Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
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November 15, 2008
For My Beloved

by remembereringgiap
lifted from a comment

for my beloved/is a lamb/climbing the step/in eisensteins film
alluding to synthesis/that never came/or  resolution/of  thesis
initiated by lenin/in railway carriage/funded by germans/to end war
& lenin read/aloud to companion/while drinking tea/from isiah certainly
it was reference/to some things/or other matter/he’d prefer/not to discuss
with central committee/the wolf also/shall dwell with/lamb & leopard
shall lie down/with the kid/& the calf/& young lion/& fatling together
& little child/shall lead them/referring to jerusalem/but lenin leant
from this passage/that we need/messiah to motivate/desire to change
circumstances as described/in the eighteenth/brummairre of louis
bonaparte marx’s essay/still read somewhere/in latin america/perhaps some canton
in new china/where distinguished emporers/turn tianemen square/into endless circle

themselves into ogres/occident can understand/such measures usefull
in the south/of united states/not long ago/in los angeles/even more recently
interpretation of events/still support thesis/capitalism hasn’t soul
this precise fact/an ancient truth/endowed with emptiness/now we yearn
for another metamorphosis/something less primitive/all factors considered
we’re no longer/volatile or veangefull/but sublimated species

precipitated by longing/in a psyche/that barely functions
substitute for salt/in our chemistry/another constellation entirely
altering all absolutes/in imperial order/above this abyss/we are consuming
like midwestern americans/who follow pattern/& a mold/that’s already been
engraved with name/they can recognise/valour destructive form/of a ressurection
that isn’t symmetrical/nor is anchored/in any salvation/worth the cost
so they’re prudent/depending on duality/of our architecture
becoming sacred hermaphrodites/searching for love/in forbidden locations
where apostles announce/on the hour/at every hour/tome of second/coming to this
fisherman that carpenter/near home/by  shores/sea of galilee
where supreme conquest/occurring by magic/this elusive treasure/has long gone
on endurance run/with another theology/you can throw/dice into dam
we are excavating/our sins here/for good measure/we leave yours/out in cold
there is eternity/encrusted with emeralds/where they say redemption is possible
if you’re prepared/to degrade yourself/like thirties star/in a film
frank capra certainly/source of illumination/to that paradise
where frances farmer/goes after being/in an asylum/reading clifford odets
confession before committee/where he asks/where is garfield/when you need
him on drunk/in new york/playing it brave/with italian boys/who know source
happiness or hell/depends on numbers/you can carry/in your pocket
when you walk/towards a monastery/where they have/set up screening/of  movie
plato  directed/possibly for discourse/that couldn’t be/explained with words
consuming clarity/as an aesthetic/lead you nowhere/heidegger found out
much too late/to repent except/in the pages/of new york/review of books
where testimonies given/by bioethic boys/from unknown universities
where they molest/students & forget/to mark papers/except in bed
another fury born/& i know/this most perfect/moment to mime
the great work/is not redeemed/nor is it/ressurected perhaps rejected
out of hand/weapons of heaven/come to clear/ties that bind/for  heroes
there is another/kind of splendour/there is another/kind of solace
because historical agents/dress very well/for  ceremony
together we are/pulling these thorns/from my flesh
leaving terrible texture/to enrich tale/i’m not telling/but you will
in a cave/when you’re hiding/from  dragon/who has face/you will recognise
in due time/you will inherit/an oak tree/or perhaps fig/some sacred scenery
where you can/cast into abyss/that which lies/heavily upon you
let man forget/divine is art/of forgetting fully/if you would
raise yourself up/if you yourself/would dwell upon/the heights cast
into the sea/that which lies/heavily upon you/pursue a protection
from the sirens/who’re singing out/your name clearly/for all hearing
when we stand/on  edge/of a lake/& witness torrents
nreaking around you/& we are/already in mourning/for another loss
on a river/so long ago/before i reached/an imagined coast
i have discovered/charity in chest/i have thrown/off  jetty
& this build/my noble reputation/attributing all alchemy
to what’s human/do not go/to any intellect/for its volcano
where everything burns/& vultures descend/to do business/they’re equipped for
all our lamentations/have been heard/at some time/or other rime
we can speak/of resistance certainly/but it is/not a cure
i would sell/on street corner/of any city/ancient or modern/here & now
i am conducting/an absent orchestra/wanting to play/a little music

Posted by b on November 15, 2008 at 07:43 UTC | Permalink
Comments

rgiap my friend thank you for this you inspire me, being a creature of imitation – to begin again –

Posted by: Tangerine | Nov 15 2008 12:15 utc | 1

Yes, your creative spirit, your feeling and strength inspires me also.
Thanks r’giap.

Posted by: Rick Happ | Nov 15 2008 14:52 utc | 2

I hope this signals strength in body as well as spirit our giap.
With you always. Stay steel.

Posted by: beq | Nov 15 2008 15:00 utc | 3

no, i just get by. my physical health, not so good
but i think my story is that of many here, in one way or another, in our current catastrophe
these are difficult times & even tho there is a little light – we know the steamrollers of this system or that are never very far from extinguishing that light
i think without my work in communites, i would implode or simply give up – but it is they & our community here who relativise my own suffering & precarious situation
i have written over 2 dozen enourmous texts -(often over 500 or 6oo pages) – that even after all this time i have not edited them, correctly. but for me they are beautiful things – something i would not have sd even a decade before that – i perform here some sequences from the text with ‘bent’ classical musicians & when i perform it help explains this world in the site of my body
largely, they are left for another time when i am not here & i feel comfortable with that – it is strong enough to survuve me & i have always been concious of malooga’s dictum – that a work amongst the people has priority in troubled times
& it is interesting that these people have never seen me as a social worker or a community organisor but as a poet who uses his tools to open a passage or twho for the people to fight their circumstances
intellectuals in france have often misread it tho as charite but they forget it is i who has been enriched.
clearly, i have a failing heart but it is one that see & hear (an)other

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 15 2008 15:31 utc | 4

r’giap:
Your heart has never failed this community, my friend.

Posted by: Tantalus | Nov 15 2008 15:57 utc | 5

A little music for RG, with gusto!

Posted by: biklett | Nov 15 2008 16:25 utc | 6

Rememberinggiap, thank you for allowing this wounded world to take shelter in your heart.

Posted by: Alamet | Nov 15 2008 17:08 utc | 7

i know that i have share some of this before here but i think it needs re-telling under our circumstances
what little wisdom i can pull from this life – in the midst of it – is to risk, to always risk
at a little more than 15 i left school where i was condemned as remedial perhaps even retarded – & i chose to become a traitor to my country & serve the people of vietnam. i knew even then that there could be very grave consequences – it was not innocent – it was instinctual. what beauty i posses today was born in being a traitor. what jou i felt when the vietnamese finally won the victory
in the sectarian communist party i belonged i was trained by the chinese to be a perfect cadre – iron & unfeeling – instead they taught me my own compassion & its importance & they taught me the meaning of being exemplary
these same comrades encourage me to risk & return to finish the schooling where i had been humiliated & i did. & i did very well – with honours
i was ‘cultivated’ to be amongst our cadre in higher education but i knew that the poetry i wrote was the best of me & even tho i studied some time – it was to poetry’s body that i belonged
when the chinese told their lies about chile & i was working amongst exiles – i risked to leave the only family i had ever known. i was extremely frightening. when you have been in a vanguard organisation for these formative years – to leave it was heartbreaking & soul destroying. in the first moments of that risk, i was lost, deeply lost
i risked & i found life amongst grreks, chileans, colombians, el salvadorians nigerians, italian – they taught me the simple things – to eat, to talk, to communicate, to laugh, to love
& their love was important very, very important in the first 10 years of my vocation as a poet because i was attacked from all fronts on the literary & cultural milieu – they knew instinctively i was their enemy
i knew as walter benjamin had sd, in culture what was required was not spiritual renewal – but technical innovation & there were many years in search of that where i was lost again – while my contemporaries became doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers & journalists
in the battle for that innovation i lost my body also, nearly lost my mind but my heart pulsed as if it worked seperately from me
i have told you that once i was invited to be on the programme of an international arts festival & the attacks that came upon me were almost unbearable. murdochs papers – accused me of political & artistic extremism (it is a little ironic, that later much later – they would have in their national paper an article ‘glorifying’ my work here in france – but then i had become quite used to the demonisation/deïfication paradigm) they used every method they could to expell me from that programme but the director – who was in fact the initiator of the rocky horror show defended my work to the end
at each turn – there were seductions but they were never tempting because i knew that ‘literary life’ would kill me quicker than the drugs & booze i had been using to derange my senses
& then i risked in one moment to stop that derangement – to no longer use any medium or filter through which to live this life & it was not easy because modern life – even at best – is little short of barbaric
i was invited to canada to write & ditrct a work – but waht was happening in fact was a well known artist wanted to buy the ‘meaning’ that had eluded them – at that time in my life the seduction of being honoured & paid well for that – was an attack i had not imagined nor knew how i would respond & i responded instinctually with risk – i opposed it & left it to return to a country where my coming death was dinnertable talk
at a certain moment i decided to risk all again & come back to france (i had known here well from 1977) but i came here with nothing, almost no teeth, a language i barely held between my lips & a future that even here seemed to be dark
& in france for really the first time i allowed myself to be published (it is true that i was published elsewhere but often by my comrades of the will or intellect) but here i was published by someone who had introduced paul celan, aigui & others to france – my history was nothing to her only the work & paradoxically that consecration allowed me to live with that fat better
because of my talent & my exoticism even my cunning it was very easy to have chosen a ‘literary life’ – instead i risked again to go amongst the people i was borne to & to teach those who were called the wretched of the earth of whom i was any case a member. it was not a difficult decision because what you learn as a creator is that the ‘trace’ is the real source of wonderment
i have done this for a long time now & it is clear i will die doing it
the risk was the only path ever, really. any other would have been a dead end
& then this community entered my life & it has not been nothing. on the contrary it has brought another richness – forced me to turn myself inside out & see the world through different eyes. the computer & screen i work with now, here – is a gift of b & this community – that is a gift in an entirely different way than capitalist social relations would determine. in the very dark times the worst, questions, interrogations, disagreements, fights have brought somethinng a little holy in my existence
& yes it is a risk for us to speak here for us – you don’t need to be too paranoid to see how much our societies depend on surveillance to quell their fear never understanding that it is wonderment & the desire of wonderment which is the natural cousin of compassion that drives us to communicate with each other.
so for me to write here is a sacred task even when i am only capable of crying & clawing
so risk on the individual level is the other soldier in struggle in trying to live decently in this world & if i could describe the character of the people who wrote here – it would not be wrong to decribe them as being decent – in a waythat would have the cruel doctor james dobson screaming like a hyena under the desk in the ancient office of that dead monster senator jesse helms
this is a way of telling you – that from wherever we come from – no matter our differences – we are brothers & sisters in struggle & in this moment that fact is central both to the act of living & being political in a world that would wish to emasculate it
avec tendresse

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 15 2008 18:19 utc | 8

This is great r’giap. Poets are always showing us the profound spaces, cautioning us where our enthusiams are concerned, holding up a light in the midst of disaster and the darkest places. “To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” can be a poets creed also. Poetry is a passion for me my friend; and I appreciate what you have accomplished.
Keep up the good work. I wish I were where you are now so I could shake your hand.
In my mother’s copy of W.H. Auden, she marked Spring 1940:

“…………………..But
Our ways are revealing; crossing the legs
Or resting the cheek in the hand, we
Hide the mouths through which the Disregarded
Will always enter. For we know we’re not boys
And never will be: part of us all hates life,
And some are completely against it.
Spring leads the truculent sailors into
The park, and the plump little girls, but none
Are determined like the tiny brains who found
The great communities of summer:
Only on battlefields, where the dying
With low voices and not very much to say
Repair the antique silence the insects broke
In an architectural passion,
Can night return to our cooling fibres.
O not even war can frighten us enough,
The last attempt to eliminate the Strange
By uniting us all in terror
Of something known, even that’s a failure
Which cannot stop us taking our walks alone,
Scared by the unknown unconditional dark,
Down the avenues of our longing:
For however they dream they are scattered,
Our bones cannot help reassembling themselves
Into the philosophic city where dwells
The knowledge they cannot get out of;
And neither a Spring nor a war can ever
So condition his ears as to keep the song
That is not a sorrow from the Double Man.
O what weeps is the love that hears, an
Accident occuring in his substance.

Posted by: Copeland | Nov 15 2008 19:24 utc | 9

in the midst of all that are times on the street, in prisons – losses so profound i will never have the skill to tell. vistories of which i will never be able to speak
i have seen things that i want no other human being to have to see – that is a part of why i write
wonderful things like a francoindian dentist who said the world needed to see my smile & gave me teeth
an ex ira sniper who had built homes & pigpens in nicaragua & el salvador who taught me again the meaning of art & retaught me che’s dictum of how a revolyionary is moved by love, thr greek fishermen on hyfra who yaught mr again what it is to be a man
what john coltrane would call some of my favorite things

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 15 2008 19:29 utc | 10

rememberinggiap, thank you for this poem. It is a wondrous interconnected memory that you share, it sparks me.
“here & now
i am conducting/an absent orchestra/wanting to play/a little music”

Posted by: jonku | Nov 15 2008 19:35 utc | 11

Every truth affirms itself in the destruction of nonsense. Every truth is thus essentially destruction. Everything that simply conserves is simply false. The field of Marxist knowledge is always a field of ruins.
– Alain Badiou: Theory of Contradiction

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 15 2008 20:13 utc | 12

giap have been considering lately the events around “of thesis
initiated by lenin/in railway carriage/funded by germans/” a great deal and your words are helping to crystallise my thoughts.
eg was that railway journey the start of a revolution, or the end of one where the people’s energy having solidified to reach critical mass and finally create a society dedicated to the needs of the mass, was diverted into the grasp of the new elite, or was it just another railway trip an ‘important event’ only because we have been told it was important but with no real effect on the world other than in the shadow world where lackeys document the history that the powerful imagine/pretend/wish occurred.
These disparate events and emotions are tempting to try to make sense of but perhaps we only need know them. We know them from your words and maybe that is enough. Why do we have to imagine that they have some portentous rhythm?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Nov 15 2008 21:03 utc | 13

beautiful ben webster

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 15 2008 23:55 utc | 14

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Posted by: Frer Jacob | Nov 16 2008 3:30 utc | 15

So glad to see this posted forward. You are a treasure here r’giap.

Posted by: anna missed | Nov 16 2008 6:07 utc | 16

Moving… Motion — need for
Watching a community from afar and yet sharing their intimate dreams
an ethnographer’s perfect world
Yet there is this affection that forced the separating glass to break
but, there is little to be seen on the other side of this mirror
A lot is still concealed by the same risk aversion – the need for security
Rememberinggiap, thank you for being a hammer in our world of illusionist mirrors
Thank you for the functional esoptron, letting us see in awe what it means to be brave
Stay strong

Posted by: Balkan identity | Nov 16 2008 6:56 utc | 17

orchestrating oblivion
out here
in there
wherever that was
it was
way we worked
those days
them nights
leadbelly listed
this & other
things to thoughtless
person who dropped
wax on disk
that kept on
rotating this way
a little
that way whatever
it was
it was
when
i lived
above crash
repairs to whatever
came colliding
into colloqium
we were
convening for crowd
whoever they were
they were
singing of seas
something from ecclesiastes
something like that
perhaps another
page pulled
from fire
berlin thirties
whenever that was
it was
not so
long ago
men made much
of matters metaphysical
so they say
here & there
wherever we were
we were
suffering storms
so it is
said somewhere
where we are
falling without
parachutes promised
perhaps for prophet
when he comes
& it is
most certain
it will
be he
at least that
heidegger held
to be
true or false
difficult question
for german
this day
that night
whenever that was
isherwood inserted
prick into prophecy
he called hans
we will call
helmut for all
difference it makes
no difference
at all

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 16 2008 16:42 utc | 18

fifty six
at cross-roads
expecting to meet
man with contracts
i fall over
into a ditch
watch him pass
with an angel
i thought i
knew
but didn’t
fifty – seven
imagining
myself in oran
sometime in sixties
at beginning
more or less
searching for soldier
to protect interests
forgotten when leaving
home for battlefront
wherever that was
usually in cities
hiding behind arras
watching boy
from rouen
who was sent
away
after attending althusser’s
classes on contradiction
so he could
torture a teacher
from f l n
now sleeping
with a gun
near his head
waiting for mullah
to mention man
as forbidden fruit
that we can
reject
out of hand
that is calling
out to prayer
fifty – eight
being an addict
& self little other
than a theme
i have trouble
elaborating an enunciation
that can be
heard through hollow
of tree
i’m biting
my way through
to other
side
fifty – nine
born so brutal
i became beautiful
by breaking
every bone
in my body
sixty
wandering through card
pack of wolves
follow me thoroughly
picking up scent
(possessions thrown
into street)
as another kind
of gift grieved
before a god
who
will not
come
out of habit
or any other
exercise
you might have
dreamed up down
when you were
standing in line
before boundary
breaking bread
for brotherhood
coming around corner
carrying a standard
with your face
stencilled on it
was a warning
sixty – one
having
undergone vagabond tutelage
at hand
of old scholars
who took marxism
seriously thank you
very much
i was made
prince of all
i could survey
dominions i determined
sometime when sixteen
perhaps even younger
than young gramsci
young marx old
stalin very old
perhaps my grandfather
who fought great
patriotic war
for me
& my class
whoever they were
i could not
find them
& that was
perhaps their victory
who can tell
on which side
walls would fall
as they did
not long after
if we call
two decades century
in which
all collapsed inward
somewhere near grave
of a certain brecht
who vowed
& kept promise
that he would
never do anything
to harm soviet union
except be german
& all that
means to men
crude measurements
for most
sophisticated technicians
joined secret service
betrayed everybody
including them
selves & so became
prophets of what
would come
sixty – two
tell me
whether it is
trick of light
or cloud formations
making me see
affiche in archive
with your visage
in this street
somewhere in paris
where i am
barely person
i know
that i am
skilled
enough to be
character in lear
for example perhaps
hamlet to himself
speaking to apparitions
& other soldiers
fulfilling duty
sixty – three
requiring salvation
whatever that is
it is hit
& miss proposition
that i am
not prepared
to gamble
with what
i have
in my pockets
billowing sails on junk
sinking in china
sea of people
where i am
fish out
of water
sixty – four
providence i have
pretended to pursue
perpendicular to prophecy
gauged by grids
i am extracting
from brief
case i’m opening
on a bed
in third arrondisement
on this day
when heart hole
or at least
changed into channel
i can switch
on & off
sixty – five
burying past
with help
of barbarians
i have habit
of believing
on essential matters
so it’s said
somewhere in scripture
soldered onto skin
that is still
beautiful after all
these years
sixty – six
testimony to truth
i am unskilled
enough to enunciate
everywhere except
amongst angels
sixty – seven
a love supreme
church
so they say
somewhere in new
york honouring coltrane
reasonable base
as any
& a man
closer to god
in this time
hard to find
sixty – eight
listening to saxophone
this saturday
after looking
at francis bacon
through book shop
window i stare
at a plate
of some painting
he did blind
drunk sometime in soho
then fucked some stevedore
who had talent
for languages
& use for tongue
licking edges
of scream
you hear
when opening
window permitting fire
out
sixty – nine
poem a raga
of rage
sung through this
season i am
seventy
student so still
in fortieth year
whatever that amounts
to in books
being held tightly
by beautiful boddhisattva
who wants
to tell me
her name exotic
though nothing is
these days tumult
such a sound
i am used
to a tempest
on hour
at every hour
maya a metaphor
i am living
learned as legend
leaning against books
commenting
on an accident
we will
call a career
because that is
efficient way
of describing dread

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 17 2008 18:53 utc | 19

thank you for sharing these w/ the community, r’giap!

Posted by: b real | Nov 17 2008 19:51 utc | 20

It is a great pleasure to know that we are people at the other end of the wire, not just opinions and positions. Thank you for all you have done, and for your example.
I’d like to share an old joke about the Isaiah passage about the lion lying down with the lamb (the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls – and inspire humorous anecdotes). Imagine a time of traveling circuses with sideshows, one of which is titled “The Peaceable Kingdom” – a lion and a lamb in the same cage.
The local newspaper reporter is interviewing the proprietor, and asks if there is ever any trouble between the two. “No, not really,” is the reply. “Every once in a while they have a minor disagreement – but new lambs aren’t expensive.”
The impresario’s calculating indifference perfectly exemplifies the attitude of the MICFiC [M ilitary I ndustrial Fi nancial C orporate media complex], which is a conspiracy to “milk, shear and slaughter the sheeple, figuratively speaking” – except that the slaughter is literal.
I’m reminded of Saying 7 of the Gospel of Thomas, “Fortunate is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And foul [cursed] is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion will become human.”
Although we have the nearly complete text of the Gospel of Thomas only in a Coptic version, it is most likely that it was written originally in koine, New Testament Greek – and that the conversations between Jesus and his disciples which it allegedly reports were conducted in Aramaic.
Taking the liberty of revising the words, which are already several times removed from whatever Jesus said, if anything – which was not written down at the time, but rather became part of an oral tradition collated by more than one author, with differing assumptions, objectives, and audiences, to create the panoply of Gospels circulating in the first centuries of the Christian era, only some of which were declared canonical – to provide a “Living Bible”-like paraphrase which, however true to the original it is, is at least suited to my own limited perception, and solves the problem of interpretation for the reader by removing apparent ambiguity, I propose the following:
Blessed is the lion that the human eats, so that the lion’s energy nourishes the human being.
And cursed is the human consumed by the lion, so that the human’s spirit is lowered to the animal’s level.

Posted by: mistah charley phd | Nov 17 2008 23:17 utc | 21

something told me to stop by the moon tonight. how lovely to find christopher’s poetry. i hope you don’t mind that i call you by name. reading your poetry here, i remember the cadences, hearing you speak it. knowing this, it seems odd to refer to you at this moment as rgiap. thank you for sharing more beauty born of pain, wonderment, and love. and, b, thank you for posting it in a place where this passerby could not miss it. i am humbled once again. continue to fill the notebooks. i wish i could be in nantes to hear you read and see what i am certain is a brilliant collaboration with the musicians. much love to you and stay strong.

Posted by: sharon | Nov 18 2008 5:52 utc | 22

sharon & all the gang here
health, very far from perfect & sometimes my lifelong melancholy risks to swing a little in depresssions aisle – but i work enough for wonderment to at least balance that & in any case the heart/diabetes/stomach medicines constitute a very katushya rocket launcher inside my body already
no, it is correct to use my name, sharon – the question of anonymity in my case is not a political question & i say the same thing here as i would in public as you know – perhaps one day sarko will give me a rap across the fingers. but i do understand for comrades elsewhere here – that anonymity might be a very real need
hope you are working. working well
i understand too that its a rough time at the moment for most of us & i certainly can’t see it getting better, soon
(just a little aside – was watching a press conf – of that little himmler haydn from the cia – & his tic made for very uncompfortable viewing & the same true of paulson – they appear not a little mad & can’t see how any person in their right mind would put any trust in them or their pronouncements)
tho it is dark – we are ‘privileged’ to live in this historical moment when all that is solid melts into air

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Nov 18 2008 17:25 utc | 23

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