Once

This is one of two sites to which I have fled from what's left of SU...

" He's Competent Enough"


He's competent enough,
His purposes, supra-deception; the lure, to entice.
As his blessings' victims savour His advice;
His beauteous summons--roughly
Marked beyond a border; everywhere
Here--redundant, simple supra-station
Hired, inspired, peerless in its erudition,
Heralding neither faith nor certitude, declares
His abstention from all beginnings which
Have no memory to ends that
Bear no fruit. His tapestries, exquisite,
Hung in crevices and caves, each brilliant stitch
Hangs limpid there beyond a gross finality,
Hang Heorot here where mortals
fear death and death is immortality.

Baha'is throughout the world commemorate the Birth of The Bab Who was born before dawn on 19 October 1819.

The Bab [1819-1850], Prophet-Founder of the Babi Faith was the Prophet-Herald of the Baha'i Faith. The expressed mission of The Bab was to proclaim the imminent arrival of "Him Whom God shall make manifest," namely Baha'u'llah (1817-1892), the Founder of the Baha'i Faith. [The title "Bab" means "the Gate" in Arabic.] This mission was somewhat similar to the mission of John the Baptist in appearing just prior to the Advent of The Christ. All Revealed Religions have had Precursors like John the Baptist before The Christ or Salman just before the Advent of Muhammad, Whose duty it was to prepare the people for the imminent arrival of the Prophet-Founders of Their respective Faiths. The Bab, however, was in Himself a Major Manifestation of God and therefore His Revealed Religion an Independent Religion and not a sect, and while His Ministry lasted but nineteen short years, its impact will be felt throughout the world for at least a thousand, if not thousands of years in the future development of an ever-evolving mankind. It is a Baha'i Teaching just as it is in previous Revealed Religions that as mankind evolves and in capable of receiving greater instruction and guidance Manifestations of God are sent to provide that instruction and guidance as the Mouthpiece of God in Their respective historical periods.

On October 19 [after sunset when the Baha'i day begins] or October 20 [before sunset when the Baha'i day ends], Baha'is observe this Holy Day by abstaining from work. There are no prescribed ceremonies, but gatherings usually involve prayers, devotional readings, music and fellowship.

On May 23, 1844, in Shiraz, Persia, the Bab announced the impending appearance of the Messenger of God awaited by all the peoples of the world. Following this announcement, the Bab was persecuted by members of the dominant Muslim clergy in what is now Iran. The Bab was arrested, beaten and imprisoned, and, on July 9, 1850, was executed in the public square of the city of Tabriz. Some 20,000 of His followers perished in a series of massacres throughout Persia.

"Minor Prophesies"



Minor prophesies, you see, arrest attentions while the majors
Spend their auguries and send well-wishers to the drawing boards;
And, who knows can also no doubt doubt the hoards
Of wisdoms summoning the priests and all wizened pagers
To alarm, the preoccupation of both bed
And breakfast even on a holiday. They do not rest,
These prodigies of works in progress, filtered guests
And hosts of baseless hubris with corrosion in the lead
That lines the public coffers; petty on line petrels elect
To withhold judgment, approvals in a downward spiral
Finding loopholes; pernicious blemishes blushing
on the face of a viscous viral
Sun grown cumbersome with
slightest palsied movements to elude the defects
That stack the decks, whether wheels of Vegas
or occupied parks at Wall Street. The meek
Inherit nothing here; the air itself the jaundiced breath
of egregious greed, the vulgate and solipsis of mass deceit.

"Tonight, a Silent Message"
Tonight, a silent message, I can hear the pleading
Through the trees and branches of my old friend; my companion sings,
And I am somehow comforted. The fluttering of wings
Accompanies the rhythms of the encore; and you, again, repeating
"Into..." "Out of..." Lift, release so softly, gentle summaries wreathed in whispers,
Musings of what is not and never seen; tunnels and their tributaries,
Rushing, relentless repetition, applause, obituaries
To the spent and useless, harbingers of blisters
And the frostbite, erosion and fresh volcanic flood
And in the ancient chanting of a million
Dirges of the past and now redundant death--civilians,
Now--the arm'd legions follow closely through the blood
Of daily martyrs to the rescue to defend the furthest reaches of the empire.
And I'm still here, I'm still here, and I still feel the fire.

"Seek a Lighter Hue"

Seek a lighter hue in pastel conversation,
Hoards of daily mass conversion
Of the every act to some point in time, a little light diversion;
The mirage, the art a while, and for the mind a choice illusion,
An arbitrary sunset clause for replenishing, the flag unfurled
In the early hours of mint and red carnations and the dawn's early munch
To satisfy the need to fill a shallow hour's shadow till we lunch.
She knows she needs but say the word--
I'm gone--with no one near enough to hear her scream
While in the down shift here as fickle seasons deem
It time to shrink to that tight knot. If the Gorgon stays
She'll have her way and always left with nothing left to say.
Did she really think it wise to lacerate the rules
With aphorisms on store-bought linens primed for workmanship on
Cloth, the only real estate, the final use for all those golden spools?