Stanley Pacion A BIG BOOK OF MY OWN: June 2012

Saturday, June 30, 2012

LEDA AND THE SWAN, 2nd Version

LEDA AND THE SWAN,

2nd Version

Legend holds that Zeus was a rake.
He had this thing for beautiful earth women,
And he had a bag full of tricks.
He would use any ploy,
Anything to satisfy his desire for sex.

The god wanted Leda,
He wanted her real bad.

Yet when he became swan,
(The guise he adopted for this one, particular encounter)
The landscape of his attire, the white,
It blinded him, and for the moment,
The god stopped, he had to orient himself.

And she, she knew what was in store.
Had not the oracle promised?
Her community knew her face and body were extraordinary.
I want to tell you, Leda luxuriated in her loveliness.

No question about it!
She had prefigured the experience.
She had always sought a role in history.

Her vanity, big time,
She lived in era before Acknowledgment,
She had no idea, the seven deadly sins.

Then suddenly the swan returned to his purpose.

He lowered his neck.
He ran his head right through her inviting arms
– No resistance there – and his bill,
After it kissed her breast,
It easily reached underneath her hair
All the way around the back side of her head.
Then he tugged at her lobe;
He whispered into the drum of her ear.

His wings encased both her arms to the shoulders.

Once he entered her,
When he released himself,
He recognized how delightful the feel of his feathers,
His enchantment invigorated his abandon.
Verily had he become swan at the very depth of his loins.

Later, upon her return to the village,
Leda prostrated herself before the shrine of Eros,
She thanked Olympus for firing the torch,
And when she arose, everyone saw her wanton disarray,
Heard her boast that she had become pregnant.
Such flush was upon her cheeks.
She seemed afire with divinity.
She announced to all and anyone who would listen,

“My baby's name is Helen!”

With eyes wide open she saw the Greeks,
The heroes at war before the gates of Troy.
She knew it was her daughter whose beauty is legend.

*In a few of my stanzas readers may hear the voice of Maria Rainer Rilke. Any such inferences are correct. I have read Rilke since early adulthood and am very well acquainted with his poem, LEDA. I must acknowledge his influence.

Friday, June 29, 2012

HEARTS ON FIRE! Lunch at Panera

SWEDISH INTERMENT, Illinois Enchantment

SWEDISH INTERMENT,

Illinois Enchantment

You know it's all bullshit, honey,
This talk of visionary moment and prophetic feat,
No more than ploy,
Another way me getting into your pants.

Yet loving you no quick turn of verse,
I consider it a serious task, and put in a dedicated effort.

At prognostication I am gifted.
I have always been able to see around corners.
On our first night, the first night we had slept together,

You may recall, I told you that I saw our future,
I knew what was going to happen.

Allow me this declaration.

Once you actually experience,

Live an event which I prefigure,

You recognize about it uncanny familiarity,

Déjà vu, you feel the situation,

As if it were previously known,

Or may have been already played.

The notion strikes you

That you have been here once before
That current moment eerily reflects prior encounter.

This power strikes deep. It causes tremble,
And it bestows pleasant excitement;
It makes life expectant.
With me you will learn to swoon and shudder.
You will know warm and be hot all over,
Yet others freeze in midwinter.
I told you that your grandfather has spoken to me.
His voice emerged from a dream,
Though the setting was familiar, my own bedroom,
The light came from afar,
Suffusing the space and me within it,

I dwelled in delicious, excellent hues of yellow and blue.

He announced, said that I am the man of the house,
And he then assured me

(He spoke with unmistakable clarity)
That happiness the product of our life together.

I have another secret; I want to share it with you.
I envision major experience,
Not unlike Leda's when she learned;
It was a god who had entered her.
You should know that from you will issue --
Yes, marvelous to relate! --
Being supreme, a mortal whose
Life and renown, belongs to that golden,
Regal realm, where Homer rules king.

I slip, revealing more than I intend.

I knew it. I knew it early on in life,
Years before your birth,
Within truck farm fields,
Along the rows of cabbage and corn,
My love for you was growing strong,
I had sight then, ears to catch the sounds,
And nose to whiff out the dreams,
Conferred on me, oracular, from on high.

I stepped out from the Hitching Post Diner.
I saw you! It was you.
On the packed-mud, bridal path, just ahead,
By a yard or two, you were down the trail,
Your form preceded me, walking apace.

This last August, eleventh,
Before we had begun to date,
Between bed sheets wet from too much sweat,
Your heat wakened me.
I knew the smell of you!

From the threads of woven cotton.

They were your odors bursting up my nostrils
While I in my bed that lonely summer's night.
I had instantly recognized those fragrances,
Once I slept with you,
Once your presence entered my pores.

And now, again, the moment, it commands,
It plays out on the keyboard in front of me.

I realize that before I had met you,
I recognize that I had heard it, your name!
I heard your name,
It came to me from earlier time, at a time, prior,
Yes, actually previous to your birth!

I assure you, although I was not yet an adolescent,

As a child, no more than ten or eleven years old,
I had witnessed destiny from landscape in Illinois.

The refocusing veils of shimmer, aurora borealis,
The phantasmagoric curtains of shifting color,
Which at once so utterly present, then, in a feint,
As if by trick of hand, gone,
Held me captive; I had fallen to trance, bewitched,
And in the midst of this awesome, display,
From the far North, your name, I heard it.

I heard! I heard your name; it was pronounced,
While the green and red flames of light crackled
Along the vault of the universe. I possessed it.

I learned your name from a storm in the heavens.

And that very self-same night,
I was no more than ten or eleven years old,
From the backyard lawn of my childhood home,
Facing north and up into nighttime colors,

I looked, and I now know that,

I had glimpse into the future.

I had witnessed destiny from landscape in Illinois.

I saw oak trees growing outside an iron fence,
And there, above a low earthen mound, a cemetery marker,
My name, it was struck upon a gravestone.
I knew it. I knew the certainty;
The scene, the ground I saw was in Sweden.

The green and red flames crackled your name.

I learned your name from a storm in the heavens.

I was a child, no more than ten or eleven years old,
I stood upon the lawn at home, entranced, captive,
Gazing up into the aurora borealis, bewitched,

I ascertained a Swedish interment.

Monday, June 25, 2012

LEDA AND THE SWAN

Legend holds that Zeus was a rake.

He had this thing for beautiful earth women,

And he had a bag full of tricks.

He would use any ploy,

Anything to satisfy his desire for sex.

The god wanted Leda,

He wanted her real bad.

Yet when he became swan,

(The guise he adopted for this one, particular encounter)

The landscape of his attire, the white,

It blinded him, and for the moment,

The god stopped, he had to orient himself.

And she, she knew what was in store.

Had not the oracle promised?

Her community knew her face and body were extraordinary.

I want to tell you, Leda luxuriated in her loveliness.

No question about it!

She had prefigured the experience.

She had always sought a role in history.

Her vanity, big time,

She lived in era before Acknowledgment,

She had no idea, the seven deadly sins.

Then suddenly the swan returned to his purpose.

He lowered his neck.

He ran his head right through her inviting arms

– No resistance there – and his bill,

After it kissed her breast,

It easily reached underneath her hair

All the way around the back side of her head.

Then he tugged at her lobe;

He whispered into the drum of her ear.

His wings encased both her arms to the shoulders.

Once he entered her,

When he released himself,

He recognized how delightful the feel of his feathers,

His enchantment invigorated his abandon.

Verily had he become swan at the very depth of his loins.

Later, upon her return to the village,

Leda prostrated herself before the shrine of Eros,

She thanked Olympus for firing the torch,

And when she arose, everyone saw her wanton disarray,

Heard her boast that she had become pregnant.
Her cheeks were so flush. She seemed afire with divinity.

She announced to all and anyone who would listen,

“My baby's name is Helen!”

*In a few of my stanzas a reader may hear the voice of Maria Rainer Rilke. Any such inferences are correct. I have read Rilke since early adulthood and am very well acquainted with his poem, LEDA.

HOME, Happy Domicile

HOME,

Happy Domicile,

Update, June 2012

Be not troubled.

Believe in me, in the dwelling, here, for you,

Not only in the physical space,

Upon whose floor our hearts' drama plays,

But in my soul where I have built a mansion,

Set a great kitchen wherein sits every proper appliance,

A refrigerator to keep perishables fresh,

An oven and range to prepare and warm our meals.

And I have built a pantry,

Super store of food and upon its shelves

Your Quaker Oats for breakfast, and packages of flour,

Every kind of flour, spices and herbs, and then,

Special for you, I have a blue enamel colander

Which I have used to fill with apples and bananas.

Not only plenty daily sustenance will you find,

These rooms store great ardor and emotional well being.

Our parlor has two sofas and comfortable armchairs.

And off to its right, a dinning room with a hardwood table,

Its edge reverse-beveled and it has extension leaves

So that our family may comfortably sit for a harvest feast,

Or mark the other days of holiday celebration,

And give everyday's thanksgiving its best setting.

And from the ceiling of our halls and foyer

I have hung awesome crystal chandeliers,

Light, so that our feet not stumble

Should we awake before sunrise

To start our appointed chores.

Darling, our bedroom windows have eastern exposure,

And are fit with drapes and liners, and our bed has

A proper therapeutic mattress and high-thread-count sheets,

And two down pillows on each side of it for our heads,

We shall have porcelain and silver vases for fresh flowers.

I continue to outfit our home,

And were it not so,

Were I to have had a change of heart,

I would not have pledged my word.

I have been utterly honest.

My verse attests to sincerity,

Showing my readiness to receive you;

Happy domicile awaits your presence.

The Lord abides, proclaims a presence

For length of days, and guarantees health and long life.

And peace shall fill the chests and the closets;

And our rooms shall appear to glow warmly,

Not from some decorator, designer expertise,

But because His grace, the abundance of Holy Spirit.

Where I am, I pray, there may you also be.

And wherever I go, I ask,

-- I know you will keep your promise --

You prove yourself true,

And follow me to that same place, too.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

ROME

Youth’s fresh face notably declines.

We have embarked upon a long journey;

Our train runs slow,

And the pain in your back has troubled you for months.

The stations where we might be ejected,

They are numerous and poorly lit.

Lodging will not be easy to find;

The chances of good fortune are slim.

Barbarity has brought us to ruin.

We flee for our lives, and sleep and happiness elude us.

Let's face it,

We are not in Rome.

I shall no more see Rome this Easter than you.

You and I are farther away from Rome

Than at any time since we have met.

Monday, June 11, 2012

CRAZY LOVE

http://abigbookofmyown.blogspot.com/

http://sites.google.com/site/stanleypacion/homepage

http://www.youtube.com/StanleyPacion

http://www.stanleypacion.com/home.html/

http://www.indiaeveryday.in/video/u/StanleyPacion.htm?ss=true

As of this date my YOUTUBE Channel has received 173,000 + Single Page Uploads, Visits! A Google Search of the terms Stanley Pacion YouTube Channel yields a result count of 2,200,00.
CRAZY LOVE,
Sorry Interlude

I am at a loss, dumbfounded,
Neither you nor I have forgotten the depth,
The big range of ready affection,
We always felt exceptionally well-suited,
We were great couple in many ways…

You yourself proclaimed our special bond.
One early, Sunday evening, mid August,
We stood at the corner,
Seventh Avenue at Twenty-Fourth Street,
We were awaiting the turn from red,
A traffic light signal, the sign to say GO,
When I told you of a recent article from “Science Times”,
The every Tuesday section of the New York Times,
It reported that the outside perimeter,
A year and half at tops, the time span of romantic love.

The passion subsides that quick scientists argue.

“Oh!” You immediately demurred,
We had not even crossed the Avenue, before
You took exception, challenged the current science,
And proclaimed, “Not for us!”
You professed the special heat, how our romance,
Our romance more akin eternal flame,
Not subject to normal wane of heart’s intensity.

My soul took flight, my love, ecstatic.
I felt like Superman able to leap tall buildings
With single, terrific bound; I believed my power
Greater than steam locomotive,
That I ran with the speed of bullets.

Poppycock! Tomfoolery personified,
And me idiot for believing a word you might say,
By October you were gone,
Your every promise, your solemn vows, prevarication.
Everlasting love, indeed! It lasted
A bit more than a month and one half.

I am sick of it, this terrible romance,
I can not go on, it’s too sad,
Too much, the caprice,
You toss me to the ground,
The ungrateful child’s unwanted toy,
However you may have wanted me,
I exist no more, and am broken.

For both of us there’s plenty desire,
You sneak up on me and stoke
The flame which still fires your heart,
Neighbors tell me they see you,
Saying how you haunt me,
How you seem unable to let me go,
Signs the real extent,
How much you must still love me.

And I write this love poem,
Though what was once this thing of ours,
This breath and we wondrous, beauteous mates,
Finished, driven apart, and my verse,
Has become a pathetic exercise, a sorry chapter
In story which goes nowhere,
It bears title, everything about us so crazy.

Had I not become accustomed to your way,
Spent no time next to you in bed,
Were I smart enough a man,
To have avoided you in the first place,
To have never said a word to you,
Except perhaps the usual humors,
The greetings ‘Good Morning, and Hello’,
The simple inquiry about your health,
Asking the everyday about how are you,
I would never have gotten to the point,
That loathsome feeling, you love me no more.

And equally, both sad and disturbing,
That mine, which once had been the warmest of regard,
Turns to disdain, and fervent wish,
We speak no more, and I never see you again.

I feel you woman. I have a telepathic gift:
I hear when you think of me, and you know it!
The vice-a-verse is, also, true,
The communication goes both ways,
Right now I could clench my teeth,
Do an inward scream, and its loudness
Would startle you and disturb your sleep to dawn.

I wish I could caress you,
Practice the arts I had just started,
Oh, had I more time to turn you,
To make you love slave, enthrall you,
But I really wish, I might have forgotten you,
Relegated your touch to a darksome, narrow defile,
A deep place and a dark, a hollow, where I
No longer remember your name.

Can’t you fall in love with someone else?

I know it’s wrong for me to say,
I love you. So let me go.
Time will strengthen my resolve,
I shall move on, your chance to reconcile,
To prove your word sincere and true,
Though once here, has long since come and gone.

Darling, we have fallen and are amiss,
No! No joy, fruitless to embark upon a road,
A road running toward distant horizon,
With its final extremity, we arriving at dead end.

My pledges of love, all my dreams, now lament,
My heart, rent, my mind composes a sad story,
Neither can I live with nor without you.

I must stop it, quit the insanity.

I may believe, I may declare my love for you,
But I can not find the reason,
No need for me to keep my holding on.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

A Brooklynite’s Letter from Bangalore, India – Stanley Pacion |

A Brooklynite’s Letter from Bangalore, India – Stanley Pacion

http://abigbookofmyown.blogspot.com/

http://sites.google.com/site/stanleypacion/homepage

http://www.youtube.com/StanleyPacion

http://www.stanleypacion.com/home.html/

http://www.indiaeveryday.in/video/u/StanleyPacion.htm?ss=true

As of this date my YOUTUBE Channel has received 173,000 + Single Page Uploads, Visits! A Google Search of the terms Stanley Pacion YouTube Channel yields a result count of 2,200,00.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

FIRE IN THE BRAIN

Sunday, June 3, 2012

HAD I BEEN BORN PERFECT

Remember I told you how I handled Sammy?
He was a bad case, eh,
What with his doing 8 bags o' dust at a time,
And then visiting local bars, so sick,
Upchucking right on the patrons' jackets,
While they sat there, all innocent,
People on their stools were having a drink!

I didn't talk to him for years,
Refused all contact, I was afraid,
People had not realized how great my fear.
He occupied my thoughts night and day.

I thought he might wind up in jail,
Or dead, or a victim hooked up,
Like some medical experiment,
Doctors without options, practicing
Last resort medicine, wires and tubes,
And a parent witness to nightmare,
The nasty ordeal when intervention
Takes place during hospital emergency.

It's not death, for death is but a word.
It is the way of it. I feared.

I called it love, my having nothing,
Absolutely nothing to do with him,
Until he went for help, because he seemed
Unable to help himself, and cease
The shit with which he played.

I did not know what else to do.

Once he called me and said,
'Dad, I've got the monkey off my back!'
But I hung up the receiver,
Didn't let him explain,
I couldn't take it, no more bullshit,
I knew he was still in the circus.

And Billy, a surrogate son,
You know the story, I … I treated him the same,
The same cold shoulder, not talking to him
Months on end, until he realized our friendship
Depended on his treating his two boys,
Like a proper father. I wanted him to put
His children first in life, and I meant it.

Forget about my smile and easy charm,
It's never smart to test my resolve.

2.

But, darling, when it comes to dealing with you,
I find no form of human love prevails.
No mere earthly style or mode of affection works!

Oh, the poetry!
Look to the poetry I write for you.
My heart wells up, the warmest regard,
Right up to the breaking point,
In poem after poem I tried to portray
How great, how utter the abandon,
I declared, were fate to bring us to a terrible juncture,
A crossroad where all choice reduces
To either my life, or yours,

Gladly would I give up mine, I would die for you.

To proclaim the veracity of your physical beauty
I wrote, RED ROOF INN.

I spent a year and wrote, NOW VOYAGER for you.

The time, when in Brooklyn I found you,
That early, that rainy morning,
I knew you were treasure.
You, the reason, I wrote, SERENDIPITY!

And that I might attest to your strength of character,
Express my fondest feelings for you,
I wrote, then, over and again, I rewrote,
DREAM CHILDREN, verse which pictured you
In future time the mother of our two children.

Oh, the tender thoughts! You on my mind
Beseeching you, and ever so softly, so gently
I sought to touch upon the strings of your heart.

And the letters, they are all love letters,
And we have a pile of them.

When in this correspondence, I said it wrong,
Overstepped the line, wanted propriety,
And for those errors in judgment and phrase,
The anger, when I fell, put my own bruised feelings,
Before yours, heart, and failed to acknowledge the gift,
That your inspiration had brought me to new life,
I implore you please forgive.

Whenever I lacked intellectual power,
Whatever defect of character blocked
Good sense to say it right with care,
Still it was you -- your well being foremost in my life.
My intent was proper, I wanted the best for you,
And you know it! And though I wish you forever well,
Such a love you might not find again.

Yet I doubt all my love allows you any easier a sleep.
And one wonders what technique,
What kind of human love might lessen
The pain, the disorder troubling you,
And calm the upset delivering us
To this grisly end, the final stages of our romance?

Here I pray to God.

I fall to my knees -- such the will to believe --
Ask that Munificence be granted,
The Almighty do, on earth,
All those things that I had failed to do for you.
God's will be done.

3.

Had I been born perfect.

How I regret, when a child,
I wasted time playing with crystal sets,
And in the basement of my parents' home,
Spent hours profligately upon
Imaginary laboratory tables with chemistry,
Meaningless experiments with liquids and powders.

I wish that I had I been born perfect,
A man fit, capable of grand devotion,
The kind of guy who might do you real good,
I would have turned about,
Practiced the illusionist’s trade,
And trained until I possessed every trick in the book.
Then I could live within the mirror,
Work the conjurer's art so that when you went to look,
When you had fixed a gaze upon your own mirror image,
Instead of you, the reflection staring back,
My picture of you, the way I see you,
The enchantment, my awe, which is you,
Whenever you stand before me,
And you and I would never loose that magic,
That image of you so bountiful and pure,
No confusion, still and quiet and safe,
You, never fade away from the center of sight.

There would be light, love, and just approval,
And it would be my voice ringing through
The reflecting glass, your search at end,
No more whisper of doubt, all courage,
End to frailty, sadness no more,
We would come to the world without poverty,
And know only hugs, freedom and peace.

Were that the case,
Had fate conspired to have me born perfect,
A man fit, capable of grand devotion,
The kind of guy who might do you real good,
I would have turned about,
Practiced the illusionist’s trade,
Trained until I possessed every trick in the book.
Then I could live within the mirror…

Saturday, June 2, 2012

BLUES, Deep and Bad

Deep and Bad

I got the blues, tonight, honey.

I got the blues, deep and bad.

You’re not here and soon I leave,

I go abroad for a long, long stay.

I doubt we see each other ever again.

I sit at the end of the bed.

The bedroom couch is gone,

Much of the art is removed and sold.

The furniture arrangement, I must report,

No longer resembles anything you once knew.

The whole apartment looks different,

Not at all the same, nothing is the same,

Since you dwelled and laughed with me here.

Vivid recollections, your loveliness,

I need not close my eyes,

I picture you as you stand in your white hotel slippers,

And wash grapes under the faucet in the kitchen sink.

And my loving you, it frequently comes to mind.

That we had fallen and broken apart,

No words reach the depth of my regret.

Listen to the music coming over the TV.

Oh, sweet momma, daddy,

He has caught a wicked case of the blues.

Horns worry a lower pitch, run semitone in a six note scale.

The drum loops hit my entire bodily frame,

And when I fall, drop within myself, my soul clamors,

“A middle note is missing”.

My heart’s down, the shuffle strokes are down,

The rhythm accompanies the lyrics, all of it is down.

How did it all go wrong?

I doubt we see each other ever again.

I go abroad for a long, long stay.

I got the blues, tonight, honey.

I got the blues deep and bad.

Friday, June 1, 2012

LOVE SONG, Heart's Journey

Heart’s Journey

Do you trust me?

Do you have a single doubt,

I love you? Do I forsake you,

Or fail to keep my word?

I feel within me,

Light has dispelled darkness.

My conscience is clear.

For a thousand different reasons,

And just one, I love you most of all,

I love you, because you’re you.

I sing like Elvis, but I am here,

God lets me live, I sing the song.

I love you the way you are, dear.

I have no rhyme or reason.

No matter what they say about me,

Most of all I love you,

I love you, because you’re you.

But what else am I to do?

I fear that each and every others’ face

Remain now and forever in second place.

I recognize an awful truth.
I am no good to anyone;
Not good for anyone,
Once I fell for you.

On our first date,

It rained the entire day.

We drove Jersey’s back roads and highways.

We talked business.

We praised the special light,

That warm and golden illumination

And thanked the heavens, for as it seemed,

For the Grace that befell us.

Though we are separated now,

You have my love. I adore you.

You might send a Private Eye

To track my days and nights,

You might send a troop,

Special Forces to search and seek

Any rugged terrain where I might hide,

Give them night vision goggles

So to visit every nook,

Every recess of my soul,

And all they will find, my love,

They will only find, only, my love for you.

Stanley Pacion A BIG BOOK OF MY OWN