My reading of my found poem Exorcism about the My Lai massacre for Unlikely Stories in Portland, Oregon March 27 during AWP 19.
READING OF EXORCISM (FOUND POEM)
Showing posts with label Vietnam War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam War. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2019
Sunday, March 24, 2019
EXORCISM (FOUND POEM)
Adapted from “Group Dynamics,” People of the Lie─The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck.
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
Consecration: On the morning of March 16, 1968
Elements of Task Force Barker
Charlie Company Task Force Barker
Moved into a small group of hamlets
In the Quang Ngai province of South Vietnam
Collectively known as My Lai
Elements of Task Force Barker
Charlie Company Task Force Barker
Moved into a small group of hamlets
In the Quang Ngai province of South Vietnam
Collectively known as My Lai
It was a routine mission
To search and destroy
A typical mission
To search and destroy
To search and destroy
A typical mission
To search and destroy
The soldiers were poorly trained and hastily assembled
They were tired, poorly trained, and hastily assembled
They had sustained casualties from booby traps and mines
They had not engaged the enemy but sustained casualties
Had had no military success for over a month
The soldiers were poorly trained
They were tired, poorly trained, and hastily assembled
They had sustained casualties from booby traps and mines
They had not engaged the enemy but sustained casualties
Had had no military success for over a month
The soldiers were poorly trained
The soldiers were probably not aware of the Geneva Convention
Which states it is a war crime to kill a civilian
A punishable crime to kill a civilian
To kill a soldier or enemy who has surrendered
Who is wounded and has laid down his arms
To kill a non-combatant
Which states it is a war crime to kill a civilian
A punishable crime to kill a civilian
To kill a soldier or enemy who has surrendered
Who is wounded and has laid down his arms
To kill a non-combatant
They were probably not aware of the Law of Land Warfare
In the Army Field Manual, the U.S. Army Field Manual
Which specifies that orders in violation of the Geneva Convention
Any order in violation of the Geneva Convention
Is illegal and not to be obeyed
In the Army Field Manual, the U.S. Army Field Manual
Which specifies that orders in violation of the Geneva Convention
Any order in violation of the Geneva Convention
Is illegal and not to be obeyed
The soldiers were poorly trained
The written orders were ambiguous
The My Lai orders were ambiguous
Just waste the place, a Louie said
A Louie might have said
The My Lai orders were ambiguous
Just waste the place, a Louie said
A Louie might have said
Though essentially all elements of Task Force Barker
Were involved in some way in the My Lai operation
The primary element of ground troop involved
Was C Company 1st Battalion of the 20th infantry
Of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade
Were involved in some way in the My Lai operation
The primary element of ground troop involved
Was C Company 1st Battalion of the 20th infantry
Of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade
When Charlie Company moved into the hamlets of My Lai
They found no combatants not a single combatant
Only old men and children, unarmed women, men, and children
All civilian and unarmed
They found no combatants not a single combatant
Only old men and children, unarmed women, men, and children
All civilian and unarmed
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
Civilians on that day
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
Civilians on that day
The killings took a long time
The people were killed in a variety of ways
In some instances troops would simply stand at a hut
And spray it with fire or throw hand grenades
In other instances villagers including small children
Were shot as they attempted to escape
In some instances troops would simply stand at a hut
And spray it with fire or throw hand grenades
In other instances villagers including small children
Were shot as they attempted to escape
The killings took a long time
The most largescale killings occurred at My Lai 4
There the first platoon of Charlie Company
Commanded by Lieutenant Calley
Herded villagers into groups of twenty or more
Who were then shot down by rifle fire
Machine guns and hand grenades
There the first platoon of Charlie Company
Commanded by Lieutenant Calley
Herded villagers into groups of twenty or more
Who were then shot down by rifle fire
Machine guns and hand grenades
The killings took a long time
The number of soldiers can only be estimated
Perhaps only fifty actually killed the civilians
Perhaps just two hundred watched them shoot the civilians
Only just some two hundred directly witnessed the killings
By the end of the massacre approximately 500
Knew of operation My Lai
Perhaps only fifty actually killed the civilians
Perhaps just two hundred watched them shoot the civilians
Only just some two hundred directly witnessed the killings
By the end of the massacre approximately 500
Knew of operation My Lai
None of them reported the crimes
A helicopter pilot in flyby to the mission
A warrant officer in air support in flyby to the mission
Could see from the air what was happening in the hamlets
He landed, tried to talk to the troops on the ground
Then went airborne and radioed headquarters from his copter
Told his superior officers what he saw at My Lai
They did not seem concerned
A warrant officer in air support in flyby to the mission
Could see from the air what was happening in the hamlets
He landed, tried to talk to the troops on the ground
Then went airborne and radioed headquarters from his copter
Told his superior officers what he saw at My Lai
They did not seem concerned
The soldiers were poorly trained
Lieutenant Calley was convicted
For his crimes at My Lai 4
But not his Captain Medina
His superior officer
Not Lieutenant Colonel Barker
Who Commanded Task Force Barker
Nor Lieutenant Barker’s com
Who said,
Boys let’s bring that coonskin home…
For his crimes at My Lai 4
But not his Captain Medina
His superior officer
Not Lieutenant Colonel Barker
Who Commanded Task Force Barker
Nor Lieutenant Barker’s com
Who said,
Boys let’s bring that coonskin home…
In Iowa in ’66 a boy gets into trouble
Sells some pot and gets himself caught
And he gets himself in trouble
And the judge says join the Army
Or you’re going to do some hard time
The boy signs up for Nam
Sells some pot and gets himself caught
And he gets himself in trouble
And the judge says join the Army
Or you’re going to do some hard time
The boy signs up for Nam
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground.
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground.
Sunday, June 05, 2016
Exorcism (Found Poem about My Lai)
Adapted from F. Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.
Exorcism (Found Poem)
Exorcism (Found Poem)
Monday, August 04, 2014
Exorcism (Found Poem)
Adapted from “Group Dynamics,” People of the Lie─The Hope for Healing Human Evil by M. Scott Peck, and “The Forging of the Malevolent Personality” in Speaking with the Devil by Carl Goldberg. From the CD Exorcism by Larissa Shmailo
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
Consecration: On the morning of March 16, 1968
Elements of Task Force Barker
Charlie Company Task Force Barker
Moved into a small group of hamlets
In the Quang Ngai province of South Vietnam
Collectively known as My Lai
It was a routine mission
To search and destroy
A typical mission
To search and destroy
The soldiers were poorly trained and hastily assembled
They were tired, poorly trained, and hastily assembled
They had sustained casualties from booby traps and mines
They had not engaged the enemy but sustained casualties
Had had no military success for over a month
The soldiers were poorly trained.
The soldiers were probably not aware of the Geneva Convention
Which states it is a war crime to kill a civilian
A punishable crime to kill a civilian
To kill a soldier or enemy who has surrendered
Who is wounded and has laid down his arms
To kill a noncombatant
They were probably not aware of the Law of Land Warfare
In the Army Field Manual, the U.S. Army Field Manual
Which specifies that orders in violation of the Geneva Convention
Any order in violation of the Geneva Convention
Is illegal and not to be obeyed
The soldiers were poorly trained
The written orders were ambiguous
The My Lai orders were ambiguous
Just waste the place, a Louie said
A Louie might have said
Though essentially all elements of Task Force Barker
Were involved in some way in the My Lai operation
The primary element of ground troop involved
Was C Company 1st Battalion of the 20th infantry
Of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade
When Charlie Company moved into the hamlets of My Lai
They found no combatants not a single combatant
Only old men and children, unarmed women, men, and children
All civilian and unarmed
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
Civilians on that day
The killings took a long time
The people were killed in a variety of ways
In some instances troops would simply stand at a hut
And spray it with fire or throw hand grenades
In other instances villagers including small children
Were shot as they attempted to escape
The killings took a long time
The most large scale killings occurred at My Lai 4
There the first platoon of Charlie Company
Commanded by Lieutenant Calley
Herded villagers into groups of twenty or more
Who were then shot down by rifle fire
Machine guns and hand grenades
The killings took a long time
The number of soldiers can only be estimated
Perhaps only fifty actually killed the civilians
Perhaps just two hundred watched them shoot the civilians
Only just some two hundred directly witnessed the killings
By the end of the massacre approximately 500
Knew of operation My Lai
None of them reported the crimes
A helicopter pilot in flyby to the mission
A warrant officer in air support in flyby to the mission
Could see from the air what was happening in the hamlets
He landed, tried to talk to the troops on the ground
Then went airborne and radioed headquarters from his copter
Told his superior officers what he saw at My Lai They did not seem concerned
The soldiers were poorly trained
When a panel was convened
Four years later to investigate
The events at My Lai
They inquired if this atrocity
Was similar or different
From other war crimes
Which had occurred
In this and other American wars
They noted that no study
Had ever been made
Of any war crimes or atrocities
Committed by Americans at war
And requested that a study
Of the subject might be made
The panel was told that the current administration
At the time would be embarrassed by the findings of the panel
And that further studies or embarrassment
That might ensue from such a study
Was inadvisable at the time
Lieutenant Calley was convicted
For his crimes at My Lai 4
But not his Captain Medina
His superior officer
Not Lieutenant Colonel Barker
Who Commanded Task Force Barker
Nor Lieutenant Barker’s com
Who said,
Boys let’s bring that coonskin home….
In Serbia a woman calls her youngest son now to her
She tells him to sit down she will now explain to him
Why his father has seemed cold harsh and cruel to him sometimes
She tells him of his life
When his father was a young boy at the time of the World War
He was captured by the Germans under guard at the railroad
He watched unarmed men and women emerge slowly from a boxcar
At the head of the ramp was a strong commanding figure
An SS man in the black uniform of the SS Medical Corp
He is singing Meistersinger as the people search for loved ones
For their children and their parents
German soldiers beat the people
As they run before the guns the SS officer shouts In a commanding baritone voice
“Freeze. Listen. Do as I say.”
One very old man perhaps eighty years old
A scholarly old man who has fallen to the ground
His clothes are caked with mud and his eyeglasses are askew
A woman crawls up next to him as if she knew him well
He turns to her and says, “God. . . .perhaps the man. . .
In the black uniform. . .the imposing man in the black uniform,
Maybe they sent him to save us?”
The officer is singing as he points to the left
To the right and the left
And the prisoners are herded to the gates of a camp
And the young Yugoslav watched the people as they marched
As they hurried to the camps where they would die
And the mother turned around and she said to her son
In a voice he’d never heard his mother use to him before
She said your father learned that day what I will tell you right now
“It is better to be a Nazi and survive
It is better to be a Nazi and survive
It is better to be a Nazi and survive
Than one of those people so helpless and naïve
That they have no choice but to pray to their God
That the Nazis will save them from harm.”
The boy he was well-trained.
In Iowa in ’66 a boy gets into trouble
Sells some pot and gets himself caught
And he gets himself in trouble
And the judge says join the Army
Or you’re going to do some hard time
The boy signs up for Nam
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground I stand on holy ground I stand on holy ground I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
Consecration: On the morning of March 16, 1968
Elements of Task Force Barker
Charlie Company Task Force Barker
Moved into a small group of hamlets
In the Quang Ngai province of South Vietnam
Collectively known as My Lai
It was a routine mission
To search and destroy
A typical mission
To search and destroy
The soldiers were poorly trained and hastily assembled
They were tired, poorly trained, and hastily assembled
They had sustained casualties from booby traps and mines
They had not engaged the enemy but sustained casualties
Had had no military success for over a month
The soldiers were poorly trained.
The soldiers were probably not aware of the Geneva Convention
Which states it is a war crime to kill a civilian
A punishable crime to kill a civilian
To kill a soldier or enemy who has surrendered
Who is wounded and has laid down his arms
To kill a noncombatant
They were probably not aware of the Law of Land Warfare
In the Army Field Manual, the U.S. Army Field Manual
Which specifies that orders in violation of the Geneva Convention
Any order in violation of the Geneva Convention
Is illegal and not to be obeyed
The soldiers were poorly trained
The written orders were ambiguous
The My Lai orders were ambiguous
Just waste the place, a Louie said
A Louie might have said
Though essentially all elements of Task Force Barker
Were involved in some way in the My Lai operation
The primary element of ground troop involved
Was C Company 1st Battalion of the 20th infantry
Of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade
When Charlie Company moved into the hamlets of My Lai
They found no combatants not a single combatant
Only old men and children, unarmed women, men, and children
All civilian and unarmed
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
The troops of C Company killed five to six hundred
Civilians on that day
The killings took a long time
The people were killed in a variety of ways
In some instances troops would simply stand at a hut
And spray it with fire or throw hand grenades
In other instances villagers including small children
Were shot as they attempted to escape
The killings took a long time
The most large scale killings occurred at My Lai 4
There the first platoon of Charlie Company
Commanded by Lieutenant Calley
Herded villagers into groups of twenty or more
Who were then shot down by rifle fire
Machine guns and hand grenades
The killings took a long time
The number of soldiers can only be estimated
Perhaps only fifty actually killed the civilians
Perhaps just two hundred watched them shoot the civilians
Only just some two hundred directly witnessed the killings
By the end of the massacre approximately 500
Knew of operation My Lai
None of them reported the crimes
A helicopter pilot in flyby to the mission
A warrant officer in air support in flyby to the mission
Could see from the air what was happening in the hamlets
He landed, tried to talk to the troops on the ground
Then went airborne and radioed headquarters from his copter
Told his superior officers what he saw at My Lai They did not seem concerned
The soldiers were poorly trained
When a panel was convened
Four years later to investigate
The events at My Lai
They inquired if this atrocity
Was similar or different
From other war crimes
Which had occurred
In this and other American wars
They noted that no study
Had ever been made
Of any war crimes or atrocities
Committed by Americans at war
And requested that a study
Of the subject might be made
The panel was told that the current administration
At the time would be embarrassed by the findings of the panel
And that further studies or embarrassment
That might ensue from such a study
Was inadvisable at the time
Lieutenant Calley was convicted
For his crimes at My Lai 4
But not his Captain Medina
His superior officer
Not Lieutenant Colonel Barker
Who Commanded Task Force Barker
Nor Lieutenant Barker’s com
Who said,
Boys let’s bring that coonskin home….
In Serbia a woman calls her youngest son now to her
She tells him to sit down she will now explain to him
Why his father has seemed cold harsh and cruel to him sometimes
She tells him of his life
When his father was a young boy at the time of the World War
He was captured by the Germans under guard at the railroad
He watched unarmed men and women emerge slowly from a boxcar
At the head of the ramp was a strong commanding figure
An SS man in the black uniform of the SS Medical Corp
He is singing Meistersinger as the people search for loved ones
For their children and their parents
German soldiers beat the people
As they run before the guns the SS officer shouts In a commanding baritone voice
“Freeze. Listen. Do as I say.”
One very old man perhaps eighty years old
A scholarly old man who has fallen to the ground
His clothes are caked with mud and his eyeglasses are askew
A woman crawls up next to him as if she knew him well
He turns to her and says, “God. . . .perhaps the man. . .
In the black uniform. . .the imposing man in the black uniform,
Maybe they sent him to save us?”
The officer is singing as he points to the left
To the right and the left
And the prisoners are herded to the gates of a camp
And the young Yugoslav watched the people as they marched
As they hurried to the camps where they would die
And the mother turned around and she said to her son
In a voice he’d never heard his mother use to him before
She said your father learned that day what I will tell you right now
“It is better to be a Nazi and survive
It is better to be a Nazi and survive
It is better to be a Nazi and survive
Than one of those people so helpless and naïve
That they have no choice but to pray to their God
That the Nazis will save them from harm.”
The boy he was well-trained.
In Iowa in ’66 a boy gets into trouble
Sells some pot and gets himself caught
And he gets himself in trouble
And the judge says join the Army
Or you’re going to do some hard time
The boy signs up for Nam
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground
I stand on holy ground I stand on holy ground I stand on holy ground I stand on holy ground
Saturday, February 23, 2013
"I Stand on Holy Ground": Chant for My Lai, Exorcism, on Indiefeed Performance Poetry
The title track of my CD Exorcism, a found poem about the My Lai massacre, is up at Indiedeed Performance Poetry:
http://indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/larissa-shmailo-exorcism-found-poem
You can buy the track or the CD or read reviews at CDBaby.com at:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/shmailo2
or on Spotify, Rhapsody, iTunes, or Amazon.
Album Notes
\"In a sea of mimics, this poet is an original voice.\" ---Doug Holder, Ibbetson Street Press
\"Shmailo reads with so much intensity, intonation, energy, in velvety and sensual voice, that to not hear this would be a missed experience....Shmailo is intense. She can shock, she can tickle, she can entrance. Shmailo poetizes devils with the same skill as she weaves words around God and Magdalene. Her poetry is as lushly sensual as it is cutting to the bone. This is about love and pain, birth and rebirth, fields of magnolias, and surviving the Warsaw ghetto... The slap of shock is appropriate. This is not merely strong performance, it is also strong in substance.\"---Zinta Aistars, The Smoking Poet
\"Larissa Shmailo does not think small. On Exorcism, she is trying to do nothing less than exorcise the demons of human evil...While this is the overarching theme of the Exorcism (and it is, for the most part, a powerful and effective theme), it is not all that is going on on this CD. There are a number of individually powerful poems here, such as “The Gospel According to Magdalene,” “Bloom,” and “Abortion Hallucination.” They all fit, some tightly, some loosely, into the larger theme, but also stand well on their own.
---G. Murray Thomas, Poetix
\"The whole CD digs...bringing forth fiery, unorthodox, visceral imagery of the Devil and Magdalena, lovers and torturers and survivors. [Shmailo] crafts breath, rhythm, and rhyme, with a relaxed and dancerly demeanor and natural authority. Highly recommended.\" ---Anne Elliott, Ass Backwords
\"Exorcism, Larissa Shmailo\'s second poetry CD, displays the remarkable range and electrifying vitality that have won her admirers worldwide. Following fast on the release of The No-Net World, Larissa Shmailo returns to her deepest poetic origins, and from there, reveals an ascendancy that will mystify and astound.
Begin your Exorcism. Take hold of the promise in “Vow.” It’s yours. It asks you to join the “people who fought and won” in “Warsaw Ghetto,” where you’ll find your singing strength. The witty and defiant “Dancing with the Devil” leads you to learn “How to Meet and Dance with Your Death.” This fiery and original narrative is fit only for real explorers. Heed the admonitions to avert unnecessary demons, see the sweaty face of your own Reaper, and know \"after that, you will never fear him again, nor seek him.\" The hauntingly seductive puissance in “He follows her . . .” yields to a caboodle of ghosts surveying a ghostly city in Shmailo’s sparkling translation of “Dante” by Anna Ahkmatova.
As illusions of death wane, you will feel the pleasure and pain of “My First Hurricane.” Then get “Personal” with longing for knowledge of the beloved. Power returns in the gorgeous “The Gospel According to Magdalene,” a manifesto of might, whose structural elements are slyly subverted by sampling. Get under the tongue-in-cheek “Skin,” a grunge hymn, and emerge somewhere on “Catawissa Road,” where a skewering Penelope grudgingly meshes with a mad Odysseus. Overcome distaste for arid wastes when “Ayah” asks why a surplus of sand covers everything bland.
The still center is “Bhakti,” Shmailo’s homage to tenth-century mystic poet Mahadevi-Akka, who worshiped the \"Lord White as Jasmine,\" a destroyer of illusions who offers salvation repeatedly, from world to world. The savage art song, “Bloom” invokes Colette, Sand, and James Joyce and the lives of working women throughout the ages.
You may be well schooled by the “Rules of Reflection,” yet there are perils ahead. This is, after all, an exorcism. A demonic maternal phantasmagoria scolds in “At the Top of My Lungs,” twisting its enigmatic wreath of fears and death. But hold your tears—and your breath—for “Abortion Hallucination,” a lyric hell of loss and blackest light. Survive its strife. Let “New Life 2” bring you back to life. Shmailo’s imaginative and noetic variation on a theme by Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky sifts for signification in catastrophe, inspired by escaping the great trapping fire of war. For more to scale, there’s “Mapping” and, with urbane wit, finding “a use for all that doesn’t fit.”
Engage interior doom and sacred terrain in “Exorcism,” a syncretic chant, part found-poem, part puzzle, part indictment, and part prayer for social justice. If you want, you can fly full circle to “Vow.” Play that first track again, and you have drawn a perfect circle—that hardest of artist’s tasks—accomplished by this poet of intense musical, imaginative, and thematic variety. Possess yourself. Repeat as needed. You stand on holy ground.\" - Eric Yost
http://indiefeedpp.libsyn.com/larissa-shmailo-exorcism-found-poem
You can buy the track or the CD or read reviews at CDBaby.com at:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/shmailo2
or on Spotify, Rhapsody, iTunes, or Amazon.
Album Notes
\"Shmailo reads with so much intensity, intonation, energy, in velvety and sensual voice, that to not hear this would be a missed experience....Shmailo is intense. She can shock, she can tickle, she can entrance. Shmailo poetizes devils with the same skill as she weaves words around God and Magdalene. Her poetry is as lushly sensual as it is cutting to the bone. This is about love and pain, birth and rebirth, fields of magnolias, and surviving the Warsaw ghetto... The slap of shock is appropriate. This is not merely strong performance, it is also strong in substance.\"---Zinta Aistars, The Smoking Poet
\"Larissa Shmailo does not think small. On Exorcism, she is trying to do nothing less than exorcise the demons of human evil...While this is the overarching theme of the Exorcism (and it is, for the most part, a powerful and effective theme), it is not all that is going on on this CD. There are a number of individually powerful poems here, such as “The Gospel According to Magdalene,” “Bloom,” and “Abortion Hallucination.” They all fit, some tightly, some loosely, into the larger theme, but also stand well on their own.
---G. Murray Thomas, Poetix
\"The whole CD digs...bringing forth fiery, unorthodox, visceral imagery of the Devil and Magdalena, lovers and torturers and survivors. [Shmailo] crafts breath, rhythm, and rhyme, with a relaxed and dancerly demeanor and natural authority. Highly recommended.\" ---Anne Elliott, Ass Backwords
\"Exorcism, Larissa Shmailo\'s second poetry CD, displays the remarkable range and electrifying vitality that have won her admirers worldwide. Following fast on the release of The No-Net World, Larissa Shmailo returns to her deepest poetic origins, and from there, reveals an ascendancy that will mystify and astound.
Begin your Exorcism. Take hold of the promise in “Vow.” It’s yours. It asks you to join the “people who fought and won” in “Warsaw Ghetto,” where you’ll find your singing strength. The witty and defiant “Dancing with the Devil” leads you to learn “How to Meet and Dance with Your Death.” This fiery and original narrative is fit only for real explorers. Heed the admonitions to avert unnecessary demons, see the sweaty face of your own Reaper, and know \"after that, you will never fear him again, nor seek him.\" The hauntingly seductive puissance in “He follows her . . .” yields to a caboodle of ghosts surveying a ghostly city in Shmailo’s sparkling translation of “Dante” by Anna Ahkmatova.
As illusions of death wane, you will feel the pleasure and pain of “My First Hurricane.” Then get “Personal” with longing for knowledge of the beloved. Power returns in the gorgeous “The Gospel According to Magdalene,” a manifesto of might, whose structural elements are slyly subverted by sampling. Get under the tongue-in-cheek “Skin,” a grunge hymn, and emerge somewhere on “Catawissa Road,” where a skewering Penelope grudgingly meshes with a mad Odysseus. Overcome distaste for arid wastes when “Ayah” asks why a surplus of sand covers everything bland.
The still center is “Bhakti,” Shmailo’s homage to tenth-century mystic poet Mahadevi-Akka, who worshiped the \"Lord White as Jasmine,\" a destroyer of illusions who offers salvation repeatedly, from world to world. The savage art song, “Bloom” invokes Colette, Sand, and James Joyce and the lives of working women throughout the ages.
You may be well schooled by the “Rules of Reflection,” yet there are perils ahead. This is, after all, an exorcism. A demonic maternal phantasmagoria scolds in “At the Top of My Lungs,” twisting its enigmatic wreath of fears and death. But hold your tears—and your breath—for “Abortion Hallucination,” a lyric hell of loss and blackest light. Survive its strife. Let “New Life 2” bring you back to life. Shmailo’s imaginative and noetic variation on a theme by Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky sifts for signification in catastrophe, inspired by escaping the great trapping fire of war. For more to scale, there’s “Mapping” and, with urbane wit, finding “a use for all that doesn’t fit.”
Engage interior doom and sacred terrain in “Exorcism,” a syncretic chant, part found-poem, part puzzle, part indictment, and part prayer for social justice. If you want, you can fly full circle to “Vow.” Play that first track again, and you have drawn a perfect circle—that hardest of artist’s tasks—accomplished by this poet of intense musical, imaginative, and thematic variety. Possess yourself. Repeat as needed. You stand on holy ground.\" - Eric Yost
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