This week's photos relate to a piece of music my son is composing. He hasn't finished it, but what I've heard so far brings to my mind a kind of melancholy, shadow-land cityscape. The pictures, from several years ago, are an incomplete expression of that..
Anyway, it's a very moody piece that reminded me of a kind edgy urban landscape, something like this week's series of photos.
As to poems, I understand that I am indulging myself this week(but it is my ball, after all). But even saying that, there's really not as much of me as it might appear, since all my poems, new and old, are short to very short.
My library poems are all from a single anthropology,
The FSG book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry. It's a big book, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2011.
Me
God's eye
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
Your Shoulders Hold Up the World
Me
beacon
before the estate sale
burning
caress
cat dance
clean sweep
cowboy movie
dark chocolate
Odi Gonzales
Umatuu
Me
a short poem has to be like a short man
Gabriela Mistral
A Word
Me
day break
Details
dinner plate moon
dusk
explaining it all to my dog Reba
familiar conversations
finding religion at 3 am
first frost
girl on a cellphone
Dulce Maria Loynaz
I dreamed of classifying...
Me
the great escape
Humberto Ak'abal
The Dance
I Took Your Name Out of My Mind
Me
in the soup
I saw her smile
Kabul Reflection
life is
late date
looking good
love in the summer
lying in the grass on a Sunday afternoon
lying in the sun with Susan
lying with my lover on the beach at midnight
Coral Bracho
They Began to Call You
Me
my place
Ruben Dario
Love Your Rhythm
Me
mid-night dreams
Morning Light
morning sky
neon rain
new world
north wind on a southern beach
obsession
oh
once in Mississippi
on the corner of Fillmore and Grand
polishing doorknobs
Jorge Luis Borges
The Cyclical Night
Me
me and Homer
Pablo Neruda
Your Laughter
Me
hymnal
sonny blue
sonya
summer in south texas
sunflowers in flight
while a bald man burns
walking Reba at midnight
the smell of summer ended
the cruelty of cats at play
Pedro Mir
Amen to Butterflies
Me
Introducing Luny
Millie, Billie, Lolly, Lou and Lester
Me
the ever rising tide
Back to find again the short poem mojo
God's eye
freehand scribble,
crayon in hand or finger paint
dripping
the universe as he sees it
a swimming place
of color and swirl, a reality
of fresh eyes and open mind
questing
my refrigerator door
like a view through
the lens of the
Hubble
like God's eye overseeing
all
from
my kitchen...
~~~~~
even as he hears
every sparrow's call and
tracks the twist and turns
of his creation,
this god of so many
talents,
keeping my milk fresh
and the asparagus
crisp
as he watches
The first poem this week from the Latin American poetry anthology is by Brazilian poet
Carlos Drummond De Andrade. Born in 1902, he is considered by some to be the greatest Portuguese language poet of all time. He died in 1987.
His poem was translated by
Mark Strand.
Your Shoulders Hold Up the World
A time comes when you can no longer say: my God.
A time of total cleaning up.
A time when you can no longer say: my love.
Because love proved useless.
And the eyes don't cry.
And the hands do only rough work.
And the heart is dry.
Women knock at your door in vain, you won't open.
You remain alone, the light turned off,
and our enormous eyes shine in the dark.
It is obvious you want nothing from your friends.
Who cares if old age comes, what is old age?
Your shoulders are holding up the world
and it's lighter than a child's hand.
Wars,famine,family fights inside buildings
prove only that life goes on
and not everybody has freed himself yet.
Some (the delicate ones) judging the spectacle cruel
will prefer to die.
A time comes when death doesn't help.
A time comes when life is an order.
Just life, without any escapes.
Continuing from last week, my quest for less.
beacon
crescent moon
hangs white
against the midnight sky,
it's gentle arc
a beacon
to the weary
and day-worn
2004
before the estate sale
quiet walk
through
a dead man's house
soft steps
echo
in this husk
of a life
seashells
whisper
of a falling tide
end
of the end
beginning
2004
burning
though
hot
I'm not
you truly set me burning
when you walked out those swinging doors
in your skimpy white 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
2000 (published in The Melic Review -2002)
caress
midnight
hot breath
and
whispers
soft
slow
glide
of skin
on skin
tongue
strikes
like the bite
of a velvet adder
secrets
unveiled
surrendered
to the touch
to the smoldering
tough
of midnight
2001 (Published in The Green Tricycle - 2003)
cat dance
cat dances brightly through yellow
alley shadows of early afternoon
meow
she murmurs
she crouches
she leaps
death prances lightly through languid
alley shadows of yellow afternoon
1971 (Published in The Muse Apprentice - 2004)
clean sweep
gray rain
on a gray day
flushes gutters
long months dry
garbage
scars water
fallen fresh
from the sky
2004
cowboy movie
comecomecome
she said to me
in her low voice
and sighed
as I moved closer
comecomecome
she said to me
jjjjjjjesus
stuttersam
crawled
into his corner
and sighed
and cried
in the shallow shadows
of his silver sombrero
comecomecome
she cried to me
1970 (Published in Maelstrom - 2000)
dark chocolate
she hoards anger
like sweet chocolate
in a brightly colored box
savors it
stores it
lets the dark flavor grow
in anticipation
a secret remembered
on the back of her tongue
a secret cache of ire
released in quiet bites
a nibble here
a nibble there
and hurt
in random
b u r s t s
pervades the air
around her
2000 (Published in Experimentia -2001)
Next from the anthology I have Peruvian poet,
Odi Gonzales.
Born in 1962, Gonzales is a Language Lecturer of Spanish and Portuguese. With a advanced degree in Quechua oral tradition, he writes in Spanish, Quechua and English.
His poem was translated from Quechua by
Alice Krogel and
Jose Ramon Ruiz Sanchez.
Umantuu
wherever it is you go,
my rainbow siren,
with your tenacious tambourine
call my soul that wanders frightened
wild, silent
since first its hair was cut
lure it, diva of the depths,
with your wiles and your caresses
revealing, perverse,
your fertile breasts
of turbid milk
wherever it is that you encounter, invisible
flower of the mist,
harness my spirit that flees
with its asthma and its imaginary armies
guide it now, sleepless siren whistling
by the narrow street of goldfinches by he path
of the cliffs.
wherever it is that you arrive, wanderer
nymph of the stormy gales, lead my stray soul
companion of pristine air,
drag it if it does not want to come
to this my deathbed
Another new from the search for short.
a short poem has to be like a short man
a short poem
has to be like a short man
at a cowboy bar
hat-high
boot-tall
chin thrust forward
daring
to be tested
no man,
no matter how big and mean,
wants to tangle
with a short man
daring
to be tested
Next from Chile,
Gabriela Mistral.
Born in 1989, a poet, educator, diplomat and humanist, she won the Nobel Prize for Literature (the first Latin American woman to be so honored).
An interesting side-note, Mistral was one of the first to recognize the importance of Pablo Neruda, the other great Chilean Noble Prize winner, having known him when he was a teenager and she was school director in his home town. After a lifetime living all around the world, she lived in New York at the time of her death in 1957.
Her poem was translated by
Ursula K. Le Guin.
A Word
I have a word inside my mouth
and don't let it get out and don't get rid of it,
though its blood-gush pushes at me.
If I let it our it would scorch the bright grass,
drain blood from lambs,drop birds from the air.
I have to untangle it from my tongue,
find a rat-hole for it,
bury it under heaps of quicklime,
so it can't keep flying, as the cloud does.
I can't show any signs of life
while it's coming and going through my blood,
and rising and falling with my crazy breathing.
My father Job spoke it as he burned,
but I can't let it use my poor mouth, no,
because it'll roll on; women will find it
as they go down to the river, it'll twist into their hair
and wither poor dry thickets up in fire.
I want to sow it with seeds that grow so wild
they'll cover it overnight and swallow it
and not leave a shred of a syllable of it.
Or sever it like this, like biting
a snake in half with my teeth.
And they go home, go in, and go to sleep,
cut free from it, sliced off from it,
and wake up after a couple of thousand days
newborn out of sleep and forgetting.
Not knowing that I'd had between my lips
a word of iodine and saltpeter,
and not remembering a night,
a house in a foreign country,
the ambush, the lightning at the door,
and my body going on without its soul.
More short stuff from the past.
day break
clear skies
and early dew
make the pastures glisten
under the pale falling moon
of day break
1999 (Published in Hawkwind, 2001)
Details
Cuando vas en busca de Dios,
busca in los aspiraciones de tu corazon
To know the passing presence of God
on the temporal soil of man,
look not to the stars or mighty oceans,
but to the smallest details of his creation.
The flexing toes of a day-old child...
such is the handiwork of a true God Almighty.
The rest is only stage dressing.
1999 (Published in Hawkwind, 2000)
dinner plate moon
dinner plate moon
rising luminous
in the April sky,
spreading pale blush
across the hills and valleys
of our central Texas home,
casting faint shadows
in groves of oak and pecan
that surround us...
we watch the stars flicker on
as night advances,
appearing one by one,
we see it all,
the moon above
and all he soft night's stars
ageless and unchanged
while our time passes,
their glow ever-bright
while our own light dims
2004
dusk
the mid-summer dusk lake
heaves and rustles
like some great animal
shuttering
in the gathering dark...
under pins of
white and yellow light
crickets chip
the soft stone of night
smoke and scents
of campfires rise
quiet
falls with the sun
1970 (Published by The Green Tricycle - 1999
explaining it all to my dog Reba
she stares
rapt
big, brown eyes
wide, unblinking
hanging on every word
like it was God's own true
revelation she was hearing
and I'm thinking,
Christ,
I'm really on a roll tonight
submerging myself
in the techniques of instruction,
overwhelming myself
with my own higher-being brilliance
2004
familiar conversations
shepherds graze their sheep in the hot afternoon sun,
while in the village center
men visit an open-air barbershop...
they rest between mud wall,
in the generous shade of a large banyan tree
as their hair and beards are trimmed.
the indistinct murmur of their low voices
are a whispers in the sun-backed silence
of the dusty street.
the familiar conversations of men and their barbers
drifts through the village
on a weak desert breeze.
1968 (Published by Hawkwind - 2003)
finding religion at 3 am
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
2000 (Published by Avant Garde Times - 2001)
first frost
first frost
and leaves fall
soft and slow
like red and yellow
snowflakes
drifting in the sun
2003
girl on a cellphone
puffy in her face
droopy
like a marshmallow
to close
to the fire
leans against a car
kicks the tires
wipes a tear
from her cheek
kicks the tire
leans against the car
rests her head
on the window glass
wipes a tear
from her cheek
hangs up
sits
on the curb
and
weeps
2001 (Published by Hawkwind - 2002)
Dulce Maria Loynaz, was a Cuban poet, born in 1902 and died in 1992. She was the daughter of a hero in the Cuban Liberation Army. She was a lawyer who practiced rarely and whose family position allowed her to travel the world and meet with some of the greatest Spanish language poets of her time. She quit writing and publishing and withdrew from society in a self-imposed internal exile when the Communist triumphed in 1959. It wasn't until 25 years later when she was in her 80s that her work was rediscovered and welcomed widely by her countrymen.
Her poem was translated by
Ilan Stavans.
I dreamed of classifying...
I dreamed of classifying
Good and Evil, as the wise men
classify butterflies:
I dreamed of pinning down Good and Evil
in the dark velvet
of a glass box...
Under the white
butterfly, a sign would read "GOOD."
Under the black
butterfly, a sign would read: "EVIL."
But the white butterfly
didn't represent good, nor did the black butterfliy
represent evil...And between my two butterflies,
green, golden, infinite, were flying
all the butterflies on earth!...
Can we live today without our cell phones. If I have the determination, circumstance may have given me an opportunity to find out.
the great escape
I don't have my cell phone today
it won't charge, battery
kaput...
like McQueen on his motorcycle
jumping the fence
to freedom -
that's how I feel today
and now,
having jumped the fence,
I'm thinking -
how many people who have my number
do I really want to hear from and
the sum comes to two
who also have the number
to my land line...
it is clear to me today
that
the grass truly is greener
on the other side of the fence...
McQueen knew this
and never even thought
about jumping
back...
so,
I'm
thinking...
Next from the anthology, two short poems by
Humberto Ak'abal . Born in 1952, Ak'abal is a K'icke' Maya poet from Guatemala. His work has been published in French, English, Estonian, German. Arabic and Italian translations in addition to his original Spanish and K'iche'.
His poems were translated by
Ilan Stavans.
The Dance
All of us dance
on a cent's edge.
The poor - because they are poor -
lose their step,
and fall
and everyone else
falls on top.
I Took Your Name Out or My Mind
I took your name out of my mind
and lost it on the mountain.
It was picked up by the air
and found its path
through the ravine.
I began to forget
Suddenly
it crashed against the cliffs
and bounced back:
rain made it sing
and your name reached me while crying.
Here are some more of my short to shorta-shorts.
in the soup
what's that fly doing in my soup
she said
the back stroke
i said
and there you have it,
the
nub
of our relationship
she found flies
and i laughed them off
until
one
day
she invited a
s
p
i
d
e
r
to sit down
b
e
s
i
d
e
r
and i was in the soup
2000 (Published by Mitochondria - 2004)
I saw her smile
I saw her smile
in the primate house
at the Kabul Zoo.
The monkeys swung and played
behind their cool bars
in the high Afghan ar
and made us all laugh.
In her delight
she dropped her veil
and
for one
heart-stopping
so-quick
second
we stood face to face.
Then,
with flashing ebony eyes
and a shy, bewitching smile,
she brought the silken curtain
of her beguiling modesty
again between us
and walked away,
content in her conquest.
1999 (Published by Alchemy - 1999)
Kabul Reflection
It's mid-afternoon
on a cold and dreary day
in a city lost in the last millennium.
Rows of mud houses hang over the rickety city
from the surrounding brown slopes
like a thousand bleary eyes
watching
from the mountain's unforgiving core.
In the faded club room
atop the Spirazan Hotel
I drink cheap Russian vodka
and watch the mountain
watching me
never
blinking.
Premonitions of bloody despair
and mountain revenge
follow me to fretful sleep.
1968
life is
life
is like a duck hunt
every time
you really start to fly
some
asshole in the weeds
shoots
your feathered butt
right out of the sky
2000 (Published by Blaze/Vox - 2004)
late date
pretty Sylvia
working girl
slumped
in the back of my cab
red shoes off
short red dress high
on bare brown legs
she lies back, resting her
head against the seat,
her eyes closed
against the intermittent
glare of streetlights passing,
her cheeks damp,
glistening,
reflecting the neon glow
of the streets
their jagged schemes
and broken dreams...
Sylvia, Sylvia
pretty girl,
my almost friend,
you've sold all your
secrets now and are
left on your own
going home
lonely girl
to jagged dreams
going home
to broken sleep
1971
looking good
you come into the room
with your new lover
like Ken and Barbie,
a perfect matched set
of glowing grace and beauty,
so self-confidently
put-together
gorgeous
that all the light in the room
seems to gather in your presence
did I look that good
with you on my arm,
and if I did,
how did you ever leave me...
2000 (Published by Hawkwind - 2002)
love in the summer
love in the summer
is a sweaty, sloshy thing
not like winter
when chill winds bite
parts uncovered
2001
lying in the grass on a Sunday afternoon
I could feel his sweet breath
warm on my face,
his nose almost touching mine
as he leaned over me,
bracing himself with his hands on my chest
while I held him under his small arms
dear lord
I thought
let me not forget this moment
this bright memory
with my son
2000 (Published by The Poet's Canvas - 2001)
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
2001 (Published by Poem Neiderngasse - 2002)
lying with my lover on the beach at midnight
the beach was best at midnight,
when the day-trippers were at home
nursing sunburns or in a bar
honky-tonk dancing in gritty flip flops
the beach was best at midnight
when its beauty was ours alone,
when its sand gleamed in white moonlight
and stars spread across the Gulf sky,
a blanket of lights across the bed
of soft tropic night, when the surf,
breaking against the shore in ordered rows,
was the only sound in the tropic breeze
the beach was best at midnight
when we lay together on a sandy towel,
enveloped int the star-lit whisper
of the rising, falling waves
2001 (Published by The Green Tricycle - 2001)
Next from the Latin American poetry anthology is Mexican poet
Coral Bracho. Born in Mexico City in 1951, Bracho, poet, translator and Doctor of Literature, has published six poetry collections and is winner of the Aguacalientes National Poetry Prize in 1981 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000.
Her poem was translated by
Forrest Gander.
They Began to Call You
They began to call you, the rocks, breathing
their innumerable visages, their gesticulant
throbbing,
from the cliff face. You could see
the entrance of the cave and you knew. Totems
fusing together. One
respiration over another. It's for you. And what could it
have been?
And what would they have won from you and for what?
But you didn't enter, only
stood there taking it in.
After a cooler, longer and wetter spring, hot dry summer has arrived but until mid-morning it's cool and pleasant with a fresh breeze if you can find a shady place.
my place
my place
under a red and white umbrella
hot under the sun
but breezy, fresh-morning pleasant
in this tree-shaded nook by Broadway...
my spot,
here
where familiarity breeds
content
~~~~~
the morning lingers
even
as another day passes
but
I don't count them
anymore
counting
too much like
a count-
down
Nicaraguan poet
Ruben Dario was born in 1867. He initiated the Spanish American literary movement known as modernismo that flourished at the end of the 19th century. He died in 1916 at the age of 49.
His poem was translated by
Greg Simon and
Steven F.White.
Love Your Rhythm...
Love your rhythm and rhythmize your deeds.
Obey its laws, as in your poetry.
You're a cosmos in a cosmos set free.
Be the fountain of songs that your soul needs.
The celestial openness you surely are
will make worlds sprout in you that are diverse,
and if your meters start to sound dispersed,
use Pythagoras to unite your stars.
Hear divine rhetoric in each feather
of every bird that takes to air, and learn
nighttime geometric heat and weather.
Kill all indifference that is taciturn
and string pearl on crystal together
in the place where truth tips over its urn.
Time for more short stuff.
mid-night dreams
softly walking
barefoot through the dark,
through fields of fantasy,
fields of rosewood and clover,
Jeremiah brush close to the ground
with silver bells moving slowly
in the velvet breeze of mid-night
softly walking
barefoot through the dark,
scent of rosewood and clover
and a whispering sound of bells,
little silver bells, softly coming
barefoot through the dark
to me...to me...to meeee...
2002
Morning Light
Brilliant morning light
Even the shadows are bright
Sun motes cloud the air
1999
morning sky
summer morning dew
rivulets of sun-stained glass
blue through water falls
2003 (Published by Liquid Muse - 2004)
neon rain
neon rain
on neon streets
where the neon bitch
of busted odds runs the game
can't quit when she's with me
can't quit she she's gone
can only stand, wet and waiting
for the kiss of the neon hustler
with breath of neon dispair
2004
new world
the first words of Adam to Eve
were like a fresh-born pup
nuzzling its wet nose
against the warm belly
of its mother
blindly groping, afraid,
but no longer
alone
2002
north wind on a southern beach
a north wind blows strong
against the incoming tide
and all across the bay
whitecaps flash in the sun
like handkerchiefs
fluttering across a field
of salty-sea-green
a beachcomber,
dressed for the day
in a silver windbreaker,
walks the beach barefoot,
shoes tied by their strings
to hand around his neck,
throws bread to the gulls,
greedy birds, swooping, fighting
each other and the wind
for every crumb
2002 (Published by Scope Journal - 2004)
obsession
late night coffee
sidewalk cafe
all chairs but ours
turned up on tables
lost till now
in mutual obsession
we are
last to leave
2004
oh!
oh!
my little
sad-eyed whore
flat on your back
kinky little pubescence a-curl
in the garish yellow light
I too
would make it beautiful
if only I could
1969
once, in Mississippi
once, in
Mississippi,
I saw a cotton field,
pretty, I thought, until I had to
pick it
1999 (Published by Hawkwind - 2002)
on the corner of Filmore & Grand
it's another Friday night at
La Cantina de los Gatos Negros
and me and my sancha are tilting
at the windmills of love,
que chula, I say,
as I brush a wisp of brown hair
from over her eye, then bend
to kiss her cheek...
we press close
in the garish barroom light,
que macho, she says,
whispering in my ear
and the night slows to a crawl
of hot anticipation
2001 (Published by The Muse Apprentice - 2003)
polishing doorknobs
Czechoslovakia
was invaded one day
and though paid
to notice such,
I missed it entirely,
didn't know a thing until
I read about it in a
newspaper in Charleston
but,
during the same period
I did make a complete record
of the midnight ramblings
of taxicabs in Moscow
and later,
while a cosmonaut
was dying in space overhead,
I tracked the daily business
of a crop duster near
Karaganda
so like my life
polishing doorknobs
while the house burns down
around me
2001
Born in 1899 in Buenos Aires, Argentinian
Jorge Luis Borges was a short story writer, essayist, poet and translator was a key figure in Spanish language literature. Founder and principle practitioner of postmodernist literature, Borges died in 1986.
His poem was translated by
Alistair Reid.
The Cyclical Night
To Sylvina Bullrich
They knew it, the fervent pupils of Pythagoras:
That stars and men revolve in a cycle,
that fateful atoms will bring back the vital
Gold Aphrodite, Thebans, and agoras.
In future epochs the centaur will oppress
With solid uncleft hoof the beast of the Lapith;
When Rome was dust the Minotaur will moan
Once more in the endless dark of its rank palace.
Every sleepless night will come back in minute
Detail. this writing hand will be born from the same
Womb, and bitter armies contrive their doom.
(Edinburgh's David Hume made this very point.)
I do not know if we will recur in a second
Cycle, like numbers in a periodic fraction;
But I know that a vague Pythagorean rotation
Night after night sets me down in the world
On the outskirts of this city. A remote street
That might be either north or west or south,
But always with a blue-washed wall, the shade
Of a fig tree, and a sidewalk of broken concrete.
This,here, is Buenos Aires. Time, which brings
Either love or money to men, hands on to me
Only this withered rose, this empty tracery
Of streets with names recurring from the past
In my blood: Laprida,Cabrera,Soler,Suarez...
Names in which secret bugle calls are sounding,
Invoking republics, cavalry, and mornings,
Joyful victories, men dying in action.
Squares weighed down by a night in non one's care
Are the vast patios of an empty palace,
And the single-minded streets crating space
Are corridors for sleep and nameless fear.
It returns, the hollow dark of Anaxagoras;
In my human flesh, or plan, of an endless poem beginning:
"They knew it, the fervent pupils of Pythagoras..."
A morning poem from my morning nest.
me and Homer
for a period
of about 45 minutes
in the morning
the sun passes between
the corner of the building
and the oak grove
shining
for that period
directly into my eyes
two blind poets,
me and Homer, persevering
through the odyssey of another day
ah, the Sirens' songs,
how I would love to close my eyes,
the sun warm on my face,
and nap to their
song
I suppose it may be possible to do a collection of the greatest twentieth century Latin American poets and not include
Pablo Neruda. But why would anyone want to do that even if they could.
Born in 1904, the Chilean poet, politician and diplomat was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. He died two years later in 1973.
His poem was translated by
Alastair Reid.
Your Laughter
Deprive me of bread. of you want,
deprive me of air, but
don't deprive me of your laughter.
Don't deprive me of the rose,
the stick you stirred the grains with,
the water splashing
swiftly in your joy,
the sudden silver wave
born in you.
My struggle is painful. As I return
with my eyes sometimes tired
from watching
the unchanging earth,
your laughter enters
and raises to heaven
in search of me
to open all the doors of life.
My loved one, in the darkest hour,
unsheathe your laughter,
and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the cobblestones,
laugh, for your laughter
will be for my hands
like an unsullied sword.
Near the sea in autumn,
your laughter must rise
in its cascade of foam,
and in spring, my love,
I want your laughter
to be like the flower I anticipated,
the blue flower, the rose
of my resonant homeland.
Laugh at the night,
at the last day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
young man who loves you.
Yet when I open my eyes
and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never stop your laughter
for I would die.
Here are some more short stuff.
hymnal
from somewhere in the very deep
a great blue sang today,
a song of salty tides,
of bright mornings
fresh with ocean air,
a song of love among the giantss
from somewhere in the other deep,
an every-growing choir responds,
sings of star-blinks and novas flashing,
of creation
and cyclic obliteration,
songs of spinning little worlds
that come and go and leave behind
the poetry of their time in passing,
each another song,
sung and recorded for time never-ending
in a book of all the life that ever was to sing
2004
sonny blue
sonny blue rides life
like a fast horse
barely-broke and buckin'
holding tight
jingly mexican spurs
digging into the pasty white flank
of convention and caution
pushing
every day
like he was racing the devil
to the wide, swinging doors of hell
giddy-up
he yells into the hard-rushing wind
giddy-up goddammit,
giddy-up
2002 (Published by Tryst - 2002)
sonya
s
o
n
y
a
so small
and thin
and happy-eyed
you dance
soquick
across
the floor
and backtome
who do you tell of your child
and scars and tired feet
s
o
n
y
a
1967 (Published by The Poet's Canvas - 2002)
storm watch
summer clouds glower
trembling leaves in sunlight shimmer
waiting winds whisper
2003 (Published by Liquid Muse - 2004)
summer in south texas
summer
in south texas,
horned toads and rattlesnakes
negotiate for every piece
of shade
2000 (Published by Hawkwind - 2000)
sunflowers in flight
u e
b t s
t f i
r l e
little wings so soft
so soft
like a mother's kiss
brush
against the thick
summer
air
yellow-black-yellow-black-yellow-black
a cloud of
w s
s f o e
n l r
u
in flight
2003
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 toe
while
you pretend to study
the book in your hand
while
three gulls circle
in the fierce island sun
2000 (Published by Avant Garde Times - 2001)
walking Reba at midnight
moon so bright
sky
charcoal gray
candy puff clouds
like lace
in the trees
2004
the smell of summer ended
the first
cold front of fall
and all the stores are packed
with bundled shoppers smelling of
moth balls
2004
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
2000 (Published by Muse Apprentice - 2004)
Last this week from my anthology of Latin American poets, this is Dominican poet and writer,
Pedro Mir. Highly respected by his countrymen, he was named Poet Laureate of Dominican Republic in 1984. He died in 2000.
His poem was translated by
Robert Marquez.
Amen to Butterflies
The author
under the title
Amen to Butterflies
TO THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR'S WIFE
because, during the occupation of Veracruz
by her country's troops,
she said:
"This is the dance of death
and I believe we play the violin!"
and for the warning that words contain,
for all they have of heartbreak and perhaps eve of the maternal,
dedicates
this poem of
fifty years later
when the trigger on the violin is gayer still,
much more tumultuous the frenzy of the dance.
Butterfly:
caricature of an airplane.
Pulse of the abyss,
scholar among blossoms.
Before those hands
smashed you on the wall
...the children's eyes...
Pedro Ma.Cruz,
raices iluminadas

I've been indulging myself with all this short poems (well, it is my ball after all), now I indulge myself with two longer poems.
I wrote the first poem inspired by a man, a plumber, who met with my dad just about every afternoon after work for a single beer before going home. I was there with them for a lot of those afternoons, from the time i was ten or eleven until I left home.
The plumber was a short, scrawny, bald-headed man who smoked his cigarettes down to a nearly burning his lips nub. He owned his own business and was about as independent-minded as anyone could ever be.
After the first poem I was thinking what a great character Luny was, good for a series, so I wrote the second piece. After the second piece I realized I had written a very short series since, with the two I had written both the first and last chapter in the Luny story couldn't gin up any interest in writing the in between parts.
So that's where it ended.
Introducing Luny
Luny says,
Hit's a big sombitch,
ain't hit,
and I nod,
it really is very, very large
Seen one like hit once in Tupelo.
He scratches and spits and scratches again.
Hit was almost as big as this,
but not quite.
He takes off his hat and wipes sweat from his head.
Black too,
just like this'un
We circle it in opposite directions
,
me at a distance, intimidated
as any normal person would be.
But not Luny.
Luny doesn't give a damn,
he just wants to look.
He walks right up to it, sticks
his face right up to it,
pokes at it with his finger.
Lookeehere, you ever seen such a thing?
And I look at Luny, climbing
over all the wonders of the world, sticking
his fingers into every crack in the universal order
of things as they should and always will be, saying
Well, wouldja look at that!
Then moving on to the next curiosity to grab
a hold of his always hungry hillbilly mind.
And I think, nope, I never did see such a thing.
Millie, Billie, Lolly, Lou and Lester
Luny met Molly on Sunday evening
in Tuscaloosa at a potluck supper
at the First Corinthian Baptist Church.
I was there talking to Luny
when Molly walked in, a slender little gal
in a flowery dress carrying a big bowl
of country cornbread dressing.
Didja see that girl,
Luny asked,
the pretty one in the flowerdy dress?
I said I did.
Do you know'er?
I said I did.
Can I meet'er?
I'll introduce you, I said,
I think she'll like you.
So I did, and I could tell
right away, she did.
Pleased to meetcha, Mr. Luny,
she said.
Just call me Luny,
he said,
most everybody does.
And you can call me Molly,
she said.
He did and pretty soon they wandered off,
heads together, talking and laughing,
leaving me to spend the rest of the evening
with Brother Borchuck, talking about
the can bottom benches out front and the need
to get them re-strung before one of
the heavier brothers or sisters of the church
busted through them and sued us all,
including the Lord.
I didn't see Luny again until I was leaving.
He was in his pickup, smoking one of his
roll-your-own Bugler cigarettes,
spitting stray tobacco from his
lower lip like you have to do when
you roll them as loose as he does.
That Molly sure is pretty,
he said,
blowing tobacco from his lip.
I agreed and said
I think she likes you.
I know she does,
he said.
Luny took another drag from his cigarette
and blew it out and pulled on his left ear.
Says she likes kids,
says she'd like to have a bunch.
A bunch of kids, I said,
that's a lot of responsibility.
Yeah, I don't think I'd want more than five,
Last for the week, frustration at the unremitting stupidity on all sides.
the ever-rising tide
the
ever-rising tide
of stupidity can be
overwhelming
if you're not prepared,
if you don't keep you guard
up
thank god
for the daily comics
and morning jazz
on community college radio
and coffee, black and sweet,
here where I can watch the birds
watch me,
waiting for their cookie crumbs,
quiet, patient
birds,
so unlike the life
I hide from
~~~~~
ah,
a mockingbird intrudes,
pushes away the little ones,
steals the crumbs I left for them
even here the world...
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 as usual, I am Allen Itz owner and producer of
this blog, and a not so 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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