Tales Untold (mum on Mum)

Maud Lorraine Gottwalls, Age 14

(My Mum.  On back in her beautiful handwriting:

Greensboro High School, Junior Class 1931)

Intimate Unknown  

In our life

Lives we know/didn’t know

even though

 Mother, Father, grand, 2^nd hand

have lives beyond our birth

tales they didn’t tell

tales we did not tell

true tales, not smooth fabrications

made, put-on masks

of lives we did not live

shielding, cautioning

intimate  lives lived

untold, between you

the other

the pain, the pleasure

the fear, the horror, the wonders

not told                                                        yet

sometimes echoing in

the strange canyons of aloneness

in the quiet of night

or the whorl of the crowd

always arriving unaware

unbidden

in the deepest niches of mind

and body

alarms of secrecy

screeching tonelessly

a taste on the wind                        a glimpse

16 August -18 October 2018

©James M. Frase-White  10/2018

Grandpop & Grandmom Gottwalls

w/unknown Girl

My (Step)Father, Joseph F. White & Little me, @1951 or 2

Moon thoughts, Earthy designs

Evolution of a Moondream

©J.M. Frase-White

10" x 10", Acrylic on Canvas

May I ask the Equator, dear?

A sliver edge of moon

hints tomorrow's sun

  as people in Poland

sip mid-day coffee

Night of celestial calm

the crescent yellow-white

echoes the silence of street lights

smiling mirrors of rivermoon

stars glare above silhouette mountains

firing dots into black night

eyes of ancient starfires

hope of our eternity

Are hours longer around the waist of earth?

so much wider than here in the North

where dark in gradient comes

on our revolving home

leading us each day

to new night and sunrise

until we set and join her

in the continual soaring path

circling, circling, circling

in meaningful meaningless life

 © j.m. frase-white 2018 

 4 am, Sept 6/October 9, 2018

Time & Distance

©J.M. Frase-White

10" x 10", Acrylic on Canvas

"

Reading Kant in Tehran, 1979

From:  "Apocalypse"  2013

Kant & Iran, 1979

The two young women

Khadija, Aisha

were in my Kant class

with Dr. Melican, a champion

illuminating hours of fact,

enticing  knowledge

sending sparks igniting  your mind

with fires of wisdom,                        logic

a challenge,                    an engagement

to the marvels of thought

All over Boston

Posters bulleted on walls, streetlights

subway tunnels, on bulletin boards

the face of the Ayatollah

Evangelizing the overthrow of

The CIA-made King

My boss, department chairman, the head

Of the scholastic immigration board

Fighting for the students to go home

Or to stay 

A refuge in the halls of learning

Or fighting in the streets of Tehran

Ibrahim burst into our office

His beard fighting to sprout

and  leak out his ears

words rushing from his mouth

His passion inflammable

His desire to return home

A passionate apostle

To fight for Islam

Evangelically calling divinity

Burning to save a soul

Ibrahim flew East

His  jihad, his sacred Hajj

The two women

entered quietly

with bowed heads, wrapped in brown scarfs

begged to stay, in sorrow, in hope

to home to forever delayed

a family torn apart, with Immanuel standing

calling

Preaching the need

to feed

the mind

21 August 2018

For Arthur J. O’Shea, Ph.D.

Chairman, Dept. of  Psychology, Boston State College

And those two brave women who stayed

Their courage nailed to me
©James M. Frase-White 2018

White Man Dreams

The music filling me, flying away with me, flamingos migrating the 'dark' continent of Africa, ancestral home that returns in dreams.  From Kronos Quartet's 1992 Album, Pieces of Africa, came the inspiration: White Man Sleeps by Kevin Volans.  Listen to the YouTube link to movement II, and follow the pink birds to the blue waters of Bujumbura,

                 https://youtu.be/XNlfD-sGNsQ

Flying to Bujumbura in 2014-15 

Textured, cardstock and canvas papers with a handy map from

National Geographic

©James M. Frase-White 2015

Donald, King of Kings in his Klingon World

"I, of the Storm", 2017,  © j.m. frase-white

 Enamel and Acrylic on Canvas, 17 x 17 x 2

For Kim, Vlad and Donnie, just to name a Few

I told you not to mention

The simulated machismo

Of emasculated men

The dictators and generals

Who “have the balls” to win

Have you heard the harsh, cruel voices

Of those who lead the flock?

They sound like a hacking, cackling

A vicious Shirley Temple cough                                                       

Green witch of Oz upon her broomstick                                      

Dalmatian-coated Cruella, calling “slay the dogs!”                

The prissy rounded Donald mouth

Slime balling like a teenly bitch

In nuclear pinching heels

Let us call for war

Like demons let us fight

For killing one another

Is such a manly plight

We conquer and explode

Destroying all we’ve made

Pretending killing girls and boys

Is such an awful game

And yet we love it dearly

It marks the history line

Generals, admirals, dictators, monarchs

with presidents thrown in

can change Time like Jesus

Just when a war begins

(between pretend a bit of peace time)

And then begin again                                                 

                                                                                                                    “ Oop Lah”                

4/15/2018 ©jmf-w

Alzheimer the sniper targets Ramona

Ramona

Flames whorl inside her

Seeking the she she misses

Words swim out like fish

A Tribute to all who  suffer this disease.  

I have been working closely with a gentleman, who is a target in range, getting closer and closer

his knowledge and suffering so poignant

his awareness of losing his grip so frightening to him

his art so sharp, vivid, is losing the grasp between object and reality

as it is for Ramona, who worked so hard to maintain her beauty

her grace

while she knew it was slipping away

her mind blurring, repeating, chasing images and nascent ideas

her home has closed its doors

to be forgotten, lost

like her, hidden

no longer answering to "ally ally all in free".