Articles by Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service
We found 75 results.
Hiroshima Spring
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 May 2023
In the Twentieth Epoch of Love
we pulled on the rubbery face
and found the luminous skull
turning around in its place,
wearing the grin of our race,
The Coca-Cola-ization of “God Bless America”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2023
Can we make the best choices without sufficient information and imagination? Governments and media seem hell-bent on suppressing adequate information! Can we work together to imagine a better world: to honor truth, inquiry, dialogues and expositions?
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Three for the Apocalypse
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Apr 2022
A Jew, a Christian and a Muslim are sitting around arguing the merits of their respective religions.
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Stonehenge
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2022
What was it that they thought to own?
Decades, centuries kept intent intact.
Putin… &…
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Apr 2022
30 Mar 2022 – I first saw Dylan Morgan’s painting a couple of months ago. The recent horrors of the War in Ukraine have opened old wounds and whipped me back to confront the stalking “strong men”–on their side and ours–and to weep with the mothers of shattered children.
→ read full articleSearching My Roots in Ukraine: What I Learned and Re-learned in Kiev
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Mar 2022
76 years after August, 1945, we have not eliminated the threat of nuclear war! Nearly 8 billion of us better connected than ever, sharing a shrinking planet–beautiful, fragile and endangered. Who is in control? How do we deem ourselves ‘free and independent’ when we have surrendered autonomy and agency?
→ read full articleHiroshima Spring
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Feb 2022
In the Twentieth Epoch of Love
we pulled on the rubbery face
and found the luminous skull
turning around in its place,
wearing the grin of our race,
Looking Back and ‘Looking Forward’ with John F. Kennedy
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Nov 2021
22 Nov 2021 – “The President’s been shot!” he shouted, clamoring his way down the stairs in the dorm. The upper-classman! I was making my way to the third floor, and he was rushing down, letting our small world know—startled, young faces peeping from behind closed doors, aghast and in wonder.
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(Français) Sucre
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2020
Douce apocalypse dans le sang !
Cauchemar de Stephen King dans le cerveau !
Salves de mortier aux synapses !
Envahisseur de notre abri personnel !
DouxDoux comme les lèvres de Dalila !
“Sugar”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2020
Sweet apocalypse in the blood!
Stephen-King nightmare in the brain!
Mortar rounds at synapses!
Invader of our personal stash!
SweetSweet as Delilah’s lips!
Unfinished
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Oct 2020
Reading tributes to the revolutionary hero, Che Guevara, last week at the notable TMS site, I was moved to take another look at a poem I had written shortly after his death, some decades ago. But, when I read it again now, something felt wrong. I had omitted an essential piece of the puzzle of life—the piece that points to revelation and deliverance. Can the reader guess which is the new stanza below…?
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Something’s Happening Here
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Sep 2020
Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies: Critical and Lyrical Essays, by Edward Curtin, Atlanta-GA, Clarity Press 2020 – Ed shows us how to connect the dots, to make sense of the Void. How to get beyond the mass-media and social-media deceptions; our defined and confined world and vision. Even, how to make space for the spiritual, mystical and inexplicable. How to find clarity and meaning, sometimes even beauty.
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A Dream Deferred: Healing through Culture, Dialogues & Sharing Our Arts
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jul 2020
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Poem Beginning with a Line from Neruda
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 May 2020
“Puedo escribir versos mas tristes esta noche.”—Neruda
(Tonight I can write sadder verses.)
Because the moon has disappeared…from grief.
Because the children weep for their parents.
Because memories are whitewashed… and stolen.
Because words have lost their meaning.
“Cost”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Dec 2019
Subjective, intuitive, artistically scholarly, sophisticated…. Artists inhabit a world all of their own only accessible to the initiated, at times. Poets, particularly, seem to possess that especial quality of being able to transform the trivial into sublime–and vice versa. Playing with reality and irrealities as playthings. Not merely words or semantics but ideas, thoughts, perceptions, visions, consciousness. — TMS Editor
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Interview with Munch’s “The Scream”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Dec 2019
[Interviewer’s note: It wasn’t easy to track him down. Using my best contacts in the demimonde, I located him in a pied-a-terre walk-up in a Paris slum. I was frisked by a bodyguard with an uncanny resemblance to Marlene Dietrich–whisky voice, dangling cigarette and all. (It wasn’t unpleasant!)
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Poet Inhabits the Heart of Jimmy Carter
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Oct 2019
The 39th President of the United States (1977-1981), Jimmy Carter has been in the news recently, and we wish him well…. I consider him one of the great people I’ve had the honor of meeting. Following his too-brief tenure in the White House, Carter worked gratis for decades with “Habitat for Humanity,” physically building and refurbishing houses for those in need.
→ read full article“Let Them Eat Cake”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Feb 2019
When informed that her subjects–“the people”–were starving, that they had “no bread,” Queen Marie Antoinette is reputed to have answered blithely, “Let them eat cake!” [“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!”]
The people of Somalia are not like us.
Their skin is black and gray and parched by sun.
Astonishing the Enemy
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Jan 2019
This is a poem about people who challenge us to acknowledge our common humanity—and the way they are too often rejected and ostracized—and even worse. I’m working in quatrains and a quiet rhyme scheme, but more important, a certain tone, an ironic tone that reveals the limitations of the speaker.
→ read full articleSix-Sided Tao
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Jan 2019
Do, or Tao, or Taoism, is the root of Zen—that philosophy or discipline that characterizes so much of the culture of Japan. We all know about Judo, for example, which means “the way of self-defense.” There is also Aikido, “the way of the meeting of force and spirit.” And Kendo, “the way of the sword.” There is Sado, “the way of poetry”; and several others. Obviously, do means “the way of.”
→ read full articleComputer Love?
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Dec 2018
My computer knows me
better than I know me!
It knows my in’s and it knows my out’s.
Knows my subterfuges, knots and doubts.
In a Time of Endless Wars
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Apr 2018
I write for the men of a thousand years hence—
and the women—and their healthy children.
And…, if you are suffering, if night is day
and day is night,
I will drink the cup of despair with you,
for I have tasted of despair.
Space Alien Reveals Trump Romp!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Apr 2018
12 Apr 2018 – I know it sounds incredible, but this is how it happened…. I was flipping channels on my Fake News cable box, hunting/searching for a morsel of something tasty, digestible and real, when suddenly there was a strange buzzing in my ears, I felt a bit dizzy, I lay down on my sofa, and I heard a high-pitched, electronic-like voice—some static, I mean—messaging.
→ read full articleRussia, Russia, Russia: America’s Theater of the Absurd
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Mar 2018
14 Mar 2018 – We need a cultural Renaissance, a global Age of Enlightenment…, but with robots flipping our hamburgers, 60,000 homeless in L.A., an opioid epidemic claiming more American lives every 18 months than our imperial barbarism claimed in Vietnam in 10 years, our prospects are parlous and too dim to discern. And, on top of all that…there’s Russia!
→ read full articleThe US Needs “Eureka!” Moments Re: ‘Vetting’; ‘Displacement’; ‘Discernment’; ‘Integration’!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Feb 2018
As with most good, apocryphal stories—the parables in the Bible, for example—there are grains of truth, lessons to be vetted and discerned—pieces to be integrated into the bigger puzzle. Here’s the story/myth: Hiero, the local tyrant, suspects a goldsmith of replacing a measure of gold with silver in a golden crown. Hiero contacts Archimedes to verify his suspicions. But…, how?
→ read full articleModern “Politics”: And They Tell Me Not to Spell Out “Sh*t”!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Jan 2018
They tell me not to spell out “sh*t”!
But, nothing else quite seems to f*t!
They claim some folks will look awry
If I insert the little “i”.
Introducing Kijima Hajime
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
8 Jan 2018
In various ways, poetry is an art of digressions. One builds unexpectedly—through rhymes, metaphors, similes, assonance and consonance, etc.—not just “castles in the air”—but castles, and sometimes shacks, to live in, get the feel of, try on for size, in order to gain new awareness. Hajime-san is just such a “builder.”
→ read full articleKoan: What Is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Jan 2018
1) Nothing. One hand cannot clap….
2) Half the sound of 2 hands clapping….
Art for Art’s Sake… (And Cutting Thru)….
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
25 Dec 2017
In 2007, Sotheby’s
auctioned a can of artist’s shit
for 180,000 dollars.
“Sophisticated,” “cultured” types
clamored to buy a tin of shit
an auction house called “Art.”
Fake News; Fake History; JFK; and the Paul Kurtz-Vince Salandria Interview
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Dec 2017
7 Dec 2017 – In the intro to this dialogue between Paul Kurtz and Vince Salandria–poignantly intercut with JFK’s own words on his goals and hopes for salvaging the human race from the prospects of nuclear suicide-homicide–, Kurtz refers to Salandria as “razor-sharp.”
→ read full articleA Prayer for Houston…. And,
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
4 Sep 2017
Please help the people in Houston, Lord.
And, while You’re at it, in Palestine, too!
Though worlds apart, they are kindred,
as all suffering creatures are kindred.
Charlottesville: Myths & Questions – Fake History and Deeper Thinking
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Aug 2017
About the Lee statue, I had to wonder: “Why now?” Was it really necessary to remove the statue now? Wasn’t that setting up a conflict? Is it too much to expect our elected officials to exercise foresight and good judgment?
→ read full articlePorto
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Aug 2017
To be a Portugal seagull
where the river meets the sea!
Red roofs ascend
tree-coated hills;
Dogs
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Aug 2017
Dogs live in a world of smells—
succulent, sensual: a melange
of sexuality–known and unknown,
friendly and prohibitive.
Collateral Damage
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Jul 2017
We were sorry to hear the bombs that were meant
to fall on a home adjacent to yours
(and one more, down a block or two)
have lamentably ruined your daughter’s wedding,
The Whore Named War
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Jul 2017
The Whore named War
lassoed the President,
let him lay
in lascivious arms;
Now Float Me Down….
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Jun 2017
Let us remember the Peace Veterans, too. And let us grieve for those in all nations who share the losses of lives and hopes and dreams. During the Vietnam War, long ago (but not so long ago!), my thoughts coalesced in a poem I wrote for one I loved.
→ read full article“Me and My Shadow-Drone”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 May 2017
Me and my Shadow-Drone
went “walking” down the lane.
“Over There”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Apr 2017
When the massacres came, we wondered…. –
We thought we were the “Over There” people.
George M. Cohan sang us the way home:
“We won’t come back till it’s over over there.”
“Putin Is a Killer”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Apr 2017
(Beginning with a line by US fake-news media honcho, Bill O’Reilly)
→ read full articleLynne Stewart, Our Lady Mandela
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Mar 2017
Author’s note: An earlier version of this poem appeared at various websites in December, 2013. Some notes on Lynne Stewart below….
→ read full article“Never Forget” (For Rachel Corrie)
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Mar 2017
Barely a woman, twenty three years old–
Soft, vulnerable…. Surely, the Monster
Will stop in its tracks!
Deep State
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
Deep State stretched its paws over the world’s heart;
Purred…. Deep State purred in the mind’s mazes, curled
10 Questions for William Blum
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Feb 2017
I first met writer/journalist/historian/thinker/activist William [Bill] Blum 11 years ago. Blum and I have broken bread together, attended anti-war rallies, sometimes seeing eye-to-eye and sometimes “I”-to-“I.” In a recent piece by Theodore Sayeed, Blum is described as a kind of living encyclopedia of the “peace movement.”
→ read full articleWe Need More Leaders like Ayatollah Khamenei in This World
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
13 Feb 2017
Leader Khamenei stressed a “dignified” response to threats and bullying. We need more leaders in this world who will stress the importance of “dignity” for the triumph of the human spirit.
→ read full articleThe Great Tree: 3200 Years in One Photo…
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Feb 2017
Because of its unbelievable size, this tree has never been photographed in its entirety, until now. National Geographic photographers have worked along with scientists to try and create the first photo that shows the President in all its glory.
→ read full articleThe Beggar of Assisi
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Jan 2017
His life was a prayer, a candle, a song.
Barefoot, he trod through showers and sunshine.
Optimism/Pessimism: A Kafkaesque Meditation
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Dec 2016
I used to be an optimist.
When I was 5, someone told me,
“Santa Claus does not exist!”
The Russians Are Hacking My Poems!!!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
12 Dec 2016
Dah! It’s true!
Every time I come upon
some clever turn-of-phrase,
they’re in my brain,
they’re at my screen—
hacking, hacking, hacking!
Is Peace Possible? A Dialogue with Johan Galtung on Ukraine, Trump, Putin, Gandhi, and…
Dr. Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2016
I was particularly interested in a statement made by a member of the Trump team about the 200-year relationship between Russia and the United States: the point was made that Russia supported what became the United States, against the French and the English empires. And that was Tsar Alexander I! So, from the beginning of the American War of Independence in Concord, up to the end of it in 1812….
→ read full articleGive Praise Whenever You Can
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
21 Nov 2016
Give praise whenever you can. Praise:
Sunrise on snow-capped mountains;
Sunsets on marigold fields. Praise:
Every act of kindness and solicitude;
Children smiling in beneficence. Praise:
The Song of the Hoop
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
7 Nov 2016
To the Original Peoples of North America, the hoop was a sacred symbol. They believed that order and civilization were within the great hoop of the world, and all chaos was without. Their tribal councils were held in circles; their tipis were round; their mandalas, winding images of dreams. This poem tells the story of Tashtunka Witco, whom the Americans called “Crazy Horse,” and how the West was lost in the last decades of the 19th Century….
→ read full articleI Voted
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
24 Oct 2016
I voted today. …
I voted for peace and justice and sanity
In an insane world of violence and injustice.
I voted.
Christopher Columbus, Crawl Back in Your Hole!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Oct 2016
Christopher Columbus, crawl back in your hole!
Take you Nina, Pinta and Santa Magreedier!
We know what you did in Hispaniola!
We watched silver helmets glint in the sun.
We saw you claim our island for Spain!
Idiot!
Ode to Turmeric!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Oct 2016
Turmeric, turmeric–
coppery-golden spice!
Rubbed on fish,
rubbed on chicken–
it’s finger-lickin’
good!
How Do We ‘Package’ Peace? Can We Make It Palatable?
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
3 Oct 2016
A review of Peace Plays by Johan Galtung, Vitahl Rajan, and S. P. Udayakumar; Kolofon Press, 2010. 95 pages. It is a splendid book: a lens with which to contemplate our modern world of foibles, follies, self-and-mass destruction. It’s a book to read, and re-read, and savor. It is whimsical and sobering; grating in a positive way; uplifting and transformative.
→ read full articleA Meeting
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2016
When Jesus and the Buddha met
in a meadow of larkspurs, on a balmy day,
the bees of the valley went mad with love,
the sky and the sun were a glaze.
“Abysms: On Yet another 911 Anniversary….”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
19 Sep 2016
Powers on chessboards, on a roll of dice,
Mass and unmask in great Darwin’s name.
War-whoops go up and towers collapse,
Reaping the whirlwind, riding our shame.
Reading between the Lines: Dialoguing with Text to Squeeze Out Truths
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Sep 2016
Frankly, I am much less concerned about the “take over” of the Republican Party or the Democratic Party (which in my mind together form the “Republicratic Party”) than I am concerned about parboiled journalism of half-truths. Let us have education committed to how to think above what to think.
→ read full articleUncle “Sham” Says “Dance!”… And the Band Plays On…
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Aug 2016
Most Americans are still getting their news from the Howdy-Doody-TV-Network “newsmen” and the Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring dolls of Fox. Six corporations—and a very special group it is!– control our news “media,” and we best recall what Voltaire wrote: “If you want to know who controls you, look at those you are forbidden to criticize!”
→ read full articleSlings and Arrows: Bernie Sanders Plays the Bard
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
18 Jul 2016
Sanders: (At the ramparts; in the shadows; a windy night–)
→ read full article10 Signs That America Is the Most Corrupt Nation
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
Trickle down economics
Is an excuse
For the rich to piss on the poor.
So, look up, ye wretched of the Earth!
ABC’s of the US Empire
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
15 Feb 2016
“A” Is for “Asininity”
That’s a particular kind of stupidity.
That Guy
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Feb 2016
If I come back to earth as a movie star,
I want to be that guy nobody knows.
You know who I mean, don’t you?
“Truth”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
14 Dec 2015
He had a little truth;
He held it with his might.
Chem Trails, Etc.
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
30 Nov 2015
And they’re laughing all the goddamn way
to their bank accounts in foreign lands
(probably some Switzerlands!)
Contradictions in the Whirlwind: The Refugees Crisis, Paris Attacks, Wars without End
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Nov 2015
The best thing in Samuel P. Huntington was not news of an inexorable “clash,” but delving into the roots of it: “In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.” Half a million dead kids in Iraq. 129 dead in Paris. There’s no equivalencies in war, of course. But, one wonders if Stalin’s cynicism was right: one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.
→ read full article“Into the Heart of the Sacred”
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Nov 2015
“I was born into a culture defined by its lack of culture. A middle-of-the-block house in a midsized mid-Michigan Midwestern town. Dragged to a Methodist church where the singing was flat and muttered, and the slightest show of religious fervor made everyone uncomfortable. Communion felt as spiritual as the coffee and cookies after the service. For the rest of my week, school was little more than a daily taste of prison….”
→ read full articleHiroshima Spring
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
10 Aug 2015
Under the flush of cherry,
in air as mild as breath,
by the Ota’s tributary–
five crooked fingers reaching
into the Inland Sea–
“Christmas in July” in Absurdityville, USA
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Jul 2015
Why do they hate us? Americans wondered after 911. And, our Philosopher-King George W. Bush answered majestically: “They hate us for our freedoms!” And most goody-goody Americans went back to sleep. We pride ourselves on our “separation of Church and State,” but who ever proposed that we separate Morality and the State, or Wisdom and the State?
→ read full articleA Review of ‘Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine’
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jul 2015
GAZA WRITES BACK is one of those very rare books that depict war in slow motion. The 23 stories here, written by 15 young authors (from late teens to early 30s, all but three female) were compiled to commemorate the 5-year anniversary of “Operation Cast Lead.”
→ read full articleLower the US Flag on the 4th of July!
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
29 Jun 2015
For over half a century, I’ve written articles against racism and war. I was shocked and I grieved to see what happened at the Charleston Emanuel Church. Quickly, the call went out: Take down the Confederate flag! But, let’s be very clear: the Confederate flag is NOT a central issue here.
→ read full articleSide Effects: Popping Pills and Pop-Up Politicos
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Apr 2015
Used to be, when I flipped channels, I’d go from one movie to another, one drama to another, one news show to another, etc. These days, I’m more likely to go from one commercial to another—and more likely than not, it’s a prescription pill commercial! Every third time I flip, I land on a “news” program where there are yakking heads (used to be talking, now they just yak—kind of like real yaks!)—giggling, oohing, ah-ing, laying odds on latest announcements by Hillary Shrillary, Jeb the Bush, Rand the Paul, Ted the Harvard-Hispanic guy, and Marco the Cuban-American guy.
→ read full articleRevolutionary Rats
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
1 Sep 2014
You’re a rat in a maze and you can’t get out.
The rats are eating the other rats.
How do you like this luscious rat food?
Lynne Stewart, Our Lady Mandela
Gary Corseri – TRANSCEND Media Service,
23 Dec 2013
She is ten feet tall… and dying in her cage.
While Obama and Cameron take “selfies,”
shedding crocodile tears,
our Lady Mandela gazes over
the path she has made by her walking.