Skopelos and Virgin
when first you see it
across the water,
rising round and new above the mountain.
Open your mouth and swallow
while youth holds its roundness near,
and you are running fearless in the dark.
Hold it inside, it is still warm
and you will need its light,
there, inside you.
Down the road of time, somewhere
after you’ve aged, traveled,
Explored, discovered.
And the dust around your doorway
has been pounded hard and smooth under your feet.
When you find yourself growing weary and bored,
when your eyes see only ruins,
and your heart is empty.
You may believe, in your exhaustion,
that this is truth, at last.
That the mystery has unraveled,
leaving no wilderness to explore or tame.
All secrets have been shared,
the frontier has dissolved.
Know then, with these thoughts,
you have been swallowed.
The warm belly of the beast
comforts with confining darkness
and lulls with rhythmic sounds
Murmuring to you,
Curl up and sleep,
just go to sleep.
Shake your head,
stretch your legs,
do not sleep now.
Remember what you know.
You swallowed the moon,
you hold it inside you.
Not as a magpie hoarding shiny things,
or wearing the moon for beauty
or bartering the moon for wealth.
You swallowed the moon for this moment.
When you will walk to the water’s edge,
open your mouth, release the moon
and let its light build you a pathway
across the wine dark sea.
©Skorda 2008
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Friday, June 11, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Notes From the NEIFT
Notes from NEIFT
We did not have a booth this year and so were able to walk the show, talking with exhibitors and sampling the offerings. NEIFT is a small food technology show, lacking the scope, and often the creativity, of the national shows. Nonetheless there were a few interesting ideas and product to be found.
If you have a need for "cheese" that doesn't melt, a powder that will lower the sodium content of food products or maybe a "pomegranate flavor" that does not contain a trace of fruit, then you have come to the right place! Chemically created and enhanced foods abound at the IFT, and in this venue “science" often trumps "nature." But to be fair, food technology is not all faux food. Technological innovation also helps bring more natural products to market, to assure freshness and safety of the foods we eat. Products such as pre- packaged ready to eat fresh fruits, shelf stable dairy products and nutritionally enhanced food and beverages all result from the efforts of food technologists. But I'm thinking that maybe they should have passed on that chocolate bacon graham cracker thing.
Having cycled through the trends of low carbs, fibermania, peanut anxiety and wildly imaginative nutraceuticals, this year's trendometer spotlight was fixed on the "gluten free",and , o a lesser extent, “sodium reduction.” Sodiun reduction products tended to be powdered additives, I did nt taste one that did not leave a somewhat bitter aftertaste. The gluten free products were somewhat more successful, and ranged from cookies and brownies to pizza doughs and savory baked goods. "Ahhh", you may ask, "but what is replacing the gluten?" There is no simple answer. Just remember that the T in IFT stands for TECHNOLOGY. If you are a trusting sort, then all you really need to know is that if a product is billed as “gluten free” it will not contain wheat flour.
One the more interesting new products to be found this year was a vegetable skin based "wrap",. created by Origami Foods Applications include small edible envelopes for individual fruit or grain snack packets, rolled cones for cream cheese spread or dips, and use as a seaweed substitute for sushi wrappers. This product is the one that impressed me the most at this show, and I think we will soon be seeing it in the retail market.
It appears that pectin jellies and fruit pates have now become a popular as a neutral carrier for newly introduced or not yet mainstream flavors. Having found fruit pate rather difficult to successfully produce at home, I was very pleased to sample these. Flavors of the moment include wolfeberry, yumberry, mangosteen, acai, green tea, blueberry and blood orange. Pomegranate is holding its own, although several of the synthetic flavors are such poor replications that the flavor may be losing ground.
Nutraceuticals contine to be well represented on the floor. Omega 3, high fiber and multi vitamin enhancement are the most visible, although there were representatives displaying lesser energy enhancements and protein powders such as whey.
Flavor companies abound. To remain competitive is is necessary that small flavor houses, such as StoChard Flavors, diversify. The potential of botanicals has not yet been fully realized and it is my recommendation that this area be explored for further development. Flower and herbal extracts, fruit infusions and natural nut flavor bases offer multiple possibilities for innovative products and applications.It is time to accelerate the development of the natural ptoduct line.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
OK, OK, OK I will come and talk soon. But til then, enjoy Lewis Black.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's | ||||
| ||||
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Hello, hello, hello
I am reclaiming this space! I will write and post whatever I like, you are welcome to come and join in, debate, be a part of what is here. Music poetry, ranting, whatever. Anything goes.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Skorda's Seaside Taverna is Re-opening SOON!
I am over here sweeping up, removing the dust covers, getting the Taverna back in shape after a long hiatus. I'll need to got through these old posts, there are so many broken links and non-functional videos. It is time for me to come back here, I've missed this place.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Taki’s Poem to the Ladies at the Library
Once I was famous among stacks
And all the library could offer
-books, papers, magazines
I read- a spendthrift of its currency!
Now in the darkness of Decembers
these years I close my eyes
what they can’t see -the heart remembers.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
This Weekend in Bristol!
click above for info and directions
The 8th annual Honoring the Harvest celebration, sponsored by the Bristol Parks and Recreation Department, will be located on the Mount Hope Grant in Bristol in the Outing Reservation Building on November 14 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. This celebration of the fall harvest will be lead by Native Americans from the Pokanoket Wampanoag community. Join us for a feast of succotash, cornbread, pumpkin bread, and cider while enjoying dancing, drumming, and craft activities. The program is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
alone
My poor blog is left here all alone while I sail off into a fantasy world of pirates and gold. I haven't been feeling very creative lately and the days seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Not in hours of daylight, in actual time. Never enough.
So I post a favorite poem and vow once again to return to words one day.
The Art of Poetry
- Jorge Luis Borges
To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness--such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there's a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Poem in October
by Dylan Thomas
It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.
My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In a rainy autumn
And walked abroad in shower of all my days
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.
A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.
Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.
It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and the sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singing birds.
And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart's truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Remember the Mountain Bed
written by Woody Guthrie
Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves:
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds:
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves, face, breast, hips and thighs.
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes.
Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled woodvines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me.
Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky.
As your fingers played with grassy moss, and limber you did lie:
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots, as you lay thinking there.
Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away:
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go.
There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned.
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life’s reason why
The People laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die.
The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown,
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees were singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim, but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head…
I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams,
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands.
I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears,
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here:
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.
All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greeds, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight:
My loneliness healed my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breast of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
moonless beach
Beach
by Skorda
Thoughts flow nameless
The night black sea, no moon.
Chill mist salt scent blanket
scratch of sea grass, sand.
Timeless water rhythms
roaring, breaking free.
I find your hand, your mouth.
No words.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Notice from the Greek Institute
SAVE THE DATE: ALKISTIS PROTOPSALTI & STEFANOS KORKOLIS ONE NIGHT ONLY!
The Greek Institute is pleased to announce that we are sponsoring an
unforgettable and unique performance of
ALKISTIS PROTOPSALTI and STEFANOS KORKOLIS
in a piano-voice combination that took Athens by storm in 2009!
SAVE THE DATE!
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2009
8:00 PM
SANDERS THEATRE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MA
To purchase tickets:
Call The Greek Institute at 617-547-4770
or log on to our website at: www.thegreekinstitute.org
OR call the Harvard Box Office at 617-496-2222
or log on to: www.boxoffice.harvard.edu.
WE ARE TAKING ADVANCE ORDERS AT THE GREEK INSTITUTE
TICKETS GO ON SALE AT THE HARVARD BOX OFFICE THE LAST WEEK IN AUGUST!!
Stay tuned for more updates!
Friday, July 24, 2009
those birds
Groundless
The blackbird and the raven and the crow
Join seven magpies meeting on the wire
Their shiny beady black eyes all aglow
I think they may have gathered to conspire.
The caws and squawks grow loud as I walk near
I shiver as they look right down at me
I'm brave but still I feel a touch fear
that I'll become their victim if I flee.
I hold my breath, their wings begin to spread
They're restless now, I see their black eyes flash
Then they take off and fly over my head
To jostle with the seagulls for some trash
So was this scary feeling in my head
Or did those black birds really want me dead?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
I Cry for Walter Cronkite
I Cry for Walter Cronkite
by Skorda
The icons of my youth are dying one by one.
Now time is taking even the strong,
The ones who made it through the crazy times:
When war and drugs and people with guns
shook the life from so many still so young.
One moment present tense, the next a memory
It is happening more now. Soon they’ll all be gone
Those whose words and deeds and faces
told us who we were and what we wanted
back before we drove the twentieth century
over the cliff of time.
I’m sad that Walter Cronkite died,
I didn’t know the man, but I knew his voice
He was ninety-two, his life had been rich and full with experience,
but still it is sad.
My grief at his death touches selfishness, the personal.
One more small door closing on my generation,
shutting off then from now.
If you’re old enough you remember him well.
His voice, steady as a heartbeat,
Always droning somewhere in the background,
A reassuring constant through decades of change
A voice both shared and familiar
Day after day
recounting the events of our cruelly imperfect world.
Forty years ago this week, he was there for us
That July,
the lull before the Manson murders and Woodstock
A moment when Americans united
feeling good, feeling proud, feeling strong.
Listening to Walter Cronkite
as we gathered around flickering screens of grey and white
watching men walk on the moon.
It didn’t last long, that communitas
The war did not end, and December brought Altamont
Dreams were diminished, dashed or discarded
But we still had Walter, we called him Uncle Walt by then
He was there, our trusted witness to change
in our lives, in our homes,
as if we knew him well,
in living color.
My grief at his death is real, if small
I would like to believe my pain is big, but it’s not
I want to cry for all that was
Or for all that might have been
But I know that I cry for what I was
For who I think I was, or might have been
I cry for what I can’t remember
I cry because it all washes away
The present robs the dead of complexity
Distilling life down to the simple,
a look, a word, a phrase,
wrapped up neatly and delivered to the future.
It’s happening to Walter now, barely dead,
The winnowing of life for the bits that flash.
The elevation, the apotheosis
I’ve even heard him called the voice of God.
I cry for Walter Cronkite
I cry for myself , for my generation
The summing up of lives, the relentless loss.
The icons of my life are dying one by one.
When all have vanished, when my generation dies,
Who will bear witness?
Who will remember what was real?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
It was a good holiday week. My daughter, 3 friends 2 large dogs and lots of music. It should have felt crowded, but it was just about right. So very good to have life in the house, music in the air, dinner on the table. Here's Toby playing 5 string guitar in the dining room, I could listen to him all night!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Iguanas in Florida
My friend Roxanne and I were driving through a parking lot in Ft. Lauderdale when we came upon several large green iguanas basking in the sun. What a surprise!
ERASE FETISH
