Here and Now: September 2006

1 Comments:

at 10:19 PM jeff olivarri said...

Sorry can't be at your reading Friday, I hope it goes well. I would really like to be there, hopefully you can make it a regular thing. Maybe one day the cafe will give me a weekend off. But hey people need thier coffee.

(even if we haven't had French Roast for 2 weeks)

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Sunset Gilds The End Of Day Monday, September 18, 2006

This is it. "Here and Now" Number I.xiv.

A return visit from guest blogger Alan Addotto, AKA , Splinter/Splinter Group

Saturday evening------ Kwan Yin and the "boys"

Kwan Yin is out in the yard in the back
right out in front of my office window in fact
and she has taken the "boys"
(which now includes "Sister" the Resurrected
German Shepherd)
and a tennis racquet and ball.

All of them are out there,,,,
on the paved part
where we park our cars
at the rear of the house.

Tee-Boy and Dooley are off to the side
just as cleverquick and cunning-sly
as they always are.

Kwan Yin bounces the ball
on the pavement
swats it a good lick
sending it almost as far
as the chickenless chicken pen.

SamBear the Bodhisattva Incarnation
of Silky Lovableness
still disguised as a brown Lab
sprints breakneck after
the yellow-green fluorescent thing
and catches it ----- first bounce, no less!

"Yessssssssssssss," Sam says
to us and himself as he trots back.

Sam is seriously obsessed
with this retrieval game.
and drops the ball at Kwan Yin's feet.

Ready for another volley
Kwan Yin bounces it
but Tee-Boy has other ideas
ambush predator that he is
rushes in
snatches the ball in mid-bounce and runs out

For just a few milliseconds Kwan Yin stands there
completely nonplused
For just that eternity in a moment
SamBear too.
Both do absolutely nothing at all
as Tee-boy turns and runs off with the ball
with it locked in that set of steel trap jaws.

And then Kwan Yin laughs high and lovely
and heals the broken space in time
and chases the unbelievably agile Tee-Boy.

Time is flowing again,
it's still Saturday evening after the rain
with wet bare footprints on the drying concrete
hers and theirs.

William Meredith

William Meredith was born in 1919 in New York City. He graduated from Princeton University in 1940 and has held professorships at Princeton University, University of Hawaii, and Connecticut College. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship 1975, a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1988 for Partial Accounts and the National Book Award for Poetry in 1997 for Effort at Speech

A Couple of Trees

The two oaks lean apart for light.
They aren"t as strong as lone oaks
but in a wind they give each other lee.

Daily since I cleared them I can see
them, tempting to chain saw and ax -
two hardwoods leaning like that for light.

A hurricane tore through the state one night,
picking up roof and hen-house, boat and dock.
Those two stood leafless, twigless, giving lee

Last summer ugly slugs unleafed the trees.
Environmental kids wrote "Gypsy Moths Suck".
The V of naked oaks leaned to the light

for a few weeks, then put out slight
second leaves, scar tissue pale as branches,
bandaged comrades, lending each other lee.

How perilous in one another's V
our lives are, yoked in this yoke:
two men, leaning apart for light,
but in a wind who give each other lee.

The missions of San Antonio

(I changed out the gallery on the Photo page of the website, deleting the Riverwalk images and posting a series of San Antonio missions photos. Since there is no text associated with the photos, I thought there might be some interest in more information on the missions. So.....)

Beginning in the 16th century, Spanish missionaries, accompanied by a few soldiers, moved north out of the Valley of Mexico, founding missions and presidios along the way. By 1718, this movement north had extended to the San Antonio River. Six missions were established along a relatively short stretch of the river, with the northernmost mission, now known as the Alamo, establishing the nucleus of what became San Antonio, now a city of more than one million population.

The Alamo (San Antonio de Valero), established in 1718, was first of the six missions. It was already over a hundred years old when it became a symbol of the Texas Revolution. The Siege of the Alamo would have been only small battle in a failed war for independence had it not had the effect of delaying the Mexican Army long enough for Sam Houston, the Commander of the Texas Revolutionary Army, to reconstitute his scattered army and, ultimately, defeat Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.

The Alamo is very near the center of downtown San Antonio. The current structure and grounds cover an approximate city block. Much of the original mission compound is buried beneath city streets and buildings, seen only occasionally and in fragments by archeological fieldwork.

The next mission to the south, Mission Concepcion (Nuestra Senora de la Purisima Concepcion de Acuna), was established in 1731. The mission looks essentially as it did more than 200 years ago. Colorful geometric designs that originally covered the outside surfaces are long vanished, but interior walls still show original paintings of religious symbols and architectural designs.

Mission Concepcion is located in the center-city residential and commercial suburbs of the City of San Antonio.

There is no picture of Mission Najera (San Francisco Xavier de Najera) because it no longer exists. Established in 1722, it was abandoned only four years later in 1726. Today a municipal golf course is on the site of the former mission and the only notice of its previous existence is a historical marker on the side of the road.

Mission San Jose (San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo) was established in 1720, two years after the Alamo. It is the largest and grandest of the missions and was the most heavily fortified and garrisoned. Workshops and storage buildings as well as quarters for soldiers and Coahuiltecan Indians (some of whom lived and worked at the mission and others who came in when threatened by raiding Commanches) can still be seen around the perimeter of the mission grounds.

Mission San Jose is located in one of the city's outer suburban rings.

Espada Aqueduct was built in 1745 to carry water from the San Antonio River for irrigation of mission crops. It still carries water across Piedras Creek to fields near the mission. It is the only aqueduct in the United States from the Spanish Colonial Period still functioning and fulfilling its original intended purpose. The creek crossing shown in the picture is often visited by artists and others seeking a place of quiet amid echoes from the past.

Mission San Juan (San Juan Capistrano), the next mission south of San Jose, was established the same year as Mission Concepcion. Originally slated for East Texas, it ended up on the banks of the San Antonio River in 1731. It is located in an undeveloped area within San Antonio City Limits. Within a short time of being established, it became a regional supplier of agricultural and other products, including iron, wood, cloth and leather goods produced in its workshops. A few miles southeast of the mission was Rancho Pataguilla, which in 1762 reported 3,500 sheep and almost as many cattle.

Unlike San Jose, only the chapel remains intact. The outbuildings which provided living quarters for Indian residents and made up the exterior wall of the mission compound are all in ruins.

I visit all of the missions several times a year, but San Juan is my favorite. A cleared patch in a wooded area of oak and pecan, it is surrounded by cool, shaded areas even in the hottest part of summer. A nature walk from the Mission takes visitors about 40 yards to and then alongside the San Antonio River.

Mission San Juan

Swirling whirlwinds dance
across the chapel plaza,
tossing clouds of caliche dust
into the simmering air,
little diablitos, skipping
across the sun-baked ground
como los muchachitos al jugar,
untamed by the afternoon mass
and the pieties of the parish priest.

The first shadows of summer dusk
edge slowly across the grassy camposanto
and up the crumbling convento walls.
The cool of the river wood
spreads with the falling sun,
through the shaded waters
and the thickening shadows,
through pecan and oak, willow and cypress
that surround the mission grounds.
A fresh evening breeze
breaks the afternoon heat as the
long summer day slips away.

Under the yellow rising
of the solstice moon,
the silence of centuries past
falls across the broken stones.

Mission Espada (San Francisco de la Espada) is southernmost of the six original missions. Far from the noise and traffic of the city, it is in the middle of its own quiet community, including many descendants of the original parishioners and inhabitants of the mission.

Like San Juan, its outbuildings are mostly in ruins. But, like Concepcion, San Jose and San Juan, it continues to perform its religious function as an active parish of the Catholic Church, with regular mass and other parish and church activities. It was just a year ago that my wife and I attended a wedding of friends in Espada's chapel.

All missions are open to the public during the day.

Bukowski on Li Po

A.D. 701-762

these dark nights
I begin to feel like
the Chinese Poet
Li Po:
drinking wine and writing
poems
writing poems and drinking
wine
all the while
aware of the strict limitations
that come with
being human

then
accepting that

the wine and the poems
gently
intermixing:

yes, there is a peaceable place
to be found
in this unending
war
we call life
where
things
such as
light, shadow, sound
objects
become
gently
and meaningfully
fascinating.

Li Po
drunk on his
wine
knew very well that
just to know
one thing well
was
best.

There is always time for Divine instruction (from Seven Beats a Second)

what God don't like

I was seeing this preacher fella on tv the other day
that was saying God don't like men fucking men

I don't know how in the world he would know that,
except maybe he was talking to God
and just straight out ask him, like, hey, God,
what do you think about this men fucking men thing

I'd be afraid to do that, but maybe it's ok for preachers,
especially this particular preacher fella,
since it looks like he's pretty close to God and
like he must talk to him about all sorts of things
cause he's all the time on tv,
talking about what God likes and don't like
(mostly about what he don't like from what I've seen),
not just about fucking, but all sorts of things
God don't like, like tree huggers and feminazies
and Democrats and evolutionists and poor people
and those wussy-pussy perverts who think
we ought not be killing raghead foreigners
without some kind of pretty good reason (I mean, hell,
he says, it's not like they're white people),
all those commies, whatever they call themselves now

but, mostly what I get from listening to the tv fella
is that mainly what God most often don't like
are people who aren't exactly like him

so I'm thinking maybe I ought to study that fella
and try real hard to be as much like he is as I can

then maybe God won't don't like me too

Remember Flip Wilson?

Here's the joke he told that made me laugh the hardest.

A Lady and Her Baby

A lady and her baby get on a bus. The bus driver looks at the lady, and then her baby, and then screams, "AHHHH! That's the ugliest child I've ever seen in my life!"

The lady then, totally disgusted, marches up to the back of the bus to sit down.

As she was sitting there absolutely furious, a man asks, "Are you ok, dear?"

The lady replies, "I'm so angry, that bus driver just insulted me."

The man says, "You go back up there and give that bus driver a piece of your mind, and I'll watch your monkey."

Short poems from two Japanese poets

Ki no Tsuaryuki

Ki no Tsurayuki lived from 872 to 945. He became a waka poet in the 890s. The literal translation of waka is "Japanese poet," differentiating poets who wrote in the Japanese style from those who wrote in the Chinese style, which was also popular at the time.

In 905, under the imperial order of Emperor Daigo, he was one of four poets selected to compile the Kokin-wakashu, an anthology of waka poetry.

His waka is included in one of the most important Japanese poetry anthologies, the Hyakunin Isshu, which was compiled in the 13th century by Fujiwara no Teika, long after Tsurayuki's death.

Three Poems On Spring Blossoms

1
On a spring hillside
    I took lodging for the night;
and as I slept
    the blossoms kept falling -
even in the midst of my dreams

(Translated by Steven D. Carter)

2
The hue is as rich
    and the perfume as fragrant
        as in days gone by
but how I long for a glimpse
    of the one who planted the tree

3
The wind that scatters
    cherry blossoms from their boughs
        is not a cold wind -
and the sky has never known
    snow flurries like these.

(Translated by Helen Craig McCullough)

Lady Ise

Lady Ise was a contemporary of Ki no Tsurayuki, born around 875 and died around 938. She was a Japanese poet in the Imperial court's waka tradition. She was born Fujiwara no Tsugikage of Ise, and eventually became the lover of Prince Atsuyoshi and a concubine to Emperor Uda.

She was one of the three other poets who worked with Ki no Tsurayuki in compiling the Kokin-wakashu and her waka was included in the collection.

Four Poems

1.
Lightly forsaking
the Spring mist as it rises,
the wild geese are setting off.
Have they learned to live in a flowerless country?

2
Because we suspected
the pillow would say "I know,"
we slept without it.
Nevertheless my name
is being bandied like dust.

3
A flower of waves
blossoms in the distance
and ripples shoreward
as though a breeze had quickened
the sea and set it blooming

4
If it is you, there
in the light boat on the pond,
I long to beg you
"Do not go; linger a while
among us here in this place."

A poem from the book

This one of the longer poems in the book Seven Beats a Second. It was written shortly after the last presidential election, as the text suggests, at a time when I was less accepting of some of the new realities of my life than I am now. The reelection of the despicable George Bush was icing on a very sour cake.

slipping away

i
my mind is blind
to the crisp autumn sky
and the creek running clear
and the squirrel
teasing my dog,
a backyard clown
mocking
the quivering,
puffed-chest forward
self-righteousness
of a small dog
facing a large world

my eyes see none of this,
for like a fist
clenched tight on itself
I am closed to all but anger,
a simmering constant
since the last election,
anger,
not just at the loss
of mine against theirs,
but at the outcome
as a symptom
of the progress of my life
in these later years,
like a lifetime
of being on the wrong side

ii
I feel the passing of time now
like never before,
time and opportunity
slipping away,
life space lost
like water squeezed
from a cloth,
disappearing in an eddy
down a drain,
leaving an approximation of me
to fill the place I had before
until the day I need no space at all

iii
as I read the obituaries in the morning
or stand at the grave of my father,
as I did this past week in a park
green with the growth of recent rain,
I cannot reconcile the contradictions
of death and life, how the life I see
in the obituary photos and the light
I remember in my father's eyes
can disappear in an onrush of dark,
one minute to the next, life to death,
how it is that I, too, will slip some day
into that vortex of night and never return

iv
I think of the eternal nature of atoms
and how they combine and recombine
over uncountable eons to create
illusions of form
and in some of those illusory forms
a spark of life and consciousness
and beings like you and me
and all those whose obituaries
I read every morning
and my father, dead 25 years,
the illusion of him gone forever
to seed the soil he lies in
and the grass and trees and clouds
over his head and, someday,
in the great recycling that brings
all the old to something new,
perhaps another form with life
and a sense of self and a universe
outside of self that is the cradle
of that which is, evidence that
for life forever we first must die

Two affirmations from Langston Hughes

Still Here

I've been scarred and battered.
My hopes the wind done shattered.
Snow has friz me, sun has baked me
     Looks like between 'em
     They done tried to make me
Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin' ...
     But I don't care!
     I'm still here!

Me and the Mule

My old mule,
He's got a grin on his face,
He's been a mule so long
He's forgot about his race.

I'm like that old mule...
Black -- and don't give a damn!

You got to take me
Like I am.

Shel Silverstein

Writer Waiting

Oh this shiny new computer...
There just isn't nothin' cuter.
It knows everything the world ever knew.
And with this great computer
I don't need no writin' tutor,
'Cause there ain't a single thing that it can't do.
It can sort and it can spell,
It can punctuate as well.
It can find and file and underline and type.
It can edit and select,
It can copy and correct,
So I'll have a whole book written by tonight
(Just as soon as it can think of what to write).

Drought is broken (for a little while)

pagans

after
six months
of drought,
two days
of rain
and we all
think we're
ducks,
exchanging
the same old
jokes about
webbed feet
and growing
gills
that aren't
and never
have been
funny,
but give us
collective
celebration
of change and
the new life
that will come
from overdue
nourishment

we are pagans
still,
only the
rites
have changed

Damm Straight!

Words of passed along wisdom from Jerry Damm, Midland, Texas.

Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.

I love my cat. My cat does not care.

I can only please one person per day. Today is not
your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for
you.

Attaways and Oh,Boys!

Loch Raven Review

I received word a couple of days ago that four of my poems appear in the fall issue of Loch Raven Review. The poems are sunset on South Alamo, things to watch out for when entering into a barroom confrontation, morning coffee, and esperanzas.

To take a look at my poems and the other excellent poets featured in this issue, go to http://www.lochravenreview.net/index.html. The Loch Raven Review link near the top of the page on the right will take you directly to the journal.

Cafe Chiapas

I will be reading at Cafe Chiapas Friday evening, September 29th. The reading will include poems from my book, Seven Beats a Second, as well as new work.

This is the first of what the folks at Cafe Chiapas hope will become a regular series
of readings featuring many area poets.

All are welcome.

I'll have more information on this next week for folks from San Antonio who might want to attend. In the meantime, I've added a link to Cafe Chiapas near the top of the page on the right.

A reminder that the September Sale is half way done. Only two weeks left to get the book Seven Beats a Second and the C D, chimeras, ideals, errors! by the Ray-Guhn Show Choir, at outrageously low prices. Email me at allen.itz@gmail.com for details.

What a deal!!

Photos by Allen Itz

1 Comments:

at 5:37 PM Betty said...

Allen, Really enjoyed the piece on the Missions. In many respects they are similar to the Missions we have here in California which isn't a surprise. Outstanding website. Your photos are stunning. I enjoyed this respite.

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Ripple On Ripple Makes A Tide Monday, September 11, 2006

Welcome to "Here and Now," Lucky Number X.iii.

Guest blogger Amanda Evangelista on inspiration

Amanda is a poet from Battle Creek, Michigan. She says she wrote this poem after watching a particularly wild storm at night.

Brilliance

Flashes of brilliance, almost blinding
Like sudden strikes of lightning
Accompanied by clapping thunder,
The adoring audience

So quickly ideas rain down
Crystal clear thoughts illuminated;
Welcome clarity amidst the haze
So bright you can't ignore

These moments of inspiration
Call on you to trust divinity,
Forget the haunting negativity
Believe in your own self, and mind

It won't rain down forever
Your moment to shine will come
Learn from the storms and know
The rainbow is not far away

Though currently at rest, the mini-rant beast may soon be roused

Photobucket, the on-line storage site for all the photos I use here, recently made some "improvements." As usual, when an American company makes an "improvement," customers beware. Previously, I had a bunch of options when it came to sizing the images for posting here. With the "improvements," I now have only 4 choices, all either larger or smaller than I like to use. Also, it appears that changes I make to photos on IPhoto (cropping, changing exposures, increasing sharpness, etc.) may not transfer when I move the photos to Photobucket. If that doesn't change, I will have only original images for use here and not the those I’ve enhanced.

So, as I write this, I have no idea what my images are going to look like. Supposedly, Photobucket is going to fix these problems. We'll see. In the meantime, I'm frustrated, since the images I've used are important to my vision for "Here and Now."

I know there are other ways to adjust image size, but they're all much more complicated. I valued the simplicity of the old Photobucket process because it freed my increasingly inefficient brain from technical considerations and allowed me to concentrate on finding content. I'm a big fan of doing things the easy way and I'm hoping it works out so that I get to continue at that level of laid backisity.

But enough about that, on with the show.

A poem from the book

The September sale continues. Email me at allen.itz@gmail.com for details.

diminishing the stars

the city approaches

its lights
spread
across the hills
at sunset

breaking
the black serenity
of night

diminishing the stars
that shine
in the virgin sky

sounds of the city
soon to follow

then heat

then haze
that blocks
the lights
that spread
across the hills
at sunset

the city approaches
darkly
in a fog
of its own detritus

Several from Langston Hughes

Hughes was born in 1902 and died in 1967. He was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. He is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. In his work he confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America's image of itself.

Desert

Anybody
Better than
Nobody.

In the barren dusk
Even the snake
That spirals
Terror on the sand --

Better than nobody
In this lonely
Land.

One

Lonely
as the wind
On the Lincoln
Prairies.

Lonely
As a bottle of Licker
On a table
All by itself.

Vagabonds

We are the desperate
Who do not care,
The hungry
Who have nowhere
To eat,
No place to sleep,
The tearless
Who cannot
Weep.

Suicide's Note

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

Old Walt

Old Walt Whitman
Went finding and seeking,
Finding less than sought
Seeking more than found,
Every detail minding
Of the seeking or the finding.

Pleasured equally
In seeking as in finding,
Each detail minding.
Old Walt went seeking
and finding.

Ku Klux

They took me out
To some lonesome place.
They said, "do you believe
In the great white race?"

I said, "Mister,
To tell you the truth
I'd believe in anything
If you'd just turn me loose."

The white man said, "Boy,
Can it be
You're a standing there
A-sassin' me?"

They hit me in the head
And knocked me down.
And then they kicked me
On the Ground.

A klansman said, "Nigger,
Look me in the face --
And tell me you believe in
The great white race."

Another poem on "inspiration."

Here's lesson number 19 from The Art of Writing by Lu Ji, born in the year 261, died 303

19. Inspiration

As to the flash of inspiration
and traffic laws on writing's path,
What comes can't be stopped,
what leaves will not be restrained.
It hides like fire in a coal
then flares into a shout.
When instinct is swift as a horse
no tangle of thoughts will hold it back;
a thought wind rises in your chest,
a river of words pours out from your mouth,
and so many burgeoning leaves sprout
on the silk from your brush,
that colors brim out of your eyes
and music echoes in your ears.

(Translation by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping)

Inspiration, plus place

Inspiration never finds me at home. I need the right place, in public, but off to the side, around people, but not a crowd, the sounds of life, but not the noise, able to see, but still not noticed. Once I find such a place, writing becomes a waiting game, finding the right place to stay until whatever ideas are circulating through my unconscious break through to the part of my brain that can pick up a pen and write.

I mentioned last week about breakfast at Cafe Chiapas and their front porch where you can sit and watch some of the life of San Antonio pass by on South Alamo Street, and, sometimes, be inspired. (A little rain for the first time in several months helps also.)

Here's a product of that front porch.

from the porch at Cafe Chiapas on a rainy morning

it is a cool morning,
wet at long last, rainwater
pooling atop the table on the patio

on the street
workers are building
curb and gutter forms,
first step in repaving
this old street

I sit
high and dry
on the porch, enjoying
the cool morning,
the rain,
the workers, their yellow
hardhats dripping from the rain,
even the noise,
the hammers, the concrete saw
cutting through old sidewalk,
the screechy beep of the front loader
as it backs up to drop its load
of broken asphalt and concrete
in the idling dump truck

the morning is all around me,
the stink of diesel exhaust,
the big engine of the motor grader, rumbling,
(see how delicate and precise it's cut),
I watch it all, hear it all, smell it all

even the worker on the side,
taking a break, lighting up, letting
lose a cloud of tobacco smoke,
I smell that, too, and remember the taste
and, for the first time in ten years, miss it

I imagine a cigarette between my fingers
and wait for a poem

Bukowski at the track

searching for what?

as one goes to the racetrack year after year one notices
certain individuals who are there every day,
people who are strangely dressed and as desperate of eye
as I am.
there was one who stank badly and had diseased
skin.
I often picked him up as he hitchhiked in and I believe
he slept in the bushes along the freeway.
his theory was that all the jockeys got together
before the races and decided which number would
win that day -- they chose a number and only that number
      would
win all day long and that's why all those sons-of-bitches
were rich; they all simply bet the number

and there was another guy I had seen for years at all the
tracks, I was in a hurry and he bumped me with his elbow
and I said, "hey, Mac, watch that shit!" and he said,
"I got a mind to rub your face in the cement!" and I said,
"wait a minute," and I took my coat off and laid it on
a bench but when I turned around he was gone.
I still see him at the track and the strangest thing is
that he seems to be getting thinner and weaker as by
      comparison
I seem to get younger and stronger, but I don't think
it's my imagination, I think he must be having
a long string of losers.

then there's the blond, she was fat and slow but it
didn't seem to matter, she had a way of picking winners,
and some of the winners were longshots, day after day, she
bet the horses calmly in a very offhand manner and now
I see her in the clubhouse, dressed fine, still fat,
with some young guy at her side,
and she knows that I know but I don't say anything, since
I'm in the clubhouse too maybe I've done some whoring
in my own way

there's another one, dresses dapper, smokes good cigars
but he never bets, he just pokes around in the
trashcans, reaching his fingers down into the
wet coffee containers, napkins, ripped tickets,old news-
papers, stale hot dog buns, beer puke, he just reaches down in
there, inhaling on his cigar, searching for what?

then there's the one who starts running when he sees a late flash
on the board, they are putting them into the gate and
he starts running to the window like he's had a message
from heaven, and he's right, the last flash of the board
is the most important but you can't win that way either,
he's poorly dressed and desperate and come to think of it I
haven't seen him for some weeks now.

I think I've been around the track longer than any of
the other bettors, maybe not longer that the hot walkers,
the trainers or the jocks, they've been here longer
than me, but not the bettors.

all my women (and there have been plenty of them) have said
(with one voice) "my God, everytime I see you
you start talking about HORSES! you'll talk about the
      HORSES
for hours, my God, what a dull man your are! and then you
      write
POEMS about the HORSES! don't your realize how dull
your HORSE poems are? nobody understands them!"

here's another.

In a Bukowski frame of mind

Another one from the book.

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

The Weepies

I heard talk of this group called The Weepies this morning on NPR. It's a couple, a man and a woman. I haven't bought the CD yet, and don't know that I will. Anybody that calls themselves "The Weepies" has a lot to prove to me. The reason I'm even thinking about it are the opening lines to the song fragment they played on the radio.

I may not have it exactly right, but I'm close.

What should I compare your to?
my shoes...
my red boots...
with angel wings

Now that's some lyrics for a do-it-yourself created pop song.

Some ancient Greeks (no gifts)

Alcman

Alcman lived from about 654 to 611 B.C.He is thought to have been born in Sardis, capital of ancient Lydia, and brought to Sparta as a slave. He eventually became Sparta's official singer for public rites and spectacles. At one point, it is said, that he became unorthodox in his music until the Spartan authorities "arrested" his lyre and wouldn't give it back until he promised to be more conventional in his performances.

Desire Loosening

    Desire loosening
arms, knees, thighs, she
    looks at me
    more meltingly
than sleep or death, such
sweetness carries her --

    Astymeloisa, swaying
past me, lifts her garland
    high, a star
    skimming the night air,
or green-gold April sprout, or,
softly, a feather....

(Translated by Rosanna Warren)

Sappho

Sappho was born to an aristocratic family around 612 B.C. Most of her work was lost, probably because she wrote in a difficult dialect which faded from use over time. It is also possible that she was purposefully censored and her work destroyed in the early Christian era because of the homoerotic nature of her work. Much of what is known now of her life and poetry comes from mention in the works of her contemporaries.

Star of Evening

                Hesperus
                you bring
            home everything
which light of day dispersed
        home the sheep herds
          home the goat
           home the mother's darling

(Translated by Paul Roche)

A contemporary Chinese poet

Yang Lian was born in 1955 in Switzerland to a family of diplomats. He returned to China while still a baby and was raised in Beijing. During the Cultural Revolution,he was sent to the countryside for "reeducation." While there, he worked as a gravedigger and began to write poetry. He currently lives in London and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in literature.

To a Nine Year-Old Girl Killed in the Massacre

They say you tripped on a piece of skipping elastic
And you jumped out of the house of white chalk
On a day of terrifyingly loud rain
Nine bullet holes in your body exude a sweetness
They say that you lost the moon while you were playing
Green grass on the grave        Are new teeth

Sprouting where there is no need for grief
You did not die        They say
You still sit at the small wooden desk

Looks crash noisily against the blackboard
The school bell suddenly rings
A burst of nothingness        Your death is killed

The say    Now    You are a woman and a mother
And each year there is a birthday without you
just as when you were alive

(Translated by Mabel Lee)

And to close out for this week, one more from the book

lotsa hots

I've worked in August
under the noonday 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 dice 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

That's it for this week. I hope by next week, the photo problem will be solved. In fact, if it gets fixed before next week I'll probably come back to this and repost the images the way I want them.

Hasta la Pasta

Late addition. Image size problem resolved. Thank you Michaela Gabriel!

Photos by Allen Itz

2 Comments:

at 7:49 AM Lazarus said...

HI Allen- Only half way through this page and I am already inspired! I enjoyed the pictures, although I think you could work on the quality of some of the jpgs- let me know if you want my help, I am good with photoshop.

I have a poem in mind to write about the flea market- after Bokowski's take on the racetrack. It's great getting all this information about poetry through the ages. I will be back often to learn more!

at 1:25 PM Anonymous said...

Ok Allen, are you a poet or a photographer!? You are good a both so you need to come up with a good by line that fits both of your talents. I need to pull out your old Argus C-3 Standard and send some pictures you way to post. Not sure if I can up to your standard of picture taking but I will try.

John Strieb

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Home Walks The Fisherman, Dinner In Hand Monday, September 04, 2006

And in-hand also, "Here and Now" number I.xii.

Shel Silverstein wants to take a cruise

I knew Shel Silverstein as a cartoonist in Playboy long before having a child led me to discover Silverstein the poet. Turns out, he, like Seuss, is one of the rewards that come to parents via their children. Though not as inventive with language as Seuss, by never writing down to children his poems dig deeper, giving children and their parents things to think and talk about together.

Needles and pins

Needles and pins
Needles and pins,
Sew me a sail
To chatch me the wind.

Sew me a sail
Strong as the gale,
Carpenter, bring out your
Hammers and nails

Hammers and nails
Hammers and nails
Build me a boat
To go chasing whales.

Chasing the whales,
Sailing the blue,
Find me a captain
and sign me a crew.

Captain and crew,
Captain and crew,
Take me, oh take me
To anywhere new.

A little marital advice from one of my poems

marriage and the art of accommodation

being of patient
disposition
I do not respond
when she tells me
to cover my mouth
every time I sneeze

even though being
sixty-two years old
and long a master
of proper sneezery

I do know how
to do it

Another visit from Guest Blogger Allyn "Prophyry" Garavaglia

Last time we heard from Po, he was telling us about his search through the midwest for WMD and/or Elvis.

This time we have an example of his art, along with a poem that introduces his friend Red. He has a number of poems featuring Red in a more central role, but most are too long for this little blog.

If you want to see a more of Allyn, check out his blog at:

http://www.drytear.net/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=11&

goofin'

Refrigerator Gremlins (When Meat-loaf Attacks Vol. 1)

I went in a friend's fridge to grab a beer,
before I see a little magnet that said-

"Abandon all hope- Ye who enter here."

I just sort of scratched my head,
as I glanced apprehensively over at Red-
He said, "Put your ear up to the door first, and see
if you can hear anything moving."

So I did, and everything sounded still and silent
save for a dull hum-
But I thought it might be a trick,
so I knocked kinda softly first, and swallowed a big
lump.

As I reached out kinda timid like
for the handle, sort of as if it might bite,
Bobby walked in and asked "What the hell you
doin' man?"

I heard Red chuckle, as I nearly jumped out of my skin,
cuz we both knew how Bobby was.-
one of those woe-be-gone Brothers & friends,
and a fairly strong argument against the use of
drugs.

I mean he was pretty much harmless, but sorta like a
man'o war jellyfish
He may not mean any harm in what he does, but
you're still hit-
Let’s just say that Brother Murphy and him hung out a
lot.

And if cleanliness is truly next to Godliness
Then our good Brother Bobby was the 23 Hell
(Which is sort of like the 23 Psalm backwards-
anything green in that pasture was hardly still.)

Now I'm not saying that ol' Bobby was anything short
of a goodly sort, save that the boy'd have ette
anything that didn't ette him first-
Which inside his home was a fairly viable threat.

(Yeah Baby, even the mice abandoned that ship
and from the looks of things,
it appears that they scraped their feet on the way
out.)

"Uh, do you have any beer man," I asked
Which I figured he did, but I wanted to be sure it was
worth the risk-
I mean any deliberate near death experiences should
have some kind of reward.

"Bottom shelf man," he said, and I raised my brows
As Red sort of stifled chuckle-
Because this meant I'd have to get down to face-level
to whatever lurked beyond that door.

I waited for Bobby to step back out
before I pulled my knife, and flicked it out-
Double checking to make sure that Red was ready to
bail out, if a hasty retreat should become necessary."
"One," I reached out and grabbed the door from well
back
"Two." I winced a little bit and my body tensed
"Three!" I flung the door open quick, and sure enough
something come hauling out at me- screeching loudly.

Red was up on the table and I on the counter
before whatever it was could mount a decent attack-
When Bobby came back in and said "Hey dude, where'd
you find my cat?"

A poem from the Toltecs

The Toltecs dominated much of central Mexico between the 10th and 12th century. Their dominance initially gained through conquest, their cultural influence continued past their period of control. The Aztecs considered them the originators of all civilization and the name "Tolteca" became another word for artist, artisan or wise man.

This poem is by an unknown poet in the mid-fifteenth century when Toltec power was already well into decline. Already weakened by other enemies and in exile from their former capitol, they finally lost their last stronghold to Hernan Cortez not too long after the time of this poem.

What most fascinates me about this poem is the evidence it gives of the continuing self-absorbed struggle of artists to define themselves and their worth, even then and even there.

The Artist

The artist: disciple, abundant, multiple, restless.
The true artist: capable, practicing, skillful;
maintains dialogue with his heart, meets things with his mind.

The true artist: draws out all from his heart,
works with delight, makes things with calm, with sagacity,
works like a true Toltec, composes his objects, works dexterously, invents;
arranges materials, adorns them, makes them adjust.

The carrion artist: works at random, sneers at the people,
makes things opaque, brushes across the surface of the face of things,
works without care, defrauds people, is a thief.

Translated by Denise Levertov with Elviar Abascal

The Books of the Chilam Balam

The Catholic Church in sixteenth century Mexico taught Mayas how to read and write their own language by adapting the Latin alphabet to Maya.

Although the Church had intended this new knowledge for religious education, the Maya saw it's potential, recording in this new written form everything from prophecies and rituals to petitions to the Spanish Crown. Most important of the manuscripts created during the century following the Spanish Conquest were the Books of the Chilam Balam.

The Chilam were native priests and Balam, meaning "jaguar," was used as a signifier of rank or respect. Some think that there was an original "Jaguar Priest" who was of such high regard that his title became the the name for all the Chilam Balam texts.

The texts describe life in Colonial Yucatan from the Maya perspective, as well as reflecting religious and mythological traditions. Some texts relate epic sagas based on traditional lore and the oral history of the region.

This particular text speaks of the defeat of the Itzas, one of several ethnic groups claiming lineage to the Toltecs, by rival claimants to Toltec heritage.

Maybe I'm finding allegory where there is none, but it seems to me this is a telling of the conquered and their conquerors throughout time, with underlying reference to the experience of the Maya with the Spanish, an early example of poetry as subversive politics.

Flight of the Itzas

They came with a fury
with a rage without reason
with a thirst for blood,
for heads, for jewels.
Came into our lands
to conquer for no quarrel,
to seize for the sake of seizing,
to claim for an absent king
our lands, our corn, our people

They came from the east,
those foreign lords,
came to the village of Nacom balam,
took the town and the people
and the fields and the trees
and even the great black crows.

Then the Itza went away,
left by the thousands.
Thirteen measures of corn
they had per head,
and nine measures and
three handfuls of grain.
And many of the magicians
from the town went with them
and many of the town's daughters
formed their growing troop.
They did no want to join
the treacherous foreigners,
did not want to bow
to a foreign god,
did not want to pay tribute
to a foreign lord.
They guarded their birds
and their stones,
their jaguars and
their three magic emblems
and fled with spears
deep into the dense forest.

Before the conquerors came
there was no sin,
no sickness, no aches,
no fevers, no pox.
The foreigners stood
the world on its head,
made day become night.
There were no longer
any lucky days
after they came into our lands.
There was no more sound judgment,
no more great visions.
The great teachers never came again
nor any great priests,
just death and blood
and sorrow, sorrow, sorrow!

Translated by Christopher Sawyer-Lacannol

The rant beast returns

I think I've kept my cool about this pretty well, but, but as a born and bred Texan, it's been irking me for six years and enough is enough.

Listen carefully, news media.

George W. Bush does not have a ranch.

A ranch has some variation of this creature.

Without some variation of this creature you do not have a ranch.

Lyndon Johnson had a ranch, a working ranch with a number of these creatures, before, during and after his presidency. Although he employed a ranch manager, Johnson was involved in every important decision pertaining to his ranch up until the day he died.

In addition to his other activities, LBJ was a rancher.

George Bush does not have a ranch.

George Bush has a country estate.

A "country estate" can be defined as a productive resource put to complete and total waste. Much like his presidency.

And I haven't even mentioned how insulting it is to cowboys when some columnist refers to Bush as a "cowboy president." Drunk on Saturday night, a cowboy can do some pretty stupid things. But never, ever has a cowboy, even on the rowdiest Saturday night imaginable, started a war he didn't know how to win against a country that wasn't a threat.

A poem from the book, Seven Beats a Second

A reminder that special prices on the book and CD continue through September. Email me at allen.itz@gmail.com for details.

Several years before being selected for the book, this poem appeared in Planet Magazine, one of the few places on the web where good science/science fiction poetry could be read. I placed several poems there before they changed their format.

fleshware

blood and gristle
forged from trash
of exploding stars,
fragile, short-lived,
prone to sag
and corruption,
helpless at birth,
pitiful
in unremitting decay

such poor use
our body seems
of the eternal elements
of creation

but lightening strikes within

tiny electric jabs that jump
from receptor to receptor
creating art,
imaging love,
finding courage, honor,
theories of our origin,
joy and laughter
to mock the truth
or our condition

so much more
than we appear to be

star dust

offspring of unimaginable light
seeking an antidote to dark

Frank O'Hara

Frank O'Hara was born in 1926 and died in 1966 after being hit by a vehicle on the beach at Fire Island, New York.

Though Charles Bukowski out lived O'Hara by nearly 40 years, they were contemporaries during their formative years, though from very different social strata.

They were also similar as poets. For both, their life was their poetry. They both seemed to have transcribed their life to the page almost as they lived it. This poem, "A Step Away From Them" by O'Hara, is a good example of that sense of immediacy.

A Step Away From Them

It's my lunch hour, so I go
for a walk among the hum-colored
cabs. First, down the sidewalk
where laborers feed their dirty
glistening torsos sandwiches
and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets
on. They protect them from falling
bricks, I guess. Then on to the
avenue where skirts are flipping
above heels and blow up over
grates. The sun is hot, but the
cabs stir up the air. I look
at bargain wristwatches. There
are cats playing in sawdust.
                     On
to Times Square, where the sign
blows smoke over my head and higher
the waterfall pours lightly, A
Negro stands in a doorway with a
toothpick, languorously agitating.
A blond chorus girl clicks: he
smiles and rubs his chin. Everything
suddenly honks; it is 12:40 of
a Thursday
           Neon in daylight is a
great pleasure, as Edward Denby would
write, as are light bulbs in daylight.
I stop for a cheeseburger at JULIET's
CORNER. Giulietta Masina. wife of
Federico Fellini, "a bell’ attrice."
And chocolate malted. A lady in
foxes on such a day puts her poodle
in a cab.
           There are several Puerto
Ricans on the avenue today, which
makes it beautiful and warm. First
Bunny died, then John Latouche,
then Jackson Pollock. But is the
earth as full as life was full, of them?
And one has eaten and one walks
past the magazines with nudes
and the posters from BULLFIGHT and
the Manhattan Storage Warehouse,
which they'll soon tear down. I
used to think they had the Armory
Show there.
           A glass of papaya juice
and back to work. My heart is in my
pocket, it's Poems by Pierre Reverdy.

Success as a poet came much more quickly and easily to O'Hara than to Bukowski, probably due, at least in part, to their class differences.

The poem illustrates those differences. As O'Hara casually walked this sidewalk at lunch, Bukowski might have been one of the laborers feeding "their dirty glistening torsos." As much as I like them both and find them both so alike poetically, I can't imagine O'Hara getting through an evening with Bukowski without getting punched in the face and thrown out on his ass.

Another of my poems

Aging is about transitions, a leaving behind of treasured things with hope for new treasures to come. It is about willingness to accept the unpredictability of every next step and the temporary nature of self and all that self implies. It means understanding that the trees you plant (and you must always plant trees), willl provide shade on sunny Sunday afternoons, not for you, but for men and women and children you will never know.

ambition

I have had to set aside
ambition,
like the dozen
dusty-shouldered suits
in my closet

there is strangeness
to its absence,
an empty well
where water
once flowed,
and a small fear that life
not always pushing
forward
is certain to decline

my life now
is not what I expected
it to be,
but it is
what it is
and there is in that
fluctuant state
a chance for
liberation
through acceptance
of inevitable
surprise

A morning poem from Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Matinal

The critic crow
          struck by the song of

                    morning sun

     has his commentary to make

                    upon it

          stridently

               *

  dear son

          do not wake

  until I make

         this poem about it

Then rise & shine
     It
      is your world

Remembering an extraordinary man

goddamn big-ass snakes

there was a story in the newspaper today
about some big snake they caught somewhere

reminded me of a time about 40 years ago
when I was crossing the King Ranch
on Highway 77 in a beat up old VW Beetle
and I saw a rattlesnake cross in front of me
that was longer than my car front to rear
and big around as my leg

big-ass goddamn rattlesnake

and that made me think of an uncle,
long gone now, who used to cross the ranch
on horseback ninety years or more ago, before
the state put in the road that split the ranch in two

two weeks every month was his job,
a week going and a week coming,
riding daylight to first dark every day,
sleeping under a rough woolen blanket
on the ground around a campfire
like the vaqueros have been doing all the years
since there was cows and cowboys

I think of my uncle riding his horse
through that deep chaparral,
cactus and mesquite thorns
grabbing at him all along the way,
and the javalina and bobcats
and snakes longer than my car
creeping all around him as he slept
at night and I say, thank you lord,
for broad Texas highways
and German engineering

And that South Texas story ends it for now. We'll be back next week if if my computator don't break and I can get my camera fixed.

Dern machines!
.
.
.
OOPS! Almost forgot my attaway

Two poems accepted last week for the next issue of Dispatches. It's not due until December, but I'm very pleased with the news. It'll be the first time I'll have my stuff in this journal. More info at release time.

Photos by Allen, Dora and Billie Itz

1 Comments:

at 8:53 AM avasouth said...

Great issue, Allen. My one gripe is that the mission pics weren't larger. I love those old missions, have visited them several times. Most of the verses were really good, though some I only scanned briefly. I'll go back later to read in detail.

What are your submission guidelines or do you not take poetry and stories form old women who have never been published? HO HO HO! And are you in print also?

Ava

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