Oblivion Magic

Unity:

Bread to the mouth

Milk to the lips

Tongue to the nipple

Tender loin bathed

In the honey of your hive

Tender pleasures our lives

Separate and shared

Under my sun

Your moon

Round as bum cakes

Cupped in my hands

Yours at rest on

My face descending

Deep wells of

Your molten eyes ablaze

Fire of orgasm and prayer

Burning surrender burning

Death to rebirth

Incarnated

Two as one

Rise to walk

A broad horizon

We clutch with melting fingers

The final moment

Letting go

Everything precious

This life gives us

Such short time.

Moe Seager

copyright,moe seager,1988.

Hot Ice!

Hey Jesse,

I watched highlights of the Pens victory last night. (Missed the game because I had to be at a jazz gig.) At the (Paris) Great Canadian Bar we'll watch the final. Over here it airs live from 1 am till 5.

I attended a few Penguin games in the late 70's, early 80's. The era of mass bloodshed. The open secret back then: Pen's owners, the Dibartolo family, Youngstown mobsters, laundering money into legitimate enterprises. I took you to the Arena. The game was tedious. Lemieux was double teamed. It was the fans who put on a show. An elderly couple sitting behind us. Granny screams, "Kill him. Knock his head off ". Gramps: "Club the son-of-a-bitch".

Better action than Chilly Billy Cardille narrating Channel 11, Saturday night Ring Side Wrestling show featuring numbers bookey,Vaudevillian referee, Izzy Moidel of the Lower Hill. We chanced to be kid fans in the time of a rare, true skilled, federation champion, East Liberty's immigrant hero, Bruno Samartino. Bruno and his younger brother, Antonio, thrilled us kids as we were allowed to watch, we flocked, as they worked out true gymnastics forms in the gym of the Shadyside Boys' Club. Bruno and his brother briefly lived in my notorious, wonderful society, Pierce Street. Both immigrated to Pierce Street in 1960, working, laying concrete. Bruno's brother had a habit of leaving his 1956 blue Chevy Comanche pick-up truck unlocked over night, sometimes with the keys in the ignition. He parked it in the alley, Tay Way. After midnight me and playmate Louie Conti would hop in the truck, turn on the Delco A M and bounce up 'n down to Motown hits broadcast on KQV on the late night Hal Murray show. On one such late night, raining- cats-'n- dogs, Antonio caught us in the act. We nearly shit ourselves in fear. "Tony" opened the door. In a soft, gentle tone of voice, showing a slight grin, he said, "It's O.K., don't be a scared. I no mad at a you boys. I did a the same in my village. But please, no more, huh". We never did it again.

Like Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Mario Lemieux, Bruno Samartino dignified a sport, was indeed a champion. He opened his heart to Pittsburgh, gifting us something to crow about, when in those days, our neighborhood, the city and the region was looked upon as the armpit of the north, Piksburg, Western Pennsyltucky.

My fondest memory of Bruno? A hot, humid, early evening of a dog day in August. It must have been six o'clock because our moms, on schedule, yelling from the row house porches, calling us inside for dinner. We spotted Bruno walking down the street, tired and dirty after eight hours of laying concrete. He wore a sleeveless tee, soaked and stained with sweat and two-in-one mix. A gang of us danced around him. Paul Cody asked, "Bruno, how many of us can you lift at one time". Before he could get a word out we all clamored,:"Please Bruno, lift us up, please, please, please". One of the moms yelled out " Leave that man alone. Behave yourselves." Bruno smiled away a sigh. As the littler tykes wrapped onto his thighs, he lifted six of us, on his bull shoulders, in his mighty howitzer arms. Chub boat Stevie Lowenberg hanging from his neck.The man's soft brown eyes, boyish smile, so careful not to drop us. For a change, we could tell everybody in the world what happened - no exaggeration. We bragged about it for years. Some folks didn't believe our fantastic story. Still don't. Shame, nobody had a camera. Pen 'n paper for his autograph. That's alright.

Flyers defense man Battleship Kelly, in a pregame interview: " We play tough hockey. If I happen to injure Lemieux that's his fault". He would injure Lemieux with a horrific behind-the-back assault. Plus, the Arena organist played stupid jingles to keep the fans from complete boredom. At 10 years old you were not impressed.

In '86 I watched team Russia take the ice against the Flyers, It was sports diplomacy, a special tour aimed at easing President Reagan's urge to nuke the Soviet Union. They would nuke us in return. Super Bombs. In less than one minute the Russian coach pulled his team off the ice, into the locker room, because Kelly and company came out fouling with the first face off. Back then,most NHL players couldn't skate as good as the Europeans. So, I nixed the NHL as it degenerated into 3 period brawls. I followed international teams, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Finland, Russia,Canada. and yes, the Lemieux led Pens. Mario was the Pens! He skated through major injuries for 17 seasons. Class! Things did change finally. The turn came in 1980 with the under dog U.S. Olympic team beating a better Russian team for the gold.

I hope it's a Pennsylvania derby. I'd love to see the Pens knock out the Flyers. Crosby, Malkin, Malone... Fleury and the defense! They're fit to take the cup. Lemieux's gotta be so happy.Following the Pens fend off their rivals: Hot Ice. Now that's Hockey!

When you come to Paris, your little brother Marius wants the 3 of us to see a Paris pro team soccer match. He's never forgotten when you took him to a Pirate's game. And the Buccos won! The young son, little brother, will be so happy, proud to host his big brother, his dad. He'll surely tell us a lot about soccer, his team, Paris St. Germain. You can recount the Penguins winning the Stanley Cup. Me, I'm gonna brag on Bruno.


-30-

Red

I come upon a toothbrush, red
Lying on the sink, bristles up, spread below
The mirror, yours, it is wet, so
Lifting it to my mouth, plunge
Eyes closed, I suck it, a long minute
Turn it over and around, slippery friction
Against my teeth, up and down, I rub
My gums with your moist brush rouge
Flush to my lips and spread
A white paste oozing from a long tube
This mix discharges sugar cane sensations
To my taste buds agitated for
Your faint liquid trace so good, I
Need to swallow and gulp
Down-Deep till it fills the empty
Hole in my
Tongue to your delicate instrument
Lodged firm, so precise
When it all comes, together, dabs and drops
Dripping from the corners of my
Why did I have to
Open my eyes


Moe Seager

From Stone Mountain to Himalaya

Humans,

Forty years ago Martin Luther King was slain in Memphis. Forty years ago the Dali Lama was branded a criminal, forced into exile. King and fellow freedom marchers were met with hostile police, national guard and lynch mobs.Tibetans were and are under a national lock-down as police and military assassinate and jail them. In the capitalist state of the USA, King's followers were spit upon, gassed and murdered, identified as "communist dupes". In the communist state of China, Tibetans are shot, jailed and branded religious fanatics. Perverse irony, how two dynastic states, several times on the brink of war with each other, so readily branded, continue to brand the voices of freedom and social progress in an equally severe, fatal manner. Things are better now between the U.S. and China as both carve up the planet for their own might-of-state designs.

Forty years ago Martin Luther King and the Dali Lama were in contact, in mutual support of their respective human rights campaigns. Both men preached and practiced nonviolent civil disobedience. Both were heartened by the example set in India by another pacifist-activist, also slain by the forces of hate, Mohandas Gandhi. Forty years ago a young Gandhian disciple, Nelson Mandela, led the freedom movement of South Africa from a prison cell, himself labeled a terrorist and communist dupe. Things are better now in India and South Africa.The native peoples did not respond with violence and oppression against their former masters. Newly freed, the former victims had no stomach for this heinous behavior. The dethroned privileged classes breathed a great sigh of relief upon discovery of the humanity of their former subjects.

I am astounded by the readiness to reconciliation offered by once brutalized peoples towards their former slave masters, jailers, executioners. Throughout my several years of war reporting and cultural exchanges I am repeatedly amazed to witness mass reconciliatory processes, public and personal, in the blood bathed places of Soweto, Jerusalem, Belfast and Nicaragua. Equally dear, all my life I've been offered the hand of friendship and brotherhood in Pittsburgh, Detroit, east L.A., Harlem, Paris Tennessee, Paris France. The human race is capable of great acts of tolerance, cooperation and love.

For all the great plans of economic fairness and revolutionary change since the French revolution of 1798, leaders and followers repeatedly forget or denounce the words of three revolutionaries.
"What you do unto your bretheren you do unto me". Jesus.
"An eye for an eye and the world goes blind". Gandhi.
"Revolutionaries are guided by great feelings of love". Che Guevara.

I will not deny what we all know of the diabolical side of human relations: the sword, the gun, the ghetto, the money to buy and sell whole peoples. In the end one must believe and act in a neighborly fashion with the human race, near and far. Our ancestors of the North American continent tried to explain what so many of us forget. In the words of chief Red Cloud, Dakota Sioux nation, "You cannot buy our Mother. The wind and the water, our brothers and sisters the buffalo and the elk share mother earth with us." Sadly, Washington ordered George Armstrong Custer to exterminate Red Cloud and his people. We call it Genocide!

At this hour in Paris the Olympic torch is being carried on a 17 mile circuit through the "City of Light". The sun shines. Bowing to Beijing, President Sarkozy has ordered a three thousand strong special police force to prevent planned disruptions by "Free Tibet" activists, thousands, a mix of Tibetans, French and a handful of Americans. Police patrol the Seine in river boats, are flying overhead in helicopters. Units dressed in battle gear are ready for action against sign toting pacifists. Will the activists be described this evening on the national news as "terrorists" and "anti patriotic"?

Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe has spread a huge banner on city hall, Hotel de Ville, " Paris Defends Human Rights Around the World". Dozens of members and staff of the National Assembly are gathered in front of the building waving Tibet flags. Office workers and apartment residents are doing the same. Frenchman, Robert Menard, president of Journalists Sans Frontiers, was arrested in Greece the day the torch was lit a few weeks ago. He and colleagues are active in today's protests. No one from CNN has joined in. In preceding days government and news sources predicted possible scattered incidents. As noon strikes it's obvious - predictions were vastly underestimated.

Among hundreds of foreign government buildings dotting Paris, two institutions are barricaded and under 24 hour police surveillance. They being the embassies of the United States and China. The torch is nearing a world famous landmark. The Champs Elysee has been turned into Tianeman Square.

French athletes have broken their silence on the issue, wearing buttons reading "For a better world", to be worn at the upcoming games. The first torch carrier this morning at the Eiffel Tower was Stephane Deagana, president of the French National Olympic Committee, 400 meter world champion,1997. Supporting the international spirit of the games and mindful of China's tyranny in Tibet, Deagana declared, "Athletes need to keep their freedom of expression...Human Rights is a universal concern". With him stood 2-time judo gold medalist, David Douillet, affirming the same sentiments.

Almost one year ago the Asia Games Soccer Championship was held. To the surprise of everyone, top ranked Saudi Arabia and Iran were eliminated by the lowest ranked contender, team Iraq. In the midst of the chaotic muddle of war torn Iraq, a squad prepared for the games, practicing in vacant lots, sharing shoes and other equipment. The team had the budget and facilities of little league baseball kids from East St. Louis. The squad was made up of Sunnis, Shiites and Christians, including Kurds. As the team advanced, one victory to another, millions of countryman flocked before televisions and radios. On the day they won the final match against the powerhouse Iranians, tens of thousands of Iraqis celebrated all over the country, suspending their fearful and violent relations, crying in the streets and tea rooms for the victory, for a graceful sense of national brotherhood. Al Qaeda and American forces watched in disbelief. Brief and beautiful, longed for, gracious period of days, neighbors stopped killing each other.

The Olympic torch will pass through 21 stops on six continents, its longest journey ever. "Free Tibet" activists from all the locations plan to peacefully disrupt China's pregames extravaganza. The torch next goes to San Francisco on Wedensday, April 9. Thousands of demonstrators are planning to protest. Three daring individuals have climbed to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge today placing a large banner in view for tomorrow morning's commuters. Heads of state are seriously disturbed by this often spontaneous, global support of Tibetans' thirst for freedom. Global managers in Washington, Beijing, Paris and elsewhere prefer us all to look upon the usual signs and symbols of their world; burger makers, gas guzzlers, vanity products and of course, sports gear manufactured in sweat shops by women and child laborers compensated in carcinogens and nearly a dollar-a-day for 12 to 18 hours of their toil. What's going on people? Are we waking up all over the planet to the common needs and desires of the race?! To Mother Earth.

I need to wind up this report. I'm going off to join the "Free Tibet" humans in the cry for deliverance from bondage.

It's a beautiful day as the early morning turns on her axis into a radiant afternoon. April in Paris, like nowhere else in the urban world. Three varieties of flowers are bursting brilliant in the garden beyond my sitting room. I'm most awed by the blazing pink Azalea bush. Though spring this year is unusually cold with freezing rains and snow falls, green returns from exile. Beauty is stubborn.

Peace and Justice.
Moe Seager

One Brick Shy of a Load

I wish I could write poems that
end without conclusion
Poems that wrestle in the nest:
I am damaged goods trying
to justify my passage through
misspelled words and
bad recipes

I wish I could summon the honesty to
Say it, brief and incomplete and feel
So what! it's the fashion I cannot
Fit for lack of insights sent
Outside in the rain spilling
From the clouds in my head
Leaning into a sun day
A night without the howls
Of purple passions
Alone, unwanted in the
Scheme of things that make you
Wholesome, me naked repulsive
Clown for the tourists tell their
Children -" See what I mean".

I wish I could bring us together
A nation of freedom fighters in
Love of Lovers whose cool blue fires
Melt our fears as walls give way
To salvos of the healing kind
Shit, I'd be happy for a taste
A long last dance fluid flows
Stellar dust diamond rings
Round a harvest moon

I wish Peace and Justice for
Neighbors, alley cats, stray dogs,
Lost be found in abandoned dreams
Redeemed in long awaited
Promises of my mother,

"And if your heart don't beat n' ring
Mama gonna give you a song to sing
And if that tune don't lift your soul
Mama gonna mend you upright whole"

I wish things I know ain't
Comin' no time soon no way
In a world gone angry on itself
Not happy nor hungry for
A picnic in the garden of
Earthly delights ripe with fruits
Sunlit on burning questions
Dripping desires.

I wish presto pronto tout-de-suite
For a revelry of Hallelujah Chorus
In high C jazz 8 time
Blues buried with Robeson's pain
Beneath a monument to human kind
Bloody angels and dirty saints
One brick shy of a load
We're all goin' home now, all
Counted, gathered in a name
Given to life worth living
Death come calling
From the fifth dimension
Come to take us there
No words need said
No acts required
No need to worry
No need to fuss

"If that thought don't make you still
Mama gonna give you one that will
And if that dream don't come to pass
Mama gonna make one ever last"

I wish you wouldn't scold me for
I always laugh and cry
at the wrong times
I wish I were a singer
The song feels more
Than the poem will ever know.



copyright,moe seager, 2008.

Jazz Iz

Jazz Iz

A way in to a way out

Way down deep inside

Jazz is an audio odyssey

A jet stream blowing in from Ghana

Belted out in Congo Square

A round trip ticket round

The world of Africa and Africa touched

Jazz iz

A man down and out in Chicago

Jamming and trancing beyond tomorrow

Jazz is a child with a sense complex

A feel for a world beyond that given

Jazz is Havana throwing off heat

Blaze of a trumpet, bodies in beat

Jazz is a Jew on a clarinet

No hold back, he lets it rip

Jazz is a Gypsy heeding the call

To sounds found hidden in his finger tips

Jazz is in duo with Mozart and Bach

A spoon in tune with Cafe Vienna

Jazz is a niche on a back-street in Paris

Rendezvous lovers, loners and Poets.

Jazz doesn't know solitary confinement

Be big band, be bop,

Slow motion shuffle

Be ballad, be blue,

Lay back and be cool

Come in and go out

Each time unique

Like the last time

Jazz iz
A cargo the trade winds sail

To the door of the depot of the lost and found

To ring your ears and throb your heart

Stormy Monday turning sunny

Feel the blues depart

Jazz iz
A riff that walks me home

Is a bass line I climb to the top of the stairs

Is the hand holding mine when nobody cares

Jazz softly whispers - I know how you feel

Jazz iz

Chump change and scratch

Is chewing through the gristle

To suck on the bone

Jazz is a holler, a cat call, a hymn

Jazz is singing saxophone in the shower

Jazz goes uptown to get down

Calls night time the right time

And the right time is now

Jazz Iz

An instrument of fingers and tongues

A vessel of muscle and breath

Body and mind in sync with itself

Jazz time tics free off the clock

A serpentine march out of formation

Jazz can leap to the end of the line

Make every stop along the block

A teller of history, a history maker

Jazz is forgiveness and Jazz is a bitch

She's the mother load

Jazz iz

Sweet smells of incense, of Jasmin, of hormones

Deep note moans, high pitch groans, twists and turns

Sharps that burn, flats that howl

Guitar licks that sparkle

Drum beats driven off the four corner map

Jazz iz

A gas, a liquid

A solid mass of substance

A floating island in the the center

Of the infinite sea
So vast is jazz, so deep and wide
How the Middle Passage
Placed us side by side

Jazz iz
A family, a family of man
Whose taproot is the music of the Af-ri-can
Poly-rhythmic pollination from the talking drum

Graced in gospel, rolls of rag time

Tears and laughter of the blues

The gifts of many makers

Freely given me, freely given you

Jazz Iz

A way in to a way out

Way up down deep inside

A way to, a path through

The mindless rubble,

The poison propaganda

Lies of the masters

Cross you over to another side

No papers, no passports, no human claims denied

No charges pressed, no back-seat guests

Welcome to a dynasty of open borders

Jazz is

A free country

Moe Seager

copyright,1998, moe seager.

Curiousity

Humans,

Someone asked what led me to Poetry,Jazz and Paris? My reply to all three domains? CURIOSITY.Curiosities are for me the objects of instinct, the subjects of intuition,healthy satiation of wholesome desire. " Curious" is a passport; not validated by fixed destination. Curious can constitute as one of the senses.Curiosity is a life support system. Curiosity manifests as bridge, river, ladder, astral travel; infinite structures of support, reliable links to discovery of self and other.Attainable unions and necessary dis-solutions. Mystics and Poets liken it to death and rebirth.

As a curio I have tasted warm salts of the sea,exotic fruits from distant trees, traveled over land,traveled standing still,saw a desert sun, a mountain moon,sang a capella in the dark, chorused with hundreds in Central Park,danced with my shadow,danced in parade, found truth and beauty from unexpected sources, granted relief from pains and miseries from they whom I thought were my enemy. I've enjoyed solitude. The solitude of two. Kinship to a multitude. I've met the stranger I now count as friend.

Curiosity reveals irony. Irony leads to paradox. Paradox to mystery. Mystery to faith. Mystic faith needs no dogma. Entry onto this plane emancipates one from the bondage of hermetic answers and into the comfort of affirmative wonder. Wonder morphs one toward essence. Thoughts of this nature bring one closer to the richness of that which we imagine as the universe. The Creator. So much to explore; more and more curiosities, infinite as the matrix of star lights hung over our heads . Life time takes new meaning, measure is boundless. Death is not a foe. Existence is enough. In one mechanical stretch of a minute one may orbit like Pythagoras, Einstein, Mozart, Gandhi, Coltrane...

The pursuit of curious drives has rewarded me greater tolerance of seeming difference, greater capacity to accept the unknown;increased trust in the face of dire circumstances and events. It doesn't take a saint to experience redemption in the act of seeking. Oh how wonderful - reinvention !! How sad, terribly sad that parents, friends, lovers and authority figures succeed in dulling our vistas in their demands for social cohesion.That we dull our selves in self censorship. Self oppression is the cruelest slave master.

What would I do without meaningful alternatives to anemic rituals, meaningless routines?! I applaud the bravery to ask of life what we are so often told is out of reach, beyond possibility. Both grave and comic failures have informed me that my numerous inadequacies do not imply defeat but simply place me in touch with the human race. C'mon - lets laugh belly deep. And love. Love does heal the hurt. Love fertilizes our good will. Were it not for curiosity I would have to settle for the transient joy of accumulation in place of the accumulation of joy.

Joy of Accumulation? No. Accumulation of Joy.

Moe Seager

copyright, moe seager, 2006.