from Sayani Mukherjee
Tattooed By Sayani Mukherjee Uniquely designed for mainstream A six figured tattooed butterfly On my back A pat at my shoulder A beam at my poem Tree house and childplay things My proof of itsy bitsy rock scissors stone A friendship bracelets with red ribbon White washed marooned island Over my chest It stays when I form a circle of mates- Three Pentagons diaphragmatic Radio shows on for Friday nights Modernist nonsense and my Zabberwocky tricks I form my bracelets with my Tattooed fingertips. My jinx my pixie dust my childlike wonder A little sparkle did no wonder Red bracelets white washed marooned island I hum at my lost poem A sudden Omition at the back A little pinch of dusty drives Underneath a new edge control Completing of a poem for the Medal gold I hope my pixie dust will do Good for nothing For this electric haze on my tattooed butterfly soul.
Poetry from Clyde Borg
A PORTRAIT Her eyes followed me, Not like many portraits. It was a sly shifting, There and not there. Her breast seemed to heave, Much like her eyes stirred. She lived for a moment. I wondered why.
Poetry from Mesfakus Salahin
Find yourself in your view Everyday you will be new Roads become soft and enjoyable Passer by will be available. Tie the time to the top of the finger Nature will be singer Birds will sing the song of heart Flowers will bloom in the desert. Embrace happy memories in solitude Ice of pain will salute your attitude Frustration will never touch future You will be above mental torture. Remove the rivers of sufferings and sorrow The sun will be your tomorrow The dry river will get fountain of the moon God will fulfill your prayer very soon.