Wednesday, December 31, 2014

two poems with one heart shared with you-all

Aperture

These that are things and not things both
They pepper the landscape
The landscape that is so and not so both
I walk amongst them
The I that is not an I after all, yet somehow is

It's not that I wonder about this apparent conundrum
As in feeling troubled or some kind of loss
Rather it is there or with it that I belong
Nothing of this casts me aside
All things that I am and am not Rest here

Whose favor would I garner
To look upon this any differently
Seeing is a communion after all
That each and every one of us
Has within the very fabric of being

Ultimately there is no such thing as compromise
And yet how often is there a sensation
Of All of This somehow tangled
Around my ankles that I possess
The I that has no counterpart

As we see through this aperture
Closure is a function of clarity
Focus celebrating the visual spectrum
Saturating this field in the unseen
An exposé of brilliance and crystallization



Open Open Open

This light pouring forth as everything
needs no on/off switch
Has no sign in the door
indicating readiness for business

And yet we play at the controls
and let us play
in the true order of things
transparent, wild, open without its opposite

This is Yes without a No
Form and formless seamlessly joined
Cacophony and symphony just as it is
We are playing this tune

Let us play
Let us play
No need to petition anything
Amongst this playground


Imunuri Poetry Collective Tribute poem - I try to write a poem about the entire universe…while also harvesting kiwis and it opens up a space in me to hear the laughter the Earth makes as it spins, speedily, round in dance, which reminds me of rolling down hills as a child, how, turning, our rolling traced slow circles, and this helps me understand how the tilt of the earth generates the seasons as well as the purpose for our lives….


For Mother Poet Barbara, who passed 12-27-14


I try to pick the atlas sphere like a kiwi ripening
in the cold sudden sunshine. The vine
of the milky way snakes gracefully, hop
ping and bumbling like an absent
minded pro (con)
fessor across the drape of magnolia
branch (ing). I think I hear ka (achoo)
zoos faintly. Feintly, feintingly
up on the lad(ud)der of gaia-kiwi-plucking
all-seeing, my vision zooms in on the
burgundy polka
dot ladybug irridescing.
We are these kiwis, worlds, galaxies:
of poets and poems.
We are the ladybugs tending the vines of connecting.

For years now, Imunuri poets, we’ve been up on ladders
plucking kiwi-poems from the arbor of gaia’s hair/the constellations of
the nearby universe. We have landed our pens on the passing asteroids
of ancient ideas, giving novel voice (seasonally arising now for tens of
thousands of years) to what has always been true. Hasn’t it?
We have been shout-singing praise-songs, plucking kiwis in
buckets, word-phrases in stanzas, prompting ourselves
up in the morning, into the thick vines, in gruff denim and swaddled in
sweaters of analogy, allegory, and allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the poetry of the united states (stars/kiwis) of imunuri…
If I am you and you are I, perhaps we are the kiwis, tangy swaddled in
brown hairy cocoons of temporary breath, plucked by the planetary
presences who are in carhartts and fleece. The earth grips us,
this day-being of us, this seasonal kiwi, thinking of how
to savor the kiwi-sweet-juice of us, our poem-songs a kind
of planetary nourishment, ingredients for a meal for the belly of gaia.

In which case, we have generated 148 recipes for gaian delight, we have
gingered the bananas, sautéed our metaphors in crisp, delicious
words, added the core holy spices of love and presence. We
have lit the fire (holy) with the freshness of our poetic breath.

Now we pause, having jumped, walloped, read, spun, sung, earthed,
tenderizing these verses for Earthly sauté. We have been the supple
soufflé, the stirring spoon, the serving fork. We have spun the plates and
gathered up the goblets, hummed the flowing libations into
poetry as offering for the universe unfurling, who is a clatch of chattering
kiwi pluckers, in for a break, air cold as breath, the breath clouds
themselves. All this. And the earth herself too, and the galaxies and planets.
I am you and you are I is not only about humuns; more so projective
empathy and cross-species, cross-being , cross-scale symbiosis. Hunkering at puters,
plunkering at ukuleles, in cafes from California to Oregon, in the dim dark possibilities of poem-birthing night, plucking kiwis, offering these sweet
juicy tastes of
delight to the maker-spheres of our heaven on earthing.

Definitely part of something big, spare, whole. Jumping through,
I come back to you, who, reading this, run the hand on the back of your neck
and yes you feel the kiwi fuzz there, you just start to turn around as you sense
the giant Gaian hand hovering for the pluck. We are being tended, gardened,
and poem-harvested for the delight of things so much larger than us
that all that’s needed, feeling the whisper air of the Earth-hand hovering to
pluck the juicy kiwi skin of us from the vine ripening weave of our connection,

all we
(can) do is
grin. 

grin the gaian grin of deep knowing
that we are ripe and ready for the festival (feast of alls) of earthly delight
which as we well know
helps the Earth, rolling down a hill on a summer day,
warm, over the voluption of grassy stars, starry night
nourishes the Gaian spin


Scooter Cascadia
12-31-14

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Danger and Delight of the Snake Dance as it brings us Death / Rebirth / Transmutation / Transfiguration...

                                         "Tiles"   cement / copper / silver solder  ~ Rachel L.

Joy and Dancing to you Dear Hearts!

I look forward to being invited to the next incarnation of Imunuri.
xoxo,
Rachel

Going our own way Together



I’M
drum solo
unburied from the ashes of a pit fire,
hand painted instruments in hand,
headed north to join
IMUNURI
poets,
in the cascades of their lives,
(UN)der
Mt. Hood
to blow cornets  in Portland 
neighborhoods
to pitch our words 
into Northern Light
mutations of our poetry
incense burning tonight.
U-R-I

******************************************************  

IMUNURI
A gathering heard
in Northern cafes,
online weekly
in Richmond CA
in Portland OR
in Taos NM
prompted by lively  writer spirits
to play with words
to pen poems
to riff together
now the song ends after
one last chorus
“Going our own way Together”


Adios Imunuri


*********************************************************
and an echo of an earlier post (from Drum Solo)

The Finish Line

breathless at last/
happy to have left
a few poems behind the
finish line
*******************************************************











Saturday, December 20, 2014

Centrifugal force

Start in the center and move toward the edge.
Born of my mother, I’m moving that way.
Stones on the landscape are sometimes engraved.
    People I’ve moved with—all moving that way,
pausing to sigh on the narrowest ledge.

Once I pretended that I was a judge,
verdict and sentence my privilege to say.
Robed in that power—such power to taste—
    mercy or penalty, my right to say.
When the game ended, the rules had not budged.

Orders I give should be begged from the knees.
Centrifugal force preempts my request.
    Comfort my journey, I pray from the knees,
me and my loved ones and all of the rest.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

IMUNURI Closure: Looking Back

Pink pig bed by Lauren Ari
The first IMUNURI prompt was "Doorway Into Balance." The directive was to meditate on the symbolic Door, and stand in a doorway in order to write.

Way back in 2010, we posted as comments on the prompt rather than as top-level posts. Since then, between you and I, we have posted many hundreds of poems here: free verse, formal poems, experiments, various types of art, video and audio files, explorations, epics—writings. 

Now your hosts sense a high tide of change upon us. We see IMUNURI isn't just changing participants or page design. It is passing through a more significant doorway.

We will invite you to participate in the big re-steering in the new year, but for now, we'd like you to post one more time.

We'd like everyone who has ever posted here at IMUNURI to post again.
 You can take "looking back" as a prompt; or "looking ahead."
You might re-post your favorite prior post, or post a new version of it, or a reply to it.
Or you can post something brand new.
You could put up a draft that never made it.
You could write in response to this artwork.
Or write a prose recollection of blogging here,
or post something that has no relation to IMUNURI except for appearing here.Write about closure or transition.
Pen a sonnet or a catawamp.
Write about spiders or Liberace. (Remember that one?)

Your choice is as wide open as capital U, so please bless this closure with your voice.

Please post before midnight on December 31, 2014.

 Label your post with the keywords closurepoem, and your name/handle.
Direct any questions to efflux at sonic.net