August 18, 2011

Garcia Lorca – post two for today

by jhon baker

– in dedication to M. Chadwick

 

but I loved you

before they filled you with stars

before they took you on a moonless night

 

but I loved you

even with dignity and sadness

and now longing nights free from hearts pang

 

but I loved you

in gypsy bars and back alleys

before poets were villains, while harmless

 

but I loved you

even when we roamed the streets

cracking fingers, drinking whiskey, before the dawn

 

but I loved you

I love you now, we sing you

on porches, in backyards, in cities across the world

 

– Hoc Scripsi

August 18, 2011

1936, a day that shall live on in infamy

by jhon baker

today, 75 years ago, the world screams long into the night as she loses one of her most powerful voices, one of her most enamored lovers.

today, 75 years ago, we lost to bullets our beloved Federico Garcia Lorca.

They disappeared you
on the 16th of Aug
and assassinated you on
a moonless night one or two days later.
in 1936
you had died for all time.
fifty years later a memorial was erected
on the spot where you were killed.
in recognition of your talent
in apology of your end.

and while you weep for Ignacio, our
flood of tears are for you.

– Hoc Scripsi

Garcia Lorca, I love you for all time.

August 13, 2011

with my mother-in-law visiting with St. Alexius

by jhon baker

Hanging out at a hospital has never been my idea of a good time. I am sure that there are people who enjoy it or at least enjoy the ability to be waited on. I am not one of those people and my mother-in-law isn’t either. But here I sit while she goes through the procedures that many of has have been through many times. I’ve nothing more important to do I tell her when she feels bad about me neglecting the construction of my new writing space, neglecting the construction of my friends house, allowing my house to get messy, allowing the cats to shift for themselves while stopping by to make sure they are all fed and alive. I can’t imagine thinking something is more important than sitting here and doing virtually nothing.

When she seized immediately following dinner on the one year commemoration of her husbands death and birthday, she grabbed her neck and listed to her right – I called 911, finding that my fingers instinctively knew where each button was having never dialed it in an emergency before (it was always being dialed for me), lowering her body to the ground and supporting her head while petting her head, talking to her gently and assuring her everything would be alright – a promise I thought would not be kept. At the moment when I thought I had lost her my heart broke in a way I had never expected, I didn’t realize how close I had become to my wife’s mother over the years since my own accident that left me in her care eight hours a day  – five days a week. I know her deeply and have many of her secrets, while she has many of mine. Needless to state, I was not ready to let her go and thankfully she wasn’t ready to let go either.

She awoke the next morning and spoke as well as she had been (she has expressive aphasia), she returned mostly to normal and we learned that there were things that would have to change, every hospital visit results in a change to the accepted lifestyle, while largely learning how much we all needed her to come home and continue to live in the little house we bought for her.

———

A storm is now outside raging and will be over soon. It is more interesting to watch them from the couch inside your own domicile than to experience them from the discomfort of hospital chairs with hospital smells and the serious lack of naked attractive people walking around not to mention much the terrible lack of a proper cup of coffee.

———

the room window overlooks a lower floor’s roof, number 263 of the strangest things I’ve experienced is a Radio Flyer Wagon sitting, ready to carry children or groceries, on top of this same roof.

———

 

August 12, 2011

Just to post something while I am not posting anything of any interest.

by jhon baker

in the depth of winter I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer = camus