Mountain Dulcimer
by Robert Morgan

Where does such sadness in wood come
from? How could longing live in these
wires? The box looks like the most fragile
coffin tuned for sound. And laid
across the knees of this woman
it looks less like a baby nursed
than some symbolic Pietà,
and the stretched body on her lap
yields modalities of lament
and blood, yields sacrifice and sliding
chants of grief that dance and dance toward
a new measure, a new threshold,
a new instant and new year which
we always celebrate by
remembering the old and by
recalling the lost and honoring
those no longer here to strike these
strings like secrets of the most
satisfying harmonies, as
voices join in sadness and joy
and tell again what we already
know, have always known but forget,
from way back in the farthest cove,
from highest on the peaks of love.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a steadfast champion of the working class and the poor, a powerful voice on health care,civil rights, and war and peace." www.delawareonline.com/article/20090826/.../308260007
He has inspired many to engage in the political process and demand that our democratic government constantly re-exam its most important purposes in defending the freedom,preservation and welfare of its people.
Rest in Peace Senator Edward  M. Kennedy.Your proud and noble service to the American people will continue to be a positive inspiration of American greatness.The Kennedy legacy lives on in future generations,your own son Patrick Kennedy,Robert Kennedy Jr.,Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Caroline Kennedy lead the way.

To:Tello Hinojosa(xinoxosa)

I don't want to leave anymore or get transferred
to another prison because this one is too tough.
I am after a path you cannot find by looking at green fields,
smelling high mountain air that is clear,sweetly
odorous as when you fall in love again & again & again.
I am looking for a path that cracks through rock
and swims through despair with fins of wisdom.
A wisdom to see me through this nightmare,
not by running from it;by staying to deal blow by blow.
I will take the strength I need from me,
not fields or new friends. With my old friends fighting!
Bleeding! Calling me crazy! And never getting the respect I desire,
fighting for each inch of it...
I am not one of those beautiful people,
but one of the old ones, a commoner of the world
You can find in taverns,seaports, carrying bamboo baskets with fish,
drinking coffee in a donut shoppe, weeping in the dark
In a two-for-five ramshackle hotel room,
dreaming and walking along a city street at dawn.
To move about more freely, to meet and talk with new people,
to have silence once in awhile, to live in peace,
without harassment or cops pulling you in as a suspect,
these are very beautiful thoughts.
But I still remain where the air is old and heavy, where life is grimy,
Full of hate at times, where opportunities are rare,
anger and frustration so abundant,
Here in this wretched place I most wish to leave,
I will remain.
I stay because I believe [that] I will find something,
something beautiful and astounding awaits my pleasure,
something in the air I breathe,
that will make all my terrors and pains resemble raindrops
on a rose in summer, its head tilted in the heat
as I do mine.
Here on this island of death and violence,
I must find peace and love in myself, eventually freedom,
And if I am blessed, then perhaps a little wisdom.
I stay here searching for gold and ivory in the breast of each man,
who is a king. In the darkness of this land
a search for the tiny glimmering golden grains in smiles and words
of the dying, of the young who appear aged, of the broken ones.

"Beautiful daylight of the body,your hands
carry seashells                 
West of this wide plain                 
Animals wilder than ours                 
Came down from the green mountains                 
in the darkness                 
Now they can see you,they know                 
The open meadows are safe."--James Wright, The Evening Star                                    
                         ~*~
I walk down                 
a long asphalt-paved corridor                  
the ramp connects the cavernous old Grandstand                 
to the paddock green                 
a hedge-bordered earthen walking ring                 
Thoroughbreds sidle bye before the next race                 
They saunter and swish their massive hips                  
lazily electric                  
like heat lightning in a bottle                 
I came down to see a two year old filly                  
She pauses to look around                  
before continuing her stroll                  
around the oval walking path                  
Shaded by ancient chestnut trees                  
She stands at youthful attention                  
Prickly ears and dark eyes browse                  
the sunlit watchful crowd                  
Silvery dribble wets her chin                  
Her nostrils flare wide                  
Breathes evenly                  
the bee songs and blossoms                  
The groom leads her around and around                  
in slow widening circles around the other horses                  
in the race                  
Her new saddle cinched up tight                   
and rider up! call                  
tells her the racing life begins.                             

..Be not afraid ,the isle is full of noises,
 sounds and sweet music  that
give delight and hurt not;
sometimes a thousand jingle-jangling
instruments,
will hum about my ears;
and sometimes voices,
That if I suddenly woke
after long sleep
will let me sleep again...
My pure heart soils
like molting leaves,thick
layers,under layers shelter
what is eternal
My self lies in an autumn collage
of other peoples' feelings
left disparate and scattered
and give to my tears
a twinkle of wanderlust
beggar's pride
Do I possess enough humility
to tenderly release
the toiling lilies of my selves 
Childish ideas free
the crustacean  heart
from its sunken muddy hopelessness
Only a single wish, one dreamy wish
moves us to search
for liberty built on ancient rolling stones
A freedom so fleeting that once we hold it
we serve
No labor reaps its fruits
No play flexes and bends our limbs
in joyful ecstasy
No points ever meet
and spiral senselessly
into unrecognizable blue
of a star-piercing cistern
where no points or lines draw our
parallel lives
spiraling in endless strife
to intersect
Then, I will recognize the tree by its sweet fruits,
I will taste the succulent droplets on
my withered tongue,
My  tired feet bathe in a cool desert piscine
My weary muscles relax ,
my breathing mocks the dry wind...

A curve is a straight line caught bending
and this one runs under the kitchen window
where the bright eyes of your mum and dad
might flash any minute and find you down
on all fours, stomach hard to the ground,
slinking along a furrow between the potatoes
and dead set on a prospect of rich pickings,
the good apple trees and plum trees and pears,
anything sweet and juicy you might now be
able to nibble around the back and leave
hanging as though nothing were amiss,
if only it were possible to stand upright
in so much clear light and with those eyes
beady in the window and not catch a packet.

II.

Patch, Harry Patch, that's a good name,
Shakespearean, it might be one of Hal's men
at Agincourt or not far off, although in fact
it starts life and belongs in Combe Down
with your dad's trade in the canary limestone
which turns to grey and hardens when it meets
the light, perfect for Regency Bath and you too
since no one these days thinks about the danger
of playing in quarries when the workmen go,
not even of prodding and pelting with stones
the wasps' nests perched on rough ledges
or dropped from the ceiling on curious stalks
although god knows it means having to shift
tout suite and still get stung on arms and faces.

III.

First the hard facts of not wanting to fight,
and the kindness of deciding to shoot men
in the legs but no higher unless needs must,
and the liking among comrades which is truly
deep and wide as love without that particular name,
then Pilckem Ridge and Langemarck and across
the Steenbeek since none of the above can change
what comes next, which is a lad from A Company
shrapnel has ripped open from shoulder to waist
who tells you "Shoot me", but is good as dead
already, and whose final word is "Mother",
which you hear because you kneel to hold
one finger of his hand, and then remember orders
to keep pressing on, support the infantry ahead.

IV.

After the big crowd to unveil the memorial
and no puff left in the lungs to sing O valiant hearts
or say aloud the names of friends and one cousin,
the butcher and chimney sweep, a farmer, a carpenter,
work comes up the Wills Tower in Bristol and there
thunderstorms are a danger, so bad that lightning
one day hammers Great George and knocks down
the foreman who can't use his hand three weeks
later as you recall, along with the way that strike
burned all trace of oxygen from the air, it must have,
given the definite stink of sulphur and a second
or two later the gusty flap of a breeze returning
along with rooftops below, and moss, and rain
fading over the green Mendip Hills and blue Severn.

V.

You grow a moustache, check the mirror, notice
you're forty years old, then next day shave it off,
check the mirror again - and see you're seventy,
but life is like that now, suddenly and gradually
everyone you know dies and still comes to visit
or you head back to them, it's not clear which
only where it happens: a safe bedroom upstairs
by the look of things, although when you sit late
whispering with the other boys in the Lewis team,
smoking your pipe upside-down to hide the fire,
and the nurses on night duty bring folded sheets
to store in the linen cupboard opposite, all it takes
is someone switching on the light - there is that flash,
or was until you said, and the staff blacked the window.

Under the spreading shade of elm trees
magnolia blossoms and wisteria vines
offer dangling scents of long summer afternoons
Indian summer stirred our memories
of school dances
and drives up to a look-out point
we cool in the moonlight humidity
of flirtatious kisses
even when we were the size of small children
our tiny hands grasp
swirling whirly-gigs of sparklers
in the setting purple dark
we gather in a circle
holding hands for comfort
our shrill high-pitched voices playfully
threaten to scare each other
with rag-tattered trite ghost stories
of haunted woods, mighty midgets,
and hook-men lurking
behind parked cars
And with the fallen leaves
we return to our classrooms
algebra  problems
solve the physics
of pubescent fears
and first passion's
peppermint stick dreams;
chemistry class was never more interesting
then the way the wind whistled
in the neighbor's tree
or large shadows of parents
sitting under the screened-porch light;
the television blink in the living room
appeared like a one-eyed ghoul
its bluish-green gape calling to us
to come in from the lawns
we race away in the dark
reassuring each other that our brave loitering
checked our monsters' rule of summer
sleep will carry us away soon
in our beds
fatigue dripping off our bathed skins
our eyes close on a widening vision
our adult years
begin.
~*~Ray

"Peace is the bread we break/

Love is the river rolling/

Life is the chance we take/

When we make the Earth our home."

Fred Small,"Peace Is"

By late Spring,the country was hurtling towards a deepening recession,oil and food prices were rising, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis was widening.It may have started in the Florida real estate market, but now the financial crisis was nearly nation-wide and its effects were being felt around the world too. As the saying goes,'When the United States economy sneezes,the world catches cold'.We are truly living in a complex ,interdependent world economy.Marshall MacLuhan's vision of a global village had become a reality.Iraq had become the focus issue in the Presidential primaries by the start of the summer too.The next Presidential election would be a referendum on further United States military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With the country teetering on the brink of economic dire straits,I had wanted to go back to work on a ship operating in the short-sea trade or coastwise.With debts mounting,I knew that I had to decide very soon.I chose  a small, aging frieight/container vessel that plied the waters between Dubai,United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Port Umm Quasar(forty miles from Basra)Iraq. It gave me the opportunity to observe for myself the social and economic conditions in Iraq.Also, it offered a chance to talk with Iraqi citizens on their fears and hopes for their country.

On June 21, 2008, the first day of summer, I flew out from Philadelphia to join the MV National Glory docked in Dubai. I worked as an able-bodied seaman and quartermaster .The Dubai World port was a bustling hum of activity.Trucks and forklifts moved in streams from the ships to the docks.Shuttles buses made frequent trips bringing workers and stevedores to and from the ships.All kinds of new construction was seen going up everywhere in the city. The flood of petrodollars from the developed states,namely the United States, to the oil-producing developing states fueled the massive expansion and building projects. There has been the greatest transfer of wealth from the developed world to the oil-rich developing states in history.In the past year alone there was almost 2.2 trillion petrodollars that flowed to the oil-producing states worldwide.Is there any wonder why oil and natural gas rich states like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran has attempted to translate their new economic power into global political power?

On the course north by northwest from Dubai to Iraq,the thick haze created from the intense heat, sandstorms, and pollution reduced visibility to barely two or three miles. The ship passed Iran to the East. As we moved further north,the ship was placed under lock down.The four security guards from Secure-West, a British security firm, patroled the ship's weather decks with Chinese-made AK-47's at night. At sea, there were myriads of small sailing vessels called dhows.The blocky dhow had plied the Tigris and Euphrates rivers since ancient times on one of the oldest fishing, trade, and piracy routes in history. The large tankers and freighters weaved their way carefully through the crowded shipping lanes and deftly avoided the many small dhows that popped up suddenly out of the murky ,noonday haze all around .

My first impression of Port Umm Quasar, Iraq was of an aging ,delapidated shadow of a once bustling port.Huge mounds of debris were bulldozed clear of the immediate dock area and left over from the British bombing of the port facilities during the first Persian Gulf War.The huge cargo cranes were broken,rusting hulks with the wiring stripped out by people desperate to find something to sell .The large inoperable cranes were a stark contrast to the many shiny new multi-million dollar cranes in Dubai and Kuwait. We had to rent one of the few mobile cranes with the capacity to unload/load our ship at exorbitant rates. The stevedores were mostly local young men in their 20's .With conditions in their villages ravaged by the incessant fighting between rival militias, the Port was one of the few areas where the young men could find work to support their families. Ironically ,the same age group of young men was also targeted by al-Qaida for their terrorist training camps. Groups of men wandered around the Port in search of any job working on the grain and freight vessels.Some of the men even begged to work for food or a few dollars by offering to wash the truck drivers rigs, tires, windows,or help secure the cargo on the truck. Small children rambled down to the edge of the pier,watched the old men fish in the polluted waters, and even swam among the moss-encrusted concrete pilings.The childish laughter and happy squeals contrasted to the somber group of men seated on hand-woven mats beside their trucks and waiting for work .The children's voices echoed in the intense heat . Temperatures often rose to 130 degrees in July and August by mid-morning.

I spent many hours on gangway watch talking to one of the British security personel on board the National Glory,Howard Couchman.He'd spent  several years working in the Middle East after retiring from the Royal Marines. One of the issues we came to agree on was  if the gains from the Surge were to be made permanent then Iraq needed to make a concerted effort to attract foreign businesses to invest and develop the country, especially the long neglected,aging petroleum industry,health, education,housing and transportation infrastructure decaying from the years of Sadaam Hussein's  dictatorial abuse of power and the wars he waged on his Arab neighbors.No foreign businesses wanted to risk bringing their employees and families to Iraq if they had to be confined to working out of hotels or isolated compounds.

Another issue that Howard and I discussed was the remaining deep-seated animosity and mistrust between the Sunnis and the Shiite-controlled goverment in Baghdad.The United States President was going to have to tread cautiously ,but at times act swiftly and decisively to keep the political momentum towards a lasting ,stable peace and ambitious plans on economic reconstruction alive.The next American President needs to formulate a more clear and coherent strategy for United States involvement in Iraq than President Bush possessed. There must be a workable phased -withdrawal exit strategy agreeable to the Iraqis and Americans, a consistant carrot and stick diplomacy to pressure the Iraqi government for more reforms, greater power-sharing with the Kurds and Sunnis, move forward on the integration of a national army and police force to maintain stability, and a long-term economic reconstruction plan for Iraq that increases regional trade and cooperation and  prevent sliding back into renewed violence.There must be a coordinated policy to reenforce the gains that the Surge achieved.The next American President will need to be more honest with the American people on the real risks ,costs ,and domestic sacrifices that will be necessary to fight two wars on global terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tatters of sailcloth and dreamsong

You were on a small sailing vessel
moving southwesterly out from the Keys
beyond the Far Tortugas
there's nothing for miles but sky and sea
your hair is afurl in seaspray and warm winds
your figure aglow in a golden amber
A storm slowly arose out of afternoon calm
faint violet rings circle the noon-day sun
in ghostly outline of pending danger
a fisherman's evil omen
The sea squall rose to a high-pitched shriek
like a sea gull's cry
We lay below decks
and wait out the height of the storm's rage
we talk of far off things
and the magic of our meeting here
You speak softly,
'Soon, we'll be able to turn the skiff
homeward to the sheltering cay'
--a shriek of twisting timbers,
charts and navigational gear crashes,
the shuddering skiff rights herself,
and in the din of flopping canvas,
screeching blocks, drifts downwind
from the reefs,
black wind and rush of water, figures
running in my dream,
in sight of home, I wake up

"the navigator's needle swung strangely;
oscillating between the oil wells
and ask again later.We tried to pull ourselves
together by practicing quarterback sneaks
along the pylons,but the race to the ravine
was starting to feel as real as the R.I.P.'s
and roses carved into rock suddenly the sight
of a schoolbag could send us
scrambling "- Matthea Harvey

Terror in the corridors and halls
books left open and unread
words scattered like schoolchildren
at recess
the tall sentinels of corporate America
we saw all gleaming fall down
wrecked our alleged infamy
in television's benign massage
On our return
 we encounter homespun revolutions
 and repressed rage on modern campuses
fed on Ritalin dreams of glory
seeking new visionary outlets
we peep through knotholes in the fence
at glittering rouge daydreams
blinded from birth.