"Keyings" (a villanelle)

What are we human beings?
a semblance of the true
such bindings & such freeings!

Our youings & our meings
well land us in a stew!
what are we human beings?

How subtle grow our gleeings
(I whisper "how are you?")
such bindings & such freeings

As yearnings seek for seeings
we sizzle through & through
what are we human beings?

The sheings & the heings
colliding points of view
with bindings & with freeings

O mountain goddess! keyings
of words were all for you
what are we human beings?
such bindings & such freeings!


(c) 2005 david raphael israel

a little lyric poem dashed off amid workday; yet happy with it, I'd initially "informally published" it on a literary discussion board (aka "network," hosted by Ryze, here villanelle {Caferati}), and now "memorialize" it on the present blog. In certain phases of life, I tend to compose poetry daily. Can't say to what extent I'll pour such effusions & efforts, effluents & effluvia into this e-space. Perchance to some modest degree...

your cordial
d.i.

walking north

Another (from myriad such self-portaits; I'd commenced the series once acquiring a new cellphone fitted out with digi-camera, mid-spring).
This was June 3, 2005 -- on weekend afternoon, walking up 16th Street NW toward Silver Spring, Maryland. Summer heat hadn't yet arrived full tilt. Seems now as if long ago.

Existence of trees in photographs of people can quite alter the feeling, true?

snapshot upload / brief lowdown

in Adams-Morgan (wash.dc), toward midnight, Sept.13, 2005 -- saving this small (49 kb) so can upload to blogger profile.
Tuesday evenings (generally), I'm painting with a small circle of artist-friends downtown; -- we hire in a model (nude figurative painting) -- I'm doing oil sketches (so: one new oil painting per week). When the session ends (11pm), generally I'm getting a ride to Adams-Morgan, one of the few late-night neighborhoods in wash.dc; food, espresso, a late cigar, carrot juice for the road, bus or cab home. Like that.
Have been using cell phone for photos; perhaps will upload more here in future.
Also: this blog has rather been back-burnered since early Sept. launch. Too busy (in terms of online scribblings) w/ Caferati perhaps. But more here in future inshallah. 

"notes begun impromptu" (villanelle)

Setting up this blog, I encountered a field for "description". I wrote:
| notes begun impromptu

and then:
| but likely to find form

and then found I had to complete it as a villanelle.
However, the Blogger software would not accept so many words in the description field (and with my footnotes to boot). So, here's the literally improptu scribble (or -- to split more exacting hairs -- the keyboard equiv. of a scribble prompted by the noted occasion).


"notes begun impromptu"

notes begun impromptu
but likely to find form
after a fashion haunt you

sun & moon don't taunt you
fuddlement is life's norm
notes begin impromptu

post them when you want to
formlessly conform
to what might mildly haunt you

everything responds to
flutes that sound forlorn?
notes begin impromptu

when'll we publish shantu
babu's tale? warm
grow future rays to haunt you

cool enough & spont too
calm precedes the storm?
notes begun impromptu
may after a fashion haunt you

d.i.


& notes:
I'll explain the shantu babu thing sometime later in my blog (like maybe next month). This involves a small publishing venture I'm in process of gearing up to launch. (Shantu Babu is a fictional character -- not of my invention, but in a certain novel...)

spont = spontaneous [in more suitably abbrev. form]

Dashed this off in this [erst] "description" field, in lieu of studied explanation. Hopefully the gentle reader will fend for him/herself appropriately, what's-up-about-this-wise. Other descriptives may presumably be inferred by whatever follows.

an impromptu blogo-start

In the past day -- Sunday into Monday (our Labor Day in the US), I've been reading blogs of miscellaneous writers associated with CAFERATI -- out of general / discursive literary interest, but also more particularly inspired by emerging plans involving an upcoming, brief trip to India, Mumbai-side (a couple months from now -- as an exploratory step toward possibly reloating myself there -- drawn to enter study of dhrupad; that being another story -- about which more later).

Stumbling on a few recent poems (particularly "I'm breaking this habit", as well as two decent villanelles), by a certain unfamiliar Delhi-based poet who seemed to show talent -- exhibiting a blend of heartbreak+wit that strikes a happy (& I daresay not unfamiliar) chord in my ear, I wanted to post a comment. But discovered one must be a blogger to log a comment. Ergo, presto! I'm now a blogger.

Having dipped this toe in the bloggosphere lake, I'll likely follow this with other notes, perchance germane to the above-mentioned travel plans & suchlike.

cheers,
d.i.