As Winter Moves In

Clouds crowd above branches stripped bare
In Winter’s stark stare.
Silence murmurs through cold air
As if Nature doesn’t care.

Where are the leaves when we need them
To guard us against wind and frost?
They have fled, taken cover in the ground below,
To leave us alone and lost.

             New Mexico, December 9

 

 

THE HOTEL ROOM

Solitude has wild flashes.
Fantasies jump upon the stone
of desolate courtyards.
Ropes stretch and threaten to snap.
Blistered paint of old hotels,
of forgotten pillars
that cling to desperate rooms,
cry out in empty echoes.
Chipped tiles erase memories.
Pale skies eat time slowly.

We shatter the mirrors of our chambers
seeking essences;
those fragrant, few drops of light
that we contain but cannot touch.

The arms that clasp the hand-carved chairs by the bed side,
skin that ripples in moonlight, the woven blankets wrapped around us,
the face of a thousand moods, the laced curtains that tremble
by the open window, eyes that probe the wallpaper,
the metal lampshades dulled by rust, the ears that hear dreams,
the marble floors that reap our mistakes, hair flowing across the room,
the stained mattresses that groan, the backs and muscles, hard as opals,
that gently decay.

A few drops of light endure
and those we cannot touch.

             -- C.S. Cholas

                Ixmilquilpan, Hidalgo, Mexico

                6 de enero, 1983

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

 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.

                                         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

 

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

 

Echoes Behind the Music

Bach runs in trills about the backyard in major tonalities.
Joy must come with twenty kids
Running up and down the organ keys
Must give them thrills.

While Mozart mourns in minor melodies
He, too, has highs and lows, going forward.
Struggles with “Black Thoughts”, hysteria and unpaid bills,
Fights battles through the Requiem suite,
Emerges playing the magic flute
In the backyard behind the watermills.

C. S. Cholas, Colorado October 22, 2021 

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

 Two Composers

Bach runs in trills about the backyard in major tonalities
Joy must come with twenty kids.
Running up and down the organ keys
Must give them thrills.
While Mozart mourns in minor melodies
He, too, has highs and lows, going forward.
Struggles with “Black Thoughts”, hysteria and unpaid bills,
Fights battles through the Requiem suite,
Emerges playing the magic flute
In the backyard behind the watermills.

C. S. Cholas, Colorado October 22, 2021 

 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

Work In Progress:  Battle Creek

We travel across the USA on a rainy day
We reach Battle Creek on the third of May.
Students on a journey to learn
About race and prejudice in our city streets.
Richmond, Virginia is where we plan to meet.
(Shhh! Keep it to yourself. Just call it Urban Studies instead.)

In Battle Creek we find Uncle John’s Pancake House
On Michigan 94 and we find out that
It’s rainy in Battle Creek and we are soaked.|
A day to dream and maybe, just maybe,
To find out what Max Weber really knew.

We sit, syrup raised to battle stations,
And wage our pogrom against stacks
Of buttermilk pancakes,
Unaware that corn flakes were born here.

Bellies full and caffeinated, too,
We find out that the Road to Find Out
Is a vast and endless venture of signs,
True and tall tales, and the story of Kellogg corn flakes.

Searching deeper we find Potawatomi and Ottawa
People gathered on the Coguagiack prairie.
Mending wounds from earlier attacks in 1774
To form a village in peace around the lake. 

Here on this Road to Find Out,
the US army saw a chance to gain ground
For eastern settlers to claim the fertile soil.
Holding up food supplies from the tribes,
A theft caused a serious wound and the Potawatomi
Lost their land.  Life is cruel to some;
Trust intruders and find out who’s the fool.

Then came the sawmill and a small log cabin school.
Then a factory to make bricks. 
See how progress comes when the victor knows the tricks.

Freed from slavery Sojourner Truth made her home here
On the Road to Find Out; Battle Creek became a stop,
The underground railroad’s secret, safe spot for slaves
Fleeing to Canada in the north.

Ellen White's Adventists found here a place to convene in 1863:
William Miller had the Christ Return set for 1844,
But had the wrong country as the place to be
As Shiraz was the place he really should have longed for.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg blended health, eugenics
And the betterment of race;
As long as it upheld a separate but equal face.
A twist to keep races apart with his social calisthenics
Roads to Find Out often took ugly turns and strange ones too.

His hapless brother, W.K., wandered on The Road to Find Out.
He sold brooms in Oklahoma boom towns,
But they were not a place for him to be.
Still a loser, W.K. returned on the Road to Find Out
To assist his brother’s sanitarium. There he chanced to spill
Liquefied cornmeal on a heating device and gave a shout.
He added milk and fed it to residents: corn flakes were born!
“Cereal City” had a destiny selling corn.

On the Road to Find Out we find out that race hate follows
Some white folks wherever they go
Like the time boxing Champ Jack Johnson
Was arrested here for marrying a white woman
And carrying her across state lines. The times didn’t seem to change
On the Road to Find Out.

Thousands of dough boys passed through
For training in WWI and WWII for army life
And prepare for their first taste of combat strife.
Later hundreds of wounded arrived in the second world war
Amputations, Neurosurgery, and plastic artificial eyes and surgeries galore.
Battle Creek was the first American city to install
Wheelchair ramps on sidewalks, ya’all
For the wounded to enjoy downtown life.
Every general knows that war has its rewards.
Train the troops and inter German Prisoners of War.

Wear black skin and the law could stop and frisk. 
That’s the risk one took to enjoy a walk to the store
Or to a park or going home from work. 
Dr. King came and spoke here, as did Muhammad Ali.
The Black Recondos made schools hire black teachers,
Officials too, or every black child would leave the school.
Black bodies filled seats that brought federal funds
And the school board would find what federal money was all about.

We’re on the Road to Find Out.We were on the Road to Find Out.
(At that time, we did not know the history around us
The stories of Battle Creek like layers of fallen leaves
In the rain-soaked ground that surrounded us.)

We sat, syrup raised to battle stations
And waged our pogrom against stacks
Of buttermilk pancakes at Uncle John’s Pancake House
On Michigan 94 still looking for the betterment of race.
Naïve about who wins and who finishes in last place.

C. S. Cholas, May 3, 1974, Battle Creek, Michigan

 

Street Preacher on Leigh Street

Inside city jails, inside city hall
Make wages at the bus line
Haul on to the Silver Coach for lunch.
Taste the honey suckle scent
  As it drifts through the humid afternoons.

MLK Jr. watches
From a large poster on the living room wall.
Packing books now; a new approach and call
For a family man of four
Whose wife is seriously a clown;
   A professional clown.

Ease the nerves, humor the tired eyes,
Give to children a joyful surprise
Make some funny sense out of Richmond
Clown face to deflect the social lies.

The street preacher studies in Virginia Union halls
His heart firm with God and his mind justly wise
In a city split by segregated walls
His voice a fiery call for the just to arise.

Street preacher’s firm face a godly fire for Truth.
Sweet teacher’s Clown face a godsend in smiles.

                                                C. S. Cholas
                                                May 13, 1974, Richmond, Virginia
                                                Remembering Rev. Linwood and Mary Corbett

 Rev. Linwood "Bishop Benjamin Israel" Corbett Sr.

 

 

 

 

 Slim’s Lake Kegonsa Campsite

With his head band and ragged beard, Slim looked the wild man,

A wild, bandit guerilla stooped

Over the Lake Kegonsa campfire, pouring coffee into a mug,

Pouring out his thoughts into the night air;

About work, race and social change. He swatted at a bug

And slumped into his folding chair.

Some would have thought him mad by his looks

As he voiced views found in skeptics’ books;

Max Weber, Baldwin, Alinsky and Studs Terkel too.

Our mentor sociologist shared thoughts new to us

As we kept the fire going, log by log; and we put-up tents.

Above all, cynic, or advocate, we laughed

As we fried food, talked, and laughed with Slim

At Lake Kegonsa.

The night, splattered with stars and sausage grease,

Promised a good night’s sleep for this college tour

On its way east and south to Richmond to explore

Why prejudice churns and burns more and more.

Slim knew something he chose not to convey to the naïve.

Those of us used to this secure, white world we enjoyed.

He preferred we learn by being there, our crested status laid bare.

Where our white-fused views would be tried with truth

Would we fight or flee, turn angry, tearful or fearful,

Or sad in our struggle with it?

As ashes rose from the fire, silence settled over its roar.

Slim grinned a grin as one in combat might let slip,

Acting brave while staring upon an open grave

C. S. Cholas, May 6, 1974.

Lake Kegonsa Campground, Wisconsin

 

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