Posted in Architecture & Design, Art Scene, Books, Current Affairs, Film, Literature, Memoirs, Philosophy, Poetry, Politics, Relationships, Science, Social Commentary, Society, Technology, tagged acrobatics, almost, alternate, architect, architecture, arrangement, assembly, balance, balustrade, bear, bed, block, bond, boulder, boxes, build, building, cabinet, cable, cantilever, carpenter, carpet, cement, chair, chandelier, clasp, coats, concrete, conversation, cure, curtains, deadline, deck, decorator, design, doors, drafting table, draftsman, drain, dreams, ducting, edifice, envision, expectation, extension, falling, fern, fingers, first, fix, floor, fog, forward, foundation, fountain, frames, framework, Frank Lloyd Wright, fresh, genius, grand, granite, graphite, grass, green, hammer, hand, hang, hard, hear, here, hewn, hours, installation, intellectual, justify, landscaper, lap, layer, laying, lifeless, little, location, mad, masons, masses, measure, miles, mimic, mind, mirror, mix, modern, morning, nail, natural, near, network, newlly, outward, painter, painting, paper, patch, patina, pencil, pieces, pipe, plant, plaster, poem, poetry, polished, push, reach, reality, resemblance, resistance, rock, rolls, roof, sand, saying, scale, set-up, sets, shelves, shrubs, sills, sinews, sit, skeleton, slab, slate, somebody, stair, stirrup, stretch, suclpture, summon, swab, symbiosis, symbol, table, themselves, thrust, ties, tight, tree, utopia, vase, veins, vellum, vine, wallpaper, walls, water, waterfall, waterline, weight, wet, windows, wooden, world on January 6, 2012|
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Frank Lloyd Wright
and his falling water. Masses
of concrete cantilevered,
and extending outwards
like hands reaching- symbiosis.
But I’m no Frank
and dreams might be
my little fingers clasping
hard and pushing pencils
for somebody else’s utopia.
The hewn boulders of rock
resisting the foundation
on which this grand design sits,
I bear the weight of expectations.
Balancing upon the scales
on which the measure of cement
is mixed in sand and water.
The lapping over of slates into a bond.
The forward thrust of hammer to nails.
The tightening of ties around stirrups.
The alternate laying of the roof decking.
And the network of drain pipes,
cables and ducting, and waterlines
resembling the veins and sinews
of the building’s skeleton. I build
a symbol- the framework of the mind.
The genius envisions an edifice
in his intellectual acrobatics,
justifying to the world the modern-
reality that build themselves on paper.
Summoning the masons to lay
its plaster to newly cured blocks.
The painter to swab the walls
in fresh coats. The decorator
sets the chairs, the beds,
the mirrors and the tables.
The vases and layers of curtains.
The lifeless sculpture pieces
and paintings hanged to the walls.
Fixing rolls of wallpaper and carpets
over polished granite floors.
The carpenter assembling
cabinet boxes, ledges and shelves.
The windows fitted to the sills.
And the doors hanged on frames.
The location of the chandelier.
Installing wooden slabs on stairs.
The green patinated balustrades.
The landscaper to plant shrubs, and ferns
and vines and trees and patch of grass.
The water fountains and the waterfall
arranged mimicking a natural set-up.
But I ‘m no Frank.
The hours stretched for miles and miles.
The drafting table becoming wet with fog
until the first hours of the morning.
I can hear the mad conversations
of the vellum and the graphite saying,
“deadline nears, it’s almost here”.
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The Reading
Posted in Current Affairs, Literature, Memoirs, Poetry, Politics, Relationships, Religion, Social Commentary, Society, Travel, tagged aftershock, agony, alarm, anguish, ash, avalanche, away, bar, bell, breath, brothers, building, cacophony, candle, cards, carnage, chase, children, concrete, cry, day, deck, distant, down, dust, earthquake, elevator, engraved, erosion, explosion, extinguish, extraordinary, fall, fate, father, fireball, first, floor, forgotten, foundation, fragile, frozen, fuel, glass, gradual, grief, ground, hallway, hearing, hearts, helpless, horror, husbands, ignite, impact, innocent, jet, lamentation, listen, little, mad, mangle, memory, men, mess, mid-air, missing, mother, name, pain, panic, people, poem, poetry, polish, powder, prayer, reading, remembrance, rip, roar, rock, rubble, rush, scramble, scream, second, shock, sigh, silence, siren, sisters, skeleton, skin, slab, slither, slow, sound, splash, staircase, stampede, steel, stone, stumble, suspension, symphony, tangle, tear, time, toll, topple, trap, tremble, trickle, twist, undiminished, unison, unlatch, water, weakening, whispers, wisp, wives, women, world, zero on January 25, 2012| 4 Comments »
I hear them screaming through
the sound of falling and splashing
and stumbling down staircases.
Of mangled steel twisting glass
and concrete skins ripping away
from the building’s skeleton.
I hear the slithery rush of jet fuel
scrambling down chases and elevators
at first and second impact, the aftershock.
Igniting fireballs through the hallway.
Explosions rocked the foundations
trembling in little earthquakes.
I hear the mad stampede roar.
I hear the panic bars unlatch.
Then the cacophony of sirens,
the tolling of alarm bells,
the symphony of shock,
the avalanche of horror,
the carnage of the missing,
and the agony of the trapped.
I hear them- peoples of the world,
helpless among the tangled mess
of floor slabs toppled like a deck of cards.
The gradual weakening of their hearts,
the whispers in pain, the unison in prayer.
The slow fragile breaths silently eroding
and extinguished like wisps from a candle.
I hear the distant cries of children
who lost their fathers and mothers.
The anguish of fathers and mothers
losing their children in the rubbles.
The lamentations of men and women
losing their wives, their husbands,
their brothers and their sisters.
I hear them all within the sound of the water
trickling down over the polished slabs of stones.
I hear them while I listen in the reading,
of engraved names whose innocent fates
were like the powdery dusts in mid-air
frozen, suspended, undiminished in time.
I hear the grieving sighs. The silent tears.
The ashes of remembrance, the memory.
The extraordinary day when the world
will never forget the ground zero.
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