To thine own self be true

“A poet is a state of mind.”–Virginia Moore, “Saint Teresa”

There were so many
remote islands
you had passed
scarcely knowing them.

You may, in fact,
have preferred
the sunnier beaches
with crowds of people
to the south,
the slushy sand
and warmer weather.

But your curious boat
sailed on past
the deserted castles
on craggy hills,
the isolated outports
seldom visited
and quite unmapped.

Initially, there were
some islands
long, but thin
with lighthouses,
fishing fleets and
rough lives of men
you could not have
possibly known.

Maybe passing a
distant station on some
remote headland
one ran out to
wave at you,
more in disbelief,
that someone else
had found his sanctum
this far north.

Or, lucky, you may have
seen the wild ponies run
along the beach
of another solitary island,
their freedom strange
along the green waters.

But it was only then
when you entered
the high-cliffed fiords
with their steep water-
falls cascading down
that you first wondered
about home and
the possibility of return.

That cold barrenness
of final outposts,
the last land, with reindeer
champing grass
indifferently
by a deserted hut.

It was there standing
on the last ledge of land
at the edge of memory
that you found me
at last, as you stood briefly
facing true north,
a moment
with nothing but
limitless sea
whichever way
you chose to turn.

“When life doesn’t seem worth the living
And you don’t really care who you are
When you feel there is no one beside you
Look for a star.”
–Tony Hatch, “Look for a Star”

A thousand kisses deep.”

“And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A thousand kisses deep.”

“The file on you complete,
Except what we forgot to do,
A thousand kisses deep.”

–Leonard Cohen, “A Thousand Kisses Deep”, Ten New Songs

…………………….

Screen ‘life’ vs. physical live-in person presence. Lenny clarifies the choice.

“He closed his eyes in the languor of sleep. His eyelids trembled as if they felt the vast cyclic movement of the earth and her watchers, trembled as if they felt the strange light of some new world. His soul was swooning into some new world, fantastic, dim, uncertain as under sea, traversed by cloudy shapes and beings. A world, a glimmer, or a flower? Glimmering and trembling, trembling and unfolding, a breaking light, an opening flower, it spread in endless succession to itself, breaking in full crimson and unfolding and fading to palest rose, leaf by leaf and wave of light by wave of light, flooding all the heavens with its soft flushes, every flush deeper than the other.”
–James Joyce, from the end of chapter 4, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, 1916

……………………………………………………..

Nothing like becoming and feeling and knowing It. Nothing like a waking dream, a true Moment of Being; here, the Joycean epiphany writ large. Nothing like the great connection with the mysterious Life Force and the rich empowering spirit of the great heart awakened in one’s self, one’s consciousness. The feeling of spreading warmth, spreading awareness of one’s self and the many possibilities. A special magical world created by words. A growing outward, filling the outer world from within. This is the experience of creative inspiration. This is the large liberation and subsuming of the external world funneled through the inner self and creator’s vision, returning unto the outer world, and even, transcendentally, the heavens, to the ideal/ized world where one completes oneself and a cosmic harmony between Nature and self.

No, there is no other feeling or experience like it, open unto Man or the Artist. The freedom of poetic expression, the artificer in process, fully known, realized and experienced.

I’ll be marching though the morning,
I’ll be marching through the night.
Moving cross the borders
Of my secret life.”
“In My Secret Life”, Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs

Taliban kill 132 children in Pakistan. The Massacre of Innocents all over again.

“When will they ever learn?”–Pete Seeger, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”

“Man’s inhumanity to man [and women, children, animals, and the planet]/ Make countless thousands mourn!”–Robbie Burns, “Man Was Made to Mourn”

“Looked through the paper/Makes you want to cry,/Nobody cares if the people/Live or die.”–“In My Secret Life”, Leonard Cohen, Ten New Songs

1. Treating others as a means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves.

2. Not thinking at all. (U.S. labor data shows that 83% of Americans don’t spend any part of their days just thinking.– Bloomberg, July 5, 2014.

Worth thinking about amidst the Xmas and workplace frenzy.

where you can be killed by some crazy or terrorist while going for coffee. The absurd contrast/juxtaposition between the peaceful Western living room or family room, potentially, at this time of December and events in Sydney today. It hath always been thus–these two sides of man, between two very different kinds of people (we have to include female terrorists and walking bombs now–this is not just a male problem, as evidenced by mothers driving their minivans into the ocean to kill themselves and their kids).

Yes, you have to admit that the craziness (even as reported in isolated cases by obsessed mass media, like the Sydney café hostage case) will proclaim itself, its absurd tunnel-visioned agenda, especially at the most peaceful time of year. And this individual violence is macro-ly played out also on larger ongoing stages which include the likes of Rwanda, Bosnia, the U.S.S.R. under Stalin, various world wars, and in places like Mexico where gangster-henchmen roll heads down tourist streets.

Nowhere is one safe anywhere, anymore. Given how much media attention, this café incident got, something similar is likely to recur–I would predict–during this holiday season in North America somewhere by whatever fifth columnists (groups or individuals). These things certainly become more possible, plausible, and likely if one can be killed going for coffee.

No, the great ongoing fetish among too many humans is for insane anarchical agendas, self-proclaimed delusive power, large-scale chaos and destruction, and the massacre of innocents. (“They hate for hate’s sake.”–W.H. Auden)  ‘At home’, you see this madness and violence played out in couples’ relationships or toward children, domestically, too. There are no guaranteed intelligent, benevolent parents just as much as there are no guaranteed nonviolent men and women.

So what can one do, especially at this time of year? One of my teacher-colleagues used to talk of raising the drawbridge when she retreated on Fridays or holidays into darkest suburbia. There, at least, was all the peace, calm, relaxation, personal freedom, pleasure, and harmony that only she would create and enjoy. I think her m.o. always works when the world goes haywire as it has at the Parliament buildings or at a Lindt chocolate shop far away and yet so close.

There is, finally, what one does and can control that no one else can likely take away or mindlessly, selfishly destroy. The importance of personal positioning and personal choice. What one can usually rely on without someone/anyone else’s nutso, vicious agenda. And from such a preferred image, vantage point, and physically real place, one can say to whomever one wants–Cheers! or All the Best!–and get on with enjoying this holiday season at a more meaningful, purposeful, personal and family level.

by Edmo’s own jazz legend Tommy Banks. His talented band and his first-class arrangements.15 classic tunes wonderfully reworked and delivered with some off-the-main-oft-trodden-path titles: “In the Bleak Midwinter’, “Snowfall”, “Where Is Love?”, “”White”, and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”. Beautiful seasonal piano and conducting to boot. Easily the best Canadian Christmas instrumental album ever.

(Royalty Records, 2011) Thanks Jer for this one.

………………..

flashback: I had the distinct pleasure of creating charts with the legendary Banks for some poems I read, backed by his combo, at a Harry Ainlay Beat café evening in the their agora one evening. One of my favorite past gigs combining poetry and music.

Hallmark classic pop-up book with movable parts/action. Highly recommended.

Santa leaving via the chimney.

Then Santa popping out top of chimney. This never fails to impress kids 2-4. Magic to them.

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