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Dan & Kathy Take a Vacation
Thursday, May 26, 2011 Dan & Kathy in San Antonio (Photo courtesy the Itz (we'll never get lost more than once a day) Touring Service VI.6.1. Lots of good poems this week, with two special events. First, I have photos by my poet friend from Baltimore, Dan Cuddy and his wife Kathy. Dan and Kathy took a little trip last month, visiting New Orleans, Austin, and San Antonio, and taking pictures along the way. And my second special event is more pre-publication excerpts by Alex Stolis, from his book in progress, Stanzas. I appreciate Alex giving us this early look and hope as soon as the book is published to be able to tell "Here and Now" readers how to get a copy. Here's who you'll get to read this week: 13 Tanka from River of Stars Me maybe some duct tape… Ana Castillo Saturday Poem 13 Paco and Rosa Me facing change is an integral part of successful living James Fenton In a Notebook Vucceria Me I used to wonder about the purpose of life Alex Stolis Naked you are as blue as a night in Cuba You’ve vines and stars in your hair Naked you are spacious and yellow As summer in a golden church Me big news echo I investigate brevity small dreams slip past unnoticed bubble family jewels algebra 1 James Gavin Upslope January Thaw Me unreliable fictions From Poetry Daily Linda Pastan Shadblow Bei Dao Landscape Over Zero Wang Ping Syntax Me a scatter of clouds Piotr Sommer Short Version Sometimes, Yes Don’t Worry, It Won’t Get Lost Me the hefty woman has a hearty breakfast Gerard Malanga The Property Remembering the Berkshires Me all my creations From The Best American Poetry, 2003 Louise Gluck Landscape Ishle Yi Park Queen Min Bi Me touring with Dan and Kathy Ismael Reed To a Daughter of Isaiah Al Capone in Alaska Untitled Mystery 1st Lady Me solving the Puss-n-Boots problem William Childress Antelope Child Apache Me Little Darlin’ Nikki Giovanni Atrocities Me random passes at self-knowing Gabriel Celaya The Life One Leads Me a brief history of cats and the human race Richard Brautigan against conformity and averageism maggots eating my brains all the cities at once a memory of life will be frozen in my eyes phantom kiss white tiger and enchanted cave the death of time Me road sign Daniel Donaghy Fresh Start: Staining the Pool Deck Me here come da judge  San Antonio, Downtown Photo by Kathy Cuddy I start this week with the poetry of Yosano Akiko, from the collection of her work, River of Stars, published by Shambhala in 1996. Akiko was the pen-name of a Japanese author, poet, pioneering feminist, pacifist, and social reformer. She was active in the late Meiji period as well as the Taishō and early Showa periods of Japan. Her real name was Yosano Shô. Born in to a rich merchant family in 1878, she is one of the most famous, and most controversial (for her erotic poetry), post-classical woman poets of Japan. She died in 1942. As her death occurred in the middle of the Pacific War, it went largely unnoticed in the press, and after the end of the war, her works were largely forgotten by critics and the general public. However, in recent years, her romantic, sensual style has come back into popularity and she has an ever increasing following. The poems in the book were translated by Sam Hamill and Kieko Matsui Gibson. Although the book includes some of her longer work, Akiko was most widely known for her tanka. Those are the poems I will concentrate on this week. I'll look to the longer poems in future weeks. Immersed in my hot bath like a lovely lily growing in a spring my twenty-year-old body - so beautiful, so sublime. ~~~ Fresh from my hot bath, I dressed slowly before the tall mirror, a smile for my own body/ Innocent so long ago! ~~~ Wet with spring rain, my lover finally comes to my poor house like a woman in love under trees of pink blossoms. ~~~ Gently, I open the door to eternal mystery, the flowers of my breasts cupped, offered with both my hands. ~~~ Following his bath I gave my handsome lover my best purple robe to protect him from the cold. He blushed, and was beautiful. ~~~ So all alone beside the temple bell: I stole away to secretly meet you here. But now the fog has cleared. ~~~ By a nameless stream, small and very beautiful, last night spent alone - those broad, desolate fields in the harsh summer dawn. ~~~ Raindrops continue to fall on white lotus leaves. While my lover paints, I open the umbrella on his little boat. ~~~ Like a summer flower, fragile as its slender stem, love wastes me away. Yet I shall blossom, crimson under the bright noonday sun. ~~~ Don't complain tome, don't hesitate, just hurry to meet those soft hands that are patiently waiting to help you out of your clothes. ~~~ His hand on my neck, he whispers softly of love. Dawn. Wisteria. No way I can detain him, my one-night-only lover! ~~~ Testing, tempting me forever, those youthful lips barely touching the frosty drops of dew on a white lotus blossom. ~~~ A handsome oarsman and an impeccable young priest aboard - oh,how I despise the bright moonlight on our lotus-viewing boat.  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy Every old redneck-hippy-beatnik-cowboy has to come down some time. maybe some duct tape... it was about 1:30 in the p.m. and I’d had my lunch - tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich with a side of Fritos - and I was thinking, jeez, I can’t think of a damn thing to do this afternoon, having watered the flowers and taken my daily dose of mid-day sun and washed the dishes and swept and vacuumed and planned the menu for dinner tonight - that being not a big issue, involving only a quick check on the computer to find the shortest route to the nearest Popeye's - and there I was in the bathroom, trimming my beard - having decided a couple of weeks ago to cut it down to bristle level every three or so days, it doesn’t involve taking up a major portion of a dead afternoon - and looking at my near-naked face in the mirror the thought came to me that I hadn’t see my head, that is, the shape and curvature of it, and the various bumps and hollows usually hidden under my hair, since the first day of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio a little more than 45 years ago and the thought occurred to me that a fella ought to see his head, size and shape and bumps and so forth, more than once every 45 years and that having done all my chores with nothing else to do, it only made sense to go down and get all my hair cut off and I did and now I can say it’s positively true that there’s absolutely nothing especially interesting about my head except for all the skin showing through which I don’t remember from 45 years ago and I’m already suspecting I really don’t like my head all that much at all… but I figure what the hell, hats are cheap - free, actually, in many places if you promise to buy a John Deere tractor next time you need a farm implement - of course, the hat won’t do anything about the ears … maybe some duct tape…  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy Here are three poems by Ana Castillo from her book My Father Was a Toltec, Selected Poems 1973-1988. The book was published W.W. Norton in 1995. Born in 1953, Castillo grew up speaking Spanish in a working-class Italian neighborhood in Chicago. Her parents sent her to a secretarial high school, but her lack of interest and poor typing skills led her to pursue higher education at Chicago City College and then Northern Illinois University where she completed a bachelor's degree in liberal arts in 1975. Supporting herself by serving as a college lecturer and a writer-in-residence for the Illinois Arts Council, Castillo then worked toward her master’s degree in Latin American and Caribbean studies at the University of Chicago, where she completed her degree 1979. The years that followed were filled with a variety of short-term college teaching positions, until 1991, when she received a doctorate in American studies from the University of Bremen in Germany. She has received many awards and honors for her poetry and her novels. Saturdays c. 1968 Because she worked all week away from home, gone from 5 to 5, Saturdays she did the laundry, pulled the wringer machine to the kitchen sink, and hung the clothes out on the line. At night, we took it down and ironed. Mine were his handkerchiefs and boxer shorts. She did his work pants (never worn on the street) and shirts,pressed the collars and cuffs, just so - as he bathed, donned the tailor-made silk suit bought on her credit, had her adjust the tie. "How do I look?" "Bien," went on ironing. That's why he married her, a Mexican woman,, like his mother, not like they were in Chicago, not like the one he was going out to meet. Poem 13 i too can say good-bye effortlessly silently remove myself from an undesired space turn about face march forward never look over my shoulder control memory erase unnecessary experience deromanticize romance wind tomorrow around me without company (freeze my womb) publicize my birth given name i too can be my mother's child become my father's extension improved upon gesticulate courage profess pride am worth that much i too could live satisfied with all my acts content amidst my ignorance. Paco and Rosa "AS SOON AS THE CHILDREN ARE OUT OF SCHOOL. I'LL COME," Rosa shouts over static from La Barca to Chicago. "GOOD." says her husband, hangs up,sighs. Tonight he won't shave, slap on Christmas cologne, press down his hair. He won't go to the Paraiso Club with his brother or to the corner tavern where a man gets lost in the smell of hairspray on a woman whose name he'd rather not know. Instead, hands behind his head, he thinks of Rosa who smells like his children the meat-packing plant where she worked between babies, the summer they met, La Barca by the sea. Rosa, who smells like home.  Austin Photo by Dan Cuddy It's an old poem, but still I seek the surety I did not find in this instance. facing change is an integral part of successful living bought new boots yesterday, down at Sears, high top lace-ups, the kind you’d wear for some un- serious hiking while trying to look like you’re just fooling around, taking a break after crossing the Kilimanjaro or some deep African jungle they were on sale which makes them look pretty good even though they’re tight, stiff and unyielding and pinch my toes like briar-thorn socks but wore them all day anyway breaking them in cause that’s what you gotta do with change in all aspects of your life face it stare it down make change your friend..... bullshit! my feet hurt  Austin, South Congress Photo by Dan Cuddy My next two poems are by James Fenton. They are from his book, Children in Exile, Poems 1968-1984.The book was published by The Noonday Press in 1994. Fenton, born in 1949, is an English poet, journalist, literary critic, and former Oxford Professor of Poetry. His first collection of poems, Terminal Moraine won a Gregory Award in 1972. With the proceeds, he traveled to East Asia, where he wrote of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and the end of the Lon Nol regime in Cambodia which presaged the rise of Pol Pot. From that experience, he wrote Memory of War, which earned his reputation as a major war poet. He returned to London in 1976 where he became political correspondent of the New Statesman, where he worked alongside Christopher Hitchens, Julian Barnes and Martin Amis. In a Notebook There was a reiver overhung with trees With wooden houses built along its shallows From which the morning sun drew up a haze And the gyrations of the early swallows Paid no attention to the gentle breeze Which spoke discreetly from the weeping willows. There was a jetty by the forest clearing Where a small boat was tugging at its mooring. And night still lingered underneath the eaves. In the dark houseboats families were stirring And Chinese soup was cooked on charcoal stoves. Then one by one there came into the clearing Mothers and daughters bowed beneath their sheaves. The silent children gathered round me staring And theshy soldiers setting out for battle Asked for a cigarette and laughed a little. From low canoes old men laid out their nets While on the bank young boys with lines were fishing. The wicker traps were drawn up by their floats. The girls stood waist-deep in the river washing Or tossed the day's rice on enamel plates And I sat drinking bitter coffee wishing The tide would turn to bring me to my senses After the pleasant war and ;t;he evasive answers. There was a river overhung with trees. The girls stood-waist deep in the river washing, The night still lingered underneath the eaves While on the bank young boys with lines were fishing. Mothers and daughters bowed beneath their sheaves While I sat drinking bitter coffee wishing - And the tide turned and brought me to my senses. The pleasant war brought the unpleasant answers. The villages were burnt, the cities void; The morning light has left the river view; The distant followers have been dismayed; And I'm afraid, reading this passage now, That everything I knew has been destroyed By those whom I admired but never knew; The laughing soldiers fought to their defeat And I'm afraid most of my friends are dead. Vucceria Maybe this summer I shall visit Palermo And see if the Shanghai restaurant is still there And if you can still buy cartons of contraband Cigarettes in the triangular square Beneath. At evening the horses are undressed From top to toe, in the nude light-bulbs glare. They leave their skeletons ever so neatly folded And piled. Look ! there's a pair of socks, Crimson with two black clocks. O no it isn't. It's a flayed head on a a bedside chair  San Antonio, Riverwalk Photo by Kathy Cuddy Big questions - that's what my poetry is about, the big questions. I used to wonder about the purpose of life I used to wonder about the purpose of life and my place in it… now I wonder why I’m standing in front of the Frigidaire at 6:30 in the morning, door open, refrigerated light illuminating all the staples, ketchup mustard Miracle Whip Stubbs BBQ sauce liver sausage and punkmunster cheese along with a week’s worth of leftovers in varying shades of green… then I see them… my keys... and now I wonder how my keys got into the refrigerator and why I knew to look for them there in the first place and thus begins another week in a life of mystery, my purpose in it clearly to appreciate the ever-expanding horizons of my confusion  San Antonio Photo by Kathy Cuddy Here's another treat, poems by my friend, Alex Stolis, from his book in progress, Stanzas, based on the love poems of Pablo Neruda. As I told Alex at one point, I was not a big fan of Neruda until I read his love poems, some of the finest, I think, ever written. Alex has taken one of Neruda's sonnets, brilliant in its own right, and used it as inspiration for his work. Each of these poems and each poem in his in-progress book (including both English and Spanish stanzas) is/will be based on a line from Neruda's sonnet, Morning-Sonnet - XXVII. Naked you are blue as a night in Cuba Durmiendo a mi lado: que son de color azul oscuro como el cielo al atardecer antes de que las estrellas tienen la oportunidad de despertar. Usted es azul como el mar de verano, cuando toma una respiración profunda. Our first date: a park on the corner of Chicago and 34th , it was the first real week of spring, the sun barely awake. You say you like wide open spaces: plenty of room to make the really big mistakes. You are leaning against a tree, reading Veinte poemas de amor. I approach and you tuck your hair behind your ear, stuff the book in your back pocket, walk toward me. You wear a pair of faded Levi’s, a threadbare sweater your grandmother made for you, the top button missing. I didn’t know then she was dying. Your hair is loose, just past your shoulders, there is a whisper of gray among auburn I hadn’t noticed before. Not knowing quite what to do I give you an awkward hug. In that one second I notice: your hair has the scent of fresh cut lilacs, there’s a heart-shaped mole on your hairline, a robin flies overhead, your hands are delicate, the nail on your right middle finger bitten down, your skin is a smooth white, your eyes are pale with thin, long lashes. As my hand slides down your back two children jump off a swing and run by us, you turn to watch them as my hand falls away, smile and ask me a question I forget before you are even finished. We walk and you tell me how you like to paint: quiet greens for past sins, gravel roads and unplowed fields; dull yellows for loss, for your grandmother’s house and the memory of your father; brilliant blues for a lover you have yet to meet and soft grays, not the gray of sadness but of a sleeping sky, of a path once forgotten then rediscovered in spring. **Sleeping next to me: you are dark blue as the sky at dusk before stars have a chance to awake. You are blue as the sea when summer takes a deep breath. You've vines and stars in your hair Quiero dormir con sus pensamientos, sueños vivos, persiguen su piel, la caricia de su ronda pezones con la palma de mi mano, sentir el roce de los labios sobre mis nudillos. your hands are of the earth, your hips round as the moon, your breasts, ripe and full. But first, let me tell you how I love you: how you are spring, words that fill a blank page, you are the branch of a tree, the beautiful small moment before a kiss. Let me tell you how I want to share my skin, my blood with you, every breath. How I want us to make love gently; fuck, fiercely as if we are the last two lovers on earth. I want to be still, aware, feel the beat of time on your smooth thigh; know that our future is an origami swan we unfold again and again. **I want to sleep with your thoughts, dream them alive; haunt your skin, caress your round nipples with the flat of my palm, feel the brush of lips over my knuckles. Naked you are spacious and yellow Si alguna vez me olvide lo que su voz suena como el cielo se abrió de golpe y me va a envolver el memoria en su caparazón; sueñan el mismo sueño una y otra vez. I wake in the middle of a dream, it’s ten minutes before the alarm goes off: we’re in Mexico, rock hounding and beach combing, upsetting buckets of sand. After one week: lipstick traces on empty glasses, every cliché in the book seems brand new and still, we don’t believe it as it happens. You run your fingertips along my forearm and its all I need to forget what we came through. We don’t have to hide because the world will never find us in plain sight. Doubt evaporates with the dew. On the fringe of the city is a tavern with vinyl covered bar stools, rust colored tiles and beer in long neck bottles. Friday becomes a layer of dust covering the floor, a neon clock flickers in 4/4 time and cash is king. We wait for last call, one last chance before night is ready to fall into bed. Believing becomes simple and we are the last hope in town. Week two: every night, much of what you say is unexpected, it is what I want to hear but didn't really know until it was said out loud. Late turns into too early and we are armed and ready for anything. There is the garbage truck alarm clock, the smell of cooking, sounds of the city morning combined with exhaust. Dirt and grime mixed with laughter at our pigeon Spanish asking quietly for the time of the hour or where is the blue of the sea. Silence opens up doors and you prop open the windows for good karma; we make love as two weeks folds itself into three. At four we decide we’ve collected enough luck to stretch into the next two lifetimes. We’ve shared every bit of honesty between the sheets Everything is just right, baby. Morning songs roll into evening songs, then comes the rain; by the time we’re finished, we’ll have plenty of time to catch up with ourselves. **If I ever forget what your voice sounds like the sky will burst open and I will wrap your memory in its shell; dream the same dream over and over. As summer in a golden church Imagínese nosotros, junto al mar, en una casa de los depósitos. Usted podrá degustar la sal en mi piel, coloque su mano en mi corazón y escuchar el mar. When someday becomes today: it will be quiet, the wind will scoop up our every thought. I will feel the round of your breasts against my back as you sleep. The oceans will become silent; salt water and sand sifts through our fingers. You will laugh and tell me there is still so much time but kiss me quickly to save the moment. Night coughs to an empty start, the dense breath of summer colors your cheek. My fingers run through your hair, trees watch, in silent prayer. We become still. Wrapped in each other’s bodies, we create a new language; vowels and consonants no longer necessary **Imagine us, by the sea, in a house of shells. You will taste the salt on my skin, place your hand on my heart and listen to the ocean.  San Antonio, Riverwalk Photo by Kathy Cuddy Here a few more of my little short poems from 2007. big news giant prehistoric bird found no sign yet of companion Sylvestesaures echo dry well echoes with memories of water precious and sweet . . . . old man sleeps dreams echo with memories precious and sweet I investigate brevity I’ve been getting really tired of my going on and going on poems and think maybe readers are also so I decided I oughta write a short one this is it small dreams slip past unnoticed don't dream too large tonight they know who the dreamers are and they are watching bubble dark clouds all around while we in a sunshine bubble bask family jewels flames illuminate as they burn as secrets unfold in the brilliance of combustion algebra 1 I remember my algebra teacher in 1959 writing equations on the blackboard her back to the class at least 40 years old, ancient, still, the most perfectly beautiful legs  LBJ Ranch Photo by Kathy Cuddy Now I have two short poems by James Gavin, a Colorado native now living in Wyoming, winner of numerous honors and awards for both his poetry and his prose, and a member of the permanent faculty of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. The poems are from his book X: Poems, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2003. Upslope To say that you exaggerate would be an understatement. Cars lick the rainslick street. Author, authority, Master, mastery, If I wear glasses am I more spectacular? Tweezer-brain causality. When you left I woke, and it was my whole life I woke from. Upslope, geography offers history few options. We are something's awareness, Awareness of for, for instance. God saves us in the sorrow of knowing him. January Thaw Winter snowpack is not your jazz. You can't riff it over and you can't take it back Once it's out of the horn. Bright as tears but much more boring, Your constants without variants Mewl from the eaves. That's why the fish is full of the sea. Just out of curiosity, How many times did you kiss me Without meaning it? Don't be shy, it's out of the horn. Turn your back on the past And you're gone.  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy One of my housemates on Bluelines House of 30 wrote a poem which led me to thinking, which led to this. unreliable fictions so, amid all the unreliable fictions we tell ourselves to define the lives we live, lived, want to live, sometimes, it is a stable platform we seek, some place to stand that doesn’t blow in the fictive winds of illusion, or disillusion, all the things we believe one week and mock the next, as the winds blow… where is the center, we think, where is the true hub around which all the elements flail in contradiction… we make stories of our lives to better endure them, the days of our lives unreeling, as we, creatures of confusion, creators of clarity through constantly re-juggling of plot and character, abide in rewrites and edits until something makes sense… and for a day or two we know a new self, until the elements start to stir and spin again and we have to re-hem our stories to fit until next time  New Orleans, on the Mississippi Photo by Dan Cuddy Next, I have three poets from the anthology Poetry Daily, a collection of 366 poems from different poets taken from the Poetry Daily website, poems.com. I spend my web time at a similar site, "Blueline's House of 30," the difference being, I think, that at the Blueline every housemate is expected to post a poem a day in 30-day cycles. Some poets come for a cycle or two, then leave, never to return. Some come for a cycle, check out to take care of other business, then come back for more. Some of us just kind of hang on. By the time this is posted, I will have completed my 59th 30-day cycle of poems and I'm not the one with the longest string of daily poems. That honor of stick-to-it-tiveness belongs to the Hawaiian (fomerly L.A.) poet Alice Folkart who is indefatigable and a constant amazement every day. The book includes no biographical information on the various poets. Considering that there are 366 of them, I guess I can understand that. But, if the poets agreed to appear there with no bio, I'm guessing the same is acceptable here. So, for those who feel you must know, I'm turning you over to Wikipedia. I'm interested and will do a Google search myself; I'm just not going to share the information here. The first poet from the anthology is Linda Pastan. Shadblow Because the shad are swimming in our waters now, breaching the skin of the river with their tarnished silvery fins, heading upstream straight for out tables where already knives and forks gleam in anticipation, these trees into flower - small, white flags surrendering to the season. The second poem is by Bei Dao. Landscape Over Zero it's hawk teaching song to swim it's song tracing back to the first wind we trade scraps of joy enter family from different directions it's a father confirming darkness it's darkness leading to that lightning of the classics a door of weeping slams shut echoes chasing its cry it's a pen blossoming in lost hope it's a blossom resisting the inevitable route it's love's gleam waking to light up landscape over zero And now, my last poem from the anthology is by Wang Ping. Syntax She walks to a table She walk to table She is walking to a table She walk to table now What difference does it make What difference it make In Nature, no completeness No sentence really complete thought Language, like woman Look best when free, undressed.  Austin, South Congress Photo by Dan Cuddy It was a particularly nice day, and I remember the clouds. a scatter of clouds a scatter of small white clouds on the horizon, white, the whitest clouds I’ve ever seen, white, like little flags against the blue sky, white flags, like the sky is surrendering to the earth, the eternal war of earth against sky, heaven against earth, concluded, won by the base elements of earth, the grass and trees, oceans and rivers, animals large and small, earthworms burrowing in the dirt and humankind, self-proclaimed master of all that won and the birds, with their split loyalties circling in confusion  San Antonio Riverwalk Photo by Kathy Cuddy I picked up two very interesting books at the half-priced bookstore today. I'll use poems from both this week, beginning with Continued, a book of poems by Polish poet Piotr Sommer. Born in 1948, Sommer grew up in Otwock, a small town outside o Warsaw. He studied English at the University of Warsaw, and now edits Literatura na Swiecie (World Literature), a Polish magazine of international writing. He is a poet, translator, anthology editor and essayist. He regularly gives lectures at American universities and has gained various awards. As well as eight collections of poetry in his own language, he has had two collections published in translation. He also translates from British, Irish and American literature, including works by Allen Ginsberg and Seamus Heaney. His anthology of work by the American poet Frank O’Hara is seen by many as one of the most important of his translations. This publication appeared in 1987 and led to a small poetical war between the young experimental group of poets influenced by O’Hara, known as “The Barbarians”, and their opponents “The Neo-Classicists”, who defended more traditional Polish poetry. Short Version I couldn't be with you when you died. Sorry, I was toiling day and night on the title of a poem I didn't have time to show you. You really would have liked it. Even if the poem itself wasn't the strongest, I was counting on the title to prop it up from above, to set it right even, and to sanction it as sometimes happens, I don't know if the muse ever had time to give you the news because when I called it was already late, through finally she took the whole message. Sometimes, Yes After reading certain young authors I too would like to be an author and turn out works. Right now I'm thinking of J.G.- his happy rhymes, cinematic sentences and the heroes in his poems, the real ones and those made up. Because of course poems have their heroes as well. some not even all that likable. Of the real ones for instance, I recall Ezra Pound, whose name appears in one of the titles, or that Mid-November Show which, before it melted, the akurhor thinks had blanketed all the evil. Of the unreal ones Kirillow, a suicide and yet a builder, or that professor, what's his name, a scholar of seventy now. And I, what would I write poems about? I'd have to think, because in fact I'm fed up with them. I ask my wife but she just repeats "What about?" a if she weren't there. And a moment later adds, "But if I tell you what about, you'll say we both wrote it, all right?" I muse - she says - remind her about it in the future, since a person may sometimes really get hold of an idea, but most of the time it flies off. Don't Worry, It Won't Get Lost How could I fail to understand how you feel even if personally I never lost a PKO bankbook with my life saving in it. Yet meanwhile the radio's on, and glancing through the window I see, on the empty street, a forty-year-old with whom yesterday I sat for a few years on the same school bench, the knocking of the mangle is heard under the floor, and even on the balcony clothesline a brown-and-white butterfly has landed.I have some shopping to do, a train to catch, there's only a few dozen zlotys in my pocket, but the keys jingle when I brush them, the street is getting peopled, pockets are filling up.  San Antonio, Riverwalk Photo by Kathy Cuddy Ranging now between 235 and 240 pounds I feel much better than I did at my peak 280. But that doesn't mean I eat whatever I want whenever I want. I remember how easy it was to go up and how hard to come down. So, being always aware of my own intake, I'm also conscious of what others eat, often what I'd like to eat, but don't. the hefty woman has a hearty breakfast she’s kind of hefty, well north of stout, I’m saying, but judging from the three eggs, scrambled, and stack of buttermilk pancakes she's packing in for breakfast, it doesn’t seem to bother her meanwhile, being no lightweight myself, I stick to my more responsible nature with porridge in skimmed milk and a single piece of dry toast and feel quite at peace with myself for it, judging not the stout woman for her pleasure in the morning, finding it admirable in fact to see her fortitude in the face of such tribulation as her continued absence of a view of her feet, jealous, a little, of her full and hearty breakfast in comparison to my prisoner-of-war ration and though she seems such a healthy happy person, despite her disregard for her own well-being and the feelings of all the stoutish people around her sticking to their dank dungeon swill while she engages breakfast like a skinny person, it seems she mocks our own efforts at adipose reduction, which is why we all hate that fat woman and her three eggs, scrambled, and full stack of buttermilk pancakes damn fat woman! and on top of everything else she will probably outlive us all  San Antonio, Mission Concepcion Photo by Kathy Cuddy The second of the books I mentioned earlier is No Respect - New and Selected Poems, 1964-2000 by Gerard Malanga. Malanga, born in 1943 in the Bronx, is an poet, photographer, filmmaker, curator and archivist. He graduated from the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan and attended Wagner College on Staten Island. In addition to his many books of poetry, Malanga was Andy Warhol's assistant from 1963 to 1970 and as an actor, had lead parts in many of his early films. He danced with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Warhol's multimedia presentation of the Velvet Underground and claims to have created some of the works attributed to Warhol. In 1970, he left Warhol's studio to work on his own. He is also known for his photography of 60's celebrities, including poets, rock stars, and actors. The Property What happened to the frost on the pipes? the windows of the cottage darken In another reality children's voices enter and then disappear for a moment it is morning in late summer Benno is pulling up weeds Don waiting for the water to boil for a cup of coffee to start the day Irene walks across the lawn to the Stone House or she doesn't an occasional car pulls up to the driveway the scene changes there is snow on the ground almost blue in the moonlight the end of the driveway touches darkness the kitchen is an absence What happened to the children's voices What happened that I should see the changes I think I become invisible I am mistaken. I am correct. Remembering the Berkshires I think of the third day snow had fallen it was still falling at night when I returned the snowbound tracks and bridges are a dream the embankment is black the log of a fir tree uprooted though only oe year has gone by a stream has emerged from the thicket at night in a house on a mountain someone is turning out the light some one is going to sleep at last now the moon is in Capricorn shadows fade toward morning the days move on like a diary everything is still the same but something is different and it is myself and the pressure of the wind increases.  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy A lesson from me to me for me. all my creations I am sometimes one of those who sees the world and all that’s in it as mere constructs of my own ego, creations that ebb and flow according to my attention - all the bloody bright and banal things of this world, a spring breeze a summer sneeze autumn leaves that fall to winter freeze - all products of my needs and predilections, and all of you, shadows cast to populate my shadow land, formed by my need for structure, solidity, reality as defined by me, all ending at my end, a world crashing as I begin to fade I saw today, as I was stopped at a traffic light, a young man at a bus stop get up from his bench to kneel and pull stray weeds from cracks in the sidewalk cement, creating a new world in a small, but true way and I was shamed  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy Next I have two poets from The Best American Poetry - 2003, publised by Scribner Poetry. The first of the poets is Louise Gluck. Born in New York City in 1943, is the author of ten books of poetry. Her collection of essays, Proofs and Theories, won the PEN-Martha Albrand Award. She has also received the Pulitzer Prize, the Bobbit National Poetry Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Bollingen Prize. She teaches at Williams College. She was one of the anthology's guest editors. Landscape Time passed, turning everything to ice. Under the ice, the future stirred. If you fell into it you died. It was a time of waiting of suspended action. I lived in the present which was that part of the future you could see. The past floated above my head, like the sun and moon, visible but never reachable. It was a time governed by contradictions as in I felt nothing and I was afraid. Winter emptied the trees, filled them again with snow. Because I couldn't feel, snow fell, the lake froze over. Because i was afraid, I didn't ' move; my breath was white, a description of silence. Time passed and some of it became this. And some of it simply evaporated; you could see it float above the white trees forming particles of ice. All you lie, you wait for the propitious time. Then the propitious time reveals itself as action taken. I watched the past move, a line of clouds moving from left to right or right to left, depending on the wind. Some days there was no wind. The clouds seemed to stay where they were, like a painting of the sea, more still than real. Some days the lake was a sheet of glass. Under the glass, the future made demure, inviting sounds; you had to tense yourself so as not to listen. Time passed, you got to see a piece of it. The years it took with it were years of winter; they would not e missed. Some days there were no clouds, as though the sources of the past had vanished. The world was bleached, like a negative; the light passed directly through it. Then the image faded. Above the world there was only blue, blue everywhere. The second poem from the "best of" anthology is by Ishle Yi Park, a young Korean-American poet featured often in "Here and Now" with poems from her own book. Queen Min Bi Queen Min was the bomb. Smooth forehead, perfectly parted thick hair, and plum lips at fourteen enough to make any pedophile happy. So the King handpicked her, orphan Korean girl born in Yulju, stringless, to ba a royal marionette - who would hav guessed she owned a wooden heart to match any politician's? Maybe she abused her handservants. Maybe she pumped into her husband doggy style with an early bamboo Korean strap-on and that's why she never had children. Maybe that made Hwang so happy even after she died, throat sliced open by invading Japanese, he carved her name into a slab of man-sized marble by hand, honoring a woman who snatched his kingdom without a glance back at history, what those scrolls dictated for female behavior. I want to be like her befriending pale- skinned foreigners and infuriating her father-in-law enough for him to conspire toward her death while commoners rested head to stone pillow and dreamt of her brow-raising power; 16 when she married, 32 when she died - before Japanese flags cloaked our country, before Korean housewives lay beaten without domestic violence laws to halfway shield their swollen faces. Half a world away nisei Korean children flinch at the smack of skin on skin, memorize the hiss of curses like bullets, and I wish she were more than dust and legend, more than a sold-out opera at Lincoln Center or part of a wistful poem; I want to inherit that tiger part of her, the part that got her killed, the part that inflamed my eyes and had me tracing the clay walls of her birthplace with fingers in the rain, wanting to collect and construct a woman out of myth. So by Chinese calendar she's a rabbit, her favorite drink was macculi, the moonshine of Korea,her left breast slightly heavier than her right and maybe she kissed her husband Kwang on the forehead before overtaking his kingdom, Queen Min Bi, so loved by all they called her Mama.  LBJ Ranch Photo by Kathy Cuddy And another lesson. touring with Dan and Kathy lunch with a Housemate and his spouse, and dinner and a city tour in between - art museum and missions and favorite coffeehouse along the way a city seen for the first time for them; seen anew by me all the places I knew yesterday, known better to me to day… as I celebrate my home through its showing  San Antonio, Mission Concepcion Photo by Kathy Cuddy Here's a couple of short poems by Ismael Reed, from his News and Collected Poems published in 1989 by Atheneum. To a Daughter of Isaiah I saw your drumming lover On the tube last night His wrists had been riveted He made faces, like Jazz Was a dentist His gutbucket was Straight from the Academy That is, you couldn't Grind to it (Matthew Arnold, blowing His nose) He drummed, I summed You up while helping white Wine get better: Your juicy Ethiopian art Lips (my, my) Your moans. What moans! Even the ceiling over the bed Got hard This happened way back in a book You were my daughter of Isaiah I was your flail and crook Al Capone in Alaska or hoodoo ecology vs the judeo- christian tendency to let em have it! The Eskimo hunts the whale & each year the whale flowers for the Eskimo. This must be love baby! One receiving with respect from a Giver who has plenty. There is no hatred here There is One Big Happy Family here. American & Canadian Christians submachine gun the whales. They gallantly sail out & shoot them as if the Pacific were a Chicago garage on St. Valentine's day Untitled law isn't all The driver's test Says nothing about dogs, but people stop anyway Mystery 1st Lady franklin pierce's wife never came downstairs. she never came upstairs either.  San Antonio, Garden, McNay Art Museum Photo by Kathy Cuddy It's the little mysteries of life that make it so interesting. solving the Puss-n-Boots problem I’ve seen the little Puss-n-Boots action figure on the counter for several days, always lying on its side or back and I tried several times to set it upright but it is top-heavy and always falls down and I finally admitted defeat and don’t bother with it anymore so I am surprised when I come in this morning and see it standing on its feet, leaning against the tip jar I am curious so I look closely, and finally see it is taped with nearly invisible scotch tape to the jar itself the young oriental barista sees me looking and knowing what I’m looking for, whispers, “Asian engineering,” as he handed me my change and he laughs and I laugh and consider that had it been American engineering that solved the problem, ol’ Puss-n-Boots would have been wrapped in duct tape from his puss to his boots but that’s about economics and everyone knows economics is boring and not for poetic examination  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy I have two poems by William Childress from Burning the Years/Lobo, a re-publication in 1986 by Essai Seay Publications of two of Childress' previous books in one volume. Childress was born Oklahoma in 1933, the oldest son of a poor family of migrant sharecroppers. An accomplished writer, author, poet, and photojournalist, he joined the Army at age 18, serving in the Korean War as a demolitions specialist in 1952. After the war he reenlisted as a paratrooper, making 33 jumps. Three honorable discharges later, Childress attended Fresno State College in California, studying English and Journalism, and set a record as the only undergraduate to publish poetry, fiction and photojournalism in national magazines. This helped him get two fellowships to the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and a Master of Fine Arts degree. His thesis later became his first book of poems, Lobo. The two poems I'm using this week are from his second book, Burning the Years. The inspiration for the poems come from a time, as a ten-year-old, he lived with his family in Arizona near and Apache Indian Reservation where he spent most of his time, learning and loving the culture and the stories. "Many years later," he says in introducing the poems, "I romanticized what was, as I look back, a bleak and poverty-stricken way of life" that,nevertheless, continued to fire his imagination for many years after, to the point that, some years later, he began to imagine himself as an "Indian poet." Antelope Child Hell is the southwestern desert in August; the crack of wind against hot rocks, the birds who won't light for fear their feet will remain. It is tdhe lime-green of Spanish daggers peeled and split by the sun; air that burns the lungs like smoke, and hollow rocks where stagnant water simmers. It was here in such summers that I ran, a brown child mocking the desert antelope, nor was I part of the white and pampered world, for I was wild. In a hut of dry withes, my fat mother and somber father fed me stewed coyote, and I grew. Nothing more need be said. Apache Mescalero I am, Athapascan I speak, a language as dead as my people are dying. I ran as a youth past the Reservation bounds, only finding again as a man. For garden, the desert, the walls, the hills, and beyond, horizons as wide as the sun. A nomad for decades, I saw many things, but the red, severed gorges still bled in my dreams and the serrated ridges near the hut I was born in were the clouds of each moonrise, the flesh of each sunrise. So I went back one time, but the hut had decayed, and the hard earth grew only jade prickly-pear. And I ate the sweet buds of that green plant, and the walls fell again and again I was gone.  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy I am, truly, a lover of children, I promise. Usually. I posted this poem somewhere and got an very angry response from a mother who had just lost a child. Made me feel terrible, but, you know, it's just a poem and it really was a very bratty kid. little darlin’ there’s this kid who has started to come in with her mother every afternoon about two o’clock who, within her skinny little five year old body, harbors the loudest, sharpest, most fingernail-on-the blackboard voice to ever assault the tender parts of my ears I’m not normally one to contemplate violence against children but this kid pushes me to the brink, the very edge of my tolerance, to that point where the nice kindly peaceful cherub cheeked animal-loving child-doting man I by nature am could easily explode in a moment of bloody slavering murder and mayhem basically after a minute and a half of what has become a daily ritual of curly haired doe eyed cacophonic squawking like a myna bird with a heavy metal amp I want to strangle the child or the mother. either one really, I don’t care, as long as the kid shuts up now I realize this little monster is someone’s beloved daughter and granddaughter, the apple, likely, of many eyes, somebody’s sun on cloudy days, another’s moon on a starless night, a new little life placed on this world to someday take the place of old folks like me and maybe you, a new life sent here maybe to save the world from the careless hands of the likes of you and I I understand all this and in recognition of it I will not chase the kid down and apply to her skinny little neck the boa con- strictor trick I learned while trekking alone through the steamy jungles of Borneo no, I will not do that, at least not as long as she remains on the other side of the room but if the little ogre ever comes within arm’s length she will experience the epiphany of her young life as the fearsome wrath of an old man disturbed in his afternoon nap becomes plain to her  San Antonio, Garden, McNay Art Museum Photo by Kathy Cuddy An old book is like a time capsule. Here's one from the capsule by Nikki Giovanni. The book, My House, was published by Quill in 1983. The poem, written in 1971, is from a darker, more dangerous time, when conspiracy and counter-conspiracy ruled the day. The problem with that kind of environment is that, just as paranoids sometimes have real enemies, conspiracies are sometimes real conspiracy. Unfortunately, it takes forty years to begin to figure out which were which. Atrocities in an age of napalmed children with words like the enemy is whatever moves as an excuse for killing vietnamese infants at a time when one president one noble prize winner one president's brother four to six white students dozen of Black students and various hippies could be corralled maimed and killed in a day when the c.i.a. could hire Black hands to pull the trigger on malcolm during a decade that saw eight nurses in chicago sixteen people at the university of texas along with the boson strangler do a fantastic death dance matched only by the murders of john coltrane sonny liston jimi hendrixs and janis joplin in a technological structure where featherstone and che would be old-fashioned bombed at a moment when agnew could define hard and soft drugs on the basis of his daughter's involvement with them in a nation where eugene robinson could testify against his own panther recruits and eldrridge cleaver could expel a martyr from the martyr's creation where the president who at least knows the law would say manson who at least tried is guilty it is only natural that joe frazier would emerge [8 mar 71]  San Antonio, Garden, McNay Art Museum Photo by Kathy Cuddy This poem was the source of the title I chose for my recent Ebook, "Pushing Clouds Against the Wind." I remembered the line when thinking of a title for the book, but couldn't remember the poem and couldn't find it when I looked for it. If I'd found I suppose I'd included it in the book. random passes at self-knowing 1 I'm not one to look far for adventure not anymore I like closer to home things familiar things prized for their knownness I like the people I know, people who know me and calibrate their expectations accordingly 2 I have been the center of attention, a familiar face to many whose faces I did not know the cheap seats are for me, now, the ones in the shadows where all faces blend to gray and indivisibility 3 I want to be a cloud that passes through the sky, impressed no more by the appearance of my shadow below I want to feel the truth of my insubstantiality, that I only am what the winds make of me I would have fought that knowledge in days past, but there's another truth I know now - no one can push a cloud against the wind  San Antonio, Mission San Jose Photo by Kathy Cuddy The next poem is by Spanish poet Gabriel Celaya, taken from the anthology Roots & Wings, Spanish Poetry 1900-1975. The book was published by White Pine Press in 1976. It is a bi-lingual book, Spanish and English on facing pages. The poem I selected was translated by Robert Mezey and Hardie St. Martin (who also edited the anthology). Gabriel Celaya, pen name of Rafael Mugica, was born in 1911 and died in 1991. He was a novelist, essayist and translator, as well as a poet. He received numerous awards for his poetry, even though his simple and direct language was disdained by his generation of poets in Spain. The Life One Leads The cabin gives off the odor of scrubbed wood and strong kitchen soap. Outside, the sun buzzes like a dense swarm of mad mosquitoes. Te door carves out a blinding square of light and lays it down as proof on a Euclidean pine table where it burns orange and glazes an edge of porcelain, leaving the rest of the shack in a blackness of greens and violets. On a narrow mattress, warm in its stench, someone named Pedro is snoring monotonously. His sour idiot spittle broods sadly over the world with toothless gums and stale wheezes, with tattered blasphemies and a long slow tongue. At six in the evening when the Express goes by, waking nostalgia (bright steel, flashes, burning road that mounts the emptiness), the man Pedro gets to his feet, hitches his suspenders, splashes some water on his face and stares into his rough hand with its short clumsy fingers at ten small coins, ten glasses of cheap wine. Down at the ruined house, when he comes back drunk, Adela may be waiting for others who have more money (you understand, a little more). And Adela's a good chick. Adela will come to Pedro's shack if he wants her to, and he's sure to, if he's been drinking. Beautiful slow moon, night like a river seen from its bed, the soft heavy breeze, Adela's hips and thighs when she starts to tremble, and th ice inside him that no one has ever thawed, and the cheap wine, and Adela who wordlessly fixes breakfast. One day he finally says, "Adela,let's get married" (Adela is frightened, but she always says okay.) And the man Pedro listens to the Express roar by (bright steel, flashes, burning road that mounts the emptiness), and he feels a tenderness, and the immense chill deep inside, and vague longings, and disgust. And he thinks that's Adela, white, sweet, in her slip.  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy They're smarter than we are, so what can we do about it? a brief history of cats and the human race there are 600 million housecats in the world spread from pole to pole from all the way east to all the way west and they all descend from one of five female wildcats who in the barely historical mid-east noticed that filthy- living human-kind were vermin magnets and that living off the vermin who lived wherever humans lived was a hell’uv a lot easier than trying to chase down prey in the wild and thus did the cat domesticate itself on its own terms & conditions and thus did little pussy- puss assume her smart-ass air of feline superiority and if you know the whole story it’s hard to argue with them  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy Here are several short poems by Richard Brautigan from The Edna Webster Collection of Undiscovered Writings, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1999. Brautigan, who was born in 1935 and died in 1984, was author of ten novels, including his best known Trout Fishing in Amerrica and nine books of poetry. The poems in this book were given by the young Brautigan to Edna Webster, the mother of his best friend and first girlfriend as he left Eugene, Oregon for literary success in San Francisco. He told Webster that the gift would be her "social security." against conformity and averageism I hate, because they are evil as habitual hunger in a child's stomach, people who try to change man the hunter for truth into a castrated cow grazing in the peace of mental death. maggots eating my brains The maggots will eat the brains that felt and wondered and wrote these poems. Let the maggots have their fun. They only live once. all the cities at once Pretend is a city bigger than New York. bigger than all the cities at once. a memory of life will be frozen in my eyes The heads of white chickens lie in the mud and rain. A memory of life is frozen in their eyes. I wonder what their last thought was as their heads were chopped off. phantom kiss There is no worse hell than to remember vividly a kiss that never occurred. white tiger and enchanted cave I am a white tiger made out of peppermint. There is an enchanted cave in your body that I must enter, so that chills will travel in new buses up and down our spines as we stare at our very own baby the death of time Someday time will die, and Love will bury it.  San Antonio, Mission Espada Photo by Kathy Cuddy Here's another road poem, a short one this time. It looks like I was probably on the road somewhere in West Texas. road sign 1 driving due east directly into the early sun on a flaming sea of orange glare and haloed silhouettes 2 vulture circles overhead rising with desert heat falling between shadowed canyon walls 3 snake crosses ahead of me head swaying left and right, pulling its long body behind, slowly slithers behind a boulder beside the road  New Orleans Photo by Dan Cuddy The next poem is by Daniel Donaghy, from his book, Street Fighting Poems, published in 2005 by BkMk Press of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Donaghy's poems have appeared in numerous journals and he has received a number of honors and awards, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Cornell Council for the Arts, and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. He received a B.A. fromn Kutztown university, an M.A. from Hollins College, and an M.F.A. in creative writing (poetry) at the University of Rochester. At the time his book was published, he completing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Rochester. Fresh Start: Staining the Pool Deck Again I set aside half the day to put another coat on the pool deck, again the gloves, again the stain can and the beer can, fingers only half an ache because I passed the brush between hands each twenty strokes, one useful thing my father taught me while I whitewashed the hall steps in the rowhouse I left half my life ago, house of nicotine and dog hair, house he left us alone in on a street of houses rotting against each other like teeth, house so far from this half-acre I have to squeeze my eyes to see it - ripped linoleum, cracked walls, dirt cellar of rats and mold, nights of yelling behind doors... Hal a life later I'm trying to get to the next day, after the deck dried, when we swam in the finally blue water. I'm trying; to work the float into this, and th;e inner tubes, the handstands, the red and yellow beachball. Enough about my long-dead father, food stamps, government cheese. What about my wife asleep cross-legged in the Adirondack chair, my daughter's brilliant pink suit, the gray fox panting at the wood's edge? And what about how cold the beer was, how bright the sun over the crab apple tree when I sank to the soundless bottom.  San Antonio, King William District Photo by Kathy Cuddy I close this week with thoughts of a kind of friendship. here come da judge turns out I was thinking of the judge on my way here and when I get here there he is haven’t seen him or his lady-friend here in a couple of months, and was wondering what happened to them turns out the lady-friend got converted to the Weight Watchers creed and goes to meeting every morning and the kind of breakfast she used to have every morning is a kind of blasphemy to the svelte and hungry congregations and she’s trying to be true to her oath of constant craving and restricts herself in the morning to tiny portions of scrambled tofu and carrot juice and the judge, believing still in the wolf theory of dietary responsibility - eat all you can whenever you can, bloody, if possible - has been stopping by her place for coffee every morning, and, today after watching her tofu-torture as long as he could stomach it, returned here to his good-old-days feed lot for three fresh eggs and several varieties of pig on a platter and I’m happy to see him cause, you know, I’ve missed the competition of who could get here first in the morning, as well as the four or five words we said to each other every morning when we got here because he’s a friend, on the friendship scale, somewhere slightly above or slightly below your Facebook friend who is the friend of a friend of a friend who you never heard of before you got his “be my friend” message and so he’s got 7,000, working on 10,000, other Facebook friends but a friend is a friend, and you can never have too many friends so I went over to the judge and said howdy-do and heard the story of his gradually diminishing girl-friend  San Antonio, Mission San Antonio de Valero (The Alamo) Photo by Kathy Cuddy That's all. Everything belongs to them who made it. I'm allen itz, owner and producer of this blog since Issue 1, May, 2006. (Funny, I could have sworn it was May, 2005.) |
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