Evora

In Evora there is a church
and the church was once a mosque
and the mosque was once a church
and the church was once a temple
in the time of the Romans

Behind the altar there is a false tomb
and beneath a Christian name
there are thousands of years of roots writhing through stone
and water echoes up vertebrae
which must have been steps
and its light is the juice of emeralds

Now, consider the well that is my throat
and the pool that is my chest

What does one do when a well has been capped for so many generations?
Is water safe in the stomach?

How did I become addicted to a self-imposed periphery, its tithes, its prick and its poison?
Can all of this be unlearned in one generation, one season, one summer?

My grandfathers and grandmothers
and their grandparents meet
for the first time in me
I carry them to familiar places
I am their hands, their thighs, their nose,
their eyes, their lips, their teeth,
their tongue

How did I become addicted to a self-imposed periphery, its tithes, its prick and its poison?
Can all of this be unlearned in one generation, one season, one summer?

I am the voice and the body now
and all that is closed will be opened
and all that hurts will be repaired
and all that sleeps without dreaming
will be green again

In Evora there is a church
Inside the church there is a tomb
and inside the tomb there is a cistern
Inside the cistern there is water
and it’s light is the juice of emeralds


© 2005 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP


To experience a performance of Evora
please visit:
http://www.reverbnation.com/pontdesartsensemble
and listen to selection #1 (upper right corner).

Rouge

Tu pense bien que tu vie
Je vois seulement que tu pense.
et moi, je vie pour tes yeux,
un mignon trompe-la-balance.
Nous créons rien.

et je t'enprie
pensons avec nos yeux
créons en souriant
ascendants en soleil
vivons en respirant
les couleurs du vent.

Et, Va
continue faire ta naissance
Et moi
je continue a ma naissance


Ce moment, c'est le travail triomphant
Un petit soufle de la joie.
J'aimerai un ballon rouge, et la mer,
et, une poire d'anjou.

Pensons avec nos yeux
créons en souriant.
Ascendants en soleil,
vivons en respirant
les couleurs du vent.

© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano & Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP


You think that you are living.
I see only that you are thinking.
Myself, I live for your eyes,
A charming little stumble.
And together we create nothing.

Let's think with our eyes,
creation in a smile,
our ancestry in light,
we live breathing in
the colors of the wind.

You go..
continue with your birth,
and I will
continue with my birth.

This moment is
our triumphant work,
a little puff of joy.
I would have a red balloon
the ocean...
and an anjou pear.

So let us think with our eyes,
creation in a smile,
our ancestry in light,
we live breathing in
the colors of the wind.


© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano

Trop foncée (Ephemerae)

I could not sleep while you slept.
Any little animal might have sheltered
in your body; and I kept
leaves from your eyes and things from your hair
until your lips revived, bending
back my fingers to the lessons
of water and thirst.

Fires that night digested the wet,
and when their long viridian
became your arms and a delirium
became our legs, threads
relinquished us, and we were not puppeted
by earth, and we were not puppeted
by heaven. We became
larger than form and texture and scent--
something like clouds--and fear was driven
from the manger of our bellies, and anger's thin
lips could not diminish us.

We ate everything that was red,
and everything red
was delicious. My sap was greening
your milky body, then your legs slapped.
They slapped into fins and you arced
and my chin and
ear separated, and silver and more silver and silver
again, I quivered behind you.

Orphalines de nos rêves
tes chausettes cachées au fond du lit
Elles attends avec moi

Aussi la dans la Méditerranée
chaque nuit est trop foncée


© 2008 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

En hiver

Le soleil
ne brille jamais
en hiver,
...hiver.
Mais ta voix
brille toujours.

Je cueille
les petites gouttes
de ta voix au vaisseau.
Ce vin d'hiver
guarde ma chaleur.

© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano & Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Notre Dame (Blue & Green)

Blue and green, somewhre in between
That's all I really know where life flows

Green and blue, someone like you
Love always knows where life flows

Our Mother who art in everyone,
everything is thy name.

Thy garden serene, thy waters green
the earth as they blue the heavens.

Thank you for our daily bread and the blessing
that no one can be satisfied until everyone is fed.

Forgive our ignorance as we forgive
those who ignore you in each of us.

Lead us from fear and deliver us from anger
and anxieties,

for life is a ripening to return to you, to feed you,
to seed you,

to be reborn forever and ever

Again


© 2005 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP


To experience a performance of Notre Dame (Blue & Green)
please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/fammereelive
and listen to selection #1 (upper right corner).

Each Body Beautiful

It is sky in your eyes I see
It is life in your lungs, breathe freely
You are the one
You are the one

Twelve thousand skies
Twelve thousand nights
I should have known I would outgrow
A fascination with empty

Always ready to be unloosed from satin and the white bodice of clouds
each body beautiful, its river, its sinuous logic, its deliberate destination

Awake, asleep, awake, asleep, awake, asleep
Moving in three directions,
towards the sun, away from exhausted deities, away from death

There I am before death and here after:
in the hesitation between leaves,
in the hesitation between knees


© 2008 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Left Eye of the Moon

There is a room in a wall, and the wall is mud,
and the mud, crenelated and pink.
There is a bed and cold-water sink and two pillows.

One window is pomegranate, the other pregnant.
They whisper over our bed
from the starry book of the dead
a story of two inseparable children.

Now that I've found you
Every sun in the sky will be drawn to you

You are the tree of life kicking blanket
and sheet to the foot of the bed.
You are the book of life Hebrews undress
and spread upon velvet,
caress with a silver finger and silk and knots of silk.

You are a chalice raised high as my arms can hold you,
jeweled in front and smooth in back.

Inside you I am transubstantiated into blood
and the breath of blood.

What church can refute this miracle?

Now that I've found you
Every sun in the sky will be drawn to you


© 2008 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Pink

If my certainty is causing you to doubt,
I can take it off for you.
If my purpose separates me
from your thought,
I can take it off for you.
I can take it off for you
and stand beneath the rising
all pink and new,
and melt into the water surrounding you.

And when memories
have covered you in veils
I will take them off for you.
When regrets make your voice a little frail,
I will take them off for you.
I will take them off for you
and gaze upon the children
inside of you.
Allow me to.

© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano & Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Circle

And when our cheeks were red as poppies
we blessed the night.
You wed me in the ocean
and I wore midnight.

We knew the sky
Cloud after cloud
And after all
Each leaf did fall

I have been awake since early light to walk
and smell the dampness drying from the stones.
Jon's got the coffee hot.
My hair is drippin.
I'm so grateful for his chatter.
Today you're going on the road

Here was the bright field of our gathering,
and the shrill of the silence is the sound of our chorus,
the memory of an intonation, little whistles and green stories,
prayers we repeat in the gethsemane of our hearts.

Darlings of the water darkling, what did we know beyond
the reflection of the low, stone bridge--

and if I climb a little higher in the rocks
I can see you as you go
We'll let the sun kiss you
and let the wind touch you
this time.

and take this in remembrance of me.
Take this
of me
and take this
take this
take this
of me

We knew the dark
The slightest spark
Could birth the sky
And last the night


© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano & Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

One Life

If we were one God, we would feed each other
everything; and everything would eat us,
and we would never die.
My tongues would serpent in your temple
where water becomes blood;
and the pink imprint of our lips would be
a talisman above the bed.
We would not need
to protect our skin from light; we would not need
to protect our skin from skin;
and nothing red would be unclean
at the mouth of the Tigris.


Long before there was one father in the sky
Words did not confuse and everything was all one life

All that dreams and greens and breathes its life
Back into you and you into me and me into trees
We're all one life


I am a green man, and I am my messiah now.
I am not embarrassed, I am not alone, I am
not afraid.
I cannot lose anything, for nothing is mine.
And I will never be hungry, for everything is mine.


Look into each face
One storie's written in lines
All the waste, when after all we're mud and light

All that dreams and greens and breathes its life
Back into you and you into me and me into trees
We're all one life

I love you. . . .


© 2005 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Children of Darfur

photo © 2008
Ibrahim Bigal Sarag
Sudan Tribune

By the side of the road,
shivering
the living children hide
and dream they hear
their mother's voice
from the empty place inside.

They cry, Oh, tell me
Is it you I'm waiting for?
And, our silent eyes
are silvering
the children of Darfur.

The hut built by their father's hand,
it smells of cinder now.
And the trucks that bring the angry men,
they are rumbling just below.

They cry, Oh, Tell me,
Is it you I'm waiting for?
And our silent mouths are silvering
the children of Darfur

© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano & Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Khóra Sfakia

I walk among the whores of Sfakia, the once beautiful
sons and daughters hoarding fragments, lording and ladying
and burning from the altars of their lips all instinct
still migratory.

For them the paths of scree to the promontory
decay at the turning of the sky. They hobble to the one tree
where an attendant is also a boatman and negotiate
a passage back.

I am pressed to vertical
earth, hatless, mapless and without sunglasses.
Golden bellied birds flash in a swift geometry upon lapis
lazuli, and I tremble with the thrill
of superstition: What spirits are these? Whose soul cries
from the mouth of the ass?

Now, the water is a Leviathan
and ready to swallow.
It thrashes about, not content with its containment,
neither convinced nor concerned that lungs
need land.


The whores of Sfakia wheeze and sleep with mouths open
and lamps glaring and garments pressed to their eyes.
If their messiah were to come in the night,
I could not follow, for this is not a Diaspora, and the Son
and the Father are only one half
of one God.

I wonder why the earth supports us. We expect so much
and renew so little.

It's Hero and husband, back and forth and up
and down, scattering bones of aborted destinies.
He first slurred the ancient name
of this place, Khóra Sfakia--The whores of Sfakia, he announced
and everyone laughed, then laughed again and laughed
all the next day.
Now, she and he and I are pinks upon the sand.

We offer our knees to the waves, and Hero calls, and her call
takes the body of a gull.
Each of us awakes from the truth of dreams to the lives
of our own making.


The sea moves her skin and enters me.
I do not fear translucence. I do not fear this pregnancy,
for I am with me.



© 2005 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP



To experience a performance of Khóra Sfakia
please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/fammereepoet
and listen to selection #3 (upper right corner).

My Hidith

Unwind the parchment of my heart
and search its symbols.
I find no laws that keep me from loving you.

And if you were my sister
I would braid your scribbled hair,
and barefoot we would go in the water.

If I was your sister
you would henna both my hands
and feed me our grandmother's yoghurt.

We'd play running games with our brothers
....running games with our brothers
W'e play .....running games with our brothers
and laugh....laugh at our genius.

Where does love school to become fear?
Where do hearts train to be siteless?

Where do brothers learn to be killers!
Where do brothers learn to be killers.....
Maiming the fathers and withering mothers.

Don't they recognize each other's eyes.... don't they recognize....each other's eyes

I'll hold the pen
You write the words the laws of our heart.
and, this is my Hidith { our law of heart }
...this is my Hidith
Our Law of Heart.


© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano

Scar (Just Another Scar on the Body)

But sleep, a beaded talisman. Our hearts working
as rain, fluttering

forests of rose and bone, perpetually reborn, protected by thorns,
where fear is sin

where no sword turns

where angels are the body within

each body a portal


Each window as hesitation?
What are salt and glass to me.


Just another scar on the body
You are always pointing to come home


You understand even if you pretend not to
The way the dying light favored you five hours later--
staining your blouse, staining our fingers

that last light lives in your body and the soul of your body as auric deities
hidden in dripping caves


Just another scar on the body
Every arrow points to somewhere
You are always pointing to come home


Falling through the sky again
Seeping through each veil of rain

Deep into your summer
Try to find the source again

Just another scar on the body
Every arrow points to somewhere
You are always pointing to come home


© 2008 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Fire Light

Paint a body
on my soul.
Make it big enough
to take me whole.
Paint it high
up in the sky,
any colour
that you like.

Tie an anchor
to my heart.
Keep it tethered
to the deepest part.
Then cast it wide
out into the sea.
You keep just a part of me.

As we belong to the ocean.
As we belong to the sky.
We are angels.
We are angels, you and I.

Write the legends
of my life.
The words will comfort peoples minds.
Then close your eyes
and you will see
the fire side of me.

We are fire
We are light.

We are fire
We are light.

Fire * Light

© 2008 Carrie Ingrisano

Someday

Someday you’ll be wandering to somewhere
Starting a new page in a story begun with us

Someone will be singing beside you
repeating a chorus written the night before

Somewhere over a rainbow
where your mother is always this young
and beautiful

Conspicuous as a sonnet, I pass through
shadows. I do not know their names and
I decide not to count. There are so many
going up the hill and back, alongside the
vein of meadowsweet and loam. They are
a forest. They are a frost. I am their field.
Each ancestor rising one summer higher
in a line, planted along the rutted road
which is now a footpath for fewer and
fewer.

It was a Roman lane, their tomb a mound
sprouting yew and laurel, pregnant two
thousand years. They return to recall as do
their descendants, my ancestors. One day,
my daughter will come here and tell this
story to her grandchildren, and they will
sit within my shade and shiver with
mysteries as she, three months old today,
looks up my tall, deciduous body into
leaves.

Somewhere over a rainbow
where you are is always this young
and beautiful

Often I am singing beside you
writing this song again
as we once did so long ago


© 2005 Richard Fammerée/Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP

Shine

Now I know why I’m sitting in the sky. . .
All I really want to do is shine like you

Just this morning I decided to be free again
Just this morning I decided to me again
And shine like you

All I want is to be happy

I am pregnant and I am not embarrassed, and I refuse
to defend myself before the disappointed.

I am going to live in a forest where moss bathes my toes
and makes slippers for trees and pillows of stones;
I am going to deny concrete and its fumes;
I am going to swim every swell of my heart; for it is good
for my babies.

And when voices no longer echo
from the bones of my back, sleep makes me a baby
in a belly again.

In Our Heart

True the sky white-winged light
All begins again

Green and blue I am only as free as you
Each is born to a destiny

No matter what is said or done
The future has just begun
All begins in our heart

Every time
We decide
To survive
And give life
Hope is born in our heart

Hold me close, this night is almost over
Light begins in our heart

No matter what is said or done
Our future has just begun
Love begins in our heart

All begins in our heart


© 2008 Richard Fammerée, Nomadica Musica & Poetry, ASCAP