Writer, Musician, Poet, Academic
12 Nov 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: Eurocentric, melody, music, poem, poetry, Rig Veda, Sarasvati, text, verse, word
The words of the Rig Veda are chanted
The revelation that the Rishis heard
Rhythmic hymns that Sarasvati granted
Written down as sacred text and word
The Rishis have been called visionaries
In more than one textbook that I have found
Writing from Eurocentric theories
Which teach that vision is more spiritual than sound
Sarasvati, Goddess of music,
Revealed Her wisdom through the sense of hearing
When all the laws that we call linguistic
Were melody and music and singing
27 Oct 2020 1 Comment
in Blog Tags: Christmas, COVID-19, Durga Puja, Hewlett-Packard, homebound, Jesus, language, laptop, music, poetry, Sarasvati, song, Vedas, verse
My laptop broke and tech support where I bought it wasn’t being helpful
So I called Hewlett-Packard on their direct tech support line
Of course, they routed my call to India, to a pleasant tech named Deepak
He apologized for the background noise on his end; the festival Durga Puja
Was being celebrated today this, the final of 10 days
I vaguely recalled Durga from a religion class 34 years ago
And I asked Deepak of he knew of the Goddess Sarasvati
She, the Goddess of music, learning, and language
I, a musician, scholar, and writer
Sarasvati gave India the Vedas, when religion was verse and verse, song
Deepak said he knew Sarasvati and She is the exact Goddess for a musician
I told Deepak I have a statuette of Sarasvati in my apartment
Across the miles and ocean, his soul touched mine, and tears welled up
In his eyes, Sarasvati is alive, and as he spoke, my statuette
Seemed to shine with an unearthly color and a strange light came over just my statuette
Only my eyes could see
Mother India, home of our western languages
Cradle of civilization unearthed at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
Durga, the Mother who birthed all of creation
Mother to Sarasvati, not just a footnote in a religion class
Alive and real to him as is Jesus to me, his Durga Puja like my Christmas
He completed my service order and I wished him well
During the remainder of the Durga Puja Festival
Deepak said that he is sadly homebound due to COVID-19
And couldn’t celebrate with his family, and I
Don’t know if I can go without a computer for a week or so
I looked at my statuette of Sarasvati and the unearthly colors were gone
09 Aug 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: Devas, literature, music, philosophy, poem, poetry, science, Vedas, verse, word
There was one Goddess who comprehended it all, inspiration
And they comprehended it all together and lit the Agni Flame to call upon her, invocation
To explain her, today, we make a list
Long before philosophy, before science was
The Word
Before music was chanting and chanting
Verse
Created everything in the Vedas
It was all there, is all there
Song
Devas, devotion, communion, community
Sacred Flame
Carrying burning souls’ aspirations into Agni unto Sarasvati
So it was, it is in Homer, Apollo’s Delphi, in David’s
Psalms
It’s all there: wisdom, lex, lux, love, lifegiving inspiration, love giving life
Praise and supplication
And Babel specialized each species and genera, specious
So we have scientists, philosophers, musicians
Poetry
Alone, isolated, island unto itself, no word is an island,
Style
Isn’t sufficient to suffuse sapientia, Sophia, sophistry, silence
I live literature all allowed together, all awed
A lawless freedom of discipline
Makes
A discipline out of words
Alongside science, philosophy, music
And primal unity of what matters together
Breaks
30 Jun 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: Beethoven, criticism, feeling, hip-hop, poetry, verse
When feeling forms words into verse
Maybe sublime, poignant, punching powerful emotion, sad or happy, joy;–melancholy
It is a gamble
That the feeling reads through
That others would resonate or care about that feeling, want simpatico
It’s safer to arrange pretty words
In complex sequences ideation of symbols
To catch the eye on language games
The leaf of paper ink form word, language
In a hip-hop world
‘40’s music still sings to heartstrings
Beethoven yet storms and rages
In our world of facile rhyme and rhythm
Outmoded forms communicate despite form
With and through form
And contemporaneity’s distracting noise
Nor a suicidal retirement into the lost past
Then there’s just how you feel
And if it can find its way into
Song, music, rhythm, rhyme, word
That verse would mean something someone
Hears, reads, resonates, harmonizes
07 Jun 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: age, ambition, disappointment, grandmother, love, mysticism, poem, poetry, Swedenborg, verse
I’m not sure I know
How to about whether I can
Assert this point’s possible ambiguity
Things upon aging looking back
Ambitions to attain a name
Good job be important get ahead all the way to the top
Mystical experiences recast matters
I recall the litany I told the cabbie
Of failed attainments I felt entitled to by cheated life
Myself a failure disappointment and life half done things undone
Is it mysticism? Workplace satisfaction? Found love?
Olding? That fuels my contentment
The whole question of ambition
Where’d that come from?! How widespread in humanity
Nascent? Acquired? Self-imposed? My grandmother?
My recasting of what I thought were failed attainments
In my age I realize that Swedenborg’s values were inscribed in maturity
For maturity? And where would the world be without ambition in the younger
In my mind I distill a modicum of peak importances
And my failed ambitions fade into a fractured joke
And in my age I now understand Swedenborg’s values as mine
11 May 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: commercial, COVID-19, gym, school, shameless, verse
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Adversity came to town, but together we’ll get through it . . . buy our product
We have no shame; we’ll use anything to get you to buy our product
10 May 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: art, Beethoven, delight, discovery, Hemingway, novel, painting, Shakespeare, symphony, verse
It’s taken me this many years, in my mature age
To understand, and, more, to enjoy Shakespeare
For in my younger years, I couldn’t, didn’t
I look forward to the delight in store for me
As play by play, I will open the heavy, leather volumes
Of Shakespeare in my home library
I recall, in my youth, my delight
As symphony by symphony, I discovered Beethoven
I recall my sadness, when there were no more symphonies to discover
Symphony by symphony, I had heard them all
Though I can still listen to them time and again
I recall, in early manhood, my delight
As novel by novel, I discovered Hemingway
I recall emulating Hemingway’s characters, Hemingway
As I was young, and searching for an identity
I recall, also in early manhood, my awe
As I viewed paintings in museums
That I had previously seen only as prints in books
And I could, can, view them time and again
So all these years, these good years
Bring me to the doorstep of Shakespeare
And like an eager youth, I anticipate
The delight in store for me
As play by play, I open the heavy, leather volumes
Of Shakespeare in my home library—
A surprising boon bestowed on my advanced years
05 May 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: creativity, fancy, manifest, poem, poetry, style, tradition, verse, wings
Blessings rarely fall upon creativity,
The blessed gift that gives blessings to the world
Would that all God’s people were prophets
Business demands compliance to management
Academia demands conformity to pedagogy
The workers and scholars who meet success
Want creativity, don’t want creativity, wanton creativity
Constrained in a cage, the wings of creativity chafe
But soaring flights of fancy ill bear containment
Even at peril, wings flex their wits
Affront establishment, norms, aesthetic strictures
Flout trends, tradition, transmission of style
Interested only in release of the muse, manifestation
Fractious under pressure to demur to stricture, structure
Nature knows no other course
And must be itself, be it bless or curse
Knowing blesses only at happy realizations of muse
The which only creative natures nurture
Must manifest, make, make known, appear, make apparent
24 Apr 2020 Leave a comment
in Blog Tags: criticism, culture, education, joy, Nietzsche, poem, poetry, reflection, Shakespeare, Shelley, verse
I enjoy reading Shakespeare when I’m moved to
Richard III is thrilling
When I don’t have to study it for a course:
Memorize plot, character, Act and scene
Nietzsche on Greek Tragedy is enthralling
When I don’t have to place it in relation to
Zarathustra, Christian criticism, Ubermensch, herd
Education is a mixed blessing
A blessing, if it serves to enhance
Joy in culture’s works
Mixed if it serves merely to teach
Appreciation only, or worse, criticism
Still, without education, I wouldn’t read Shelley
And Shelley teach me to enjoy Shakespeare
David Fekete 