exiled modalities - venetia ghozlan's poetry zone

Venetia's posts with tag: flor y cantos

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Ai Ya Yi (A Death Flor y Canto)

Jul 12, '08 8:43 AM
for everyone

http://maya-archaeology.org/museums/popolvuh/images/mayan_art_quiche_mayaurn.jpg

ai ya yi
growing up
I dreamt of Mayan death chants
instead of flowers
how could I not
surrounded by all that sacrificial red ichor
and the sheep
who chanted for more

for the few
repelled by this religious fevour
twinned with murder
eventually we too, became meat
to feed those hungry masses
and as the knife plunged...hearts were torn
asunder
from our bodies
and tossed in burial cenotes

ai ya yi
they did not care that
parents had spun the genetic roulette wheel
and begotten us
unique
daughters and sons of Quetzalcōhuātl
in the end
we were nothing -
fodder for conquistadores feasts
and male Mayan priests

I tell you true
no difference existed between those two
predators
ai ya yi
es verdad
this is the truth
los muertos son muertos
dead is dead
even for unique flowers
of the gods

art lifted from -
www.maya-archaeology.org

Tags: flor y cantos, the graveyard shift

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Flor y Canto - Sacred Dreaming ( A Sacred Song Space Offering and a Wednesday Poetry Entry )

Jan 15, '08 6:17 PM
for everyone

This is very much a work in progress...I belong to a lovely poetry group, called Sacred Song Space...

hmmm...I like experimenting with different poetic forms, from other cultures. Please forgive my awkward attempt, at a flor y canto. What is a flor y canto? The Aztecs had a developed a form of oral poetry, referred to metaphorically as "in xōchitl in cuīcatl" (the flower, the song), which was often sung to music. The Aztecs did not rely on rhyme but on a delicate balance of accented and unaccented syllables and a vast symbolism that reflected their culture. They also established "Houses of Songs" in order to train young poets and conduct various poetry contests.

I have secret dreams and hopes
that are sacred perhaps
to no one else
but me.

I have a fancy for freedom
mine and yours
a hope that visionaries
will be treasured and respected
instead of mocked or assassinated
a reverent reverie
for divine believers.

To be a dreamer, a sacred seeker
can be dangerous
ask King, Gandhi,
Sa’id Hamami* and Deyda Hydara*,
Jean Léon Jaurès *, Bernadotte af Wisborg* and Óscar Romero*
let us not forget Anna Lindh* and Annalena Tonelli*
or Bettina Goislard* and Agathe Uwilingiyimana
all these dreamers, hopers and sacred singers.

We have sought insights and sacred dreaming
through pharmacopoeia
the soma of the Hindus,
peyotl of the ancient Mayans and Incans,
hashish of the Arabs,
the opium of Asia
honored sibyllines*, oneiocritikoi*, seers and augurs
when they told us
what we wanted to hear
excoriated them for failed prognostication
let me tell you a secret -
we are all born with the possibility
of being seekers, singers, sacred dreamers
one just needs to find the sacredness
within.

FYIs:

1. Sa’id Hamami - he was assassinated in London on January 4, 1978, by the Fatah Revolutionary Council, led by Sabri al-Banna (also known as BU NIDAL). His crime was seeking peace between Isrealies and Palestinians.

2. Deyda Hydara - was a co-founder and primary editor of the Point, a Gambiannewspaper. He was also a correspondent for both AFP News AgencyReporters Without Borders for more than 30 years.Hydara was an advocate of press freedom and a fierce critic of the government of President Yahya Jammeh, who has been openly hostile to Gambian journalists and the media. On December 16, 2004, Hydara was killed in his car by unidentified gunmen; two of his colleagues were also injured.

3. Jean Léon Jaurès - French socialist, radical activist of the French left. Founder of l'Humanité. Assassinated by the extreme nationalist Raoul Villain in 1914.By 1893 he was a Socialist, aligned with the Independent Socialists, but was never a Marxist, believing that Marxism gave undue weight to the role of material interests in history, and favouring a gradualist approach to democratic socialism.In 1894 Jaurès leant his support to the campaign to free Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew jailed for treason based on forged evidence and this cost Jaures the election in 1898.

4. Bernadotte af Wisborg - was a Swedish diplomat noted for his negotiation of the release of about 15,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War II.[1] In 1945, he received a German surrender offer from Heinrich Himmler , though the offer was ultimately rejected.After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen by the victorious powers to be the United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947-1948. He was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948 by members of the underground group Lehi while pursuing his official duties.

5. Óscar Romero - commonly known as Monseñor Romero, was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador. He later became the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador, succeeding the long-reigning Luis Chávez y González. As archbishop, he witnessed ongoing violations of human rights and started a group which spoke out to the poor and also victims of the country's civil war. Chosen to be archbishop for his conservatism, once in office his conscience led him to embrace a non-violent form of liberation theology, a position that has led to comparisons with Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Later, in 1980, he was assassinated by gunshot shortly after his homily.

6. Anna Lindh - Sweden’s Foreign Minister, who was murdered days before a key September 2003 referendum on the euro, while shopping in a Stockholm department store. She would say openly what other politicians might only say behind closed doors.

During Sweden's EU presidency she argued forcefully for human rights and called US President George W Bush "the Lone Ranger" for going to war with Iraq.

And just a few days before her death, she spoke out blaming the US and Israel, as well as Yasser Arafat for the crisis in the Middle East. She called suicide bombing atrocities...I greatly admired her...

7. Annalena Tonelli - Italian humanitarian worker who ran a tuberculosis hospital for years. She was murdered in October 2003 in Somalia.

8. Bettina Goislard - worked for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Afghanistan; a 29-year-old French woman, who was shot and killed in November 2003.

9.Agathe Uwilingiyimana - As education minister she abolished the academic ethnic quota system, awarding public school places and scholarships by open merit ranking. This decision earned her the enmity of the Hutu-extremist parties. She was murdered in the opening days, of the Rwandan Genocide. Another woman, I admired...

10. Sibyllines - Greek and literally means: a the lifting of the veil), is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons, of something.

11. Oneiocritikoi, - a special class of diviners, who in ancient Greece were known as interpreters of dreams.

Visit Poetry Wednesday http://sanssouciblogs.multiply.com/journal/item/220?mark_read=sanssouciblogs:journal:220

Tags: sacred song space, flor y cantos

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Flower and Song

Sep 23, '07 1:33 PM
for everyone

my skin forever remembers the touch of your fingers
it is a song mouthed
sub-vocally
echoing
throughout my body
a tattoo, an apostolic see
eternally inked in my skin, my pores
a light, luminously
glittering before these disbelieving eyes
flor y canto, greened and sung
in response to your melody
I
religiously seek my suns rays
amidst a midsummer’s dream

Tags: flor y cantos

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Flor y Canto Series (The Egotist)

Jan 30, '07 12:43 AM
for everyone

she clings to her martyred victim-hood

the list of wrongs and injustices inflicted

fills her with orgasmic satisfactions

like a sonorously chanted Greek tragedy,

or a heartbreakingly painted portrait

(earning her an eternal saint wali bodhisattvas status)

she brandishes her lists of agonies suffered

crosses toted

crown of thorns worn

(oh so fashionably)

just more excuses to excuse the failures in her life

more rationales to rationalize the easily explainable

more lies to manipulate our gullible sensitive sensibilities

(encouraging others to say oh, what a brave poor soul she is)

it never occurs to these sympathizing well meaning friends

to inquire

why she stays with her abuser

or returns to him time and time

again

so much easier for the saint

to blame her life, family, children, friends, circumstances

the moon in Aquarius

or Mars in Venus, perhaps

(she is the ultimate narcissist and breast beater)

so she continues to cry

love me pity me love me pity me

don't save me

I can't won't shan't save

me/self/id/ego/superego/sanity

just bravely continuing to soldier on

and hold her head up bravely, resolutely

singing Onward Christian Soldiers

or maybe I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

something along those lines

I'm sure

(always artistically, dramatically and poignantly performed)

Tags: flor y cantos

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Flor y Canto Series (to an Unbidden Lover)

Jan 24, '07 12:27 AM
for everyone

shall I scry you up with a magical incantation

ink you onto bamboo with a fine calligraphed hand

etch you into scrimshaw after our nightly sojourning

forever immortalized?

when we laid, together

you see, this unbidden fire, it burned

inside

leaving no scarification

but a calcification of longing and hunger

the embers, they lingered

oh they lingered

inside

never doused completely

satisfied, merely momentarily

I have been burnt and branded

aroused and kindled

I am needing to scry you up with a magical incantation

ink you onto bamboo with a fine calligraphed hand

etch you into scrimshaw for endless nightly sojourns

forever immortalized

in me

Tags: flor y cantos

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exiled modalities - venetia ghozlan's poetry zone

Venetia's posts with tag: flor y cantos