Hi everyone,
my poem This Beholder is up on Spillwords this morning.
This Beholder for UmAhmad Beauty is in the eye of this beholder. Down the street, the people stare right through you, some just capture what they want to see. Imaging changes with the hours. At noon, a poor hungry war-widow wears your face. At 5pm, there is a tired maid slushing home from floor scrubbing; she moves in your body like a wet, weighted, rug….
To read the rest please go here: Spillwords
Thank you to Dagmara K. and all the editors at Spillwords.com for their
continuing support.
If you enjoy the poem, please feel free to comment here or heart it on their website.
Thank you!! 🌹
Please click Play to hear me recite the poem to the beautiful guitar music of Armik
Your Midas Touch
Fingers strumming my open window pane… I know how it works…You are coming in, whether I invite you or not. You have the last word at 6am, when you slip into my room and your light changes absolutely everything. I am not a morning person, per se, ahh but you wake me up with just a beam on my face; I hear you whisper on the dawning of the day
“Look what I can do..See that drab wall above your lamp, musty old picture frames, dark oils, so unexciting and bleak I turn them into treasures; I am the sun and now I’m here to show you, what you miss all the other days of the week, so fast asleep.
Look how nothing is the same…it was your room, but now its mine for just a few short minutes of the day and everything I touch turns to gold. Everything I’ve shone upon, takes its value far beyond. I am the original light and you live, because I exist.
You swoon when you see me color your wall. just because I can, it’s what I do..and this hour I am a bit subdued, I paint in the Old Master’s Way. light coming from some unknown space. Yet, both you and I know it comes from me. I captured your seahorse as it floated by (did you see?) Everything you see, I see and I change it with my light.
Rejoice! This show is just for you My audience of one and now my time is almost done. Beauty like this… disappears as quickly as it came and I move above your window frame…. But, if you are awake…I might be back tomorrow.
Rain or shine it’s always dark.
Relaxing, I see two lines of code
discussing their engineers.
They make meticulous jokes,
but only another line of code
might see the recursive humor.
Python strings slither and slide
a little smug..
they slip down the crevasses
smoothing textures as they play.
Their playground is shifting
as they drop down.
Good mirth and then they all spot
the efficient beauty…
the simple but perfect code that
does so much…
with so little.
Oooos & Ahhhhhs
lines and dots
zeros & ones
“Wow!! Who wrote her??”
Karima Hoisan
Feb. 20, 2023
Costa Rica
* Thanks to Dale Innis for this inspiring image and a few extra geeky word suggestions.
Another thing (an LSL code) Dale inspired me was done 10 years ago and made into a Randt & Hoisan short video poem you might enjoy seeing HD and turn up sound:)
All You Have to Do is Whistle by Dale Innis on Midjourney
Please Press Play to hear me recite my poem to the music: “Windswept” by Johnny Jewel
Only Playing For You
Smokey night in Club Noir
I half close my eyes
and only play for you.
Transfixed and in a trance
everything I feel inside
I softly blow it out, like an exhale
like a plea; are you even aware of me?
Just one more member of the band, I took your coat and hat at the door, but in that instant, something blinded me… a skip of a heartbeat, a bolt of romance. You fulfilled my visual fantasy and when I went on stage, I knew I would only play to you.
The set seems so short, In my solo, I’m not sure I said what I was trying to say. A tentative reaching out with my notes, now I finally see you sitting in the back… and I send a high cry saxophone tone like a messenger pigeon, to your ear; in swirls it touches you up and down, around and around I whisper, “I am only playing for you.”
And right in the middle of my song, you get up to leave. My saxophone lets out a muted wail, every note is a protest. “How could you do this to me?” I’m not even sure how I play the last bars, so sad that you left and I’m all in my head ending abruptly on a note. I don’t take my bow, whoever you were, I lost you and I too am leaving now
And then, as I put away my sax and close the case, I am still standing backstage trying to recover my grace, when the manager comes and says right to my face… “This is for you..” and he hands me a note, doubled in two “Meet me outside when you’re off, I feel like I want to get to know you.” Patting my intuition on the back…. that’s exactly what I do.
Please Click Play to hear me recite my poem to Sema Acid Queen-Nirvana Lounge
Why did I think from the moment I saw you That you would have the answers? I’d been spinning out in outer space and when I walked in your office just felt like home or a cure for cancer
Wise beyond your years you have a reputation you have several but that makes it more interesting. In any case every noob and vet agree, you have lived at least nine lives in three and been so close to death you stuck your head through to the other side, just to see.
I don’t have an appointment, but I hope that does not dampen the hour I think I’m right on time and today’s the day to share some power. People always compared me to you, you to me, asked if we had met. I said, it wasn’t in the cards and really I was barely interested.
But Fate has it’s way of working in the shadows, until it’s obvious for all to see, it has agreed upon a time and day and you might be the last to know, until you’re sitting across from it and then, “ Some think you can tell me what it all means,” you hear yourself say.
“A Few People in a Vacant Lot on a Cloudy Day” by Dale Innis on Midjourney
Please play to hear the poem recited to the Door’s instrumental, “Riders on The Storm”
It was the end of the world on Beaver Lake; it happened on a Friday afternoon, late in the day and no one expecting it, to all come about so soon. First the sound of the atmosphere groaning moaning sparkin’ and explodin;’ there was a hole opening up in the sky and then a big old cloud came galloping in.
None of us could believe our eyes, so we stayed in a stupor without a whisper. This had a feeling of the supernatural, the alien winds or maybe the eschatological. We were simple folk on a simple farm, living a simple peaceful life on fields of clover, but when the sky parted with a clap of thunder, even in our ignorance, we knew it was over.
I had read the Bible in my youth so I knew about the Four Horsemen riding down. No one and nothing would be spared, as the new order was ushered into town. I just thanked the powers to be, my wife had passed last winter and would not have to see, what me and the kids were witnessing now, bigger than anything we ever knew could be.
I heard the Horsemen’s horses chomping on their bits; the rain started pouring down… and not one of us took shelter in our farmhouse, we just stayed nailed in place to the ground. It was the End Times, that was riding down upon us, lightning glowing in those horse’s eyes… I gathered my kids by my side and said “close your eyes”and pray for your souls; It Is the End of Times.
Please click Play to hear my recorded version of this poem to some Arabic/Spanish music
(For Natascha)
Well I still miss you too. I’m not of your blood, we had no vows or rings, I never saw your face in laughter or in horror. We never kissed or romantically danced not even once; that wasn’t us. As we evolved and developed, perfected our uncommon partnership, I grew to love you in an entirely different way. Is that why I’m still on earth today to make some sense of it, while you took off on your last flight?
I guess this new wave of missing was coming up behind me like an unwanted headlight on the highway, high beams in my mirror… but sometimes, I avoid looking back because honestly, its a little sad to remember all of that. Oh my partner on so many rides I was your co- pilot by your side and even if we never touched or talked in real life We have 29 full grown children we conceived and birthed together. We learned to form one creative mind, in harmony and so wildly efficient..every single time.
Does the virtual not count for anything? Was our ten years of partnership making movies for months at a time…. just a delusion, a shared fantasy that mimicked insanity? No, I will never believe that… and who cares if once again I formed part of a label-less love more influential in my life, then ones consecrated in the flesh… and of course I see the irony.. My two out- of -bounds, out- of -time, limited by sickness ended by death are two women I will never forget. How lucky can one person be? And when people say to me…”We never see you in Second Life anymore” I will show them this poem.
The wonderful poet, Jay Maria Simpson, wrote this beautiful piece, “The Arborist.” I told her in a comment that I had enjoyed reading it out-loud and she invited me to record it.:) So..here it is for you all to enjoy too! Please clink on the link for the original post, to play the recording.
The Cicadas played their siren-song the other day, wailing from the trees like air raid prophecies. Climate change had delayed this anticipated moment… then everyone said, “Ahh now the dry season has finally arrived!” Put away your umbrellas in the bodega, until April or May.
Season of twisting cool afternoon winds, replace the rains Birds gather building supplies, compete in best nest designs The sun is brighter, the air is cooler, we sit and watch the afternoon. The rains won’t come again for several months and then it will rain every day for the rest of the year after 2:00.
No spring and fall just wet and dry, thunder & lightning, a thing of the past; flooding and torrential rain, hard to imagine with these sunset hues of orange and pink against lavender blue. Rejoice in the dry evening hours, outside, gazing at a billion stars Ripe fruit on the trees, the smell in the air, of the cane fields ablaze.
Families gathering seaside or riverside, picnics and singing in the 5’oclock haze. The dry season has finally graced our land with its highly awaited 4-month stay.
Karima Hoisan February 2, 2023 Costa Rica
*Footnote. We are now in the Dry Season..which normally begins mid-December until the first rains in April. This year, because of climate change it started late, last week to be exact…end of January.
Digital Rabbit Hole 