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Wednesday 23 May 2018

Joseph Ceravolo: "Between a rock and a hard place..." | Meditation at the Pink Panther Haircut Saloon

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Ramapo state forest trail 055 | by daniel sanijoa

Ramapo state forest trail 055 [Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey]: photo by dan Kong, 9 January 2014

Ramapo state forest trail 055 | by daniel sanijoa

Ramapo state forest trail 055 [Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey]: photo by dan Kong, 9 January 2014

Ramapo state forest trail 055 | by daniel sanijoa

Ramapo state forest trail 055 [Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey]: photo by dan Kong, 9 January 2014

Joseph Ceravolo: "Between a rock and a hard place..."

      October 25, 1986              

Between a rock and a hard place
I looked for love
So unlikely, yet I entered
the cave, secret though it was
nestled in the Ramapos
Appalachian chain, there for centuries

leading further and further in,
so unbridled and endless
without sound without sight,
without division, expected angels,
original powers, leading inward scared,
yet between the rocky walls a warmth.

Days upon days I walked
living only on flowers of darkness
until a junction appeared in the dark,
man-made, drilled and a size
through which I just passed.
Through this I could hear
the faint flow of a river overhead.

A man lay dead at the cloudy entrance
as the small opening opened into
an arcade of tile and concrete.
Another man and woman lay squirming
on the wide platform
above a series of tracks.

A stench of urine suffused
with the exotics of burning leaves,
burning tobacco, burning cocaine and marijuana.
Men with pale foreheads, men with dreadlocks
passed by my caution, my fear,
while lamentations broke everywhere.

Along the tile wall others moved hips and shoulders
while radios on the platform
and drums in the distance
vibrated a bass beat like a giant
beating on the walls of a city.
Lamentations rose from the wretched with babies
in their arms, scavenging along tracks.

Hundreds of feet above, through an opening
the cries of a celebration above descended
to the deaf and dying ears
through an area infused with hydrocarbons
in tubes and containers like an industrial grave
of chemicals and strains
of undreamed, unknown viruses.

Above, the crowd roared through the machinery
The glass of buildings shook from vibrations
originating at the beginning of the world,
but where there was violence originating
God seemed to be calling, and the earth
was crazier above than it was beneath.

O greater light infused by darkness
opening up creation and shaking the world!
O luminous rays waiting in dark
as shadows closed on mountains
and dusk appears on swamps!
O hazy light resurrected from dirt!

But can I receive for myself this grace,
being so unworthy and longing
being so incomplete and frightened
by the level of threshold holding pain?
And people were thrown down from above
my soul led my body back to the beginning.

At the entrance back an angel leaned
all bloody from head to ankles,
his left wing broken and hanging,
his right across his red body.
A woman naked in the clouds
held his broken wing to not collapse.

This body had not been here
when I had entered. I came in free
And now my only thought was how
could I get by those sensitive wings
that could block me out forever
could close on me and rack me.

But as I approached slowly
the woman grasped the angel
in a winged embrace
and it seemed the feathered angelic
whispered something strange
to the beautiful woman embracing,

And I noticed his arms
were full of needle marks and scars
his eyes in dark brown deceived the blueness they were,
his heart beat wildly under the pumping
while she looked pleadingly at me
as if to say, "pray for me, give me freedom,"

and he whispered again to the woman in embrace,
"Don't let him pass without the words"
I stood motionless while, at this,
the woman dropped embrace
and the wing flew out against the rock,
a wing like steel bars, locked out the tunnel.

It was then my hairs erected on all parts of my body.
My penis, my stomach, my heart throbbed
without control, I was enslaved.

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): "Between a rock and a hard place..." (October 5, 1986), from Collected Poems (2013)

Ramapo state forest trail 040 | by daniel sanijoa

Ramapo state forest trail 040 [Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey]: photo by dan Kong, 9 January 2014

Ramapo state forest trail 040 | by daniel sanijoa

Ramapo state forest trail 040 [Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey]: photo by dan Kong, 9 January 2014

Ramapo state forest trail 040 | by daniel sanijoa

Ramapo state forest trail 040 [Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey]: photo by dan Kong, 9 January 2014

File:2013-05-12 12 30 47 Zoomed view of a Hawthorne along the Wanaque Ridge Trail on the Indian Point Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.jpg

Hawthorne along the Wanaque Ridge Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

File:2013-05-12 12 46 56 Stream along the Wanaque Ridge Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.JPG

Stream along the Wanaque Ridge Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

File:2013-05-12 12 46 27 Stream along the Wanaque Ridge Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.JPG

Stream along the MacEvoy Trail where it crosses a small stream in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

File:2013-05-12 10 19 37 View up the MacEvoy Trail where it crosses a small stream in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.jpg

View up the MacEvoy Trail where it crosses a small stream in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

File:2013-05-12 10 14 12 Rocky stream along the MacEvoy Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.JPG

Rocky stream along the MacEvoy Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

File:2013-05-12 15 09 39 Stream along the MacEvoy Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest in New Jersey.jpg

Stream along the MacEvoy Trail in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

File:2013-05-12 15 13 19 View up the rocky stream along the MacEvoy Trail at around 430 feet in Ramapo Mountain State Forest.jpg

 View up the rocky stream along the MacEvoy Trail at around 430 feet in Ramapo Mountain State Forest, New Jersey: photo by Famartin, 12 May 2013

Ice Cave | by Dave NY

The Ice Cave [Sterlington, Ramapo, N.Y.]: photo by Dave NY, 8 April 2007

Ice Cave | by Dave NY

The Ice Cave [Sterlington, Ramapo, N.Y.]: photo by Dave NY, 8 April 2007

Ice Cave | by Dave NY

The Ice Cave [Sterlington, Ramapo, N.Y.]: photo by Dave NY, 8 April 2007
 

Is the #Ramapo Fault waking up? M5.1 #earthquake downgraded to M4.1 quake felt from New York City to Baltimore via @StrangeSounds: image via Strange Sounds @Strange_Sounds, 30 November 2017

Meditation at the Pink Panther Haircut Saloon

Untitled | by koushiksinharoy1

Untitled  | Kolkata, 2018: photo by Koushik Sinha Roy, 20 May 2018

Untitled | by koushiksinharoy1

Untitled  | Kolkata, 2018: photo by Koushik Sinha Roy, 20 May 2018
 
Untitled | by koushiksinharoy1
 Untitled  | Kolkata, 2018: photo by Koushik Sinha Roy, 20 May 2018

Hollywood Boulevard | by ADMurr

**** | by Valeria Tofanelli

**** | by Valeria Tofanelli


**** | by Valeria Tofanelli

#05. Sisyphus. | by tetyanabunyak

Kiss | by Jeffrey De Keyser

Untitled | by - STUART PATON -

Untitled [Milan]: photo by STUART PATON, 26 April 2018

Untitled | by - STUART PATON -

Untitled [Milan]: photo by STUART PATON, 26 April 2018

Untitled | by - STUART PATON -

Untitled [Milan]: photo by STUART PATON, 26 April 2018

Untitled | by lisztchang.com

Untitled: photo by Liszt Chang, 21 May 2018

Untitled | by lisztchang.com

Untitled: photo by Liszt Chang, 21 May 2018

Untitled | by lisztchang.com

Untitled: photo by Liszt Chang, 21 May 2018

Untitled | by el zopilote

 Portland, Oregon: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, 30 May 2011

Untitled | by el zopilote 
  
Portland, Oregon: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, 30 May 2011
 Untitled | by el zopilote

Portland, Oregon: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, 30 May 2011

1 comment:

TC said...

Top shot, part #2 [Kolkata, Koushik Sinha Roy]:

C'est le beau symbole du grand dieu RAMAPO