February 1 Musings and Another Upcoming Desert Moon Review Event

Cherry Fool

The power elite busies
itself making the world safe
for hypocrisy.

A frigid wind blows
off the Potomac, chastises
my cheeks after warm January.

Japanese cherry buds open;
pale blossoms garland
gnarled branches.

Christopher T. George

Desert Moon Review publisher Jim Corner and I are pleased to announce an upcoming Western Gathering of Desert Moon Review poets for the weekend of April 8-9, 2006. The weekend will feature a reading to take place at 8:00 pm on the evening of Saturday, April 8 at Bentley's Coffee and Tea House, 1730 Speedway Boulevard, Tucson, Arizona (tel. 1 520 795 0338).

Jim Corner reports that he and his wife Kathy visited Bentley's recently. He stated: "The atmosphere is a fine old fashioned coffee house with seating for 70. The host at Bentley's, Jo, is a lovely smiling lady, and was cordial and informational."

Jim and I are very excited about this upcoming event and we hope for a general get-together of Desert Moon poets and friends over the weekend of April 8-9 similar to the successful east coast Desert Moon Review reading held in Philadelphia in the fall. Feel free to contact Jim at Trailer1trash2@aol.com or myself at chrisdonna@comcast.net for more details or to apply to be put on the program. Follow the link through the title above for more information on the plans for the weekend.



Leviathan

A bottlenose whale beaching in the shallow Thames,
spewing from blowhole off the Victoria Embankment
as London watches the Leviathan within the Leviathan.

Sick, disoriented whale, its gray flanks barging into barges.
O Thames of Jimmy Whistler! Rocketing fire crackers
welcoming in the bright new millennium, the city's Eye,
the butterfly's dance with Mr. Ruskin, O suicidal Thames,
river fog-shrouded, rolling past Big Ben in Monet rose-gold.

Thames, take your dead with you, your mouths of river mud,
at the Traitor's Gate to the Tower, Anne Boleyn's oak block,
as black with blood as the Ripper's streets, O hurting London,
needles in churchyards, meths drunk from brown paper bags.
Disoriented whale, distracted humanity, desperate for a way out.

Christopher T. George






"Nocturne in Black and Gold The Falling Rocket" by James McNeill Whistler









*************************************

Cézanne Steps Out

the door of his Les Lauves studio,
a chair balanced at an angle in his left hand,
a derbied liontamer come to whip the world into shape,
Chaplinesque baggy pants bunched over his shoes.

As his left foot challenges the sunlit air,
he assays the stone steps for the photographer
-- a lonely, obstinate geezer in white beard,
the disturber of comfortable landscapes,

six months before the seer of light and shadow
is discovered collapsed in the rain, wheeled
home in a laundry cart to die.

Christopher T. George

See
Cézanne in Provence: Introduction to the National Gallery of Art Exhibition to see the above photograph.

Random Jottings on Life's Little Games

Julain for Julie Carter

Someone's raised the stakes -- life's like that.
As soon as you think you know the game,
suddenly nothing is the same.

Christopher T. George


The above poem was written for a "casual contest" sponsored by poet Julie Carter on her blog, to write a Julain. I believe the julain may be Julie's own invention, a three-line poem of regular meter where the last two lines rhyme. See

Julain Contest--Deadline January 31st


Card Games

In the capital, everyone is playing cards.
It's how the nation's business is conducted:
Three-Card Monte, La Belle Lucie, Forty Thieves.

"I will trade you New Orleans for Iraq."
"My hanging judge for your activist liberal."
"An armored division for your aircraft carrier."

Texas Holdem, Omaha, Draw Poker, aces are high.
Noone above the fray, we're gambling for a robe,
tax-sheltered retirement plans, Social Security.

Eyes on the dealer's hands, sweat on upper lips,
seek the Queen of Spades, playing hide the joker.

Christopher T. George






The Blue Iris of Estremadura

The blue lips of the Virgin.

The blue iris by the stream
in the birth-village of
Conquistador Pizarro.

During the Civil War,
a child suckling

a mother's
shrunken breast.

Christopher T. George

************

Intruder

You whom I once called friend and lover follow me home.
Your shadow poisons my doorway. You purloin my protests.

Words become wounds, mouths speaking violence, violation.
You are as unwelcome as a stain to be scrubbed from the carpet.

We can have no converse, we will leave that to the lawyers
and naysayers. The seer envisions another future.

Christopher T. George

Special issue of Ygrasil: The Poetry of Barbara Ostrander

I am pleased to say that the special issue of the Canadian e-zine, Ygrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts devoted to Barbara Ostrander is now available:

Ygrasil, January 2006: an appreciation of Barbara Ostrander's poetry by Christopher T. George.

INTRODUCTION

Christopher T. George

The Poetry of Barbara Ostrander (1956-2005):
An Appreciation

CONTENTS

The Poetry of Barbara Ostrander:

Africa Unleashed
Sorrow
Cravings
Intensive Care Nurse
Raxaul, Armpit of India
Scabies
Yeti Airlines From Raxaul, India, Back to Kathmandu
Shucking it down to the cob
broken dreams
story goes like this...
Chemo
I'll Never Get Used to These Words
Untitled
Cat Nap

POST SCRIPTUM

The below poem I include here because it is one of Barbara's best, and says so much about who she was--

As I wrote in the introduction to the poem, Barbara began writing poetry as a child and a number of her poems are about her time in Africa. I view the following poem as one of her best, sensuously binding the love of her husband with longing for Africa, while ever mindful of the wildness, beauty, and dangers of the continent.



Africa Unleashed
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wonder if it is the way you pace
soft-pawed by the window
that makes me think of home.
You watch for me to reappear,
a lion on the move.

Or maybe it's the way your nostrils flare
that brings to mind the gazelle standing alert,
knowing it's being watched
sinew-tense, aware.

I map out beneath my fingertips
the parched plains of the Serengeti,
feel along your spine and hips
the urgency of the dry season,
poised for the rains.

Your heat soaks my skin,
consumes like a bushfire,
leaves me stretched spent,
a lizard on the windowsill,
limbs languid and still.

I smell in you the raw nerves
of Africa unleashed,
close my eyes, breathe deep
of home.

Barbara Ostrander

The Shape I Am In

Well, it's been a long haul, and I am sorry to have been so long away. But honestly I couldn't figure out to get back into this blog. But now I have finally managed it and I come skidding back in with my New Year resolutions just prior to my fifty-eighth birthday (this coming Tuesday, January 10. . . Happy Birthday to me! ).

The first of the poems below was written for a challenge at Wild Poetry Forum and was not occasioned by my birthday (liar! liar!). . . I wrote the poem in October after returning from attending the Jack the Ripper conference in Brighton, England. In the poem I liken myself to Ariel Sharon in terms of size. Following Mr. Sharon's unfortunate massive stroke of the past few days, I have written a couple of poems since announcing my New Year resolutions to give up beer and Kit Kats -- [A sidelight for Ripperologists... the rotund man who inspired the poem is not Sharon but author and D'Onstonite, Ivor Edwards, seen in the bar of the Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton]

The Shape I Am In

It's my birthday... fifty seven today,
and in a pub a man floats by with a pint of beer.
I construe him as tubby Ariel Sharon drifting
over porpoised carpet, as Sharon hovers blimp-like
over the mosaicked, jigsawed Mideast. But with despair
I realize I am the tub shape of Sharon -- reject
workout for one more lager at the bar rail,
more munchies. Where is that thin young man
who sailed to Nixon's America,
paddy fields with napalm or Canadian sanctuary
-- I didn't get drafted, lottery no. 315
of 365. But heard of another Liverpool boy,
a non-citizen who died in Vietnam,
could have been me, tear gas and blood
at Kent State in Neil Young's lyrics--
"Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio."
Ah, but luckily at fifty seven
(all those Heinz varieties of me!)
I can sail above it all,
rolling in the stratosphere
like Ariel Sharon.

************

No Belly Laugh for Me

No, ma'am, now that
I've given up beer,
y'all cain't call me
Mr Beergut no more.

I'm a lean machine,
venting my spleen
at the couch potatoes,
those spare tire folks.

I WILL be thin; I WILL
get in those duds I never
could before -- now I
have given up the suds.

************

No Kit Kats

on the train going home
from D.C. to Baltimore, MD:
no treats to munch between
the Anacostia and Seabrook.

In the poem I wrote, published
of late in Words-Myth,
aptly titled "The Shape I Am In,"
I blithely compared myself

to tubby Ariel Sharon,
testimony to my flab -- but
now Ariel lies near death
in a Jerusalem hospital;

blood flooded his brain
after a second stroke
brought on no doubt
by his undue obesity--

I remember the April photograph
of Bush greeting Sharon
in Crawford, after the overweight
Israeli hauled from a limo:

our slim leader accompanied
by his black Scottie
grasping the meaty paw
of the rotund P.M.

What a salutary lesson as I pray
for Sharon's recovery and
continue my fast, slimming
down into the New Year.

Christopher T. George

Desert Moon Review Reading, Saturday, October 29

Just returned from Philadelphia where I spent time at Robin's Bookstore, 13th and Samsom Streets, as master of ceremonies at the first get-together of poets from Desert Moon Review, where I am editor. Follow the link through the title to our website.

A report of our great weekend... In all, a fabulous weekend enjoyed by all!

Most of us were staying at the Alexander Inn described as a "boutique bed and breakfast" at Spruce and 12th Street. It turned out to be a nice place run by a gay Belgian guy and his friend. The staff were polite and efficient. Price a bit on the pricy side but worth it for the convenience and the bonhomie of having everyone together.

I just stayed the one night, Sat. night although Jim Corner, founder, publisher and owner of Desert Moon Review, stayed Friday and Saturday nights. They even printed calling cards for him "James D. Corner, in residence at the Alexander Inn..." I didn't get those maybe because I only stayed one night! Jim is a retired pastor who lives in Arizona.

I found Jim in the breakfast room when I arrived and so we shared breakfast and chatted for an hour or so. Then as people came and went I recognized Laurie Byro and her husband. Laurie and Mike wanted to go the Museum of Art to see the Edvard Munch exhibition. He's the Norwegian artist who painted "The Scream" which was recently stolen. Laurie wanted to see his painting "The Mermaid" and it was impressive, supported by similar studies he had done. Also great to see the Impressionists in adjoining rooms.

We lunched at the Art Museum and got back to the Inn in time to meet Guy Kettelhack and Sarah Sloat. Guy took us over to the bookstore after walking at first in the wrong direction.... we figured it out, the streets are a bit confusing so I could have easily made the same mistake. Checked out the upstairs space for the reading. There was a black history guy talking about his book when we looked in.

Then back to the hotel to chill out until 6:00 pm and then to walk over to the bookstore. Met Al Ferber, Philly native and Mike Byro enjoying cigarettes on the sidewalk outside the store. Al was there with his wife Cathi, his cousin from Maryland, and husband occupying the front row.

Started the reading dead on 7:00 pm. Jim Corner had suggested reading in a round robin manner but I didn't see how that could conveniently work with people going on and offstage in the time allowable, so we read in alphabetical order. I introduced each reader and allowed each of the eight readers seven and a half minutes each which allowed for around five or so poems each. A great variety of poems and styles of poetry and the reading was great, lots of laughs and beautiful imagery. Impressive!

We actually finished at 7:55 pm so I invited everyone to read one more poem so we did have the round robin reading Jim had called for. Scott Summers who came up last did not have a poem but spoke to how DMR had helped him grow as a poet. Laurie Byro asked him to read again his first poem.

We went to the Sansom Street Oyster House for a meal... Al Ferber and gang didn't come with us, Al and wife had to go to their shore house to close up for the winter.

Had drinks and a great meal at the Oyster House, though I had to send instructions to the bar on how to make a double Harvey Wallbanger straight up... a screwdriver with galliano. When it came there was no OJ so I sent it back to be added. Long and cool it turned out great.

I had lobster bisque and an entree of broiled scallops. Fine conversation about literature and how we had all enjoyed the evening. Said goodbye to Sarah and her sister on the sidewalk outside and the rest of us went back to the Alexander Inn. All in all a fine and satisfying time! We plan another get together/reading perhaps in the West, hopefully next year. Stay tuned for news of that.


Lingua Frank O'

Standing in the Sunday morning October cold air
for the red and white Capital cab to whisk me
back to 30th Street Station, I study the Flemish
bond of the turn-of-the-century boutique B and B,
carved brownstown quoins, ornate window filigree.

I recall how yesterday it was HQ for Desert Moon,
--though Spanish-French fills the breakfast room
where yestermorn Jim Corner and I kibbutzed,
went with Laurie & Mike to the Philly Art Museum
with its Rocky steps, an eyeful of Edvard Munch.

How Guy, the expert, guided us the wrong way
to the bookshop on the Philly streets till we figured
the right way. At a deli, I bought bottled water
and we settled into Mr. Robin's bookstore loft,
timed the reading to perfection, 60 min. exactly.

So many styles of expression! Eight poets,
eight different voices! Mitchell's mauve poems,
his sonnets, villanelles, Jim's Palo Verde verse,
Scott's Civil War pieces, Al's Philly humor,
Sarah on what it's like to live in Germany,

Laurie and I read from The Poets Gone Wild
anthology... Guy on living in Greenwich Village.
He's Frank O'Hara reborn, but more formal
than Frank, people said I'm more like O'Hara:
Did this, did that; made Philly Lingua Frank O'.

Christopher T. George

Moon Follow Me Down

I travel south on the Marc train
in the Tuesday morning darkness;
a nearly full moon moves with me
over the treeline as we speed to D.C.

Later, I stroll through the Smithsonian gardens,
sniff the lone white bloom on the gardenia bush.
I walk down Independence Avenue where mirrored
moons of CCTV cameras monitor my way to work.

Christopher T. George

I have written a blog entry for Barbara Ostrander for Desert Moon recording the fact of her passing and how it has hit our community, and including one of Barb's poems about her relationship with Africa ("Africa Unleashed"). What Barbara was about and what I am about is partly reflected in the following poem.

On one of her trips to Bethesda for treatment, Barbara was able to attend a history lecture I gave near Annapolis, which resulted in the following poem of mine written as part of Gary Blankenship's hyperpoem series, utilizing a line from Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" ("Time for you and time for me")--

Annapolis Harbor at Christmas

To Barbara

Somehow we find the time after your day
at the clinic, my workday, after we fought
traffic in the Maryland rain to make it late
to my evening lecture, the spaghetti supper.
Somehow, we find time as snow sifts down:
Time for you and time for me.

The snow melts on the water
and on the bronze statue of Alex Haley
as he reads to the bronze children,
to tell how Kunta Kinte landed here
all those generations ago as a slave
aboard the Lord Ligonier.

And you want badly to see the sea.
Well, this isn't the sea exactly, an arm
of the Chesapeake Bay. Yet, I feel
we're walking barefoot on a beach,
in sand dunes, among scraggy grass
at the ocean, in Maryland, in Africa.

Christopher T. George

Icky the Firebobby . . . and My Songwriting

Icky the Fire Bobby

In the land of thingamabob and wotsit,
Icky was my bogeyman, the specter
who'd grab me if I didn't get to bed,
if I didn't eat my peas or mashed spuds.

He haunted pantry, clothes cupboard,
made plans in the dark to terrify,
a mean older brother, a hairy policeman
with hatchet and tall bobby's helmet.

I trembled in bed waiting for his bullseye
lantern to single me out, to haul me off
to the coal bunker for punishment with all
the other bad, sobbing little buggers.

Christopher T. George

This was the weekend on which the musical by Erik Sitbon and myself, "Jack--The Musical" was going to be presented in Charlotte, North Carolina, but unfortunately plans fell through for the weekend. Still, have to plug on. Erik has just returned from Deauville where he said he performed before a crowd of 15,000 our song, "Gotta to Make the Right Move." We will get there slowly and surely. . .



Erik in Deauville, Entertaining the Masses

P.S. You can see a video of one of our songs, "June," by hitting the link through the title to this post above.

Closing Time at Union Station

After a hard day's edit, I discover
the Thunder Grill closing, an agitated
bartender who, praise the Lord, concocts
me a double Harvey Wallbanger. . . but

there's no chili to be had, chef packed up.
Minutes later, I sit on a rose marble plinth,
waiting for the 10:40 pm to whisk me away,
survey the inlaid marble, echoing expanse.

The rattan chairs of the Center Café stack
promiscuously three on a tier. At Ka Bloom,
a man walks the pink roses and purple irises
into a walk-in cooler; automatic doors open, close;
he settles the flowers in their bright steel containers.

Christopher T. George

Well, Sallye is not happy with me because the unit of edited manuscripts should have mailed last week, ideally. But I did have some formatting and other issues to contend with from the authors so it wasn't all smooth sailing. Anyway, today, Tuesday, I have a doctor's appointment in the morning and can relax some at home. Also I think Donna is putting us in for pedicures after I pick her up from work this afternoon, for which see--

The Gods Are Dancing

on the wall in gold frames,
and Donna and I undergo pedicures,
tended by Vietnamese dames
while Watkins Glen plays overhead,

the TV blaring in blue and red,
Busch beer, STP, and Red Bull;
a race driver's interviewed in a lull,
TV turns his face orange, his shades blue.

Scent of aloe, pink Jergens massage,
my feet are done. Donna, how about you?

Christopher T. George

Barbara Ostrander

I have been knocked sideways by the sad news of the passing of my friend poet Barbara Ostrander which occurred at her home in Lexington, Kentucky, peacefully, on the afternoon of Friday, August 12. Barbara was age 49. I along with a number of other internet poets were concerned that we had not heard from her for some time. I had known that her cancer prognosis had worsened at the end of last year, and that the regimens she had been under were not working. I had tried to e-mail Barbara on a number of occasions over the past several months. I finally found an e-mail address for her husband Kent Ostrander this past Tuesday and contacted him. Kent gave me the sad news that Barb had died eleven days earlier.

I had the privilege of knowing Barbara from the fall of 2003 onward after I met her through Merseyside performance poet Jim Bennett's Poetry Kit e-mail list, having first come in contact with Jim around the time of my visit to Merseyside in August 2003 for the Jack the Ripper convention at the Liverpool Britannia Adelphi Hotel. I began to learn what an incredible person she was through the featured poet pages for Barbara on the PK website.

Learning that Barbara was coming to Bethesda outside of Washington, D.C., where I work, in order to come for cancer treatment at the National Institutes of Health, I arranged to meet her. It turned out that we met in the aftermath of the remains of Hurricane Isabel raging through Washington and Maryland on Saturday, September 20, I braved signal outages on Georgetown Pike to get to her hotel... though Barbara, pioneer and world traveller that she was, wanted to know what all the fuss was about. A couple of my poems below refer to the evening.

Follow the link through the title above for a website dedicated to Barbara that has been set up by Charlene Dewbre.



Transfusion

To Barbara

I. Intaglio

A fire inside the stone,
an image engraved in a dark gem.
You're an ICU nurse; on your arm,
you wear a picc, a plastic lizard.

We meet in the lobby of the Sheraton,
my Kentucky woman in black, in dark glasses,
in Bethesda to receive your cancer treatment.

You've climbed Kilimanjaro twice,
shot your own zebra,
whose hide hangs on your wall,
cared for Rwandan war victims.
You tell me how you broke
protocol to whisper to the dying
woman whose family had been herded
from the room, to tell her God loved her.

You, the Kenyan white girl, tell me
about your trip to India and Nepal.


II. India

You bathe the four-year-old boy with scabies
in the city they call "The Armpit of India,"
his head an open sore of green pus,
a battlefield for the microscopic mite.

Scabies everywhere on the orphans:
buttocks, fingers, ears, legs.
The feast of Dasain, everything
closed, even the pharmacy,

so you and Mary Ellen rummage
for cotton bales, an antipyuretic
for their fevers, calamine lotion
for their itching.

You drag the infected mattresses
from the orphanage, set them on fire.
Sparks drift like spirits to the stars.


III. Transfusion

Barbara, I can't stop the tumor growing in your lung
and neither can the new chemo the Feds tried.
I'm grateful that instead of flying home,
you stay to attend my lecture.
They've removed the picc from your arm; you rejoice
at the prospect of a shower, your first since February.

Now, next morning, I slosh through still-dark Baltimore
as you get ready to take your flight back to Kentucky.
As I think about you, I almost miss my turn
at Poe's marble grave to head to Washington,
the line of rear lights ahead,
red corpuscles flowing
into the nation's body politic.

Christopher T. George


-- The preceding poem appears in the Poets Gone Wild anthology just published.



Traveller - For Barbara

You were the voyager, going
where I could not go, passport
stamped with tumors and chemo doses.

You spoke of your fellow patients,
how you shared the rollercoaster
of hope renewed and hope lost.

You and I shared a hurricane's aftermath,
when powercuts blacked out Bethesda,
ate in the Mongolian grill, where

you told me of climbing Kilimanjaro.
But now you journey farther:
footsteps in the snow, solo.

Christopher T. George

**************************


Sunburst

The sun bursts from behind clouds piled
high above the National Postal Museum,
and I watch a pigeon strut between
scurrying commuters at Union Station.

I wonder at this God who could
take you from us at so young
an age -- only 49. I know you'd say
it was all meant to be: you went
from your husband's arms
to God's.

Christopher T. George

The ending lines of this poem came from what Barbara's husband Kent wrote to me in his e-mail of August 23 telling me of her passing:

"By Providence, I was privileged to have been home and holding her when she passed into eternity. Though she had weakened considerably in recent months, neither she nor I though that Friday was to be her last day. I had come home early from work to meet with her and a nurse about some other concern when she began a coughing spell. Holding her in my arms I would help her lean forward to cough and back to rest against a stack of pillows. At one point she paused, looked left to the nurse and asked 'Is this it?' The nurse replied 'It might be.' Barb turned back to me - nose to nose, her eyes dilated and she was gone."

Authors and Writing

Chris George at Sunday, August 7, Gazebo reading at LaGuardia Community Gardens, Greenwich Village. Photograph by Robert Schechter. Follow the link through the title for more on last Sunday's poetry reading and gathering.

I am going to use Bob's photograph of me on the flyleaf of my new book, which will be a bicentennial history of the St. Andrew's Society of Baltimore, tentatively titled Maryland's Scottish Heritage: The St. Andrew's Society of Baltimore, 1806–2006. I am meeting with Brian McNeill of the St. Andrew's Society this evening at the Thunder Grill in Union Station for a beer and some chile to discuss finalizing the book. Hopefully the book will be out in time for the Society's spring meeting in March.



I also have an article out in the September issue of Military History on "Militia Redeemed Before Baltimore" with a subcaption "After bungling their defense of Washington in August 1814, American militiamen showed their worth at North Point and Fort McHenry a month later."



One disappointment is that the planned September 16-18 performance of my musical "Jack--The Musical" written with composer Erik Sitbon has had to be cancelled. Nonetheless, I have War of 1812 talks planned for Fort McHenry's Star-Spangled Banner Weekend on the weekend of September 10-11 as well as a talk to give to a military group in Parkville on September 27. I should be able to sell more copies of Terror on the Chesapeake: The War of 1812 on the Bay and get more subscribers for The Journal of the War of 1812, and rope in more attendees for the Ninth National War of 1812 Symposium upcoming on October 8.

Gardeners and Poets

We gather in a Greenwich Village community garden,
beside the public apple tree and the private pear,
to recite our poems for friends and gardeners.

Seniors wander in and sit to listen for a while
then drift off like swallowtails to the honey-scented
buddleia. A woman in a straw sunhat harvests

plump tomatoes in a canvas shoulder bag. Magenta
hibiscus lolls by the gold of black-eyed susans;
our poet-comedian urges laughter with his routine

on spam to shrink his mortgage and grow his johnson;
curious couples peer through green chainlink;
as August evening breezes blow, pigeons convene

on a roof, and a male jitterbugs for bored females.
The rain holds off; words trail off in applause.
We poets retreat to a pub for Guinness and gin.

On the table, someone's placed a pink rose, a green apple.

Christopher T. George



Sciurine Chunter

I'm early to the site of the reading, to check
out the lie of the land. I admire the statue
of LaGuardia, walking mouth open, clapping.

The patio of Newgate pub sits empty, padlocked
where later we poets will regale and carouse,
the garden where we'll read locked too, guarded

by a squirrel in the apple tree. She regards
me with dark moist eye and squeals
her alarm call in insistent sciurine chunter.

Christopher T. George

Note: This was a reading my poets from the websites Gazebo and Able Muse. Pictures and other information from the reading can be reached by hitting the link through the title.

Save Me from the Duck Calls

The dome of the Capitol with the black Indian princess
(Liberty or symbolic of the Amerindian's extermination?)
is perfectly framed between George Washington's oaks.

I shelter in the barrel vaulted arcade of Union Station's
facade; a family disgorges from a D.C. Duck, quacking
their pesky yellow quackers; Dad gives his two toddlers

their quackers--please don't do that! Fine: they march
off into the station's inner sanctum. Water cascades
from the eastern fountain in shimmering sheets; a black-

and-white pigeon lands momentarily for a drink, sails off
over the Duck docked in the circle; its driver, Aye aye, Cap'n,
sits on a windowsill, reads James Ellroy's Black Dahlia,
idly twisting kiss curls in his remaining snow white hair.

Christopher T. George





Brave Ulysses

It's egg-fry-on-the-sidewalk weather in D.C.,
tourists in shorts mob round the U.S. Capitol,
take turns snapping pics with their digicams.

Ulysses S. Grant still sits huge and green
on his horse, brim of his slouch hat pulled down
to keep out the rain; either side of him slog

his troops, a cavalry charge, artillery, so wet,
so muddy, but it's dry here in D.C., visitors gasp
for an ice cold water or an ice cream, please.

Christopher T. George

The Danger of Abbreviations

"Tiny PCs goes into administration. . ."
Headline, BBC Business News, July 27, 2005

Tiny police constables in giant bobby's helmets swarm
over the London Underground! Must be a strategy

to get 'em to crawl under passenger seats,
bite the legs of terrorists as they get ready

to blow up their backpacks, their midget
incisors specially sharpened for the job.

Christopher T. George

Yet More Worrying Developments Out of London

On Saturday, the Metropolitan Police admitted that the man who was shot on the tube train was not part of the bomb plots and he appears to have been a completely innocent man. The police now say that Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, who was killed in error by police at Stockwell Tube station on Friday after they suspected he was a suicide bomber, had been in Britain on an out-of-date student visa. This means that the police have a major problem on their hands in addition to the effort to track down the bombers and their accomplices which they have indicated has already stretched their resources to the limits. The dead man's cousin, Alex Pereira, stated: "They killed my cousin, they could kill anyone." (See link through title above.)

More Worrying Developments in London

I am monitoring the news about the man shot dead this morning at Stockwell Station. The man is said by the police to be not one of the would-be bombers from yesterday but nonetheless somehow connected to the bomb plots.

Considering that the fellows were apparently making the explosives in their bathtub(s) using fertilizer, it does appear they are not the most sophisticated crew. It could be either that yesterday's bombs were either not properly primed, or else as I believe I heard one expert say, the bomb mixture might have deteriorated with time. Still, worrying times in Britain right now!!!

I sent an e-mail to MSNBC last night. I travel every day through Washington D.C.'s Union Station and on the D.C. Metro but I see no evidence that bomb-sniffing dogs are being used as they are, I understand, on the transit system in London. The railway tickets of people boarding trains were checked for two days only after the July 7 London bombings but not since. Civil liberties people are protesting a plan in New York to randomly search commuters baggage. That would seem to me to be a small price to pay for any law-abiding citizen.

Detonated

Another series of bomb incidents on the transit in London
only this time the bombs don't blow, only the detonators
go Pop! on three tube trains and a double-decker bus.

A bomber lands splat on his back, the bathtub explosive
failing to go kaboom, blinks to not find himself enjoying Paradise

having his way with the promised 72 virgins. Tough, Ali.

Christopher T. George

Floral Tribute at King's Cross*

White chrysanthemums and orange-tinged yellow roses
in cellophane with turquoise prayer beads
photographed with the words of Issa:

in this world
we walk on the roof of hell
gazing at flowers

Christopher T. George

* Follow the link in the title to see Ashe's tribute using these words of Issa's:

Hatred

Hatred
blindfolds, justice
denied, blinded victims,
insurgents blindfolded, Prud'hon's
Fortune.

Lives of July 7

From the viewpoint of an ex-pat Liverpudlian
I learn of the losses of fellow Scousers

--the John Lennon Airport executive who lost his legs
after the tube train at Aldgate Station exploded;

and on the number 30 bus in Tavistock Square,
the girlfriend of the Walton chap talking to him by phone

about his birthday, their plans for that evening--

--the explosion set off by the nice quiet teenager

fiddling with backpack, chap whose dad runs a chippie.

Christopher T. George



The Dogs of War

Joining the undercover operatives, the Smart Bombs,
the closed circuit videocams, wet noses at the ready,

sniff sniff sniff, a beagle seeks out a cache of Semtex
or the torso-wrap of high-grade plastic explosives

masquerading as spare tire or tourist's money belt, to nose
out the "clean skins" or young radicals, innocent

of any crime, with murderous fire in their bellies.

Christopher T. George

Anthem

Lay a new foundation stone,
raise the roof tree
toward the North Star,
lend a helping hand,
palms callused with work--
that's how to defeat evil,
everyone working together,
all our hearts in unison,
our hopes harnessed to defeat
the shadow men, the forces
that divide us, when the devil
seeps into our foundations,
threatens society at its taproot.

Christopher T. George