Ahmad Al-Khatat Returns!

Tonight I'd like to welcome back Ahmad Al-Khatat, the Iraqi-born poet who has recently published the book Wounds from Iraq.  I also think that he has been on Dr. Michael Anthony Ingram's Quintessential Listening twice!

The Invisible Spirit

Ahmad Al-Khatat

The night is long, long as
the stars are falling apart
and so my tears are the
rain on the child's cheeks

I thought that love would
make us lucky, and happy
until I realized that one of us
must pretend that I'm dead

Trust was the most beautiful
word we have had in our talks
sadly, it was replaced with a
betrayal and dangerous faith

The invisible spirit forgot to
teach me how to die without
weapon, nor a case of twelve
beers, yet the night is still long

Photograph by Ilkin Safterov

Read My Wounds

I don't deserve to live in this world
mainly, because my dreams are hidden
from me as my bare feet are chained

Maybe my time should have ended as
every night, my eyes begin to cry,
she disappeared from my cigarette
smoke and was harder to drink just water

My hopes are the graffiti on the walls
after the fire, nothing stays but my ashes.
keep my story away from your loving ones
just remember that you have read my wounds

Make peace with love from the body
of someone you trust, to share more than a
lips kiss, as my mistakes are my everyday lies
to hide my death on my last birthday

Photograph by Rennett Stowe

Roofs of Dreams

The roofs of memories are dusty
as much as the roofs of my dreams
even when my heart beats like a
wild animal and never dies in my mind

My mother’s first cookie tasted of strong
grief, since then I understood the
reasons why my baby was endlessly crying
as he now knows that he was born,

He was born to die with a civilian’s uniform
and never look beyond the sunset.
The baby girl now knows she will always
be a widow, and the uncrowned queen

Autumn leaves in Montreal have fortunes,
but in Baghdad they have wheels of misfortunes
while orphans sing along with ashes of
angels in heaven fall in the sea of lost freedom

Photograph by Isabella Mendes

Expensive Prayer

I wish I had more mistakes than sins
I want to have my brain cells fully damaged
as the friend I always trusted before is
now a dark cloud in my miserable season

Love is blind more than love is happiness
as it is an expensive prayer for me
even my siblings are deaf to hear the beats
of my broken heart from the liquor I drink

Grains of salt are above the roof of my mouth
meanwhile, I never swam in a salty ocean
nor; added salt on my tasteless plates of food
I just lick salt off my hand after I drink a few shots

I respect more faces then they deserve
only death is the path to end my anxieties
dark poems won't solve anything about life
those tears will later fall along with ruby blood

Ahmad Al-Khatat, was born in Baghdad, Iraq on May 8th. He has been published in several press publications and anthologies all over the world and has poems translated in several languages. He has published three poetry books "Wounds from Iraq," “The Bleeding Heart Poet,” and “Love On The War’s Frontline” which are available on Amazon. Most of his new and old poems are also available on his official page Bleeding Heart Poet on Facebook. 

I'll start with a live version of Dr. Lonnie Smith's "All in My Mind":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzRxCCkChfo

This is his "Devika," also live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53FBXpTnDiE

Since Ahmad is living in Montreal these days, I thought I'd include Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zjLBWnZGTU

If you would like to purchase Ahmad's latest book, here is a link: https://www.amazon.com/Wounds-Iraq-Ahmad-Al-Khatat/dp/1950433110/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Ahmad+Alkhatat&qid=1565580230&s=gateway&sr=8-1

I just noticed that he also has some work in an anthology that pays tribute to Leonard Cohen:   https://www.amazon.com/Anthem-Tribute-Leonard-Ahmad-Al-Khatat-ebook/dp/B07715YVBW/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Ahmad+Alkhatat&qid=1565580333&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Enjoy!

Tad Richards' Poems for August 2019

Tad Richards brings The Song Is... back to its roots with some poems inspired by music (especially jazz).  This first poem will also give you some names to look up on YouTube.  The other two poems are triolets, fitting given Tad's column for Verse-Virtual:  https://www.verse-virtual.com/tad-richards-informal-2019-august-no-6.html

CHOOSING SECURITY 

George Wallington played 

in Dizzy's first bebop 

combo on 52nd Street.

in 1960 he gave

up jazz, went home

to Florida, joined

the family business

installing

air conditioners. Wendell

Marshall played with Ellington, 

Coleman Hawkins,

Milt Jackson, Gerry

Mulligan, gave it up,

went back to St.

Louis, started his own 

insurance agency. Teddy 

Charles played swing,

played bebop, played

the far out stuff, 

played with Miles, with

Mingus, with Wardell

Gray, gave it up

to get his captain's papers,

skipper a charter

skipjack on Long Island

Sound, in the Caribbean.

I’d go for that.

TRIOLET FOR SALE

For Sale: You choose--

But there's no choice,

It's all the blues--

What's there to choose?

Each way, you lose,

Guitar or voice.

You say you choose

But there's no choice.

BLUES TRIOLET

From a line by Bessie Smith

My baby's got those juicy lipsShe's the lyinest woman in town
But when I hold her by the hips
She sure can use those juicy lips 
 She knows just where they come to grips 
If it ain't up, it's down
She swears it's just me gets those lips
But she's the lyinest woman in town

Tonight's songs will be especially interesting, given Tad's first poem.

I'll start with the George Wallington Quintet's version of "What's New?":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cShLnB2SfA

His trio performs "Polka Dot" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu_YkMYB8aA

It's hard to find a single song with Wendell Marshall, so I'm including these three that he did with Hank Jones and Kenny Clarke:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC0ijOx-cuw

Here are the "Green Blues" by the Teddy Charles Tentet.  I wonder if it includes the tuba.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=W8B_P6ahB_Y

I'll finish with his quartet's version of "When Your Lover Has Gone": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfsPrhvQ8ss

Enjoy!

Welcome to Busari Olawale Umar!

Tonight I'd like to welcome the young poet, Busari Olawale Umar, a university student from Nigeria's University of Lagos where he is studying philosophy.  I trust that you will be moved by his poems.

PENURY..

my throat thruttles at the nipples of my mother.

not long awhile i basked under a empheral shadow of childhood.

but soon satisfaction i found no more from breast-milk.

i had nothing.

a poor man is a dead man, a dead man is a poor man.

i died and knelt down to cry at my grave.

i was a walking dead.

i inherited nothing but the hunger of my fathers.

misery, hardship, suffering made love with my existence.

None of this i wished, even my existence.

To those who can see with there thought, all i longed for was to be nothing.

perhaps nothing was enough.

-Busari Olawale Umar

25/01/2019

Photograph by Usman Ahmad

Suicide.

I could taste the sound as i hear its voice.

It cold fangs eat my breath.

The crossroad of life.

my watch has ended.

It wouldn't come i brought it.

Now i found company in my loneliness.

I dine with my unfriendly guest.

Slowly as I drift to Oblivion.

So long!.

- BUSARI OLAWALE UMAR

14/06/2019

Photograph by kemorgan65

The tragedy

The end has come to the world bearing freewill as gift.

the unholy gift has reached the higher animals.

the lowers animals should too.

If the birds refuse to take for skies and choose to swim at sea.

If the fishes begin to bark.

when rats fearlessly walks in front of a cat for they choose to no longer squeak but roar.

the snakes choose to leave their safety in the forest to the market-place to crow.

should this cause fracas?.

a free-will world they say we liveth!.

but remember tragedy awaits.

-Busari Olawale Umar

7/11/2018

I'll finish up with a little music.

"Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" is performed by Robert Glasper, Taylor McFerrin, and Derrick Hodge:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSw7TXt3DZE

Next is Idris Muhammad's "Peace of Mind":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdcZg-DVyZM

I'll finish with a young-ish Lonnie Smith's "It's Changed":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsZb93rY8E

Welcome to j. lewis!

This afternoon, while I was walking home, I was missing spring.  Even though today was a lovely late-summer day (not too hot or muggy), it's a good evening to post j. lewis' "waiting for spring"!

waiting for spring

the weather station keeps count

of snow days and records broken

but i don't, not any more

from the kitchen window

everything is white

yard, picnic table, mounded caps 

on fence posts

icicles drip all day

refreeze at night

their own circle of life 

turning with no break in sight

i half-hear the television

news hour winding down

into another repetitive

report and prediction

cold air and moisture

moisture and cold air

we're buried under 

another fifteen inches of snow 

just from today

and still it falls

gazed fixed on the garden side

of the blanketed yard,

i realize that i am starving

for color, for spring,

for flowers

i never cared for cats

or their ability to ignore me

until they wanted something

and then it was either

the plaintive mew, mew, mew

like sandpaper on my eardrums

or the claws-out climb

up my pant legs

so they could stare me

right in the face

with a self-centered

"well? where's dinner?"

they never learned either

from the sudden drop

back to the floor

that they had picked

the wrong post to scratch,

that the one they really wanted

was already in the kitchen

humming softly as she

made dinner for us all

but now the cat-bowl's empty

the kitchen's gone quiet

and the house is so large 

that i'm thinking of something

i swore i'd never do

i'm seriously considering

getting myself a dog

when the last one leaves

eighty nine and pushing ninety

her friend and husband of fifty two years

recently gone, but she had family

lots of family who stayed to help

but life doesn't stop for the living

and when the helpful, lingering son 

boarded his early morning flight

well, that was it

she says she has another son

"the hippie-druggie who thinks

that he's the president"

who will come next week

he didn't make the funeral

because no one knew his number

he called the morning of

when it was too late

forever too late

her voice cracks with sad resolve

"i had to let go of trying to fix him"

though she hasn't ever let go of him

not in her heart, not in her mind

she wonders how it will be

him coming home for a short stay

to clean the garage one last time

not fearful, but wary of what he is

recounting that when ed was alive

it was never an issue at all

"because nobody messed with ed"

her head nods as she counts off

all the family who have gone before

a few older, but mostly younger ones

she laughs and says "oh, please

don't let me live to be a hundred"

i think she just doesn't want to be

around when the last child leaves her

Image by Sabine van Erp from Pixabay 

Falling Star

I left the meeting early when I saw the sky. 

Too cloudy for the Perseids. A shame, really.

Stars falling, like love fell into my heart,

A flash of brightness, a streak of light.

The magic of the universe burned 

In my secret, hopeful hiding place.

But nothing to see tonight.

I took the freeway home. Traffic crawled.

The cloud cover broke briefly. 

I stopped along a freeway off-ramp. 

Stared at the unsettled sky. 

A single bright line traced its path to the ocean.

The clouds closed ranks. Rain came.

I try, but I can't explain 

How like that meteor you are.

j. lewis is an internationally published poet, musician, and nurse practitioner. His poems have appeared online and in print in numerous journals from California to Nigeria to the UK. His first collection of poetry and photography was published in June 2016, and is available on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/clear-day-october-j-lewis/dp/168073055X). A chapbook "every evening is december" was published by Praxis Magazine (http://www.praxismagonline.com/every-evening-december-j-lewis/) in February 2018. A second book of poetry is forthcoming from Kelsay Books.

I have to play Blossom Dearie's "They Say It's Spring":   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efj_BYAd_dI 

Here she is singing "It Might As Well Be Spring" in French:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt3D8byEHOo

I'm going to switch to the Bill Evans Trio's version of this song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUvIdEWiQms

I'll finish with Chet Baker's "I Talk to the Trees":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akBff675l1Y&list=PLT7plFTTc7GhOZYZ37E4bl1jxR-3ltNdT&index=11

Enjoy!

Welcome to Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal!

Photograph by Gardner Soule (Public Domain)

Tonight Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal has poems for all seasons.  Given the sweltering weather, I'll start with his winter poem.   It will cheer up those of you who miss the cold.  For everyone else, it will remind you that summer weather is not the only bad weather we face.

In the Snow

In the snow

and blowing wind

you became intoxicated

by inhaling the snow and wind.

Your footsteps 

were easy to trace

in the white snow, abominable 

snowman, I knew those giant feet

from my years of following you.

I recognized 

your footsteps and

I had a feeling that you

were close by, you fell and

crawled with gentleness, I could

trace your every move in the snow.

I knew you meant no harm to me

or to the life of anybody else.

You hid yourself 

in the ice somewhere.

The snow sheltered you.

I grew wistful, pensive, and

filled with a peculiar happiness.

I watched your

footsteps, I could trace

your movements in the snow.

Photograph by Matthew Paul Argall

Harsh World: The Branch

I am the one you should

forget.

I am like the insignificant 

objects.

I am like a small branch

fallen from

the body of a tree.

This harsh world

is making a mess

of my body.

It finds its way inside.

It feels so cold

at times and

unexpectedly 

it finds another body

inside my body. It’s love 

I have isolated in there.

I feel less than whole

at times. The sun

draws near

and it does not

make a difference.

I reached my limit of

warmth. I feel a cold

presentiment

in my body

that cannot make it

through this harsh world.

It is so cold.

My heart complains

as it sleeps and dreams

of a different world.

I could go there,

shed my skin,

flex my muscles.

It is just a dream

of a desperate soul.

Like the body of a tree

and the fallen branch,

I am the branch.

For a moment

I am its essence,

compost in the yellow fields.

Photograph by Mehrab Pourfaraj

Summer, 1989

When I was brought down to earth 

summer was nearly gone,

autumn scratched at the surface,

and I had planted my heart

deep in soil that would not let love grow.

When we parted the sky was gray

and the leaves began to change colors.

Each day I slept late because she was

gone with the wind. It was not until 

then,

when I found my raw materials.

It so happens that the soil softened,

the heart hardened, and I found love

in the bird’s songs, the yellow leaves,

and the scattered clouds about to burst.

I stopped searching for reasons 

things did not work out just like I wanted.

That is just how things happen sometimes.

Always Dream

Open your eyes and dream.

It could be day, or it could be night.

To paraphrase what Jose Marti said, “always dream.”

Dream on my friends.

Dream far and wide.

Let the dreams roll like the waves at sea.

Dream past the dunes in the desert sand.

Joyously dream away.

A humble dream is all you need.

Swing for the fences with a mighty dream.

Dream with a kind heart.

Dream like the child you once were.

The dream is calling for you.

If I Was Not a Man

If I was not a man,

I might want to be a bird.

I would have a small head

and a beak instead of a nose.

I would fly and sing.

I would eat smaller portions.

I would sleep in a nest.

I would enjoy the scenery.

I would have no hands.

I think I like wings better.

I would be flying for miles 

all day and all of the night.

I would not read books.

I would read the leaves and trees.

I would pay no taxes.

I would not owe any bills.

I wouldn’t have to drive.

That would be all right with me.

I would fly transcontinental.

I would go without paying a dime.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Born in Mexico, Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poetry books and chapbooks have been published by Alternating Current Press, Deadbeat Press, Kendra Steiner Editions, New Polish Beat, Poets Democracy, Pygmy Forest Press, and Ten Pages Press (e-book). His recent poems have appeared in Blue Collar Review, Misfit Magazine, and ZYX.

Let's start with the Funklovers' "Cloud of Memories":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2s-3lHuRKc

From here I'll move on to Roy Hargrove's "I Thought about You":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10IlOJKX0MQ

Surprisingly, I haven't posted anything by Nicholas Payton (that I recall), but here is his version of "Round Midnight":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znsgoKJRUtE

My husband has been playing a lot of Etienne Charles lately, so I'll finish with his version of Bob Marley's "Turn Your Lights Down Low":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yeu5UDL_mA

Enjoy!