Sunday, December 25, 2016

The Journey of the Magi

The Journey Of The Magi

A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
"Journey of the Magi"

James Tissot (1894)
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
              --T. S. Eliot (1927)

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

2016- Year of the Slam

AKeem Jamal Rollins (photo from cleveland.com)
Nikki Delamotte of Cleveland.com says, How 2016 became the year of Cleveland's slam poetry revival. Horray to Akeemjamal and Cleveland's slam team!

And you can join them at Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern (11625 Euclid Ave) Thursday, Dec. 15; 9 p.m.

Vertigo Xavier adds that he has not stepped down as the slamministrator of Lake Effect Poetry (the Cleveland area slam team)-- but Lake Effect Poetry has passed its status as a PSI Certified Slam Venue on to AKeemjamal Rollins’ new The People Slam.  The People Slam takes place on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at the Happy Dog Euclid.  Follow the series on Facebook.

Or check out:

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau