Here and Now: December 2017

I wrote this small piece in 1969, responding to a photo I saw in a magazine. The picture was, as I remember it now, of Herbie Hancock, though that seems wrong since he doesn't play flute.

Whatever is to be said for the piece, it is an appropriate beginning to this post, which begins a kind of two-week lull.

This post will be short, just a few short, with one exeception poems from my first eBook, Pushing Clouds Against the Wind (poems 2007-2008). The post next week, if I do one, will also be short.

Just too much going on.

lull

black man

with

your silver flute

sing us

soft

a song

to sleep

Here they are, all me.

lull

between

post-it notes

little man

girl

fresco on the other side of sunset

the girl with a small mouth and long brown hair

barku

sunset

red

winter postcard

yellow

blue

she used to be somebody

i swear

a cool breeze in August

between

not autumn

not

summer

dark

cool

mornings

early dusk

cicadas

crying from trees

the end of their

cycle

or the beginning

i don't know

which

but i feel it

too

like something is over

a lull

before

whatever is next

post it notes

crowd murmurs

in a large room

hundreds

of stories

shattered

into random

word pieces

```

i love

you

in little

yellow

flashes of

sticky note

passion

These are from a series I did over time, poems that were supposed to be short enough to fit on a sticky yellow post-it-note

little man

little man

on a cellphone

advertises

with a booming voice

there is more to him

than appears

girl

dancing

across the stage

as she delivers

my order of decaf

and a scone,

then back again

still dancing

still in the music

the abandon

of dance

and rhythm

and music

and youth

elixir

bringing

a moment of light

to an old soul

heavy

with the news of the day

fresco on the other side of sunset

ridge

of low clouds

pink

as cotton candy

against bellows

virgin white

above

a Mediterranean

sky

the girl with a small mouth and long brown hair

threw back her hair

with a flip of her head

and smiled

little mouth a bow

drawn tight like a knot

on a pink and white tie

or a kitten

that curls like a ball

when you tickle

its belly

barku

lonely whistle

in the dark

lost

little bird

calls

home

```

whale song

ripples

the deep

navy sonar

roils

the tide

```

conversations

in twos

and threes

i listen

while

i write

These are from an fairly extensive series of poems I wrote, using a form I invented and called "barku" - the idea was based on a kind of simplified haiku, ten words on six lines, short enough to fit on a bar
napkin (it being a bar where I wrote the first one).

sunset

sun lies low

behind scrub branches

yellow jigsaw

puzzles

at end of day

red

blood

on white paper

bright red

like an apple

on a bed of

snow

```

winter postcard

white horse

on a white field

enclosed by a white fence

i am blinded

by the light

```

yellow

lemons

overflow

a pewter

bowl

roll across the floor

crying

caution...caution

```

blue

blue eyes

under clear

skies

ice

on cut

crystal

From a series I did on colors.

she used to be somebody

poor Babe

at six hundred pounds

now just bacon

on the hoof

the life of a

grown up child star

is precarious

indeed

i swear

business suit

charcoal gray,

striped,

red necktie

on pristine, white shirt,

whispers to himself

as he picks

at his Blackberry

with his plastic stylus

i read his lips

"beam me up, Scottie"

I swear

a cool breeze in August

from the north

in a season of southerly winds

trees sigh

with early morning pleasure

welcome this reminder

of better days to come

My single long poem of the week, a poem of personal history that won't be finished until I die.

this old bed

i sleep
on the bed
where my father
was born
one hundred years ago,
second child of Celeste
and August
amid the 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 two Presidents

of the United States,

some wise

some not

at least one a despicable

malignancy

some equal

to the needs of their time,

some not,

through musical genres

from ragtime

to hip-hop,

through prohibition

and bathtub gin,

and the continuing scourge

of drugs

natural and manufactured

always multiplying,

through the gilded age,

the jazz age,

rock and roll

and Chuck and Elvis

and the Fab Four,

and for a few illusory years.

normalcy,

before fire bombing,

atom bombing,

terrorist bombing,

getting bombed

in the suburbs

and getting sober

with AA,

through seven presidential

assassination attempts,

death in Dallas,

death in Los Angeles,

death in Memphis

death

on the launch pad,

death

in near earth orbit,

Kitty Hawk

to men on the moon,

to challenging the deepest reaches

of interstellar space,

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,

through Barack Obama

and the triumph

of dreams,

through Donald Trump

and the crushing

of dreams,

through the triumph

of good

and the reemergence

of evil,

the cycle played out

over an over again,

through the days of yellow

journalism, through

Murrow and Cronkite

and Brinkley and Huntley

on radio and TV

and on the web

where truth and lie

fight the old and never ending

battle,

with

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

and 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

This being the street where I live - it's to home for the week, maybe two.

Until we meet again, happy holidays of your choosing.

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

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Poetry

New Days & New Ways