Thursday, February 21, 2013

Mwezi // Moon -- February 19, 2013

THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON//Anita Thain Davis

The moon is from my body broke
The ebb and flow of fluids spoke
Moods and tensions highs and lows
Dark side hides bright side shows
What calamity of chaos spawned
What great depth a cavity yawned
Your light emits a memory
That all of you is now my sea
We share the mantle that you wear
I pull to you I want you near
You wax and wane remain remote
Fixed and far since the gods that smote.

THE BLACK MOON//Mustafa Sharif

Is this fear or will I drop tears?
By the feelings hard to bear
Prayers as I see black moon appears

With darkness it covers humanity
And hatred and tainted dignity
May be it shines to swathe the own integrity 

For brighter moon turned black
Might be the call for all to awake
or taking away the hope and turn it fake

Moon once so bright now black?
Till the morning comes, may the brighter sun
Saves us from being doomed


UNTITLED//Eleanor Griplas


The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…

They sit in a circle, the revolving ritual of repeating the words

And each draws a crude lunar image on the floor

The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
Individuals take their turn to figure out the riddle
A stick is passed in a clockwise direction and they repeat
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
Those left in the dark, become the unenlightened
Sometimes frustrated as the mystery eludes them
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
“No sorry, you still haven’t got it ... “ (said mockingly)
A game, a baffling puzzle, annoying, dizzying
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
The circle is dividing and becoming uncomfortable
The section to whom the secret has been revealed,
(Call them the riddle breakers), feel superior and powerful
Those left, become outsiders, figures of ridicule
They are spinning in their own orbit, out of the loop
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
There are now two distinct factions; on opposite sides of the bridge.
Conflict brews. Mistrust grows like a cancer
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
Behavior becomes more extreme, less tolerant
Increasingly hostile, sectoral even, the saved and the unsaved
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
Yet when the game began, they sat together in a perfect circle
But now they differ on how the moon should be drawn
There is a tension where it never existed before
Each draws a moon and repeats the same words
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…
Each of them fundamentally believes the same thing….
That there is a moon and that it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth
How they draw it or even see it, is just from a different angle
But is that any reason to …. shoot? For the moon, surely not
The moon is round it has two eyes, a nose and a mouth…

MWEZI UPI?//Sterling Roop

Kaka 1: Vipi kaka mwezi unasemaje?

Kaka 2: Mwezi upi? Mwezi uliopita au mwezi huu?

Kaka 1: Hujanifahamu kaka mwezi ambao unakaa angani kule juu!

Kaka 2: Ah mwezi ule, kuumbe! Kwasababu ni  ngumu sana kuona muda.

Kaka 1: Lakini kaka, mwezi kule juu unawezesha sisi kufuatilia muda angalia kalenda ya kiislamu.

Kaka 2: Allah!!! Kweli mzee, mwezi ni changamoto. Angalia sura yake.

Kaka 1: Kweli sura yake inaonyesha busara zake na,
 ni kama kioo cha dunia kinaonyesha historia ya dunia.

Kaka 2: Ndiyo, hata sura yake inafanana na uso ya binadamu.

Kaka 2: Dooo, mwezi huu ni bomba! Sijui mwezi ujao utakuwa vipi?

Kaka 1: Ahhh bwana we, tumegeuka!


THE MOON//Mohammed Saleh

There! You see it?
What?
The Moon
You call that the Moon?

Yes!
That thin thread of some crescent
Yes, it’s the new Moon
Holy Cow! The tinniest I’ve ever seen

The silver curve
Hanging up there, peeping at us
Like a thread, thin but slimy
Tomorrow is IDD


Lunar months Hijiria
Alternative for Gregorian
Beats out monstrous Sun
Ever calm, peaceful and silent


Decides Holy days
Fasting and feasting too
Brighter days
When no eating becomes plenty eats

Axing sheep or goat for the alms
Bursting tummies
Togetherness Moon’s reckoning

Just for a while we see it
Surely only the observant see
Soon it will disappear


Like peeping toms to it
Seeing us all, it fears
Certainly a New Moon
Geared not to hang around

Each day, it grows
With its growth
More see it
Wondering over the growing bliss

Harnessing peace, its own way
With time we all love it
On a dark day it deems the night
Standing out bright if cloudless sky

Persists, insists, not to desist
The tempest rise and invites

Touch not my friend
Its far away, just see it
Yes, Love it everybody does
Never hated that one!


It booms and blows into full roundness
Like a matured pregnant lady and we call it
Full moon
Good for parties and Barbecues


Often will rock you down
Conform to the rules of the times
Brighter it gets silverfish on sky
Often with time standard yellowish


Pudding desserts on table upside down on sky
Sweet and delicious it gets only to beam back
Crescent each fortnight
She loathes it admiringly

Later stories enfold as lovers whisper
I love you
I hate you not


The Moon has done it
Pride of the Lands and Peoples
Idd a coming Idd a going
Frankly a Holy day


We see neither heavens nor hell
Just counting time to the ends
Beginnings are always with uncertainties
The Moon’s coming a consolation

Like the breeze along the Sea Shor
Or the snooze on the mobile
It refreshes and opens a new page
Ever romantic ever provocatively

As minds stare and glare
Search the cloudless sky up there
Beating out snores that are stored
Less the blown out booming Moon.


UNDER THE MOON//Thomas Green


I am “Over The Moon!”
is the usual phrase
A way to say you are excited.


Then “Under the Moon”
Would then seem to imply
The opposite feelings recited.

But what is it that lies under the moon,
But that which lies under the sun?
Some creatures come out in the dead of the night.
Sometimes scary that set us to run.


A baying wolf and a flying fruit bat
May send a chill down your spine
But lovers do lie together under the moon
Expressing such emotions divine.


Legends would have it the moon
is a man made up of green cheese,
Or a rabbit posed there eternal?
by the grace of god Quetzalcoatl?
crushing spices for those immortals?


The face of the moon is such a strange thing
Not unlike the clouds, oh how we can conjure
Images shifting eternally to our delight
Flat on our backs we lay, peer, and do ponder.


Look up at the moon and somehow you may sense
Closer to the one you cherish in your heart.
Think on your true love oh so far away
And gazing upon moon you will not feel so apart.

Observing the moon at night as we may
Lovers grow suddenly closer together
For your eyes do meet on that same shiny moon
At one time united by gesture in common.

The stars are the bright powder that glimmer
Beyond in the Milky Way they do shine.
The moon it joins lovers together
With its gaze so bright and sublime.



LUNA// Jefferson Smith

I'm still surprised to bump into you
Face to face and larger than life.
We've met nearly every night
On the street and in the bedroom
You've followed me for years
From California to the Emerald Isle
And now you brighten even the Dark Continent
As I seek the meaning of life
And love.

I know you slender and full of grace,
With your open smile and hint of hidden secrets.
I know you as a bursting orb,
Proudly pregnant, reflecting all that is good,
With my own image visible in the shadows.
I know you comfortable and balanced,
Keeping me company after dusk
And then gently falling asleep at midnight.
I love you in every phase, because you change,
And even more because you stay the same.

And yet when I look up and see you there
In my bedroom and on the street,
I'm still surprised, and so pleased,
To see you there.

ROMANCE DE LA LUNA // Federico Garcia Lorca
La luna vino a la fragua
con su polisón de nardos.
El niño la mira mira.
El niño la está mirando.
En el aire conmovido
mueve la luna sus brazos
y enseña, lúbrica y pura,
sus senos de duro estaño.
Huye luna, luna, luna.
Si vinieran los gitanos,
harían con tu corazón
collares y anillos blancos.
Niño, déjame que baile.
Cuando vengan los gitanos,
te encontrarán sobre el yunque
con los ojillos cerrados.

Huye luna, luna, luna,
que ya siento sus caballos.
Níno, déjame, no pises
mi blancor almidonado.

El jinete se acercaba
tocando el tambor del llano
Dentro de la fragua el niño,
tiene los ojos cerrados.

Por el olivar venían,
bronce y sueño, los gitanos.
Las cabezas levantadas
y los ojos entornados.

¡Cómo canta la zumaya,
ay cómo canta en el árbol!
Por el cielo va la luna
con un niño de la mano.

Dentro de la fragua lloran,
dando gritos, los gitanos.
El aire la vela, vela.
El aire la está velando.


A NOTE FROM YOUR WATER BABY//Renee Jain

My mother has a book called ‘Gardening by the moon’.
And another: ‘Living by the moon’.
I’m not sure how she manages to follow the advice of these books,
given the diagnosis of bipolar and the need to get a good sleep every night.
But the flowers do look lovely, mum.

Perhaps my mother has such an affinity for the moon because she sees herself in it.
Married to the father-sun whose luminosity can make momma moon fade into the background.
Orbiting the lives of her self-involved Earth-children, playing a vital and slow, soothing role.
The night is never rushed after all.

But the night can be bitterly cold, can’t it mum.
And lonely.
And long.
It can feel like a void has opened up.
And you lose perspective.
And the only thing that makes you feel less alone is to speak into the pitch.
To turn the black hole into inky scribbled words.

Then sometimes you go the other way
Up, up and away
A super nova that is brighter than the sun
Burning from the inside out
Connecting all the dots, even the ones that don’t belong together
Dancing around the garden with plastic bags
Remember that mum?

I only remember that one ‘episode’ properly
A made-for-tv episode in our family drama
The rest of your illness is just re-runs
From a pre-me era

All I know is that I didn’t come to dance with you when you asked
And father threw out your black words
Like trash
Like plastic bags littering the garden

Maybe he feared that the depressive night would be contagious
A worthless dark cloud,
With no rain
And no silver lining


One night we visited the hospital,
let in through the sliding doors which only open from the outside.

We had
Stilted
Conversation
About nothing
In particular.
Then went out to eat.

The restaurant was full of happy families.
Of course - it was mother’s day.
But my mother was up and away.

I had to run to the bathroom before my waters broke.
You should have seen me, mum.
Your Aquarian water baby.
Helping to replenish the oceans.
Bringing forth the rain.

That’s all in the past now.
I am grown and you are healthy and you have forgiven father for tossing away your words.

And no matter where I travel, mum, I find I am always happiest by the sea.
Where the moon moves the water.
Where I can float in the universal womb, and remember
the midwife,
mid-life,
who watches her garden grow
and watches her children go.

But who always urges me back, across the sea.



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