http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html Lisa Mednick Powell: News Jannis' PHPRss class - http://www.jannis.to/ Sun, 20 May 2012 01:08:30 -0700 http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#55
Today’s poem is by Rainer Maria Rilke. The choice is inspired by having recently had the pleasure of hearing Ray Wylie Hubbard at the Lensic Theatre in Santa Fe. His song “The Messenger” contains a reference to Rilke. The song is on his album “Loco Gringo’s Lament.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eStAgL8pe08

Here is Rilke, from Sonnets to Orpheus, the first half of which, according to the book’s introduction, were written within a very short time span in 1922. Rilke wrote that the poems “...came up and entrusted themselves to me, the most enigmatic dictation I have ever held through and achieved; the whole first part was written down in a single breathless act of obedience, between the 2nd and 5th of February, without one word being doubtful or having to be changed.” There are 55 sonnets in the book. We are talking about extraordinary inspiration here.

Poem 1 from the Second Part, translation by M.D. Herter Norton

Breathing, you invisible poem!
World-space constantly in pure
interchange with our own being. Counterpoise,
wherein I rhythmically happen.

Solitary wave,
whose gradual sea I am;
most sparing you of all possible seas,--
winning of space.

How many other of these places in space have already been
within me. Many a wind
is like a son to me.

Do you know me, you air, still full of places once mine?
You onetime smooth rind,
rondure and leaf of my words.

Note: I don’t know if this is the best translation. It’s just the book I have on my shelf. If anyone knows of a better translation please tell me. I don’t know German.


And of course, here’s a song for the football people. You all knew I was gonna send this one, didn’t you? P.S. Don’t ”˜google’ “Bobby Bare.” Just sayin’...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COfL-jtdFWQ]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#55 Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#54
There are still some places, like maybe the south of France, where you can go bring a bottle to the wine shop and get it filled and refilled (and refilled and refilled...), and some of the desert people (here and there) go to a main source and fill huge plastic cubes with water. Some of us use our own bags at the grocery store. (psssst....wanna really mess them up at Walmart? Bring a damn tote bag. Those of you who shop at Walmart will know what I mean. Though wally-world cashiers have it hard enough already I suppose...)

What we are using up and causing to vanish are the resources that we use to make all of the disposable containers that we throw away.

So today's topic is...TRASH! featuring A.R. Ammons and the New York Dolls (filmed at Max's, a club that no longer exists except in the memories of a few of us who played there and spent many an hour at Johnny Thunders shows...)

Excerpt from garbage by A.R. Ammons. (garbage is a book-length poem that everyone should read.)

"...............................................................the
garbage spreader gets off his bulldozer and

approaches the fire: he stares into it as into
eternity, the burning edge of beginning and

ending, the catalyst of going and becoming,
and all thoughts of his paycheck and beerbelly,

even all thoughts of his house and family and
the long way he has come to be worthy of his

watch, fall away, and he stands in the presence
of the momentarily everlasting, the air about

him sacrosanct, purged of the crawling vines
and dense vegetation of desire, nothing between

perception and consequence here: the arctic
terns move away from the still machine and

light strikes their wings in round, a fluttering,
a whirling rose of wings, and it seems that

terns’ slender wings and finely-tipped
tails look so airy and yet so capable hat they

must have been designed after angels or angels
after them: the lizard family produced man in

the winged air! man as what might be or might
have been, neuter, guileless, a feathery hymn:

the bulldozer man picks up a red bottle that
turns green and purple in the light and pours

out a few drops of stale wine, and yellowjackets
burr in the bottle, sung drunk, the singing

not even puzzled when he tosses the bottle way
down the slopes, the still air being flown in

in the bottle even as the bottle dives through
the air! the bulldozer man thinks about that

and concludes that everything is marvelous, what
he should conclude and what everything is: on

the deepdown slopes, he realizes, the light
inside the bottle will, over the weeks, change

the yellowjackets, unharmed, having left lost,
not an aromatic vapor of wine left, the air

percolating into and out of the neck as the sun’s
heat rises and falls: all is one, one all:

hallelujah: he gets back up on his bulldozer
and shaking his locks backs the bulldozer up"

*****
And now, Ladies and Gentleman, Mr. David Johansen and the NY DOLLS, live at Max's Kansas City:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k2O7WVDHMA]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#54 Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#53
I am about to use up my dram of Vetivert, mail-ordered from Hové Parfumerie. Last spring when I went to their shop in the Quarter it was a Sunday morning, so they were closed and I was so sad that I wandered around the Quarter looking for a coffee and brioche--and wasn't sure where to go. My favorite spot (Croissant D'or) had a line around the block and I could see through the window that the pastry shelf had been picked bare. The gentleman in front of me informed me that my second favorite spot (La Madeleine) had been closed for years. So, responding as I always did to the gravitational pull of the Mississippi, I ended up there--watched the boats for a while, saw an old man fishing, wondered what he was gonna catch, and then left again in search of coffee and whatever, walking away to the off-pitch sobbing sounds of the Natchez calliope. Then I found the market that had coffee and french bread, so I was happy.

This music also makes me happy and I hope it does the same for you.
JJ Cale and Leon Russell, proud sons of Tulsa, Oklahoma--in a video crafted in the days before the evil reign of MTV-- and let's all take note of Christine Lakeland (JJ's wife) on guitar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm-euFpRLMg

This poem comes from a recent issue of the New Yorker. (pp 60-61 in the Jan. 2 issue.)

Lot's Wife
by Gary J. Whitehead

Sometime soon after the embers cooled,
after dust clouds settled, after the last strings
of smoke, hoisted by desert breezes, cleared the air.

they must have come, people of those three cities
remaining, to pick among the charred bones,
the rubble of what was temple and house,

stable and brothel; to kick at stones; to tug
at handles of buckets, blades of shovels and spades.
Later, raising ash plumes in the scorched plain,

cloths at their mouths and noses, eyes burning,
neither fearful nor repentant but full of wonder,
full of the scavenger’s overabundant hope,

they would have found her—even as now
some men encounter the woman of their dreams
(beauty of the movie screen, princess they capture

with a camera’s flash, girl whose finger brushes theirs
when she takes their card at the market register)—
found her, that is, not as the person she was

but as whom they needed her to be, and, man or woman,
each of them would have wanted a piece of her.
Standing in that wasted landscape,

she must have seemed a statue erected there
as a tribute to human frailty, white, crystallized,
her head turned back as if in longing to be the girl

she had been in the city she had known.
And they must have stood there, as we do,
a bit awestruck, taking her in for a time,

and then, with chisel and knife, spike and buckle,
chipped at her violently and stuffed their leathern
pouches full of her common salt, salt with which

to season for a while their meat, their daily bread.

"America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war." ~ Dr. Martin Luther King (from the April 4, 1967 speech at Riverside Church. You can find it online. It beats the hell out of the "I Have a Dream Speech," and it is more timely right now.)]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#53 Mon, 16 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#52 If you've seen NRBQ, you know what I am talking about here. If not, you can find lots of their stuff on youtube and here are a couple to get you started:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=Ieqkxl4Te9g&NR=1

and...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQbtepB_O2Y

Not only were the ’Q’ one of the bestest bands ever, and not only has Terry Adams, the piano/ clavinova player been a hero of mine forever (I tried years ago to actually BE Terry Adams, but well, you know...), they were also capable of high comedy. One night in DC at the Wax Museum they played “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” for their last tune. Then, they played it again for their encore. Then, it was piped over the PA system as we all left the building.
That was funny, but then the thing is, you know that song? The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald? It is a really great song. This was how people got the news in olden times. From ballads.

And just FYI: When I check out, leave the building, kick the bucket, buy the farm, fear the reaper, etc.....I don’t want an obit. I want a damn ballad.

Warning: This video is a tribute to the drowned sailors, complete with Harry Reasoner's newscast--and it is six minutes long. But it is well done and I really think you should watch it now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgI8bta-7aw

Finally, here is a version of the Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens. My sources tell me this is by a poet named "Anon."
P.S. If you know what an "eldern knicht" is, tell me.

Sir Patrick Spens

The king sits in Dumferling town
Drinking the bluid-red wine:
'O whar will I get a guid sailor
To sail this ship of mine?'
Up and spak an eldern knicht,
Sat at the king's richt knee:
'Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
That sails upon the sea.'
The king has written a braid letter
And signed it wi' his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the sand.
The first line that Sir Patrick read
A loud lauch lauched he;
The next line that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his ee.
'O wha is this has done this deed,
This ill deed done to me,
To send me out this time o'the year,
To sail upon the sea?
'Mak haste, mak haste, my mirry men all,
Our guid ship sails the morn.'
'O say na sae, my master dear,
For I fear a deadly storm.'
'Late, late yestre'en I saw the new moon
Wi'the old moon in his arm,
And I fear, I fear, my dear master,
That we will come to harm.'
O our Scots nobles were richt laith
To weet their cork-heeled shoon,
But lang or a' the play were played
Their hats they swam aboon.
O lang, lang may their ladies sit,
Wi'their fans into their hand,
Or ere they see Sir Patrick Spens
Come sailing to the land.
O lang, lang may the ladies stand
Wi'their gold kems in their hair,
Waiting for their ain dear lords,
For they'll never see them mair.
Half o'er, half o'er to Aberdour
It's fifty fathoms deep,
And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens
Wi'the Scots lords at his feet.


If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson

Read the blog, sign the guestbook, and download songs for free:
http://www.lisamednickpowell.com]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#52 Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#51 (Attached is a picture of our puppy, Miss Luna, in her holiday finery.)

We just returned from a most pleasant evening at the Camel Rock Casino, where we saw the Rat Pack Revue. A tribute to Dean Martin; Sammy Davis, Jr.; and The Chairman of the Board--complete with an onstage "bar." And a pretty good band backing them up. We went out because our gig fell through of course.
The show was entertaining but not as entertaining as the guy at the next table singing along at the top of his lungs. "FLY ME TO THE MOON...LET ME PLAY AMONG THE STARS..." I was thinking "yes, that's right: TO THE MOON, @$$hole..."
On the way out we were wished a happy new year by a young man in a security guard uniform whom I recognized...from somewhere...oh yes.
He failed my Technical Writing class two years ago. Happy New Year.
Kind of like when I saw the cop at the convenience store in Española not long ago and recognized him too...he failed my Comp class...Great.
January one and I'm already doomed. Hope I can continue to send these messages from JAIL...

Anyway, it is a new year. Do you have resolutions? Revolutions?
Which angels will rest heavier on your shoulders this year? I am hoping for the best all around--for my beloved friends--and even some strangers.

Among my resolutions: To be more honest. You know, tell it like it is. (Especially when people ask, "How are you?")

And, here is a little "sound" advice from Aaron Neville circa 1966:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjxMCqETvek

But let's consider a caveat from Emily Dickinson:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#51 Sun, 01 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#50 "Ha ha," said Kip. "Made you look." And thus begins our holiday season...

That said, it's on to the Holiday Message:

First, I want to share this clip of documentary film that features one of the best songwriters, storytellers, musicians, and bandleaders this world will ever know--Paul Kelly.
This song is called How to Make Gravy.
There is a line in this song that captures pretty much everything about spending holidays without--and/or with--loved ones:
...don't forget to add a dollop of tomato sauce for sweetness and that extra tang...

That is what I wish all of you this year: sweetness and that extra tang.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTm1iNbGuMc&feature=share

Then, there's that extra seven days and nights of light. Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah. To me, and I hope to others, Hanukkah represents making do with what you have, making a good thing last a long time, letting that little light of yours shine, frying potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts--and celebrating the spirit of rebellion that can infuse any knocked-down group of people with the warrior spirit--and with the power and dedication it takes to resurrect that which has been destroyed by an oppressor.
Hanukkah
by Charles Reznikov
(from a longer work titled,for some reason, Meditations on the Spring Holidays)

In a world where each man must be of use
and each thing useful, the rebellious Jews
light not one light but eight—
not to see by but to look at.
And, finally, Sir James Brown (when I am queen he will be knighted...):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBW3fc15iVg&feature=related

Adios, Amigos. See you in 2012!]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#50 Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#49 It looked so pretty the first day...and reminded me of when we fist moved to Rochester. We used to go out and walk in the deep sparkling snow on East Avenue. I was ill-equipped for the cold in a thrift-shop coat, leather gloves, and totes--ending up with frozen toes and fingers...After about a week of that, the wonder wore off. But now, here we are in the winter again! The mountains look beautiful--as long as I am standing on the right (correct) side of the window...

So I started thinking about warmer climes, and Australia came to mind. It is summer there now, right?
Perhaps my friend there could send me a couple of poems by poets yet unknown to me. I inquired, and he came through--and I am grateful. These poems are all good, and, by pure coincidence,
one of the poems is about snow. And it is not just about snow; it’s about being surprised & mystified by snow.

Also, a song by Little Feat. Vintage Feat, 1976 with the late great Lowell George. One of the greatest live bands of all time.
(A few of you will remember that every high school party ended with "Tripe Face Boogie...")

ONCE IN A LIFETIME, SNOW (for Chris and Mary Shara)
By Les Murray

Winters at home brought wind,
black frost and raw
grey rain in barbed-wire fields,
but never more

until the day my uncle
rose at dawn
and stepped outside - to find
his paddocks gone,

his cattle to their hocks
in ghostly ground
and unaccustomed light
for miles around.

And he stopped short, and gazed
lit from below,
and half his wrinkles vanished
murmuring Snow.

A man of farm and fact
he stared to see
the facts of weather raised
to a mystery

white on the world he knew
and all he owned.
Snow? Here? he mused. I see.
High time I learned.

Here, guessing what he meant
had much to do
with that black earth dread old men
are given to,

he stooped to break the sheer
crust with delight
at finding the cold unknown
so deeply bright,

at feeling his prints
so softly deep,
as if it thought he knew
enough to sleep,

or else so little he
might seek to shift
its weight of wintry light
by a single drift,

perceiving this much, he scuffed
his slippered feet
and scooped a handful up
to taste, and eat

in memory of the fact
that even he
might not have seen the end
of reality”¦

Then, turning, he tiptoed in
to a bedroom, smiled,
and wakened a murmuring child
and another child


Ladies and gentlemen, Lowell George:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyQTtAm8yrA]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#49 Sun, 11 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#48
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKmAb1gNN74


Next, Joni Mitchell. All week I have been thinking about that song by Joni Mitchell with the refrain "he was playing real good for free..." because we were at the Plaza in Santa Fe and saw this beautiful lady playing classical guitar. Real Good. OK, I gave her my dollar. But it was basically For Free.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmzN1p5q2sY

"A thinking woman sleeps with monsters." Ran across that piercing, truthful line from Adrienne Rich in the preface to an old book I re-discovered the other night. It is a book of poetry Mike Hall gave me when he and Paul Henehan and I went to Ireland to play and sing, mostly for free.
As I opened the book a bus ticket fell out. The ticket is labeled "BUS EIREANN." It's stamped "20 Jun 91, " so it must have been from the evening ride I took from Galway back to Dublin. When I stepped out of the bus I stepped into a carnival. Wandered about in the colored lights until I found my friend Daragh McCarthy, then slept on his couch because I got sort of lost trying to find the house where I'd been staying and where I'd left my suitcase...it was over a bridge, I remembered that much--but which bridge? Eventually, I found the house, my suitcase, and, eventually, a cab to Dun Laoghaire to catch the ferry back to Holyhead to catch the train past the white chalk horse etched on the hillside outside London.
"Don't be forgettin' your way back, now," said the cab driver.

Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law

by Adrienne Rich
1

You, once a belle in Shreveport,
with henna-colored hair, skin like a peachbud,
still have your dresses copied from that time,
and play a Chopin prelude
called by Cortot: "Delicious recollections
float like perfume through the memory."

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake,
heavy with useless experience, rich
with suspicion, rumor, fantasy,
crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge
of mere fact. In the prime of your life.

Nervy, glowering, your daughter
wipes the teaspoons, grows another way.

2

Banging the coffee-pot into the sink
she hears the angels chiding, and looks out
past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky.
Only a week since They said: Have no patience.

The next time it was: Be insatiable.
Then: Save yourself; others you cannot save.
Sometimes she's let the tapstream scald her arm,
a match burn to her thumbnail,

or held her hand above the kettle's snout
right in the woolly steam. They are probably angels,
since nothing hurts her anymore, except
each morning's grit blowing into her eyes.

3

A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.
The beak that grips her, she becomes. And Nature,
that sprung-lidded, still commodious
steamer-trunk of tempora and mores
gets stuffed with it all: the mildewed orange-flowers,
the female pills, the terrible breasts
of Boadicea beneath flat foxes' heads and orchids.
Two handsome women, gripped in argument,
each proud, acute, subtle, I hear scream
across the cut glass and majolica
like Furies cornered from their prey:
The argument ad feminam, all the old knives
that have rusted in my back, I drive in yours,
ma semblable, ma soeur!

4

Knowing themselves too well in one another:
their gifts no pure fruition, but a thorn,
the prick filed sharp against a hint of scorn...
Reading while waiting
for the iron to heat,
writing, My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun--
in that Amherst pantry while the jellies boil and scum,
or, more often,
iron-eyed and beaked and purposed as a bird,
dusting everything on the whatnot every day of life.

5

Dulce ridens, dulce loquens,
she shaves her legs until they gleam
like petrified mammoth-tusk.

6

When to her lute Corinna sings
neither words nor music are her own;
only the long hair dipping
over her cheek, only the song
of silk against her knees
and these
adjusted in reflections of an eye.

Poised, trembling and unsatisfied, before
an unlocked door, that cage of cages,
tell us, you bird, you tragical machine--
is this fertillisante douleur? Pinned down
by love, for you the only natural action,
are you edged more keen
to prise the secrets of the vault? has Nature shown
her household books to you, daughter-in-law,
that her sons never saw?

7

"To have in this uncertain world some stay
which cannot be undermined, is
of the utmost consequence."
Thus wrote
a woman, partly brave and partly good,
who fought with what she partly understood.
Few men about her would or could do more,
hence she was labeled harpy, shrew and whore.

8

"You all die at fifteen," said Diderot,
and turn part legend, part convention.
Still, eyes inaccurately dream
behind closed windows blankening with steam.
Deliciously, all that we might have been,
all that we were--fire, tears,
wit, taste, martyred ambition--
stirs like the memory of refused adultery
the drained and flagging bosom of our middle years.

9

Not that it is done well, but
that it is done at all? Yes, think
of the odds! or shrug them off forever.
This luxury of the precocious child,
Time's precious chronic invalid,--
would we, darlings, resign it if we could?
Our blight has been our sinecure:
mere talent was enough for us--
glitter in fragments and rough drafts.

Sigh no more, ladies.
Time is male
and in his cups drinks to the fair.
Bemused by gallantry, we hear
our mediocrities over-praised,
indolence read as abnegation,
slattern thought styled intuition,
every lapse forgiven, our crime
only to cast too bold a shadow
or smash the mold straight off.
For that, solitary confinement,
tear gas, attrition shelling.
Few applicants for that honor.

10

Well,
she's long about her coming, who must be
more merciless to herself than history.
Her mind full to the wind, I see her plunge
breasted and glancing through the currents,
taking the light upon her
at least as beautiful as any boy
or helicopter,
poised, still coming,
her fine blades making the air wince

but her cargo
no promise then:
delivered
palpable
ours.]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#48 Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#47 The next morning I saw that the Q-tip thing was actually a small white mushroom. I called Kip. “HEY! THERE’S A MUSHROOM GROWING IN OUR BATHROOM!” Kip came in and picked it and tossed it away. I poured some bleach into the crack. That would stop those damn mushrooms from invading our territory. I was wrong. The border was not secure...
Yesterday morning, I found another one. Growing in exactly the same spot.
Gray this time, with white spots. I left it alone, and during the day it fluted out into an umbrella shape. By evening it was desiccated and I picked it and threw it away. I didn’t use any bleach this time. What’s the use?

(if you want to see yesterday’s mushroom, please open the attached photo. It is the same one I posted on facebook so some of you might have seen it.)

Mushrooms
by Sylvia Plath

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#47 Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#46 He also had a theory that Chuck Berry's hero, Johnny B. Goode, was from Slidell.
Since I left New Orleans in 1989, I have seen him a couple of times. Today I regret rehearsing with my band (sorry guys) instead of going to his show the night he played on the Santa Fe Plaza last summer.

But c'est la vie, as Chuck Berry said.

I bet Coco will have a big second line and even though I haven't seen him or spoken with him in forever, I do wish I could go to New Orleans to see him off. Perhaps some of you will be there.
So maybe this is morbid for Thanksgiving weekend. But I am Thankful to have known some of the people I have known and who have passed from this world.

Here is Coco, walking with the spirit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6ogWbPTFxQ&feature=related

Also in the spirit, here is a poem by Kalamu ya Salaam. Published in New Orleans in 1979. It is called Iron Flowers, after the metal flowers, which are made from steel drums and painted, and which decorate Haitian cemeteries. This is according to the post I read where I found this poem. If anyone has different information, please do not hesitate to let me know.
If you are in Santa Fe, go to the International Museum of Folk Art on Museum Hill next Sunday ( when it's free for NM residents) and see the exhibit titled "The Arts of Survival." It has segments on both Haiti and New Orleans.
Iron Flowers
sluggish, semi-stagnant
the water in Haitian gutters,
small gullets, trickles green,
sewerage green, here even
the dirt is poor and
there is a cloying dullness
camouflaging even strongly
persistent colors
in squared, white walled
cemeteries
funeral flowers are made of
painted iron/ i see no roses
rising through this Port
Au Prince poverty
i hesitate to take pictures
it is like thievery
almost like
i am stealing precious light
that these, my brothers and sister,
need to live]]> http://lisamednickpowell.com/news.html#46 Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800 Proto-Americana - Lisa Mednick Powell - News