The Devil dances live from Cairo

The whole world is rupturing.
We see it unfolding on the nightly news.
Pundits like Jeremiahs tell us of
disasters now unnatural.

The floods now are from rivers of people
not water.
The explosions of are not of coal seam methane
but of human rage pent up
not in the tunnels underground
but in ancient alleys of distant streets.

We are witnesses thanks to
the uses and gratifications of social media.
But this new technology fills us with
a sense of fear
not feelings of transcendence.

We see the collapse of alliances and long-time allies,
while angry masses in their thousands demand
Bread, justice and peace.
And meanwhile they hurl epthitets on the nightly news
we know they are hurling monkey wrenches
into the delicate cogs and gears of the American
Imperial machine.

Now we know the Devil dances
live from Cairo
over wi-fi now.
Destroying in a moment our democratic
mythologies and conciets.

The demonstrators in the Muslim streets
delicate as dancers whose dancing shatters
our sunny sky with future filled with
higher food prices and
predictions of $5 a gallon gasoline.

We witness a reclamation of indigenous rights
and realize that
we stand on the floor of canyon
where black gray skies threaten inundation
and not just rain.

An inundation that drowns our world
while creating a new world
beyond reason and brighter than
the rainbow.

A dawn of a new era
in which we participate
but do not wish
to see.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The Devil dances live from Cairo copyright by Jamie Jacks 18 February 2011

Photograph from the U.S. Department of Defense. Source: http://www.defense.gov/dodcmsshare/newsphoto/2011-02/hires_110204-M-8012P-076.jpg. In the public domain.

Gerry Rafferty? No Al Stewart.

On January 4th, 2011, Scottish folk singer Gerry Rafferty died. His song Baker Street, was an iconic rock ballad of the 1970s. But as I was reading Rafferty's obituary and feeling somewhat saddened that his life had been devastated by alcoholism and depression, I was trying to remember the lyrics of another song, that I thought that Rafferty had also written.

It was about a Russian soldier who fought the German's in World War II. So I did a search on You Tube and found out it was not a Gerry Rafferty song, but a song written by another Scottish singer Al Stewart, who is very much alive. Al Stewart song Year of the Cat came out in 1976 and Rafferty's hit song Baker Street came out in 1978. So they would have been playing on F.M. radio about the same time.

The song I was thinking of was Roads to Moscow. Which tells the story Russian soldier who fights the Germans from the start Hitler's invasion of Russia to the conquest of Berlin. War over he expects to go home but,

I'll never know, I'll never know
Why I was taken from the line and all the others
To board a special train and journey deep into the heart of holy Russia
And it's cold and damp in the transit camp, and the air is still and sullen
And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I'll be home again and the morning answers "Never"
And the evening sighs and the steely Russian skies go on forever

source: http://www.answers.com/topic/roads-to-moscow

Stewart writes beautiful music. He also enjoys writing songs about history. That makes for interesting music. It also pretty much guarantees that many of his songs won't be played on MTV or what passes for FM rock radio. One of my current favorites of his is Hanno the Navigator, about the Carthaginian admiral who first explored the coasts of Africa. The lyrics are beautiful and playful at the same time.

It's a good day
for going to sea
Hanno the Navigator said to me.
There's an open sky and a steady breeze
out beyond the Pillars of Hercules.
Above the foam-kissed waves seagulls scream
up in the masts of our trireme
and it's a good day
for going to sea
Hanno the Navigator said to me.

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ7RD7ebZUA

Gerry Rafferty is gone and that's sad, but in researching his life and trying to remember his music, I was able to find another artist, Al Stewart whose music I enjoyed when it came out some 30 plus years ago. The other great thing is that Al Stewart will be playing here Bakersfield on April 16th. Count on it, I intend to buy tickets.

Capitano Tedeschi.

30

Picture of Gerry Rafferty by Eddie Mallin,(6 September 1980) retrieved from Wikipedia on 16 Feb. 2011. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gerry_Rafferty.jpg and used in accordance with permission granted by Creative Commons.

Gerry Rafferty, No Al Stewart copyright 16 February 2011 by Jamie Jacks

The cult of the dead God--Ronald Reagan

source: http://reaganboner.tumblr.com/page/4

Ronald Reagan the president, well I'm not a fan but he was probably a better president than I give him credit for. Sadly, Ronald Reagan, the president, has become the god of what I call, The Cult of Ronald Reagan. It is the Cult of Ronald Reagan I despise. Its is tenants are no longer effective and it's principal priests are debased and false.

What tenants you ask? Well the idea that Reagan advanced that Government is not the solution, government is problem.

Many of the cult's followers no longer engage in debate, refuse to compromise and rigidly adhere to creeds and dogmas that currently have no relevance in a rapidly changing world.

For nearly 22 years, the Cult of Ronald Reagan has exerted its baleful influence on American public life. Our republic is on the edge of bankruptcy and economic demise to the misguided pursuit of pseudo-Reaganistic policies by Bill Clinton and the two Bushes. Now as the country is slowly recovering from these policies, it is members of the Cult of Ronald Reagan have regained control of the House of Representatives. Now in power, they threaten to destroy the country's fragile economic policies that demand tax cuts for the rich while destroying what remains of the nation's social safety net.

What I find really amusing is the idea that Ronald Reagan might not be able to win elective office in what passes for today's Tea or Republican parties. As Alex Massie notes in his blog,

"For a long while and certainly at the time he was in office Reagan was an under-rated President; today he's in danger of being over-rated. The problem with the Cult of Reagan is not Reagan, but the impact membership has on the believers. He was more flexible than his admirers today sometimes acknowledge. Few of today's Republicans would, one supposes, endorse Reagan's tax-raising 1982 budget. Nor, one suspects, would today's nationalists approve of his decision to talk to the Soviets (indeed, at the time there were some who whispered that Reagan was "soft on Communism".) Nor, for that matter, could a Republican with national aspirations today endorse Reagan's liberal approach to immigration issues.

"Indeed, it's not clear a less gifted communicator armed with Reagan's actual beliefs could really win the Republican Presidential nomination today. And that's fine! Times change and so do parties. What was appropriate for the early 1980s isn't necessarily appropriate now. Reagan should no more be held as a template for modern Republicanism than Churchill should for the Tory party. (Mind you, the Cult of Churchill is also stronger in the United States than it is in Britain.) But nor should an imaginary Reaganism hold sway over, or demand unthinking fealty, from today's conservatives."

source: http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/6677674/the-cult-of-reagan-president-of-all-our-hearts.thtml

I agree with Alex Massie. Like I said I am not a fan of the Reagan Administration. Ronald Reagan, the Dead God of the corrupt Cult of Ronald Reagan, well he's just a figment of some people's imagination and not a real man at all.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

The cult of the dead God-Ronald Reagan copyright Feb. 10, 2011 by Jamie Jacks

Tule Fog

The last of the day is hazy,
but there was some sun and some warmth.
night becomes gray with fog

I drive into the evening
attempting to perform and gain certainty
from the rituals of my daily life
Headlight beams distorted
Distance disappears when landmarks
are swathed in vapor

I try to come to terms with
a new year
I feel late like I'm
26 days behind the rest of the world
Lost, groping cautiously
Propelling myself in to a future
I cannot see my way clearly

The night is cold,
All the world seems besieged
What once was known no longer has meaning
I’m up late pondering the nature
The nature of all manner of darkness.

Capitano Tedeschi

Tule fog copyright Jan. 27, 2011 by Jamie Jacks

Luis Aragon carved simple santos by hand

Not everyone knows
the nature of the carving
the mind sees,
the point of the knife
sharp and inquisitive
the blade
shaving away the false
leaving only the truth.

Every man is part of the holy trinity
of Land, Flesh and God.
Crops rise from sandy soil
children and goats romp
in the simple circle of the corral.

At night, while the woman slept and
the dog snored at the threshold
It was by lamplight pale yellow like
the glow from the gates of heaven
that the carving was done.
It was then that you searched for God
through the transubstantiation of
mesquite wood.
Without knowing how,
You'd see Saint John
in a piece of mesquite.
by your knife,
Saint John would be freed
from the wood
his body inverted trapezoids
of faith that was harder than flesh
his face a grainy vision of righteous anger.

In the morning,
Saint John would have gone
given to some stranger from Santa Fe,
who had stopped to ask for directions.
The Saint no longer belonging to you,
but to God.

All your days were spent this way.
Wrestling a living from the harsh,
uncompromising earth.
Watching the flocks and grandchildren grow
and in the evening
the mad passion of your hands
recreating the bible
in scrap pieces lumber.
Until that final day, when you
fell like a wood chip
to the hard earthen floor.

You are gone now.
St. John is a prisoner
standing on display
in a plexiglass case
owned by a museum that never
gives anything away.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Luis Aragon carved simple santos by hand copyright Sept. 15, 2010 by Jamie Jacks

Isle of the Immortals

(poem inspired by a Chinese Painting)

I think this mountain
was a giant once
perhaps he was in love
with an empress or
a water spirit

Why is that we love
that which is so elusive?
It is sad to love
someone who can not
love in return.

When the giant finally realized this
all he could do was sit down
and weep.
He cried and cried.
He cried so long,
he turned to stone,

He cried so much his tears flowed
like streams and waterfalls.
The land sighed
and the sea surrounded him

Trees grew like moss
on his arms and shoulders
clouds congealed in what was once
his lap.

There in those clouds
I build my house.
But some days
the pounding of my hammer
the rasping of my saw
echo strangely.

I must be careful
not to awaken him.
I must be careful
not to revive
memories of you
beloved.


Capitano Tedeschi

30

Isle of the Immortals copyright Sept. 13 2009 by Jamie Jacks

R2 D2 returned from the wars

Numbers all is numbers
numbers never lie
The tireless droid
Skywalker's gallowglass
came to the end of the galactic wars
The Evil Empire vanquished
The Dark and Light side of the Force
locked in tight harmony
D2 ran the numbers
and randomly threw itself back into time
and landed in a parallel galaxy
by an irrigation canal in almond orchard
not far from Bakersfield California
Droid disguised as an irrigation pump
something close R2D2
calculated to turning a sword into a ploughshare.
The silly humans here
still believe you can hear explosions
in the depth of space
D2's memory banks aare filled with silence
where there should have been screams

Once R2D2 spanned the universe
destroying Emperors and Death Stars
now it's regulating the flow of water
to the orchard
and attempting to model
the falling of almond blossoms
blown by a spring breeze
and erasing databanks of
distant,violent, and dire days.
Sometimes on winter nights
when the Tule fog seeps into
circuitboards seared by war
wounded, repaired, replaced
but never fully restored
the old days come back to the droid
Laser blasts
and space as cold as Vader's breath
or stranger still Princess Leah's message to Obi Wan
is warped into a strange lullaby
that sings it to serene stasis
if not actual sleep.

Thus the days go
the rains fall
the brown water flows
and the orchard blossoms
the Almonds are harvested.
D2 knows someday
they'll come to scrap this strange pump
Atoms will be recycled
Then R2D2 will be reborn
innocent, empty
to be filled with the same new numbers
to journey across time
to save the Galaxy once again
D2 knows not urgency
it knows how to wait.

Capitano Tedeschi
30.


R2D2 returned from the wars. Copyright 8/19/2010 by Jamie Jacks