Posted in: cartoon, Paul Noth on Saturday, March 13, 2010 at at 12:02 PM 0 comments
Living with an Alevi
Life has a habit of throwing people into your path who have the annoying tendency of showing you just how ignorant you actually are. From the tender age of 14 I've viewed the Alevis as the carnival freaks of Islam, a people whose leader was a warrior of such repute his emblem became the double edged sword, a people who believed that mosques were evil and ran screaming from bunny rabbits.
My housemate a Danish born scholar of Turkish origin is both a researcher of Alevi traditions and an Alevi by birth. Little accurate information is known about Alevi customs due to the years of political suppression which put this minority religious group in hiding and the nature of the religion itself which comes from a mostly oral tradition. It is widely known that Alevis will not enter a mosque because their caliph Ali was murdered in one. In part this is true and certainly fits into Alevi mysticism. However, at least in the case of the Turkish Alevis who originally preyed in mosques with their Sunni brethren, there was also violent political pressure from the right (predominantly Sunnis) for them to partake in their worship elsewhere (Alevis being associated with the left).
A fascinating branch of Islam worthy of much more academic study and recognition in the political arena than it is afforded, it's definitely worth some of your days 'googling time'.
Posted in: alevi on Friday, March 12, 2010 at at 6:25 AM 0 comments
Poem. home 6.
Feeling the niggling rise of nostalgia for my home country lately I was inspired to put down in words an image that had been floating around in my head from some months ago.
Home 6.
a name
to name it in soundless words conjures an image
a feeling of stillness, hushed felicity
a fanciful amalgamate of memories
played sluggish through the nostalga of time
ochre powdered rocks shimmer in the heat
dark sandy strands of hair drift unbidden towards the sky
blue grey leaves slide over one another with
muted rustles as the breezes pass
tall feathery reeds bend and float on air, entwined together
crisp eucalyptus and old spice pepper the air
a bold blue jolt of sky and eyes
here
gently warms all the feeling organs
burgeons the senses in rapture
recinding banality
Posted in: home, poem on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at at 12:02 PM 0 comments
On pomegranates and other things
During a recent jaunt to Syria I was struck by the repeated use of one particular motif. It shimmered on finely woven cloths and loomed out of pagan stone carvings, the ever alluring pomegranate. Strange that this fruit which appears in almost every strain of our worlds ancient mythology (Persephone and Hades, 613 mitzvot, Bijapuraphalasakta) hasn't as yet had a full color, glossy laser printed coffee table book dedicated to it.
It does however get a mention in this odd poem that gives me a warm recollection of my homeland.
Many Colored Squares
Why decide in advance what to do. Eucalyptus trees their shiny
leaves and polished crows. The opera of. Hummingbirds. MOVE,
an optimum crow and spider sparkle newly. Joe walks but
seldom touches the ground. Pause. Hammer. Pause. Wind. Crows.
What's in the oven. All the ingredients: quit opening the door if you want Dinner to emerge in less than a geological epoch. Oh. Busy. Hmmm.
Sniff.
Of something. The first fruits of man's disobedience was a
pomegranate—
The invention of Winter and Ambition—the joyful desiring. Flat out.
KONK
Much better under lots of Monterey cypresses and immense
blue-gum and lemon-wood; trees in the distance in front of the
ocean. Letch.
The disobedient mind is the fruit of inactivity swaying upon
dishonest boughs. The butcher's thumb lies weighty on the
scales. Tumble.
Minor chords are not sad. The Pyramids are still a secret.
Erasmus Darwin: The Botanic Garden.
The explanation isn't the same as what happens. A recipe can
produce a particular result most of the time.
Carrie turned all the matches in the same direction. Love and
Honor conspire to discipline the Factory.
Come with me, Joe.
Now when Bill gets here we will leave. Quite seriously. Stop
tittering.
Cut straight down the center it means twice as much. Free at
last. Or not. Hand lotion soothes my mind. Correspondence.
Scales uncolored in themselves produce a rainbow. Mountain
seafoot absolutely white? Iron curl. Start over. Start all over
again. Your feet are dirty on the bottom. I won't say
"Immesnsely so."
Container for insensible fruit?
Posted in: poem, pomegranate on at at 11:23 AM 0 comments
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
