Under a Yin Yang Moon

(Yin Yang symbol)

©2004

A. Neil Meili

For Katherine

who came to see

(photo of Katherine)

CONTENTS

KATHERINE

HIGH FLIGHT (BY MAGEE)

CLIMBOUT SUNSETS

POETS OF AUSTIN

DINNER WITH ROBERT BLY

PATRIOT ACT

THANKSGIVING

BARBARIANS 2003 AD

THE WALL

GRANOLA GRENADES FOR GANDHI

HOPE FLOWERS

MARILYN FOREVER

INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004

GRACELETS

STRING TOO SHORT TO SAVE

ELBOW ME ELMO

SLAVE

IN MEMORY STILL

THROWN

THE NEW ARCHETYPES

WHO’S DRIVING YOUR CAR

A VALENTINE’S POEM

FORGIVENESS

NEVER MORE BEAUTIFUL

WAKE TURBULENCE

How did Mary, and how does any mother

manage to hold

Divinity on one hand, a diaper in the other

KATHERINE

Like Caesar before her

she slipped sideways into life

and then full speed forward

Wonderful combination of

vini vidi vici and coochie coochie coo

Joining a legacy of courage and beauty

Saint Katherine and Hepburn too

They may be mentioned in threes

before she’s through

HIGH FLIGHT

By John Gillespie Magee

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

and danced the skies on laughter silvered

wings; sunward I’ve climbed and joined

the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds –

and done a hundred things you have not

dreamed of – wheeled and soared and

swung high in the sunlit silence.

Hov’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting

wind along, and flung my eager craft

through footless hall of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the windswept heights with

easy grace where never lark, or even

eagle flew.

And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

the high untrespassed sanctity of space

put out my hand, and touched the face of

God.

John Gillespie Magee Jr.

A young American, flew with the Royal Canadian Air

Force in England early in WWII, and was killed

shortly after he composed the poem.

CLIMBOUT SUNSETS

John Gillespie Magee

slipped the surly bonds of earth

reached out and touched the face of God

Planes are bigger and faster now

I in my Aero Commander

commander of the air

Climbing at dusk have set the sun

on the lip of the world

and held it there

Have rode the Concorde

faster than the speed of sound

and faster than the earth goes round

that can lift it up where it went down

And there are times I’d best the lark

to try to hold or yet turn back

baby’s smiles and love’s first spark

I think Magee, the reverence would see

as we all fight the dying of the light

and try to touch the Sistine finger

a little longer before night

POETS OF AUSTIN

(for Thom and the gang)

Just keep writing, just keep writing

The results are not for us to know

Just keep sowing what you sow

Nobody holds it against Johnny

that all the apple seeds didn’t grow

DINNER WITH ROBERT BLY

Bly orders oysters like Hafiz and Rumi

Richest food on the menu

Swallows them whole

Offers them to all who share his table

PATRIOT ACT

There are thousands now

coming back from Iraq

one legged and deaf and blind

dragging the dead they left behind

Yet they speak so well

of those who sent them to that hell

That they are true patriots may be a fact

and that this is how true patriots act

Or could article one thirty four be the reason

where one critical word and your pension is

gone plus five years in the brig for treason

THANKSGIVING

The natives did share their food with the

first settlers

But

It is well documented

though not well known

that the first official thanksgiving

(proclaimed by the Governor of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637)

was in celebration of a massacre of 700 Pequot

men, women, and children gathered together

for their own dance of thanks

Ordered out of their home they were shot as

they came forth; those who stayed inside

were burned alive

We have a long history of freedom

We have freed the Americans from America

We are now freeing the Iraqis from Iraq

There will be feasting when the boys

come back

BARBARIANS 2003 AD

We thought of ourselves as people of culture.

How long will it be till others see us that way again?

Iraqi friend of poet Naomi Nye

The collected works of Hafiz

Still outsell the Koran in Iran

Today in Baghdad bombs and fear

scattered lovers of Rumi and Kabir

Museum of modern man’s cradle

lost eighty centuries in a day

Book starved minds, educated thumbs

video game cowboys blew it all away

We thought ourselves people of culture

how long before we can look

at ourselves that way again

THE WALL

Walls are for wailing

and also for tumbling down

Unconscious fears rise in concrete form

Conscious choices less visible rise with it

Inside and out of the builders and the wailers

there are a million voices

starting to hum that old Jericho tune

GRANOLA GRENADES FOR GANDHI

Even God himself dare not appear to a starving man,

Except in the form of bread

Mahandas Gandhi

So many fellow women and men today

down a the corner of have and have not

asking for a little of what we’ve got

Flying cardboard signs that say

“I’m a hungry homeless vet”

or one I saw the other day

“they repo’d my Lear Jet”

Being a poet what I mostly have is words

but remembering the words of Gandhi

I decide instead of something to read

I’ll give them what they really need

It’s simple enough, just take an elastic band

and wrap three dollar bills around a bar

you can place them in their hand

or you can throw them pretty far

If monks balance the world with prayer

perhaps these souls balance it with pain

So if they don’t like granola, that’s O.K. by me

the carnivores can afford to attack a Big Mac

and the thirsty are half way to a six pack

HOPE FLOWERS

In Bethlehem

a refugee with sadness but no hate decreed

another generation is what we need

And a school where

the children of the refugees of holocausts and

refugees of refugees can learn together

learn to look inward first

This is a most beautiful and special place

with such regard for dignity and respect

so successful in their message of love

so filled with fairness to each side

That Arafat’s Palestinians burn their buses

and Israelis torture teachers and riddle walls

While Caterpillers sent from across the sea

creep closer each day in their wonderful

mindless mechanical way

with leveling intent

To be met with Gandhi smiles

and your help, if you give it

www.hope-flowers.org

MARILYN FOREVER

Many men

may pray to Mary

but many more men to Marilyn

With Marilyn

on calendar or window sill

time stands still and always will

It is Marilyn

who always forgives

even when we forget to pray

It is Marilyn

who knows that we are all Misfits

too fragile for the roles we are asked to play

(image of Marilyn stamps)

INDIAN RIVER, ONTARIO 2004

Above waterfall

In circle of highest pine

green showers down

By the waterfall

body rests in hammock

cells rush to the sea

Below waterfall

power beyond soap and rub

washes off city

Lying by the bank

trees holding blue hammock

lift it to the sky

Indian River

Great Blue Heron stands

wise Tibetan monk

GRACELETS

Because Gloria needed a new word

for those brief magic shining moments

A word for when the fox looking over

her shoulder as she sketched in the woods

A word for when the pure white horse

trailing black reins came thundering

past her and a friend on a snow white day

For the sunsets that cover the whole sky

double rainbows when grandmothers die

and a circular rainbow that held you and I

Sheet lightning eating its tail in a circle

Northern lights that start in a point over

your head and shower around you

For the magic of weaving our gracelets when

we meet to remind us of magic in each of

our lives and in each other

Because of all of this, it is now your word too

Thank you, Gloria

STRING TOO SHORT TO SAVE

THE NRA IS RIGHT

They may need those guns

to defend themselves against

those they put in office

READY

Trying to get my poetry ready

for when the world is ready

for poetry

TRUTH TO TELL

It is well to learn

the lies we learned to tell

will not make us well

IF A NOVEL

Is a mirror walking down a road

then a poem is a mirrored room

convex on the ceiling

concave on the floor

WE ARE THE FISH

So afraid of other fish

we crawled up onto the shore

ALMS IN THE LAND OF ALLAH

And it will all be returned to you

multiplied ten fold

heaped up and running over

MADRID, MARCH 2004

God, Spain again

scraping Guernica’s from

walls of trains

PERHAPS IT ISN’T BY CHANCE

Woman is shaped like a wound

man like a lance

CANADIANS SPEAKING

In the apologetic case

type eh? behavior

EVENINGS SO QUIET

You can hear the chameleons

changing to their darker suits

ELBOW ME ELMO

They are Xing out Xmas again

at the big department store chain

In the land that has taken the job

of saving the world from the mob

Pushing and showing, mean and obscene

was a frenzy that a last crust African

or boycotted Iraqi has never seen

And the red in the Amazon river

is not the blood of the cow

But a million Piranhas

blushing in shame

SLAVE

I react badly to slavery

because my first instinct

is to succumb and survive

I react badly to slavery

because I am a very bad slave

always plotting the death of my master

IN MEMORY STILL

(or computers byte)

You keep popping up in my memory

On old disks I find love notes

still as loving as when they were entered

Faxes, letters, poems, thoughts

full of beauty full of trust

Valentine’s poems, three of them

overflowing with sensual exaltation

wisdom exchanged, depths plumbed

promises made

Fresh and clean and bright

as the day they were written

lines that would go on forever

lines that still go on forever

I don’t know how to tell the little ones

and zeros that we’re now apart

it might break their heart

THROWN

You know that old expression

“you threw me when you said that”

Well, “you threw me when you said that”

I was on a quarter horse once

turning a barrel like only a quarter horse can

when the cinch broke

Centrifugally flung, I hung

a long moment speeding lateral in the air

before I remembered

how to roll up and hit the ground

without being hurt too bad

“You really threw me when you said that”

I didn’t have time to remember to roll

THE NEW ARCHETYPES

Apollo is still locked into the light

Dionysus still dancing our darkness

Mars and friends are still busy at war

and Aphrodite’s still getting her way

The old Archetypes will never go away

but we have some new ones here today

Elvis is the King

John Wayne is the Duke

and Marilyn is Marilyn

Babe is the babe and the Boss is the Boss

Diana the Huntress has become the prey

It doesn’t matter if they’ve come

from Mt. Olympus or Hollywood U.S.A.

they’re in us now, and they’re in play

WHO’S DRIVING YOUR CAR

The Siamese twins

had to move to England

so the other one could drive

The part of you that drives to the office

is not the one who arrives at the beach

The one who bought the purple dress

is not the one who won’t let you wear it

The one who got the license first

always wants to drive

While everyone else in your psychic car

the ones that can think

and the ones that can feel

all fight for their turn at the wheel

While it so often seems that the you

that includes and is more than them all

Is back in the boot, or trunk if you like

bound and gagged and tied up inside

just going along for the ride

A VALENTINES POEM

(For Dorsey 2004)

The beauty of the rose always

outweighs the pain

of the thorn

In this same spirit I would pray

that Valens be forgiven

their times

Only when we bleed can we see

what lives within

the heart

FORGIVENESS

And the first sword

that I beat into a plowshare

must be the one that injured me

NEVER MORE BEAUTIFUL

(For Lee Cherry)

Visited last year and again last month

with old friend in Lee in Tennessee

Ten years and more of cancer

and that Chattanooga choo choo

may be pulling out soon

The skin has become

more and more transparent

the soul more and more shining through

I expect by the next time we drop in

a floating glimpse of Alice’s cat

with a Mona Lisa grin

WAKE TURBULENCE

Deep in the night the great horned owl

strokes silence with silence

If you land a small plane behind a 747

(Don’t land a small plane behind a 747)

If you land a small plane behind a 747

the invisible vortex from its wingtips

can toss you back into the air

or slap you hard into

the ground

Behind the great owl

the softness of its passing hangs in the air

(photo of baby (Katherine) in baby tub)

Back Quote

Our duty, then, as we understand it,

is to express what is unheard of.

- Pablo Neruda