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Alloylishishly Nostalgic
Wednesday, June 01, 2011 VI.6.1. I have a return engagement this week from my friend and occasional Blueline housemate Dan Cuddy. Last week, Dan and his wife, Kathy, were featured as photographers. This week he is back in his more familiar mode as a poet. Photos this week are the result of finding an old My Space page for a local band, The Alloys. They were a ska band which, before breaking up in 2001, had a large following here in San Antonio. I liked their music very much (you know a band is good when the bouncers dance with the patrons and the barflies with their smoked-to-the-lip cigarettes start boogieing on their bar stools) and went to as many of their gigs as I could. It was a six piece band, three trombones up front (with a blast of brass that would set your socks rolling up and down) a guitar, a bass guitar and drums. They played a lot of different venues from punk clubs to raggae and rock bars to main stage at the city's downtown New Year's Eve party. They wrote most of their own music, but their most often requested song (a boon to an old guy like me) was probably their cover of the old Everly Brothers hit, "Dream," put to brass and an island beat. The pictures are from some of their gigs and I don't know who took them. In pictures of the three trombones together, the one on the right is my son, Chris. Chris later went on to produce and play on a CD of electronic improvisation that was sold, as part of a CD/book package, with my first book, Seven Beats a Second. As to poetry this week, here's what I have for you. The Scarecrow Martha’s Purse Small Feast Stray Dogs Me the good old days of mid-life crisis management From Hungry as We Are Sid Gold Nice Maxine Combs Form and Content Elaine M. Upton Now Is the Time for Nostalgia Me best damn chili in Texas From Burnt Sugar - Cana Quemada Pedro Medina A Poem for the Epiphany Eugenio Florit Memories Armando Valladares Bebita I Me learning to keep one’s head down From The Defiant Muse - Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present Ester Raab [Holy Grandmothers of Jerusalem] Agi Mishol In the Supermarket Me at just dark Dan Cuddy Manifesto of a Sort Me license to carry Jeannette Lozano Cold Flame History El Morro Me curiosities David St. John Hush An Essay on Liberation Me the devil can find you anywhere Ten verses from Ten Thousand Leaves - Love Poems from the Manyoshu Me nostalgia Antler Poetry Boom in Milwaukee Me old men talk green pastures flashing spring storm girls telling secrets portrait of a girl at night tote dat barge the best of intentions e. e. cummings Several poems from 50 Poems Me an old man coming John Engels Sinking Creek Me adios  Next, I have some some really cool fun poems by Charles Simic celebrating food and sex and other lively things. The poems are from Simic's book Aunt Lettuce, I Want to Peek Under Your Skirt. The book was published in 2005 by Bloosmbury Publishing and includes illustrations by Howie Michels. The Scarecrow God's refuted but the devil's not. This year's tomatoes are something to see. Bite into them, Martha, As you would into a ripe apple. After each bite add a little salt. If the juices run down your chin Onto your bare breasts, Bend over the kitchen sink. From there you can see your husband Come to a dead stop in the empty field Before one of his bleakest thoughts Spreading arms like a scarecrow. Martha's Purse No sooner had I thought of her And closed my eyes to recall a kiss, And some other shenanigans They left us rumpled and breathless, When the memory of her purse, The one she used to dangle over her arm And carry everywhere she went, Came to intrude between us again. What's in it? I must've asked And got no sensible reply. It had a silver clasp like a strongbox That hurt when I pressed her close, That one time against a church wall, A breath away, surely, from some holy martyr Tactfully staring at the ceiling While being licked over by flames. Small Feast Naked at the table, Face to face, Eating grilled squid With our hands. She licks olive oil And garlic Off her long fingers, One by one. Eat some bread, I say. She just laughs at that, A hot pepper flake stuck On the tip of her tongue. Stray Dogs The way we stripped and embraced in the field, Three stray dogs came by To see what our moaning was all about. I saw their worried eyes As I parted you legs with kisses. And then your tongue went around mine, And you pulled my hair till it hurt, And there were broken blue flowers Under your white ass and the mutts Sniffing all around us in wonder  I wrote my first poem for this week several days ago, a little bit of fun for my poem of the day. the good old days of mid-life crisis management having deep thoughts this morning, about “Duck Soup” the Marx bros classic, or was it that Stooges’ epic “Duck, Soup” or was it Soupy Sales’ big hit collaboration with Pinky Lee, “Pink Soup” of was it the John Waters’ thing about pink flamingos or is that a cocktail at the gay bar at the corner of Smith and Wesson, downtown… I think that might be the reason nobody takes me seriously, I ‘m always forgetting little things, great on concept but lacking in details… like the fellow and the girl in the booth in front of me, middle-aged man, mid-life crisis in cowboy boots, longish hair well-mousssed, curly in the back bald on top, and the girl, pretty, blond, 15, may 20 years, behind him in the chronological sphere, probably has a pink poodle named Fluffer or Poots… I get the concept, but the details, well, I don’t know, leaving me to wonder, should I pity the poor fool or envy him… or should I just admit he reminds me of me when I try to go to sleep at night, minus the boots and the hair and the convertible (did I forget to mention the convertible) and the young blond and with an extra 20 years added to the old tick-tocker, victim of the longest continuously running mid-life crisis since Genghis Khan  Now I have several poets from Hungry As We Are, An Anthology of Washington Area Poets. The book was published in 1995 by the Washington Writers Publishing House of Washington D.C. The first of the poets is Sid Gold. Originally from New York City, Gold has taught writing at George Washington University, the University of Maryland, Bowie State University and other schools in the D.C. area. Nice it's nice to have a beer in the middle of the afternoon say about 3:30 as if you had nothing better to do nothing to lose thinking about all those poor stiffs working the loading dock who'll be to beat after years of it to get stiff anymore until they're laid out stiff a phony peace painted on their mugs with rouge thinking about maybe what you'll do for dinner read the paper real slow coffee & pie it feels so good dreaming about that beer that paper while you're stacking those damned crates & checking them against the bill of lading it almost makes you horny if you don't watch out The next poet is Maxine Combs. Combs, who taught English at American University, at George Mason University, at Howard University and at the University of the District of Columbia, died of cancer in 2002. Form and Content The woman I met in a downtown park sitting beside a bed of white chrysanthemums told me her birthday falls early in June, on the same day as mine. She also said schizophrenics improve if kept in trapezoidal wards. I admitted that statistics and abstractions both bore me. But mirrors angled in windows to show who's walking up the street, or quartets with only three players interest me. She mentioned universals: spirals in turrets of mollusks, concentric rigs in trees, the recognition scene implied in every dream. None of the nights of love are the same, I told her. And memories may turn to wolves, legends to quarantines, drops of ink to mirrors of the past. Yet she insisted on first principles: lines alternating on a zebra's back, grids in a honeycomb, the pattern of an updraft of air. Each as inevitable as our meeting tomorrow beside our bed of white chrysanthemums - You'll come, won't you,she said. And I saw I was in over my head. My last poem from the anthology is by Elaine M. Upton, a teacher of African and African-American Literature at the University of Maryland. Now Is the Time of Nostalgia Take big Bessie Smith, loving to sing the country of her varicose veins or Georgia O'Keeffe's bones on the chalky desert wall. The burst of a dark orchid: Piaf! Piaf! they would cry and The Blue Angel still plays. Abbey Lincoln moans. Somewhere the chansons or Brel are belted, lilted, and luring in rows of smoky rooms where people lived with terror, the edge the other side of beauty. And a blackberry wide-eyed woman dreams after school in the local public library. She meets a faded photograph - some Josephine Baker, a gramophone exotic tongue. She sees the bronze flesh dancing, a stranger, some kind of mother. She walks now unseen, homeward to her brothers and supper of yellow corn, sugared beans.  A bit of nostalgia, San Angelo, Texas, 1969 or so. best damn chili in Texas Frontier Something or Other was the name of the place best damn chili in Texas, the devil’s own hangover preventative pork and beef and three kinds of pepper hot enough to defoliate your nose hairs and grease enough to coat your guts from inflow to the gotta go a bowl before you hit the bars and a bowl after and you’re be so damn stone cold sober at reveille your eyebrows stand and salute when old General Pushcart come by on the back of his jeep I used to know a lot about this sort of thing  Next, I have three poets from Burnt Sugar (Cana Quemada). The book is an anthology of contemporary Cuban poets, presented in both English and Spanish. It was published in 2006 by Simon & Schuster. My first poet from the book is Pedro Medina. Born in Havana, Medina is a poet, translator, and novelist who moved to the United States in 1960. A Poem for the Epiphany for Ellen Jacko It snows because the door to heaven is open, because God is tired of working and the day needs to be left alone. It snows because there is a widow hiding under her mother's bed, because the birds are resting their throats and three wise men are offering gifts. Because the clouds are singing and trees have a right to exist, because the horses of the past are returning. They are gray and trot gently into the barn never touching the ground. It snows because the wind wants to be water, because water wants to be powder and powder wants to seduce the eye. Because once in his life the philosopher has to admit to the poverty of thought. Because the rich man cannot buy snow and the poor man has to wear it in his eyebrows. Because it makes the old dog think his life has just begun. He runs back and forth across the parking lot. He rolls in the snow. He laps it up. It snows because light and dark are making love in a field where old age has no meaning, where colors blur, silence covers sound, sleep covers sorrow, everything is death, everything is joy The next poem is by Eugenio Florit. Florit, born of a Cuban mother in Madrid in 1903. He completed his secondary and university studies in Havana and became one of Cuba's most influential poets and essayist. Living at various times in Cuba, Spain and the United States, he died in Miami in 1999. His poem is in the book in both Spanish and English. The English translation was by . Memories The soul gets into the habit of dreams, and rests there, quietly. But there are times, like this afternoon, when the sky, a color, some pigeons make us ponder far-off things; on what kept us going under the sun. (Or was it last night's music, or the words we spoke at lunch as when discussing the past, we felt the slightest tug of absence... Fine. But fact is we do remember. Memory comes with light, a perfume and we feel something like river water coming toward us submerging our hearts in pleasant shadows, green coolness; oh, and the mind wants to go back and gaze upon its mountains and seas promising itself to see what it hasn't seen and ask the earth for forgiveness, for not gazing more kindly upon it at the time. Now the man thinks back to the day when as a child he cried, disillusioned by the fountain of his dreams that was just a simple droplet turned waterspout by his imagination. Now the rivers gush forth. The Cuyandthe is passing with its history and the Ariguanabo, so loved by his grandparents; the Almendares emptying into the seas amid the hustle and bustle of bridges and steel, and leaving behind it, like a memory, a solitary palm on its banks; and the Habanilla flows surging over its rocks; and earlier, the San Juan and Yumuri Rivers - whose names alone could weave a legend -; and the Tuinucu rushes by in birdsong, and finally the splendid Cauto River arrives born and raised in thee Sierra Maestra before it dies in the Caribbean Sea in the arms of its sparkling waves. Lord, let me be aware of all my rivers, the ones I know, the ones I should know; because to know rivers is to know the land through which they flow; because to know rivers is to know the trees they reflect, the stones which kiss them, the birds nesting on their shores and the fish darting through their waters. To know rivers is to know the blood of your native land. My last poet from the anthology is Armando Valladares. Born in Pinar del Rio in 1937, he was, for twenty-two years, a political prisoner in Havana. When released in 1981, he left Cuba for Madrid and, eventually, Miami. His poem appears in the book in both Spanish and English. The English translation was by Lori M. Carlson. Bebita I Your name is blue leaf of time to the end point of the universe a dream of pulverized crystal in my hands of lover becoming verse  A one thing leads to another poem, starting with the sound of a helicopter, one thing leading to another until I figured out how to end the poem and finish my coffee. learning to keep one's head down a helicopter goes over, so low I can’t see it, just the whopiter, whopiter, whopiter of its rotors, so close it sounds like it’s landing on the roof and I’m reminded of all the time I see people getting out of helicopters in the movies, all hunched over like they think those whirly blades are going to reach down out of their self-created hurricane and grab them by the ears and wonder is that some kind of natural behavior learned in caves with low -hanging ceilings, as in, "damn, Oop, won’t your ever learn to keep your head down at home," or is it behavior more recently learned in childhood when every spinning fan earned a don’t-stick-your-fingers-in-the-fan reminder and, ooh how tempting it was to stick one little finger in just a little ways to see what happens, or is it just a question of insurance, reminding the stars that they’re worth a bunch of money and would be a great loss to their art should they lose their head over a quartet of gyrating metal blades like a knife-throwing octopus on a carnival midway, and then I remember that exact thing happened during the filming of a movie, Twilight Zone, the Movie, I think, one little fuck-up, pilot error, if you prefer, and there goes Vic Morrow’s head a-flying along with some little Vietnamese kid who was also in the movie and considering the time at the time it doesn’t seem really so strange that I remember Vic Morrow’s name and not the name of another dead Vietnamese kid there being so recently then so many of them but that’s another story  Next, I have two poets from another anthology. This one, The Defiant Muse - Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present,was published in 1999 by The Feminist Press of the City University of New York. It is a bilingual book, Hebrew and English. The first poem is by Ester Raab. Born in Israel in 1894, Raab died in 1981. In her teens, she joined the labor collective Degania and later taught at the agricultural school at Ben Shemen. She moved to Cairo in 1921 and began publishing her poetry a year later. Her poem was translated to English by Shirley Kaufman. [Holy Grandmothers in Jerusalem] Holy grandmothers in Jerusalem , may your virtue protect me. Scent of grape buds and blossoming orchards I sipped my mother's ;milk. Feet soft as hands fumble in burning sand, and untamed eucalyptus heavy with wasps and bees murmur a lullaby to me. I will dip sevenfold in the Mediterranean to be ready for my beloved David, the King, and I will climb to him in awesome majesty up to the mountains of Jerusalem. I will drink coffee and discuss security and war with Deborah, under the palm tree. Holy grandmothers in Jerusalem, may your virtue protect me. I inhale the smell of your clothing, the scent of Sabbath candles and naphthalene. And the next poet from the anthology is Agi Mishol. Born in 1947 in Hungry, the only daughter of Holocaust survivors, she was brought to Israel in 1950. Winner of several literary awards, she teaches literature at high schools and university level, conducts poetry workshops, is a literary critic for the radio, a translator, and a farmer. Her poem was translated by Tsipi Keller In the Supermarket 1 Through the supermarket alleys I push a cart as if I were the mother of two heads of cauliflower, and navigate according to the verse-list I improvised this morning over coffee. Sale banners wave to shoppers studying the genre of labels on packaged foods as Muzak entertains the frozen birds. and I too, whose life is made of life, stride down the dog-food aisle toward Mr. Flinker who confides in my ear that only the body crumbles but the spirit says young forever, believe me. I believe, but now let me turn to Jonathan and MacIntosh. Hurry folks, to the coriander, hurry hurry folks, I'm the supermarket bard, I'll sing the rustle of cornflakes, the curve of mutinous cucumbers, until th cash register will hand me the final printed version of my poem. 2 I stroll the supermarket clad in the essence of my housewifery when suddenly you kid me, "Agi-Bagi" near the pickles and then deviously pinch my ass near the delicatessen counter while your wife hesitates among the dairy products hunts for you for the final ruling: Non-fat? Low-fat? 3 (In the lingerie department I hear a woman say: Me, my legs are nice, but my breasts are a flop. With me, said another it's just the opposite. My breasts are a knockout but my legs are a flop.) 4 I hugged you and you hugged a watermelon I loved you and you didn't know what to do with the watermelon because your hands wanted to hug me but couldn't let go of t on the other hand what could you say, wait, let me just put down the watermelon?  Sunrise and sunset, special times for me and my Muse. Sunrise, I sit back and watch the beginning of all things; Sunset, I think of all the things that made the day wrapping up, all at one time just as the night begins. at just dark birds unfurl from trees black flag swirling flailing cloud of dark rising ** end of shift nurses green scrubs soft shoes circle at Starbucks complain in secret voices of doctors and patients and extended hours ** car lights lined on the Loop one after another three abreast in both directions on this side those who work in the east and live in the west and on the other side the reverse such is the state of our affairs ** “_ood fo-d” “ch-ap” blinking neon sigh with incomplete message casting green shadows on the cracked sidewalk in front of the diner at 5th and Grand three old men at the counter for a meal fit to meet their meager pensions every night here then as morning breaks breakfast too and sometimes when they’re riding high lunch don’t care about the broken sign quit seeing the sign years ago regulars ** whores don’t walk the streets in this neighborhood but a little later when it’s not so early they’ll all be at the bar and in the back booth over at San Miguel’s across from the barber shop just a phone call and a cab ride away mostly young mostly pretty the black tar of too-many tricks just a small spot inside not yet spread to their eyes ** hard clunk of a heavy switch thrown in San Pedro Park tennis court island shines against dark tide advancing ** Millie Sands afraid of the dark hurries to give Bixbie his walk before shadows converge yanks hard his leash as he stops to check his mail and Robinsons’ oak ** ambulance passes on Callahan fast siren screeching like five o’clock whistle common sound this time of day as commuters on the Loop maneuver for advantage still sets the dogs to yowling  Last week we had photos from my friends Dan and Kathy Cuddy. This week I have a poem from Dan. Manifesto Of A Sort I write to survive death but of course it doesn't work the words disappear after speaking the letters crumble into electrons or fade into the paper I don't have the talent I don't have the connections I'm not important except to myself and I think that is a sin of pride I am just one more bit of organized bone and muscle and flab awaiting dissolution the vapor of life steaming into the night only to cool unconscious on the dark leaves or on plastic flowers or on the forbidding stones lined up in their mock of organization death like an army Death Is An Army the poems I fire back fall the professors won't read the desperate scratchings of a man trying to climb out of himself too amateur that average neurotic life heeing and hawing taking pees behind the cemetery wall averting his eyes from mirrors cringing at the Holy Ghost who is a Church hell-bent on Inquisition and all I wanted was the Garden of Earthly Delights the words for plum and green and purple to shimmer the way leaves do on the summer ground but but but always that critical wedge of reality an old tattered coat and a stick in hand a raging piece of verse that is someone else my hope in the letters of the word are dashed as the power goes out the city dark the wind swirling breaking everything to pieces only the fear of dissolution remains and the remains of all those others who I loved, admired, ate with remain a fool thinks his poetry is good special deserves to be burning through all eternity God is problematical poetry is desperate vanity unless it is about love but all love matures into death and dream we do dream we do that everything has more than temporal meaning but belief comes in empty-handed from the desert carried by those who cannot question themselves see the darkness scratch the eyes out of illusion perhaps Buddha but then I must remain silent before death and there is still this ego bursting with fear, desire abstract words that mean nothing without the sensation crawling, caressing the skin I am a poet of desperation bloated in body crazy in mind howling outside the skyscrapers all that steel, glass, plastic containing nothing and the college professors teach and warm each others' egos with praise and I am that miserable Robinson Jeffers staring at the cold ocean but all this is about wanting to live and time just falls out blows away your hand drops turns to sand  Texas legislature back in session, a Special Session called by our nitwit governor who aspires to be your nitwit president. (Don't say I didn't warn you - just like I warned you about George W. - but you didn't pay any attention to me and see what happened.) Every thing good and precious in the state holds it's breath, hoping to survive until the politicians finally go home. license to carry license to carry that’s what we have where I live that means your normal everyday psychotic whack’o can carry a gun as long as they keep it concealed and as long as they can pass a test developed by the NRA to insure that every normal everyday psychotic whack’o who wants to carry his own personal six shooter can by god! buy one at the weapons and murder store of their choice and I think that’s plain stupid since it seems clear to me that if you’re going to let your normal everyday psychotic whack’o carry a gun you don’t want that sucker concealed instead you oughta wanta be fuckin’ sure they’re required to carry it right out in plain sight maybe with a big red arrow pointing right at it with flashing neon lights saying “whack’o whack’o whack’o” so us regular people can get out of the way when we see them moseying in our direction  Now I have three poems by Jeannette Lozano from her book The Movement of Water/Los Momentos del agua. This is a beautiful book, published in 2006 by Edicones Poligrafa of Barcelona. Full color, hard cover, fine gloss paper - I bought the book for $3.98 at my half-priced book store. Judging from my experience publishing my first book, color on every page, high quality paper, but soft cover, this book had to sell for $50 to $70 new if they hoped to make back their printing cost. Except for a book of poetry by a former Saudi oil minister, this is the best looking most finely laid out and printed book in my library. The only biographical information I was able to come up with on the poet is that she was born in was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1949, of Lebanese descent. A poet, with ten published books of poetry and a translator, she studied philosophy and has a Masters in Science Methodology and Spanish literature. She was awarded the Rockefeller/Conaculta 2000 grant and the Banff/CONACULTA 2004 scholarship for translators and a national recognition for her book Desierta memoria as well as the Gonzalo Rojas 2001 Prize for her Todo antes de la Noche, which has appeared in French and in Lebanon in Arabic. The extensive art in the book was painted by Victor Ramirez. The translation was by Rod Hudson. Cold Flame As if it would beat out a silence the gold of the fireflies between spruces was impassioned. The light was failing on the water and you were moving away like one who exits a scene without one's body. Fir amidst the water, was tracing a wake without knowing that the sun was looking at you for the first time. History Do you want to know about me, of the water-burnished stones, of my grandparents, of the story of redemption, of the tree of permanence? Let me return to the water to regain the peace that your eyes shelter. I was born embracing sorrow of extended roots whose truth is life. This ancient pain sustains me. El Morro The year enters the blue with the serenity of stars its brilliance splits over the leaves of the mangroves, fallow until the breeze in the sand. The white walls of the house facing the sea are like curtains of frost, from the terrace the rose of the horizon extends. In the silence resounds the crash of the swell, the laughter of the children. These rocks in the middle of the sea are ransomed goddesses, visions of the faraway, the light in the eyes that I kissed longingly. moist - fear before a love that grows. for my body dissipates the light; against the crystal, the landscape of water. The music arrives from the last dwelling with its moment of flame. Outside the stars stop falling. Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo January 1 2004  Bored one recent Tuesday afternoon, I went down to my barber and had my hair cut back to basic training length. I like it, next barber visit it'll be going down to bone - just another old man, bald-headed with a goatee. That's where this one started. Took me a while to figure out how to finish up from there. curiosities I’ve heard that amputees, those who’ve lost and arm or a leg, sometimes feel pain in their missing limb… I had all my hair cut off several days ago and still, in a hard wind walking, feel my long hair blowing ~~~ this afternoon a full twenty-minute set of songs about Thunderbird wine on the radio station over at San Antonio College… “What’s the word?” - “Thunderbird!” call and response recalled by those of us of a certain age, survivors of a certain social/cultural milieu, those who drank too much cheap sugar-sweet wine too often on back roads and arroyo levees under hot South Texas sun, a $1.29 a jug substitute for afternoons when sex was improbable, at best, like catching catfish at an oatmeal farm, old days now. back before most of us understood the potentialities of a good personality and that, while cheerleaders rarely scored well in the good personality matrix, neither did we, so drinking enough Thunderbird on a hot South Texas summer afternoon opened up a number of possibilities, the best, involving ladies with extremely excellent personalities being near impossible to imagine and the worst and most likely, a period of sloppy sodden unconsciousness followed by a headache like an anvil hanging from our ears ~~~ old couple, at least in their eighties, snuggle in the booth in front of me… congratulations, grandpa, grandma, on keeping your options up in your so-liver-spotted years… now, get a room why don’t’ca ~~~ dinner with friends eat up they say we don’t want any left-overs... teeny tiny plates ~~~ old man across the room, looks like Walter Mondale, talks baseball to his wife… she nods eats her French toast yawns ~~~ young couple come in from their Wrangler in the parking lot both very tall he with a cowboy hat she with a tight sweater and ten-gallon boobs ~~~ tiny waitress, 4 foot somethingl on her tiptoes carries a very large platter of omelets and pancakes and other breakfast grub like a tiny mouse hoisting an elephant over her shoulder… wouldn’t want to arm wrestle the tiny little waitress with the elephant over her shoulder  Here are two poems by David St. John from his book Study for the World's Body, published in 1994 by HarperCollins. St. John, born in California, in 1949, was educated at California State University, Fresno, where he received his B.A. In 1974, he received an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. He has taught creative writing at Oberlin College and The John Hopkins University and currently teaches at the University of Southern California. Hush for my son The way a tired Chippewa woman Who's lost a child gathers up black feathers, Black quills & leaves That she wraps & swaddles in a little bale, a shag Cocoon she carries with her & speaks to always As if it were the child, Until she knows the soul has grown fat & clever, That the child can find its own way at last; Well, I go everywhere Picking the dust out of the dust, scraping the breezes Up off the floor, & gather them into a doll Of you, to touch at the nape of the neck, to slip Under my shirt like a rag - the way Another man's wallet rides above his heart. As you Cry out, as if calling to a father you conjure In the paling light, the voice rises, instead, in me. Nothing stops it, the crying. Not the clove of the moon, Not the woman raking my back with her words. Our letters Close. Sometimes, you ask About the world; sometimes I answer back, Nights Return you to me for a while, as sleep returns sleep To a landscape ravaged & familiar. The dark watermark of your absence, a hush. An Essay on Liberation He stood naked at one of the two windows She kept open in all weather in her Corner room at the back of the old building As the sun rose he watched a man Dragging a handcart along the narrow alley below & across the court a young boy was turning His face from side to side in a freckled mirror From the temples in the old section of the city He could hear the first sequence Of morning prayers and to the west he could see the dulled bronze domes of The Church of the Orthodox Where at any moment the bells would begin to chime & in the streets crisscrossing the city From the old section to the sea The tanks & personnel trucks began moving quietly Into position in the orderly & routine way & the bells began sounding from their tower They were answered by the echoing concussion of mortars As the daily shelling of the hills began & she was slicing small pieces of bread the size of coins To fry in goat butter & chives she was naked Kneeling on one of the worn rugs thrown at angles across The scarred floor she glanced up at him & smiled Nodding for no reason in particular & in spite of The fact the one phrase he'd taught her perfectly Began with the word for free though it ended With nothing  I wrote this a couple of years ago. Our house near a street that provides a short-cut between two major city streets -ambulances and police cars and fire trucks a frequent part of our night. the devil can find you anywhere it’s part of living in the city we think the noise of sirens the fire trucks the ambulances the police cars their supercharged engines whoosh of air and power like a bear’s long growl as they cross the creek just down the road; all the little murders the little killings that come so often it begins to seem like a stream of blood passing a flood of blood passing on weekends the nude woman found in a drainage ditch shot dead the baby in her crib shot dead as a drive by bullet penetrates the thin wall she sleeps by bar fights that lead to shootings in parking lots blood on oily asphalt shinning in the flashing lights domestic disturbances that rise from desperation separation from hope unhappiness and too much to drink ending in rage-deaths (I had a friend when I was thirteen, killed by his father, shot as he tried to protect his mother) so many that we lose count and it’s just another half inch story on the back pages and when we think of it at all we shake our heads at the viciousness of it all imagine quite places where the sirens don’t wail all night, where murder and tragedy and rage only happens on TV and we daydream like this until something happens like happened this week and we realize the devil can always find you anywhere and we see that death comes to quiet places too  Next I have 10 verses from Ten Thousand Leaves - Love Poems from the Manyoshu. The Manyoshu, translated literally as "A Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves," is a collection of Japanese poetry completed during the eight century. It includes over 4,500 poems arranged in twenty volumes and composed by more than 400 known contributors. My book contains 136 of these poems, all translated by Harold Wright. Usually, when using this kind of book, I page through the book and select poems that appeal to me at random. This time, in order to avoid repetition when I come back to the book for future posts, I'm just going to start with the last verse in the book go forward from there. None of the poems are titled, and none provide author credits. 136. If from your mouth there hung a hundred-year-old tongue and you would babble I still would not cease to care but indeed my love would grow 135. It is fortunate for any man who can live so long to hear The sound of his wife's voice till his black hair turns to white 134. Using fine pillars of the highest grade cypress does the woodsman Fabricate in wasted haste a mere temporary hut? 133. The things you told me were said to stave off silence and to console me When I came to know the truth oh, the bitterness I felt! 132. To love someone who does not return that love is like offering prayers Back behind a starving god within a Buddhist temple 131. Although every year the plum bursts in bloom again I live in a world Hollow as a locust shell where spring does not return 130. Instead of suffering this longing for my loved one I would rather choose To become a stone or tree without feelings or sad thoughts 129. Rather than to love with a love as dear as life and feel much longing I would rather change into the tiller on my lover's boat 128. Forced to stay away and love you from a distance I would rather be The wild duck that I hear dwells a t the lake beside your home 127. Instead of longing for my loved one in this way I would rather be A jewel that could be clasped tightly to my lover's wrist I have to admit that, after reading several of these "I would rather" constructions, my mind tended to drift over to Maxwell Smart and his "would you believe" explanations of unlikely events.  Got to thinking about the alternate universe talk in science fiction and, more recently, real science when talking string theory. The idea that a new universe is formed every time we make a decision makes for great science fiction. nostalgia at every time a decision is made a single road taken among many passed by, those not chosen grow dark and rough and fade away, and that’s why we can briefly consider the things we did not do, a job offered and refused, words not spoken at a time when a few words might have saved a life, saved a future, words we could have said but did not say to a girl kissed once but not again, (oh, my Libby Jean the words I did not say…) all, we can consider but never see beyond the immediate consequence, beyond the moment of decision, the unwinding forever lost, for those things we would try to see that never were can never be, a million universes created every day only to die from inattention… we are gods of infinite disinterest - other possibilities than the ones we once settled upon and made real are laid aside but for some very few moments like these when a night wind tugs at our life-lists of might-have-beens  Next I have a short poem by Antler from his book Antler: The Selected Poems, published by Soft Skull Press in 2000. Born Brad Burdick in 1946 in Wisconsin, Antler is a poet with several books to his credit. He leads poetry workshops and gives readings across the United States and in other countries. He is also an advocate for wilderness protection and other causes, and continues to spend much time camping and exploring the wilderness areas he loves. He received the Whitman Prize from the Walt Whitman Association. He was also awarded the Witter Bynner prize in 1987. Antler was the poet laureate of the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for 2002 and 2003. Poetry Boom In Milwaukee There's a Poetry Boom in Milwaukee! More people joining the Poetry Force because unlimited employment opportunities abound! The estimated number of poets here was 86 in 1986, Well above a low of 3 in 1846. If the present rate of increase continues, 2000 Milwaukee poets by the year 2000! Upheavals in new poem possibilities have created a need for myriads of bards. Experts predict high demand for poets could lead to a poet power shortage, especially for erotic poem poets. Soon politicians will be wooing endorsements from the Poets' Union more than AFL-CIO. At this rate it won't be long before rather than the State of Wisconsin gives General Motors 9 million in taxpayer money to open a new truck plant and create 900 new jobs, The State gives 9 million so 900 more poets can be free to work on 900 new books of poems.  Some short poems from several years ago. I seem to have lost the knack for writing short. Everything I do now turns out long. old men talk old men talk and talk all the time to anyone anywhere, using up words they hoarded when young and certain to need them later green pastures cat wants out dog wants in rooster wants the day off on Thursday isn’t anyone ever satisfied? flashing watch her walk with each step the rear of her foot rises as weight shifts from her heel to her toe while her shoe lags behind and between the shoe and the bottom of her foot the soft pale flesh of her instep flashes like a lover’s wink across a crowded room, this most beautiful, unseen place, inviting a caress, a kiss, flashing like a secret across a crowded room spring storm clouds dark as the devil’s black eyes behind as we race to clear skies ahead division of labor have you noticed when children set out to play little boys pick their noses while girls make up the rules girls telling secrets four of them at the round table whisper laugh then whisper and laugh again oh, no, says one oh, yes, says another whisper and laugh at the round table in the corner portrait of a girl at night winter night walking chilled streets scarf coiled in woolen layers cover neck to chin face shadowed in shades of gray eyes wide in surprise.... fear.... tote dat barge i have worked hard today, but will get no great reward for it i will do it again tomorrow because I am an optimist and have nothing better to do anyway the best of intentions I was going to write a poem today about the beautiful morning that began it but everything I write sounds like a parody of the poem I would write if I could write a poem today so I won’t  Next, I have several poems by e.e. cummings from his book 50 poems, originally published i 1939, my edition published in 1970 by The Universal Library. This is a book with his later poems. I have another book with poems from his earliest, very formal poems to his later experiments with form and grammar, which I often think of as a sign of inspiration exhaustion, covered up by games. The later poems are fun, while the earlies poems seem to me very dry and academic. I prefer his middle period, the poems that avoid the early formality and the later antics, poems that, to me, reveal cummings at his best. Every time I transcribe these early poems, I worry that they will push my spell and grammar check into crash mode. I'll get back to that other book in a later post. Maybe some readers will agree with me. spoke joe to jack leave her alone she's not your gal jack spoke to joe 's left crashed pal dropped o god alice yells but who shot up grabbing had by my throat me give it to him good a bottle she quick who stop damned fall all we go spill and chairs tables the and bitch whispers jill mopping too0 bad dear sh not yet jesus what blood darling i said ~~~ there are possibly 2 1/2 or impossibly 3 individuals every several fat thousand years. Expecting more would be neither fantastic nor pathological but dumb. The number of times a wheel turns doesn't determine its roundness:if swallows tryst in your barn be glad;nobody ever earns anything,everything little looks big in a mist and if(by Him Whose blood was for us spilled) than all mankind something more small occurs or something more distorting than socalled civilization i'll kiss a stalinist arse in hitler's window on wednesday next at 1 E.S.T. bring the kiddies let's all have fun ~~~ up into the silence the green silence with a white earth in it you will(kiss me)go out into the morning the young morning with a warm world in it (kiss me)you will go on into the sunlight the fine sunlight with a firm day in it you will go(kiss me down into your memory and a memory and memory i)kiss me(will go) ~~~ love is more thicker than forget more thinner than recall more seldom than a wave is wet more frequent than to fail it is most mad and mooonly and less it shall unbe than all the sea which only is deeper than the sea love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky  This is what happens when I read the Times Tuesday science section. an old man coming if an apple fell on my head I’d say cool and eat it and the whole rigmarole of Newtonian physics would have e been avoided but not you for you, every yin has a yang, every issue an issue with connections and ramifications, multiple consequences that must be considered, as well as lessons that must be learned I used to be that way then I looked in a mirror, saw and old man coming, and went sane  My last library poems this week is by John Engles from his book, Sinking Creek, published in 1998 by The Lyons Press. Engles was born in South Bend, Ind. He received a BA from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA from the University of Iowa. He served as an officer in the US Navy during the Korean War. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he authored 11 volumes of poetry and was a professor of English at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont, for 45 years. Born in 1931, Engles died in 2007. The 20th Century Limited Close at the edge of the platform already terrified to ecstasy, waiting for the enormous winds of its approach, smash and wallop of drive rods smoke billowing everywhere - my brother, my parents, everything from ten feet out gone spectral through steam, so joyous an uproar of steam, of steel- to-steel so fine a hullabaloo as I haven't known since but ache, crave, hanker and itch, pine, lust for and thirst and yearn for still, that great suck and inrush of vacuum, power of in-pull that resistless horror of the edging in.  This seems an appropriate poem to end the week with. adios watch me now this is called killing time this slack dumbstruck expression on my face like a cow facing his stockyard executioner is actually a sign of intense mental inschubobulation from which will emerge in good time a poem for the ages a poem of the ages an old poem full of old excuses and yesterday’s words piled one up on the other until there is at least a page or maybe two of time defied time denied time murdered killed in the killing of it such an astrophysically galaxy-shifting result it is, this killing of time much more significant in this electrophantasmalistic universe than any little morning poem about which the gods would shrug as time runs out even for them a dribble to stasis, entropy achieved the end my friend adios  That what I have for the week. It all belongs to whoever did it. You can borrow mine if you want, just give proper credit to me and to "Here and Now." I'm allen itz owner and producer of this blog and I sure'nuff did it and not even a little bit sorry about it either. Except for the typos - somebody else did that. |
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