OIL PASTEL: contemplating nature

This oil pastel and watercolor on paper shows a poet i knew in Maine. I imagined him thinking about the various wonders of nature. The mountain becomes her knee.... etc. This was years and years ago when I made this drawing. A little stormy sky, a bit of visual play, a little mental/hormonal steam....

2 Poems relating to immigration in different ways

A friend asked my opinion on illegal immigration - at this time I have only a few posts on the topic of immigration and I thought I would add these poems to the list. All of my posts address very specific narrow points within in the subject of immigration and are not conclusions but more points to to mull over.

The first poem points to the irony that the children of immigrants - us - now seem so willing to say - 'go away.' The sentiment 'give me your tired and your poor' is really on the rocks these days.... The argument is a bit of a strawman really though, as always some were rejected, and many were reviled. Getting in was not assured in the days of Ellis Island either nor was being welcomed.

the get away

Outside
=============
a locked gate waiting.
Socked-in, Statute of Liberty's
harbor gone grey
Ellis Island, your sentimental
push-button displays,
sepa-toned icons, a memory
of distance and desperation,
clutched burlap bundles, dented
suitcases, hand-written name tags,
befuddled seekers, almost home.
Now, you welcome
only tourists. Neon bloodies
your halls of remembrance:
no-vacancy - no-vacancy - no-vacancy

CLOSE THE AIRPORTS!
CLOSE THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE!
The children of the children
of the formerly oppressed
want to seal the borders
with invisible force-fields
with infallible alien-detection devices
and declare:
CLUB AMERICA - MEMBERS ONLY!

So, take back your tired and your
poor, your huddled masses yearning
Give them a cell
with room service, limited menu
meticulously kept steel bunks.
Stop - Pack up
Fold your love of freedom,
tuck it in. Fold your sweat up
with your dreams. Forget
about your son in Cincinnati.
Do not pass Do not collect
Go directly Go back
=============
Outside

- Mar "Mistryel" Walker,  published in A First Tuesday in Wilton Anthology, 2005 

                           

---

This second poem contrasts two war widows who visit "the wall," (the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. - but one of them settled here after the war ended.

The Price of a Welcome Mat in Freedom Land

A soldiers wife revisits the wall of war
runs her fingers down stone
panels of chiseled names
a melancholy Braille
searches 'til she reaches his name
her long remembered mantra.
"where are you now?" she asks.

Another soldiers wife, an immigrant,
trembles at the long black wall
with its bunting of flag
studies the endless names
tries to remember their young faces
smeared with dirt, mouths grim.
"Was it you with the hand grenades
was it you with the flame thrower?" she wisphers.
"Were you the one who burned my mother's house
and sent my beloved to a nameless grave?"

She thinks of their son
in college in New York City
She thinks of her job, her apartment,
sighs ambivalent.

- Mar "Mistryel" Walker, published in X Magazine March 2003   

(note this poem is not in the X mag's webarchive  probably because I forgot to send in an authors bio, so  when they uploaded the poems, they probably checked to see that all their listed authors were loaded. But I am not listed in the author section since I forgot the bio. But the poem was in the physical actual magazine. I have a copy..... Let that be a lesson. Send in bios when asked....!!!!)

DRAWING: Face #16

This is another sketch while at a poetry event.

 Usually I am not drawing anyone in particular, just reacting to what is being read. Sometimes it's faces, sometimes just forms. This is a digital cut from a page in one of the little writing books I sometimes bring with me to those events. I

Looking down

One day, quite a few years back, I was walking down the street minding my own neurotic business, when a foreign-looking woman, in a long skirt, grabbed me by the arm . 

She pointedly pushed her face into mine, grinning, her  eyes full of light and amusement.

''Are you looking for money?'' she said. This is an inexplicable question since mine is a  low-budget, shop-at-Goodwill world. I didn't know what to say. I just stared blankly at her in reply.

"If you are not looking for money, then why are you looking at the ground?'' she asked. She grinned and pushed me away as she released my arm. I swayed around on the curb, pondering.

Perhaps to this lady's way of thinking, I should be looking ahead, looking around at this beautiful fierce world. And she was right. Looking down is great if you are in a high place, a place that offers a view. If' you're down in the nitty gritty of everyday, take in the scene. Look at the beauty and the ugliness, the rise and fall of the land, look back at the smiling or scowling faces of your fellow humans, and other breathing creatures. Be here. Look. At least that's what I got out of that encounter....

The eye picture is one of my digital things. It was a color, and slant adjustment on another eye pic I made in MS Paint years ago when I was a PC user.

Box-o-phobia

Sometimes I feel like I am caught in a box. There are certain aspects of my life that I cannot change right now and I fully accept that and embrace that fact. But something somewhere in my world needs to change to ward off the building comatose stagnation in my personal air..
.
My immediate reaction has been to change things that can be changed until I feel that I am out of the box. So lately, I have been changing my blog names and url addresses in a Kaleidoscopic manner. That hasn't really been satisfactory - though I am pleased with the results. Other things may begin changing as well. Everything I am involved with is up in the air with me at the moment.

Stuff on the fridge door

Today, I thought I'd catalog the refrigerator door. There are other items up there but these are my favorites:

"Talk is cheap because supply exceeds demand."
"I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!"
"Trust everyone but brand your cattle."
"There are two types of people in the world: Those who leave a mark and those who leave a stain."
"Show me a day when the world wasn't new!" - B. Hance
"You can touch the dust, but please don't write in it...."
"I don't mind sit, but you can forget roll over, fetch and beg."
The text of a poem, Reality TV
"Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself."

Mein feline…

This is my kitty Miet who was a little blinky at the flash.