The Concealment: Written by my secret and only friend, Cosmic, on the ship, while crossing the Red Sea

I was not allowed in school. ‘You’re such a fool!’ they said 
My garments were handmade and concealed me until
My nightly exposure at the evening show at the Palace of Amir.
No one can tell me where I was born, and I travel still
Never to know where my mother birthed me. I hear
She handed me to a slave and fled in fear.
Baabek, Isfahan, Ghadames, Hebron.
Rumors say it was in the Wadi Rum ‘The Valley of the Moon’
My black skin hints of Marrakesh.
Some say I must be Nubian from Wawat. 

All strange names to me.  Cosmic knows them all.
Cosmic, my cat, I found in Istanbul, or so he’s said.
He’s full of ancient spells in his eyes.
Draw close to feel them. 
They followed me on my mystic walk.

He’s my only friend, the one who knows who I really am.
We talk.
My friend has traveled oft in caravans, alleyways,
And into strange caves where hermits pray.

Our Arab troupe crossed into lands
Beyond what I am unable to know.
Veiled and concealed between shows,
They kept me in the closed cart free from male eyes.

I kept a secret rose a handsome young Egyptian threw me.
I would be stoned if anyone knew how it came my way
After a show in Cairo.
The young man slipped away
After he threw it so not to be caught.

I stay veiled until the dark oud mourns.
Men gather to stare.
They know what my magic is when concealment
Is manifest, and my belly twirls.

 C. S. Cholas, 29 September 2023
Ekphrastic poem
"Green Eyes” by Derrick Montez

 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.

The Night Jupiter Spoke to Me

Journalists, like parrots on TV news
Spew out chaos in broadcast views:
Bad things happen to folk scorned by fate
Promised dreams forced to wait
As human life spun in blurs, lost in bigotries,
Cannot save cherished idolatries
Of right and left bereft of light

Nameless and traceless souls have new birth
To lead the nations foretold in the Holy Book
When the “meek shall inherit the earth.”
Greed prevents the mighty from seeking a deeper look.
As they sink in the mire of unbelief and vices
Entombed by their own devices.

Last night I heard Jupiter speak in my ear.
Jupiter said something of cosmic light.
Whispered it without a word of fear,
As I stared into the solemn night:
A word crossed the black sky outside my door
A mumble and nothing more.
And then all went still; Jupiter a dull dot in time,
And I listened to all that blackness between
Me and time, between time and love;
Between love and what should I do next?

So much space on my hands and no way 
to grasp it:
A jumble and nothing more.

I glanced again before walking ahead.
I was sure that Jupiter said:
Night bodes a glorious Day.
Inhale the promised metaphor
And let the humble lead the way.

C. S. Cholas
12/18/08 Night Sky over Hilo:

What is Jupiter associated with?

In astrology, Jupiter is associated with the principles of growth, expansion, healing, prosperity, good fortune, and miracles. Jupiter governs long distance and foreign travel, big business and wealth, higher education, religion, and the law.

Was a time

We swapped tales
Fishing for words that lay hid
In streams with indigenous roots
Behind rocks with geological names;

We shared snapshots
Of nameless faces we met in ordinary life,
Reflections of God from places
As diverse as Kayenta, Burrell Boom
Or a hospital waiting room in San Juan.

Was there meaning behind the scars?
The stuttered speech, the missing teeth?
The smell of Ponderosa Pine needles
Rising in the smoke of a Colorado campfire?

Was a time
We pondered the metaphorical nature
Of our physical realms, helmsmen
On a mystical boat in heavy fog
At night when the lapping of waves
Has almost gone still.

-- C. S. Cholas
27 September 2007

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

Choices: Voices

Life comes to the climax
Choices close in:
Suicide or
Become a poet who writes about suicide or
Be the dreamer who wanders alone
In forests and along shores. Thinking.
Always thinking
Thinking about writing poetry or lonely songs.
Thinking how close one can come to the edge
And look down sober without fear.

The loud ones say, "I, me, my mine,"
These are whiny and persistent.
Beyond them and softer are words
Of sacrifice, caring and concern.
We are here to learn.

- C. S. Cholas
December 24, 2022

 Raven

 

Embedded in the Sufi poem
I came across a raven,
but when I returned to find him
he had flown away
from the empty page.

I searched him out
page by page
in a frantic skimming
through my life:
the dying embers and smoky ashes,
of rages and ravages of want,
ending in the cold epilogue
of a sunken heart.

Naive me, a sparrow
whose life is short,
Entranced by 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

 

Serenity

My mind swirls in scenes of the past--:
Serene motion, Diné horsemen on pinto ponies
Garifuna drums and Punta dancing, Hawaiian papaya,
And the smell of jasmine near Hilo.

Hotel room in Ixmiquilpan, land of the Otomi, 1982
Sipping atole in the chilly air of the morning sun on the street
Walk by fields of cilantro under the crisp blue December sky
The sense of souls all around 

Haifa clouds, during pilgrimage, close to God;
We walk on stone paths to the Shrine in Bahji
Praying to be cleansed from stained deeds,
Like soiled laundry, renewed peace free of blame
Of others and me.  The need to live in “we” not in “me,
And better yet from “we” to “He””

Wonder and Contentment: other mystic valleys too.
To be on top of the world, not under it (a mental attitude)
Sharing love without expectation of reward.

Minestrone soup with toast before bed and evening prayer.

 CS Cholas, 11 pm. October 23, 1994

 

Streams of (Un)Consciousness

                                                                                            "Don't be dead or asleep or awake. 
                             Don't be anything.

What you want most want,
What you travel around wishing to find,
Lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
And you'll be that." – Attar

 

 

 We follow words down streams of dreams;

Laud the scope of their meaning
Yet remain aliens banned from their realms.

We track their sounds
Laughing at our insignificance.
Our persistent howls, unchaste and crude,
Echo through the halls of their castles
Of winding clauses, verbs of dance,
Nouns of steel, pauses with commas,
The Landlord tends to pots of speech yet to be spoken.
By chance, outsiders that we are, we beg
The Landlord, if we can, to borrow a dipper and sip
A few words to lure Undines* to change water into life.

-          C. S. Cholas, Sept 20, 2020 Arizona

*Undines:  Elemental beings associated with water, first named in the alchemical writings of Paracelsus. Spirits of the water world