Third Broadcast over USTREAM.TV

MaryAnn's third broadcast was made this morning over USTREAM.TV

This one was shorter than the last so (hopefully) will be uploaded to YouTube without any difficulties.

Check it out:

http://www.ustream.tv/MaryAnnMcCarra

Cheers,

MaryAnn

Another reading broadcast live via USTREAM.TV!!!

Another reading-- (this time of some older work from the nineties....)-- was broadcast live this morning over USTREAM.TV

Apparently this is in the process of being uploaded to YouTube. We'll see how that goes.....

I Celebrate

I celebrate the rising of
the sun, I salute you,
yes, as we pass each other on
the street,

the divine in your eyes, in the
slouch of your hat, your hands,
stabbed into your pockets
so

I sing of the generations before
and after us, crops raised and
crops failed, the fresh-mixed cement
and the mortar crumbling to dust

of buildings with windows bricked over
to keep out the light, as we two
ride the rails, watching the passing
scenery, my country tis

as they serve us neatly plated breakfast
our hands break their hold

soybeans now, and more soybeans, then
corn, and more corn, far west of
that coast where we
first stepped down to touch earth

now we head for the mountains

I sing of children sleeping in safety
as the sun drops from sight, of
hope ever dawning in the heart, of
forever-freedom from want and fear

I sing and celebrate you, who
held my hand as the tape played
over and again, those oft-voiced
melodies, the old sweet songs, evermore

Halloween

and here is a goblin, and
here an elf, and here an
Indian with sacks outstretched

for sweets as the leaves turn
to gold, red, brown, carpeting
the sidewalks with autumnal tints,

the sureness of the seasons a
reassurance, yes, as much as
the turning of the moon and

sun into another year, that
time when one world may
reach into another with a touch,

the sliced loaf, the
cup of tea left sitting, stone cold,
overnight, a candle burning

in the lantern, glow-grinning visage
welcoming all

In Eighteen

when he came home from the trenches,
back in eighteen, after she had
rolled miles of bandages, the

carnations were mixed, unluckily,
red and white, in a large glass upon the windowsill

petals blotted the pages they
were pressed between, the
black and white type repeated endlessly

quinine tablets and rum and
white sheets for the windows

the eyes above the white-masks,
beds neatly rowed, taking
a fresh air cure

while others kneeled upon the stony steps of
Holy Cross, desperate words
winging heavenwards

Musing

she greets me with a bowl full
of pebbles, polished white, fit
for any garden but mine, where
the weeds straggle up, poor

shades of their packet-pictures, victims
of this poisoned soil, uncatalogued,
unsurveyed, without any papers to
prove ownership

as the ship sails away, puffing
steam, a dream in grey tones,
off for the Argentine, or some
similar clime, where the sun

sears over the ground, relentless,
and there she is again, dressed in
green and proffering a plate of
fruit cut to fit my mouth

so it goes, in every season, hot and
cold, the taps running to fill the
bath, scalded or frozen by turns, oh
most intemperate of visitors!

Red River

another genocide carried out
with German efficiency, the
knives flash as the river flows,
bloodied, choked with limbs,

a Queen killed too, under
the broad sky, beside
the faithful retainers who
raised the first alarms

the bonfire on the border
is the only light I see, the
dawn still hours away, withholding
herself from me

neighbor upon neighbor in the
terror of the night, who will
be left to speak when they
knock upon my door?

So Like the Phoenix

so like the phoenix,
rising, unexpectedly,
to crack the
blue of the sky,
feathers only slightly singed,
soaring to invisibility

as you rise from
your rest to make the
coffee, and later, leek soup,
copper ladle rattling round the pot,
a dull bell, a call to supper,
spooning sustenance into each other,

the jolt of realization, yes, you
and no one else, opening and
shutting windows blinkered by curtains,
bolting the door against despair,
ourselves alone, together

Tea and Ham Sandwiches

they said that he
was gone, gone as the
trees bloomed pink and
later, faded

still he visits her,
dream-enlarged, a little
grave, holding the bluebooks
while tea and ham sandwiches
are served upstairs, the
folding chairs arranged in a
specifically random manner,
the women scowling and
shaking their hair in a
manner meant to convey, at once, great
righteousness and probity

hollow sound of soles slapped against
the wooden boards of the subway
station overpass, the billboard
bleared over by rain, still says
want me, need me, love me

Stained Glass

and does he read my heart
as the choir sways as one:
I like to think so--the
print is plain to me, either

in Times Roman or Garamond,
the time of our union, these
fifty something minutes (and
mornings and evenings besides)

in quick snatches for sanity, oh
help me.....
when far removed from the ivory
of lilies or the crimson of

blood, so red as the sun penetrates
through the stained glass heart,
leaded but not heavy, that
repository of light for all time

Thom McAn

the shoe salesman guarded by
his sister and two other, unrelated women,
glowering and adjusting the chains

.....so many years past, and
the shoeboxes long since gone
and him in his blue shirt,

sneaking cigarettes in the storeroom....
now craters pock the ground and the
rhythmic grinding of machinery marks

the time. The trees all gone, from
the stumps upward, the worst insult,
this wholesale holocaust, the

smoothing of ground to make it
asphalt-ready, malleable

Early Morning, Walking

this domestic round, this
wheel of fortune ever turning she
surveys as storefronts, empty
one by one, the signs, hand-
lettered or printed appear

the brisk walk on the broad
boulevard, the double-parked
rushing in for their laundry, the
vegetable delivery from a
green van, the sidewalks
open up to receive this bounty

as stroller-wielding mothers amble
to the park, wheels clicking over
interruptions in the sidewalk,
the cracks in the map, the
veins spelling out yes, you are
here, here, and nowhere else

Breaking Eggs

one, two, the cracked eggs stare
up from the bowl, perfect
specimens before being beat

into milk for scrambling or
perhaps French toast, as he
slowly waked to

twisted sheets and last-night
debris, a stocking here, a shoe
there, the alarm switched

off in greedy anticipation of a
late morning lie-in, waking to
hear the dawn chorus only

to sleep again, clutching at those
dreams of blue-black twilight, the
voices bleeding from the radio into

our ears, the black of night edging
away to grey morning, the sky
not yet blue, still unwarmed by the sun