No Atrocities for Non Persons

You are a non person
We don't care about you
Only Westerners are human
You don't matter
We don't care...

Our atrocities
Are only atrocities if done
to persons.
You are a non person
So we can bomb you and maim you
You are "collateral" damage.

How dare you raise up
Against us
You terrorists.
Just because we take your land
and kill you non persons
Is no reason to attack us.
We are America
Uncle Sam
Benevolent Dictators of
the World
Bombs R Us
And we don't care
About non persons.


This poem comes out of my anger about the way the West (esp the US) treats people who are non Western. They are viewed as non persons, non human, and don't need our consideration. But one day everyone will have to face that humans are all persons, there is no out group of non persons. Western terrorism exists even if the West can not see this.

The term terrorist is a weighted one and depends on your point of view.

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Language is a Virus - a Poem

This is a poem based upon an article called 66 Experiments by Charles Bernstein

Homolinguistic translation word for word
Heads the list, fair enough
And a homophonic translation of
atakallamu bil arrabiya illa qalilan
Becomes Atta lame bill scarab bee car
Pillar Carly Land
Tzaras hat's a random treat
Wildly mad libbing
Substitution cubed
Autopilot Synchronicity.

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You Know Who You Are

Coming at me sideways
from an unexpected source
We quickly struck a chord
of shared experience
Across the web of bits and bytes
A cyber friendship
In the making...

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Attention Rebel Poets: George Elliot Clarke on Spoken versus Written Poetry

What the Spoken Word poet knows that the page-poet has forgotten is, POETRY is meant to be performed. In the Western tradition, it descends from Ancient Greek performances of sagas and plays. EVEN IF a Spoken Word poem LOOKS simple–TOO simple–the only way to know its real power is to read it aloud, for oneself. Eliot said, “No verse is ‘free’ for a poet who wants to do a good job.” I say, “No poem is ‘good’ UNLESS it can be read aloud.” - toronto poet laureate george elliot clarke

This quote sums up why spoken poetry is so powerful and often threatening to academic poets. There is a raw edge to performed poetry - a theatrical component that doesn't sit well with the aridity and extreme objectivity of the academically trained and lauded poet.

The interview that this quote comes from can be accessed here:

It is a thought provoking discussion, suitable reading for any outlaw poets out there...
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Galoush for Stephanie

Life is fun and then we die
But on the way we share our
hopes, our aspirations
and our recipes.

Sitting in the cool of the afternoon
my daughter, Stephanie, peruses
her mothers recipe book.
A new family dish is invented,
The contents the same but the name has changed.

From now on we will eat
Hungarian galoushes
No pedestrian goulashes for us.
The galoosh, or galoush is a cunning dish
Renaming it will let it know
We are onto his devious ways..

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Qatar Poems - Leaving Friend

He sold the idea to me
Come to Qatar
Great place
Great people.

I left the green land
of Aotearoa
and came to Qatar
dry desert
with it's own charm.

Now he is going back
he has had enough
Leaving for Australia
Home of the kangaroo
wattle and gum tree.

Go well my friend
remember us
in our hour
of need.

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The Qatar Poems - an explanation

Poetry is a very evocative reminder of ones life and adventures. I use this poetry blog as an electronic poetic journal. During my three yesrs in the UK I wrote many poems (see blog posts from 2008-2011). Back in New Zealand I wrote a series of outlaw and experimental poems as well as some regional poetry describing the Waikato around Hamilton. I am now on contract in Qatar and I am writing a series of Qatar poems that I will publish when I leave.

Apart from a short stint in Thailand, Qatar is the place that has been the most culturally different from my upbringing in New Zealand. I found that working in the US, UK and Australia was very close to living in New Zealand, but Qatar has been a complete change and cultural challenge. The first 3 months were very strange but after 7 months I found myself feeling at home. My wife joined me after 6 months and she is still going through the I hate Qatar phase. She is a country girl and I have taken her from a farmlet in the country to the deserts and dryness of Qatar. The adjustment has been dislocating for her but I recognise the cycle she is going through.

I'm sure I will look through these poems in years to come and they will strengthen my memories of my time here.

As I learn more Arabic, I am feeling more at ease. You will know this has infiltrated my mind when Arabic phrases make their way into the poems.

Peace

Grant

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Qatar Poems - The Whanau Returns

From home they came
in the sky waka.
Wife and daughter
Back to the deserts
of lovely Qatar.

Leaving Aotearoa
with roimata,
Arriving in Doha
with roimata.
Tane whispered,
E whanau mā, haramai rā,
haramai.


Note: waka - canoe, Aotearoa - New Zealand, roimata - tears, E whanau ma, haramai ra, haramai - Family, Welcome, Welcome

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Qatar Poems - Winter End Blues

I never mourned
the passing of winter
in years gone past
but here in Middle Eastern climes
The cool respite
Is a welcome interlude
From the unrelenting sun
and heat.

So farewell my quarterly friend
I will remember you
as the mercury rises
and the sweat drops
in the country of
the Desert bloom.

Note: I moved to Qatar in 2013 and survived my first Summer. I thought I would never be cold again and the heat in mid summer was relentless. You can hardly walk 10 steps without becoming drenched in sweat. The last 3 months have been very pleasant but as we enter Spring the temperatures are slowly rising, but I now have a different kind of Winter appreciation.

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To Do List Found Poetry

This poem was constructed from taking every 3rd word from the To Do list found on my desk today. Enjoy.

Issues templates Physician
35 Action Medical
Next Issues running
What Owens April a Analysis.

Weeks forward Surgeon retreat
CCC State One SME Manoj
Hyperion of match a out a clinicians
HR program to access 210

Is it poetry, I think it is, but feel free to differ. Experimental poetry is fun.

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Qatar Winter

Everyone said
it never gets below
20 degrees...

But it does.
It is Winter
and surprisingly
I'm cold.

13 degrees
is 40 degrees off
the Summer High

So here I am
feeling cold
in the middle
of this desert state.

DK

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Camel Dung Flu

Head aching
Nose running
Throat sore
Temperature high

It's not man flu this time
Its flu plus sand
mixed with camel dung
That causes my lungs

To heave and cough
and hurt
Especially when the
hump comes up.

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Vigil

Awake through the long night

Uncomfortably perched

on an airport recliner

8 hours of boredom.

A jolt of coffee

and a bite to eat

Opens the eyes

focusing the mind.

Now there is only

16hours of flying to go

until I return

to my 

Ithaca.

Qatar Living

Doha
Splendid city
Exotic to me
Through Western eyes.

Sitting on a desert
beside the sea
resplendent
in beauty.

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Oblivion

Why do we wish
for what we can not
have
and search for the
unsearchable?

What drives us from our homes
to scurry
to and fro
in the maelstrom of life?

I guess if we knew
we would not do
And if we did not do,
then what?

Oblivion?

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Delight

Delight in the moment
In the small things
that happen.
Life is a momentary
phenomenon
lived between
the past
and future.

Be alive
to receive
what life gives you.
A laugh, a smile
the feel of warm air
on skin.
Enjoy before you die
where delight is no more
found.

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Coleridge on Poetry

'I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is prose; words in their best order; - poetry; the best words in the best order.'

S.T.Coleridge

The best words in the best order. True, but O so hard to do. I guess this is a function of the focus needed to write good poetry. It is an act of labor as well as of love (or angst). Maybe that is why Coleridge took drugs LOL.
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Venting via Poetry

Writing poetry is a very good venting mechanism for those times when you are angry, dissatisfied, annoyed or generally feeling upset. There is a catharsis in capturing your thoughts and reining them in. The Outlaw Poets are very accomplished in this form of venting.

You may in fact surprise yourself. I find that in such venting I often tap into some unconscious thoughts that I was unaware of. The words you use and their tone are often expressions of hidden and unexpressed thoughts.

So if you are angry, get it out and write a poem.

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Poetic lassitude

Tired, listless and lacking
in poetic inspiration.
Languishing on the sofa
while words rush past
unacknowledged
without
the coralling
effect of rhyme
and form.

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Frank O'Hara - a tribute and found poem

This poem is composed from the first lines from the first 12 poems in Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems.

If I rest for a moment near the Equestrian
The sun, perhaps three of them,one black one red, you
Quick! a last poem before I go
I watched and armory combing its bronze bricks
The black ghinkos snarl their way up
My love is coming in a glass.

It's my lunch hour, so I go
It is still raining and the yellow-green cotton fruit
Instant coffee with slightly sour cream
So many things in the air! soot
I am very happy to be here at the Villa Hugel
It is dirty.

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