When they’re hard
up for sugar they’ll steal bugs
the spiders wrapped in their webs.
The bones of the arm are so reduced
the wing’s a feathered hand.
The poet has one in the peach
branches of his poem
on top of news from the gulf
and scattered references to machismo.
I arrive in time to add an Aztec note.
I’ve seen the tongue
insinuate its way to the sweet
center of a rose.
I’ve heard the tick tick in fuschias
like little bombs.
They say the consecration of its temple
required the blood of ten thousand hearts.
And here is an article in CNet about Talcott’s lost passwords, as mentioned by Bruce.
Are they the tongue of the hummingbird? Could his passwords be hidden in his poetry?
I was listening to a song called Nine Million Bicycles by Katie Melua and wondering why it reminded me so much of riding in dusty old buses in the country…and then I suddenly realized the melody was a near exact match of the ballads I used to hear when travelling around asia many years ago.
The bridge of the tune, rather ironically, doesn’t fit and I am skeptical every time I hear her beckoning me to cross it with her. Warm by the fire? Just believe everything that she says? She offers hope in her words, yet her soothing voice is a haunting reminder of the lonliness that can often take a seat right next to you on a late night journey down empty roads. Have you ever leaned your head against a cold rattling window, unable to point the way home, and pulled your jacket tighter to try and shut out a chill?
And while I find myself wondering about the trust implied in her lyrics, perhaps in a similar way that Ulysses lashed himself to his mast near the Island of Sirens, others have apparently taken up a more literal issue with the lyrics of the song:
I suspect that Katie took some poetic licence in order to make her lyrics scan. She replaced the bisyllabic number “14” with the nearest monosyllabic number, namely 12″. This alteration is just about acceptable, but the next line in the song is unforgivable. To say that the age of the universe is “a guess” is an insult to a century of astronomical progress. The age of the universe is not just “a guess”, but rather it is a carefully measured number that is now known to a high degree of accuracy.
While Simon Singh is technically correct, I feel he is missing the point of her expressing a “fact” in the face of the number of bicycles in Beijing and age of the universe. Although we may feel small, and we may feel lost and insignificant, she tells us not to worry because there are boundaries in time and a real significance to our relationships. Perhaps the fire she sings of is something I was wishing for on all those long nights. A sad yet joyful ballad, about trust, love and…leaps of faith.
Now if I could just stop playing the song over and over again.
A great poet from KwaZulu-Natal, Mazisi Kunene, passed away on August 12th. The Los Angeles Times has a nice summary of his life and work. A Foundation Trust has been established in his name to continue his legacy.
His writing was banned at various times by the South African government. The LA Times points out, however, that the verse narrative “Emperor Shaka the Great: A Zulu Epic” (1979) was apparently distributed as a form of inspiration to the resistance fighters who opposed apartheid.
From Book One: The prophecy (page 1):
After the night has covered the earth
Rouse us from the nightmare of forgetfulness
So that we may narrate their tales.
You will see them, the Forefathers, by the brightness of the
moon.
You will see their great processions as they enter the mountain!
Eternally their anthems emerge.
How then can we be silent before the rising sun?
How wonderful! We can sing the sacred songs of our
Forefathers!
By our ancient epics we are made beautiful.
Past Book Seven: A military and political genius organises (page 156):
No man must let his weapons lose their power.
Failure to build a powerful nation
Only breeds a nation of vagabonds on the outskirts.
Bees that have been stirred from their nest
Often run amok, stinging the innocent passer-by.
For this reason the sting must be removed from them.
By our invincible power we must make peace for all peoples.
We must be alert for battle.
Those who believe in our truth shall be welcomed.
Their harvests shall be protected by our army.
Our lands shall be fertile for all peoples.
But for the moment we must build and be ready for our
enemies.
Let none among our regiments be rushed into precipitate wars.
Let none pester the nation with calls for senseless raids.
Let no one claim Zwide’s war still haunts them,
Alleging possession by the spirit of war.
Let such reckless men know they only invite death from me.
There is no heroism in those who terrorize others.
Yet there shall be no coward in Zululand;
Whoever makes this blasphemy against you and your clan —
Bring him to justice!
As a slight digression, Kunene wrote in the introduction to this book:
I have tried to give a fatihful but free translation of the original. I have also cut out a great deal of material which would seem to be a digression from the story, a style unacceptable in English but characteristic of deep scholarship in Zulu.
This Grammy Award winning song was released last year by Kanye West.
It’s a remix of a 1971 hit “Diamonds Are Forever” by Shirley Bassey (vocals on the intro and hook), the theme song to a James Bond film of the same name.
“Blood diamonds” usually refers to brutality of white South Africans who used forced labor (even slavery) in Black diamond mines.
It was an asset scheme using monopoly tactics to launder money and illegally fund white supremacy — perpetuate Nazism after 1948 (Mary Gerety wrote the famous “A Diamond is Forever” ad slogan in 1947).
Millions of people in Africa tragically died due from violent conflicts related to white supremacist asset wealth manipulation in countries such as Angola, Botswana, Congo, Ivory Coast, Namibia, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.
In 1998 the U.N. and European Union embargoed diamonds from Angola due to the overtly white supremacist (apartheid) South African government policy of military intervention and destabilization (Civil War).
However, Kanye here tries to flip the story, like he’s making Kristallnacht into a song, to attack Jews for the crimes of these modern-day Nazis.
The video goes even further than lyrics, using well-known propaganda imagery tactics to breed racial tension and anti-semitism.
Faceless views of whites (arguably anti-semitic portrayals using a rear-view of spectacle-wearing hunched-over “jewelers”) are contrasted with full frontal views of big-eyed poor Black children forced to work in diamond mines. Source: YouTube
Such propagandist imagery is coupled with record-scratching lines such as this:
I’m talkin’ bout Rockefelle’, my home, my chain
These ain’t conflict diamonds, is they Jacob?
A misplaced call-out to the American oilman “Rockefeller” and a Biblical reference to “Jacob” (people of Israel) clearly expose… Kanye’s intentions of spreading hate towards Jews.
The apparent reason Kanye uses the name here is to pull the classic hate group tactic of blaming Jews for anything and everything.
Here’s the larger context, where you can see how again he abruptly pulls in the conspiracy signal using Rockefeller.
Good Morning, this ain’t Vietnam still People lose hands, legs, arms for real
Little was known of Sierra Leone
And how it connect to the diamonds we own
When I speak of diamonds in this song
I ain’t talkin bout the ones that be glowin’
I’m talkin bout Rockefelle’, my home, my chain
These ain’t conflict diamonds, is they Jacob? Don’t lie to me man
See, a part of me sayin’ keep shinin’
How? when I know of the blood diamonds
Though it’s thousands of miles away
Sierra Leone connect to what we go through today
Over here, its a drug trade, we die from drugs
Over there, they die from what we buy from drugs
The diamonds, the chains, the bracelets, the charms
I thought my Jesus piece was so harmless
’til I seen a picture of a shorty armless
And here’s the conflict
It’s in a black person’s soul to rock that gold
Spend ya whole life try’n to get that ice
On a polar rug boy it look so nice
How could somethin’ so wrong make me feel so right, right?
‘fore I beat myself up like Ike
You could still throw ya Rockefelle’ diamond tonight, ’cause…
A Grammy for hate speech seems… somehow par for course in the country that gave rise to the rancid disinformation of Mel Gibson.
a blog about the poetry of information security, since 1995
