MEMORIAL DAY: MY FATHER WAS A SOLDIER

THIS BLOG WAS POSTED ORIGINALLY ON MYSPACE,
Monday, May 29, 2006
MEMORIAL DAY: DEATH OF A SOLDIER
Current mood: EULOGY
Category: Writing and Poetry

ODE TO A SOLDIER

I.

Father oh Father, I am back again why do you lie so still
Your head is all wrapped and that tube in your mouth is all bloody

The jagged old scar on your forehead beats slowly with your pulse
And why is there a hole in your throat?

Who told me your tale I do not remember, 'twas childhood tales
Of your Bloody War, your bloody time at the Front.

They say you were eighteen and a soldier, made to jump out
Over enemy lines, into enemy fire, from planes high above

Jump down into the fireworks below, to your death
Or be shot by your own officers

Strung out and wide open they say
You and your comrades floated down, swaying helplessly in the night

Strung out, strung up
Target practice for the enemy fire, rat-tat-tat

A silhouette in a shooting gallery
Was your target painted on your chest or head

They say many were dead
Before they hit the muddy ground, the ditch, the wood

Hanging like strange fruit
In old oak trees, over stone walls, barb wire

I bet you would have rather run for your life, run
The gauntlet, legs, lungs pumping, against all odds

Instead of hanging in the air
Suspended, silent, heart still beating in your chest

Dropping endlessly down down into the
Crackling gun fire, grenades and mortar, angry fireworks

Hung up, strung out, suspended in time
Between life and death in strobe beats of light

Dead fruit falling falling bloody rain
Falling from the sky like Kali's bounty

They say you were hit, but still alive
You cut yourself free and started to run

Where do you run to, Father, where do you aim for
in the middle of madness and death

They say you took a bullet in the leg, in the stomach
Before you ever hit the ground

They say when you ran, shrapnel exploded and hit you
And blew up the space occupied by your body

II.

Your helmet, in pieces, inside your brain, they said
They picked out the pieces through that hole they made

They cracked open your forehead
And dug around your brain picking out the bigger pieces

And gave them to your mother wrapped in gauze
Four pieces of metal, two from your helmet, many small ones left inside

She held them in her shaking hands
As she cried, saying thank you - for the souvenir of death

They sewed up the hole in the middle of your forehead
With a skin flap, no bone, soft like a baby's crown.

Pulsating, fragile, criss-crossed by red scars
Over your brain torn to shreds beneath.

They laid you down in the metal military hospital bed
And you were gone from your body, not that I blame you Father

Why would you want to come back to this, to this life
Of broken sight, halting speech, a lifetime of seizures?

Your mother sat with you and prayed the Rosary
Prayed for months on end, eight months in all, over your still body.

They let you lie there, in a coma
Not dead, not alive, but gone from this place.

So she prayed you back and you woke up in the ninth month, like a new babe,
opened your eyes, looked at your mother and knew her still.

She cried and thanked God for the good fortune of her reborn son
returned to her, in one piece or many, no matter

And you could not remember words, but "Mother" you said,
That much I am told you knew, and you looked around

For an "Other Mother" you asked, and she understood you
it was him you wanted, your Father, the one you loved

III.

And you lived again, against all odds, but you woke to a life of pain
As never the same you would be.

And the joy of your mother and father at your return
To despair will turn as life is a living hell

Half blind with shadowy mind wandering God knows where,
your body wracked by Grand Mal when the shards move in your brain.

A thousand pills a day you will take
to walk among the living and not crash to the ground

Each day you awaken anew into this torn body cursing
the shredded brain that serves you badly or not at all

And other than mother's love you will never get any more
Just jeering, laughter, disgust and mean tricks played by strangers.

SO you throw yourself in front of a train
Yet it stops and drags you but makes you live this damned life

Some more. In shame you crawl off the tracks
they take you home, broken teeth, tears of frustration.

You are silent, then decide to try again to make an end
And this time it works and now you are here

Back in that hospital bed. Poisoned by the pills
That were to save you, all of them you took at one.

And down you went, back into the Oblivion
she pulled you back from, your mother, with her tears and begging.

The dying is hard this time, its been already two weeks of pain
and death has not found you yet. The pills are just too slow.

To make an easy end now your mother sits and prays
For death and not for your life, Dear God just take him please.

Once more I'm told you open your eyes and look at her
and she says "You will be OK" and you shake your head. Not this time.

A tear rolls down your face and away you go
For good this time, at last its good bye, Father, good bye.

Let it be known that those whom Death has claimed
You ask for them back at their peril.

12:54 AM
14 Comments
12 Kudos (Give Kudos)
Sunday, May 28, 2006

GOOD MORNING AMERICA - THIS WILL BE DELETED
man. that was pretty intense. war is hell. it affects everyone.
Posted by GOOD MORNING AMERICA - THIS WILL BE DELETED on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 2:13 AM
[Reply to this]

KALIMA
the Dead are at least done with the suffering,
its the war's surviving casualties
and all the soldier's families
that suffer for decades.
Posted by KALIMA on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 2:23 AM
[Reply to this]

~M~...
Very powerful posting for today...Makes you wish that no one had to endur that kind of pain; no person or family. However, it happens....That is why we can't forget what today is all about.
Posted by ~M~... on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 11:24 AM
[Reply to this]

KALIMA
Good to see you Mike, on Memorial Day or any day :)!
Posted by KALIMA on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 11:31 AM
[Reply to this]

Teacher With a 'Tude
You edited - did I leave a comment the first time? I have a toddler with a high fever who doesn't want to be put down and can't sleep, so I'm a little out of it.
Very powerful.
Posted by Teacher With a 'Tude on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 1:10 PM
[Reply to this]

KALIMA
YES I EDITED SEVERAL TIMES... DID YOU LEAVE A COMMENT?
OH I NEVER SAW IT. THANKS FOR COMING BACK AND LEAVING ANOTHER ONE....
even with the sick baby <3 sorry to hear...
for fevers, did you try a tub with a few inches of luke warm water, sponge them gently, till it drops? You can sit with him in the tub if that's what it takes. You also will FEEL when he cools down. Also play "look at that".. just walk around and point out things, it extroverts them.
PEACE BABY xoxxo
Posted by KALIMA on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 1:19 PM
[Reply to this]

Enrique
these images are vivid to u
do u know where they come from?
are they part of ur experience?
moving & thought-provoking
Posted by enrique on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 5:11 PM
[Reply to this]

KALIMA
e~
IT'S FROM WITHIN THE ORAL TRADITION OF MY FAMILY
its in my mind, blood and bones.... it's about my father before I knew him...
and when I knew him.
Posted by KALIMA on Monday, May 29, 2006 - 6:16 PM
[Reply to this]

Michael McCann
As a point of inside information, Karin's father was a German paratrooper (Fallschirmtruppen) who was wounded in 1941 in the drop over Crete. It was a colossal phuque-up; the transport planes were off schedule (late) and most missed the designated drop zone, leaving the parachutists as they descended largely at the mercy of waiting British troops. In a prolonged battle, the Germans seized their objective, a British airfield, but in the process lost nearly 4,000 dead or wounded. The Fallschirmjaeger were the elite of the German Wehrmacht at the time--all volunteers, all hand-picked, the pride of the army. So devastating were their losses here, and so distraught was Hitler, that he subsequently forbade any more parachute drops for the remainder of the war. The Fallschirmjaeger continued to fight well throughout the war, but almost exclusively as infantry, never engaging again in a concentrated drop.
-- Michael McCann (who knows Kalima from the old days)
Posted by Michael McCann on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 - 11:50 AM
[Reply to this]
KALIMA
Fritz The Cat, welcome to my Lair. .....
Thanks for putting this in context. You avid Germanophile, just what I need to give me some cred around here. These people think I'm blowin' all these tales out of my ass...! YOU know what I tell, I lived. Or loved.
BTW my father survived but was a war invalid all his life. The poem addresses his death years later from an overdose of his anti-seizure medication. Glad he stuck around a while, I am here as a result of his having returned after a 9 month coma and resumed life - if that's what you want to call it. The poem is about a real time, a real place, a real person.
Now I can tell his tale .
Karin
Posted by KALIMA on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 - 3:01 PM
[Reply to this]

Injoy
Carolyn Injoy
This left me speechless...a rare thing.
Powerful and heart-wrenching!
Posted by Injoy on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 - 8:53 PM
[Reply to this]

KALIMA
Some tales never get told, I just wanted to put it out, even if it was
at a high cost emotionally to me. I owe him something for his trouble.
Karin
Posted by KALIMA on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 - 9:09 PM
[Reply to this]

Injoy
Carolyn Injoy
Hugs {Kar} I know the cost was high to write this, for I felt the same way about the Tribute to a Southern Gentleman I wrote on the 17th anniversary of my own Father's death. They leave an indelible mold. It is my honor to showcase it in this week's Picks.
Posted by Injoy on Monday, June 05, 2006 - 1:10 PM
[Reply to this]

KALIMA
thank you Joy. It was written at a high price, you know that, many don't. It tore me up. Still does. I loved my father and pitied him all my life. WHERE can I find your poem to your dad? I would feel honored if you shared it with me....
Posted by KALIMA on Monday, June 05, 2006 - 1:22 PM
[Reply to this]


*****end of comments*****

FASTEST TRIP THROUGH JAPAN -- EVER!

Category: Photography as Video

TAKE A MONTH LONG TRIP THROUGH JAPAN IN UNDER 5 MINUTES!
Get ready for a sense saturating experience.
Stick with it, something happens in your brain after a couple of minutes.
It adjusts to the speed and things seem to slow down.
See the cat? See the horse's head? See the girl in the straw hut?
You will remember everything.
You will almost space out after a minute or so.
You may get a strange emotional response as it rolls (I did).
I think some of the pictures may trigger personal emotional events
and it goes too fast for the mind to block it.
Just make it past the first minute or two and time will become elastic and slow down and you will be in the Zone.
IT WILL BE LIKE TAKING OFF IN A SPACE SHIP.
Go on a trip to Japan, it's free and fast..... .. That weightless feeling on lift-off! Wheeee....

DO NOT TRY TO FOCUS ON ANY IMAGE OR THINK.

This video is a collection of over 300 photos of a
month-long trip through Japan, which you can take in 5 minutes..
Zappa-ish, no? You will end up with a ton of information about Japan,
and you'll remember it.

Styling is crisp and a bit over-saturated.
Must be that Pentax k20d he is using.

This is Japan! from Eric Testroete on Vimeo.

Published by Kalima Saraswati on May 5, 2009
All Rights Reserved

AWAKE IN A DREAM

It is morning and I am trying to tell my partner a dream. He is lying on the black satin sheets with his back towards me, photo shopping a picture of a warty troll on the laptop. The dog is lying with him, belly-up, pretty paws dancing, eyes on her prize. His fingers play over her silky belly. My dream talk does not galvanize his attention. I am staring at the warty troll image, trying to hang on to the fleeting wisps of my dream, disappearing like water in sand in the ordinariness of the morning. He sighs and turns, pushing his art project aside. Dream stories are often part of our personal parlance. We send each other off to sleep with instruction of ridiculous situations and characters to dream about.

This morning finds me with one I just have to capture and examine as I grasp anxiously at the melting images. The problem was laying it out in stark day light, competing with trolls and dogs. I valiantly soldier on. My tale starts out unpromising as I struggle for words. I have to tell it in sequence, as it unfolded, frame by frame. I have not yet fully understood it and it's meaning is hard to confront.

I become aware of being myself as I drift towards awakening. I wake but I am still in the dream. I am aware. Instead of floating through the images without recognition or judgment, I all of a sudden SEE what I am looking at. I have awoken in the middle of the dream but did not get ejected from it. Those that are showing me the pictures are not aware that I am fully present. I stay totally still and the dream continues. I stay quiet in my hidden awareness and pay close attention. I see what I am not supposed to know.

It's somewhat like a patient having awakened in the middle of his own operation, and seeing what is going on, yet remaining quiet, just listening and watching. I am a spy in my own dream. In the dream, reality reveals itself uncensored and flaunts all its Incredibles. Without judgment or shock I watch. I am not yet constrained by my current life's reality.
____________________________________________________


____________________________________________________
THE DREAM

I am floating along the left side of a two-story building made of grey, square rough-hewn granite stone blocks, sort of like a rustic country house in a colder climate. I hear myself talking:

"NO I don't want to be down there in the basement, maybe upstairs…"

I see through dark windows into the cellar and I don't like it. I wake up mid-sentence in the dream, and see where I am. I float on the back wall of the country house and see the forest floor below, covered with brown, huge, crunchy leaves. I remain motionless and just look around.There are vines growing like black snakes out of the ground and back into it. Black bare, bendy branches and sticks. Tree trunks disappearing up towards the high forest canopy. An old European forest. I look down and see the side of the back wall – rough stones end in leathery brown leaves, sunlight streams down in the distance, through tall trees, up in front, the hill with black snake branches, arching out of the ground -- arching back into the ground.

I stare at it, can't look away. What am I looking for? I expand my sight outwards to see more and wait.The scene remains, and fills in with detail. I see an arm, pulling out a wooden, long drawer in the dark basement. It is made of old wood, rough, rustily nailed together. In it I see packets of paper, some very old, brown, crumbly, like Egyptian papyrus, some newer, in glassine wraps. That's from the time before plastic. Crackly and semi-opaque. I see a man's hand pull some packets out and put some back in. I hear a deep voice, unheeding of my presence; unaware of me being awake.

I surround his head like a helmet, feel his thoughts and see what he sees. I am startled. He feels huge and limitless. His thoughts are like solid things, like giant falling objects, smashing things. He is old, ancient. He has knowledge stored up over many Millennia, fully accessible, and knows he is an Immortal. I see no restraint or mercy within this Being. He does not think like a human. He thinks a thought so loud it is like shouting. He knows with absolute certainty that what he thinks becomes Reality. Nothing can stop him. I feel his booming voice and huge thoughts, devoid of any human considerations. I feel his impatience. He is totally outside of common reality, yet operates within it.

He pulls out some of the envelopes and looks at the documents. They are all records of killings – of families that have been wiped out, totally, down to the last child. Individual families, murdered, but no one knows the truth as to why or by whom. Their genetic and familial lines are extinguished. Pulled like a wayward thread from the fabric of life. I feel his thoughts and hear him talk to himself in his mind.These are records of murders from all over the planet, documented here in this box. The events are dispersed through time and space, but here are records of everything. The only true records in existence. Some are ancient and the papyrus is black and broken. Some are in wood bark packets, with blood markings; some in leather, or brittle parchment. Some are newer, on real paper and in plastic bags. They contain incidents, some with pictures, names, places, dates, secret notes and some newspaper clippings of their deaths.

I try to see what country this is, but as I rise above to get a bird's eye view, I zoom upwards in weightless vertigo, and I know if I keep rising further the treetops will close over the stone lodge like a green sea and I will never find this place again in time and space. So I stop the ascent and pull myself back down. Grudgingly, the trees part and let me slide back into the secret clearing. This project has been going on for Millennia. There is no known connection between all these Reapings. I see pale faces, faded, eyes like dots. Pictures of ordinary looking people, men, women --children. So many children. No mercy for children; they are the future.

All murdered, some were made to look like suicides, some like a fathers madness, some like the result of a mother's mental breakdown. Some like a son's killing rage. Families imploding, no one to blame. Some were just bald mass murders, not covered by attempts to mislead. They are all dead, murdered. No one knows that there is a plan, a connection, a common thread; someone who is doing this on a grand scale, for reasons outside the understanding of accepted human agreements and beliefs. They were killed – why? I am trying to get the concept; it is too alien for me to grasp. Vaguely I feel they were adjudged to be carriers of a lineage or of DNA with content not allowed, of potential that is forbidden, not desirable -- to someone.

What abilities and dormant talents are being excised? What future convergence of events is being sabotaged? what was it, adjudged to be too good or too dangerous to someone to be allowed to grow within the human strain? I do not comprehend any of these significances, they are meaningless to me. The agenda is incomprehensible. I know it is about Absolute Power; inconceivably focused and above all human and Universal law. It is an old agenda and one not questioned by those who continue its actions today.

The old man's thoughts boom in my head with one-pointed, infinite intention lacking all restriction and constraint. Madness. He personally knows all the Dead from centuries ago – he was there doing the killing, in other bodies, other lives. I try to see if this Being is physically immortal, but no, all I see a is powerfully built, white haired old man with longish hair, bent a ways by age, of subtly simian demeanor. Strong arms, powerful huge head and face, terrible eyes, fury and coldness. Heavy lids, which he uses to hide them, but only sometimes. His body will die on him like any other human. He may die, but he always returns in another body, fully aware of himself and of the Agenda he serves. His thoughts are uncensored and shout at me of eons of killing freely anyone he chooses. There is not guilt or pity, no mercy or humanity.

His secret agenda of global planned killings makes the world look like a different dimension.
I look at the faded faces of the dead in the pictures and hear him think how well he is succeeding in the Prime Directive of his group. He is the Reaper, he cuts out what is unwanted. He terminates potential streams of billions of events culminating in -- what? I cannot see it.
He fondles the envelopes, pulls some of the families pictures out, and puts some back . His photo album of memories. Except today he has a watcher. His vanity to keep records has left a trace and lets me pull the string to this other place and time. A monster operating outside of time keeps a record here in this old basement, of something no mortal knows about. Except now me. A potential synchronicity of events unknown and unimagined, outside of time and space, excised deliberately, futures that would never be. He hunches in the old basement, exposed in the Waking of my Dream, unguarded and alone in his thoughts. No one knows about him and no one imagines this could be. What is this world really about?

Now I see why I am here in the dream, why I have a right to be here, why this is my place and time. Why I find myself stuck to this rocky wall, staring out at the hill of leaves in front of me; I see it is my grave. Murdered by this man along with my whole family. We are all here, in one of the envelopes, and I have a right to see this. I now remember myself as I once was, in this place at another time, a 12 year old girl, jumping rope in the upstairs library, the rope going round and round, and I am singing a silly song. My mother, pale and pretty, with her 1920's dress. My father, slim, a mustache, someone's well-born son. My little brother, maybe 2 years old on the floor, playing near me. Blond curls, suspenders crossed at the back of his shorts. A piano. I see the tops of the huge oak trees outside the windows. The sun pours in, we are above the dank dark floor of the forest. I sing.

We are visiting – a relative? Is he my grandfather? I am not sure. Somehow I don't think we are related. An uncle by declaration -- no one really knew. The old man is in the house, but not upstairs. I see the jump rope go round and round and hear my voice, a child's voice, singing a repetitive tune as the sun's rays break through the oak trees and make patters on the floor. Now I am dead and buried there under those leaves somewhere -- where is my body -- under the leaves, but where? In the back of the house, under the black snake vines. I am clinging to the stone wall, looking straight at my grave. I can't see exactly where my body lies. I have been here a long time now. Seasons have passed. I know my mother is dead. I know my father is dead. I know most definitely my brother is dead. I feel like a child, trying to figure this out.

It was about him most of all, that killing. But we all had to go, we were his family. He was not supposed to grow up. What was it about him that had to be excised from the human race? The reasons lie back in the Dawn of Time.I see the old man put our pictures back into the brittle, transparent bag and file us away again. I still hear his booming thoughts about the killing agenda. We supposedly left for America. So we were ones that got a cover story. Not everyone does.

I watch time pass. Within a short while, the old man wraps up his lifetime, glorying in his limitless power. His huge killing power; unrestrained. He disposes of his body dispassionately and goes impatiently into hibernation while his new one grows to maturity. One day he will open his eyes and know exactly who he was and what is expected of him. He will be found and put to work again cutting his bloody swath through time and space, sideways, obliquely – bleeding and culling innocents – cutting away the future eventuality of undesired events caused by the hated Blood."

DREAM WITH YOUR EYES OPEN, IF YOU DARE.

CURRENT READING: "Realm of the Ring Lords: The Myth and Magic of the Grail Quest" By Laurence Gardner
Release date: January, 2003


Posted by KALIMA SARASWATI at 2:48 AM

Teacher With a 'Tude	Powerful. I think I'd be afraid to analyze this one too deeply. Posted by Teacher With a 'Tude on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 7:44 PM [Reply to this]

	KALIMA	yeah. It's about what I call "The Incredibles". You see something and you go: NAHHHH.... Sorta like the American Indians when they first saw the ships of Columbus..... if it's not within your reality -- you don't see it. Posted by KALIMA on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 7:55 PM [Reply to this]

	KALIMA SARASWATI KAlima SAraswati	BTW, COME TO MY OTHER SITE NOW... ITS' INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH KALIMA :))) KALIMA~ Posted by KALIMA SARASWATI on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 - 11:20 PM [Reply to this]

	jonnypravda	You've had a vision, my potent seeress, and I'm not sure what it means, ultimately. It's up to you to derive its meaning. (I kept hoping it was the Ancient of Days, but it was just a local impostor, evidently.) Keep seeing visions, and maybe we'll see each other in the aeons sooner or later. Posted by jonnypravda on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 10:47 PM [Reply to this]

	KALIMA	WELL I SAW SOMETHING I WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO THAT'S FOR SURE. Would love to see you in the Aeon Flux, Jonny Dearest. Lessons here? 1) "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." ~ Hamlet 2) Everything happens for a reason. 3) Nothing is what it seems. 4) Never disregard the "NAH" factor *smile* 5) Keep your eyes open and tread lightly -- shit happens. 6) Life's not fair. 7) Try to get the big picture. 8) In the end, to thine own self be true -- even a slave has that. 9) Smile -- ("La Femme Nikita") Posted by KALIMA on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 8:32 AM [Reply to this]

	Saint Colette	I try to remember my dreams, but lately I can't. How do you do with such detail? Amazing. Posted by Saint Colette on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 3:07 AM [Reply to this]

	KALIMA	It was a fluke. I was not s'posed to remember. I just -- woke up -- in the middle of it and... SAW. If I try to remember a dream, I must do so right after I come to consciousness and view it deliberately -- or it vanishes. I dream a lot but only catch a few. Dreams are VERY personal. I think they are visions and lessons for the individual, based on their stage of spiritual development. This is not to say that a very simple dream can be packed with meaning for you. I also know that Valerian makes for vivid and remembered dreams. Thanks for reading such a harrowing tale and having the courage to leave a comment.... Posted by KALIMA on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 8:36 AM [Reply to this]

	AresMars	Vivid girl and extremely powerful, not only is the goddess back but she's back in full force. Well done girl. Posted by AresMars on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 9:16 AM [Reply to this]

	KALIMA	I know YOU could handle this My God AresMars..... <3> Posted by KALIMA on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 9:34 AM [Reply to this]

	AresMars	Ah sweet Goddess, you haven't scratched the surface of what I can handle... *wicked grin* Posted by AresMars on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 10:16 AM [Reply to this]

	Writing next chapter	I don't often remember the details of my dreams. This week I awoke with a start with a real wave of vertigo as my dream had me looking over the edge into a huge abyss. Miles down. It was unsettling. Things are tough and the dreams reflect the struggle. You will prevail as you have in the past. You will be reborn again as you have in the past -- still retaining your memories and essence. As in the past, this juncture will not be pretty -- but you will cross the chasm and meet what is next. Posted by Writing next chapter on Tuesday, July 17, 2007 - 8:20 PM [Reply to this]

	momma pup says: "Happy Mother's Day"	you saw something most never get to see my lady...... Posted by momma pup says: "Happy Mother's Day" on Friday, July 27, 2007 - 12:25 PM [Reply to this]