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Bear Creek Road After Cold November Rain
Saturday, November 26, 2011 Regular stuff this week, poems and pictures and shameless promotions. Grand Canyon, Early December Canyon Great Salt Lake Fishing in New York Me and what a strange honor this is, she thinks Jimmy Santiago Baca From Meditations on the South Valley Me "Black Friday” Gwendolyn Brooks My Little “Bout-Town Girl Strong Men, Riding Horses The Bean Eaters Me rain in the hills and possibilities of other adventure Elizabeth Seydel Morgan Neighborhood Counting Sheep Her Words Me Bear Creek Road after cold November rain From The Sound of Water Basho, Buson, Issa Me about the three older men Arunansu Banerjee 12 Haiku Me cowboys and indians Andrey Voznesensky Autumn First Ice Me unlike some, I’ve been born only once Jorie Graham Spoken from the Hedgerows Me this old bed Victor Hernandez Cruz An Essay on William Carlos Williams Me a gentle and polite sort of non-believer Zbigniew Herbert Three Poems by Heart Me a minor poet explains it all From Till I End My Song Stevie Smith Black March William Carlos Williams The World Contracted to a Recognizable Image Me big news in the astrophysical world Wendy Barker Three Poems in Dead Winter Me From Places and Spaces (Publication pending) spring storm home court  I begin this week with poems by Joyce Sutphen. The poems are from her book Straight Out of View, published by Beacon Press and winner of the 1994 Barnard New Women Poets Prize. At the time the book was published Sutphen lived in Minnesota. Timely news - I just read today that Sutphen has been named the new poet laureate of Minnesota. Grand Canyon, Early December There they are on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. NOtice that his hair was longer than hers. It was almost Christmas, and they thought they might drive up to St. Paul after they had a look at this archipelago, tis purple- throated ocean of canyon and cliff. It was cold and they slept along the way, entirely avoiding L.A. (they had never been to there and like saying that they didn't care). Just outside of San Francisco, they picked up a hitch-hiker and took him along to somewhere past Needles, Arizona. It's hard to remember now,but it seems they had to turnover some food at the state line: tomatoes? apples maybe? They filled the gas tank and drove along the blue-black highway until they felt pulled to that place. He stood for a long time on the rim in that way he had: close to the edge, zenlike in his solitude. (Oh, if she had only taken this a a warning, but her motto then was to ignore all clues, make all moves as randomly as possible, and never try to understand.) The view was, she thought (and knew the echo), satisfactory: the glass and silver river snaking through the canyon bottom, the violet-tinged gorge of scar that made her wonder: What meteor was it slammed its fiery fist into earth's smooth face? What terrible, titanic angel reclined his limbs in the slaking, new-made planet and beat his pinioned wings deep and deeper into the rock? Canyon And I,who feared the ledge, the rim, the scrimmed edge, where you would stand storklike, your right foot resting on your left As you looked out,over the vast deep canyon, the titanic expanse of rainbowed rock, I now th this high-wire act, Leaning to center my weight over the sag of thin line, willing myself into the clenched pose of one who walks without a net. to do this is a kind of craziness - I wrench forward with every step, to frightened to see the birds flying under my feet, Deafened by the roar of blood in my ear, I cannot hear your voice telling me to touch the clouds. I don not touch the clouds. Gravity fils my bones and runs in my veins. Descending, I taste time, layer by layer. It tastes like nothing. Now I can meditate upon the barren bones of the years, the purple of gaudy days, sinking into the hourglass of ocean Stretching farther than horizon, moving with motionless crashing, the wisest wave that never breaks. Only a whisper comes back to the ledge when I remember how I walked on air, the future underfoot. Great Salt Lake The clouds on the horizon brought a storm later that night, but here they are lovely,rubbing their dark knuckles over the yellow dunes, flickering slivers of lightning into the sage-green water. Plagues of midges sweep the salt-white beach; coppered snakes swirl in the silken lake. Still we go in. We make this one pilgrimage, and though we try to sink, we stay afloaat. We sit cross-legged in the water, supported by ropy fingers that leave ghost traces on our skins. We think we hear a choir singing. Eventually we grow tired of skimming the surface and wash the brine from out bodies. Night, we roll into sleep and dream of coyotes, of rattlers, of door handles breaking off in our hands, the brittle chrome of our first fears Fishing New York Here, while dogs bark in the bottle-green air of lonely, I hold my pen like a three-barbed hook tied to the reel of thoughts drifting through the deep of me. Away the flickering nylon goes, from out my winding heart, and I wonder what I might catch: what baited revelation might I haul into this, my rocking. When I sleep, I dream the city. I put a finger in its gray navel and peel away the skin. What next I touch, trees and birds erupt through the cement. I make a stringer of the things I catch.  OK, it's over. Let's get this Thanksgiving business over so we can move on to Santamas. and what a strange honor this is, she thinks printer and patriot, portly ol’ Ben Franklin thought the wild waddling turkey should be the symbol of our country, celebrated throughout all the various parts of our great United States of America… poor bewildered fowl for one day a year she is and what a strange honor this is, she thinks  Next I have poems by Jimmy Santiago Baca, from his semi-autobiographical book Martin & Meditations on the South Valley, 1987 recipient of the American Book Award for poetry published by New Directions. The book includes two complete series of poems. My poems this week are from about mid-way through the second series, "Meditations on the South Valley." Baca was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1952. Abandoned by his parents at the age of two, he lived with one of his grandparents for several years before being placed in an orphanage. He wound up living on the streets, and at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on charges of drug possession and incarcerated. He served six years in prison, four of them in isolation. During this time, Baca taught himself to read and write, and he began to compose poetry. A fellow inmate convinced him to submit some of his poems to Mother Jones magazine, then edited by Denise Levertov. Levertov printed Baca's poems and began corresponding with him, eventually finding a publisher for his first book. A self-styled "poet of the people," Baca conducts writing workshops with children and adults at countless elementary, junior high and high schools, colleges, universities, reservations, barrio community centers, white ghettos, housing projects, correctional facilities and prisons from coast to coast. X Barrio Southside used to be called Los Ranchos de Atrisco eighty years ago. Before that, Rio Abajo. Names change. Dawn arrives, shimmering like a hammered tin santito, dangling from a viga portal, tic-tic, clicking in the breeze against stucco & adobe. I study the faces of boys playing in dirt yards, and see Cuauhtemoc-images that reflect gold-cuts engraved on medallions in Spanish museums. Vatos, eyes sleek with dreams, lounge on porches reading the flight of geese above the Rio Grande, look like Netzahualcoyotl. And thrashing out from the bosque's wall of trees and wild bushes, see a man in threadbare clothing, work-worn muscles, eyes weathered as war-drum skins, his skin glowing with sweat like rain on old rocks, and here you see a distant relative of Aztec warriors. ^^^ XI Things change. Pseudo Spanish-style apartments now loom on the east mesa. Used to be land grant tierra. Now retired Texas ranchers park their Revcon travel-homes, pampering them like prize bulls. The other morning Mr. Churner's grandson came to visit him. Mr. Churner shouldered a saw-horse out to the parking-lot next to his chromed bull, and tottering on new boots, he threw the rope six times, missing the imagined cow, and his grandson walked to retrieve the rope six times, watching his grandfather's face redden with each to toss. Slumped shouldered, wobbly footed, angular old withering cowboy, Mr. Churner turns, shouldering the saw-horse back onto the apartment patio. Sipping his tea in his lawn chair, in his face I see a man who scowls, "I made a goddamn mistake, selling out. Hell, I'd give anything, for a nice, cold, tall glass of well water." ^^^ XII I am remembering the South Valley. Rain smacked tin-roofs like an all night passenger train, fiery flames of moon flashing from the smoke stack. Beneath the rain shaded sky, faint surge of rain pulsing down my windows, rain's blue mouth curling around everything. I dream myself maiz root swollen in pregnant earth, rain seeping into my black ones sifting red soil grains of my heart into earth's hungry mouth. I am part of the earth. ^^^ XIII Antonio, you want to say something with your polished brown-wood eyes. Your legs bend to steady you on the unseen horse. You turn your head back to see me, then go into red hills of sunlight in the backyard, down curving paths of moss and fire, awake the sleeping Goddess of Dirt, to plant your yellow flower soul in her mouth with a stick. My son, your eyes are music storms, filled with the black song of earth, your heart's reddened eyes peers at a blue alfalfa flower, glowing with your destiny. ^^^ XIV El Pablo was a bad dude. Presidente of the River Rats (700 strong), from '67 to '73. Hands so fast he could catch two flies buzzing in air, and still light his cigarette. From a flat foot standing position he jumped to kick the top of a door jamb twice with each foot. Pants and shirt ceased and cuffed, sharp pointy shoes polished to black glass, El Pachucon was cool to t he bone, brutha. His initials were etched on Junior HIgh School desks, Castaneda's Meat Market walls, downtown railway bridge, on the red bricks of Civic Auditorium, Uptown & Downtown, El Pachucon left his mark. Back to the wall, legs crossed, hands pocketed, combing his greased-back ducktail when a jaine walked by. Cool to the huesos. Now he's a janitor at Pajarito Elementary School - still hangs out by the cafeteria, cool to the bone, el vato still wears his sunglasses, still proud, he leads a new gang of neighborhood parents to the Los Padilla Community Center to fight against polluted ground water, against Developers who want to urbanize his rural running grounds Standing in the back of the crowd last Friday, I saw Pablo stand up and yell at the Civic Leaders from City Hall. Listen cuates, you pick your weapons We'll fight you on any ground you pick."  And what's the first step to Santamas, "Black Friday," of course. Black Friday no sense looking for profundity today assume instead another day of excess following the excess of the day before predators stalking the retail worlds of gotta buy, gotta buy… don't - whatever other mistakes you make today - don’t get in the way as tattooed fat ladies in flip-flops mill at the gates, snort through flared nostrils the flame and the acrid smoke of greed unleashed, primed for the chase, don’t - whatever other stupid thing you do today - don’t be the underweight gazelle , crushed between the jaws of rapacious mania, caught innocent-eyed between the slavering herd, blood high, hot, and burning bright with intent on more weighty prey stand on the sidelines, if you must observe the bloodlust rampant, and observer how quickly all that peace and love and thank you lord for all the blessing upon us horse hockey you assumed with such guiless piety yesterday dissipates in the very early morning when the doors open early for Black Friday sales… it’s a grim world we live in when the hunter gets the scent of fresh kills waiting enter it at your peril  Here are three poems by Gwendolyn Brooks from her book of Selected Poems, published by Harper and Row, first in 1963, my edition in 1999. Born in 1917, Brooks was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985. She died in 2000. My Little 'Bout-Town Girl My little 'bout-town gal has gone 'Bout town with powder and blue dye On her pale lids and on her lips Dy sits quite carminely. I'm scarcely health-hearted or human What can I teach my cheated Woman? My Tondeleyo,my black blonde Will not be homing soon. None shall secure her save the late the Detective fingers of the moon. Strong Men, Riding Horses Lester after the Western Strong Men,riding horses. In the West On a range five hundred miles. A Thousand. Reaching From dawn to sunset. Rested blue to orange. From hope to crying. Except the Strong Men are Desert-eyed. Except that the Strong men are Pasted to stars already. Have their cars Beneath them. Rentless, too. Too broad of chest To shrink when the Rough Man hails. Too flailing To redirect the Challenger, when the challenge Nicks; slams; buttonholes. Too saddled. I am not like that. I pay rent, am addled by illegible landlords, run, if robbers call. What mannerisms I present, employ, Are camouflage, and what my mouths remark To word-wall off that broadness of the dark Is pitiful. I am not brave at all. The Bean Eaters They eat beans mostly; this old yellow pair. Dinner is a casual affair. Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood, tin flatware. Two who are Mostly Good. Two have have lived their day, But keep on putting on their clothes And putting things away. And remembering... Remembering, with twinkings and twinges, As the lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs,vases and fringes.  Rain! Who cares about plans for the day. rain in the hills and possibilities of other adventures had some plans today to take a drive in the hills, take some pictures - everything’s crazy in the hills this year, everything green, trees and grass that should be bare or brown, green as St. Pat’s Day beer; delayed cold and late rain after long, dry summer, botany and meteorology in a dance of chromological confusion leaving green when green should be last month’s news - but it’s raining cats and at least a dog or two, and I drove yesterday and the day before (600 miles, total) and do I really want to drive some more today, I’m asking myself and besides it’s raining, dogs and at least a cat or two and what kind of pictures can I take in the rain except rain pictures which might be a treat, some moody rain on the hills pictures, dark, mysterious, hillbilly-noir, rain pouring from a dark and cloudy sky, running down the hillsides, driblets becoming gushes, dry creek beds filling up to their inner rushing rage, tiny fish, warty frogs swimming, galumping ahead of the flood, fleeing the tumult less the fishes drown, the frogs croak and upon continued thinking, even considering the long drives yesterday and the day before, this drive today sounds like fun, as long as it doesn’t stop raining before I get there but I’m delayed in my departure, mind stuck on the three middle-aged men and two young women, sitting in the booth in front of me, talking middle-aged me talk in which the young women pretend to be engrossed, which, as an outside observer, I find pretty damn hard to believe, maybe just my dirty mind, maybe possibly more interesting than rain in the hills and croaking frogs and drowning gophers and all - maybe possibly thinking about them will be my adventure for tomorrow… Let’s all wait and see...  Next, three short poems by Elizabeth Seydel Morgan, from her first full-length collection, Parties, published in 1988 by Louisiana State University Press. Born in Atlanta in 1939, Morgan graduated from Hollins University in Roanoke in 1960 and moved to Richmond, where she taught English and creative writing for many years at St. Catherine's School, an Episcopal preparatory school for girls. She earned a master of fine arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and has taught poetry writing at the University of Richmond, Washington and Lee University in Lexington, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland, and served as the Louis D. Rubin Jr. Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University. Neighborhood I jerk awake at dawn to snarls. Guttural, dangerous. In my yard three dogs are tearing up my cat. They stretch her to three points above the grass, bend their necks between their stiff front legs, shake her with their teeth. I charge out in my nightgown, wave my bare arms as if I held weapons. Oh no,I just think so. Motionless I stand at the window and watch them finish. Two lope off across my lawn and down the street. The third trots home next door where the family calls him Caleb They've trained him to come when they whistle, to leap and catch sticks in midair. Counting Sheep The drunk in the kitchen is MOther. The dry metal crack is the ice tray. The long liquid silence is whiskey. the spigot's quick gush is the water. The cupboard doors ganging is searching. The one-sided talking is pleading. The God-damning sobbing is praying. The dry metal crack is the ice tray. The drunk in the kitchen is Mother. Her Words Mother wrote words on the torn-off margins of magazines, then she held each scrap to the flame of her lighter. Writing and burning, drinking bourbon, she sat all night at the counter writing and burning in the fluorescent kitchen. One morning I turned off the light and claimed two-black edged fragments from the ashtray. One said sham, the other Go. Maybe shame or God, or maybe not. When I asked, she shrugged and never left another sign. In daylight I find the glass ashtray racked with the dishes. Mother stands at the stove, stirring soup, her glasses opaque with steam. She talks about nothing that makes any difference. When she wipes her glasses and turns to me, her eyes are edged with ashes. She looks straight through the light naming something that I cannot see.  Bear Creek Road after cold November rain enough rain to leave puddles across the narrow asphalt road but not so much as to rouse the creeks blue sky over trees still dripping from the rain, cold November wind pushes the collar of my coat against the back of my neck and rattles dead trees, those still standing their dry limbs moaning in the wind - oak blight stripping the hills tree by tree, leaving a skeletal forest across the stone-scattered cactus-cluttered ground, stick-figures, bare arms to the sky, above the limestone outcroppings that buttress sharp ridges rising on either side of the road - dead trees, pockets of desolation scar the landscape, black and white patches amid surviving oak and mesquite and cypress, overlooking valley pastures sheep and goats and cattle graze, fenced around with stones pulled hand by hand stone by stone to make the pasture soft and smooth the largest stones from the fields taken for the large houses, built, like the pastures and fences, over many years hand by hand, stone by stone... the Germans who brought the cattle and sheep and goats, persistent pioneers, left the green fields of home for this, knowing, even as they looked at this land so different from the one they left, so unlike what they had expected, what had been promised to them in the new Texas nation, that they were here to stay, did what they needed to do, made peace with the Comanche, hoed the stones from their fields, damned small rivers to make gristmills to grind their scanty wheat crops into flour, bred animals to flourish in the scorching heat of summer, the freezing north winds of winter, long dark nights alone, harsh burning sun during the day… they came to settle these hills and small towns like Comfort, (try to imagine the comfort of having this little place to come to when the days and nights got long and sun burning, the night sounds strange), little Comfort, downtown, four blocks of old stone buildings, and in the center a large stone tablet standing upright, six feet or more tall, a memorial to the German Free thinkers who settled these hills and this little town, believers in reason and science, seeking a new country where religious freedom included freedom from the dogmas and schisms of religion… it was hard people who brought European life to these hills, I know, for some of them were my ancestors and I’ve seen their portraits, still-necked and stone-faced, tough as the land they bet their lives and fortunes on *** the creeks are scant but running glass clear along stone creek beds, worn smooth by the flow of time and slow moving water, life in the hills, hard, but still it flows  Next, I have several poems from the masters of classical Japanese poetry. The poems are haiku from the book The Sound of Water, a tiny little book published in 1995 by Shambhala Publications. All poems in the book were translated by Sam Hamill. The first of the poets is Basho A solitary crow on a bare branch - autumn evening ~~ Exhausted,I sought a country inn, but found wisteria in bloom ~~ Seen in plain daylight the firefly's nothing but an insect ~~ Long conversations beside blooming irises - joys of life on the road The second poet is Buson A lightning flash - the sound of water drops falling through bamboo ~~ Moon in midsky,high over the village hovels and wandering on ~~ With no underrobes, bare butt suddenly exposed - a gust of spring wind ~~ A long hard journey, rain eating down the clove like a wanderer's feet And the last poem, Issa Thus spring begins: old stupidities repeated, new errs invented ~~ Just beyond the gate, a neat yellow hole - someone pissed in the snow ~~ For you too, my fleas, the night passes so slowly. But you won't be lonely ~~ A world of dew, and within every dewdrop a world of struggle  Back the story from a couple of poems ago. about the three older men about the three older men and the two young women mentioned earlier... the men, easily twenty-five to thirty years elder to the women, looked like coaches, and the women, come to think of it, had the long, lean look of athletes, so it could be the kink that so entertained me is in my own mind and not in events previously or soon to transpire that is a great disappointment to me, for my less than fresh mind feasts on imaginations of older men, maybe even old men, alive with the passions of young women - forgive us, ladies, young and not, it’s a genetic survival of the speciess thing with men, fear that our species continuation roles diminished, we might be deemed obsolete, tossed aside, banished from the tribe, and while we know better than anyone the increasing range of our limitations, we are not deterred, no matter, we seek always to maintain the illusion, no matter how old we get, we are ever loath to give up the pretence of our own virility and sex appeal and it is the certainty that the women of the world, all the women of the world, are waiting for us - such thoughts, such delusions, the only thing that keeps us from falling facedown dead into our morning bowl of porridge  You've read the classical haiku masters earlier. Next, I have several modern haiku by my poet friend from India, Arunansu Banerjee. Born in West Bengal, he's been writing poetry only a few years, but has published in a number of journals. He is a teacher by profession, with a degree in physics and a specialty in softwares. He says his primary love is listening to Indian Classical music, while his favorite poets include and eclectic mix of Charles Bukowski, John Keats, Rabindranath Tagore, E.E.Cummings, Li Po, Mary Oliver, Pablo Neruda and Matsuo Basho, all of which, by the way, have appeared in "Here and Now." Arunansu has caught the essence of haiku in his offerings, beyond the line and syllable count, he goes to the essence of the haiku, poems of the moment, the universal and eternal now. 1. a murky anniversary morning-- the red table cloth 2. our third date she studies my palm lines 3. toying with pressed rose petals early winter wind 4. summer end-- the fan blade knocks off a butterfly 5. dinnertime at the hospital, I wait for sedatives 6. at the crossroads a tramp speaking to himself my lost poem 7. shadows bringing back the anguish winter without you 8. summer … village boys plunging into the pond 9. the pensive face peeled off a tree trunk— autumn… 10. the hospital smell still following me their forced smiles 11. the new sedative… she disappears behind a veil of thick mist 12. hospital window— firecrackers lighting up Diwali sky  The next poem is from my first book Seven Beats a Second, published in 2005. The book is available on Amazon and at my website, www.7beats.com. redskins on the warpath whooping chasing cowboys across bonyback ridge down sidewinder trail past that same big saguaro cactus look there it goes again war bonnets streaming cowboy hats flapping in the wind shooting forward shooting back whooping horses falling goddamn ain't it fun to be a movie star  Next I have poems by Russian poet Andrey Voznesensky, from the book Voznesensky - Selected Poems, published in 1966 by Hill and Wang, with translation by Herbert Marshall. Voznesensky, born in 1933 in Moscow, USSR, died in 2010 in Moscow, Russia, a measure of the extent of change in his lifetime. He was one of the Soviet Union's boldest and most celebrated young poets of the 1950s and 60s who helped lift Russian literature out of its state of fear and virtual serfdom under Stalin. He was also known for the popular rock-opera Juno and Avos, which was made into best-selling video-movie. Before his death he was both critically and popularly proclaimed "a living classic", and "an icon of Soviet intellectuals." Autumn To S. Schipachov Ducks' wings flapping and flopping. And on the paths of the forest darkening The last brief shimmer of cobwebs, The last spokes of a bicycle sparkling. And following the example they give, At the last house you'll knock for leave-taking. In the house a woman lives But for supper no husband's awaited. She'll fling back the latch for me, Against my jacket rubbing her cheek, She'll hold out her mouth laughingly. And suddenly limp, will understand everything - Understand the autumnal summons of the fields, The break-up of families, seed-flight and yield.... Quivering and young She will think about how Even the apple tree bears fruit, A calf is born to the old brown cow. And that life ferments in the hollow of oaks, In meadows, in houses, in the windswept woods. For them - to shoot into ears, to bell and troat. For her - to lament and grieve and brood. How those lips whisper burningly: "What are my hands, my breasts, my shoulders for? What I live for and stoke the stove And go to my daily chores?" I take her by the shoulders tight - I don't know myself what it means at all... Through the glass the first frost falls And the fields like aluminum lie. Across the black - across the grey, right up to the railway line Stretch out tracks of footprints - mine. First Ice A girl in a phone box is freezing cold, Retreating into her shivery coat. Her face in too much make-up's smothered With grubby tearstains and lipstick smudges. Into her tender palms she's breathing. Fingers - ice lumps. In earlobes - earrings. She goes back home, alone, alone, Behind her the frozen telephone. First ice. The very first time. First ice of a telephone conversation. On her cheeks tear traces shine - First ice of human humiliation.  Tuesday morning musings. unlike some, I’ve been born only once unlike some I've been born only once and seeing as how I feel like I made a pretty good show out of that one shot, feel no need to be born again even though I recognize that, on a deeper level i am a being of universal elements, and thus certain to be born again as I have been born before uncountable, uncountable times for the parts that make me are as old as the universe and so must be all the things I’ve been, things near to home and faraway-lost in the vast unknown regions where stardust still drifts - vastly travelled are my parts so vastly travelled I must be as well, so varied and old and well-travelled, I am a marvel look around you at the vast everything-ness that we are, have been, and will be a part of and consider how marvellous I am and you as well sometimes I think of the me that was a daffodil, how beautiful I was, much more beautiful than I am now though rooted and consequently less curious than the proto-cat I was, roaming with early felines newly-created to hunt the me that was the deer, or the beaver, or the small mouse, hidden in high grasses, or the grass I might have been or the wiggling worm that fertilized the grass-of-me with my worm droppings... so many places I’ve been; so many beings I’ve been, so much more than twice born am I; so much more than twice-born will I be in the millennia ahead, so much more to be, so much longer to be them, I can only imagine those who think of themselves as more limited must be so very jealous  I have a poem by Pulitzer Prize winner, Jorie Graham, from her book Overlord, published by HarperCollins in 2005. Born in New York City in 1950, raised in Rome, Graham studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, but was expelled for participating in student protests. She completed her undergraduate work as a film major at New York University. After working as a secretary, she later went on to receive her Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. She the first woman to be appointed as Boylston Professor at Harvard. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1996 for The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994 and was chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1997 to 2003. Spoken from the Hedgerows I was Floyd West (1st Division) I was born in Portia Arkansas Feb 6 1919 We went through Reykjavik Iceland through the North Atlantic through the wolf packs That was 1947 I was Don Whitsitt I flew a B-26 bomber Number 131657 called the Mississippi Mudcat I was a member of The 387th Bomb Group and then later the 559th Bomb Squadron. Picked up the Mudcat in Mt. Clemens Michigan Flew over our whole group four squadrons sixteen planes each from Hunter Field at Savannah Georgia then to Langley Field at Norfolk Virginia from there to Grenier Field at Manchester New Hampshire In each place stayed a day or two From Grenier went on port of embarkation which was Presque Isle, Maine, then started across, first to Goose Bay, Labrador, then to Bluie West One, Greenland, then over the cap to Mick's Field Iceland. Made landfall at Stornoway,Scotland, from there down to Prestwick, north London, finally Station 162 at Chipping Ongar. My name was Dan, 392nd Squadron of the 367th Fighter Group March 21 boarded the Duchess of Bedford in NY, an old English freighter which had been converted to bring over the load of German prisoners, whom we replaced going back to England. Slept below decks in hammocks. April 3rd arrived at Scotland, and, following a beautiful trip through the country arrived at Stoney Cross, ten miles from the Channel - it was a beautiful moonlit night. I was known as Bob. I was in D Company. My number was 20364227. I was born Feb 3, 1925, Bistol,Tennessee. We embarked on the HMS Queen Mary, stripped, painted dull gray, hammocks installed with troops sleeping in shifts. The Queen was capable of making twenty-eight knots and therefore traveled unescorted, since it could outrun any sub. Walter, given name, 29th Division. We crossed on the Queen Mary. The swimming pool was covered over, that's where most of us slept. My name was Alan, Alan Anderson, 467th Anti-Aircraft Artillery. I was given birth November 1,1917,Winchester,Wisconsin. They took us to Fort Dix for England. We took the northern route in the extreme rough sea of January. It was thought this would confuse the German subs. It didn't exactly work that way. A convoy ahead of us by a few days was hit, many ships sank. I saw the bodies of so many sailors and soldiers floating by us with all the other debris and ice on the water. The name given me was John, born September 13, '24, in Chattanoga, but raised in Jacksonville. I was a person, graduated high school in '42, crossed over on the Ile de France, a five-decker, ten thousand on board. They loaded over twenty on the Queen Mary there on the other side of the pier. My name was Ralph, Second Class Pharmacist's Mate, july 4 received orders to Norfolk. There's no describing crossing the Atlantic in winter. We couldn't stay in our bunks without being strapped in and fastened to metal pipes on each side. We had one meal a day. My name, Robert, was put to me in Atchison, Kansas, United States, August 15, 1916, year of the Lord we used to figure on, there, in the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion, which we arrive Liverpool, england January 8 1944. It rained every day. From there we were taken to the town of Paignton. The authorities would go down the road, and the truck would stop, and they'd say "All right, three of you out here" and they'd march you to a house and say to the owner, "all right, these are your Americans. They are going to be staying with you."  The next poem is from my second book, my first ebook, Pushing Clouds Against the Wind, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony eBook store and the Apple iBookstore. this old bed i sleep on the bed where my father was born ninety five years ago, second child of Celeste and August amid rocky hills and pecan and oak and flowing streams in the little Texas-German town of Fredricksburg i sleep on the bed that has slept my family through two world wars a cold war and multiple wars of lesser scope, through twenty Presidents of the United States, some wise, some not, some equal to the needs of their time, some not, through musical genres from ragtime to hip-hop, through prohibition and bathtub gin, through the gilded age the jazz age, normalcy, fire bombing, atom bombing, getting bombed in the suburbs and getting sober with AA, through seven presidential assassination attempts, death in Dallas, death on the launch pad, death in near earth orbit, Kitty Hawk to men on the moon, the cries of the dead from famine, from genocide from indifference of the ruling class, through Bull Connor and his police dogs, through King and his dreams and his death on a motel balcony, to Barack Obama and the triumph of dreams, through the triumph of good and the reemergence of evil, the cycle played out over and over again in the days of yellow journalism, through Murrow and Cronkite and Brinkley and Huntley on radio and TV and on the web, Wikipedia fact and Wikipedia fancy, truth swaying on a tumbling pedestal, lies flying in the wind, opinionators, blowhards, conspiracists, plain racists, and everyday bloody fools through it all, all the times of reaping and sowing, the bed has calmed the nights through three generations of sleep and passion and midnight dreams, waiting now for the final sleep of this generation and the lying down to rest of the next  The next poem, a tribute to William Carlos Williams, is by Victor Hernandez Cruz. It from his book Red Beans. I've used the poem here before, but it so perfectly describes why Williams is my favorite poet second only to Whitman, that I like to go back to it now and again. The opening lines to the poem describe what I like best about Williams and what I try mot to emulate in my own poems. I love the quality of the spoken thought As it happens immediately uttered in to the air Cruz was born in 1949 in the small mountain town of Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. He moved to the United States in 1954 with his family and attended high school in New York. Winner of numerous honors and awards for his poetry, he is a co-founder of both the East Harlem Gut Theatre in New York and the Before Columbus Foundation and a former editor of Umbra Magazine. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley and San Diego, San Francisco State College, and the University of Michigan. An Essay on William Carlos Williams I love the quality of the spoken thought As it happens immediately uttered into the air Not held inside and rolled around for some properly schemed moment Not sent to circulate a cane field Or on a stroll that would include the desert and Mecca Spoken while it happens Direct and pure As the art of salutation of mountain campesinos come to the plaza The grasp of the handshake upon encounter and departure A gesture unveiling the occult behind the wooden boards of your house Remarks show no hesitation to be expressed The tongue itself carries the mind Pure and sure Sudden and direct like the appearance of a green mountain Overlooking a town.  I'm the guy in the corner, wondering what all the fuss is about. a gentle and polite sort of non-believer I am not one of those fire-breathing radical atheist, rather a non-believer of a more gentle sort I just don’t believe in magic, though I know many people do so I try not to offend or discomfort them with the honesty of my own inclinations a careful practitioner of lies-of-omission am I so why do I always have to put up with people pushing their prestiggieo! poof! fantasies off on me no, thank you, but I'd really rather not be blessed today no, thank you, I don’t want to join you in worship at your local tax-exempted church/temple/mosque next Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday whenever no, thank you, I don’t want to join you for potluck dinner and sermons at your Holy Temple of the Hotdish and, please don’t tell me I’m going to hell cause, truth to tell, from my own earthly observation, eternity with all my old best friends doesn’t sound so bad, and surely better than endless harp-plucking in a heaven where there is no beer (I’m told) eternity on a cloud with all the people I do my best to avoid here among the blood and blowing dust of home< etcetera etcetera I’m going to the library instead, going to see a short film on Charles Darwin and the future of the one-cell organism, guaranteed no magic required, just common sense and a $2 donation to the library fund… you could go with me if you want… maybe we could go for drinks later, a place I know, high-life hooting and occasionally wanton philosophies abounding… worship together, we could, at the alter of humanity and a free and unbowed spirit, set subservience aside and celebrate life, our lives while we have them, so much grander than anyone’s soul-squelching, self-appointed celestial Boss-Of-It-All but I would never offend by saying such a thing out loud since I’m but a gently and polite sort of non-believer… really…  My next poem is by Zbigniew Herbert, from the collection Elegy for the Departed, and other poems which includes a complete collection of the poet's work from 1950 to 1990, including poems never before published in English. The book was published by The Ecco Press in 1999. The poems were translated from Polish by John and Bogdana Carpenter. Herbert was born in 1924, in a area of eastern Poland that is now a part of the Ukraine. His grandfather was an Englishman who came to Lvov to teach English and his father, a former member of the Legions that had fought for restoration of Poland's independence, was a bank manager. His formal education began in Lvov where he was born and continued under German occupation in the form of clandestine study at the underground King John Casimir University, where he majored in Polish literature. He was a member of the underground resistance movement. In 1944, he moved to Krakow, and three years later he graduated from the University of Krakow with a master's degree in economics. He also received a law degree from Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun and studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw. During the 1950s he worked at many low-paying jobs because he refused to write within the framework of official Communist guidelines. After widespread riots against Soviet control in 1956 brought about a political "thaw," Herbert became an administrator at the Union of Polish Composers and published his first collection. In addition to his own writing, Herbert was co-editor of a poetry journal, Poezja, from 1965 to 1968 but resigned in protest of anti-Semitic policies. He traveled widely through the West and lived in Paris, Berlin and the United States, where he taught briefly at the University of California at Los Angeles. Herbert died in 1998, in Warsaw. Three Poems by Heart I I can't find the title of a memory about you with a hand torn from darkness I step on fragments of faces soft friendly profiles frozen into a hard contour circling above my head empty as a forehead of air a man's silhouette of black paper II living - despite living - against I reproach myself for the sin of forgetfulness you left an embrace like a superfluous sweater a look like a question our hands won't transmit the shape of your hands we squander them touching ordinary things calm as a mirror not mildewed with breath the eyes will send back the question every day I renew my sight every day my touch grows tickled by the proximity of so many things life bubbles over like blood shadows gently melt let us not allow the dead to be killed - perhaps a cloud will transmit remembrance - a worn profile of Roman coins III the women on our street were plain and good they patiently carried from the markets bouquets of nourishing vegetables the children on our street scourge of cats the pigeons - softly gray a Poet's statue was in the park children would roll their hoops and colorful shouts birds sat on the Poet's hand read his silence on summer evenings wives waited patiently for lips smelling of familiar tobacco women could not answer their children: will he return when the city was setting they put out the fire with hands pressing their eyes the children on our street had a difficult death pigeons fell lightly like shot down air now the lips of the Poet form an empty horizon birds children and wives cannot live in the city's funereal shells in cold eiderdowns of ashes the city stands over water smooth as the memory of a mirror it reflects in the water from the bottom and flies to a high star where a distant fire is burning like a page from the Iliad  This poem is from my second eBook, Goes Around, Comes Around, available, as are all my eBooks, at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony eBookstore and Apple iBookstore. a minor poet explains it all i'm eating breakfast north-faced today, unusual, because normally i sit at the booth at the other end, the one next to the electric plug, where i face south as i eat this morning that booth was taken by another south-faced, keyboard-clicking, diner, leaving me at this end, in the only other booth next to an electric plug where i now face breakfast facing north i'm not sure what effect this will have on the gastro-dynamics of my egg over easy and extra-crispy bacon but it does present a subtly different view, which could have far-reaching psychological effects on those, like me, who normally eat breakfast facing toward the south face the oncoming traffic on the interstate, as well as those,like me today, who eat breakfast facing north face interstate traffic going away... this different orientation a reason, i believe, why south-facing diners are usually highly motivated people with the supreme confidence required to write meaningless, totally trivial, poetry while north-facing diners often suffer from abandonment issues and are frequent victims of depression  Japanese poetry has a tradition of "death poems" - poems written by the poet as he or she faced imminent death. Many poets actually wrote their death poems well before death, not wanting to be caught short when the moment came. Many others actually wrote their poems as the final moment approached. These are often the best poems, written with all the clarity or ultimate questions that the final end might bring. There is no such tradition in western literature that I'm aware of, but I did find a book, Till I End My Song - A Gathering of Last Poems, edited by Harold Bloom and published in 2010 by HarperCollins, that approximates the impulse to record famous personages' last word. Unlike the Japanese tradition, these were not written in the face of death coming around the corner. In most cases, the poems just happen to be the last poem written before death called. Here are two poems from the book. The first poem is by Stevie Smith, born in 1902 and died in 1971. Black March I have a friend At the end Of the world. His name is breath Of fresh air. He is dressed in Grey chiffon. At least I think it is chiffon. It has a Peculiar look, like smoke. It wraps him round It blows out of place It conceals him I have not seen his face. But I have seen his eyes, they are As pretty and bright As a raindrop on black twigs In March, and heard him say: I am a breath Of fresh air for you, a change By and by. Black March I call him Because of his eyes Being like March raindrops On black twigs. (Such a pretty time when the sky Behind black twigs can be seen Stretched out in one Uninterrupted Cambridge blue as cold as snow.) But this friend Whatever new name I give him Is an old friend. He says: Whatever name you give me I am A breath of fresh air, A change for you. The second poem is by William Carlos Williams, born in 1883 and died in 1963. The World Contracted to a Recognizable Image at the small end of an illness there was a picture probably Japanese which filled my eye an idiotic picture except it was all I recognized the wall lived for me in that picture I clung to it as a fly  The next poem is from my latest eBook, Always To the Light, available at the major eBook retailers, just like the earlier eBooks. big news in the astrophysical world big news in the astrophysical world is the massive explosion some 12.2 billion light years from our own little howdydoody home from whence we oft-times claim a place as big-time Charlies in the heavenly order of things, even though, being only 8 light minutes from our own star we call the sun and 12 light minutes from the furthermost named object to circle that sun with us, it is a very small neighborhood we live in, with all our searching and seeking, we have yet to reach even our own front gate Columbus sailed the ocean blue and thought he had circled the world, such ignorance is to us denied and we are better for it... for it lets us see our true place, tiny bits of carbon base in a vastness we can quantify but not imagine, little carbon dandies important only in our doings with our little carbon fellows... frankly my dear, the rest of all that is doesn't give a damn  My last poem from my library is by Wendy Barker, from her book Winter Chickens and Other Poems. The book was published in 1990 by Corona Publishing Co. of San Antonio. Barker, born in 1942, is Poet-in-Residence and a professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she has taught since 1982. A widely published poet and translator, she received her B.A. and M.A. from Arizona State University and her Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of California at Davis. Before teaching at UTSA, she taught high school English in Scottsdale, Arizona, between 1966–68 and in Berkeley, between 1968-72. Three Poems in Dead Winter 1. I wait for birds. Prepared. Old field guide and the new one,slick photographs. All around are tidelands, reeds like giant nests tangling with dried grasses, seeding shrubs. I study the drawings of Goldeneyes, Buffleheads. The water is the color of asphalt. On the surface of this cold pond I can't even see the reflection of my own face. 2. The knife blade is discolored. Bread crumbs clutter the edge, but it cuts clean, cuts and orange right through. The skin splits down to the soft meat, juice, small tendons. Seeds drop to the table, we suck on the half-spheres, leave them, orange, white, empty. 3. Finches land in pairs at the feeder. You can hear small crunchings as they crack covers of seeds. Their tongues are gray like gravel. While their beaks work their heads are upright. Ready to leave.  In the earlier part of next year, I will be publishing a new eBook. The book's title will be Places and Spaces. It will be a book of five long travel poems from five of my road trips, bookended front and back by two short poems that I hope serve as an opening and closing to the book. I finish off this week's post with those two bookender poems. clouds dark as the devil’s black eyes behind as we race to clear skies ahead home court there is pleasure in travel but comfort in routine and the everyday so I’m back second table from the rear, by the window, back to the river, looking out on the corner of Martin and Soledad, San Antonio, Texas life in the slow lane, looking for a poem in all the old familiar places  That's it for another week. As usual everything in the post belongs to those who created. Anyone can have my stuff; just credit me and "Here and Now." And in case anyone asks, I'm allen itz, owner and producer of this blog, and, as usual, I'm trying to sell a book or two. "Always to the Light"  "Goes Around, Comes Around"  "Pushing Clouds Against the Wind"  And For those of a print-bent, available on Amazon "Seven Beats a Second"  The copies on Amazon are being sold, through prior agreement, by my publisher. Copies are available directly from me at my website, www.7beats.com. I can't compete with the Amazon price, but if purchased from me, I will include a copy of the CD chimeras, ideals, errors by the Ray-Guhn Show Choir  I haven't done any maintenance on that website in a couple of years but you used to be able to hear a cut from the CD. Maybe you still can. |
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