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Arrowhead
Proto-Money, Greek, Black Sea Region. Includes: Leaf-shaped, trefoil and triangular cast
‘arrowheads’ of varying length. The Milesian
colonies of Olbia, Borysthenes, Istros, Odessos, and Apollonia, founded
on the western Black sea coast in the 7th century BC, were once the
central points of exchange and trade between the Greeks and local
Scythian and Thracian populations. This exchange prompted the
introduction of pre-monetary items: the ubiquitous ‘dolphins’ and the
scarcer ‘arrowheads’ and ‘wheel-coins’, all cast in copper. These pieces
remained in circulation in the west Pontic area for about two
centuries, until being finally replaced by struck coinage. Recent
publications of finds from South Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Romania
limited the circulation area of these proto-monies to the narrow coastal
strip along the western/north-western shores of the Black sea. Some
scholars suggested the ‘arrowheads’ were produced there since Apollo,
with his bow and arrows, was the main deity who supervised the colonies
of Miletus. As a god of archery, Apollo was well known with epithets as
Aphetoros (“god of the bow”) and Argurotoxos (“with the silver bow”): image by CNG, 5 January 2009
just a piece of stone
crafted
arrowhead
out of the
creek bottoms
no money in
finding them
but a disabled
patient
with cervical
and lumbar disc disease
loved the search
it reminded him
I think
of when he was young
and straight
and could almost
fly
chronic pain
rebirth
in the harder
leaner
simpler
past
The great humanitarian healer and razorback activist Doctor Charlie will have been familiar to regular outpatients at this site for many a year now, though often traveling incognito. Who was that Masked Man? He left a Bronze Age arrowhead.
ReplyDeleteFor further clues, see:
Charlie Vermont: Presbyterian Nurse
Why I Read Tom Clark's Blog by Charlie Vermont
Charlie is the only poet from the Bronx whose work always makes me think of the Southwest.... from Tucson to Tucumcari & c., to quote another poet familiar, Lowell George. Rough and sweet in one package, LG like CV. The poet Jim Brodey once told me he'd sat next to Lowell on a plane and that during turbulence, Lowell pulled out of his carryon bag a copy of my book Stones, which, he told Jim, brought him luck. A few years after that (1975) Lowell died of a heart attack, aetat. 34. So you can judge the kind of luck it was, by that. Jim too is gone now, and so is the drummer who held things up for Lowell, Richie Hayward, d. of liver cancer a year or two back; RIP. Lowell said he'd been thrown out of the Mothers of Invention by Frank Zappa in 1969 "for writing a song about dope".
ReplyDeleteBoy howdy, but what a song:
Willin' (live version).
Looking back through the mists on all that wreckage, though, it's the arrowheads that have made it through the years that lead on into the future now, and Doctor Charlie could probably have saved us all, had we any of us possessed a lick of sense.
Tom I haven't listened to any Little Feat in years but Willin' would have been my first choice
ReplyDeleteSince last week and laid off I'm having to reconsider what I'm willin' to do to get by
I drift away from here but keep coming back for a peek
Best wishes and as many have recently said (does it make me wince?) Good Luck
Isn't it great when somebody makes hope appear as something present (and through a sign so old).
ReplyDeleteEvery Charlie Vermont piece I read is a work of healing in itself.
How can pain shape us till we show up "...in the harder leaner simpler past"? I know my Dad and my Brother could speak more eloquently about this thsn I can, this coming down to some thin and originary point.
Dalriada, hope you find something you're more than willin' to do.
Ute Council Tree
ReplyDeleteIt took so long to get there.
Through sub divisions with no drums.
What happened there between the other
and the other next? I didn’t remember enough
taking down all the rest. Balanced
and not quite overdrawn. Barreling along
back and frontwards. However sold I was
or wasn’t. Time is not fit for it.
Not among the better. The whole self
that I know, the Grand Junction self,
(not the Delta self)
comes apart, buys me so much time
for so and so. Such and such. The next
and possible next.
Cake Walk
ReplyDeleteThe Paiutes taught me to dance at the cakewalk.
Brown Sugar later on the rez. My white jeans
soiled where Renee tripped me in the ditch
near where the spirit lived
close to where Wovoka told everyone—
they roasted pine nuts there
in the park where tourists
were harassed, their tires slashed,
leaving with wounds,
heads hanging like hounds
many beliefs shattered there.
We hopped the train when it came
through town, conveniently right
after school—to the store.
Pennies, tracks, my mom’s purse.