The American Holiday Known As Thanksgiving

I never knew that it was the woman who wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb", Sarah Josepha Hale, who campaigned to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Or, as the wikipedia elegantly puts it: "She famously campaigned for the creation of the American holiday known as Thanksgiving." I love the stiff prose of wikiworld. Hale was also an advocate for eating the American bird known as turkey. Turkeys are found in the American continent known as North America. Here's your wikipedia history lesson of the day:

Hale is credited as the individual most responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday in the United States; it had previously been celebrated only in New England. Each state scheduled its own holiday, some as early as October and others as late as January; it was largely unknown in the American South. Her advocacy for the national holiday began in 1846 and lasted 17 years before it was successful. In support of the proposed national holiday, she wrote letters to five Presidents of the United States -- Zachary Taylor, Millard Filmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Abraham Lincoln. Her initial letters failed to persuade, but the letter she wrote to Lincoln did convince him to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863.

Impressive. What a legacy! Both "Mary Had a Little Lamb" & Thanksgiving? That's like being credited with creating both smiles & kittens. I need to start writing repeated letters to as many presidents as possible to advocate for McGonagall Supper to become official. (McGonagall Supper is a dinner in honor of bad poetry held on September 29th, the day William McGonagall, the English language's worst poet, died. Mark your calendars! Write to your representative!) In the meantime, happy thanksgiving, & I leave you with the subtly secular Walt Whitman quote I read as our prayer before our family's thanksgiving dinner every year:

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are.

-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road (1892)

Illuminations: Emanation Prayer

Good Morning, again. Here is the fifth illumination for the five-part series of poems Five Prayers, "Emanation Prayer". The original text of this poem was posted here. Click on the images to read the poetry full screen. When we're all done, the entire thing will be included in the updated version of Prophecy & Doggerel, as well as get its own Scribd book! Others of this 'Prayer' poetry, including the illuminations for the Seven Prayers, can be found if you peruse around itwaslost's Department of Prayers. I hope everything's going okay on your end as well.

Illuminations: Evacuate the Species Prayer

The fourth illumination of the Five Prayers, "Evacuate the Species", the text of which was originally posted here. Click on the images to read the poetry full screen. When we're all done, the entire thing will be included in the updated version of Prophecy & Doggerel, as well as get its own $1 Scribd book! Others of this 'Prayer' poetry, including the illuminations for the Seven Prayers, can be found if you peruse around itwaslost's Department of Prayers. Thank you & Gesundheit!

Illuminations: Special Agent Francis' Prayer

Welcome back to our Five Prayers poetry series illuminations. The original text for this poem was here. More from our Department of Prayers. Click on those images to read them larger. The "Five Prayers" will all be included in Prophecy & Doggerel anon. And with mammals drink lilac wine...

Illuminations: Fancy Asian Prayer

The second prayer from the illuminated book Five Prayers. Click on the images to read it larger. Part One, Emancipation Prayer was posted here. The original poem's text for Fancy Asian Prayer was posted here. It will appear soon as a scribd book & will be included in Prophecy & Doggerel. More of this from in the past & into the future at itwaslost's Department of Prayers.

Illuminations: Emancipation Prayer

Our illuminations for Five Prayers is almost complete, & it was be up as a Scribd book soon. Here's the first poem, "Emancipation Prayer" - the original text, written near Varna, was posted here. All of the prayer poems, including the illuminations for the first series, Seven Prayers, are here. (If it's too small to read, try clicking on the image.)

Palinode to the Five Prayers

Those five prayer poems are a set, which together will form a short illuminated book called Five Prayers. We're working on that a bit today. There's also a palinode at the end:

Palinode to the Five Prayers

The sun has been set free,
Then the poor are fed with honey cream,
And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily,
Like a pocket of railway steam,
The sun & me, booty-hunters on a merry sea.

Emanation Prayer

(this poem is called "Ejaculation Prayer" in the book Five Prayers)

The sun & me, booty-hunters on a merry sea, & finally free,
No longer solitarily
Smoking on the Jolly Roger, pacing the fo'c's'le & surveying the expansive galaxy.
Together alone, with Henry Waxman as our sugary daddy,
Whale-riding carelessly,
Pale faces smiling gladly,
We're on a motherloving boat, sailing towards an infinite holiday.

The sun & me, booty-hunters on a merry sea, winner of hell's lotteries,
Which we spent all at once.
When he was an infant, his nurse thought his father wanted him signed up for infant pilates,
Now the sun's a pirate's apprentice, tennis on the poop deck, love letters in the furnace,
Victims of tasteless puns,
The seven seas' dreadful menace:
Now the sun's a dreadful awe-shocking uncircumcised terror, liberated as the houris.

The sun & me, booty-hunters on a merry sea, the new Jerusalem
Comes down wearily,
Norma Jean left behind in Damascus, like slaves in rhythm to the kettle-drum,
James Dean stoned to death by Thracians, & woship him that made the heavens, the earths, & the seas.
Not necessarily,
Stage seven, from births to disease,
The mansion is also a hospital & sanitarium, please pray we remembered our keys.

The sun & me, booty-hunters on a merry sea, boiling the five oceans,
Deforesting the coral,
What are you? a liquid dream, a cocktail, or one of Professor Snape's potions?
What are you? our human marriage is like a roofie slipped in Lake Baikal
With its own fecal moral.
What are you? I recall
That you were the Jonah with a peace-pipe blow-hole, I seem to recall.

The sun & me, booty-hunters on a merry sea, rest your goose nipples,
Children, & go to bed.
The sun & me, we believe in treasure, we believe our ship's wake is Jesus Christ's ripples.
We will eat insects. We will wear linen bonnets upon our heads.
And never departed,
With myrrh & incense,
Children, & dream of the future of money, sail to space from your beds.

Evacuate the Species Prayer

Like a pocket of railway steam in the morning, let us come home,
And eat lettuces & pontificate.
Free your televisions from their cages, let them out to be free to roam,
Let them play Jack Benny's violin, let them eat your grandmother's famous baked ziti,
And eat cabbages & recreate.
Can we ride this train towards Salt Lake City,
Or pay for it with pocket change or redecorate the White House with graffiti?

Like a pocket of railway steam up your nose, I suppose,
Orientalled & occidentalled,
I would dress up like a hero to rescue you, tight pants over my pantyhose,
Flying over Brooklyn like Whitman or Hart Crane the hobo,
Cemented like they were entitled,
Accolade the empty air bestow,
Don't you know the off-tracks, the lost train & stony loco-voodoo blow.

Like a pocket of railway steam, bespectacled westward,
Myopic but not nearsighted,
But some men take their railway liquor to the buffalo herd,
But some men sew a pocket below the hole in their pocket:
The rubber trees blighted,
Ediford's automobulb in its socket,
And boom. But some men take their troubles up in a crayfish rocket.

Like a pocket of railway steam at tea, let it be me
Who eats the spinaches,
Let us drink Hennessy thru Tennessee & set free our shackled teevee,
Open tributaries, meal to meal I'm skinnier & full of honey,
Until the minstrel finishes,
And out drops funny money,
Open tributaries of the great river, crossed & cross-eyed as Christ's Easter Bunny.

Like a pocket of railway steam, evacuate the species,
Take it all to Californo,
Exploring empty empathy toward yuppies & the doomed humble-bees,
Take these leafs out of the busted refrigerator car, make a giant salad by the side of the tracks,
Trade it for Hart Crane's porno,
Replace what the planet lacks
With girded iron & 1980's pop, & gird up for when the mothership attacks.

other poems in the prayer series.

Special Agent Francis' Prayer

Composed at the oriental cafe in Bucharest, July 2009

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily, as Special Agent Francis knows,
And the sea goddesses don't know,
And he eructates on the verandah, as disposable as his roast beef toes,
Before he's dislocated, like one of his talking animals,
I snogged him in the gazebo.
And we snogged wearing pajanimals--,
And if I wasn't indispensable, as much gum cancer as you can handle.

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily, if you can believe it,
Nor without the yellow blackbird,
Neither wear your cap crookedly unless you see fit.
Special Agent Francis hears our fates clearly in our coffee grounds.
He's heard the opiated herd
Has become Trieste's hellhounds,
Unlimited & undistinguishable--, grant him peace to hear his gladly solemn sounds.

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily, or without nutella banana crepes,
And Special Agent Francis:
He was a silent lover I stole silently from Miss Lousera Comasquerapes.
Dirty mermaids from the Black Sea, like poop droppings from a Hoopoe,
Silent my agent prances,
Like sirens don't know,
Today if not only yesterday Francis promises at deepest a furlough.

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily, pray for war.
His elephant, my mosquito--,
His male elephant seal washing up dead on the shore, my prayer for nothing more--,
I have a dream of outfitting my whole family in white cotton.
Still I can't forgive his veto.
I don't regret his wet body rotten,
Rotting moistly, mostly unforgiven, choicely on the verandah & unforgotten.

And I will no longer smoke my hubbly-bubbly solitarily, rustically but alone but for the trepan
And the filthy sea goddesses.
Elle Mary has the bladder of an eighty-year-old man,
And I suspect already that we'll smoke this last one till the choking fine:
Mutated mammal kisses,
And with mammals drink lilac wine,
Like Special Agent Francis suspects the divine, & I'm still here as a dry Hoopoe unripe on the vine.

Fancy Asian Prayer

Composed near Varna, July 2009 (for M.P.)

Then the poor are fed with honey cream, & a time for war profiteers,
And escape from our system,
Six feet above a five-foot cloth, up to our ears in reindeer tears,
Up past our craniums in enriched uranium,
Way down past crystal Istanbul,
Down beyond the Jewish doughnut museum,
I found you chewing your cud & I found you dead as Antietam.

Then the poor are fed with honey cream, mixed with Chartreuse,
And more simple syrup.
Tell me, Mr Nixon, why don't we surrender before we lose?
Tell me, Mr Clinton, we know you're a sucker for toilet humor:
We know you're gay as a rancher's stirrup,
Away & forgotten, a dumpster rumor,
Or a freegan minstrel, then the poor are removed like the galaxy's tumor.

Then the poor are fed with honey cream, I'm just staring across
At the cross cleaving her buns, I can sit by the river & drink cappuccino & look lost:
Men patriotically stand up & sing the Greenlandic National Anthem:
"The way of matured civilizations
"It is our zealous goal to bring home."
I'll stay seated & drink slower & look like a lost phantom.

Then the poor are fed with honey cream, monstrously & atrociously silly,
Monstrously misinformed & dead wrong,
I'm just staring across at the pain in her belly,
At the lindens at daybreak & the wise men grown wiser,
Ask to shake a nation long,
Naughtily molested by a fossil incisor,
Ask politely to shake the dust of your flying carpet, ask her nicer.

Then the poor are fed with honey cream, stand up & sing,
The yellow wing will pay one day,
Ruminating past the farthest reach, orphans in the arms of the yellow wing,
Write down your history my friends, point with feeling & gesticulate,
And nothing will be okay,
You wait for the library's circular heriditate,
Learn the names on the gravestones, & be expelled & rusticated before it's too late.

Emancipation Prayer

Composed near Varna, July 2009

The sun has been set free of its bonds, dislodged from our system,
Like a unicorn,
Shorn of its horn, its body a weathered mule body,
Its sunny soul quick & mortal as the rest of them,
As worn out as the morn,
As worn out as the river is naughty,
Put bitumen on your bugbites & you'll never win the lottery.

The sun has been set free, chortle, old men you've been right since the beginning.
There'd be an end to this spinning,
Shorn of its gramma-knit sweater, without agony or pity,
The Secretary of Energy's combover is seen graying & thinning,
The city's belly is aching,
The meaty center of this meaty city,
Left behind & all the better for it, weaned from the moon's dried-up mammary.

The sun has been set free of its servitude, with newfound valiance,
There'll be a man in a Hawai'ian shirt,
His plastic ukulele as his weapon, his violin violence & his other talents
Deployed against the Four Horsemen of the Green Party.
The city is a terrific flirt,
The city is a worn-out sortie,
So I'll tattoo your secret borscht recipe onto my buttocks, to be read only glow-in-the-dark by the drunk sorority.

The sun has been set free from sin, set to skip town by local bus,
Like a mastodon,
The earliest Vaalbaran genocide, slippery steppes slimed with blood & pus,
The mess beneath the Poet Laureate's refrigerator,
The broke-down Matterhorn,
Or our slothful-ass Sicilian waiter
Will also be set free from sin sooner or later.

The sun has been free - rejoice, children, & go to bed--
Rest your weary noggins--
Bound to no man, no slave of minimum wage, free to set its own systems & cycles instead,
Free to gyrate, to vibrate, resist the urge to beat the dog when it's misbehaving.
Rest your goosebumps, pumpkins--
Get down your night chords & sing--
It left no note, it's gone with no farewell, no vodka shot & no flag-waving.

Sandrigon in Bulgarigon: ПОСЛЕДНАТА ГОСПОДНЯ МОЛИТВА ("Final Lord's Prayer"?)

Mr Anton Abadzhiev has struck again, translating one of S. Sandrigon's Seven Prayers - Jesus Prayer (pictured in illumination above.) He's already translated Song of Defecation, Report from the Dee, & there's rumor that a Saga of Jenny exists, which he wants to publish in an illuminated bilingual edition. I'm not sure when they'll actually get published in Култура, Искуство, Литература (Culture, Art, Literature), where he published Mr Quill's story, but they exist now on the internet:

ПОСЛЕДНАТА ГОСПОДНЯ МОЛИТВА

Вий се присмивате на мен, обични мои и мерзавци, за мойто екстатично боговерие?
Не ще откарате задълго след моето проклятие.
Че никой тирбушон не е чак толкоз къс и няма майка на издръжка тъй мързеливо
лицемерна.
Видях как произведен от цивилността моралът отива във канала и напуска сцената
Говоря сериозно – аз съм причината.
А вий сте долни гащи на вселената.
Така че, намалете малко, обични мои и мерзавци, че моят онколог хегелианец е, и
нямам капка настроение.
Молете се за мене бездиханно, че животински ток да тръкне по козината на сънливеца
и скъса туй болезнено спане.
Или поне налейте го с кафе.
Свети Августин не се реши да разруши покоя на историчните калугерки там,
в Покипси.
Но аз не съм изтънчен тип, уви, и каня се да разтреса една многовековна нация
С вибрации от баритон и бас
Дали е правдата във всичкото движение за нас?
Дали я има правдата в какво-било, освен в петрола и всички сквернословности?
Я, зарежи. Щом е готов не с люлчина песен човекът се буден държи. И изключи звъна
на телефона си.
В най-смелите фантазии аз вярвам, но не мисля, че Канада е готова за чернокожа
Президентка,
Освен сервирана със сос.
Добре ми е да разиграват масите, не вярвам на заемодавците, обичам да си плащам
рентата.
Ще ви помогна да излезете от усмирителната риза, дано не кажете , че съм говорил сам, под нос.
Ще превъзнасям
и без, и с Уитман кръста ще възславя,
а вие цялата си искреност вложете в молитвите за вече невидимото, но тая книга не забравяйте
без срам наред със другите на най-високата полица я поставяйте.

I don't know why he made "peace" in yellow? I took his Report from the Dee to a reading circle, & read both the original & the babelized. But with Bodily Purification & Final Lords, the re-translated google translation is too chaotic with too many untranslatable words to get anything solid. But there's a few beautiful moments in the re-re-translation:

...that my oncologist is Hegelian, and no drop of humor...

...Or at least draw him with coffee...

...But I am not sophisticated type, alas, and ask to shake a nation long
With the vibration of the baritone and bass
Is it righteousness in the movement for all of us?
Is it righteousness of what has-been, except oil and skvernoslovnosti?

...In most courageous fantasies I believe, but I do not think Canada is ready for black Prezidentka
Moreover served with sauce...

...Will help you exit the straitjacket, I hope not say that I talked myself under the nose...

...And you all put into their sincerity prayers already invisible, but this book does not forget without shame along with others at the highest policy put it.

Seven Prayers on Scribd

I've been working on an larger illuminated version of "Prophecy & Doggerel", a collection of all the rhyming poetry that has appeared on this website over the past few years, for the Vanity Presses. I'm trying to create a beautiful pdf file to put up on Scribd, illustrated with artwork from my friends, most of which was also posted sometime on itwaslost.org. To test this Scribd, I just put up our illuminated book "Seven Prayers", illustrated with Olaf Mary Mohammad & Cosmo Wernicky & some very ripe fruit, which will be included in "Prophecy & Doggerel". I recommend the little full-screen toggle button in the upper right-hand corner to see the book better. I'm impressed with the slickness of their pdf viewer. This shit will be downloadable to your fancy Amazon Kindle & soon iPhone book-reading capabilities & the FUTURE of BOOKS.

This document is available at Scribd here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15712186/Seven-Prayers-S-Sandrigon.
Look for Prophecy & Doggerel in the coming months! It'll be a grand masterpiece!

Seven Prayers is now FOR SALE. The cheapest they would let me sell it is one dollar, cheaper than a can of coke & MORE BEAUTIFUL by far. Buy it, download it, print it on high quality, re-read it at bedtime to help you fall asleep. If you don't want to pay me a dollar, all of the original illuminations are around this blog somewhere in the archives.

Prayer of St Francis

I was just trying to find some sort of recording of the song "Prayer of St. Francis", which I've been staring at & wondering about on page 46 of Peter Blood & Annie Patterson's Rise Up Singing. Sarah McLaughlin sings an intolerable version with the translation "Lord make me an instrument of your peace". Sinead O'Connor's version "Make me a channel of your peace" is sort of pretty, but I also found that WFMU has done some research into the Father Basil Frison, who has this version.

	Fr. Basil Frison - The Prayer of St. Francis
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Make me a channel of your peace,

Where there is hatred let me bring your love,

Where there is injury your pardon Lord,

And where there's doubt true faith in you.

Make me a channel of your peace,

Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope,

Where there is darkness, only light,

And where there's sadness, ever joy.

O Master grant that I may never seek,

So much to be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

In giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we are born to eternal life.

It just occurred to me that Frison is playing the EXACT chords as Rise Up Singing advises. I wonder if he was even using that book. Andrew Lander at WFMU writes:

Four years ago, I contributed Fr. Basil Frison's A Gondola in Venice to the 365 Days Project. Little did I know at the time that he had died the previous year.

After the track made its debut, I began an on again/off again (mostly off) search for more of Fr. Frison's work. In addition to finding his spoken introductions charming and his performances amusing, I knew he must've composed more music than the two originals on the tape I had, and wondered what they might sound like if played on a better-tuned piano. My mother knew someone who worked at his church, and asked her to send us any more tapes of his that might be found. Over the next several months four more cassettes arrived in the mail—a trio of organ music (unfortunately sans introductions), Welcome Holy Spirit, Grateful and Joyful and Prayerfully, and the cassette presented here. Not only does Fr. Frison play the piano on it, but the guitar. And, best of all, he sings.

An envelope was found containing the typed text and contents of the initial cassette given to my mother, the one I referred to in 2003 as "Live at Rancho Dominguez." Scrutiny of the scrawled title proved it to be named, simply, Piano. (I've been meaning to correct those notes.) At one point I also had a copy of Fr. Frison's Curriculum Vitae, but I lost it. That means I had to do some research to find out when he was born and died, and that I can't provide a photo of him. Yet. But in researching, I discovered that these cassettes were not all Fr. Frison left the world. He was also the author of many books on Catholicism, particularly marriage, at least some of which can actually be found on Amazon.com. So he's not as obscure as I once thought.

Unfortunately, I have no idea if any of his scores have been found. I doubt they've be thrown away, though... At least not on purpose.

The first three cassettes are numbered Tapes 1, 2 and 3, so they are apparently the first recordings Fr. Frison made. Happy Birthday is numbered Tape 19. That means, in addition to Piano, my copy of which is unnumbered, there are or were at least fourteen other Frison tapes in existence. "Marching Home" was written to commemorate the end of the Persian Gulf War, most likely dating Happy Birthday to 1991 (and making the piece a potential new peace march ditty). As Fr. Frison gave my mother a copy of Piano during the late `90s, it's quite possible that it was a later recording, and that he recorded more than fifteen other tapes. Who knows how many pieces of music he composed?

Fr. Frison was born on this day [September 5th] in 1912. Some of you will recognize that date as the same day John Cage was born. So let us celebrate their lives and musics, and imagine the racket they might be making today in Heaven.

another thanksgiving prayer

my thanksgiving recitation is this prayer (see left) that my parents wrote the first thanksgiving after they were married- 1972. I am thankful to have been born to people who have the same general sentiments I do on this day.

(my mom composed in script- my dad's edits are in print)

Illuminations: George W. Bush Prayer

I've received so many e-mails begging for the final illumination in our little home-made fresh-fruit-squeezed poetry book, Seven Prayers, now I finally post the ultimate installment, & the note on the back cover. I'll also repost the last image - the now-famous underpants illustration - to accompany the George W. Bush Prayer. Click on the picture to view it larger. Links to the frontispiece & the Prayers I-VI Illuminations are below.


Links:
To the original text post of the George W. Bush Prayer.
To the Frontispiece & Extant Prayer Illumination.
To the Jesus Prayer Illumation.
To the Exegesis Prayer Illumination.
To the Genius Prayer Illumination.
To the Ex-Girlfriend Prayer Illumination.
To the Whirling Gee-Whiz Prayer Illumination.
To the "Illumations" Tag Label sorting thingy option.

Thank you for taking this magical blogosphere illuminated poetry journey with us. Come back early & often for a new collaboration with the residents of Harold Avenue: The Naked Male Semi-Epic in Five Parts with a Prologue.

Illuminations: Whirling Gee-Whiz Prayer

Happy Christmas! Or, if you are on the other side of the War on Christmas, happy that! Either way, you're sure to enjoy these illuminated poems, done this fall on Harold Avenue in San Francisco, in collaboration with Liam Joseph Olaf Worland Mary Golden & Virtue. This is the sixth of seven prayers in a small book. The frontispiece from the Seven Prayers may be seen here; the original text from the "Whirling Gee-Whiz Prayer" may be read or googlied here. Click on the image to see it huge on your monitor.

Illuminations: Ex-Girlfriend Prayer

Sneeze, croak, blow, blow, more tea please. This is from our illuminated poetry book, Seven Prayers, the frontispiece is here. The original text for the Ex-Girlfriend Prayer was posted here. The splashy colors you see in Plate 10 below are local organic pomegranate & persimmon gunk. You should be able to see it larger if you click on the image. The symbolism in the illustration is not meant to have any relation to the works of Dan Brown (as was pointed out to me offensively by Miss Sarah Cudgeous), nor are the twelve kneeling phallus-like objects meant to be the apostles.

Illuminations: Genius Prayer

Good morning! Where are you this morning! Continuing, with more pages from my latest illuminated poetry book, Seven Prayers. Click on the image to see it larger. The original text for "Genius Prayer" was posted here. The frontispiece for the Seven Prayers is posted here.