Sunday, August 17, 2008

Nin Guno

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- ----------Nin Guno

Nin Guno viene a Al Guno
-----------con su canto
para consolarlo por su ausencia.
Las rosas arco iris se despliegan
pétalo por pétalo de papel
-----morado, azul, verde,
-----amarillo, naranja, rojo —
al centro: Aquí adentro
-----no hay nada mas
-----que mi cariño.
Como decir:
----nada mas que
------el mundo,
------la vía láctea,
------el cosmos.



-----© Rafael Jesús González 2008



------------No One

No One comes to Some One
----------with his song
to console him for his absence.
The rainbow roses unfold
petal by paper petal
-----purple, blue, green,
-----yellow, orange, red —
at the center: Here within
------there is nothing more
------than my love.
As if to say:
----nothing more than
------the world,
------the milky way,
------the cosmos.




-----© Rafael Jesús González 2008

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Saturday, August 16, 2008

Full moon: Chinesque Lunar Poem

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Poema lunar chinesco


Vemos la luna llena
de distintos lugares.
Tal vez de donde
tú la veas
está tan llena
como lo sería
si la viéramos juntos.



----© Rafael Jesús González 2008



painting by Liu Danzhian


Chinesque Lunar Poem


We look at the full moon
from different places.
Perhaps from where
you see it
it is as full
as it would be
if we saw it together.




----© Rafael Jesús González 2008
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Sunday, August 10, 2008

riverbabble issue 12, summer 2008, publication party

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invites you

to celebrate the publication of

issue 13, Bloom's Day issue----summer 2008

Sofa by Christopher Novak

http://www.iceflow.com/riverbabble/Welcome.html


at a Reading and Publication Party

Saturday, August 23, 2008

2:00 - 5:00 PM

Pardee Home Museum

672 11th Street

Oakland, California 94607

Featured Reader

Sara McAulay

with

Rafael Jesús González
Tony Pino
John Carnahan
Sandy Vrooman
William Landis
Leila Rae

Open Mic

light refreshments will be served

*

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Nagasaki

.
Let us keep a moment of silence for Nagasaki which, three days after Hiroshima , sixty-three years ago was victim of a nuclear bomb. Never, ever must we allow this to happen again.




Cranes Fly for Peace Tanka


A girl in Japan
taught the world to fold paper
cranes — still there is war.
Blessings written on their wings,
oh, paper cranes, fly for peace.



---------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2008
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Friday, August 8, 2008

8/8/08

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En el 8º día del 8º mes del 8º año del milenio


Hoy cada tirada de los dados
sale el mismo número
----4-4,
---------3-5,
--------------2-6,
-------------------1-7;
sobrenatural, misterioso
como una araña tocando las escalas.

Así le ha de haber parecido
a la gente en el arca
viendo los planetas rondar al sol
una vez que se despejaron los cielos,
juego de ajedrez ganado con la piezas menores.
En la Fiesta de las luces, el sumo sacerdote
con todas sus vestiduras, los fieles
arrastrando las borlas de sus chales,

escuchando los instrumentos
acompañando los salmos
lo reconocían, el número sagrado,
el sello de Salomón y de los profetas,
el día en que sus varones por primera vez
derramaron su sangre en primitivo sacrificio.
En estos tiempos oscuros
debemos recordar las beatitudes.

Y más que nunca descifrando los naipes
necesitamos tomar el de la fuerza,
hacer nuestras ofrendas a los iluminados.
Los inmortales chinos lo cuentan
el número de la prosperidad,
los rayos de la rueda de las estaciones,
----la infinidad rodando,
-----------------------------rodando.




------------© Rafael Jesús González 2008






On the 8th Day of the 8th Month of the 8th Year
of the Millennium


Today every roll of the dice
comes up the same number
----4-4,
---------3-5,
--------------2-6,
-------------------1-7;
supernatural, eerie
like a spider playing the scales.

So must it have appeared
to the folk on the arc
watching the planets circle the sun
once the skies cleared,
a chess game won with the lesser pieces.
At the feast of lights, the high priest
wearing all his vestments, the faithful
trailing the tassels of their shawls,

listening to the instruments
accompanying the psalms
knew it, the holy number,
Solomon’s & the prophets’ seal,
the day their males first
spilt their blood in primitive sacrifice.
In these dark times
we need recall the beatitudes

& more than ever in telling the cards
we need to draw the one for strength,
make our offerings to the enlightened.
The Chinese immortals count it
the number of prosperity,
the spokes of the seasons' wheel
----infinity turning,
----------------------turning.



------------© Rafael Jesús González 2008
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Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Hiroshima/Nagasaki

.
It was on this day in 1945, sixty-three years ago, that the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, another on Nagasaki. We must never let it happen again; we must work for complete nuclear disarmament throughout the world.


-----------------------------------Andreas Bauer




Origami Crane Tanka


It's said that if you
fold one-thousand paper cranes
your wish will come true.
For peace I would gladly spend
the rest of my days folding.


-----------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2008




In June of 1983, imprisoned in Santa Rita Prison because of blocking the entrance of Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, California, where nuclear arms are designed, we occupied ourselves folding cranes from old newspapers; among us all, we made more than a thousand to send to Japan.


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