Here and Now: March 2008

2 Comments:

at 8:55 PM Anonymous said...

Hi, Allen. The Andy Worhol effect has its points of interest. The cactus picture and the one of the cat came out very interestingly in the multiply negating shades.

I've spent hours today and yesterday here. You have a great talent for putting together fine art from different venues. I'll be lurking more often.

Marie Gail

at 7:51 PM Alice Folkart said...

Allen, I like the art, it's restful in a weird way, I mean, I don't have to know anything to look at it and I don't have to explain it to anyone... Well, that makes no sense.

Much good stuff in this issue - particularly like Arlene Ang's and Marie Gail S's and the three of yours that you ended with. Also, this was the first Rimbaud that I could get through. But, won't go into that. So many other good things - I should take notes before I open the comment window. I can never remember it all.

Enjoyed.
Alice

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sky hook Friday, March 21, 2008

III.3.4.

So here we are again. Welcome.

I was going to start this week with a series of short poems from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, but apparently the outlaws weren't too much into brevity, so instead I have this piece from Henry Miller, second choice but definitely not second rate.

A Poem in Prose for My Venus

Were you conscious last night
Of the grandeur of the moon?
Did you know that she has a pound of honey?
You, oh pound of honey for all the couples
Crouched together everywhere in the world.
The men on their backs their phalluses
in huge erection.
The women, their vaginas sighing
and flashing.
All making love like
animals of hell.
All bridled by the desire -
the incredibly fruitful desire.
The air was pierced by the bizarre sounds -
the groaning of elephants, the "whinnying" of horses and the
bleating of
calves.
It would be deplorable if everything was not commanded by the God Priapus.
His stamp was visible here and there -
briefly, everywhere.
He reined over the night like an
emperor...Sometimes it was terrible.
But little by little one heard the Chopinesque music, the
nostalgia,
the sobs, the cries of the camels - everything
was very beautiful
Chopin and Ravel - and Debussy!
Oh what divine music! Played by an angel with the refinement
of a prince.
Suddenly a resurrection.
The obscured couples rise and
begin to sing.
Their voices reach the edge of the sky.
Even the dead are touched.
The dead are revived, delirious
Now the birds can also
be heard.
"Hark hark the lark at Heaven's gate...et tra la la"
Yes the dead and the angels understand
English - how odd it is.
The gods and the half-gods speak
Hungarian and Polish
But only amongst themselves!
The dawn arrives...everything becomes
silent. The world breathes.
The angels disappear into the
images of Fra Angelico.
Da Vinci sleeps. Botticelli opens his eyes.
The world begins under a
Pale blue sky. Rather bluish.
Until we see each other again

Here's a poem by S. Thomas Summers from his book Rather, It Should Shine.

I read Scott's work often on The Wild Poetry Forum. He is a teacher of English at Wayne Hills High School in Wayne, New Jersey. His poems have appeared in various print and online journals. His previous chapbook, Death settled well won Shadows Ink Publications 7th Biannual Chapbook Competition.

Bruise

I'm not delicate
enough to slip

between rose petals,
but I'd like to see the world

from that velvet cradle -
feel the sun's gentle

fingers pull me
toward eternity,

discover ecstasy
in a rain drop.

Tonight, kiss softly -
even as a breeze bites

the apple dangling
from its tree. Darkness

scratches my skin -
how easily I bruise.

Now, here are two short poems by Portuguese poet Eugenio De Andrade from his book Forbidden Words. It is a bilingual book, with English translations by Alexis Levitin.

In Praise of Fire

A day
of utter sweetness comes:
everything burns.

Light burns
in the windows of tenderness.

Birds,
in the bright
labyrinth of whitewashed walls.

Words burn,
the purple shade of ships.

The wind,

where I have a house
on the edge of autumn.

The lemon tree, the hills.

Everything burns
in the utter sluggish
sweetness of the afternoon.

The Art of Navigation

See how the summer
suddenly
turns to water on your bread,

and the night turns to boat,

and my hand to sailor.

Read a story in the National Geographic. Wrote a poem. There you go.

time to meet our fellows

i was reading
in National Geographic
about the intelligence
of some of our fellow
earthly creatures

dolphins
with vocabulary, syntax
and a creative imagination;
birds
that remember the past
and plan for the future;
Kanzi, the bonobo,
learning sign language
spontaneously
from watching his mother
being taught (he may be speaking
English, they think, just too fast
and high pitched
for our ears to understand);
Betsy, the border collie, who
recognizes objects from photographs,
and who knows 340 words and
is learning more at the advancement rate
of a 4-year old;
even octopi
who play for the fun of the playing

more and more
we begin to recognize
kinship
with creatures
not of our own kind

except for some,
the egocentric,
the ethnocentric,
the homo sapien-centric
who
imagine
the world
and all the universe that surrounds it
as a preserve
set aside for their pleasure and exploitation;

these do not believe

these cannot believe,
having
too much invested
in an unearned superiority
over all other creatures

their disbelief is their loss,

but i know better
for i have watched
my Reba watching

and though
I cannot know for certain
what goes on
behind those cinnamon eyes,
i do know
it is far more
than just the mindless grinding
of an unthinking id

Here's another poem from Good Poems for Hard Times, this one by Leah Furnas.

Furnas, born in 1933, is form Oregon, growing up in her parent's tavern. She taught elementary school for 20 years, then sold real estate for the next 20, then retired, took a poetry class and started writing. She wrote this poem on a steno pad brought at a gas station on the way to a friend's 50th wedding anniversary party.

The Longly-Weds Know

That it isn't about the Golden Anniversary at all,
But about all the unremarkable years
that Hallmark doesn't have a card for.

It's about the 2nd anniversary when they were surprised
to find they cared for each other more than last year

And the 4th when both kids had chickenpox
and she threw her shoe at him for no real reason

And the 6th when he accidentally got drunk on the way
home from work because being a husband and father
was so damn hard

It's about the 11th and 12th and 13th years when
they discovered they could survive crisis

and the 22nd anniversary when they looked
at each other across the empty nest, and found it good.

It's about the 37th year when she finally
decided she could never change him

and the 38th when he decided
a little change wasn't that bad

It's about the 46th anniversary when they both
bought cards, and forgot to give them to each other

But most of all it's about the end of the 49th year
when they discovered you don't have to be old

to have your 50th anniversary!!!!

Here's a good friend of "Here and Now", Dave Ruslander, with two poems from his book Voices in my Head.

Parched

I am a dry wash in the desert,
cracked impacted - hard.
Smell the heat float over
as I simmer in midday sun
and await dueling scorpions
under night's sky.

Eventually,
a wall of water
will transform me;
flowers will bloom on a cactus.

I Stepped Back and
Blew Out the Candle

Darkness became my partner
and wrapped cold arms around me
in a difficult intimacy.

I felt as much a lion as a lamb.

Next, a piece by Jack Kerouac from his book Mexico City Blues.

216th-C Chorus

Well roofed pleasant little hut,
    screened from winds:
That's all I need, Foursquare
The image of Buddha in my brain,
Drawing from the countryside the verdant
Fantasm of conception, saying:
"We seen imageries of bush & tree,
Like you, have risen from a mystery,
And the mystery is fantastic,
Unreal, illusion, and sane,
And strange - It is: When ye
Are not born, thou never showest:
When thou art born thou showest,
Thou showest emeralds and pine trees
And thou showest, and if not born
Thou showest naught in white
Dazzling buried in mindless obscure sea
That strange eternity devises to befool,
Befoul and play unfair with Mag
The worshipper and worrier, Man,
Mag, Mad,
    it's all green trees, men
    And dogs of toothbone:
    All shine in the dust,
    All the same Novice Scotia"

Pretty much a regular old poem about pretty much a regular old day.

and now, on to Act II

beat
the sun up this morning
as usual,
moved the cat off my chest
and stumbled into the bathroom,
checked in the mirror,
yep,
it's me,
washed brushed
ascended
the throne
dressed
checked lottery numbers,
shelved
plans for purchase of sports car
got the old Caddy started
and sputtered off to Jim's
for coffee and local newspaper
said hi to all the waitresses
listened
the church goers behind me
talk about the early sermon
paid for my coffee
and left a large tip, it's
why they love me,
went home,
picked up D, drove
to Ihop for Senior Special
and more coffee,
paid for breakfast,
left a large tip, it's
why they love me, then
on to Borders for latte
and the Times and howdy-dos
for the Sunday morning
regulars, talked
about the weather,
"gonna be damn cold today"
for winter,
"gonna be damn hot today"
for springsummerfall,
and that's the weather
and there's not much else
to talk about and didn't
want to anyway cause
the paper's just sitting
there waiting to be read,
not to mention the funnies
from the local paper
peeking comically
from beneath the latest
bullshit from Bushington,
so adios, muchacho,
been nice talking to you,
time to go, pay the bill,
leave a big tip, it's
why they love me,
D to the movies,
me here, catching up,
pulling down the
curtain on
Act I

more excitement in Act II?

nah, not likely,
being contented like the cows
in California,
i don't need no stinking
excitement,
mon

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in 1917 and died near the end of the year in 2000. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950.

This is a poem from her book Selected Poems, published by HarperCollins in 1999.

The Ballad of Rudolph Reed

Rudolph Reed was oaken.
His wife was oaken too.
And his two good girls and his good little man
Oakened as they grew.

"I am not hungry for berries.
I am not hungry for bread.
But hungry hungry for a house
Where at night a man in bed

"May never hear the plaster
Stir as if in pain.
May never hear the roaches
Falling like fat rain.

"Where never wife and children need
Go blinking through the gloom.
Where every room of many rooms
Will be full of room.

"Oh my home may have its east or west
Or north or south behind it.
All I know is I shall know it,
And fight for it when I find it."

It was in a street of bitter white
That he made his application.
For Randolph Reed was oakener
Than others in the nation.

The agent's steep and steady stare
Corroded to a grin.
Why, you black old, tough old hell of a man,
Move your family in!

Nary a grin grinned Rudolph Reed,
Nary a curse cursed he,
But moved in his House. With his dark little wife,
and his dark little children three.

A neighbor would look, with a yawning eye
That squeezed into a slit.
But the Rudolph Reeds and the children three
Were too joyous to notice it.

For were they not firm in a home of their own
With windows everywhere
And a beautiful banistered stair
And a front yard for flowers and a back yard for grass?

The first night, a rock, big as two fists.
The second, a rock big as three.
But nary a curse cursed Rudolph Reed.
(Though oaken as man could be.)

The third night, a silvery ring of glass.
Patience ached to endure.
But he looked, and lo! small Mabel's blood
Was staining her gaze so pure.

Then up did rise our Rudolph Reed
And pressed the hand of his wife,
And went to the door with a thirty-four
and a beastly butcher knife.

He ran like a mad thing into the night.
And the words in his mouth were stinking.
By the time he had hurt his first white man
He was no longer thinking.

By the time he had hurt his fourth white man
Rudolph Reed was dead.
His neighbors gathered and kicked his corpse.
"Nigger -" his neighbors said.

Small Mabel whimpered all night long,
For calling herself the cause.
Her oak-eyed mother did one thing
But change the bloody gauze.

Here's a children’s poem from San Antonio poet Margaret Mayberry. I first met Margaret at our regular Monday night poetry get together and have enjoyed her readings every week since.

The Sea Shell

If I put you to my ear, I hear the whispering sea,
And the plaintive cry of seagulls flying high and free,
I can hear the hollow echo in the damp dark cave,
And the soft rhythmic whoosh in the undulating wave,

Big shell, little shell, what places have you been?
Do you speak of far off lands and strange things you've seen?
Do you tell of calm seas, silver in the dawn's light?
Of wild storms raging in the darkness of the night?

Pretty shell, pale pink shell, I hold you in my hand,
Delicate shell, white shell, I've plucked you from the sand,
I'll tell you all my secrets if you will tell me yours,
I can tell of sandcastles and you of distant shores,

I like to watch the green waves beneath the frothy foam,
But Mother will be waiting and I have to go on home,
I'll put you in my pocket and you'll go back with me,
When I take you out tomorrow, I shall still hear the sea...

It seems like a good time for another poem from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. I chose a poem by Gerald Locklin.

Locklin has taught English at California State University, Long Beach, since 1965 and is the author of over 125 books and chapbooks or poetry, fiction, and criticism.

Paul Cezanne: The Large Bathers, 1906

it was a good year to look backwards.

to when the woods were a cathedral.

to when the clouds were white as
eden, and the sky angelic azure.

shame was uninvented; men and women
were not yet at war.

world and time were endless, ageless:
we had world and time enough.

the wisdom of water was still with us.

god was the fountainhead:
creation was perfection.

it was a good year, 1906,
not to look ahead.

It occurred to me that I am too much the center of my poetic universe and that I ought to look further afield for inspiration.

So, from the book New American Paintings, here we go.

Maybe a good idea, maybe not.

everything changed that stayed the same
(after Scott Listfield's "It's a Question of Simian Survival" - oil on canvas)

the lady
stands,
torch held high,
leaning slightly toward
the rocks, and
still buried to her waist
in beach sand, but
the actor, gone, now
a place for picnics,
for sand castles,
for jumping in the surf,
for an ice cream truck,
bell ringing,
children running,

unseen

another spaceman

long-armed
bandy-legged
spacesuit
shining
silver
in the red
sun

watching

i fear
for the children

I have mixed feelings about Leonard Cohen, sometimes awed by his brilliance and sometimes the opposite. This poem, from his book Book of Longing strikes me somewhere in the high middle.

Another Poet

Another poet will have to say
how much I love you
I'm too busy now with the Arabian Sea
and its perverse repetitions
of white and grey

I'm tired of telling you
and so are the trees
and so are the deck chairs

Yes, I have given up a lot of things
in the last few minutes
including the great honor
of saying I love you

I've become thin and beautiful again
I shaved off my grandfather's beard
I'm loose in the belt
and tight in the jowl

Crazy young beauties
still covered with the grime
of ashrams and shrines
examine their imagination
in an old man's room

Boys change their lives
in the wake of my gait
anxious to study
elusive realities
under my hypnotic indifference

The brain of the whale
crowns the edge of the water
like a lurid sunset
but all I ever see
is you or You
or you in You
or You in you

confusing to everyone else
but to me
total employment

I introduce
the young to the young
They dance away in misery
while I conspire
with the Arabian Sea
to create
an ugly silence
which gets the ocean
off my back
and more important
lets another poet say
how much I love you

James Lineberger is a retired screenwriter, sometime playwright, and full-time poet. he has eight volumes of poems and a full-length play you check into at http://www.lulu.com/james_lineberger. I'm putting up a link you so you can go there with just one click.

Here's a new poem from James.

broomstraw

there was a time when
it seemed
to point to the future when just to
walk through it
said there were things out there
that would welcome you
like the way when the train went by with its smoke blowing overhead
and the passengers
would look out
their windows and wave
until the day
when me and ivy lee tried to roast potatoes
like they did in boys life
and set the whole field on fire and it
rose up that quick
coming at the houses
and everybody even grandpa was out there
swatting at it with their coats
and throwing buckets of water on it
but when it was
over with and the ground was scorched black
mama said i couldn't play with ivy lee no more cousin
or no cousin
and i sneaked out of the house later and found the potatoes
and carried them
in my shirt
to the creek bank to cool
and ate them skins and all ivy lee's too

Next, I have a poem by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova from her Selected Poems book published by Zephyr Press in 2000. The translation from Russian was by Judiith Hemschemeyer.

Solitude

So many stones have been thrown at me,
That I'm not frightened of them any more,
And the pit has become a solid tower,
Tall among tall towers.
I thank the builders,
May care and sadness pass them by.
From here I'll see the sunrise earlier,
Here the sun's last ray rejoices.
And into the windows of my room
The northern breezes often fly.
And from my hand a dove eats grains of wheat...
As for my unfinished page,
The Muse's tawny hand, divinely calm
And delicate, will finish it.

June 6, 1914
Slepnyovo

Since arriving back home from vacation, it's been, as they say, one thing after another. The biggest, most irritating, most stealing my time from things I'd rather do is this. It's only gotten worse since I wrote the poem last week.

it's just one damn thing after another

he
changed the locks
ran off
with the key
broke
my lawn mower
and left a mess
inside
and out

i'm
a landlord

didn't want to be

never meant to be

but wants and meants
don't mean
nothing
sometime

so there you are
and here i am,
seventy miles from the land
i'm lording,
and gone he went
to parts unknown

and
i'm stuck
with at least two weeks
of mess
cleaning-up to do
when i'd rather be writing
some poems
or eating strawberries in the sun
or visiting the alamo
or shopping for boomerangs
or roller skating
in a buffalo herd
or painting
by numbers
on a felt
canvas
or any other damn thing
than mess cleaning-up

Now I have a poem by Ramon Lopez Velarde, known during his lifetime, 1888-1921, as the "poet of the provinces." The poem is from a selection of his work, Song of the Heart. It's a bilingual book, the original Spanish and the translation, by Margaret Sayers Peden, on facing pages.

The Bell Ringer

The bell ringer told me this morning
I should know it's a bad year for wheat.
That Juan's the beau of a beautiful,
rich cousin. That Susana died.
We're good friends, the bell ringer and I.

He told me about his youthful loves
land his strong voice cracked as he
watched black coffins pass, inspiring
tales of a thousand virtuous acts,
then we talked more about life and death.

"And your wedding, Senor?"
"Hush, old man."

"Will it be winter?"
"Yes about then...
If you're alive, friend bell ringer,
when Death offers his hand, toll
your bells for my soul, again and again.”

Shawn Nacona Stroud has been with us several times. Here he is, back again, with a new piece for us. Shawn says it previously appeared in the Summer 2007 issue of the Mississippi Crow Magazine

Impressionism

Like water, night cascades
washing daylight away.
My window is canvas -
a sunset by Monet.

Caked viridian hills
embrace the crimson sky
as brush-worked willows reflect
in the river each sigh.

Slack shadows tar the land
paving on what's in sight -
in swirls of purple and blue
buds the burgeoning night.

The prismatic twilight
displayed one hour ago,
displaced by Ursa Major
conceives a dark Van Gogh.

Here's a poem by Lorenzo Thomas from his book Dancing on Main Street, published by Coffee House Press in 2004.

Thomas was born in Panama and grew up in New York City. He is a poet, critic, and professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown. This is his fourth book.

Last Call

In The Odyssey, Book IX, we learn of a fierce battle with the Ciconians on the island of Ismaros:

     From that place we sailed onward much discouraged, but glad to have
     escaped. death, although we had lost good companions. Yet we did not let the
     galleys go off, until we had called thrice on the name of each of our hap-
     less comrades who died in that place.
     - The Odyssey, TR. W. H. D. Rouse

Erwin Rohde, in Psyche, comments: “References to similar callings
upon the dead in later literature make the meaning of such behavior clear. The souls of the dead who have fallen in foreign lands must be 'called'; they will then, if this is properly done, follow the caller to their distant home, where an 'empty grave' awaits them."

     This poem is about veterans of the war in Viet Nam.

     If anybody's carrying a rabbit's foot, hang on to it tight.”
     - Van Johnson in 30 Seconds Over Tokyo

Corned beef sandwiches, water, plenty
Of time to think about the future
You too can grow up to be a square-jawed
American hero, eyes rounding up with recognition
That horror that looked so darn familiar
Really knows you. Grew up in the same town
And memorized the same stupid movies.

It's just us now, huddled in the same apprehension
That whatever is outside this bubble
Is probably no stranger. It gets harder
To swallow, the temperature's rising,
The lies and the half-truths go whistling by

Stand by
For voices blending into stridency
Practiced as alarms
This is the daily danger
We would stay awake,
Missing nothing. Clear the head.
There is some place now.

Just as it materializes on this page
Or fills the ear of the peaceful sleeper

Familiar
As a song that has been on the radio
About six weeks, the smile a little grayer
But the same no-nonsense haircut,
And the words of the heartbroken girl
Making sense. Suddenly, clear the head!

It's me Clothilde!

What are you afraid of? The fires behind us
Are our signatures. Our memories cannot harm us,
Unless we allow them to talk to our friends
And anyone who'd believe them is not really a friend.

Oh poo, she teases.
You have been lax
Don't you remember me
Your pretty little America
Blue and shimmering

Around the corner is a warm and cozy place
Complete with lovable and laughing folks
Waiting in a kind of strange suspenseful animation
For us. To just appear and be ourselves is all
They live for. Anticipation of our beauty
Keeps them lifelike, poised, waiting for your call.
You see? These are our memories.
They will say what you want them to say
And amuse you. They will whine and cower,
Backbite you into the most heartless, unfeeling
Wretch the world has ever known
The most untrustworthiest son of a bitch
The most thankless, loving serf of humanity
Most sweetest, kindest, cut-throat whatever
Until you are happy. See? What are friends for?

Let's get it on before big sister comes.
We dare not admit even suspicions of failure
It is better not to even begin.
And no time wasted on remember when.
I think the truth might be a little prettier
With a bit of stainless steel and neon
Over here. Maybe some glass bricks.
A miniature rain forest in the bath
Sounds a lot better than pipes that drip all night

Our hearts are blessed with an efficient fancy
Corned beef sandwiches, water, plenty
Reasons to be happy in love. So we didn't know
Where we were going, but we are finally here!
A carnival of soft-spoken meanness
Welcomes you to your new refrigerator carton
And honored place among the lowest middle-class

Gee, you look so familiar

Here's another one of my exercises in art depreciation.

until next year
(after Justin Allen's "Red Grill" - oil on panel)

red grill
on a field
of brown leaves

autumn come
and almost gone with summer

red
grill
begins
the long wait
for spring

Sheree Renee Thomas is a writer, editor, small publisher, educator, visual artist, and mother whose work has appeared in numerous publications and literary journals. She is the co-publisher of the literary journal, Anansi: Fiction of the African Diaspora and founder of Wanganegresse Press. A 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Poetry, her fiction and poetry are anthologized in Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art, 2001: A Science Fiction Poetry Anthology, as well as the literary journals Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, and many literary journals of note.

This poem is from bum rush the page an anthology of performance poets and poetry.

The Road from Khartoum

I have heard their moans and sighs
And seen their tears and I would give every
Drop of blood in my veins to free them.
          - Harriet Tubman

In the day
sand rains
down on us
coarse as camel
hair against
blistered thighs
advancing
from the vast bases
of the Sahara.

In the night
the wind rolls the
grains back
like broken promises
flinging
them through the air
lethal missiles
to settle upon
the hard backs
of this geography:

Aluel Mawien
(girl, age unknown)

Alei Nun Akok
(boy, 14 years old)

Achok Chang Angora
(girl, 2 years old)

Elizabeth Ading Deng
(mother, 25 years)

no longer Mrs. but missing
and presumed dead
one of many thousands gone
and yet
no one speaks
of murder of rape

the desert strangles
more than words
Allah Akbar!
God is Great
armed me
on horses
have no need
for translators

our names
do not represent
women and children
whether
Christian, Muslim, or Ancestral Other
we are all abd
slaves

we are the spoils of a celestial war
and such acts are
the accident of history
celebrated in mosaic structures
jihads old
steeped in memories
   of an eye
       for an eye
         a tooth
             for a tooth
               and 35 US dollars a head

what this journey has taught us:
that foreign policy is UNclean
teeth biting down
on black throats, ripe as dates
that pain is fragrant
as the oiled skin of concubines
that truth can be stolen
hidden in oil drums shipped to Canada
that following the north star will not lead us to freedom
that some Talismans do not protect but exploit
that excuses are ubiquitous
as cheap
and as plentiful
expendable
as human labor

These truths the sun reflects
illuminating the harsh tender
moments in this, our third republic
demanding that every word must conjure
while the sands of rains
pour down on us
paving the road from Khartoum
to freedom.

Here's a timely spring poem from Sara Zang. We haven't heard from Sara in a while. She's busy, no doubt, as administrator of The Peaceful Pub poetry forum.

Waiting for April

Grass and trees
have thinned to wispy thoughts
of Spring. How red the rose
of memory, how sweet the song
that's not quite sung,
but waits like stars
on quiet nights
to drench the corners
of your room
with light,
and fill your heart
with magic.

I've had Notes from the Castle, a collection of poems by Howard Moss, almost as long as I've been doing "Here and Now" but only used his poems a couple of times.

Moss was poetry editor of The New Yorker for many years, beginning in 1948. Before that, he was an instructor of English at Vassar College. His style is kind of dry, which might be why I've tended to pass him by when picking the poems for the week.

This is a good one, though.

At the Cafe

At the Cafe, at an outdoor table
Fronting the last of the puppet shows,
We have come to sip a bit of brandy
And watch the rapidly descending evening.
Violinists scrape the bow of air,
Arguments begin and finish soon,
As if philosophy were running a cafe
Where nothing is served but old ideas;
tensed against the wine-soaked washrag
Of the sky the trees erect themselves
In the last small oblivion of lights;
Talk grows animated...someone screams...
This passes, these days, for the Bohemian.
Still, the knees of two bright things
Are touching...Eveyone's lost the theme:
What is the mind compared to it,
To feeling's theatre, always in flames,
On the stage, its aging, ludicrous opera
Still faintly hard among the ruins?

A lot of stuff's been coming down in the past couple of weeks. I wouldn't say I'm overwhelmed, but I am maybe at five or six on the ol' whelm-o-meter.

All this at a time when I try hard to keep things simple in my life, only to be taught again and again that what I want doesn't count for much.

This poem is an attempt at a new form for me. I don't know what the form is called and don't know the rules to it. In fact, I don't know much of anything about the form except that Thane Zander does them really well and I'd like to try one too.

me too

I want to minimize complications, avoid entanglement, find equilibrium, bring to my life a simple balance in creative tranquility. So this guy comes to me with this deal, real estate, invest and manage, double you money in six years. He's a hustler, buying and selling houses, increasing his wealth, paying off a new sports car, making a name and place for himself. And he's a friend, a young guy, in his prime. For him, six years is just an afternoon on a long and busy calendar. He doesn't see that for me, it might be the rest of my life.

when i was
young
i said everyone
dies
and felt brave
for facing the grim reality
of life
head on,
while in the back of my mind
also saying,
but
not me

i know better now
and when i say
everyone dies
i mean not just
you,
but me as well

Well, that's it for this week. Closing on little bit of a down note, but I'm right at my 6,000 word limit, so we'll just live with it.

Until next week, remember, all of the work presented on this blog remains the property of its creators. The blog itself was produced by and is the property of me...allen itz.

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40-Acre Wood Outlet Mall - Opening Soon Friday, March 14, 2008

Can't say it's good to be back from our little Colorado trip. I have two work projects starting up in a week that will keep me out of the leisure class for about two months and a rental property mess to clean up in the time I have left before before reporting for misery....I mean duty.

So it's time for me to quit complaining and get on with the show.

The first poem this week is by Indian poet Sudeep Sen. It is a description of a meeting with South African poet and academic Stephen Gray. It is from Sen's book Postmarked India, New and Selected Poems.

Also a poet and academic, Sen was born in New Delhi in 1964 and studied literature there and in the United States. He has an MS from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He has published several poetry collections and is read worldwide.

97 6th Avenue, Mayfair

Under the strong shaft of the Johannesburg sun,
  you sit in the old chair of your study, stroking
your cat, tiding the unsaid loneliness with the fingers

  that know the beauty of rhythm, enacted variously
under arc-lights and real light. In this historic
  sprawling, book-lined home, you re-script for me

the Hottentot tale, repairing Apollo Cafe
  in this indeterminate season of violence, some of which
appears quietly in the diary columns in London,

  the vicissitudes of the state. Across hemispheres,
both North and East, I carry your thoughts,
  replay The Poet Speaks, hearing the gently cadence

of your voice, your voice that reverberates
  even now, just as strongly as it did from behind
the posters at The Market Theatre, listing your cast.

  The scent of the violet plant you hung on the porch,
still spreads, the sure solidity of an unstated friend:
  I return to England after half a year away,

first in South Africa and then in India, to your card
  and the SABC tape, to be reassured once again that
in time of darkness, the war child, born of man

  can still be resurrected, perhaps with a small prayer,
a simple one invoking familiar things: the preserved
  ticket stubs of Hottentot Venus, the fragrance

of uncared for weeds, the hand-woven Oriyan fabric,
  your inscriptions on the title pages, and
the reiterated rhymes at University of Witwatersrand.

We returned from our mountain vacation to a wonderful day of rain, the first significant rain since mid-October.

rain today

rain today
glorious rain
today

i hear
the creek
rising
running high
and running
fast

glorious
rain today

i hear
the creek rising

running

Charles Entrekin is an Alabama native who earned his Bachlor of Arts degree at Birmingham Southern College. He was a graduate student in philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the University of Alabama and completed an M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing at the University of Montana. He was one of the founders of the Berkeley Poets Cooperative and has taught at various colleges and universities.

Entrekin is also a founder and partner of a computer consulting firm in San Francisco.

This poem is from his book In This Hour.

Meditation At Point Reyes

Sir William Occam,
from whom we get the term,
Occam's razor, showed us how
to be efficient in our reasoning,
showed us the errors in Saint Thomas Aquinas,
on Aristotle and the Church...

Accused of heresy,
he fled on horseback, and
died of the plague in Italy.

We sit on a promontory,
flat surface of sheer black rock;
watch the heavy pound of surf,
the systalic violence in wave and ocean roar.
Higher up, not twenty feet away,
orange-red flowers flutter above the canyon's shore.
Ice plants are magnified in morning light.

In the fourteenth century,
the world shuddered and knew
that Occam was right,
that once again faith and reason
lived in separate camps,
like step sisters who would not
be reconciled.

End of the twentieth century,
computers track the stars, pulsars,
equidistant twin suns in nova,
trapped in a gravity well,
and no one reconciled.

Today, below the cliffs
we stand at the western most point,
watch as seals appear, lazily
navigate the brutal ocean wave
and rock of tidal flux.
To see it so easily done takes the breath;
the sea made suddenly serene.

Now, here's another masterwork of in-the-moment poetry from our New Zealand friend, Thane Zander

A Day in the Life Of...

It's not any old Bus. No. It's a Japanese Import, runs on smelly diesel and choking the environment with it's endless emissions. I have to take this bus, against my better judgment, as it's the only means I have to my disposal to get into the University. I suck in a truckload of fresh air as I board it, and for the rest of the journey I exhale slowly. Bear in mind this trip takes twenty five minutes. Yup, Blue...

the colour of her top
she's too young for my eyes
but nonetheless
I can watch with a keen eye
she sees me looking at her
a silly giggle erupts
the campus suddenly stops
the world stops
she moves on
I too, run away.

The Massey Bus from Palmerston North bus depot is a "clean" bus. It uses biofuel and the atmosphere around the exhaust pipe is relatively clear. No need to suck in deep breaths for this one. I watch the road eat away behind us, the river flow under as we navigate the bridge, the onset of park-like settings and tall buildings poking above them. We enter the slow moving road zone, the start of the University proper. I admire one with a dark top....

she smiles,
in her Japanese way
her eyes avert
as is protocol,
the taste of sushi
wet on her lips,
she tucks her folders
under the other arm,
and moves on to another class,
I settle into a steady trot
looking this way,
observing that,
seeing groups chatting
as if class isn't enough,
the Sudanese Bus driver
passes by going the other way
his attention to the road,
mine to another young cutie,
this university thing
is doing my head in,
I stop at the Registry
all is well, I fit in
despite a biker beard
and Bulldog T shirt.

The road back resembles the road there, but in reverse. I'm no longer espying young ladies, tall trees, and dirty buses (for now). I'm concentrating on the work at hand, the papers passed in for administering. I feel a whole lot better (and not just because it's another clean bus), the sights well passed and forgotten, the knowledge I won't have to face that everyday of the campus year. Extramurally for me all the way.

The lady with the pram,
needing my attention,
the pram heavy, I smile
lift it for her
and take it off the bus,
my good deed for the day,
now sit and wait for my bus,
the dirty bus,
Japanese Import bus,
I chat with an old Maori man
we share whakapapa,
seems we have a lot in common,
the bus arrives, stinking
I palm the bus driver
a couple of bucks
and sit back gasping
as truckloads of evil fumes
make their way
through the back windows,
I detrain at the Golf Course
wave the stinking bus away
his last laugh
to cough in my face,
I walk home
deeds done
happy.

The staff welcome me home, ask if I had a good day, I just smile and say "great thanks" and meander up to my room. You'd think after a seriously testing day the internet would behave itself. Nope, not a chance. I sit here writing this as I can't get access and when I do it's slower than ten snails playing hopscotch. Wish me luck.

I added two books to my bookshelf this week. One is Incredible Good Fortune, a book of poems by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Born in 1929, Le Guin has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, most notably in the fantasy and science fiction genres.

She was first published in the 1960s. She has received several Hugo and Nebula awards, and was awarded the Gandalf Grand Master award in 1979 and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award in 2003. Her novel The Farthest Shore won the National Book Award for Children's Books in 1973.

The Forsaken Shepherdess

I love to sit beside the stream
that runs so fast and fiery,
setting the forest trees aflame
with the joy of its desiring.

I watch the fishes of the stream,
the blinding trout, the blazing carp,
and hear its music go and come,
plucking the incandescent harp.

I'll sit beside the lava stream
as my lambs leap and gambol
like molten clouds at sunset time,
flocking crimson, fleeting nimble.

I'll pipe my tune of joy and shame,
a simple shepherdess alone,
while slower, blacker runs the stream
and all the lowlands turn to stone.

The Lorelei to Heinrich Heine

I don't know why I am so sad.
I watch the river ships go by
and see a harmless sailor lad
and call him and he comes to me
into my arms to die
and we sink down and down
he to drown, not I,

for what I breathe is not the air
when I sit lonely in the sun
and comb my hair and comb my hair
till there comes by another one,
some boy a mother had,
to sink with me and die.
O why am I so sad?

I had some interesting experiences while doing my military service, among them, more fun than interesting, I guess, was studying the Russian language for nearly a year at Indiana University. We were taught by Russian immigrants, though the designation they would consider more appropriate is something "refugees in exile." Reading of Fidel Castro's "retirement" reminded me me of some those who attempted to teach us, those who waited, not just for an individual leader to become weakened and die, but for a whole philosophical system and the society it controlled to collapse. They kept the faith, even those 70 years in exile. It finally came, just like they knew it would, only 20 years too late for them.

I wrote this in mid-february and don't remember if I used it here. One of the things I should do, but don’t, is keep a record of what I use here. But, like I said, I don't, depending on a very slippery memory instead.

in 1966, still waiting to go home

now,
still tall and straight,
though very old,
bald head
all angles and planes
and scars
where a bullet
went in and through,
every rough word
a command

then,
a young officer
in the Czar's army,
defeated,
a refugee in Algiers,
taking his military skills
to the French Foreign Legion,
a refugee again
after
the battle of Algiers,
moving
from country to country,
finally to the United States,
contemptuous,
like the great gulag moralist
who would come later,
of everything American,
the softness, the decadence,
the ignorance of the harsh world outside,
surviving,
waiting for the inevitable collapse
of the Soviet state, the communist
more decadent in their evil
then even the Americans,
waiting
for the day
he could go home,
a survivor, a winner in the end,
he knew, any day, soon,
reduced,
at the end of his long life,
to teaching the great Russian language
to American soldiers, who,
with their softness
and disrespect
and lackadaisical commitment
to order and discipline,
shamed
the soldier traditions
he had lived for since his first days
as a child-cadet, born, trained,
to serve the Russian imperial state

still waiting,
certain,
the day of liberation would come

if not today,
tomorrow

The second addition to my bookshelf this week is Song, a book of poems by Brigit Pegreen Kelly. The book, published by Boa Editions Ltd., was the 1994 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets.

Kelly was born in Palo Alto, California in 1951. At the time the book was published, she taught in the creative writing program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and in the Warren Wilson College M.F.A. program for writers.

Petition

These are the long weeks. The weeks
Of waiting. Let them be
Longer. Let the days smolder
Like the peat slung
In plastic sacks by the greenhouse
And let the seedlings not rush
Into growth but climb the air slowly
As if it were a ladder,
One small foot at a time.
Let the fetid smell of bone meal
Be the body unlocking
As the river does, slowing to a hazy laze
That pulls the boaters in
And makes the fish rise up. And
As the wide-wheeled yellow tractors
Roll along the highway,
Stalling traffic in their wakes,
And the dust from the playing fields
Settles over us like pollen,
Like the balls dropping softly
Into our mitts, let
The willow's love of water -
Its dark and beaded rain -
Be the only storm we long for.

It's been a while since anything by Gary Blankenship has appeared here. To remedy that, here's a piece from his first book, A River Transformed: Wang Wei's River Wang Poems as Inspiration.

This is a wonderful book. Although Gary continues to write excellent poems, the poems from this book will remain special to me, for their elegance and for their beauty.

You can contact Gary through the link on the right. If he has any books left to sell, I recommend them to you highly.

Adrift on the River

(After Wang Wei's North Hill)

There is no color; the mountains white;
the valley thick with fog and cry of geese.
Once scarlet flowed across the green,
and green faded to yellow, gold and brown.

The forest black against winter's sky,
the river dark with the shade of naked trees,
every gray and masked bird as silent
as clouds heavy with the season's cold crop.

Pale as quiet nights, you tremble
as the last petal falls to an early frost.
Worry not, there will be other springs,
there will be other journeys after this.

I have lost our oars and whittle new
from oak leaves drifting past red hills.

I've never done this before, but when I started "Here and Now" I said it would be about things I like. Well, there was a column in our local newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News that I didn't just like, I loved it.

The column was by regular Express-News writer Cary Clack and it was in response to former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro's comment about how the only reason Barack Obama is where he is right now is because he's a black man.

The column is everything a great newspaper column ought to be, timely, sharp as a knife in its response when famous people say foolish things and hilarious in the reading.

Here it is.

Ferraro is so, uh, insightful

Last week, Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run as a major party's vice-presidential candidate and a fundraiser for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, had some perceptive things to say about Clinton's rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Barack Obama.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," Ferraro told a California newspaper. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be what he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

It should also be noted that if Obama were a woman, he would be his sister's children's aunt. It's also true that had Obama been born on Nov. 14, 1896, as Mamie Doud, and married Dwight David Eisenhower, he would have been Mamie Eisenhower.

Ferraro's thesis that Obama is lucky to be black is correct. For black men in the United States life has been a 289-year-long crystal staircase. It's been an experience akin to winning the Mega Millions lottery once a week.

I can understand people being jealous at all of the good fortune that has been showered upon black men. At least two of my great-great-grandfathers were white men and it pains me when I think of all of the suffering and injustices that they endured. But that's when I give thanks for being lucky enough to be a black man without a problem in the world, confident in the knowledge that all good things have come my way because of that fortunate meeting of ethnicity and gender.

Ferraro understands that in the history of the United States, white men have never been in a position to be the frontrunner for their party's nomination for president. The luck of being a black man was also instrumental in the successes of the administrations of President Jesse Jackson, President Alan Keyes and President Al Sharpton.

Now it can be argued that Ferraro was lucky to have been a woman when Walter Mondale chose her to be his running mate. Had she instead been a man, she would have simply been another white male running for vice president. Despite their abysmal failure at getting elected president, white males have had stunning success in being elected vice president.

The Ferraro theory of ethnicity as destiny holds true in all professions throughout the decades. Look at the incomparable Babe Ruth. Had he been lucky enough to be born a black man, all of his home runs would have been hit in the Negro Leagues. In other words, had Ruth been lucky enough to have been born a black man, he would have been Josh Gibson, who hit all of his home runs in the Negro Leagues.

If the great black writer Richard Wright hadn't been lucky enough to be a black male, he would have had to change the title of his classic autobiography, "Black Boy."

After Ferraro's comments were circulated and criticized, she told the same California newspaper, on Tuesday, that she was being "attacked because I'm white. How's that?"

That's yet another injustice, since black men lucky enough to be born black men can say and do anything without being criticized.

So Ferraro is right. Obama's lucky to be black and that and only that is from where his success flows. And now that he's so lucky that he has Secret Service protection, he doesn't have to worry about having to catch a cab.

OK, I admit it. I've been reading the Times science section again. And here's the result.

the end is in sight

i wouldn't want
you
to lose any sleep
over this,
but you should
know

the end
is in sight

it will go
something
like this

the sun
will grow to 10% brighter

life will become
more and more
uncomfortable
until
finally
impossible
as the oceans
boil away
in a massive
hiss
of steam
rising

eventually
stable orbit will be lost
and we will fall
into the
expanding
fire

a cinder
blowing
in the solar winds
of the dying sun

all this
in about
7.59 billion years
give or take
a billion
or so

don't
make any long term
plans

it is
probably
unavoidable

My next piece is by Susan Holahan from her book Sister Betty Reads the Whole You. The book was published by Giggs Smith, Publisher in 1998.

With a PhD. n English and a law degree from Yale, Holahan has taught writing at Yale and the University of Rochester, practiced law in Connecticut, worked as an editor at Newsday and the Yale University Press. She has published poetry in many periodicals, as well as essays, book reviews, columns, restaurant reviews and feature stories of all kinds. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Every parent has a story like this.

Every Minute You Worry

Every public door you pull this week
    bares the face of a four-year-old,
blond hair to her waist. Why leave a four-

    year-old all that to tangle like
Isadora's scarf? Kid wears the full-
    toothed blurry smile of a hostess

who doesn't trust her party. Tooling
    around on a pink and white big-
wheel, she must've been picked up after

    after supper, near garden apartments
where her mother lives. Wherever her
    father lives he's not a suspect.

Her mother didn't see this kid from
    when? The broken home, it's riven
roof to basement. At four my kid wasn't

    out alone: I wasn't single
when he was four. At seven, though, he
    walked to school three blocks alone. When

he was nine, I drove three hours a day
    to work. One afternoon I came
back early and he wasn't there. No

    note on the kitchen table. Then
my home was broken. With him gone all
    bets were off. Kill yourself now, I

thought, it that's thinking, Why wait around
    for cops to bring his body? An-
other hour and my friend had him

    back, bubbling. She cried. I snarled, Go
away. For good. How forgive her for
    failing to understand what I

was guilty of; how heavy, how you
    hardly breathe, having your own your
only child living on you alone.

It's always a pleasure to have Christopher George back with us.

Chris was born in Liverpool, England in 1948 and first emigrated to the United States with his parents in 1955. He went back to Liverpool for a while, living with his grandparents while attending Rose Lane and Quarry Bank Schools. Chris returned to the U.S.A. in 1968 and has lived there ever since. He now lives in Baltimore, Maryland, near Johns Hopkins University with his wife Donna and two cats.

Chris's poetry has appeared in many on-line and print literary journals. He is the Editor of Desert Moon Review and an editor at Writer's Block Poetry Workshop. He is coeditor, with Jim Doss, of the electronic and print magazine Loch Raven Review. Chris also has a blog you can access by clicking on the link on the right.

He is also the lyricist for Jack - The Musicall, written with French composer Erik Sitbon (http://www.jack-themusical.com/).

Here three of Chris' newest pieces.

To the Blue Jay Furiously Digging
in the Smithsonian Rose Garden

You pay me no mind as I detour
to avoid workers blowing mulch into

a flowerbed on Independence Avenue:
you insistently jab your beak-arrow

into the ground, as I observe - bold
harlequin! Then you extract a pearl,

a wriggling grub you take airborne
to consume in an elm on the Mall.

The Wrong Zipper

I apologize, my love, I unzipped
the wrong zipper and everything

tumbled out, one sensation led
to another, and now we find
ourselves where we are -
none the wiser but fulfilled,
in a terrible fix, one more glitch.

Seen from a Train

A doe and two fawns
bound over the grass
white tails raised high

My next poem is by Tracie Morris. It's from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.

Morris is a multidisciplinary poet who has worked in theater, dance, music and film. She has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia. Primarily known as a "musical poet," Tracie has worked with an extensive range of internationally recognized musicians and other artists. She has participated in a dozen recording projects. Her sound poetry has most recently been featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

She is the recipient of numerous awards for poetry and is the author of two poetry collections, Intermission and Chap-T-her Woman.

She has delivered academic papers at the New York University's "Soul: Black Power, Politics and Pleasure Conference", The Hemispheric Conference in Lima, Peru, "The Langston Hughes Centenary Conference" at Yale University, "Poetry and the Public Sphere" at Rutgers University and the African-American Poetry Conference for the Poetry Society of America.

As a writer, Morris' poetry has been anthologized in many literary magazines, newspapers and books.

Tracie holds degrees from Hunter College and New York University. She also holds certificates from the Cave Canem Summer Institute and the Hemispheric Institute of NYU. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Project Princess

Teeny feet rock layered double socks
Popping side piping of
many colored loose lace-ups
Racing toe, keeps up with the fancy free gear,
slick slide, just pressed, recently weaved hair.

Jean oversized bely her hip, black, thighs have made guys sigh
for milleni-year.

Topped by an attractive jacket
her suit's not for flacking, flunkies, junkies or punk homies on the stroll.

Hands the mobile thrones of today's urban goddess
Clinking rings link dragon fingers no need to be modest.

One or two gap teeth coolin'
sport gold initials
Doubt you get to her name
Check from the side,
please chill.

Multidimensional shrimp earrings
frame her cinnamon face

Crimson with a compliment if a
comment hits the right place

Don't step to the plate with datelines from '88
Spare your simple, fragile feelings with same sense that you came

Color woman variation reworks the french twist
Crinkle-cut platinum frosted bangs from a spray can's mist

Never dissed, she insists: "No you can't touch this."
And, if pissed, bedecked fist stops boys who must persist.

She's the one. Give her some. Under fire. Smoking gun. Of which songs
are sung, raps are spun, bells are rung, rocked, pistols cocked,
unwanted advances blocked, well-stacked she's jock. It's all about you
girl. You go on. Don't you dare stop.

This is a rant I wrote last week after spending roughly five hours trying to get my last issue to post.

Not great poetry, but it did make me feel better after it was done.

help!!!

can
someone
tell me exactly
i mean exactly
how much frustration
we are required to endure
before we are empowered
to pull out our handy
38 police special
and shoot
the goddamn machine
square
between
it's cursor blinks
i mean
damnit
i'm a writer
my mind is seduced
by a higher calling
i'm not supposed
to know
about this stuff
help desk!!!
i mean
give me a break
i get as much help
from these people
as a pork chop
at an alkaida convention
"fuck you
and the horse you rode in on"
that's what they ought to call it
if truth in advertising
were of any importance to them
just never name them
"help"
although
"never help'
might work
too

At mid-20th century, Frank Yerby was one of the most popular writers of historical fiction in the United States, huge market at the time. Despite that, I'll bet 75 percent of his readers didn't know he was African-American. I started reading his swashbucklers when I was about 13 and I didn't.

Neither did I know that he was a very fine poet.

This poem is from the anthology American Negro Poetry, first compiled and published by Arna Botemps in 1963 and revised and updated periodically since. The edition I'm pulling from was published in 1974.

You are a Part of Me

You are a part of me. I don not know
By what slow chemistry you first became
A vital fiber of my being. Go
Beyond the rim of time or space, the same
Inflections of your voice will sing their way
Into the depths of my mind still. Your hair
Will gleam as bright, the artless play
Of word and glance, gesture and the fair
Young fingers waving, have too deeply etched
The pattern of your soul on mine. Forget
Me quickly as a laughing picture sketched
On water, I shall never know regret
Knowing no magic ever can set free
That part of you that is a part of me.

The next poem is by Steve Williams, from his book Skin Stretched Around the Hollow.

Steve currently lives in Portland, Oregon. He is co-administrator of the on-line poetry workshop Wild Poetry Forum.

Fate

Evergreens are taken by hewn men
who float the river on thumping rafts;
rough boots tread the spinning bark,
the logs run the men.

Tri-masts define deep ships,
anchor taut sails. As each prow
surges trough swell and spray,
the sea sails the ship.
She circumnavigates each day,
body seismographs the hours,
ink of sweat stains the mast,
She causes passage of the day.

Her breath is cool on molten glass
rotating on iron rod,
agate brass woven from behind
cool eyes, memory of glass

bottle is wide mouthed, soft bellied;
opal glow acquiesces to kelp-tinged clear;
a sunset rainbow that surrenders
to the broken dusk belly

of her hull that is pushed, precedes prow
through mouth of bottle. Common string
pulls masts upright, above her bronze body,
twisted hair, the varnished woman of the prow.

Here's a short piece by Robert Bly from Good Poems for Hard Times, put together by Garrison Keillor from his regular feature on National Public Radio, The Writer's Almanac.

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter

It is cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.
The only things moving are swirls of snow.
As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.
There is a privacy I love in a snowy night.
Driving around, I will waste more time.

And now another short piece from Good Poems for Hard Times, this one by Carl Sandburg.

Still Life

Cool your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up to ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops,
        swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the
        post office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black
        wall map, never blink an eye.
A signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his
        place at a window with the serenity of a bronze statue on
        a dark night when lovers pass whispering.

And here's a last one from Good Books for Hard Times, author unknown. I couldn't pass it up.

Carnation Milk

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;
Here I sit with a can in my hand -
No tits to pull, no hay to pitch,
You just punch a hole in the son of a bitch.

It's terrible, I take a week off and can't remember which poems I've used and which I haven't.
Either way, here's this one.

Litter conditions really do seem much worse than usual this year. But I feel better about it than I did before I went to Colorado and saw what all was being uncovered as the snow melted.

out of sight

trash lines the roadway
and along the sides
of the creek,
soda cans
milk cartons
plastic grocery bags
white bags
with mcdonald's
golden arch
or red and white
whataburger
stripes,
just trash
like white flags
everywhere you drive
or walk in this neighborhood

i've never seen it this bad before

maybe it's lack of rain
to take our garbage
out to sea,
down the creeks
to the river
that washes all
that comes to it
out to some deep
ocean abyss

out of sight

out
of mind

So far, I've kept this week's wanderings within bounds lengthwise, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead.

Come back next week for more "Here and Now" poetry and inane introductions. In the meantime, remember, all of the work presented here remains the property of its creators. The blog itself was produced by and is the property of me...allen itz.

1 Comments:

at 11:32 PM Alice Folkart said...

Allen, wonderful issue - I LOVE the Carnation Milk poem, which was not used by the Carnation company for advertising for obvious reasons. Too bad. The photos - a lot to be said for black and white - that road in the rain, undulations of the world and the telephone poles - that's a poem in itself.

Won't comment on yours or Mr. Zanders' poems, as I have already done so elsewhere, but they are wonderful - especially like your arm poem.

Bly, Chris George, the Sandburg, Tracie morris - wish I could write like that/see like that, LeGuin - ever read her book on writing - Steering the Craft? Very nice. And, Susan Holahan - been there, done that, felt that. Very tough. And finally - the Ferraro piece. I have friends in New York with fairly intimate knowledge of the Ferraro dynasty and just be glad that she failed. What an.... Oh well, I'm a lady, so won't comment. But, as you promised, very funny in a warped way. Great commentator.

That's it. Well done. Enjoyed.
Alice Folkart