II Desperation: War and Heroes

In April 1969. 
High School is over for me,
But not the war that took a friend
I used to wrestle in school.
Coach knew Frank was meant for trouble,
Like a puma refusing to be caged,
Restless and reckless.
But he won many matches for the team. 
I only won one all year on the B squad.
Frank encouraged me and helped me make moves.

And then, he went to war, Vietnam,
And the rest is not a dream, but a horror from far away.
Where leaders went insane at the price of the men they led.
A squad leader on a mission to assess the damage done;
A B-52 bomber strike at Dau Tieng.
Sergeant Saracino, a point man with hand grenades and a gun.
Pull the pin and launch it upon the bunker of the other side.

Perhaps wrestling moves raced through his mind, which one to choose?
Switch reversal would be good in this clash.
Life passes in a flash.
Double leg takedown, spawl, fireman’s carry.  Save your men,
Throw the grenade at a bunker, stall them ‘til the period ends.
A headlock would help here. Try to pin them down.
Allow your men to withdraw.
The enemy fire machine guns, bullets like swarms of bees.
How to flee? Switch, whizzer, sit out.  Face to face,
Are full Nelsons and choke holds legal on the battleground?

The air is full of war: grenades and screaming guns
Exposed to a hail of bullets, Sergeant Saracino, a master of takedowns,
Placed suppressive fire on the enemy until his comrades
Reached a safer space.  Is that the bell or the door to hell.
And did we win the match? Who could tell, each side took its toll.

The world is brutal clatter: and does it really matter?
Air strikes from above and machine guns rattle on the ground
Both sides desperate now, crazed only to win.
No referee can be found to stop this thing.
All the rules have been shattered, and does it really matter?

Frank charged again in a one-man assault
Upon a bunker, killing its two occupants with hand grenades.
Perhaps he thought: It’s not my fault.
To hell with earthly crusades.  No worries, end of story.

Then somewhere a heavy caliber gun fired on the platoon.
In the smoke of doom, Frank saw his men open to the deadly volley,
He exposed himself to save them by engaging the hostile fire,
As he strove to throw one more grenade.
at the machine gun emplacement, he was killed by the enemy barrage
“Sergeant Saracino's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty, at the cost of his life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.”

Frank, destined for trouble, won the match, and died in the rubble.
But both sides lost the war. Did we learn anything?
All the rules have been shattered, and does it really matter?

C. S. Cholas
12 October 2023

 

Salsabil: (softly flowing river)

Qur'án: 76:18: "From the fount therein whose name is Salsabíl (the softly flowing)."

 Expectation April 1969 Fort Collins, Colorado. 

High School is over for me,
A sweetly strange mood hovers over the air
That lingers from a recent dream.
I stand on the street curb in front of Hickman’s for Men
Looking across South College Avenue
To a campus lawn across the street
It’s my timeline: past, present and tomorrow.
I sense something is going on.
Beyond the war in ‘Nam
Beyond Racial hatred here in my homeland.
Something is going on quiet and deep.
Deeper and beyond what is going on.
Something great is moving in, penetrating the soul.
As I stand in front of Hickman’s for Men
(The store where I bought my Scout uniform.
Years ago in junior high.)
Ethereal voices, a few compressed into one Speech,
Serene, faintly heard somewhere press behind me.
I sense the transcendental Presence of the eternal Essence.
I wonder if those around me feel it too. 
 

I watch an African woman, stately and noble,
Cross South College Avenue
She wears a long, vibrant kaftan
With a matching head wrap,
She crosses the avenue with two large books
Balanced on her head.
Her posture is straighter than anyone
You could meet in my hometown. By her looks
She is beautiful, elegant, and chaste.
I only know she is African, but I am too naïve
To distinguish between tribes and the kingdoms
They once reigned.
She crosses the avenue like a mirage,
Like a soft flowing stream rushing to paradise.
Do I really see her floating by in the spring air?
Maybe this is why I am here, 
Should I follow her and see if she might be a link?
She reaches the other side only to fade away.
Past stale, old buildings, as if she is only a blink
Misplaced in the stroke of another spring day.

Something will happen if I stay aware.
Deep to the bone, a sense, and a whiff in the air.
That the world is to be changed.
It is not clear what, when, 0r where
The restless moment when the world is rearranged.
I am young and think in momentary events
That strike quick like lightning or an atomic blast;
Impulses that bolt fast into life without premeditation.
I watch traffic pass by
Thinking a sign will burst across the sky
Escorted by fire and a heavenly choir.

I watch a car pass by filled with noisy, young men.
The windows are down, and loud music disturbs the mood.
From inside the weathered car, The Beach Boys’
“Two girls for every guy” blares out of old sedan.
The “Girls are made for sex” music of the day.
Not the holy voices I expected to hear.

C. S. Cholas

October 8, 2023
Memory from 1969

 

 

 Raven

Embedded in the Sufi poem
I came across a raven,
but when I sought him out again
he had flown away
from the empty page.

I searched him out
page by page
in a frantic skimming
through my life:
those hotheaded coals
in rages of want
preceded the cooler
tide of a sunken heart.

Naive me, a sparrow
whose life is short,
Entranced to find the raven
I once glimpsed,
Only to be abashed
by his hideous beak.
Better to hide than to seek
if one confuses Friend with foe.

"Pitiless ravens do lie in wait
for this bird of the heavens of God..."

C. S. Cholas
May 5, 2022

             The Sound of a Miracle

I walk into the placeless valley knowing
Sound and silence are illusions
Snug in a sky that is wide open.

I search for love-filled words
             deeper than love songs.

I search for the pulse of love,
              beyond any fragile movement of heat and skin,

I search for a pulse, a breath, a hum,
              that rises as air and scatters through the universe

Here, along the shore of this placeless space,

              we watch ducks in the whispers of dawn
              rise from the lake, wings splashing the surface,
              as they ascend into a detachment of clouds.

The sky if full of clever spaces between here and there,
              today and tomorrow, memory and fantasy
              as a miracle descends as rain from travel worn clouds
              disguised as our imagination.

What sound has a miracle? Does it crack
Faintly like a sprout that splits
The crust of earth to meet the stunning rays
Of the dazzling sun?

Could the same be true of a soul
Who forsakes this lonesome sphere
To soar into tiers of light?
What sound comes forth from such delight?

            -- C. S. Cholas
                Fast reflection, March 2, 2005

 The Martyrs’ Song: Shiraz 1983

 "And now the handmaidens, kin of the martyred Mona,
will sing: 'Gaze upon Time' on a spring eventide
that begins on earth and ends in heaven.
Swayed by the sun, we reflect on the moonlight."

In the land of the pupil of the eye;
through creative space we fly
the Mouthpiece of God fashions our wings;
the higher we glide, the more we are awed.
A fenceless place immersed in open space;
water, air and fertile soil join in light.
Like caged slaves sprung from caves,
the burst of souls blooms in delight.

"Shab bekheir va khabhaye shirin" the Persians say.
"Good night and sweet dreams!"
The ropes give way.

The song you sing shuns all sadness;
fears flee, hearts hail the gladness.
The sky whirls in glee and sound,
o'er feet that scarcely hang above the ground.

Who among us belongs here,
and who dangles from the other world?
Somewhere, somehow, we hover
over earth and heaven,
both realms mingled into one;
the mystical mass that must leaven
the bodies tangled in madness.
Fears flee, hearts hail the gladness.

No kinder voices than yours are found
to clothe nightfall with lullabies.
Meek garments, calm seas mystify
the dreamy sounds mirrored on your souls.

-- C.S. Cholas
11 ‘Azamat 180 B.E.

 

 

In honor of the 10 Bahá’í women of Shiraz executed on 18 June 1983

Mona Mahmoudnejad, 17;
Roya Eshraghi, 23, executed along with her mother;
Simin Saberi, 24;
Shahin (Shirin) Dalvand, 25;
Akhtar Sabet, 25;
Mahshid Niroumand, 28;
Zarrin Moghimi-Abyaneh, 29;
Tahereh Arjomandi Siyavashi, 30. Her husband, Jamshid Siavashi,
     was executed two days earlier;
Nosrat Ghufrani Yaldaie, 46. Her son, Bahram Yaldaie,
     was executed two days earlier;
Ezzat-Janami Eshraghi, 57, along with her daughter Roya, 23.
     Her husband, Enayatullah Eshraghi was executed two days earlier.

We all come from somewhere.

             We all come from somewhere.

We all come from somewhere.
Before the first crack of dawn
Somewhere we have never been
Like the light at the end of the tunnel
That it too bright to see what the light beholds.

We all come from somewhere
Up and at them before we know
Anything about them or ourselves.
In the beginning that has no beginning
Somewhere in the end that has no end.

There are records of my time of birth
In a place I do not remember
At a time before the beginning of man
Before the time that man forgot
Lost in the folds of the earth.

C. S. Cholas
6 March 2023

Thoughts go wandering during the Fast

 

 

                                         SISTER

The cheerful voice
            Still leader of the pack
            Since the neighborhood days of childhood
            Lanky gang of summer evenings – curfew at nine

Now transformed into arranging networks
             And the right guests matched over dinner

Easy to faint, spilt milk as a girl, fascinated by boys
            Their psyche.  Transcended all that with sons
            Of her own, watching them grow and follow
            Similar, then different paths:
            One on whitewater rafts and mountain trails,
            One in the northwest rains with a Bosnian wife,
            And the younger, more social one
            Who struggles on the battlefield of the mind.

                                     11/08/07 Remembering Elaine