Swimming at The Very Edge of Night

FROGSWP

“Sunset Pool” by Dale Innis on ChatGPT AI Art

Please Listen to my poem recited to my own electronic music. If you want to read along, I will put the words below, but this is a piece made to be listened to and not just read. You can also DANCE to it:)

Swimming at The Very Edge of Night

Swimming at the very edge of night
it’s my thing I do in the half-light.
I’m in the pool almost every day at 5pm
the frogs are starting their serenade

the temperature drops & it looks like rain.

But who can stop me?
This addiction keeps me alive…
Keeps me fit and it keeps me energized.
Any hour is good to swim in the day
when the sun rays are safely tucked away.
Locked in a trance in this watery prism,
it’s about losing myself to the hypnotic rhythm.

And the pool pool pool
is the deepest shade of blue blue blue.
Oh yes even without the sun
it shines with an inner light
and I repeat and repeat
“Alhamdulillah
Thank you for my Life!!”

My heart is in the zone
it pounds to this beat
oh man it feels so good
feels so cool & sweet,

And the pool pool pool
is the deepest shade of blue blue blue
and the frogs coax me to the line
I count my strokes & then their croaks
It’s dark but it shines with an inner light
and I repeat and repeat
“Alhamdulillah
Thank you for my Life!!

Frogs are pairing up and trying to find a mate
Sun is under the horizon
and its getting real late
Just ten more laps to get to the line
but I’m going to finish, oh yeah, right on time

*     *     *        *      *       *        *           *     *

Swimming at the very edge of night
It’s my thing I do in the half-light
I’m in the pool at 5pm
the frogs are starting their serenade
the temperatures drops
it looks like rain,

But who can stop me?
This addiction keeps me alive
keeps me fit and it keeps me energized.
Any hour is good to swim in the day
when  the sun rays are tucked away
locked in a trance in this watery prism
its just about losing myself to the rhythm.

And the pool pool pool
is the deepest shade of blue blue blue
Oh yes even without the sun
it shines with an inner light
and I repeat and repeat
“Alhamdulillah
Thank you for my Life!!

My heart is in the zone
it pounds to this beat
oh man it feels so good

It feels so cool & sweet

And the pool pool pool
is the deepest shade of blue blue blue
and the frogs coax me to the finish line
I count my strokes & then their croaks
it’s dark but it shines with an inner light
and I repeat and repeat
“Alhamdulillah
Thank you for my Life!!

Frogs are pairing up and trying to find a mate
Sun is under the horizon
It’s getting real late
just ten more laps to get to the finish line
and it looks like I’m going to finish right on time.

Karima Hoisan
May 11, 2024
Costa Rica
*Footnote: Because of my recent autoimmune diagnosis, I can no longer get sun on my skin. I must use a long suit, like a snorkeling suit and swim close to sunset.

Posted in Poems, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 31 Comments

“I’m Alive!!”

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                                     Image: “Alive” by Dale Innis on ChatGPT AI Art

Please Press Play to Hear My Spoken Word To My Original Music

I’m Alive!!

Is there anything else more precious that we have, than life itself..?
We can smile at trees salute the neighbors save the bees and declare for the world to see
“I am alive..I’m still alive, I’m so alive!!”

In our moments of darkness, hope starts to flee but when you are dead, there is nothing
to hope for… but if we stay alive .. all the doors of possibilities open wide.
Stand in an open field and shout it out, dance with the wind, “I am alive..I’m still alive, I’m so alive!!”

If you have walked away from an accident, or a surgery, or a snake bite or a fall off your mountain bike, side swiped by a taxi,  broken bones will heal,  but the fact your’re alive is all that counts…Yell it to the sky “I’m alive, I’m still alive…I’m so alive
Grab that pony on the merry go round..and go around again
Look at me “I’m here I’m still alive!!”

The tears of thankfulness fall down my face; on this merry go around, I know my place and when it pulls me back from the abyss,  I never think twice, I come out with this:
Nothing else more precious than Life itself, shout it out while you can“
I am alive..I’m still alive, I’m so alive!!’

When you wake up in the morning and you just turned ninety-five…a lifetime of thankfulness and you open your eyes and sing out… don’t be shy it’s what its all about..I’m here on a brand new day
“I’m alive!! I’m still alive!!”

Karima Hoisan
May 9, 2024
Costa Rica

*Footnote: The music spawned this poem..It’s very happy music (even surprised me) If you can’t hear it for some reason, here is a link that should work, to stream it or download it online
( https://filedn.com/l7Df4R6F1DTBv0B99l7YP6L/I’m%20Alive%20WP.mp3 )

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Storm At Sea


                                  Image: The Storm by Dale Innis on ChatGPT AI Art

Hi everyone,
this is something a bit different… my spoken word to my soundtrack but not really music..more
“part of the experience..” I hope you enjoy this little experiment of mine…just press Play:)

 

 

As I lashed myself to the centre thwart I heard the moans rise up from the sea
It was almost like music, those painful sounds, at times in long  sad harmonies.
The wind above, treble clef played carelessly riding the bucking waves of sound
the rhyme was in my mind, repeating in a loop, “Tie tight the knots! For you must stay bound.”

It was a midnight sea, the rain pelted ,the lightning flashed and thunder was my only company
Have you been in such a rolling sea? where the howling winds cry out like screaming banshees?
It will make the strongest disbeliever, pray to any god he can to save him from the dark deep grave
If he can last the night, when the storm has tired of tossing him to & fro, like a floating bottle on the waves.

High voltage snake -shapes catapulted from the sky, pierce and part the white caps foaming swells
I don’t expect to see the dawn, but then again I might,  because in storms at sea, well, one can never tell.
In between the thunder’s roaring path, the oarsmen from the sunken shipwrecks, croon the days of old,
When they lost the battle with the storm, were humbled by the truth: Men are weak; only Nature’s bold.

Karima Hoisan
May 7, 2024
Costa Rica

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My Future Pain

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                                    “Dawn Light” by Dale Innis on ChatGPT AI Art

Click Play to hear me recite the poem to my music that inspired it:)

My Future Pain

It’s a humid balmy dawn after that last late night rain…
the vapor rises from the garden; it’s so late, it’s way past dawn.
Tropical but mystical..it really does walk hand in hand,
like you and I in the growing light,
tropical but mystical, the dew on the grass bathes our toes.

My hand slides up and down your skin, so smooth your marble arms
unconsciously; there’s crazy changes in my heart.
Walk with me, you are the beauty, you are my future pain.
I saw you in the past and now you’re here, but soon you will be gone.

Through all of this,  the insects keeping rhythm with their feet…
this entire scene, will trill away, like a dream once dreamed.
You  proved to me when all the elements are in place,
they can cause an event that will rock a world and bring it down

Before today, it was just a theory; now it’s way too late to deny.

The insects trill,  my heart almost stops when I see you smile.
But no, this is not the ending..  I do not accept we are being ripped apart
and I will shout it to the last star, dying on the morning sky,
“No, this is not the ending!” I do not accept
we are being ripped apart.

My heart  knows the truth I’m going to lose you, one of these dawns.
You will kiss me goodbye and promise to call and disappear into the mist…
like the waning night sky being eaten by the encroaching day.
I know I have this in store; it’s something that I’m waiting for.
I can see the future and in it…I stand alone.

Karima Hoisan
May 1st 2024
Costa Rica

*Footnote: I admit I am quite proud of this musical piece:) It came together in a very singular way, and as always, I feel I have very little to do with its making..although, of course I do:)
Someone asked me for the instrumental version of this piece and I am happy to share it:)  You can download or stream it here https://filedn.com/l7Df4R6F1DTBv0B99l7YP6L/Unacceptable.mp3

The original music was entitled “Unacceptable”:)
After struggling to learn the new version of Garage Band (after being on the older versions, the last 13 years) I am feeling like WOW..I am beginning to know what I am doing:)
I told Dale I feel like “Whistler’s Mother of Garage Band ” haha. 
So I hope you enjoyed it and the poem was written to the music (On a loop of course) to try and get the right, sensual bittersweet/darkish-lightish mood:) 

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Birds of Tau Ceti f by Karima Hoisan & Dale Innis

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                                 Bird Watching on Tau Ceti f:)  Photo by me:)

Well, I have my computer back and it’s a joy and immediately
called me into Garage Band, to let my muse run wild..and so she did!!
This is one of my odder compositions and as I say on YouTube
As of October 2020, Tau Ceti f is considered the most potentially habitable exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star. I created this music in Garage Band and it sounded like “alien birds” to me. Voilá!! This little video was born:)
I have been bird  watching in real life, so it was a small leap to watch them in Second Life in a space-suited avatar form:)
Please watch in HD 1080 and turn the soundtrack up for maximum enjoyment.
Shot in Second Life on LINC Island
Thanks to Dale for his great background images that also set the mood.
Enjoy!!

Posted in Machinima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Bad Luck Comes in Threes

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       “Descending Down” by Dale Innis AI Art

I’m Baaaack!)
Ahhh..I feel the need to gloss over a bit my quick exit from the online world and
retreat into bird watching,
I have lived most of my life in two very superstious countries, Costa Rica & Jordan. I have absorbed much of the beliefs and superstitions and have actually felt at times there was a real wisdom working there.
My precious cat was killed on Good Friday (I was still in Ramadan) and 5 days later my 6 month old, top-of-the-line, 16″ Macbook Pro self destructed. The screen, it seems, just spontaneously cracked. I had to replace it btw on my dime as their 1 year limited warranty, is VERY limited and does not include screens.  I just got it back 2 days ago. The thought of “Bad Luck Comes in Threes” did cross my mind and then a few days later, I broke out in more areas of a strange (seemingly incurable) skin rash I have been battling for almost a year.

Now suddenly it’s on my face, my back, my legs so I immediately went to the doctor  and after a biopsy  was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that interestingly, affects more people who have Ashkenazi Jewish DNA (I have 50%) or Middle Eastern, I am a 1-5 in a million.
How about feeling special!!

The good news is… I am responding very well to cortisone cream and so far do not need to to take oral steroids. My new lesions have all but disappeared and the old ones are finally giving way to the treatment too,
Soooooo I picked up my field glasses and went bird watching.  I needed to de-stress after my
bad luck streak (in threes) and it did me much good:)
Now…my bad luck streak is OVER!

Here I am ready to read you and I won’t probably catch up, but I will start to comment on all your posts from today.
I offer you this recording and poem, The illustration above, by Dale, goes with it and I hope you will enjoy. To the music “Olt Eih” by Omar Diab…..
It’s about a different time by the way…always nice to remember those:)

Descending down into my sleep,
I dream a dream now falling into larger seas.
Lower me, to the depths below the basement walls,
of your very most bottom floor,
I will let myself  float down,
a soft pink scarf, into your ever waving open hands.

All the imaginary trials and tears,
have been lived and photographed inside your halls,
In the spaces left between,
I lived two lives in awe and raptured creativity.
Grind the sweet and juice- filled -fruit,
the colors pour all over crimson mountain tops.

Sinking in nostalgia’s moving sands,
I comb the raided basement rooms,
I feel an earthquake shake my heart,
nothing is what it was, now just tumbled disarray,
Going down and further down into my sleep,
drugged on fantasies that technicolor me.

Coming off of all that beauty, everything’s too normal now, 
for a glutton-colored poet such as I
Yes… I sucked the magic ink up in my straw until,
the skins dried on the empty page,
Then poured it over unborn lives,
perhaps the  bitter- sweetest virtual moments of my memory.

Descending  down into my sleep,
I dream a dream now falling into larger seas.
Lower me, to the depths,
below the basement of your very most bottom floor,
I will let myself float down,
a soft pink scarf into your ever waving open hands.

Karima Hoisan
2011 Costa Rica

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Taking a Little Break

Golden-hooded-Tanager-Boca-Tapada-San-Carlos-adrianzamcr
                                           Golden Headed Tanager

Hi everyone,
I’m going to take some personal time out, close the computer, and get back into my birds.
I just got new field glasses, so you can find me sitting outside watching them in the trees.
I will be back soon reading and contributing…Inshallah!

Love,
Karima

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Oh Loo!!!

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     Image is “Late Date” by Dale Innis using ChatGPT

Enjoy my poem in a spoken word version to my own original music…

Ohh Loo!!!

You don’t wear it well old friend
you don’t wear it well
40 years before, it fit you
now you don’t wear it well.

There was a time you played the lover
and you left those giggling girls disarmed
all the women fell at your feet
you had the looks, you had the charm

You don’t wear it well old friend
you don’t wear it well
40 years before, it fit you
now you don’t wear it well
40 years before, it fit you
now you don’t wear it well.

There is a time for everything
and youth can get away with much
but now you try the same old lines’
they rub me wrong  and turn me off.

There is a time for everything
and youth can get away with much
but now you try the same old lines’
they rub me wrong  and turn me off.
but now you try the same old lines’
they rub me wrong and turn me off.

I’d like to think somehow you grew
and with the years could change your game
but now with almost eighty years under your belt
You’re stuck in Time, thinking you’re the same.

You don’t wear it well old friend
you don’t wear it well
40 years before, you could strut it
not anymore: you don’t wear it well.

I’m not against love in later life
but love is one thing and this feels a lie
Let’s just hold hands and reminisce,
without your fingers wandering up my thigh.

The alarms go off inside my head
if you reach in to grab a kiss,
a kiss I am not willing to give you
you’re taking me down in a hand -basket,  not into bliss.

Because, you don’t wear it well old friend
you don’t wear it well
40 years before, it fit you

not anymore: you don’t wear it well……..

Karima Hoisan
April 7, 2024
Costa Rica

Posted in Poems, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 31 Comments

“Full Circle” The Story of Maki in Photos

Hi everyone,
I made this unlisted video to share with family & friends and not to make it public…however, my WordPress Family is family too, my WordPress friends are my real friends, soooo,  I decided to share it here with you all. Please play in HD 1080. The music is mine, recently posted, “Inside Out”
Now you can get to know Maki a little better….Inshallah❤️

Posted in Machinima | 23 Comments

The Lightness of Ramadan Re-Blogged

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments