After approaching ten years of weekly "Here and Now" posts, things have evolved to the point where it's the photos that are the most fun for me, especially when, like last week, I'm able to go out and get some good new ones.
In fact, doing the pictures is so much fun for me that I was thinking this would be an all-photo post. Then I remembered this is supposed to be a "poetry blog" so I went ahead and tossed in some poems from my first book,
Seven Beats a Second. It's a print book, my only print book, published in 2005. I have only a few of my original 500 personal copies left and they are available at only one place, my IAMA music academy and coffeehouse hangout. But I think the book still available on Amazon (US, Canada and India), should anyone like to make a purchase. In addition to my poems,
Seven Beats a Second includes art on every page by my collaborator, Vincent Martinez, who also did the book's cover.
The photos are from a day trip we made last week to the "Lost Maples State Natural Area."
In addition to the wildlife of the area (a little over 2,000 acres), the story on Lost Maples that I've heard concerning the area's main attraction is that at some point in the past there was a disease that wiped out most of the maple trees in the area except for a large grove protected from the blight at the bottom of the "Lost Maples" canyon. Every year in the fall it is one of the few areas where visitors can get a full New England leaf experience and during that short window of leap-peeping opportunity large numbers of people visit (about 200,000 a year, mostly during the time the leaves are in full fall foliage). We've been there three times, the first time nearly 20 years ago when we got there too early, the second time last year when we went at peak season and found a line of cars a quarter mile long waiting for someone to leave so they could get in, and then last week, when, once again, we were too early. So, instead of pictures of fall colors, I have pictures of a very green canyon. (The shortest trail through the canyon is nearly five miles, so we didn't go far). Luckily the weather and scenery along the way through the hill country was beautiful, with green hills, two full flowing rivers (the Medina and the Sabinal) and many creeks and streams with ice cold, crystal clear water. It was an all day drive-around with lunch in Bandera at the OST (Old Spanish Trail) restaurant.
Bandera is one of a number of places I've been that claim to be the place of the birth of the cowboy. They do it up good in Bandera, but everyone who knows cowboys knows that the original cowboys were the vaqueros Captain King brought from Mexico to drive the herd of longhorns that were the seed from which the great King Ranch grew. Many descendants of those very first cowboys still live and work on the much reduced ranch. They have long been knows (and still are) as "Kinenos."
Maybe next year we'll finally see the leaves.
In the meantime, here is all me selected from my first book Seven Beats a Second.
ripples
rethinking the probabilities of God
the pull of the moon
the moon rising
Piggy Wiggly promenade
lotsa hots
life is
seven beats a second
why the boys go out on Saturday night
the cruelty of cats at play
caress
anti-war poems are easy
the magnetosphere is running down
the last days of Mach in South Texas
Adam, before the fall
finding religion at 3 a.m.
warning label
the dreams of Mary Quemada
the eyes of Sister Jude
while a bald man burns
about sex
cinnamon dreams
lying in the sun with Susan
burning
how it all comes out
hymnal
does he still dream
First from
Seven Beats a Second.
ripples
the bay is flat
so still
underwater currents
can be seen on the surface
like smoky streaks
on an antique mirror,
so still, like time
and the earth's rotation
have stopped and the sun
has stropped overhead, its
burning light sharp and clear,
while offshore
a small fish leaps
and slaps the water
with a crack
that starts a small wave
pushing out in a circle
from the small jumping fish,
the only motion
spreading across the bay
to the gulf
small leaping fish pushing
against the Gulf of Mexico
and the Atlantic beyond,
small leaping fish
making ripples
in universal waters,
an anti-tide,
a nibble-surge
against the moon's orbit
and the rightness of all
from
Seven Beats a Second.
rethinking the probabilities of god
I approach the
conversion age
when old atheists
begin to peek
around the corner
of their lives thinking
maybe they'll find god
hanging out on the
doorstep after all,
when memories
are friends
more dead than alive
alas poor Orrick
not to mention
Bob and Ted and
Fred and Nancy
and Molly with the
long blond hair
and Rennie
whose breasts
I touched in the
back of the bus
and Rennie's
boyfriend Larry
who claimed her
breasts as his own
and beat the
crap out of me the
next day and damn
thinking about it
makes my fingers
tingle even now
it's not the fox holes
that persuade us
we were all immortal
then and dumb
as the dirt that
grew wet with the
surprise of out blood
it's driving past
the old folk's home,
knowing
they're making
a bed up for you
A couple of moon poems from
Seven Beats a Second.
the pull of the moon
half moon
cut precisely by earth's shadow
one part shining
in the clear October night
like a great yellow bacon in the sky
and the other, dark and mysterious,
though barely seen by the eye,
still a mover of tides
and midnight meditations
so it is with my love for you,
as the bright in you pulls me,
even more the secrets
of your darker moods
the moon rising
ripples off wind
ruffle bay waters
like a lover's hand
soothing soft tangles
in her beloved's hair
gentle winds
quiet waters
bright stars warm
in the cool
autumn dark
the moon,
rising,
empress
of the night
An observational from
Seven Beats a Second.
Piggly Wiggle promenade
walking across the parking lot
in high heels and black Capri pants
that draw attention to hips
going a little broad and ass
on the way to droop
and a white cotton blouse
tucked tight into her pants,
small breasts,
nipples round and hard as marbles,
nodding with every step
she struts as she passes me
and smiles and you know
she's having the time of her-life,
giving all the little bag-boys
mid-afternoon hard-ons,
free in this parking lot
for a least a while,
free at least until the groceries
are safely loaded into her Volvo
and she's on her way to pick up
little Brittany at ballet
A memory poem from
Seven Beats a Second.
lotsa hots
I've worked in August
under the noon-day sun
digging post holes
in hard-packed caliche
on the Texas-Mexican border
that's one kind of hot
I've won six months pay
throwing die in Reno
that's another kind of hot
I've seen pretty little whores
in Piedras Negras
hot enough to melt the silver tip
off a cowboy's dress-up boots
that's pretty hot too
but no kind of hot
is as hot
as thinking of you and me
in a big white bed
in a room with curtains whispering
to a low midnight breeze,
soft lights, satin shadows
shifting over pale skin
your dark eyes shining
liquid in their knowing
A little philosophy from
Seven Beats a Second.
life is
life
is like a duck hung
every time
you really start to fly
some
asshole in the weeds
shoots
your feathered butt
right out of the sky
The title poem from
Seven Beats a Second. The joke on me is that from the first time I heard this little bit of big bang trivia I was thinking of seven beats a minute, a slow and stately procession. Seven beats a second is, of course, the opposite, which didn't penetrate between my ears until after the poem was written and the book published.
seven beats a second
the universe pulses
seven beats a second
laying down a back beat
to the rhythms
of all that is and ever was
from the birth of stars
to the spreading of a smile
on the fresh lips of a child
we're born we love
we hurt
and we die
all of our days
measured in multiples
of seven beats a second
Seven Beats a Second again.
why the boys go out on Saturday night
s
e
x
sells
especially when lit in
n
e
o
n
flashing
on
and
off
flashflash
on
and
off
sex flashes through the night
drawing us through the rushing current
up
stream
we
go
bashing our heads on the sharp rocks
of deceit and desire, all for a chance to
fuck our fish brains out before we die
in the shallow pool of everyday life
Seriously bad love from
Seven Beats a Second.
the cruelty of cats at play
her black smile
cut like a dagger through the dark
unseen
slicing cleanly to the heart
"I have something to tell you,"
she whispered
A sexy (kinda) poem from
Seven Beats a Second. I did a lot of those early one. Also a lot of science (kinda) poems.
caress
midnight
hot breath
and whispers
soft
slow
glide
of skin
on skin
tongue
like the bite
of a velvet adder
secrets
unveiled
surrendered
to the touch
the smoldering
touch
of midnight
I don't like the way people try to talk their way out of making moral judgements. They do it by simplifying the most complicated questions that face us. It seems it has become worse every year since I wrote the poem. Politically, left and right, serious questions are boiled down to superficial bumper sticker philosophies that avoid those issues where a choice must be made between two basically immoral options.
anti-war poems are easy
the heart of the matter is that
the heart of the matter
sometimes doesn't matter much
anti-war poems are easy
since in our hearts
we all know that the logic of war
that says I will kill strangers
until a stranger kills me
is insane
and who can deny that in our hearts
we all know a human fetus
no matter how small
and misshapen and incomplete
is a human-in-waiting,
holding within its tiny bounds
all the capacity for love
and laughter as any of us
and who,
even among the most aggrieved of us,
could without a tremor
of hand and heart, puss the button
that drops the cyanide pellet
ending the life
of even the bloodiest
of our murdering kind
yet we kill the strangers
who might someday
have been our friend
we erase from the future
the love and laughter of those
we decide will never be
and we murder the murderers
with appropriate
writ and ceremony
all these terrible things we do
because our heart cannot guide us
in choosing the lesser of evils
it is out lizard brain we must turn to
when the heart of the matter
doesn't matter enough
And speaking of science (kinda) poems, here's one from
Seven Beats a Second. I did have a couple published in a science oriented poetry journal, but beyond that, there's not a lot of interest in the subject among poetry readers. Nobody ever like the poems as much as I did.
the magnetosphere is running down
magma flow
curling, coiling
through red hot embers
thrashing, flashing
sparks of elemental essence
dancing to the tune
of gravity's fandangos,
turning within turning
the one driving the other
driving the other,
influence on influence
until the machinery of dependence
becomes worn from the friction
of turning on turning
and the clockwork stops
and stasis slowly settles,
then quickly collapses
upon itself, becoming
something else,
another kind of turning,
new imperatives,
new tunes,
new dance starting
This next piece from
Seven Beats a Second was written when the Iraq war was going badly (outside the first fifteen minutes, did it every go any other way but badly.) I was commuting 150 miles each way from San Antonio to Corpus Christi, home to San Antonio on Friday, back to Corpus Christi on Sunday for a job with the local United Way agency. One Sunday, on the way back to Corpus Christi I saw a sight along the road which, combined with a picture that morning in the New York Times led to this poem.
the last days of March in South Texas
clear sky, bright sun,
the last north wind of the season
pushing hard against me as I drive south,
back to the coast for another week
many weeks I have done this now,
a year and a half of weeks,
north on Fridays to the rocky hills
and quiet comforts of home, home
to family, to all my favorite places,
then back on Sunday to the coast,
until the road is hardwired in my memory,
gray asphalt ahead and behind,
I'll pass a hundred miles sometimes
and not remember any of them
but today is a day just past the first edge of spring,
a spring just past a wet and mild winter
so that now, spread out on both sides of the road
lies the soft side of South Texas chaparral,
neon green mesquite,mustard yellow huisache,
pastures of bluebonnets, creamy white buttercups,
Indian paintbrushes, red or deep pink,
depending on the light, sunflowers
lining the highway on tall green stalks
and just around a softly rising curve
a mother and her baby, sitting together
in a deep patch of bluebonnets,
the mother posing, look at daddy she's saying
as he circles, focusing, getting just the right shot...
seeing this small family reminds me
of a picture in the Times this morning
a mother, bare feet grimy from her dirt floor,
a colorful blanket laid out by the wall, a treasure maybe,
where just moments before was lying the baby
she holds now in her arms, long, graceful fingers
holding the baby tight against her breast...
perhaps she heard them coming,
the two soldiers standing in the open door,
rifles ready, three people afraid, not knowing
friend or foe,
friend or foe,
the woman, her face from some trick of light
is a bright, frozen mask in the dark interior
the soldiers, awash in sunlight with backs to the camera,
are tense, their hands tight on their weapons,
their fingers tight, it must be, on the triggers
while the baby sleeps in its mother's trembling arms,
an innocent in a time and place
where innocents will die with the wicked,
where the just and unjust will find a common grave...
I think of all who have died in my time
and of all those who will die now
in these last bloody days of March and I ache for a God,
the God I knew as a child, of green trees and cool winds
blowing softly across a pasture dancing with his colors,
a compassionate God who would enfold
all the mothers and fathers and frightened soldiers
into the protection of his billowing robes -
but that God is seems is not in vogue today
so these last days of March will continue without him
From
Seven Beats a Second. Even more than when I wrote this ten years ago, I look around and wonder if our kind will survive, and, more, whether we even deserve to.
Adam, before the fall
an old silverback sits
amid the vines and bramble bushes
of his native rain forest
a huge creature, but quiet and slow,
intent in each still moment
of his gorilla life
not knowing of the devastation of his tribe,
of the hunters who prize his meat as exotic taboo,
the fetishists who expect to find in his glands
the secret of some perpetual erotic high,
some eternal orgasm, some brute untamed sexuality,
or some seeker of kirsch, some nick-knack collector
who crows his walls with trophy heads and pelts
and, oh yes, how striking, a gorilla paw
for the handy keeping of paperclips and gum erasers...
not know how few are left,
how he and his family scattered around him
in their dwindling jungle are last survivors
of the great scourge of life called man...
from a second picture
broad face full on, close up,
black eyes shining,
in in those doomed eyes I see my death
and the decline of my kind
Adam, before the fall,
great beast, deserted by God
Two pieces from
Seven Beats a Second - my primary vice now, poetry, but it was not always so.
finding religion at 3 a.m.
hanging my head over a
dirty toilet
I wouldn't even piss in
on a better day
gagging
the smell of my own breath
and the taste in my mouth
setting off
another round of dry heaves
god
please don't make me sober
now
warning label
cigarette smoke
makes you smell like a bar in the morning
the stale stink of a butt-littered floor
and spilled beer
and piss from the overflowed urinal in the john
all overlaid by a reek of desperation
the desperation of limp cocks lost in lust-dreaming
losers lost in their own lies
redemption-dreams fading as the sun rises
to the squalor of crud-crusted eyes
and a lingering vomit-bile
breath
Two characters from
Seven Beats a Second.
the dreams of Mary Quemada
her long hair flowing
like a dark tide gathering
across her satin pillow,
she dreams of times past
and places she loved
long gone
while I,
watching,
yearn to dream with her
the eyes of Sister Jude
sharp eyes
like tempered blades
that cut clean through when angry
guarded eyes
that weight and judge
and stand ever alert for betrayal
dark eyes, deep,
softened once for love,
then moistened by a long nights weeping
but only once
and it was long ago
This a quirky little thing. It was one of several pieces published in a short-live journal called
Avant Garde Times before I included it in
Seven Beats a Second.
while a bald man burns
three gulls circle
while
a bald man burns
in the fierce island sun
while
I trace gargoyles
in the sand
with my big toe
while
you pretend to study
the book in your hand
while
three gulls circle
in the fierce island sun
Sex Ed from
Seven Beats a Second.
about sex
sex
is about the heat
of rubbing parts together;
passion
a function of finely calibrated
friction
some will say
it makes a big difference
which parts do what to who
nonsense
I say
it's a lot
like chicken fingers
in the dark
parts is parts
you rub mine
and I'll rub yours
and we'll sort it out
in the morning
This one also was in
Avant Garde Times before I used it in
Seven Beats a Second.
buggin' out
I can hear them
walking in my head
soft little footsteps
shushhh
shushhh
like they're wearing
little velvet slippers
on their little buggy
feet...
shushhh
shushhhhhhhhhhhh
I can hear them
sneaking
through my brain
shushhh
shushhh
on little buggy
tippietoes...
From
Seven Beats a Second - a love poem which I hardly ever do anymore, a feeling I've already done the best I can.
cinnamon dreams
in the dim light
at end of day
I watch you sleep
still damp
from the shower
curled on your side
tangled
in white linen
pink
like the center
of a fresh sliced peach
floating
in a bowl of sweet cream
your foot moves
slowly
brushes softly against mine
with a quiet rush
of warm air
you sigh
the sweet breath
of cinnamon dreams
More sex from
Seven Beats a Second.
lying in the sun with Susan
quiet bay
no sound but the light rustle
of marsh grass in the gulf breeze
she
lies on the deck, legs spread,
as if to thrust herself
at the summer sun
sweat glistens
on the inside of her thigh
and my tongue aches
for the taste of her
burning
though
hot
I'm not
you truly set me burning
when you walked out those
swinging doors
in your skimpy little short-shorts
tight cheeks flexing against
the soft cotton
like two little monkeys
in a velvet bag
waving goodbye
seismic
is the word that comes to mind
A couple more of the science (kinda) poems from
Seven Beats a Second.
how it all comes about
out there somewhere
is the mother of all,
the prime,
the matriverse,
defying all vocabularies
of science and faith,
existing
in some indefinable dimension
of simultaneous is and is not,
mother-of-all-gods,
creator-of-all-creators,
spewing from her womb
all that is that is not her,
creating a cosmos
of time and space and energy
and matter such as you and I,
multiplied a million billion-fold,
always creating, brewing elements
for new-born stars,
grains of sand in a desert ever growing,
from the essences of nothing
making all
hymnal
from somewhere in the very deep
a great blue sang today, a song
of salty tides and bright mornings
fresh with sun and ocean air
a love song
among the giants
from somewhere in the other deep
a growing choir responds, sings
of star-blinks and novas flashing,
songs of creation, songs of despair,
songs of spinning little worlds
that come and go leave behind
the poetry of their time in passing
each
another song
recorded for time never ending
(a poem inspired by one of the Star Trek movies)
This poem from
Seven Beats a Second, I wrote twenty-five years after the decision to let him pass. The poem is about the question that haunted me as the decision had to be made.
By that time I wrote the poem both my mother and older brother had passed as well and only my younger brother and I survived from our family of five.
does he still dream
his body survives, dependent
for every beat and breath
on the machines that surround him
his conscious mind is blank,
but what of dreams?
we never forget our dreams,
from the very earliest sloshing
in the universe of our mother's belly
to the very last, as we die, riffling
one last time though the book of dreams
we made page by page over our lifetime
so, if this derelict can dream, if this scrap
of man who used to laugh and love,
this shrunken giant who would carry me,
enfold me in his arms, hold me close
in the worst of storms, this declining
remnant of a son and lover who slept
at the breast of both his mother and mine ,
this fallen hero leaving the world as he
entered it, head reaching for his knees
this frail ghost of my father
if he has yet the final gift of dreams,
if, in some part of his mind we can
neither see nor measure, he still drifts
through dreams fading, like the shadows
of a fire banked and growing colder...
As usual, everything belongs to who made it. You're welcome to use my
stuff, just, if you do, give appropriate credit to "Here and Now" and
to me
Also usual, I am Allen Itz owner and producer of
this blog, and diligent seller of books, specifically these and
specifically here:
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, iBookstore, Sony eBookstore, Copia, Garner's,
Baker & Taylor, eSentral, Scribd, Oyster, Flipkart, Ciando and Kobo (and, through
Kobo, brick and mortar retail booksellers all across America and abroad)
Poetry
New Days & New Ways
Places and Spaces
Always to the Light
Goes Around Comes Around
Pushing Clouds Against the Wind
And, for those print-bent, available at Amazon and select
coffeehouses in San Antonio
Seven Beats a Second
Fiction
Sonyador - The Dreamer
Peace in Our Time
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