at 5:25 PM  Billy Angel said...

really like the james galvin poem

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III.12.2.



Winter has indeed settled in in a good part of the world. Here, winter hardly ever "settles in." Instead, we get glancing blows as it passes, like last night when a roaring norther pushed through, bringing the temperatures down to mid-thirties by dawn. Around here that's low enough to have everyone bundled up in parkas this morning like they were heading out for a hike through Anchorage, Alaska.

By the end of the week, it will be back in the high fifties at night and near eighty at midday.

That is our winter experience here in south central Texas.

Our "Here and Now" experience this week includes the following:

From our friends

Alex Stolis
Margaret Barrett Mayberry
Mick Moss
Laurel Lamperd

From my library

William D. Barney
William Heyen
Mary Jo Salter
Natasha Trethewey
Gavin Moses
Nancy Mercado
Luci Tapahonso
Lawson Fusao Inada
Bill Roberts
Wallace McRae

And me.








My first two poems this week are by William D. Barney from his book A Cowtown Chronicle, published by Browder Springs Books of Dallas in 1999.

Born in 1916, Barney was a lifelong resident of Fort Worth, Texas. He was a retired postal worker and poet, eventually publishing eight collections of poetry as well as a memoir. His work also appeared in numerous anthologies. He was a former Texas Poet Laureate and was presented with the Robert Frost Memorial Award by Frost himself.

He continued as a poet, bird watcher and naturalist until his death in 2001.



Mr. Harold Taft

Mr. Harold Taft, a gentleman of graphics and gauges,
does not live by the map on which he has carefully
    plotted
the current weather offensive. Nor even by that
    clockwise-circling
Cyclopean eye in its frenzy rolling,
which seeks out oncoming barrages. Not even by
his bones, attuned as they are to the encroaching
of seasons and odd circumstance. Modest
and cheerful as he is, having been schooled in
    humility
on a grandiose scale (his subject violently objects
to analysis, only reluctantly yields
piecemeal particulars), he lives
by accumulating data, much as they say
a raindrop is saved up, accomplished, a bit
of moisture here, a piece of vapor there
until a respectable concentration has been
    gathered.
He has a touch of the uncanny in him:
reading the rhythms of the air, taking
    temperatures
much like a wife who tests her fertility,
he dares to say whether the welkin
will bring forth. His is a fatherly concern,
peering out anxiously into the void
to say whether ominous red patches have that
    hook
by which folks are caught in tumultuous turns.

Mr. Harold Taft has, of course,
a love affair with the elements,
wishes it to be understood, notwithstanding,
that no matter how accurately he foretells
or for that matter how badly he misses,
he is not responsible for whatever happens.
No, strictly speaking, his is a calculation
of ambiguous factors at work on partially-known
    quanta,
not immutable law though very good likelihood.
No one, so far as is known,has ever ascribed
    calamity
to an Act of Harold Taft. This enables him
to remain cheerful, happy among charts and dials
and the partly predictable perchance of weather.

Nor let it be said the fact is forgotten:
Mr. Taft also plays, for our delectation,
a wind instrument.


A Rose in Winter

We can always tell when it comes;
there where the two forks of the river join
below the bluff, a great white billow
rises.

Floating storms of condensing steam,
escape from the power plant.
Winter puts on one of its softer
guises.

Petals of vapor puffed up at the edge
of our town, a smoke that says
somewhere a raging fire must be
consuming.

But all I can think of in the swirl
in an old haunting, slow chorale
in a Christmas key: Lo, How a Rose
E'er blooming





Photo by Dora Ramirez Itz



Here's more in the story of my continuing search for a place to spend the mornings, plying my writerly trade, since the old place that served me so well shut down.

I was at the new place this morning, writing, and think I overheard a discussion that suggests the possibility of the old place reopening, less funky, probably, but still downtown by the river with free parking.

But that's may be a story for the future telling - in the meantime, this is what I have today.



is this the place?

if the old place
was kinda funky,
a little leftover sixtyish,
a place for guys
like me
who lived through it
but didn't learn
much
in the process,
this place
is more 2015
as seen from 1955,
all chrome and black
plastic leather
and glass tables
and a full wall of windows,
reminds
me of that cool, futuristic car
Studebaker
made right before
it went out of business,
full of nerds and geeks
and yuppies with their noses
buried
in their laptops, except
for that talkative guy
with dirty socks
lying
on the sofa
watching CNBC

don't get too close
or he'll tell you what he thinks
about anything
.
.
.
everything

it will take me a while
to get comfortable here
but i think i'll give it
a try








I have three poems now by William Heyen from his book Lord Dragonfly, Five Sequences, published by The Vanguard Press in 1981.

Each of the five sequences in the title is a collection of short poems. These three poems are from the fourth sequence, titled, for reasons known to the poet but not to me, XVII Machines.

Born in 1940 in Brooklyn, New York, Heyen received a BA from the State University of New York at Brockport; he earned a doctorate in English from Ohio University in 1967.

He taught American literature and creative writing at his undergraduate alma mater for over 30 years before retiring in 2000. In addition to Lord Dragonfly, his other books of poetry include Depth of Field, Noise in the Trees, The Swastika Poems, Long Island Light, Erika: Poems of the Holocaust, Pterodactyl Rose, Crazy Horse In Stillness, Pig Notes & Dumb Music: Prose on Poetry, and Diana, Charles, & the Queen. He also authored a novel, Vic Holyfield and the Class of '57.

Now, from XVII Machines.



Machines To Kiss You Goodnight

Under the world's mountains
fossils tell the old story:
Coal flowers shine
in their own black light.

Machines, rooted in bedrock,
question and answer themselves, recall
their dreams of numbers,
the sweet possibilities of fire.

Rockets hiss as though praying
for release, for the long arc under the sun,
then to tongue the earth again,
to kiss you, to flame.


The Machine That Kills Cats

In an advanced technological society
the licensing of machinery
is the sole province of the state,
forever inviolate,

except for the patriotic few eccentric
sometimes angry inventive mechanics
and scientists whose daily food
is also the bread of common good,

and therefore I have sailed the seas
in full knowledge to please
those like myself who favor rats
and birds, and hate cats.

As a first gift to men
I built my machine
to hound them in their dark alleys,
or among vines and lilies,

where it clamps its iron jaws
on their backs, claws
their green eyes out with steel wires,
and sets them afire

until they burn to black dust.
My machine is the first
of many such whose one thought
is to track and kill the cat.


The Machine That Collects Butterflies

Today is a lepidopterist's delight:
monarchs, swallowtails, rare finchwings
flutter and gambol in the meadow like lambs;
zephyrs bend the long gasses to waves.

Moving on a soft rush of air,
following your eye that follows
the single elusive butterfly
you've been searching for for so long,

the machine whispers a fine spray
that rainbows in the gold light,
brings your prize down to your feet
like a leaf: dead, beautiful,

and perfect, even the dust on its wings
shining for years in your glass box.








This is the second "album" of five albums of poems being created by Alex Stolis, based on the music of the alt-rock group, "The Replacements." Each poetry album will be based on the songs in a Replacement album.

This is a ambitious challenge Alex has set for himself and I am very grateful to him for letting us go with him as he creates each piece.

Here's the album Hootenanny.


Alex sent me an image of the original "Replacements" album cover, but I can't get it to post here.

Sorry, Alex.





Hootenanny (1983 Twin/Tone Records)


Producers: Paul Stark, The Replacements, Peter Jesperson.
Recorded at the Stark/Mudge Mobile Unit warehouse, Brookyn Center, Minnesota 1983


Paul Westerberg - Rhythm guitar, Vocals, Drums
Bob Stinson - Lead guitar, Bass
Tommy Stinson - Bass, Guitar
Chris Mars - Drums, Guitar


Liner notes:

we were found out
too late -
there was too much too fast
and so little
so soon.

back then, the entry was never full
so there was always a way to get in
and just when we figured which way to run

the curves became dull
the hangovers became sharper.
the trick was to look over the edge

drop everything at once, then disassemble
our frustration into pieces small enough
to dissolve in thin air


Tracks

Hootenanny

Color me impressed

Within your reach

Lovelines

You lose

Treatment Bound


Hootenanny

hey where's Bob?

Let's forget how many nights we left ourselves
stranded, drive to Duluth or Madison and watch our words
burn like straw men

whaddya mean there's no more?

remember that only primary colors
can be blinded by the sun

what the fuck, keep it rollin'

and the days when we could rest
easy have been tossed over our shoulders -
side streets and alleys are littered with our past,

ok...

there's no warmth and we're still
getting lost in the shuffle of mumbled promises
between former friends.

...Hootenany in E


Color me impressed

Alice Blue

waking up in Rapid City, hung over and bled white
she wanted to turn back the clock and make me
say I love you

Kelly Green

a punk rock Veronica Lake with black
fishnets and a loaded gun - we were long
dead before the first drink was poured

Jade

lipstick traces and burnt coffee,
everything else went out the window
when she lost her nerve

Ruby

L.A.'s in a blackout, San Francisco
can't remember my name and she fucked
up our alibi before the lights went up

Sandy Brown

Seventh Street entry and a blue eyed girl wasted
beyond her years - the last great pick up
line fell flat broke on the pavement


Within your reach

I'll steal the words from your mouth
make them my own
and when the last moment is wrung out

of the last drink, we can run headlong
in the same direction, follow the smoke sifting
its way under the door
then bookmark our thoughts,
pray for shadows and forget how to walk
in a straight line

because it's easier to believe the world is flat,
when you're broke and desperation becomes
the softest shoulder to lean on


Lovelines

I'm a Sagittarius and enjoy the simple things in life like flowers, bonfires, Chinese art. I'm 5'3", 110lbs, long straight blonde hair. I like to read and listen to music. If you are at all interested send me a message and I'll get back. Box 86345

Tonight, the sky is dressed in black
with gold trim; its silk feet bound
by crisscross moons

it's 2AM and the crush of water running
in the bathtub next door
sounds like a Chinese fortune

I sit here,
think of cutting my teeth on the scar
that resembles a bird's feather
on your thigh,
parallel
to the curve of your hip.

Instead, I cut my teeth
on the round skin of an apple,
picture Madam Butterfly

covered to her neck,
petals and stems floating
around her breasts


You Lose

back when misery was glamorous
the streets were tethers that kept us warm and broken,
we were caged with clipped wings
and unshorn hair

tomorrow, loss will be bundled like straw
and left to dry
in a crisp November sun

but for now,
there is no enchantment
in remembering:
there is no warm skin, no angels, no flights
of fancy only the remains of our bones
bleached by the cold

blame it on rain that can shred a conversation
until I love you
turns to later baby
to not a chance motherfucker


Treatment Bound

the bartender says it's time to go,
winks at me through last call and pretends
to pour a long count

we're all frightened of winter
and its bitter cough, wary of the cold sun

she's got nothing, not even god on her side
but twenty dollars later she drinks
me under the table

it arcs a path through this brittle day
and we get lost in layers of sin

I want to take her home, whisper her name
in my sleep but the only sound left is the clink,
clink of quarters and dimes against glass

waiting for forgiveness to blot out the moon
and erase the dirt from our memories

she tells me there is nowhere
to go but here
and we're running, fast as we can








Mary Jo Salter was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1954 and was raised in Detroit and Baltimore, Maryland. She received her B.A. from Harvard University in 1976 and her M.A. from Cambridge University in 1978. In addition to her own poetry, she has been an editor at the Atlantic Monthly and at The New Republic, as well as coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Poetry. She has taught at Mount Holyoke College since 1984 and has been vice president of the Poetry Society of America since 1995, as well as professor in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University.

Salter has six collections of her poetry, including Henry Purcell In Japan, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1985, from which I have taken the following poem.



Welcome To Hiroshima

is what you first see, stepping off the train:
a billboard brought to you in living english
by Toshiba electric. While a channel
silent in the TV of the brain

projects those flickering re-runs of a cloud
that brims its risen columnful like beer
and, spilling over, hangs its foamy head,
you feel a thirst for history: what year

it started to be safe to breathe the air,
and when to drink the blood and scum afloat
on the Ohta river. But no, the water's clear,
they pour it for your morning cup of tea

in one of the countless sunny coffee shops
whose plastic dioramas advertise
mutations of cuisine behind the glass:
a pancake sandwich; a pizza someone tops

with a maraschino cherry. Passing by
the Peace Park's floral hypocenter (where
how bravely, or with what mistaken cheer,
humanity erased its own erasure),

you enter the memorial museum
and through more glass are served, as on a dish
a blistered grass, three mannequins. Like gloves
a mother clips to coatsleeves, strings of flesh
hang from their fingertips; or as if tied
to recall a duty for us, Reverence
the dead whose mourners too shall soon be dead,
but all commemoration's swallowed up

in questions of bad taste, how re-created
horror mocks the grim original,
and thinking at last They should have left it all
you stop. This is the wristwatch of a child.

Jammed on the moment's impact, resolute
to communicate some message, although mute,
it gestures with its hands at eight-fifteen
and eight-fifteen and eight-fifteen again

while tables of statistics on the wall
update the news by calling on a roll
of tape, death gummed to death, and in the case
adjacent, an exhibit under glass

is glass itself: a shard the bomb slammed in
a woman's arm at eight-fifteen, but some
three decades on - as of to make it plain
hope's only as renewable as pain,

and as if all the unsung
debasements of the past may one day come
rising to the surface once again -
worked its filthy way out like a tongue.








Some of us just never grow up. Some of us just don't want to.



the cheerleader

my doctor
is a young woman, and,
though she's gained some weight
since she got married,
she still carries
the looks and sunny disposition
of the cheerleader
she must have been,
the kind of woman/girl
who produced in me
great adolescent lustings,
entirely futile
as it always turned out,
when I was fourteen or fifteen

now,
nearing my 65th birthday
i see her every three months,
exposing
details of me
and my evermore sagging body
that would have sent my pitifully self-conscious
younger self
to hiding in his room
behind lock doors
until it was time to leave town
for college,
which he would have done
sneaking out on a Greyhound bus
at a quarter past midnight

i try very hard
to appear healthy
when i see her - wouldn't want her
form a low opinion of my
prospects








Next, I have a poem by Natasha Trethewey from her book Native Guard published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 2007.

Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1966. She earned an M.A. in poetry from Hollins University and M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Massachusetts.

Her first collection of poetry, Domestic Work, was selected by as winner of the inaugural Cave Canem Poetry Prize for the best first book by an African American poet and won both the 2001 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Book Prize and the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Poetry.

Since then, she has published two more collections of poetry, including Native Guard, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bellocq's Ophelia.

She is Professor of English at Emory University where she holds the Phillis Wheatley Distinguished Chair in Poetry.



Pilgrimage

   Vicksburg, Mississippi

Here, the Mississippi carved
      its mud-dark path, a graveyard

for skeletons of sunken riverboats.
      Here, the river changed its course,

turning away from the city
      as one turns,forgetting, from the past -

the abandoned bluffs,land sloping up
      above the river's bend - where now

the Yazoo fills the Mississippi's empty bed.
      Here, the dead stand up stone,white

marble, on Confederate Avenue. I stand
      on ground once hollowed by a web of caves;

they must have seemed like catacombs,
      in 1863, to the woman sitting in her parlor,

candlelit, underground. I can see her
      listening to shells explode, writing herself

into history, asking what is to become
      of all the living things in this place?

this whole city is a grave. Every spring -
      Pilgrimage - the living come to mingle

with the dead, brush against their cold shoulders
      in the long hallways, listen all night

to their silence and indifference, relive
      their dying on the green battlefield.

At the museum, we marvel at their clothes -
      preserved under glass - so much smaller

than our own, as if those who wore them
      were only children. We sleep in their beds,

the old mansions hunkered on the bluffs, draped
      in flowers - funereal - a blur

of petals against the river's gray.
      The brochure in my room calls this

living history. The brass plate on the door reads
      Prissy's Room. A window frames

the river's crawl toward the Gulf. In my dream,
      the ghost of history lies down beside me,

rolls over, pins me beneath a heavy arm.








Though this is not the season for summer rain, we did have our first rain here in months, making this poem by friend and fellow San Antonio poet Margaret Barrett Mayberry a timely addition to this week's "Here and Now."



Summer Rain

Splotches of rain thud softly,
Swaddling, soothing and warm,
A comforting overcast blanket,
Laid gently by a mother sky.

Pungent perfume of summer flowers,
Mingling with sensuous smells from the soil,
Sun bleached, baked and thirsty,
Guzzling and surrendering an herbal aroma.

I inhale the goodness of the earth,
The ragged weeds, seeds and crushed grass.
The electric green of a summer storm,
Shocks my senses with its neon nearness.

The soft wetness spreads like silk on my skin,
Splashes in spirals down waiting drainpipes.
Opalescent droplets hang heavy from gutters,
The only sound the muffled thud of rain.








Here are a couple of poets from Aloud, Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, published by Henry Holt & Company in 1994.

The first poem is by Gavin Moses.

Moses, once a reporter for People magazine, now, or, at least, in 1994, a student at the Harvard Divinity School.



Poison

first heard of the infection
in jr. high school back in
ardmore, pennsylvania joey b said he
read somewhere in central africa there
wuz a sickness men got that could not be cured
years later, in my papers read the infection
wuz from green african jungle monkeys
wuz told our govt wuz testing
new germ warfare on people of color
as monkeys
then, heard only white men got the infection
that it came from haiti from white men who slept with ducks
sheep and island boys
then some Black people in my building started coughing
incessantly, started going to prayer services with me
on wednesday nights, would come over and tell me their -
his - stories, once outta fear, i boiled a cup after one with
the infection drank from it, then threw it away, wuz afraid
the infection would bleed through its pores like poison.



The next poem is by Nancy Mercado.

Born in 1959, Mercado is a director of and writes for the Roberto Clemente Center. Her poem, Milla, was mentioned honorably for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award. She is editor of Longshot magazine.



Milla

Mi abuela, Puerto Rico

Milla lived eons ago
When sandals pounded dirt roads
blazing hot under palm tree lined skies
Milla's long dark hair flowed side to side,
Glistened in the noon light.
Mahogany skinned,she shopped;
Platanos,yucas, a bark of soap.
Milla worked,
Striking clothes against wooden boards,
gathering wood for evening meals,
Feeding chickens,hogs,dogs,
And roasters at dawn.
Milla traveled only once
To Chicago.
A color-faded photograph serves as document.
Smiles and thousands of hugs
For the grandchildren on a park bench.
Milla's a century old
And still remembers every one of us
Even those left over in the U.S.
She still carries a stick
Certain of her authority
over four generations.
Milla outlived two world wars,
Saw the first television,
The first electric light bulb in her town,
Hitler, segregation,
The Vietnam War,
And Gorbachev.
Milla can speak of
The turn of the century land reforms,
Or the blinded enthusiasm
For a man called Marin
And the mass migration of the 1950's.
Milla can speak of her beloved husband,
sugar cane cutter for life.
She can speak of the love of a people,
Of the pain of separation.
Milla can speak of the Caribbean Ocean,
The history of the sun and sand
and the mysteries of the stars.
Milla maintains an eternal candle lit
Just for me.
Milla will live for all time.








There's a geezer table in every city and town, probably everywhere in the world. In cities the size of San Antonio, there are probably thousands of them.

This is my geezer table. Although I joke around with the table's regular crew, I don't sit at it. Not ready to make that step yet.



too late

the geezer table
is one short today

Robert,
of the long white
sideburns
who can quote
from memory everything
Rush has said
for the past 15 years,

is absent

which is a worry,
given the average age
at the table
is at least 10 years older
than me,
all subject
to the miseries
and unexpected calamities
of old age

it is not good
when one
does not appear
where and when
one always appears

is he lost and confused
wandering
in his car
down I-10,
heading for El Paso
when all he wanted to do
was make his regular short trip
to the coffee shop

or is he stroke-afflicted,
lying
on the cold tile
in his bathroom,
unable to get up, unable
to call

or is he dead

telephone calls
are made,
tracking begins

should they do more?

would he be embarrassed
if they went to his house
and he came to his front door
in his pinstripe Hugh Hefner pajamas, awakened from
a long-overdue late-sleep?

but what if the worst has occurred,
should they risk their own
and his embarrassment?

men,
decisive
in their youth,
cannot decide what to do

but
then,
Robert comes in and takes his seat

howdy, fellas,
what's up, he says
as he sits

you're late, they say,
we were going to buy your coffee today

but
you're too late








The next poem is by Luci Tapahonso from her book Saanii Dahataal, The Women Are Singing.

Tapahonso was born in Shiprock, New Mexico where she grew up on a farm within the Navajo culture. She received her B.A. and M.A in 1980 and 1983 respectively from the University of New Mexico. She has taught as assistant professor of English at University of New Mexico and the University of Kansas, Lawrence.



The Pacific Dawn

It is spring in Hilo, Hawaii,
and the Pacific dawn is brilliant with color.
Early on, it is bright pink, streaks of gold line the clouds.

     It awakens me
     drawing me to the window
     to pull back drapes,
     fill the entire room with the dawn.

I lie back down to sleep again.
Birds outside the window talk noisily.

I am tired my eyes ache

     and I want to sleep and sleep;
     nurture my body and let my bones soak
     in quiet breathing and soothing thoughts.

But it is this: the dawn and the pounding ocean below:

     clouds rearranging themselves over and over.
     I breathe this air, gentle with alive flowers,
     and cannot sleep.

Not far from here, Pele stirs, she sighs, and it is a thick stream
of hot steam atop the dry volcano. She sees him - the dark handsome one
with a moustache. His hat is new and fine. Pele sits up and takes
a deep breath - she likes the nice things. His hat blows off and whirls
downward to the center of her home. He reaches after it,
but it is lifted away. "Oh Pele," he says, smiling, "it is for you
I wore the hat."

Just yesterday, I felt her strength,
brimming beneath the molten island.
I leaned over the rim of the black volcano
and sprinkled corn pollen, whispered a prayer:

          I recall first Man and First Woman.
          I recall the first perfect ear of white corn.
          I recall the first perfect ear of yellow corn.
          i recall the dust of my desert home.

I left the Zuni bracelet; perfectly shaped turquoise stones
set in smooth white silver and earrings, long thick jaatll oot.
She loves the most beautiful of everything.

I understand that I was destined to see this dawn

     to say this prayer
     and I am helpless in this beauty:

     the huge flowers I couldn't have imagined,
     the lilting songs of the throaty chanters,
     the nurturing stories of long ago,
     and those who spread luau before us
     as if we have just come home.

It is here that my dreams take on an unnamable restlessness,
and the heavy currents of the Pacific force themselves into my memory.








Some of these poems, they can make you think, you know. Though not always in the direction the poet probably meant you to take.

Here's a case in question.



on reading the poem Cow by Federico Garcia Lorca

i am reminded
of how often i worry about the meat i eat,
not because i'm a vegetarian
or because i think it is necessarily
immoral to eat other creatures
but because of the way these other creatures
come to become an entree on my plate

if you've ever been to a slaughter house,
you know what
i mean

no respect
for the life being taken
and
in the end
no respect
for the life being eaten

so
if i continue to eat meat
which
i almost certainly will continue to do
i will endeavor to remind myself
of the creature whose living essence
sustains me

no more hamburgers for me

from now on
when i go to McDonald's
it will be ground cow on a bun to go

no more BLT

instead
lettuce and tomato
on toast
with mayo
and crispy slices of
pig

chickens
never got enough respect
for us to disrespect them
so we eat up our chicken breast
without thinking much about it

i haven't decided yet
how to deal with that

possibly

breast of feathered fowl
or maybe
leg
of feathered fowl
dusted
with secret spices
and fried
crispy

will have to think
a bit more
about chickens
i think








Next, I have two poems by Lawson Fusao Inada from his book Legends from Camp published in 1993 by Coffee House Press of Minneapolis.

Inada born 1938 in Fresno, California, is currently the poet laureate of Oregon. A third-generation Japanese American, at the age of 4, he and his family were interned for the duration of World War II at camps in Fresno, Arkansas, and Colorado.

Following the war, Inada became a jazz bassist, following the work of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Billie Holiday, whom he would later write tributes to in his works. He studied writing at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Oregon, and the University of Iowa and has been teaching poetry at Southern Oregon University in 1966.

The two poems I have for you reflect his two major poetic influences, jazz and his time in the internment camps.

The first piece below is taken from his title poem.



fromLegends from Camp


Prologue

It began as truth, as fact.
That is, at least the numbers, the statistics,
are there for verification.

10 camps, 7 states,
120,113 residents.

Still, figures can lie: people are born, die.
And as for the names of the places themselves,
these, too, were subject to change:

Denson or Jerome, Arkansas;
Gila or Canal, Arizona;
Tule Lake or Newell, California;
Amache or Granada, Colorado.

As was the War Relocation Authority
with its mention of "camps" or "centers" for:

Assembly,
Concentration,
Detention,
Evacuation,
Internment,
Relocation -
among others.

"Among others" - that's important also. Therefore, let's not forget
contractors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and architects, sewage
engineers, and all the untold thousands who provided the materials,
decisions, energy, and transportation to make the camps a success,
including, of course, the administrators, clerks, and families who not
only swelled the population but were there to make and keep things
shipshape according to D.C. directives and people deploying coffee in
the various offices of the WRA, overlooking, overseeing rivers, city-
scapes, bays, whereas in actual camp the troops - excluding, of course,
our aunts and uncles and sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers
serving stateside, in the South Pacific, the European theater - pretty
much had things in order; finally, there were the grandparents, who
since the turn of the century, simply assumed they were living in
America "among others."

The situation, obviously, was rather confusing.
It obviously confused simple people
who had simply assumed they were friends, neighbors,
colleagues, partners, patients, customers, students,
teachers, of, not so much "aliens" or "non-aliens,"
but likewise simple, unassuming people
who paid taxes as fellow citizens and populated
pews and desks and fields and places
of ordinary American society and commerce.

And then, "just like that," it happened.
And then, "just like that," it was over.
Sun, moon, stars - they came and went.

And then, and then, things happened,
and as they ended they kept happening,
and as they happened they ended
and began again, happening, happening,

until the event, the experience, the history,
slowly began to lose its memory,
gradually drifting into a kind of fiction -

a "true story based on fact,"
but nevertheless with "all the elements of fiction" -
and then, and then, sun, moon, stars,
we come, we come, to where we are:
Legend.


I. The Legend of Pearl Harbor

"Aloha or Bust!"

We got here first!


II. The Legend of the Humane Society

This is as
simple
as it gets:

In a pinch,
dispose
of your pets.


III. The Legend of Protest

The F.B.I. swooped in early,
taking our elders in the process -

for "subversive" that and this.

People ask: "Why didn't you protest?"
Well, you might say: "They had hostages."


IV. The Legend of Lost Boy

Lost Boy was not his name.

He had another name, a given name -
at another, given time and place -
but those were taken away.

The road was taken away.
The dog was taken away.
The food was taken away.
The house was taken away.

The boy was taken away -
but he was not lost.
Oh, no - he knew exactly where he was -

and if someone had asked
or needed directions,
he could have told them:

"This is the fairgrounds.
That's Ventura Avenue over there.
See those buildings? That's town!"

This place also had buildings -
but they were all black, the same.
There were no houses, no trees,
no hedges, no streets, no homes.

But, every afternoon, a big truck
came rolling down the rows.
It was full of water, cool,
and the boy would follow it, cool.
It smelled like rain, spraying,
and even made some rainbows!

So on this hot, hot day,
the boy followed and followed,
and when the truck stopped,
then sped off in the dust,
the boy didn't know where he was.

He knew, but he didn't know
which barrack was what.
And so he cried. A lot.
He looked like the truck.

Until Old Man Ikeda
found him, bawled him out.
Until Old Man Ikeda
laughed and called him
"Lost Boy."
Until Old Man Ikeda
walked him through
the rows and rows,
the people, the people,
the crowd.

Until his mother
cried and laughed
and called him
"Lost Boy."

Until Lost Boy
thought he was found.


I wish I could do all 25 "Legends" here, but can't. I'll bet, though, you can find them somewhere on the web. It's worth the search.

Instead of more legends, here's the other side of Inada's poetry, the jazz side.


Bud Powell

   "Parisian Thoroughfare"

Shops gleaming wares,
windows streaming with the streets of commerce as fragrance
from a nearby bakery fills and gilds the air
burgeoned to the brim with birds, butterflies, blossoms,
rising and falling
calls of children quickening the courtyards,
women whisking walks in the sunlit
briskness of rhythm
propelling, pulsing the entire populace, the entire
thoroughfare into action after the night's refreshing rain
promising spring thick with brilliance,
the surprising
turn of events where everything turns out happy...

("Hey, cut it, man!")








Next, we have this poem from our friend from Liverpool, Mick Moss.



Funeral of a Dead Good Poet

When your light had gone
we came to see you off
at the great red sandstone edifice
battered by a bitter wind
and cold as death inside
the mock gothic vaulted cavernous space
echoed with appropriately poetic words
as poet followed writer followed poet
with tales of a life lived large
eulogy for a fat boy bullied
but creative and curious
who wanted to paint everything
even the paving slabs in Canning Street
who believed that communication was bigger
than the limitations of language
A trumpeter played a muted blues
the last jazz rites
and I thought of angry young men
rule breakers and risk takers
a generation who were among the first
to say "fuck you"
only eloquently
I misread the program and could have sworn
"commendation" read "comedian"
one wouldn't have been out of place
as top turn after top turn read or played or sang
I wasn't the only one of the capacity crowd
who felt a desire to applaud
Roger McGough reminded us that Dylan Thomas begged us
not to go quietly when our light goes

I came away feeling
like I always do after a funeral
That they are not for the dead
nor about death
but for the living
and about life

2001 - after Adrian Henry's funeral








The next poem is by Bill Roberts from the Summer 2001 issue of Rattle - Poetry for the 21st Century.

This is from the biography Roberts wrote for Rattle

"Bill Roberts lives in Bloomfield, Colorado, with one wife and two dogs. He habitually accepts job offers, then retires precipitously. currently a part-timer at the Los Alamos Labs - but not for long. Poetry came late in life after he'd invested much of his savings in subscriptions to little lit mags, a few dozen of which publish his works. Bill writes when he's tired - almost always - so he writes a lot.



When Dinahshore Roamed

Her delicate bones
Are barely settled,
But once she roamed
This diminished planet,

Eating of its veggies
And fruits and nuts
And the occasional cheeseburger.
singing its praises

To the sky,
From peak to peak,
Shore to shore,
This talented

and now extinct Dinahshore,
So perfect God made only one.
It's been tough going
Since you left, Dinahshore,

But, if it pleases you,
I'm still seeing the U.S.A.
In my Chevrolet...
Though it leaks oil badly.





Photo by Dora Ramirez Itz



I wrote this last week, the night our first solid freeze of the year was predicted.



freeze warning

freeze warning
last night
and people all over town
were hustling,
digging old blankets
and plastic covers out of their garages
to cover their plants,
to protect their plants from the ravages
from winter's late arrival

not me

i figure
any growing thing tough enough
to survive our fifteen month drought,
the worse since 1870-something,
ought to be able
to survive a little chill

and if they don't?

well,
too bad

i don't believe in coddling
the flora -
this is Texas
for crying out loud -
no place
for sissy plants around here

i used
to be one of those exotic plant
enablers,
spending hundreds of dollars on water
in dry times like today,
spoiling them
with fertilizers and plant foods,
even when my own refrigerator
was bare,
rushing to protect them
from all the normal weather systems
that make native plants strong

no more

if something dies
from drought it goes on my list
of plants never allowed to be in my yard again

same
for things that freeze

at some point
my yard
will be entirely flowered
by plants
with of history
of flourishing
though normal South Texas trials
and tribulations

in following this gardening philosophy
it is important believe
a weed
is just a flower someone doesn't like

i have banished weeds
from my lexicon

in my yard
anything
green
is a flower








Next, I have a piece from an under-appreciated genre, cowboy poetry. The piece is by Wallace McRae from the anthology New Cowboy Poetry, A Contemporary Gathering

McRae is a third-generation rancher, with a 30,000 acre cow-calf ranch in Forsyth, Montana. He is has been a part of nearly every National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He was the first cowboy poet to be awarded the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a recipient of the Montana Governor's Award for the Arts, and has served on the National Council of the Arts.



Hat Etiquette

There are rules of decorum and conduct
   to which genuine cowboys attest.
Call them mores, traditions or manners,
   they're part of the code of the West.
But cowpokes have got this dilemma,
   that confuses these sage diplomats.
It involves the whens and when-not-tos,
   concerning the wearing of hats.
The old rule concerning head covers says:
   "Hat-up when you work, or you ride."
"Tip 'em to women. But take John B. off
   when in bed, or when you're inside."
But whaddya do in a gin mill,
   bean shops or dances in town?
Where Resistol rustlersll filch it
   or some lowlife'll puke in its crown.
'N there ain't no such thing as a hat rack
   anyplace that I been of late.
So we all compromise with a tip back,
   baring pallid foreheads and bald pate.

What we need is a new resolution
   to settle this conflict we got.
So I come up with this here solution,
   a result of consider'ble thought:
"I move that we do like the Hebrews,
   wear hats from our birth 'til we die.
And never remove them sombreros.
   All those in favor, say 'Aye.'"








Now here a poem from our friend Laurel Lamperd from her midsummer home in Western Australia.



Epilogue of a Romance

Narcissus
    camellia
        prunus

three flowers of spring
the Chinese said
symbols of new life
new beginnings.

They ate plums
the deep wine fruit
oozing upon the lips.
She carried daffodils
dripping with bridal creeper.
He wore a pink camellia
in his lapel.

When winter struck
baring the branches of the plum
he was living with a divorcee
in Joondalup.
She had gone home to mother.








I got "flamed" some time ago by a critic who didn't believe I was nearly as serious about the goddess Poetry as I should be. It seemed an argument i was bound to lose, so I never responded to him directly. If I had, it would have been something like this.



reply to a critic who takes himself and me much to seriously

look
there are no babies
being fed here,
no tyrants being brought
to heel,
no visit
to the homebound,
no rehab
of housing for the homeless,
no justice
for the poor and downtrodden

there
are no cures here
for diseases
that maim and kill

no
philosophy
to light the way
to personal fulfillment,
no formula
for turning water to wine,
lead to gold,
scrap bobby pins,
electric toasters,
and old video games
to a clean, inexhaustible
energy source

there is none of that
serious stuff

it's
just a damn poem,
an old man's game,
an alternative to daytime tv,
a reminder that there is still life
in this husk and thought
in this drying
shrinking
brain

if you read it
or
if you don't
there will be no impact
on the reality
of our struggling
needy world

i can live with that





Photo by Dora Ramirez Itz



That's it for this week, less than two weeks before Christmas. Along with those sugarplums dancing in your head, remember this - all material presented in this blog remains the property of those who created it; the blog itself was produced by and is the property of me...allen itz.

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Road Work   Friday, December 05, 2008

III.12.1.



Every once in a while I feel a need to remind people what "Here and Now" is and what it is not.

It is a blog. To understand the way I see "Here and Now," I've come up with this.

Imagine walking in a park and coming across a guy standing on a soapbox reading poetry, his own and the work of others. That's me and that's "Here and Now."

You can see others around the park on soapboxes of their own, expounding upon whatever it is they feel like expounding upon. That's the rest of the blogs on the web, each one following it's creator's own ideas of what it's about. The business of my soapbox is poetry, mostly. Since it's my soapbox, I don't preclude the possibility that I might want to talk about something else every once in a while.

My concern with this is that I don't want friends who allow me to use their work to be penalized in future publication of that same work by poetry journals who don't publish previously published work. Appearance on a blog, especially one as informal as "Here and Now," does not constitute "publication."

So that's that, just a periodic reminder of what we're about.

Here's what I have from soapbox central this week:

From friends of "Here and Now"

Thane Zander
Thomas Costales
Alice Folkart
Walter Durk

From my library

Naomi Shibab Nye
Nazim Hikmet
Abdul-Raheem Saleh al-Raheem
Diane Wakoski
Jorge Luis Borges
Gilbert Sorrentino
Richard Eberhart
William Matthews
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Osip Mandelstam
Tony Esolen

Enjoy!








The next two poems are by Naomi Shibab Nye, from her book Words Under the Words.

Nye, born in 1952 to a Palestinian father and an American mother, is a poet, songwriter and a novelist. You have read her work here before, including several pieces from her first book Different Ways to Pray. She has also edited a number of anthologies, including The Same Sky - A Collection of Poems from around the World, which I've used here often.

Her other books include poetry collections 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, which I think is also in my library, but unused so far, Red Suitcase, Field Trip and Fuel, as well as a collection of essays entitled Never in a Hurry, a young-adult novel called Habibi , the semi-autobiographical story of an Arab-American teenager who moves to Jerusalem in the 1990s, and picture book Lullaby Raft, which is also the title of one of her two albums of music.

Although she regards herself as a "wandering poet," she graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio and still refers to that city as her home.



You Know Who You Are

Why do your poems comfort me, I ask myself.
Because they are upright, like straight-backed chairs.
I can sit in them and study the world as if it too
were simple and upright.

Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words
and not one of them can save me.
Your poems come in like a raft, logs tied together,
they float.
I want to tell you about the afternoon
I floated on your poems
all the way from Durango Street to Broadway.

Fathers were paddling on the river with their small sons.
Three Mexican boys chased each other outside the library.
Everyone seemed to have some task, some occupation,
while I wandered uselessly in the streets I claim to love.

Suddenly I felt the precise body of your poems beneath me,
like a raft, I felt words as something portable again,
a cup, a newspaper, a pin.
Everything happening had a light around it,
not the light of Catholic miracles,
the blunt light of Saturday afternoon.
Light in a world that rushes forward with us or without us.
I wanted to stop and gather up the blocks behind me
in this light, but it doesn't work.
Your keep walking, lifting one foot, then the other,
saying, "This is what I need to remember"
and then hoping you can.


Arriving at a Fish

It was the air which entered you,
drifting in the small boat.
The stories, the jokes, air swallowed them,
they became element, air and water,
an intercourse of branch and vine.
Your arrived at the old muddy anchor in you sleep.
And you realized your allegiance to fishing
had nothing to do with fish, or little, anyway,
so when the great bass came writhing out of the water
you were shocked.
He lay in the bottom of the boat,
a sudden silver word.
His mouth was angry, his mouth was an old man
missing a bus.
You touched the scales, the flapping fins and sharp tail,
with a hesitant welcome.
And later it was you and it was not you
who carried the bass on the strong yellow line
and showed him to the neighbors,
a photo snapped in a bright room.
Inside, your own gills were opening and closing
like remnants of an early life,
when this hadn't happened yet
and you were traveling through water,
dodging anything that suggested an end.








Last week, Monday, in fact, I drove to the somewhat funky coffee shop where I have spent most of my mornings for a number of months, the somewhat funky coffee shop where most of my poems have been written over those same months.

It was not just closed, it was closed and boarded up, big plywood sheets over all the windows and doors. It left me with a strong sense of dislocation, such a creature of habit and routine I am.

Nothing to do, but write a poem about it.



still reeling

still
reeling
from the loss
of my morning hangout

i sit
in this sterile
corporate replacement,
looking at this blank page

feeling
sterile myself
in the poetry-creation
department of human affairs

sputtering
over the collapse
of my sheltered little
poetry-creation corner

p
e
r
h
a
p
s

i make life
and the process
of putting words and thoughts
on paper, or, in this case computer screen,

w a y
too complicated

p
e
r
h
a
p
s

i should take the course
of my friend and furry companion Reba
who divides all the natural and unnatural world

in
to
2
parts

that which smells
(that's good)
&
that which does not
(that's bad)

my current situation,
poetry-creation wise, stinks, which,
according to the criteria of my friend Reba,
means things must be going

g
r
e
a
t
!
!
!
!

i can only whimper
in gratitude








And speaking of Naomi Shihab Nye, here are two poems from the anthology the flag of childhood, poems from the middle east a collection of poems she selected, first published in 1998 as The Space Between Our Footsteps, my copy republished in paperback form by Aladdin Paperbacks in 2002.



The first poem is by Nazim Hikmet. Born in 1902 and died in 1963, Hikmet was a political prisoner in Turkey for nineteen years and spent the last thirteen years of his life in exile. Though many of his film scripts, plays, essays, and novels were published after his death, they were banned in Turkey for decades.

The poem was translated by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk.



Optimistic Man

as a child he never plucked the wings off flies
he didn't tie tin canes to cat's tails
or lock beetles in matchboxes
or stomp anthills
he grew up
and all those things were done to him
I was at his bedside when he died
he said read me a poem
about the sun and the sea
about nuclear reactors and satellites
about the greatness of humanity



The next poem is by Abdul-Raheem Saleh al-Raheem, an Iraqi born in 1950. He has a MA in counseling and began publishing his poems in Iraq since the 1970s. At the time the book was published, he was married with six children.

I tried googling him to see what's happened to him since the beginning of the war in Iraq, but didn't find anything.

This poem is the title poem from his book The Train of the Stars. It was translated for this collection by Adil Saleh Abid.



The Train of the Stars

The night is a train that passes,
Up on my house I watch it
Its eyes smile to me.

The night is a train that passes,
Carrying moons and stars
Clouds, flowers,
Seas and rivers that run.
The night is a train that passes.

The night is a train that passes,
I wish, oh, how I wish!
I could take it one day:
It would take me away,
To see where it's going.
Oh, where's that train going?








Here's a new poem from our friend Thane Zander.

I know I just used one of Thane's poems a couple of weeks ago, but I liked this one so much, couldn't put off using it.



Adding Insult to Injury

Catch a globe burnt orange and red,
pass it to the Moon Man in the French Quarter
where tuba and trombone whistle baritone,

placate the hordes with witchcraft and sorcery
the severance of head from shoulder depicted
in the romance of Ghi and Janice in Spain,

contemplate your ballooning prostate, death
eat or consume, consummate or beat, rabbits feet
and seduce a Veronica with pink toenails

that flash severely in the Mid Morn dusk, swollen
your eyes from years of tears, tears for fears, ears
that pick up the Oompah sound of Diggety's organ

and play a swan lake waltz in a Beer Hall in Hamburg
where the lead dancer is picked on for being Gay,
and the lead ballerina is a whore unto sailors in port.

The magic of pinkish white on snow capped peaks, we know
a resonance of distraction plying a netherworld darkness
capitulating under the weight of a Dorothy and a Wiz

all stuck in the Kansas Time Loop, a highway lost
in the annals of history and records, and LP's
extolling Sweet Home Alabama and Rocky Mountain Way,

the destruction of Dresden and Nagasaki, Napalm
on streets in LA and San Fran, and the back yard
goings on of the crooks in the Bronx and baseball cards

collected by children with stardom and penance
and five dollar McDonalds watches and parents
with no job, no home, no hope, pull the rope

and hang in a society dying, living crying falling
into a state of disrepair, a state of wealth, of fear
of the time when Twin Towers became a hole in the ground

the profound hinting at rebuilding, the flock on East Street
pardon the preachers that just don't ply the party line,
resigned to the fate of gloom and despair, hope, charity,

faith and the three sisters of sin wiggle a finger
giving orgasmic thrust to trucks on highways, by ways,
Frank sung it My Way, and the love of Man and Woman

Beast and Reptile, and Jaws in the Ocean
no notion, no warning, no legs in the bright of morning.








The next three poems are by Diane Wakoski, from her book Emerald Ice, Selected Poems 1962-1987. The book was first published in 1988. My copy was published in 1996 by Black Sparrow Press.

Wakoski was born in Whittier, California in 1937 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published over forty books of poetry, including Emerald Ice. Other books include the four volumes of her The Archaeology of Movies and Books sequence, Argonaut Rose, The Emerald City of Las Vegas, Jason the Sailor, and Medea the Sorceress. A book of essays, Towards a New Poetry was published in 1980. She is best known for a series of poems collectively known as "The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems." She won the prestigious William Carlos Williams award for Emerald Ice.

Wakoski teaches creative writing at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.



My Knees Go Before the Firing Squad at Dawn

Pain visits me
at night
like a workman going to his bar
for a beer
at five,
before he goes home.

It is
no extra-
ordinary event
is what I mean to say.

Pain come in,
wearing his steel-toed shoes
and overalls,
and I try to remember
from his specific costume
what job it is
that he does
all day.
It is
not easy
for me to believe
in pain's necessity,
the aching of
my knees and back,
my wrists and ankles so brittle
I often fear they will chip
off and be gone,
like all the moving parts
like wheels, the arms
of a rough child's toy.

Pain is a hard worker
in my house
rising early in the mornings
and keeping track of every moment
of my time.

He is
perhaps
some ancient
head-of-the-household.
                    How I
wish I might take
him off
my income tax.

But no real benefits
accrue
except some foolish discipline
in my life. I have never
learned
to tell unwelcome visitors
they ought to
go away.

Never learned to tell
relatives
they are infection and diseases
in my blood.

You lower-middle-class hardhat
with narrow-minded opinions,
go away.
I can no longer afford
your wages
or inarticulate anger exploding
in my joints
and weakening my blood.
Pain
listens
like a deaf child
to my symphony.
Beethoven
is left
to only my ears,
aching for some beauty

1971


Poem for a Little Boy on the Buddha's Birthday

You have
taken
a complete biography
in the form
of your mother's hand. Such a camera,
the lens
a blind measurer;
who cares
whether you will be president
if the coral scrapes
cuts the bottom of your feet as you walk
along he ocean floor,
who cares
where you are? Your mother never
forgets;
she does not however feel
the same salt.
        Is there anything
        more real
        than imagination?

She does not even
know where you are.

1968


Some Brilliant Sky

David was my brother
and killed himself
by the sea,
a dark night
without city lights
to obscure the milky way.

My hair glistens around me like stars
on the night when a man
cracks in half and falls
into the ocean.
Sheets of water,
as I come out of sleep,
no lover,
only the sweaty body of dreams
                            he stands over my bed
                            as I wake up
                            silent,
                            whispering to himself,
                            "no scars,
                            no scars"

but he forgets
David who died in the ocean
when the stars were visible in some brilliant sky,
and does not see my belly
mangled with scars
from childhood or birth.

Poetry is our history.
We study the stars
to understand temperatures.
Life and death are the only issues;
we often forget that -
arranging our furniture,
washing our cars.

When I look at the sky
I think of David
throwing himself off that cliff
into an ocean which moves with the moon,
drying
the red blood in his mouth
in a night as black
as eels.

1972








By agreement of 31 years, D and I visit family on Thanksgiving and spend Christmas at home. Last week being T-day, we went south to the Rio Grande Valley from whence we both come. When I left for the first time in 1962 it was a series of small towns laid out 7 or 8 miles apart on the highway that ran the length, anchored by two larger towns on either end, Brownsville and McAllen, both on the border. Now that whole length of small towns has become a metroplex on both sides of the border of a million or more people. Despite all the changes, including not just population growth, but economic, political and cultural changes that upended the social order and cultural assumptions, there is very much still the same - family, community and a strange kind of agrarian urbanism that is neither one nor the other.

While much of D's family is still there, mine is long gone.



homecoming

traveling holiday
tomorrow,
285 miles south to the border,
turkey dinner, lots of
howdy-dos
and how-ya-beens,
then,
Friday,
285 miles home

as usual,
sometime before we leave,
i'll drive the 7 extra miles
to the little town i came from,
take a look around,
check out the old house
where i grew up,
stop at the cemetery
where most of the people
i knew who stayed around
currently reside,
brush dry leaves
off my parent's headstones,
and pause a minute
to remember them anywhere
but below the ground i stand on

and that's it for
homecoming








The next poem, by Juan Luis Borges, is from the 2000 Issue 4 of Poetry International

Born in 1899, Borges produced eight books of poetry, in addition to his prolific output as a writer of fiction and literary critic.



Browning resolves to be a poet

Through these red labyrinths of London
I discover that I have elected
the most curious of human professions,
save that all, in their own way, are of it.
Like the alchemists
that sought the philosopher's stone
in the fugitive mercury,
I will make common words
- the gambler's marked deck, currency of the mob -
take back the magic they possessed
when Thor was the numen and the crash,
the thunder and the prayer.
In the dialect of today
I will tell the age eternal things;
will try not to be unworthy
of the grand echo of Byron.
This dust that I am will be invulnerable.
If a woman shares love with me
my song will move the tenth sphere of the concentric heavens;
if a woman disdains my love
I will make my sadness a music,
a high river that may follow resounding through the times.
I will live to forget myself.
I will be the face that I glimpse and then forget,
I will be the Judas who accepts
the divine mission to be the traitor,
I will be Caliban in the bog,
I will be a mercenary soldier who murders
without fear and without faith,
I will be Policrates who views with fear
the annihilation appointed by destiny,
I will be the friend who I hate,
The Persian will give me the nightingale and the Roman the sword.
Masks, agonies, resurrections,
will unravel and ravel my fortune
and some day I will be Robert Browning.





Photo by Thomas Costales



I'm very happy to have this week more photos from Thomas Costales.

Thomas says he suffers from insomnia and is accustomed to long walks around the city at night when most everyone else is asleep. One night, he says, he decided to take his camera with him. The result has been a whole catalogue of moody, mysterious images of San Antonio neighborhoods at night.

Here a few new images from Thomas, beginning with the one above, followed by the four below.




Photo by Thomas Costales



Photo by Thomas Costales



Photo by Thomas Costales



Photo by Thomas Costales



Keep up those nighttime ramblings, Thomas. And don't forget your camera when you go.










Gilbert Sorrentino was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1929 and lived in that borough and in Manhattan all of his life. His published work includes six volumes of poetry and five novels, as well as many critical essays and reviews.

The next two poems are from his book Selected Poems, 1958-1980.



Toward the End of Winter

Brought almost to tears
by the simple presence of myself
in my own flesh, in the chair,
my familiar things around

Approaching my 38th year.

Partly drunk I am returned
returned to a moonlight
the shadows of trees subtly
moving swift toward water
and varied perfumes, in my chair,

by an old record I thought to discard.

In its faded loveliness the lose
of the singer is in me, her
clear voice doing the stupid song
honor, now she is forgotten

as the song. Approaching my 38th year
shaken at the absolute mass of my experience
the deadly facts of it: they are endless,
filled with faces, I hear voices behind
that lost vocalist's clear words.

Though it be rejected, rejected,
approaching my 38th year I am aware
of the truth of all time lost and buried.
Every act, each careful gesture
in tableau, I see the exact blouse
and how it smoothed over a young girl's
shoulders, her sweet fat.

These clarities moving to aromas
the singer enmeshed with the reality
of her voice in her own presence,of flesh.
Approaching my 38th year, the long dance
of each and every face, the delicate
timbre of each laugh, there is no truth
but in dead event, shaken, stunned

I miss everybody.


Majorie

Well she walked out of my life. Her young breasts
and the glitter of hair bleached
on her thighs.

Now there must be
stretch marks beneath her fitted girdle. She is
kindly toward her husband.

I had
the very bud of her, beauty and clarity
day clear.

Hello to her hello I kiss
your palm

God all the things destroyed since I last kissed her
on what bitter corner in the Bronx.








So here's a few words about that little town that grew me.



a booming little burg

La Feria,
Texas

for a while in the 50s
when i was a kid it was
a booming little burg
just a few miles from the border,
then near dead
and almost buried
until
saved
in these later years
by battalions
of white-haired
wrinkled
soldiers of early retirement,
roaming the ways and byways
in their RV's
looking for a warm place
to park, first, for the winter,
then full time, feeling welcomed
in a place with green grass
all year long in front
and navel orange
and grapefruit trees
in the back,
all cheap
cheap
cheap
geezer
paradise

now
the one-stop-light town
has a second light
and 6,111 inhabitants,
twice the number 47 years ago
when i first left
for more northern climes
and on the way down here
i was thinking
about moving back

but, no,
i've been a city boy
for a lot more years
than i was a country boy
and being, now, one of those white-hired,
wrinkled seekers myself
i pine for less familiar pastures than here

i'll be going home to the city
tomorrow as planned








Richard Eberhart was born in 1904 in Austin, a small town in southeast Minnesota. He grew up on a 40 acre estate called Burr Oaks, since partitioned into hundreds of residential lots. He published a volume of poetry called Burr Oaks in 1947, and many of his poems reflect his youth in rural America.

Eberhart began college at the University of Minnesota, but transferred to Dartmouth College after his mother's death. After graduation he worked as a ship's hand, among other jobs, then studied at St. John's College, then, after serving as private tutor to the son of King Prajadhipok of Siam in 1931-1932, pursued graduate study for a year at Harvard University.

His first book of poetry A Bravery of Earth was published in London in 1930. It reflected his experiences in Cambridge and his experience as a sailor.

He taught for eight years at the St. Mark's School, where Robert Lowell was one of his students. During World War II he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve. From this experience came one of his best-known poems, The Fury of Aerial Bombardment, one of the poems I've chosen for this issue.

After the war, Eberhart worked for six years for his wife's family's floor wax company. Then, from the early 1950s until his retirement he dedicated himself to writing poems and teaching, including at the the University of Washington, Brown University, Swarthmore College, Tufts University, Trinity College, University of Connecticut, Columbia University, University of Cincinnati, Wheaton College, Princeton University and Dartmouth College. He taught for 30 years at Dartmouth as professor of English and poet-in-residence, where he was known for his encouragement of young poets.

In 1956, The New York Times sent him to San Francisco to report on the Beat poetry scene there. As a result he published a feature in the Times book review section that helped call national attention to the Beat generation, and especially to Allen Ginsberg as the author of Howl.

The book I've taken his poems from this week is Richard Eberhart: Selected Poems 1930-1965. Published in 1965, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Eberhart died in 2005



The Fury of Aerial Bombardment

You would think the fury of aerial bombardment
Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces
Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.
History, even, does not know what is meant

You would feel that after so many centuries
God would give man to repent; yet he can kill
As Cain could, but with multitudinous will,
No farther advanced than in his ancient furies.

Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?
Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?
Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul
Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?

Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.


I had to look this up, so I assume others will have to do the same. I'll save you the trouble.

The "belt feed lever" and the "belt holding pawl" refer to the operations of the Browning M2 .50 Caliber Machine Gun.


If I Could Only Live At The Pitch That Is Near Madness

If I could only live at the pitch that is near madness
When everything is as it was in my childhood
Violent, vivid, and of infinite possibility:
That the sun and the moon broke over my head.

Then I cast time out of the trees and fields,
Then I stood immaculate in the Ego;
Then I eyed the world with all delight,
Reality was the perfection of my sight.

And time has big handles on the hands,
fields and trees a way of being themselves.
I saw battalions of the race of mankind
Standing stolid, demanding a moral answer.

I gave the moral answer and I died
And into each realm of complexity came
Where nothing is possible but necessity
and the truth wailing there like a red babe.








Here's a poem from our friend in Aloha Land, Alice Folkart, listing all the things she misses from her old California home.



I miss...

I miss

foghorns,

the call of freight trains in the night
clattering up from the refineries
and across the city to the port,
screaming Whoooooo whoooo
at the grade crossings at 2:00 a.m.

Roads leading east.

Driving for more than an hour
in any direction.

Dairy Queen,

Trader Joe's,

Haughty White Seagulls.

Earthquakes - maybe.

Geraniums.

Putting a sweat shirt on
over a long-sleeved shirt,
over a tee shirt
and wearing thick wool socks,
maybe my old beret.

Yes, it does get that cold in L.A.

Beets.

Decent Mexican food.
Corn tortillas. Yellow corn tortillas.

Being able to walk
in the middle of the day.
It's too hot, too sunny here.

Crows.

Mockingbirds!
Never thought I'd miss them,
but I do.

And Jays, mean old things.

L.A. Chinese food -
what they have here
is mostly 1953 Chinese food.


It won't be the same
if I go home for a visit.
There's no "home" to go to,
no corner bedroom
with the lantana climbing over the window.

Oh, yeah, and I miss Lantana too,
its dusty scent.








William Matthews was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1942. He earned a B.A. from Yale and an M.A. from the University of North Carolina. During his lifetime he published eleven books of poetry, including Time & Money, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, Selected Poems and Translations 1969-1991, Blues If You Want, A Happy Childhood, Rising and Falling, Sticks and Stones, and his first book published in 1970, Ruining the New Road. Two collections published posthumously include Search Party: Collected Poems and After All: Last Poems published in 1998.

Matthews taught at several schools, including Wells College, Cornell University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Washington. At the time of his death, in 1997 on the day of his fifty-fifth birthday, he was a professor of English and director of the creative writing program at New York's City College.

My poem this week is from Search Party, his first posthumous collection.



Dog Life

Scuffed snout, infected ear, ticks like interest
on a loan. Butt of jokes that would, forgive me,
raise hair on a bald dog. Like the one about the baby

so ugly that to get a dog to play with it,
they had to tie a pork chop around the baby's neck.
Or, get this, when you're not working like a dog,

you're dogging it. Yet those staunch workers,
human feet, are casually called dogs, and they're
like miners or men who work in submarines,

hard men who call each other sons of bitches
when they're mad. No wonder it's not loyalty
to dogs that dogs are famous for, since it's men

who've made dogs famous. And don't we under-
stand about having masters, and having food?
Masters are almost good enough for us.








Every once in a while, I get very tired of me. Luckily, my disaffection doesn't usually last too long.



me

a poet
who seeks to create art
drawn
from the essences
and intricacies
of his own particular
self
should first
insure
that his own particular
self
embodies sufficient
levels of interesting
essences
and
intricacies
to merit a patron's
involvement
in the adventure
of his art

meanwhile
on this night
i am so completely
humongously
stupendously
ginormously
bored
with myself
i see no prospect
for another poem
for a dozen
possibly
two dozen years
in the
future
upcoming

perhaps
i'll
be more interesting
tomorrow








The next poem is by Lorna Dee Cervantes from her book From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger, published in 1991 Arte Publico Press.

Cervantes, born in 1954, is coeditor of Red Dirt, a cross-cultural poetry journal In addition to this book, she is the author of Emplumada, which won an American Book Award. Her work has been included in many anthologies, and, in 1995 she received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award.

She lives in Boulder, Colorado.



Valentine

Cherry plums suck a week's soak,
overnight they explode into the scenery of before
your touch. the curtains open on the end of our past.
Pink trumpets on the vines bare to the hummingbirds.
Butterflies unclasp from the purse of their couplings, they
light and open on the double hands of eucalyptus fonds.
They sip from the pistils for seven generations that bear
them through another tongue as the first year of our
punishing mathematic begins clicking the calendar
forward. They land like seasoned rocks on the
decks of the cliffs. They take another turn
on the spiral of life where the blossoms
blush & pale in a day of dirty dawn
where the ghost of you webs
your limbs through branches
of cherry plum. Rare bird
extinct color, you stay in
my dreams in x-ray. In
rerun, the bone of you
stripping sweethearts
folds and layers the
shedding petals of
my grief into a
decayed holo-
gram - my
for ever
empty
art.








Next, I have two poems from our friend Walter Durk.



Slow dance

We stand in the basement, ears attuned to
a repetitive disco beat. Eyes glued straight-ahead
at the few dancing bodies.

I've been here for an hour or two, drinking beer,
and want to leave since I'm bored, but stay.
And I notice you there, to the left front of me,
standing with glossy brown hair
and uninterested stare.

I sip my beer, as music pounds
and the disco ball spins throwing
light beams all around, drawing us
into a hypnotic trance. I ask if you'd like
a beer, you say sure and we linger,
sipping-sipping-sipping and talking
a little too before last call, before you
invite me into your life, into your body.


Anticipation

There is a day that arrives every spring
that is warmed by the distance of winter

it makes you want to rush outside
to call new birds from their nests

clean gold dust from trees off the porch
and set a table and chairs there

walk to the mailbox in shorts and flip-flops
to retrieve an expected brown package

carry it back and tear it open
and as you sit on the porch

thin little book in your hands
release words to the air

as you read aloud to yourself
on this quiet spring night








I go back to the Russians for the next poem - specifically Osip Mandelstam with poems from the book Stone, a book of poems translated by and with commentary by Robert Tracy. It's a bilingual book, Russian and English on facing pages. If it was 40 years ago, I might try to translate them myself, but those days are long gone.

Born in January, 1891, in Warsaw, Poland, Mandelstam was raised in the imperial capital of St. Petersburg, Russia. His father was a prominent leather merchant and his mother a teacher of music. He attended the Tenishev School and later studied at the Sorbonne, the University of Heidelberg, and the University of St. Petersburg. After leaving off his studies to pursue writing, he published his first collection, Kamen ( Stone) in 1913. His second book, Tristia in 1922, secured his reputation, and both it and Stone were released a year later in new editions.

By this time, the Bolsheviks had begun to exert increasing amount of control over Russian artists, and Mandelstam, though he had initially supported the Revolution, was unwilling to yield to the their doctrine. The poet published three more books in 1928 - Poems, a collection of criticism entitled On Poetry, and The Egyptian Stamp, a book of prose - as the state closed in on him.

Mandelstam spent his later years in exile, serving sentences for counterrevolutionary activities in various work camps, until his death on December 27, 1938, in the Gulag Archipelago.

This week, I'm taking a series of short sketches from Stone.


*****

1.

A tentative hollow note
As a pod falls from a tree
In the constant melody
Of the wood's deep quiet...
1908


2.

In the wood there are Christmas trees
With golden tinsel blazing;
In the thickets toy wolves are gazing
With terrifying eyes.

O my prophetic sadness,
O my silent freedom
And the heavens' lifeless dome
Of eternally laughing glass!
1908


3.

In a light shawl, you suddenly slipped
Out of the shadowed hall -
We disturbed no one at all
Nor woke the servants up...
1908


4.

To have only a child's books for reading
And only a child's thoughts to nurse,
To let all grown up things disperse,
To rise out of deep grieving.

Life has made me mortally weary;
I will take nothing it gives,
but I love my land, poor as it is,
For I've seen no other country.

In a far away garden I swung
On a plain wooden swing - I recall
Fir trees, mysterious and tall,
In my vague delirium
1908


5.

More delicate than delicacy
Your face,
Whiter than purity
Your hand;
Living as distantly
From the world as you can
And everything about you
As it must be.

It must all be like this:
Your sorrow
And your touch
Never cooling,
And the quiet catch
Of not complaining
In the things you say,
And your eyes
Looking far away.
1909


6.

Against pale blue enamel, the shade
That only April can bring,
The birch tree's branches swayed
and shyly it was evening.

The pattern, precise and complete,
A network of thinly etched lines
Like the ones on a porcelain plate
With its carefully drawn design,

When the dear artist creates
The design on the glaze's hardness,
At that moment his skill awake,
No thought for death's sadness.
1909


8.

A body is given to me - what am I to make
From this thing that is my own and is unique?

Tell me who it is I must thank for giving
The quiet joy of breathing and of living?

I am the gardener, the flower as well,
Never alone in the world's prison cell.

My warmth, my breathing have already lain
Upon eternity's clear pane.

Imprinted on the glass a pattern shows,
but nowadays a pattern no none knows.

Let the dregs of the moment drain away -
The pattern's loveliness must stay.
1909


10.

With a mother-of-pearl shuttle
Weave the silk threads in;
O nimble fingers, begin
The task that weaves a spell.

The hands move left and right
In a never varying motion;
No question that you summon
Something terrible,like sunlight.

when the hand, spreads open, glows
Like a shell that flushes crimson;
Now it darkens with shade and then
Glides into fiery rose.
(1909)


47.

Yardmen with shovels are working
In quiet suburbs of snow;
Among bearded muzhiks I go,
A man passing by, out walking.

Shawled women flit to and fro,
Mongrels yap in a silly way
And houses and bars display
The samovar's rose red glow.
1913








Here's a piece that kinda came to me out of nowhere.



true confessions

there was
a time
then
when lots
of stuff was
going on,
shit
most of us
hope
every one else
already
forgot,
and i remember
particularly
a little bar
on north lamar
in austin
way back
off the street
kinda dark
mostly
had to know
it was there
to find it
$5 cover
$5 for a glass
of warm
watered-down
beer
and dancers
who started out
naked
and went on
from
there, tough
women,
throw your money
on the table
honey
they'd say
stick your
face
right up here
so i can
show you
what you came
to see

never
got drunk there -
couldn't afford it
at $5 a watered-down shot -
so usually
came
already drunk
from cheaper
dives -
places where
old flies
go to die
and
red-eyed
sots
fell asleep
in their
beer

from
what i
remember
i did
in those days
i hope to hell
there ain't nothing
i
forgot








Here's a poem from The Best American Poetry - 1994, edited by A.R. Ammons and David Lehman.

The poet is Tony Esolen, Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1959, Esolen earned his bachelors degree at Princeton and a Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina. At the time of this publication, he taught Renaissance literature at Providence College in Rhode Island.



Northwestern Mathematics

    from Fine Madness

Hard to say what the natural numbers are.
A lot of ones: the snowy falcon, floating
Like god over the vast northwest, alone
Until the only ptarmigan pokes her head
From her rock cover, one mink in a trap,
His innocent tracks forever. Twos and threes
Crop up, now and again. Teenagers veering
Over to Fort Smith on their snowmobiles,
To hang like wolves around the Wine and Dine,
Jukeboxes, soaked boots, beer, big waitresses.
Two bucks for orange juice. The scuttlebutt:
Sheila and gray Sky and her slapstick husband.
That's life. Another round. And you can reach
up to thirteen, in the jock-sweat fishing shack
Of Lester Manatu & Sons. You rent
an outboard, fine, Manatu nods and doesn't
Bother to mark you down; his oldest grandson
Tallies up the accounts, keeps him in booze;
the old man, stubborn, stalls at seventy.
He's on the books as Presbyterian, but
He never bothered much with books, or words,
and she's long dead who once could make him sing.
He hauls his tackle box like a limb grown
Evergreen out of him these many years.
He likes me well enough, but he won't speak

Other than the ordinary words: here, hold this, wait.
He walks off to the limit of the world
To test, I don't know what, the ice, the weather,
an elk-trail molten into nothing. Life
Is what he moves in, my old hand at winter,
Life like the sweep of sky and plain his figure
Vanishes into, with the scattered bloom
Of a few numbers, and continuum.








It seems we live by our expectations. How dislocating when our expectations are exceeded.



a 3-minute poem



she says
she just needs
5 minutes
and she'll be ready to go

that means
i have 15
possibly even 18
minutes
to finish this poem
.
.
.
.
.
oh my gawd,
she's ready,
three minutes,
a record
set
for the ages,
and 31 years
of
predictability
down the drain





Nothing else to add, so that's it for this week.

Except for the customary - please remember that all of the material presented in 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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