Jimmy Cacciatore and Jason Hollar produced Flowers for You  (c) 1999 Cacch a Smile Enterprises

Unique--Jimmy grew up with English and Sign Language together (spoken in the home!) -- born in Fort Carson and grew up in Fort Collins.  Great childhood, lotsa friends, lotsa sports--diving, football, soccer, baseball . . . and then one day Jimmy was on his way to diving practice, but did not make it.  The true headbanger: life changed with a head injury.  He had to relearn speech, etc., and is quicker at Sign Language than speaking the complexities of English.  But he can do music!!!

The accident wiped out education, but he kept his all-time, all-good personality.  Who wouldn't love his music????

The first song put up here is "Empty Years."  Drummer is Rick Trinidad, and Jason is on electric bass.  Jimmy plays acoustic 12-string guitar.  Enjoy, enjoy!!!

DRAMA

I don't care to dwell in the past
that murky place of half-baked memories

my story begins here
now
on this Saturday afternoon in a strange city

Oh sure, there was this and that...
that
this
event
the epic
cast in others' stories
villain
friend
confidante
lover,
fallen idol

when cast in another's drama
and understand the role I am supposed to play
I potest "I am not like that!"
But he tries to convince me I am
He needs someone to play that role
and I care
and I am free

watching the rain beat against the window
my drama begins as a silent monologue

it is a Saturday afternoon in a strange city . . .

(c)2005 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

my mind spins

unable to empty

itself of you

 

i was born

without skin

you say standing

in the doorwary

contemplating

the rain

remembering

yourself

an altar boy

among candles

gregorian chants

& the strange

sad music

of the homeland

you left at 19

long before you

met me on a bridge

between the Sahel

and the suburbs

beneath a sky

of crossed stars

you pierced me

with a kiss

like a spear

carried me

to a cliff

at the edge

of the canyon

and then you flew --

a naked peregrine

against a sky clouded

by smoke from a bridge

on fire below leaving

my skin burnt

to ashes Ii hold

in my naked hands

and my mind spins

unable to empty

itself of you

 

(c) 2008 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

BEAT

On my block six girls are pregnant,
their bellies almost bigger than they are
so they can't see the ground when they walk
The way they walk is as if
the wind is blowing them back
four girls have babies
you can hear squalling day and night
and the girl-moms too yelling,
"Shut up! I can't stand it!" Slap slap
but the squalling goes on.
Over at the clinic some people march
with signs stepping on cracks with their big flat shoes
their shadows growing long
over the plants with wilted leaves.
And up on the hill the boys dress hot,
practicing moves while their music fills the street
with a scorching beat. Uptown cars roll
with their windows up and tinted dark
and no one comes out to play.


(c)2007 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Generation 1999

It's in the headlines
in the tabloids
on the lips
of people
knocking on my door
almost before the sun comes up
"the end is almost here"

As children we were taught
to fold ourselves
under our desks at school
fallout shelter salesmen
knocked on our doors

and we knew
we were the first
generation
that could be
annhilated
in less time
than it takes
for a soulful kiss

and when we got older
our parents said:
"What's wrong with this generation?
they live like there's no tomorrow."

Most of us are seeing
middle age
in the mirror
in the morning . . .

and our children
are standing in
supermarket lines

where blaring headlines
announce the end
of the world . . .

 . . .watching people
stream
toward sem-hostile
borders
bombs and mines
flare
and boom behind them

some kids garb
a school
in explosives

Do you know the world
is coming to an end?

. . . But my tulips are up again
leaves unfurl on brown branches
young rabbits dart across my lawn

Everywhere is the music
of birds who have made
the long journey again.

Water falls
from the sky
and changes
 the color of the grass

We interpret symbols
and imagine we're equipped
to portend the future.

The wheel of fortune turns

Who stands to gain
from saying "THE END!"

Who stands to lose?

************************
(c) 2008 Binnings

Rebel nun of the 17th century.
Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz lived in the certainty that "all things come from God, who is the center and at the same time the circumference from which all the lines of creation issue and where they stop." Such was the life of this religious woman of 17th-century New Spain, who not only left her mark on Spanish-American literature but whose cry of revolt over their inferior position of women is timely even today.

Beatriz Berger.  World Press Review.  Oct 1994.
From http://www.lasmujeres.com/sorjuana/rebelnun.shtml

Here is your introduction to Sor Juana.

And here:  http://www.latin-american.cam.ac.uk/culture/SorJuana/SorJuana2.htm


A Su Retrato
Este, que ves, engano colorido,
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engano del sentido;
este, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los anos los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,
es un vano artificio del cuidado
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inutil para el hado:
es una necia diligencia errada,
es un afan caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadaver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada.

My translation:

To Her Portrait

the artifice of colors  that here you see
testify to cunning and crafty grace
But if its false logic and gloss faded away,
we'd begin to see how illusory is the likeness,
how human vanity deceives us all into thinking
years erase the horrors those years
have etched into our faces
But to battle with time is insanity,
is a futile gesture you cannot hope to win,
 is an absence of caution, is wit put aside
is a delicate flower caught in the wind
is a weak defense against what Fate's contrived
is a conquest doomed, and you know in your mind
it's a corpose, dust, shadow, a reed's insides

(c) 2004  Binnings  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

---

It's be awhile & I listened to this one today, so I thought I would move it toward the front for a little while.

Time for a new photograph.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Two years ago today is when I flew to Phoenix to meet the surgeon for the brain bypass.  These two years have truly been an incredible experience.  I am alive.  Thank you, everyone!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo ==================================================== My first for 2008 . . . a poem I had sought . . . and here it is.  Cycles of life . . . I Wait We're slipping along the paths that lead away from each other-- no longer lovers and barely friends. The echo of your words of love throb in empty canyons ever more distant while day to day jargon swallows memories of when we once touched.  Even now a bond reaches from me to you, each day unraveling and growing more tenuous.  We don't talk except in empty phrases that neither move the earth nor us. I neither leave nor stay . . .  I wait. (c)2008 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

This is a vilanelle.

Are there times to cultivate indifference?

MY NAME IS LIGHT Those empty plates that lie beside the spoons are white and barren as November's moons; the candle on the table brings no scent, but time is never given--only lent. Strike up the match and touch it to dry bones; a barbeque of all our sad night moans and fears that choke us while we yearn but starve-- the world has done enough to dredge and carve a cruel gulf to keep us separate. The gumbo's on the stove; come fill your plate. The days that stretch ahead we cannot know; the candle burns too quickly or melts slow, but now my kitchen glows with hottest flame. Cross the line, come close, and know my name. eleanor (c)2000 Binnings ALL RIGHTS RESERVED