The bureaucracy of being
Can’t remember my ID
Passport data is short living
Your Police Supremacy
Choose one of the empty pages
Put your stamp and let me come
If I look disadvantageous
Kick me off to where I’m from
Passport sings your best folk song
Passport makes the man
It reveals where you belong
Who are you to them
It’s the world of nations, countries,
Guardians of the universe
I was taught to understand this
But foreseeably dispersed
It’s the world of great traditions
Sacred territories, man!
My feigned ignorance is suspicious
As their curious concern
Passport is my entropy
Passport opens gates
Or it keeps them closed for me
Cos I book no dates..
PICTORIAL TRADITIONS
iconographic
impressions
in
prompting
responses
a single
image
polarity
of
perspectives
with
omnipresent
tendencies
a
significant
unruffled
momento
vacant
empty
impoverished
solitary
untouchable
Old traditions kept
through generations written
passed on to our kin
I am grateful for the family traditions
that have been passed down to me
and happy to do my part
by passing them down to each member of my family.
This blessing comes from composer Gustav Mahler
Who has a wonderful definition…
of something important to all of us…
That would be our family traditions….
It is a definition meant to encourage and inspire:
Tradition is not the worship of the ashes…
but the preservation of the fire.
(On Christmas we brunch with two hundred and some fifty of our closest friends)
I wish you all joy with your own holiday traditions.
Merry Christmas Everyone!
There’ll be snow-white bright linens,
crystal that glistens,
and silver that perfectly glows
There’ll be garlands of green
twined with red satin sheen
shimmering gemlike Christmas trees
There’ll be brioche that’s toasted
apple smoked salmon
and oysters laid out in iced rows
There’ll be cheeses from Roquefort,
baguettes, fruit and camembert,
Bûches de Noël coffee déserts
They’ll be geese gently roasted
and holiday toasting
as the feel of aged cognac grows warm
There’ll be carolers and violins
toys for the children
like secrets tied up in bright bows
They’ll be dancing and laughter
and much happy chatter,
as guests drift-out on their ways home
It’s the joy we’ll remember
long after December..
Hey - let’s do it again here next year!
.
.
A Christmas Playlist for this:
daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_13.mp3
Two elves on a shelf
double the trouble.
They sit there conniving,
getting into mischief,
making life interesting
by spicing it up a bit.
What would Christmas be
without elves on a shelf?
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Blood is thicker than water
Floods are quicker with rain
Some flow liquor from bottles
Most know liquor means pain
Peace is better than war
Lease is better than rent
Some have piggy's that's swollen
Most have piggy's that's spent
Grease ain't faster than lightning
Peace is hoping for war
Some don't care about conflict
Most don't know what it's for
I took our annual Christmas family portrait yesterday…
as usual it was a time of jubilation…
and once again I noticed we’re a family
in a state of transformation.
We’ve all grown another year older
but it really is much more…
for none of us are the exact same person
we were the year before…
School and jobs and life in general
alter us a little every day….
This portrait shows us face-timing
with the three of our family members who’ve moved away.
We couldn’t all get together this Christmas
which is why we had to Zoom…
but their laughter and their love…even in two dimensions
found their way into the room .
As our family has grown and changed…as all families do
the traditions we make along the way…must change a little too.
As we find new ways to get together…before we know it…lo and behold
new traditions like phoenixes….emerge from out the old.
As I looked at my family through the camera
as they all came into view…
I realized what’s important isn’t how we get together…
what’s important…is that we do.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
In the written word I trust.
It is my yard stick and my mirror...
And I will not follow the traditions of mortal men.
For all are as fallible, as vain as I am.
To this truth, others must align,
Must be measured up to, compared to, and weighed by...
The words spoken by Jesus Christ and recorded by John,
In the thirteenth chapter and in the thirty fourth verse,
"A new commandment that I give unto you...
... that ye will love one another,
As I have loved you, that ye love one another."
All I do, all I say, and all I believe,
must align with this great commandment.
It is the greatest truth I live by!
What happened to storytelling
The late-night gatherings
Around flames where stories of old
Were being told?
What happened to those folk songs
Tales of the tortoise and the spider
That taught young folks important lessons
Of the art of war and manhood?
What happened to the Poroh, the Ojeh
The "Sandeh," the "Tittilegbeh"—
Schools for young girls
Where the art of womanhood was taught?
How can this be forgotten
Wiped off the face of the earth?
It's like we've lost our way.
Why is the narrative of our history seen through the eyes of outsiders?
I had to trade another jot,
I had to sell a tittle.
I had to cuz they told me that
I had to give a little.
I had to sit and wonder at
the setting of the sun,
what giving just a little costs
when all is said and done.
Today I’m thankful for traditions and though it may sound strange…
I’m also thankful for the way traditions can grow and change
It was Socrates…a Greek philosopher who said…
long before there was a me and you….
The secret to change is to focus all your energy
not on fighting the old
but on building the new.
People married by chain, other married by rings,
Married by bride price, other agreed each other,
Boys paid on it, some girls paid on it.
Partners who are some, other share the tribe,
Choose who are rich, other choose who are white,
Choose their own partners, other are being chosen.
Celebrate all members, other are being divided,
Live to their husbands, other start for their own,
That is the way, how people live.
Travel
Zip-zip-zip the suitcases go
And we all pile into the car, ready to start the show
It’s that time of year
When my family and I travel to far away places full of cheer
Spellbound with giddiness I am
Ready to cross the border into a foreign land
Beep-beep-beep the metal detector sounds
With each techno ring I hear, in serendipity I am soused
Fly-fly-fly we zoom through the sky
I watch through the window as the cotton candy clouds go by
My heart prancing in my chest
The others in a serene slumber but my effervescent exhilaration refused to let me rest
Step-step-step I head down the stairs
With each step my agog amplifies in pairs
New horizons I see
A land exquisite and entirely extrinsic to me
Besides me stands my family
Supplying all amity I might ever need
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