HERE AND NOW
(AGAIN)
 days and nights on the frontier (I) we flew no flag because we were a secret, known only to readers of the front page of the New York Times which knew, even 45 years ago, all the secrets fit to print… but also, of course, the radicals and revolutionaries downtown knew, and the tribes who sent men to clean our rooms and shine our shoes and, no doubt, watch us carefully, preparing for the day, but best, there were the caravans who knew, lines of camels loaded with goods on their back, going clankity clankity with every lumbering, soft-footed step... the caravans that stopped every couple of months on the narrow road that separated our secret living quarters and our super-secret operations center where we sat and listened to the also not-so-secret secrets of the other guys... the camels put to pasture beside our walls where the merchants in their robes laid out their wares for us to consider as we passed for shift change, from the gates of our home to the gates of our work and back, all kinds of goods, oil paintings , brass shining bright under the desert sun, camel saddles of polished wood and soft leather and always at least one tailor who it was said could, for next to nothing, look at a picture of a man’s suit from Esquire and make an exact copy with the finest silk from China, a silk suit, finely tailored, in finest Savile Row fashion for $20… many bought such suits and some bought many suits before going home, getting word back to us who remained that, while the silk was fine, the cotton thread that sewed them was not, that the way to keep your $20 suit when you got home was to take it to someone who could take the suit apart and put it back together again with good thread… there was a lot about the place that was like the suits, both less and more than it often seemed - secrets that weren’t secret, finely tailored suits made with rotten thread, soldiers who would rather see us gone protecting us from people who would rather see us dead, fake wars and, ultimately, fake peace... days and nights on the frontier...  pressed like rain the moon a blood edged scimitar pushing a cloudburst west rolling dark and dense the Gulf’s gift to the desert, blooming in all the shades of cactus transcendent it would be a time to be there I’m not but would like to be running with the clouds across the desert and into the mountains pressed like the rain by the blood-edged moon  days and nights on the frontier (II) working a midnight shift on Moscow time meant that 4 a.m. breakfast at the 24/7 NCO club was a pitcher of beer and a cheeseburger with fries and the jukebox blasting… multiple listenings to the Doors with “Baby Light My Fire” … feeling worn and raunchy having seen nothing female for more than six months but the Commander’s 16-year-old daughter sunning at the pool, her leaving at the end of the Commander’s tour in whatever virginal state she arrived, a sterling testament to good military order and discipline…  as Mother’s Day approaches I think about a poem for my mother, passed on now for more than twenty years and it’s always hard, so much easier writing about my father, so large and dominant, he, the sun, she the moon and thus, it might seem a lesser light… but consider the moon, always circling, always there but sometimes seen and sometimes not, shifting phases and faces through the course of a month but never changing… a constant sometimes invisible in its constancy, a reflector, not a creator of light, easy sometimes misjudge its place and its power… but, consider the tides…  how I became a pacifist not much of a fighter when I was young, most of the fights I had I lost, like the first, when I beat my larger opponent’s fist with my face mercilessly… luckily for the fractious barroom drunks I occasionally crossed in my drinking days, I grew older and I grew smarter and, most important, I grew considerably larger, developing along the way a menacing visage, discovering, along the way that large and mean-looking allowed me a hardcase bluff that discouraged even the most hopelessly drunk from testing their unsteady valor against me, avoiding thereby further damage to innocent fists throughout the terminal of my Saturday night adventures learning, as was true in most of the rest of my life, that faking it usually works about as well being it  days and nights on the frontier (III) the operations center ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with staff working rotating shifts, swing, mid, and days, three days each shift with a day off between each and because of that twenty-four operation, everything else operated twenty-four hours as well, the NCO/Enlisted and Officer Clubs, the two tennis courts, the two lane bowling alley and the base theater, the base theater with a steady stream of Disney and other family entertainment (even though there were no families, except for a short time, the Commander and his daughter) and most everyone on the base who wasn’t working or sleeping was drunk or on the way to getting drunk… and the curious thing is (at least I think it’s curious now even though it didn’t strike me at the time) there was no obvious law enforcement - outside the walls were semi-permanent camps of host country soldiers who provided the external security but were never, ever allowed inside the gates and inside the gates I do not recall over eleven months ever seeing any military police except for those couple who guarded the gate to the operations center, reviewing badges to confirm we were who we were supposed to be at the place where we were supposed to be… nowhere inside the walled living area of the small base do I recall seeing a military policeman and nowhere, even the officers guarding the operations gate, did I see anyone armed… this, in a community of about 1,500, half to two-thirds awake at any one time with nowhere to go and nothing to but sit by the pool or at the appropriate club or by the walls or atop the barracks where stars shone bright in a display of light every desert night, nothing to do among this small collection of places but drink... drink and remember other, more welcoming, places and count the days remaining at this place, hoping the beer will last until then and then be left behind…  an old, out-out-of-season piece tamaleria it is Christmas Eve and in accordance with tradition we will spend it making tamales with a crew of related corn husk spreaders my son will be in charge, because in a large family of Mexican women, inheritors of generations of mamas and tias and abuelitas, all expert in the art, my half-Mexican son is the only one who knows how to do the job of mixing the masa and cooking the savory carne (and a few frijoles refritas, “las especiales” ) he has agreed to do handle the technical end of preparing ingredients and the actual cooking, but only if there are significant volunteers to do the grunt labor of actually spreading the masa and carne and wrapping the filled corn husks… I expect it will be great Christmas Eve fun for about the first hour… (I don’t even like tamales so much, but the time of gringo domination in South Texas is past, especially in the vicinity of mi casa…)  mistaking a thing’s name for its thingness the Zen master speaks of names and the naming of things and how the naming of things is a function of the world and not the thing how by naming we seek to catalog differences between things that are all the same, coming from the same place when their existence begins, going to the same place when it ends… a tree might be a tree, he says, but it is also a cat and a rock and a droplet of water and even a lion named Cecil, a name beyond a name, but still a tree and a rock and a cat and a droplet of water, and the sun is the moon and the moon is the star and the star is you and you are me and we are with all the rest all things that be, that have been, that will be, and all our naming does not change the essence of all things which is the same as all things of all things… be proud... for your are not that tiny, disposable thing your parents named you, you are more, bigger, part of all as you are part of your parents and their parents and the ox that pulled their wagon through the rock-strewn steppes of Patagonia… be proud... for you are much more than the blinded world has named you…  days and nights on the frontier (IV) from out barracks roof we can see over the walls and past the Pakistani soldiers who from their small camp guard us, and past them the fields and the shepherds and their sheep, and sometimes the shepherds take their sheep elsewhere as a man with a long-barreled, antique rifle shoots at another man with a long rifle in an adjacent field who shoots back, both missing, tribal disputes requiring not death or serious injury, but just the effort and the show, like dogs barking on opposite sides of a fence, a noisy piece, but effective at the time... (but not so much anymore it seems, the dogs of war having jumped the fence and men who are not shepherds with new and more accurate guns and women and children with bombs strapped to their chest) but this is then, then it was just the guards, singing quietly in the morning, and the fields and shepherds and sheep and make-believe wars for honor satisfied, and beyond them, the desert, shimmering on hot afternoons, and beyond them, the mountains, the Hindu Kush, hard mountains, dry, brown and treeless, just deep canyons and sharp crags cresting on a deep sky, a Martian landscape, hard mountains for hard people... we could see it all from our roof, watching with a six pack of beer as the soldiers who watched over us lay out their carpets to pray... they do not pray for us, except, perhaps for us to be gone  settling for semi-naked ladies I approach the new day’s poem as I approach the new day, hesitant and a little unsure as to how it’s going to go… a busy day ahead, things to do, a trip to Austin, nothing interesting enough to force into a poem… and while I sit here dumbfounded by my “failure to communicate” (what a great movie) creative self to sitting-in-my-chair-drinking-coffee self (and yes I know “dumbfounded” is a peculiar word for use in this context, but I like it and it is my weakness to use words I particularly like even if they don’t quite or at all fit and I’m used to it and I expect you to be too by this time) affirmation! (yes, self-affirmation, even when inappropriate essential to maintaining the hubris of putting words on paper and expecting them to be read by other than close friends and relatives who will tell you they read it even it they didn’t) (let’s face it - hubris, I mainline that stuff like a junkie on horse or a fat man eating pecan pie - I have no other excuse) meantime, communication between the ego and its alter still mostly static and buzz (is it not obvious), I am bombarded by images and moments and distractions, traffic on Broadway, a fire truck, Chopin bumping keys overhead, two skinny blond women having a meeting, too much time at the gym taking them past desirable to hungry and ferocious and sharp-toothed predatory (middle-age, trying, always, to keep that debutant look without the wide-eyed innocence I never believed anyway, but still probably nice people so I hate to criticize…) and, I swear to God, sea gulls that turn out to be ring tones on one of the women’s cell phone but it’s already too late, I’m back at the beach dodging jelly fish and nearly naked ladies… and I’m tired of this hail Mary fake and dodge anyway so what the hell, I quit ```````````````` content to hang out instead with the semi-naked ladies sand in my shorts be damned  days and nights on the frontier (V) a Filipino rock and roll band on the USO circuit around Europe, all dressed up in cowboy hats and fringed shirts with shiny snaps, playing rockabilly hits from the 50s, covers of the best from Sun Studios, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee and all the rest playing Christmas Eve at the NCO Club in Darmstadt down the road about 70 or so klicks from Frankfurt, and I had a date with the cousin of a friend, a pretty girl with dark hair and dark eyes and a bright, sunny smile, and we danced and danced bopping around the dance floor, her skirt swirling and swirling and it was a great Christmas Eve a long way from home… the guys in Vietnam had Hope and Ann-Margaret and the current Playboy Playmate of the Year... in Germany we had a Filipino rockabilly cover band, but nobody complained… ---------- a year and a half later I saw them again, the same Filipino cowboys, same hats, same fringe shirts with shiny snaps, playing the same rockabilly hits in the bar atop the Spirizan Hotel in Kabul… everyone liked them, even the Russians, big guys with stony stares who didn't express appreciation for much of anything but their vodka, and I liked them too, the cowboys, not the Russians, drinking my own Russian vodka, tapping my feet to the music, no dance floor and no pretty girl to swing around it like I remembered from Christmas Eve in Germany and I couldn’t but feel a little sorry for the guys, trying to play rock and roll guitar licks to an international crowd of far from home drunks in Afghanistan, having, it must have been, the worst agent in all of the Philippines…  snippet a snippet a drippit a little tiny tidbit readit & forgetit it’s just my morning today bit  Sad news, my poet-friend, Gary Blankenship, died a couple of days ago. My friend, beloved by everyone in the on-line poetry community who ever wrote or read with him, had a similar background to my own, a retired professional who turned to poetry for a purpose when work no longer provided one. I was one of those who wrote and read with Gary, almost from the time I began to write. His work, much quieter and gentler than my own more rough and ready work, was a good contrast to me. I have a couple of his books, including his first one. Wang Wei's River Poems, which introduced me to a particular Chinese master and to the old Chinese masters in general.
Unfortunately, my library is in disarray and I can't find Gary's book to choose from. Instead I'll post from this on-line selection from the book. Wang Wei, generally considered one of the three major Chinese (High Tang) poets, wrote a series of twenty poems collectively known as the Wang River Collection. They meant to record a journey up the river with his good friend, Pei Di, while also being about Wang’s mansion located in the river valley. paragraph 2 A group of poets from Toronto known as ‘Pain Not Bread’ published a book in 2000 titled Introduction to the Introduction to Wang Wei. The poems are modern free verse interpretations of Tang poetry by Wang, Tu Fu and others. Among the works is ‘Mountain Range,’ a beautiful adaptation of Wang Wei’s ‘Deer Park.’ 3 Based on their work and others, I’ve set out to ‘transform’ Wang Wei’s poems into mostly verse libre sonnets, a free form sonnet. The order is not Wang Wei’s. I selected the order on the basis of how much I liked the poems and how difficult I thought the transformation would be. 4 III: After Wang Wei’s Luan House Rapids (13) — Beyond the Estuary A torrent drowns duckweed and bulrush; squalls whip cattails and willow thickets. Canvas wet outside and in, soaked shoes squirt with each muddy step. A trickle, rivulet, rush flows over field and road, into cellars and badger holes. Boats break from their moorings, trash bins float like empty shells past broken dolls and bikes. On a cloudless night, we embrace the stars; we pour diamonds through our fingers. On a cold autumn night, jewels turn to dross; promises dull, lumps of cinder without warmth. A summer’s debris drifts to block the drain, a white feather trapped between stones. 5 The literal translation by Wai-Lim Yip, “Rill of the House of the Luans”, is 6 blast-blast — autumn rain/s middle lightly-lightly/shallow-shallow — rock flow pour jump wave/s-bead/s self mutual/each other splash white egret startle again down 7 Like the best of Oriental poets, Wang Wei leaves the poem unfinished; the meaning of the final line a mystery to be worked out by the reader. 8 My version is: Autumn rain and wind gusts strike the boulders below. The rapids’ waves collide -- startled egrets rise, settle. Although Gary had been less active than in the past, he leaves behind a wealth of excellent work.
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 eudaimonia (eudaimonia - translated from its Greek roots as “human flourishing”) she comes like a stranger to your door, knocks and demands entry and, if you are ready to allow her passage, becomes your friend becomes the spark that creates creation the carrier of human flourishing that blows away walls that restrict your vision, cuts the knots that bind your soul opening the all-embracing sky that carries in its winds the contagion of your spirit’s deepest reach, the fullness of your humanity the bottomless well of your completion  before I went insane dreams all night of a time 70 years past… * I was ten, the last year before the insanity of adolescence set upon me… * and I did it so well, crazy as hell, doing crazy things just to show I could do it… so many people their trust abused, it’s hard to believe I made it out alive, and how often luck saved me from finding my place in jail, behind the bars it seemed I so ardently sought, * all for pride, for place, for the benediction of any Judas priest … * so domesticated am I now… who could ever imagine the tangled path that brought me here --- dreaming all night about the years before I went insane  Moats in the Eye of a Disinterested God by Allen Itz Time and the Tides 1937 (part 2 of 13) Howard Hughes sets transcontinental air record Second Stalin purge trial, 17 sentenced to death DuPont patents nylon U.S. Steel raises worker pay to $5 per day First state contraceptive clinic opens in North Carolina Gas explosion in school in New London, Texas kills 294 Fritz Zwicky coins the term “supernova” Spinach growers in Crystal City, Texas erect statue of Popeye Debut of Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd First commercial flight across the Pacific “Gone With the Wind” wins Pulitzer Prize Hindenburg explodes on landing killing 36 Police kill 10 strikers at Republic Steel Amelia Earhart disappears over the Pacific Buchenwald concentration camp opens China declares war on Japan In a secret meeting Hitler informs his military leaders of his intention to go to war Nazi exhibition, “The Eternal Jew” opens in Munich Walt Disney premiers the first full-length animated movie, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” ---------- Heigh-ho Heigh-ho the urge to purge surges America’s most beautiful pilot disappears barbed wire around a new summer camp merit badges for killing Jews ---------- A widow, with a son who grows rambunctious and wild, living with relatives as a part-time housekeeper, decorating cakes at a bakery, her life promises little more. A high school graduate, his father’s business taken by the bank, his sister home from college to stay - the Great Depression sucks life from opportunity and ambition. He applies for work with the Work Progress Administration, but does not get called. He plays semi-pro baseball, loses an eye during pre-game warm up. The shadows of war clouds darken, but noticed still only in passing.  radio silence for the first year and a half of my military service I was in training at Indiana University for the two years after I spent my shifts sitting at a large radio console listening, trying to ferret out the secrets of the Soviet air force mostly this meant trying to dig out meaning from tiny Russian voices buried in rumpled beds of static as part of my training I learned that some of the voices on the radio get trapped in the higher ionosphere and bounce within that band for years, old voices from years past still circling the globe but most of the voices pass on through the atmosphere and sail off into the void, traveling to the stars, the human voice another bit of static for alien ears such a lesser static we are than what we hear, the sound of the big bang continuing its expansion, waves of such distant origin traveling past and through us all the days of our lives, such a joyous and holy sound, but how I I cursed it as I sought human meaning through its crunch and crackle, not understanding at the time that I was listening to the universe singing its birth song ~~~ so silent and dead would be the universe without  Fast Times at Flatonia Flats |
| On this Bright December Day I could be racing my Stutz Bearcat through the high mountain passes of Abrakazam, if I wanted to or trading tequila shots with the Duchess de Whirl I could do that... or I could be riding hell for leather across the rocky steppes of Kerikombati, eating roast pig on the pristine white sands of Jazmaka de Mir or attending a Hollywood premier with the bountifully bodacious Hungarian star of the evening, Alotta Shegotta, or I could go hang gliding over the deep red canyons of Tashtaganskastan if I wanted, or I might pilot my jumbo Lear to a birthday bash for the Prince of Cisco-Ferlingetti... lots of stuff like that I could be doing today... but I have a poem to write first, then the new Harry Potter movie that opened just last night, I could take my niece to that, and there's my geraniums that need some watering, and a drawer full of socks needing emergency organizational attention important stuff.. real life... real life stuff that proves I am living and not just part of someone's Stutz Bearcat dream  |
In the time of emergence
an old Navajo chant
speaks of the "time of emergence"
and I think of the all-there-is
emerging,
not a product created by the hand of a god,
but a creation that emerges from the mind
of the all-mother/all-father,
creation, not as a single event, a job of work,
complete over the course of a week of seven god-days,
but a continuing process of never-ending creation,
a creation-flow, an emergency of ever-deepening truth,
like the night emerges and from the night a day emerges
and from the day, a night, like the sea emerges from the deep,
breaks on shores far from where its water essence begins,
then returns to the deep that sent it, and back again to the same
or different shores, far-traveled, enriched by its journey;
like rain on cut hay left in the field overnight,
the fire of creation processing within, its must odor rising again
with the fallen rain to become a cloud, drifting over continents,
over prairies and mountains and cities and great forests,
across the oceans, bringing the musty smell of wet hay
with new-falling rain around the world and back again
to mowed fields where it began,
in a moment of passion emerged from one of us to another,
then the continued emergence through a life of ins and outs,
comes and goes, contributing as we come and go,
our own passions to the universe we are part of again,
flowing through our time until our end
and in a moment of death-ecstasy, souls singing
as we join the all-there-is from whence we came
our part of the great emergence complete, until we, like the sea
return again to new and different shores,
enriched by our time drifting in the creator's emerging conscious
Chaos management
"I am not afraid of chaos because chaos is the womb of light and life. What I don't like is mis-management of chaos."
- Franketienne, Haitian author, poet, playwright, painter
there are patterns to the univese,
from the orbits of galaxies
to the circling of the tiniest electron
around its mother neutron anchor
to the greening and falling of leaves
to the daily commute of bankers and painters and donut makers
to the soft sleep of babies and the long, dry nights of old and time-worn men,
all circling
all circling, each circle a world within itself,
inter-acting with its fellows in shadows of confusion,
like looking at the color patterns of gumballs encased in glass,
patterns seen only through a one-eyed squint from some great distance,
the further away clear becomes the organization,
red upon green next to blue under yellow,
each placed in a structured chaos,
like the universe in all its chaotic glory,
structured truth we can never get distanced enough to see,
an incubator spewing chaos,
indestructible unalterable manageable only through
the indirection of unseen hands that must never fumble
or chaos will solidify and all the circles will stop their spinning
and fall to the lethargy of inertia stilled
and all that is will, like Lot's wife, turn to salt crumbling on a silent palin
in the steady wind of never-again...
The poems in this post come from New Days & New Ways, my most recent, and probably last, book of poems, specifically from the 6th and last chapter in the book,"Out There," an attempt to close the book in a more philosophical vein.
I don't expect to ever again do the work involved in putting a book together and putting it out there for people to read.
I don't expect to ever again do the work involved in putting a book together and putting it out there for people to read.
Bang
I believe
we are all children of the big bang
and that nothing truly new has been added to the mix
since...
and while I don't know what came before the bang,
I'm guessing we'll figure it out
before the end...
multible bangs,
maybe;
bangs within bangs,
bangs bouncing off bangs like a six bank corner pocket hustle;
perpetual bang,
one bang banging another like steel balls hung from strings
banging one after the other in a row in a forever and ever progression;
bangs banging out there, banging in somewhere else -
that's one to imagine,
creation in reverse, the Garden of Eden returning to uplowed field...
or it could be a single, once-and-only bang -
that would make us really something,
us and all the universe we know, or don't,
our stars, the only stars anywhere
you and me, the only us anywhere...
somehow, I just don't feel that special
I believe
we are all children of the big bang
and that nothing truly new has been added to the mix
since...
and while I don't know what came before the bang,
I'm guessing we'll figure it out
before the end...
multible bangs,
maybe;
bangs within bangs,
bangs bouncing off bangs like a six bank corner pocket hustle;
perpetual bang,
one bang banging another like steel balls hung from strings
banging one after the other in a row in a forever and ever progression;
bangs banging out there, banging in somewhere else -
that's one to imagine,
creation in reverse, the Garden of Eden returning to uplowed field...
or it could be a single, once-and-only bang -
that would make us really something,
us and all the universe we know, or don't,
our stars, the only stars anywhere
you and me, the only us anywhere...
somehow, I just don't feel that special
Starburst
Born again, and again and again and again
I know many people who proudly proclaim
to have been born again,
under-achievers I call them
since, not satisfied with being only twice-born,
I have been born again;
and again and again again
for I am a being of universal elements
and thus, certain to be born again
as I have been born before uncountable times,
uncountable times,
for the parts that make me as old at the universe itself
and so must be all the things I have been,
things near to home and faraway -
lost in the vast unknown regions where stardust still drifts -
vastly traveled are my parts,
so vastly traveled I must be as well ,
so varied and old and well-traveled
look around you at the vast everything-ness
that we are,
have been,
and will be a part of ...
consider how marvelous I am,
and you as well
sometimes I think of the me that was a daffodil,
and how beautiful I was,
much more beautiful than I am now,
though rooted and consequently less curious than the proto-cat I was,
roaming with early felines, newly crearted to hunt that was the me,
that was the deer, or the beaver, or the small mouse hidden in high grasses,
or the grass I might have been,
or the wiggling worm that fertilized the grass-of-me with my worm droppings...
so many places I have been
so many beings I have been, so more than the twice
the pentacoltals brag of ,
and so much more than twice-born I will be in the millennia ahead,
so much more to be, so much longer to be them
I can imagine how jealous must be those who consider themselves
to be only twice-being
I know many people who proudly proclaim
to have been born again,
under-achievers I call them
since, not satisfied with being only twice-born,
I have been born again;
and again and again again
for I am a being of universal elements
and thus, certain to be born again
as I have been born before uncountable times,
uncountable times,
for the parts that make me as old at the universe itself
and so must be all the things I have been,
things near to home and faraway -
lost in the vast unknown regions where stardust still drifts -
vastly traveled are my parts,
so vastly traveled I must be as well ,
so varied and old and well-traveled
look around you at the vast everything-ness
that we are,
have been,
and will be a part of ...
consider how marvelous I am,
and you as well
sometimes I think of the me that was a daffodil,
and how beautiful I was,
much more beautiful than I am now,
though rooted and consequently less curious than the proto-cat I was,
roaming with early felines, newly crearted to hunt that was the me,
that was the deer, or the beaver, or the small mouse hidden in high grasses,
or the grass I might have been,
or the wiggling worm that fertilized the grass-of-me with my worm droppings...
so many places I have been
so many beings I have been, so more than the twice
the pentacoltals brag of ,
and so much more than twice-born I will be in the millennia ahead,
so much more to be, so much longer to be them
I can imagine how jealous must be those who consider themselves
to be only twice-being
Explosion at the Campbell Soup Factory
Discovery
the serenity
of the moment before
the particle of a second
when the universe stops to inhale
before breathing again
with a gasp of stars shaken and stirred
in their orbits
the idea,
the thought complete,
all pieces floating in confusion slide through the chaos
to find their place together...
and you know, you finally know how your life
fits in the greater, pulsating, ocean of creatures
both like and unlike yourself
the greater theme is finally yours to know...
now it is only to not forget
again
the serenity
of the moment before
the particle of a second
when the universe stops to inhale
before breathing again
with a gasp of stars shaken and stirred
in their orbits
the idea,
the thought complete,
all pieces floating in confusion slide through the chaos
to find their place together...
and you know, you finally know how your life
fits in the greater, pulsating, ocean of creatures
both like and unlike yourself
the greater theme is finally yours to know...
now it is only to not forget
again
This poem is by Marilyn Hacker, from her book, Winter Poems, published by W W Nortorn in 1994.
letter on June 15
I didn't want a crowd. I didn't want
writers backbiting in a restaurant.
Last night's leftover duck, some chilled Sancerre
(you've called fresh-tasting) beckoned to me more.
I crossed the Pont Sully, into an eight-
forty sunset, toward home, and whom I'd meet.
In the letter that I didn't write,
I tell you, I was meeting you tonight.
You in an envelope; you in the braille
of postmarks footnoting the morning mail.
You, bracked from life with someone else
though part of every page is what she tells
you; not my morning clarity of bells
to matins, phoned links to life with someone else.
I met you here as if geography
wee all that separated you from me
though hand to hand and lovely mouth to mouth
magnetic norh and doubly polar south
are on lost maps, the trails are overgrown.
It's warm, it's almost dark, it's half past ten.
"I can't imagne Paris without you"
was the tearjerker on the radio
when I begana to cry in Julie's car
under the Nashville skyline where you were
the bottom line. By the time we got
to Phoenix (with bald tires and gluey hot
seatcovers) I was already half way back
to Paris without you. In time, with luck,
anyone can imagine needing less
than all this food, these books, these clothes: excel
uholstry, distraction dead wood, bloat.
You're what I had to learn to do without.
I did. But there you are, no farther than
the whirring of the small electric fan
we bought that summer when you had night sweats,
then a sore back, then just a cold, then doubts
that you'd blot out with morning lust against
my chest, my cunt my mouth, as evdence
that you were present. Later, you'd deny
what you'll admit to now: the late Julythree-quarter moon on shuttered bars, the meat
and vegetables, the dim glow when you lit
a candle in the chapel after Mass.
An ancient park attendant clears the grass
of kids who where imagined jouissance
when we conceived and miscarried out chance.
We each have whispered, written, other names.s
There are more dead for whom to light small flames.
Down on the street, waiters crank up the awniing
of the cafe en face. Tomorrow morning
I'll be no farther and no closer than
your walk down to the post office with Jan
along a storm -pocked tertiary road.
Word-children, we will send eac other words
that measure disances we have to keep
defining. When I lay me down to sleep
you stack up your day's work sheets on the porch
table, light up, lean back. Two silver birch
trees for a twilit arch above your head.
I't hours before you're going to bed.
letter on June 15
I didn't want a crowd. I didn't want
writers backbiting in a restaurant.
Last night's leftover duck, some chilled Sancerre
(you've called fresh-tasting) beckoned to me more.
I crossed the Pont Sully, into an eight-
forty sunset, toward home, and whom I'd meet.
In the letter that I didn't write,
I tell you, I was meeting you tonight.
You in an envelope; you in the braille
of postmarks footnoting the morning mail.
You, bracked from life with someone else
though part of every page is what she tells
you; not my morning clarity of bells
to matins, phoned links to life with someone else.
I met you here as if geography
wee all that separated you from me
though hand to hand and lovely mouth to mouth
magnetic norh and doubly polar south
are on lost maps, the trails are overgrown.
It's warm, it's almost dark, it's half past ten.
"I can't imagne Paris without you"
was the tearjerker on the radio
when I begana to cry in Julie's car
under the Nashville skyline where you were
the bottom line. By the time we got
to Phoenix (with bald tires and gluey hot
seatcovers) I was already half way back
to Paris without you. In time, with luck,
anyone can imagine needing less
than all this food, these books, these clothes: excel
uholstry, distraction dead wood, bloat.
You're what I had to learn to do without.
I did. But there you are, no farther than
the whirring of the small electric fan
we bought that summer when you had night sweats,
then a sore back, then just a cold, then doubts
that you'd blot out with morning lust against
my chest, my cunt my mouth, as evdence
that you were present. Later, you'd deny
what you'll admit to now: the late Julythree-quarter moon on shuttered bars, the meat
and vegetables, the dim glow when you lit
a candle in the chapel after Mass.
An ancient park attendant clears the grass
of kids who where imagined jouissance
when we conceived and miscarried out chance.
We each have whispered, written, other names.s
There are more dead for whom to light small flames.
Down on the street, waiters crank up the awniing
of the cafe en face. Tomorrow morning
I'll be no farther and no closer than
your walk down to the post office with Jan
along a storm -pocked tertiary road.
Word-children, we will send eac other words
that measure disances we have to keep
defining. When I lay me down to sleep
you stack up your day's work sheets on the porch
table, light up, lean back. Two silver birch
trees for a twilit arch above your head.
I't hours before you're going to bed.
True Romance
Inside/outside
it's all a circle,
these lives we lead,
everything goes,
and in its time, comes again
like this bright and beautiful morning,
sky clear, the light blue of bright
yellow sunshine and yellow-laced shadows...
i've been here before and, with luck,
be here again - and again and again, knowing
even as I luxuriate in this cold bright,
that dark will come again,
welcoming that dark, for bright is not bright without it,
as day is not day without the brackets of night,
as people who live in the dry desert, how they welcome
the rain, people who live under a forever cloudless sky,
how they marvel at a cloud's slow passing...
and as I think of my circular life,
I think of my dog, lovely, sweet Reba, for whom
every minute is the only minute, like all dogs,
living in the moment, every minute a lifetime,
sixty life times in an hour, how disconcerting,
how wonderful to be so inflicted by nature,
so blessed to live like that,
to live outside the circle of time,
to live in the constant changing
forever strange and forever new
and I wonder if I could ever be dog enough
to live a life of so many lives
it's all a circle,
these lives we lead,
everything goes,
and in its time, comes again
like this bright and beautiful morning,
sky clear, the light blue of bright
yellow sunshine and yellow-laced shadows...
i've been here before and, with luck,
be here again - and again and again, knowing
even as I luxuriate in this cold bright,
that dark will come again,
welcoming that dark, for bright is not bright without it,
as day is not day without the brackets of night,
as people who live in the dry desert, how they welcome
the rain, people who live under a forever cloudless sky,
how they marvel at a cloud's slow passing...
and as I think of my circular life,
I think of my dog, lovely, sweet Reba, for whom
every minute is the only minute, like all dogs,
living in the moment, every minute a lifetime,
sixty life times in an hour, how disconcerting,
how wonderful to be so inflicted by nature,
so blessed to live like that,
to live outside the circle of time,
to live in the constant changing
forever strange and forever new
and I wonder if I could ever be dog enough
to live a life of so many lives
A cold, fishhook moon
a cold, fishhook moon
floating in a black, star-specked sky...
the universal pool of all overhead
as I walk the path down hill in the goose-bump cold
of this post-midnight, pre-dawn morning...
I wander in the star-lit dark, searching,
as I sometimes do in the night while others sleep,
searching for the answers
that even in these late years elude me,
searching through the mysteries of night
whether full-moon light or dim, no-moon dark
for the the whys and ways and whats
of a day in the life of the one among millions
that is me -
carbon-cluster me, assuming,
with the arrogance of my kind,
that there are answers that are mine
to know
a cold, fishhook moon
floating in a black, star-specked sky...
the universal pool of all overhead
as I walk the path down hill in the goose-bump cold
of this post-midnight, pre-dawn morning...
I wander in the star-lit dark, searching,
as I sometimes do in the night while others sleep,
searching for the answers
that even in these late years elude me,
searching through the mysteries of night
whether full-moon light or dim, no-moon dark
for the the whys and ways and whats
of a day in the life of the one among millions
that is me -
carbon-cluster me, assuming,
with the arrogance of my kind,
that there are answers that are mine
to know
Anthropocene
that's what they are now calling
"The Age of Man"
meaning, I'm not sure, either
the time humans began to occupy the earth
as masters, or the period
beginning earlier, when man existed primarily
as small, sampering jungle and prairie prey...
but I'm pretty sure "the age of man," hower defined,
came after the "age of dinosaurs," about which I'm not sure
were they reptiles or mamalian cousins of man
that just happened to lay eggs, or, as I've begun to hear,
somehow related to chickens and I'm not sure
if chickens are reptiles or mammals with wings,
or something else, along with turkeys and hawks
and eagles and red,red rohins, and even
carrion eating vulture...
but I am delighted that there is a chance
that the "age of man" followed the "age of chickens"
and, considering how stupid chickens are,
whether the "age of man" would have ever come about
if we had been competing for an age of our own
with something smarter, a dog, or maybe a pig,
leaving us, had it been thus, scrathing fleas
and sleeping a slop pen in the "age of dog and pig"
and putting all that ancient history aside, I can't help but wonder
whose age the next will he...
considering our record so far during my particular part
in the "age of man", tkhe "age of ash and cinder" might seem
a fair prospect for the next age. or, maybe a better scenario,
like the "age of cockroach" (think of that the next time
you squash a cockroach with your pointy-toed cowboy boot,
it might be your heirs you are suashing,
and heaven forbid they have a long genetic memory -
plan for the future, that's what you have to do
when you're responsible for a whole age)
-----
meanwhile, across the way,
a herd of deer graze across a broad pasture,
except not bunched like a herd,
but scattered individually across the field,
as if each deer, walking his on way,,
decided on its own to stop for a bite of pasture grass,
solitary deer each at its own meal,
not Texas deer, too much alone, New York deer, maybe,
commuters at a quick-stop pasture, adapting
to the "age of man"
and my cockroach mean mood is lifted...
maybe there's a chance for an "age of deer",
a return to golden fields and forests,
a return to the "age of first nature" -
befor the jealous god split timel
and brought the misery of ages to humans
and all the other creatures alike
or maybe,
if I believe that hard enough
it will make, at least,
a better day
that's what they are now calling
"The Age of Man"
meaning, I'm not sure, either
the time humans began to occupy the earth
as masters, or the period
beginning earlier, when man existed primarily
as small, sampering jungle and prairie prey...
but I'm pretty sure "the age of man," hower defined,
came after the "age of dinosaurs," about which I'm not sure
were they reptiles or mamalian cousins of man
that just happened to lay eggs, or, as I've begun to hear,
somehow related to chickens and I'm not sure
if chickens are reptiles or mammals with wings,
or something else, along with turkeys and hawks
and eagles and red,red rohins, and even
carrion eating vulture...
but I am delighted that there is a chance
that the "age of man" followed the "age of chickens"
and, considering how stupid chickens are,
whether the "age of man" would have ever come about
if we had been competing for an age of our own
with something smarter, a dog, or maybe a pig,
leaving us, had it been thus, scrathing fleas
and sleeping a slop pen in the "age of dog and pig"
and putting all that ancient history aside, I can't help but wonder
whose age the next will he...
considering our record so far during my particular part
in the "age of man", tkhe "age of ash and cinder" might seem
a fair prospect for the next age. or, maybe a better scenario,
like the "age of cockroach" (think of that the next time
you squash a cockroach with your pointy-toed cowboy boot,
it might be your heirs you are suashing,
and heaven forbid they have a long genetic memory -
plan for the future, that's what you have to do
when you're responsible for a whole age)
-----
meanwhile, across the way,
a herd of deer graze across a broad pasture,
except not bunched like a herd,
but scattered individually across the field,
as if each deer, walking his on way,,
decided on its own to stop for a bite of pasture grass,
solitary deer each at its own meal,
not Texas deer, too much alone, New York deer, maybe,
commuters at a quick-stop pasture, adapting
to the "age of man"
and my cockroach mean mood is lifted...
maybe there's a chance for an "age of deer",
a return to golden fields and forests,
a return to the "age of first nature" -
befor the jealous god split timel
and brought the misery of ages to humans
and all the other creatures alike
or maybe,
if I believe that hard enough
it will make, at least,
a better day
Who will be the poet then?
say that a poem is not the word spoken
or the word printed in some proscribed form
designated as poetic by tradition or fashion of the time;
go instead to the image the words,
however presented, are meant to provoke
and find the poetry directly in the vision,
images in the air of real space and time,
transmitted through your senses to that part of your mind
that dwells among the visual cues and clues of the world,
the de-randomized pieces that combine to for a picture
that means an emotion, visions that fire chemial reactions
that push eletronic jabs to our frontal cortex
to createl a contex within which emotions form,
think of poetry as transcending words,
internal visions of the poet going directly
to an external vision to be seen and shared...
(the most beatiful poem I've ever experienced,
a French short film of horses,
a herd of horses running through fields of high grass,
the beauty of their flesh and their muscled bodies,
and the sweat blown from their nostrils,
and the steam, too, from their mouths and nostrils,
the internal heatof their great bodies under great exertion
blown into cold air, and the colors of their coats
and the grace of their great running leaps
over high grass and shallow waterways -
the most beautiful poetry I've ever experienced
and not a word was spoken - no words written or spoken
could match the image direct)
think of poetry as visions transmitted through
some visual media, like the screen of your local cinema,
or think of future poetry, transmitted directly
into your dreams...
think of the day when dreams are the ultimate poetry
and poets the ultimate dream-makers...
who will be the poets then
say that a poem is not the word spoken
or the word printed in some proscribed form
designated as poetic by tradition or fashion of the time;
go instead to the image the words,
however presented, are meant to provoke
and find the poetry directly in the vision,
images in the air of real space and time,
transmitted through your senses to that part of your mind
that dwells among the visual cues and clues of the world,
the de-randomized pieces that combine to for a picture
that means an emotion, visions that fire chemial reactions
that push eletronic jabs to our frontal cortex
to createl a contex within which emotions form,
think of poetry as transcending words,
internal visions of the poet going directly
to an external vision to be seen and shared...
(the most beatiful poem I've ever experienced,
a French short film of horses,
a herd of horses running through fields of high grass,
the beauty of their flesh and their muscled bodies,
and the sweat blown from their nostrils,
and the steam, too, from their mouths and nostrils,
the internal heatof their great bodies under great exertion
blown into cold air, and the colors of their coats
and the grace of their great running leaps
over high grass and shallow waterways -
the most beautiful poetry I've ever experienced
and not a word was spoken - no words written or spoken
could match the image direct)
think of poetry as visions transmitted through
some visual media, like the screen of your local cinema,
or think of future poetry, transmitted directly
into your dreams...
think of the day when dreams are the ultimate poetry
and poets the ultimate dream-makers...
who will be the poets then
I will be using a number of pieces in this post that I didn't include in my book, Places and Spaces, because they didn't fit with the plan I had for the book.
beginning with this one, from our first visit to Durango. We've been back many times, as recently as a month and a half ago.
Animas in the A.M.
5 a.m.
walking main street
downtown
dog impervious to the cold
not me
across the railroad tracks
past the hotel
slick sidewalk
alongside the Animas River
snow deep on both sides
river iced at the bank
solitary duck
climbs frost-glistened
rock
mid-stream
slips
scrambles
honks
no other sound
but the rustle of the river
as it eddies and curls and slides
over rocks
across the river
five deer gather
in a clearing
graze
silent as the morning
a car crosses
the bridge at the end of the block
lights reflecting on snow
all around
tires crunching froze-crisp ice shell on the road
and the deer
flipping their tails
flee
high-leaping
(Durango, Colorado, 1997)
beginning with this one, from our first visit to Durango. We've been back many times, as recently as a month and a half ago.
Animas in the A.M.
5 a.m.
walking main street
downtown
dog impervious to the cold
not me
across the railroad tracks
past the hotel
slick sidewalk
alongside the Animas River
snow deep on both sides
river iced at the bank
solitary duck
climbs frost-glistened
rock
mid-stream
slips
scrambles
honks
no other sound
but the rustle of the river
as it eddies and curls and slides
over rocks
across the river
five deer gather
in a clearing
graze
silent as the morning
a car crosses
the bridge at the end of the block
lights reflecting on snow
all around
tires crunching froze-crisp ice shell on the road
and the deer
flipping their tails
flee
high-leaping
(Durango, Colorado, 1997)
Cold truths of life and death in black and white
atop a rise
a mound of earth
an ancient burial mound
looking out over
a snowed-over field
white field
black skeleton of a winterized tree
thin black line of a frozen creek
five black horses
led by a white horse
ghost against the snow
legs lifted high
above the snow
crossing
(Colorado, February, 2008)
A cemetery
a cemetery
on a low mound
between the highway
and the Rio Grande
the humble markers
of poor people
from the cluster
of casitas
I passed a quarter mile
back, small houses
of native stone, like
the more elaborate markers,
the ones not of rotting wood,
crosses, bowing toward the ground,
native flowers
gather at the base of some,
stone or wood, nothing,
stone or wood or flowers,
around the indentations
that mark the oldest graves,
the unmarked, the never marked,
those of transient markers
no match for the inevitable
decline of time that leaves these
shallow dimples
over a grave in which nothing
but a few scattered bones
remain, poor people,
cowboys and shepherds
who lived and died,
then faded to nothing beneath
dry badland
sand…
(Hwy. 170 between Terlingua and Presidio, May, 2003)
a cemetery
on a low mound
between the highway
and the Rio Grande
the humble markers
of poor people
from the cluster
of casitas
I passed a quarter mile
back, small houses
of native stone, like
the more elaborate markers,
the ones not of rotting wood,
crosses, bowing toward the ground,
native flowers
gather at the base of some,
stone or wood, nothing,
stone or wood or flowers,
around the indentations
that mark the oldest graves,
the unmarked, the never marked,
those of transient markers
no match for the inevitable
decline of time that leaves these
shallow dimples
over a grave in which nothing
but a few scattered bones
remain, poor people,
cowboys and shepherds
who lived and died,
then faded to nothing beneath
dry badland
sand…
(Hwy. 170 between Terlingua and Presidio, May, 2003)
Come the resurrection
the path down and back
is steep and arduous, especially
for older people,
though benches along the way
provide a place to stop and rest,
a moment to breathe thin air
and listen to the wind
passing
between the canyon walls,
the stubby trees
restless in response
birds call along the way
but go silent
among the ruins,
homage to the ghosts
who patrol the bare adobe rooms,
guarding the ancient walls
until those who left
return again, pull from storehouses
the grain and seed they left
behind
for this very day of
resurrection
we are silent visitors,
with the birds, waiting for the
tread of soft
footsteps
so long absent from their
home
(Mesa Verde, 1979)
Continental divide
snow field
backed up by pine
7 years old,
the first time he’s seen
this much snow,
out of the car
pushing through hip-deep snow...
first snowball,
hits me on the chest,
I return fire,
snow battle ensues
until we collapse laughing
in the snow…
shadows pass
in forest silence,
behind the thick pines,
deer,
giving no apparent notice
to the strangers
and their loud, unfamiliar games
in the virgin snow…
fresh storm coming,
first flakes fall,
fat
wet flakes
hitting with a splat
on our coats,
the windshield...
time
to get off the mountain
(Colorado, late October, 1990)
snow field
backed up by pine
7 years old,
the first time he’s seen
this much snow,
out of the car
pushing through hip-deep snow...
first snowball,
hits me on the chest,
I return fire,
snow battle ensues
until we collapse laughing
in the snow…
shadows pass
in forest silence,
behind the thick pines,
deer,
giving no apparent notice
to the strangers
and their loud, unfamiliar games
in the virgin snow…
fresh storm coming,
first flakes fall,
fat
wet flakes
hitting with a splat
on our coats,
the windshield...
time
to get off the mountain
(Colorado, late October, 1990)
Dust to dust to dust
wind howling
outside the car
sand popping
against our windows
like tiny fingers tapping,
blowing across the highway
thick as a mid-winter fog
on a Gulf coast morning
tumbleweeds
fly in front of us and behind
like prickly missiles
shot from a silo somewhere
in Iowa or Kansas
a big one,
the size of a small car,
rushing at us broadside,
tossed airborne,
right over the top of us,
one side to the other…
(Texas Panhandle, March 1981)
From 2014, not a travel poem, though the picture is, from 1967 while studying Russian at Indiana University for the Air Force.
King of the serial heroes
breakfast
downtown again,
my favorite place for breakfast,
the best $40 breakfast
in town…
and
why am I telling you this?
because I have to tell you something
I suppose
and until I have something interesting
to tell you
my breakfast plans will have to do…
the restaurant
at the Pearl, about a block and a half
from my coffeehouse, so
I’d be going that way even if I wasn’t
going there for breakfast
7 o’clock now,
meeting Dee at the restaurant
at 8:30, which means
I’ll be leaving here
about 8 o’clock
- here being my regular breakfast haunt
where I just had coffee and toast
this morning, with a turkey sausage patty
for the dog
(here being were I am every morning - here
for a symbolic cup of coffee
so the servers won't feel disrespected
by my absence and so
they won't call the sheriff to investigate
the possibility of foul play having
befallen me)
but still niceties aside, I must leave room
for the coddled eggs…
then, going
downtown on the interstate
on a misty-slick road, commuter clogged,
half the traffic intimidated by the wet road,
driving 50 miles an hour, and the other half
hitting 85, on the theory that slick roads
won’t be a problem if you drive
fast enough to fly
above them
see,
there, I finally got to the exciting part,
will I make it downtown
or will I die in a wet, dripping and twisted wreck
half-way there?
it’s a real drama
this poem
a cliff-hanger,
just like when Zorro
rides his horse off a cliff
into a deep, dark
ravine
you have to come back
next Saturday to see how he survived,
"how", not "if" because we know he did survive
just don’t know how, Saturday afternoon
movie serial heroes, like God himself,
moving in mysterious ways
to always beat the odds, survive
for a second, third, fourth, fifth, etc.
coming…
I am the hero of all my stories,
as you well might know,
so expect a dramatic, bloody car crash,
from which I will crawl, unhurt,
to continue my Wednesday morning quest
for my $40 breakfast
King of the Serial Heroes - that’s me
another travel poem not included in the travel book, "Places and Spaces"
Musical mystery tour
he and I,
father and son
quality time together
driving through the mountains
and deserts and vistas
of the American Southwest, me
celebrating my first
retirement, he
celebrating the end of another
year of high school
at fifteen,
a musician himself,
he had an advanced and eclectic taste
in music, so that by our fourth day
I was introduced to musicians new to me
that are still among my favorites
more than 20 years later,
listening to Bella Fleck and his Flecktones
as we pass through Santa Fe,
Dave Matthews while visiting Red Rocks,
near holy site to Chris,
where Dave and his band played
in their early days, about to get too big
for such small venues, imagining
the band’s improvisations echoing off the rocks,
Denver’s tall buildings on the horizon,
and over and over as we passed through state
after state, a Willie and Lobo CD,
two guys with about a half-dozen modern and exotic string instruments,
a mix of musical styles and themes from the Moors and the Spanish,
intricate compositions from all the different strains
of Spanish musical influences with a little modern jazz mixed in,
thinking how amazing and wonderful it would be
to watch them play…
somewhere in Arizona,
a small town
whose main and near only street
followed along railroad tracks
from city-start to city-end,
a rusty town, everything rusty red,
a mining town, the red dust of its mines
the only thing left of the towns
reason to be…
a night in a motel beside the highway,
brought awake several times though the long night
by trains passing, their lonely whistle moaning at every crossing,
up early for breakfast and coffee at a café beside the tracks,
sausage and eggs and a flyer on the cashier’s counter,
Willie and Lobo,
never knowing they would be there,
we missed them by just two days…
I didn’t tell Chris how close we had come,
but I still have the CD
and play it often
(Somewhere in Arizona, 1998)
Musical mystery tour
he and I,
father and son
quality time together
driving through the mountains
and deserts and vistas
of the American Southwest, me
celebrating my first
retirement, he
celebrating the end of another
year of high school
at fifteen,
a musician himself,
he had an advanced and eclectic taste
in music, so that by our fourth day
I was introduced to musicians new to me
that are still among my favorites
more than 20 years later,
listening to Bella Fleck and his Flecktones
as we pass through Santa Fe,
Dave Matthews while visiting Red Rocks,
near holy site to Chris,
where Dave and his band played
in their early days, about to get too big
for such small venues, imagining
the band’s improvisations echoing off the rocks,
Denver’s tall buildings on the horizon,
and over and over as we passed through state
after state, a Willie and Lobo CD,
two guys with about a half-dozen modern and exotic string instruments,
a mix of musical styles and themes from the Moors and the Spanish,
intricate compositions from all the different strains
of Spanish musical influences with a little modern jazz mixed in,
thinking how amazing and wonderful it would be
to watch them play…
somewhere in Arizona,
a small town
whose main and near only street
followed along railroad tracks
from city-start to city-end,
a rusty town, everything rusty red,
a mining town, the red dust of its mines
the only thing left of the towns
reason to be…
a night in a motel beside the highway,
brought awake several times though the long night
by trains passing, their lonely whistle moaning at every crossing,
up early for breakfast and coffee at a café beside the tracks,
sausage and eggs and a flyer on the cashier’s counter,
Willie and Lobo,
never knowing they would be there,
we missed them by just two days…
I didn’t tell Chris how close we had come,
but I still have the CD
and play it often
(Somewhere in Arizona, 1998)
The next poem is by Frank O'Hara, taken from his book, Meditations in an Emergency. The book was published by Grove Press in 1957.
O'Hara was born in Baltimore in 1926 and grew up in New England. From 1951, he worked in New York, first for Art News and for the Museum of Modern Art as assistant curator. He was killed in an auto pedestrian accident in 1966 at the ate of 40. He wrote of postwar art and of his experiences as a gay man.
Radio
Why do you play such dreary music
on Saturday afternoon, when tired
mortally tired I long for a little
reminder of immortal energy?4
All
week long while I trudge fatiguingly
from desk to desk in the museum
you spill your miracles of Grieg
and Honegger on shut-ins.
Am I not
shut in too, and after a week
of work don't I deserve Prokofieff?
Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning
to aspire to I think it has an orange
bed in it, more than the ear can hold.
(note: I nod in agreement with the thrust of this poem. My local classics station seems to define worthy to air as anything written over 300 years ago. I long to hear some music from the great scores in cinema, the popular opera of our time.
Gravity’s gold
Bella and I, her golden fur
blazing like the bright
of a second sun shining, and me,
devote disciple of the church
of intermittent napping,
sit together on a park bench
in the central plaza crawling
with people seeming all
tourists, the only likely
resident habitues, the aged hippies
sitting behind us strumming
guitars, talking about everything
from starships to moon shadows
on the plaza in dim early
morning….
the tourists who pass,
old couples, pretty girls
with accents, all stop
to talk to Bella, to stroke
her head, as if she were,
indeed, the sun with the sun’s
gravity, pulling them
to her orbit…
while she, usually so distant
and unwelcoming to anyone
who is not me, more
like a cold far star than
the warm draw
of an afternoon sun, basks
in the attention…
doesn’t want to leave
when I get tired of
sitting
(Santa Fe, 2013)
Bella and I, her golden fur
blazing like the bright
of a second sun shining, and me,
devote disciple of the church
of intermittent napping,
sit together on a park bench
in the central plaza crawling
with people seeming all
tourists, the only likely
resident habitues, the aged hippies
sitting behind us strumming
guitars, talking about everything
from starships to moon shadows
on the plaza in dim early
morning….
the tourists who pass,
old couples, pretty girls
with accents, all stop
to talk to Bella, to stroke
her head, as if she were,
indeed, the sun with the sun’s
gravity, pulling them
to her orbit…
while she, usually so distant
and unwelcoming to anyone
who is not me, more
like a cold far star than
the warm draw
of an afternoon sun, basks
in the attention…
doesn’t want to leave
when I get tired of
sitting
(Santa Fe, 2013)
A flight to Kabul from Peshawar, Easter week, 1969
Moonscape
mountains
high and bare
our small DC-3
struggles
as highest peaks
pass below within
arm’s reach, it seems,
from my window seat
life below
if there is such
must be harsh
and hard
with hard people
harsh and unforgiving
to those who intrude
without invitation...
not to be
messed with
as centuries
of armies and great generals
have learned - from Alexander
to even now ourselves
ruing the lesson -
if you decide you must fight here
make sure first you have
the merciless moonscape mountains
on your side
(Flying over the Hindu Kush, April, 1969)
Moonscape
mountains
high and bare
our small DC-3
struggles
as highest peaks
pass below within
arm’s reach, it seems,
from my window seat
life below
if there is such
must be harsh
and hard
with hard people
harsh and unforgiving
to those who intrude
without invitation...
not to be
messed with
as centuries
of armies and great generals
have learned - from Alexander
to even now ourselves
ruing the lesson -
if you decide you must fight here
make sure first you have
the merciless moonscape mountains
on your side
(Flying over the Hindu Kush, April, 1969)
This poem is by Andrew W. Greeley, taken from his book, The Sense of Love, published by the Ashland Poetry Press of Ashland College in 1992.
Greeley, a priest ordained in the diocese of Chicago nearly four decades ago, has been a noted scholar for many years (a professor of social science at the University of Chicago and the author of scores of books in sociology) and has been a constant best-selling fiction writer.
A Conclave Sonnet
(For Grace Ann)
Our great glacier-melted lake turns most fair
When, troubled, it gropes for uncertain calm
A Like a girl combing wet and tangle hair,
Rain swept and twisted by a manic storm.
Hair-line traced, fragile vase more lively made,
Lightly marked by steel-pointed sorrow's knife,
Ready still for flowers too long delayed
To grace subtle lines in the bloom of life.
Children do not mourn for the lost half day
When the noon sky lifts after summer rain
But praise the blue with an afternoon of mirth...
Hope broken, shattered, stomped on, then reborn:
First life lost, it was said, then found again...
Seeing death as the vespers of rebirth.
Greeley, a priest ordained in the diocese of Chicago nearly four decades ago, has been a noted scholar for many years (a professor of social science at the University of Chicago and the author of scores of books in sociology) and has been a constant best-selling fiction writer.
A Conclave Sonnet
(For Grace Ann)
Our great glacier-melted lake turns most fair
When, troubled, it gropes for uncertain calm
A Like a girl combing wet and tangle hair,
Rain swept and twisted by a manic storm.
Hair-line traced, fragile vase more lively made,
Lightly marked by steel-pointed sorrow's knife,
Ready still for flowers too long delayed
To grace subtle lines in the bloom of life.
Children do not mourn for the lost half day
When the noon sky lifts after summer rain
But praise the blue with an afternoon of mirth...
Hope broken, shattered, stomped on, then reborn:
First life lost, it was said, then found again...
Seeing death as the vespers of rebirth.
Remembering the caves
so it’s like this,
we preserve memories in our brain
and when our brain
dies
so die the memories
but there are also
memories that
reside in our genes
that do not die with us
but are passed on to our
offspring, memories
encoded in genes
that are part of the
inheritance
just as are the rest
of the genetic
mix that makes us
generational memories,
passed on and passed on
so that some part of us
remembers the cave,
remembers the man-things,
the almost-us Neanderthals
who we remember
as we remember so many
other fantastical things
beyond our experience,
things we explain through
tall tales and myths and
fairy stories…
and beyond that,
it is said, all living things
animal and plant
have these genetic memories
just as all living things
have a consciousness, the
whooping cranes
in their winter marsh home,
finding this refuge every year
not though some trick
of navigation, but because
they remember it,
generations of genetic memory
remembering its comforts
and where it is and how
to get there
and also the forests
and the prairie grasses
and the sunflower
who turns its face
to the sun before
the sun rises, knowing
from generations that it will
rise and that it will rise
in the east and generations
of warm sun memory tell it
when it is time to turn…
science learning from
myth, myth suggesting
new science, and with each
new thing we learn,
new mysteries, all knowledge
an accumulation of ignorance
addressed,, universal
consciousness, memories
from all becoming
part of all…
where have we heard
that before…
```
this
the state of knowledge
expanding
today
theory
always questing to be
challenged, questing
to be debunked
what does a poet
know of this
and what advice
can such a dabbler
provide
not much
only enough to consider
one suggestion -
maybe we should all talk
to our petunias today
though we know they will not
talk back, science tells us
there is a good chance
they will hear
and warm themselves
in the genetic memory
of kind words
spoken
by those who
in the far past knew them
better than
we
so it’s like this,
we preserve memories in our brain
and when our brain
dies
so die the memories
but there are also
memories that
reside in our genes
that do not die with us
but are passed on to our
offspring, memories
encoded in genes
that are part of the
inheritance
just as are the rest
of the genetic
mix that makes us
generational memories,
passed on and passed on
so that some part of us
remembers the cave,
remembers the man-things,
the almost-us Neanderthals
who we remember
as we remember so many
other fantastical things
beyond our experience,
things we explain through
tall tales and myths and
fairy stories…
and beyond that,
it is said, all living things
animal and plant
have these genetic memories
just as all living things
have a consciousness, the
whooping cranes
in their winter marsh home,
finding this refuge every year
not though some trick
of navigation, but because
they remember it,
generations of genetic memory
remembering its comforts
and where it is and how
to get there
and also the forests
and the prairie grasses
and the sunflower
who turns its face
to the sun before
the sun rises, knowing
from generations that it will
rise and that it will rise
in the east and generations
of warm sun memory tell it
when it is time to turn…
science learning from
myth, myth suggesting
new science, and with each
new thing we learn,
new mysteries, all knowledge
an accumulation of ignorance
addressed,, universal
consciousness, memories
from all becoming
part of all…
where have we heard
that before…
```
this
the state of knowledge
expanding
today
theory
always questing to be
challenged, questing
to be debunked
what does a poet
know of this
and what advice
can such a dabbler
provide
not much
only enough to consider
one suggestion -
maybe we should all talk
to our petunias today
though we know they will not
talk back, science tells us
there is a good chance
they will hear
and warm themselves
in the genetic memory
of kind words
spoken
by those who
in the far past knew them
better than
we
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