Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into all four winds. They throw stones, Throw this land, one at the other, But the land always falls back to the land. They throw the land, want to get rid of it. Its stones, its soil, but you can't get rid of it.
They throw stones, throw stones at me In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988, Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites, Evil men throw and just men throw, Sinners throw and tempters throw, Geologists throw and theologists throw, Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw, Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw, Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone, Stones shaped like a screaming mouth And stones fitting your eyes Like a pair of glasses, The past throws stones at the future, And all of them fall on the present. Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones, Even God in the Bible threw stones, Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown And got stuck in the beastplate of justice, And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.
Oh, the poem of stone sadness Oh, the poem thrown on the stones Oh, the poem of thrown stones. Is there in this land A stone that was never thrown And never built and never overturned And never uncovered and never discovered And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers And never turned into a cornerstone?
Please do not throw any more stones, You are moving the land, The holy, whole, open land, You are moving it to the sea And the sea doesn't want it The sea says, not in me.
Please throw little stones, Throw snail fossils, throw gravel, Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek, Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods, Throw limestone, throw clay, Throw sand of the seashore, Throw dust of the desert, throw rust, Throw soil, throw wind, Throw air, throw nothing Until your hands are weary And the war is weary And even peace will be weary and will be.
Kurdish teenager, 17, stoned to death by her family near Mosul
I
and so it is in the cool static rift of a charged particle we once came, this uniformity of the earth's life (ours) explained by a blue bolt of gods entering some languishing primitive cell, sparking it into mitosis, and, sexless, the cell ever dividing into daughter and daughter, into stone, into peacock, into angels of light
II
--all we have become, or will be--
III
--and now the girl, the naked lily-stems of her legs against the torn black cloth, startling even here, her battered face--what we want to call flower-- the trembling shade beneath our pale, reflected ones, her shirt red or bloodied and the little staccato of stones at her head--
IV
as if she were about our daughters, the wind just barely channeling through the dark labyrinths of their young bodies, their simple emptiness wanting what? love rain cry of birds the first touch of male palm against the budding nipple what the living cell evolves for--
V
When the father who said kill her touched her harshly-- his hand that once held the mother, her nipples between his teeth gentled, his seed following the old genetic pathways the way seed does--
the torn tissue of its blossoming already ordained toward the sky even as the blind root splits the holy clay--
VI
did his daughter, tricked home, already know the story, know what love can bring, has brought, the way Lot's wife did-- that one last forbidden look back and her feet already crumbling into the shackling salt--
VII
in a marketplace somewhere near Mosul this denouement: how many men with stones striking us, striking that dark fragile place, their birthplace made visible now, gossamer of all the fallen like the iridescent eye of a peacock mocking dusk--
that birthplace, that bald star of our newborn daughters that arrives each time on this earth like first memory, like first thought, first desire when the biblical rib snapped clean and our wild paradise, ignorant and beautiful, faltered
Get your hands off my brother I don't care if his name is Stephen or Daniel or James or Billy or even if I don't know his name at all. They are all my brothers and you have no right no right at all, to attack any one of them.
What is it about love that makes you so scared and angry? You fear what you don't understand but how could a gay man earn such a beating? You think you are mighty because you are 18, ineloquent and full of rage standing over a man with blood pouring from his nose. Where in the world did you get the idea that murdering a man will make your life any better?
These men are all my brothers because they were the ones who came to pick me up from a phone booth after I got thrown out of a car.
They rubbed my shoulders in taxis when I was tired and bought me a drink when I didn't have the money. They went with me to Audrey Hepburn films and taught me the meaning of words like 'fierce' and 'worthy.' They made me understand that life should be about things that are wonderful, things that are beautiful.
These are the men with whom I have the most in common and they taught me more than Cosmo ever did.
They drank cup after cup of tea with me when I was unraveling and reeling from being dumped for no reason.
They taught me that love is love and who should be the one to judge?
We used to say that if I was a gay man or they were straight that we would be lovers. But in many ways, they have been more loving to me than the men I loved.
When my courage failed they showed me the power of a good Billie Holiday tune. They told me to do what I believed in, that a glass of wine can fix almost anything, that the music you listen to is the soundtrack to your life, that $1.25 and a sense of style will take you anywhere in this city.
They said Everyone is a star and everyone shines it just may be that yours is a little different than mine.
They taught me that everyone wants someone to come home to, someone to look after, that everyone adores a tender touch, that everyone needs someone to hold them and say shh when they cry, that everyone likes to talk and laugh and cook and watch TV and kiss. They taught me that being a loving person means sometimes getting your heart broken.
Whether by violence or virus I've lost some of my guardian angels.
Patrick was killed in Boston and I never had the chance to say thank you. Lee died in New York and I never had the chance to say goodbye. Peter didn't want me to see him sick so I didn't know until after he'd gone. I hated him for that. I loved him for that.
I made them promise they'd be at my wedding and they made me promise that there would be balloons at their funerals. And I did because they taught me how important promises are.
But it's not his time now and I will not let you take him from me, so get your hands off my brother.
(You have no right, no right in the world, to drive through the city breaking the wings off angels.)
He may be face down on the pavement but I'm not and I will fight you to save his life because every day in so many ways he saved mine.
What Lot's Wife Would Have Said (If She Wasn't a Pillar of Salt) [Karen Finneyfrock]
Do you remember when we met in Gomorrah? When you were still beardless, and I would oil my hair in the lamp light before seeing you, when we were young, and blushed with youth like bruised fruit. Did we care then what our neighbors did in the dark?
When our first daughter was born on the River Jordan, when our second cracked her pink head from my body like a promise, did we worry what our friends might be doing with their tongues?
What new crevices they found to lick love into or strange flesh to push pleasure from, when we called them Sodomites then, all we meant by it was neighbor.
When the angels told us to run from the city, I went with you, but even the angels knew that women always look back. Let me describe for you, Lot, what your city looked like burning since you never turned around to see it.
Sulfur ran its sticky fingers over the skin of our countrymen. It smelled like burning hair and rancid eggs. I watched as our friends pulled chunks of brimstone from their faces. Is any form of loving this indecent?
Cover your eyes tight, husband, until you see stars, convince yourself you are looking at Heaven.
Because any man weak enough to hide his eyes while his neighbors are punished for the way they love deserves a vengeful god.
I would say these things to you now, Lot, but an ocean has dried itself on my tongue. So instead I will stand here, while my body blows itself grain by grain back over the Land of Canaan. I will stand here and I will watch you run.
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go: but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains - but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,- They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve. More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
The trees bend in the wind,
And stones fly from all four winds,
Into all four winds. They throw stones,
Throw this land, one at the other,
But the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, want to get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can't get rid of it.
They throw stones, throw stones at me
In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites,
Evil men throw and just men throw,
Sinners throw and tempters throw,
Geologists throw and theologists throw,
Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw,
Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
Stones shaped like a screaming mouth
And stones fitting your eyes
Like a pair of glasses,
The past throws stones at the future,
And all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
Even God in the Bible threw stones,
Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
And got stuck in the beastplate of justice,
And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.
Oh, the poem of stone sadness
Oh, the poem thrown on the stones
Oh, the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
A stone that was never thrown
And never built and never overturned
And never uncovered and never discovered
And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
And never turned into a cornerstone?
Please do not throw any more stones,
You are moving the land,
The holy, whole, open land,
You are moving it to the sea
And the sea doesn't want it
The sea says, not in me.
Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be.
---------
...I will be reading poetry all day now. :x
Reply
=
The Lives of Cells [Kathryn Winograd]
Kurdish teenager, 17,
stoned to death by her family near Mosul
I
and so it is
in the cool static rift of a charged particle
we once came, this uniformity of the earth's life
(ours) explained by a blue bolt of gods
entering some languishing primitive cell,
sparking it into mitosis, and, sexless, the cell
ever dividing into daughter and daughter,
into stone, into peacock, into angels of light
II
--all we have
become, or will be--
III
--and now the girl,
the naked lily-stems of her legs
against the torn black cloth, startling
even here, her battered face--what we want to call flower--
the trembling shade beneath our pale, reflected ones,
her shirt red or bloodied
and the little staccato of stones at her head--
IV
as if she were about our daughters,
the wind just barely channeling through the dark
labyrinths of their young bodies, their simple emptiness
wanting what? love rain cry of birds the first touch
of male palm against the budding nipple
what the living cell evolves for--
V
When the father who said kill her touched her harshly--
his hand that once held the mother, her nipples
between his teeth gentled, his seed
following the old genetic pathways the way seed does--
the torn tissue
of its blossoming already ordained toward the sky
even as the blind root splits the holy clay--
VI
did his daughter, tricked home, already know the story,
know what love can bring, has brought, the way Lot's wife did--
that one last forbidden look back
and her feet already crumbling into the shackling salt--
VII
in a marketplace somewhere near Mosul
this denouement: how many men with stones
striking us, striking that dark fragile place, their birthplace
made visible now, gossamer of all the fallen
like the iridescent eye of a peacock
mocking dusk--
that birthplace, that bald star of our newborn daughters
that arrives each time on this earth like first memory,
like first thought, first desire when the biblical rib
snapped clean and our wild paradise, ignorant and beautiful,
faltered
Reply
by Nicole Blackman
Get your hands off my brother
I don't care if his name is Stephen or Daniel
or James or Billy or even if I don't know his name at all.
They are all my brothers and you have no right
no right at all, to attack any one of them.
What is it about love that makes you so scared and angry?
You fear what you don't understand
but how could a gay man earn such a beating?
You think you are mighty because
you are 18, ineloquent and full of rage
standing over a man with blood pouring from his nose.
Where in the world did you get the idea
that murdering a man will make your life any better?
These men are all my brothers because
they were the ones who came
to pick me up from a phone booth
after I got thrown out of a car.
They rubbed my shoulders in taxis when I was tired
and bought me a drink when I didn't have the money.
They went with me to Audrey Hepburn films
and taught me the meaning of words like 'fierce' and 'worthy.'
They made me understand that life should be about
things that are wonderful, things that are beautiful.
These are the men with whom I have the most in common
and they taught me more than Cosmo ever did.
They drank cup after cup of tea with me
when I was unraveling and reeling from being dumped for no reason.
They taught me that love is love
and who should be the one to judge?
We used to say that if I was a gay man
or they were straight
that we would be lovers.
But in many ways,
they have been more loving to me
than the men I loved.
When my courage failed
they showed me the power
of a good Billie Holiday tune.
They told me to do what I believed in,
that a glass of wine can fix almost anything,
that the music you listen to
is the soundtrack to your life,
that $1.25 and a sense of style
will take you anywhere in this city.
They said Everyone is a star
and everyone shines
it just may be that yours
is a little different than mine.
They taught me that everyone wants
someone to come home to,
someone to look after,
that everyone adores a tender touch,
that everyone needs someone to hold them
and say shh when they cry,
that everyone likes to talk and laugh
and cook and watch TV and kiss.
They taught me that being a loving person
means sometimes getting your heart broken.
Whether by violence or virus
I've lost some of my guardian angels.
Patrick was killed in Boston
and I never had the chance to say thank you.
Lee died in New York
and I never had the chance to say goodbye.
Peter didn't want me to see him sick
so I didn't know until after he'd gone.
I hated him for that.
I loved him for that.
I made them promise they'd be at my wedding
and they made me promise that there would be
balloons at their funerals.
And I did because they taught me
how important promises are.
But it's not his time now
and I will not let you take him from me,
so get your hands off my brother.
(You have no right, no right in the world,
to drive through the city
breaking the wings off angels.)
He may be face down on the pavement but I'm not
and I will fight you to save his life
because every day
in so many ways
he saved mine.
Reply
Do you remember when we met
in Gomorrah? When you were still beardless,
and I would oil my hair in the lamp light before seeing
you, when we were young, and blushed with youth
like bruised fruit. Did we care then
what our neighbors did
in the dark?
When our first daughter was born
on the River Jordan, when our second
cracked her pink head from my body
like a promise, did we worry
what our friends might be
doing with their tongues?
What new crevices they found
to lick love into or strange flesh
to push pleasure from, when we
called them Sodomites then,
all we meant by it
was neighbor.
When the angels told us to run
from the city, I went with you,
but even the angels knew
that women always look back.
Let me describe for you, Lot,
what your city looked like burning
since you never turned around to see it.
Sulfur ran its sticky fingers over the skin
of our countrymen. It smelled like burning hair
and rancid eggs. I watched as our friends pulled
chunks of brimstone from their faces. Is any form
of loving this indecent?
Cover your eyes tight,
husband, until you see stars, convince
yourself you are looking at Heaven.
Because any man weak enough to hide his eyes while his neighbors
are punished for the way they love deserves a vengeful god.
I would say these things to you now, Lot,
but an ocean has dried itself on my tongue.
So instead I will stand here, while my body blows itself
grain by grain back over the Land of Canaan.
I will stand here
and I will watch you
run.
Reply
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.
Crowned with lilies and with laurel they go:
but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains - but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,-
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know.
But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
Reply
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