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Planetary Wildlife Survey: Xeon-13.7   Thursday, December 17, 2009

IV.12.4.



This is the last post I'll have for you until the new year. I'd love to be able to feature on a regular basis next year a weekly presentation of images, either photos or paintings, from readers. To do that I need 20 to 25 images for each feature. Until I get those kind of submissions, I'm afraid I'm going to be stuck often like I was this week, having to screw around with old pictures of my own so that they don't look like the pictures I screwed around with before.

The same goes for poets. I'd love to feature a different webpoet each week. To do that, I need at least 3, but no more than 5, poems per poet per week. In short, I'd like to present more of my readers' work on "Here and Now" wvery week, along with own stuff and stuff from my library.

And, speaking of poets, here's the batting order for his week.



Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Junkman's Obbligato

Me
the best part of the day


Cynthia James
turtle watching - i

Sue Clennell
Solitaire
Gin Rummy

James Laughlin
Those To Come
The Green Hair

Me
a winter day on Grape Creek Road

David Dabydeen
El Dorado

Walter Durk
Whispers

Audre Lorde
Restoration: A Memorial - 9/18/91

Me
beyond the fence

Cyril Dabydeen
Adrift

Norman Anderson
Sun Devil

Richard Wilbur
Security Lights, Key West

Charles Baudelaire
Correspondences

Me
it's a Christian Nation, i'm told

Chang Chui-ling
Looking at the Moon and Longing for a Distant Lover

Liu Shen-hsu
Poem

Wang Wei
Written by My Country Estate by the River Wang, After Heavy Rain

Li Po
Tzu-Yeh's Autumn Song

Me/Thomas Costales
Four poetry/photography experiments

Leslie Ullman
Running Horse

Me
watching through the window at the drift of morning fog








I begin the week with this poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti from his book A Coney Island of the Mind, published in the mid-fifties by New Directions Paperbook.

This is the book that, fifty-plus years ago, showed me there was more to poetry than "by the shores of Gitchee Gumee" (knowledge I kept to myself for many years for reasons of personal security) and the book that planted the seed that twenty or so years later led me to write my first poem.

It is a long poem, longer, it seems, in print than when read aloud. So read it aloud.



Junkman's Obbligato

Let's go
Come on
Let's go
Empty out our pockets
and disappear.
Missing all our appointments
and turning up unshaven
years later
old cigarette papers
stuck to our pants
leaves in our hair.
Let us not
worry about the payments
anymore.
Let them come
and take it away
whatever it was
we were paying for.
And us with it.

Let us arise and go now
to where dogs do it
Over the Hill
where they keep the earthquakes
behind the city dumps
lost among the gasmains and garbage.
Let us see the city Dumps
for what they are.
My country tears of thee.
Let us disappear
in automobile graveyards
and reappear years later
picking rags and newspapers
drying our drawers
on garbage fires
patches on our ass.
Do not bother
to say goodbye
to anyone.
Your missus will not miss us.

Let's go
smelling of sterno
where the benches are filled
with discarded Bowling Green statues
in the interior dark night
of the flowery bowery
our eyes watery
with the contemplation
of empty bottles of muscatel.
Let us recite from broken bibles
on streetcorners
Follow dogs on docks
Speak wild songs
Throw stones
Say anything
Blink at the sun and scratch
and stumble into silence
Diddle in doorways
Know whores thirdhand
after everyone else is finished
Stagger befuddled into East River sunsets
Sleep in phone booths
Puke in pawnshops
wailing of a winter overcoat.
Let us arise and go now
under the city
where ashcans roll
and reappear in putrid clothes
as the uncrowned underground kings
of subway men's rooms.
Let us feed the pigeons
at the City Hall
urging them to do their duty
in the Mayor's office.
Hurry up please it's time.
The end is coming
Flash floods
Disasters in the sun
Dogs unleashed
Sister in the street
her brassiere backwards.

Let's arise and go now
into the interior dark night
of the soul's bowery
and find ourselves anew
where subways stall and wait
under the River.
Cross over
into full puzzlement.
South Ferry will not run forever.
They are cutting out the Bay ferries
But it is still not too late
to get lost in Oakland.
Washington has not yet toppled
from his horse.
There is still time to goose him
and go
leaving our income tax form behind
and our waterproof wristwatch with it
staggering blind after alleycats
under Booklyn's Bridge
brown statues in baggy pants
our tincan cries and garbage voices
trailing.
Junk for sale!

Let's cut out let's go
into the real interior of the country
where hockshops reign
mere unblind anarchy upon us,
The end is here
but golf goes on at Burning Tree.
It's raining it's pouring
The Ole Man is snoring.
Another flood is coming
though not the kind you think.
There is still time to sink
and think.
I wish to descend in society.
I wish to make like free.
Swing low sweet Chariot.
Let us not wait for the cadillacs
to carry us triumphant
into the interior
waving at the natives
like roman senators in the provinces
wearing poet's laurels
on lighted brows.
Let us not wait for the write-up
on page one
of The New York Times Book Review
images of insane success
smiling from the photo.
By the time they print your picture
in Life Magazine
you will have become a negative anyway
a print with a glossy finish.
They will have come and gotten you
to be famous
and you still will not be free.
Goodbye I'm going
I'm selling everything
and giving away the rest
to the Good Will Industries.
It will be dark out there
with the Salvation Army Band.
And mind its own illumination.
Goodbye I'm walking out on the whole scene.
Close down the joint.
The system is all loused up.
Rome was never like this.
I'm tired of waiting for Godot.
I am going where turtles win
I am going
where conmen puke and die
Down the sand esplanades
of the official world.
Junk for sale!
My country tears of thee.

Let us go then you and I
leaving our neckties behind on lampposts
Take up the full beard
of walking anarchy
looking like Walt Whitman
a homemade bomb in the pocket.
I wish to descend in the social scale.
High society is low society.
I am a social climber
climbing downward
And the descent is difficult.
The Upper Middle Class Ideal
is for the birds
but the birds have no use for it
having their own kind of pecking order
based upon birdsong.
Pigeons on the grass alas.

Le us arise and go now
to the Isle of manisfree.
Let loose the hogs of peace.
Hurry up please it's time.
Let us arise and go now
into the interior
of Foster's Cafeteria.
So long Emily Post.
So long
Lowell Thomas.
Goodbye Broadway.
Goodbye Herald Square.
Turn it off.
Confound the system.
Cancel all our leases.
Lose the War
without killing anybody.
Let horses scream
and ladies run
to flushless powderrooms.
The end has just begun.
I wish to announce it.
Run don't walk
to the nearest exit.
The real earthquake is coming.
I can feel the building shake.
I am the refined type.
I cannot stand it.
I am going
where asses lie down
with customs collectors who call themselves
literary critics.
My tool is dusty.
My body hung up too long
in strange suspenders.
Get me a bright bandana
for a jockstrap.
Turn loose and we'll be off
where sports cars collapse
and he world begins again.
Hurry up please it's time.
It's time and a half
and there's the rub.
The thinkpad makes homeboys of us all.
Let us cut out
into stray eternity.
Somewhere the fields are full of larks.
Somewhere the land is swinging.
My country 'tis of them
I'm singing.

Let us arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
and live the true blue simple life
of wisdom and wonderment
where all things grow
straight up
aslant and singing
in the yellow sun
poppies out of cowpods
thinking angels out of turds.
I must arise and go now
to the Isle of Manisfree
way up behind the broken words
and woods of Arcady.








After retiring three times, I have come to the conclusion that one of the things that has driven me back to work before, even when I didn't really want to go, was a need for structure in my life. Understanding this, I have, in my current and last retirement, taken care to establish structure to my day. From the time I get up in the morning, I have someplace to go and something to do (usually something connected to writing) when I get there. I allow myself opportunities to break out of that structure, usually by taking a couple-of-day drive-around, when I begin to feel too constricted by the schedule I have constructed for myself.

This is a long way around to explain a short poem about my favorite part of my daily schedule.



the best part of the day

this is the best part
of the day
for me

after the long hours
of my short night,
having breakfast here,
reading my newspapers,
watching out the great windows
as the day grows as it will

large or small,
clear,
or as today, clouded
in winter gray

whatever
the day becomes,
it begins here








I have a poem now from the anthology Crossing Water, subtitled "Contemporary Poetry of The English-Speaking Caribbean."

The poem I select to use this week is by Cynthia James of Trinidad. James studied at the University of the West Indies and is a poet, fiction writer and teacher of high school books. She has published two books, My Love, poetry, and Sooth Me, Music, Soothe Me, a book of short stories.



turtle watching - i

That night she land emerged in clouded afterbirth
out of the burst dam of the sprawled out sea
and the sky a jeweled hammock prepared
to cradle its innocence, its infancy,
that night the leatherbacks labored
up the sparkling strand to lay her faith,
then heaved her beast towards
the insistent percussion of the sea

most other June nights were brittle nights
night without a reforming poetry
when the moon in spite refused to light,
leered down tongue-in-cheek, those night
under a torchlight violation of her privacy

the leatherback humped onto the land,
cut and swirled the sand with the precision
of a cement grinder, to lay and pack
tears fastened to her bleary eyes

most nights humping her darkened way
down to the vacant water's edge she left
a million years of weariness behind.








Here are two poems from our friend Sue Clennell. The second poem was previously published by Empowa 2.



Solitaire

My father as a boy
watched his grandmother
play cards,
and told her she hadn't
placed the red nine
on the black ten.
Now seventy years later
he wishes for someone
to tell him
to put the black jack
on the red queen.


Gin Rummy

The pack of cards
were well fingered,
it was no crime
in my family
to play cards,
and I played with
little grey Sarah
who always lost
her hair pins.
Not my aunt     dad's aunt
who coughed when upset
and was bowed down
towards the earth.
She cried at the ending
of a World War one movie
when the four brothers
walked in the sky,
and it was only many years after
I remembered her lover
had been killed          and she thought
he too was
drifting through clouds.








I have two poems now by James Laughlin, from his book The Secret Room, published by New Directions in the late 1990s.



Those To Come

Will those who come after us
remember who we were except for
three or four generations of
family? Will there be a child
who amuses herself by going
through cartons of old letters
in the attic? Will she draw
crayon pictures of the people
she reads about, showing what
she imagines we were like?

I'd be a fool to hope that any
of my verses would remain in
print. I must value them by
the amusement I have in composing
them. Just that, nothing more.

But what happened to make me
grow old so soon? When I was
young I never thought of old
age, of what it would be like.
And why can't I recall only part
of some scene I'd like to relive
now? Where have the lost fragments
gone? As I Iie wakeful in bed
what I see is a long corridor
of closed doors.


The Green Hair

My hair is turning from gray
to green. The villagers pretend
not to notice it except for a
few of the kids. The pharmacist
gave me a bottle of something
he said would recolor my hair
but it didn't work. It just
made it more green, and greasy
too. My wife has knitted a
little ski hat to cover it up,
but I have to shave extra hard
to get the green off from my
chin. I went to the Cymotrical
Institute in Hartford. They
said my condition would require
drastic treatment. They proposed
that all my old hair be pulled
out and they would implant new
hair on my scalp. They quoted
a price of five thousand dollars
for doing that. The hell with
them. I grew resigned to having
green hair. Then a friend suggested
consultation with his shrink.
The shrink, a very experienced
man, though my trouble must be
psychosomatic. He had never
seen anything like it. After
several sessions of Freudian
therapy he reached a conclusion.
"You appear to be in good shape
physically but it's clear that
your head wants to cease
living. Your hair is going green
because it wants to match the
green of the grass where you
are going soon. You have,
let me put it scientifically,
'graveyard hair.'" He charged
me five hundred dollars for
that wisdom. The hell with him.








I suppose it would of made more sense to post this poem last week, but by the time I had the poem written last week's blog was already put together, including pictures and title.

Logic! I do'n need no stinkin' logic.



a winter day on Grape Creek Road

the road
twists and winds

with the creek
through the hills

and across pastures,
past ponds,

depressions where the water
collects,

past trickles
barely seen below

flat pasture grass,
past bubbles

and swirls
of rushing flow

through deep cuts
in granite

and limestone,
past oak groves

crowded
thirstily

at water's edge,
all

the hills
and trees

and pastures,
brown and gray

on this clear
and crystal cold

winter day -
the dry canvas

of the season,
the stark truth

hidden elsewhere
beneath softly lying

snow








I'm returning to the Crossing Water Caribbean anthology for another poem because I'm really liking what I'm reading there.

This one is by David Dabydeen, born in 1957 in Guyana. He studied English at Cambridge and Oxford universities and currently teaches at the University of Warwick. He is the author of two books of poetry, Slave Song, winner of the Commonwealth Poetry prize, and Coolie Odyssey. He also published a novel, The Intended.



El Dorado

Juncha slowly dying of jaundice
Or yellow fever or blight or jumbie or neighbor's spite,
No-one knows why he turns the color of cane.

Small boys come to peep, wondering
At the hush of the death-hut
Until their mothers bawl them out.

Skin flaking like goldleaf
Casts a halo round his bed.
He goes out in a puff of gold dust.

Bathed like a newborn child by the women.
Laid out in his hammock in the yard.
Put out to feel the last sun.

They bury him like treasure,
The coolie who worked two shillings all day
But kept his value from the overseer.








It's been a while since we've heard from Walter Durk. And now, here he is again.



Whispers

As the moon whispers to the ocean
I whisper my dream to you
Everything is best left unsaid
Intensity subdued

Quench the fires of our hearts
No, let them burn!
Immolation suits me
as I simmer with you

There is no shame in exposing oneself

Think

What is love other than the fulfillment
of a short-lived dream?
There are no boundaries, no laws
no lines of demarcation

Love is the sun's rays hitting earth
nothing obstructs them
We burn as two distinct fires in remote regions
One old, one new
Each dream a dream of you.








Next I have a poem by Audre Lorde from her book The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance, Poems 1987-1992, published by W. W. Norton in 1993.

This poem is, among other things, a reminder that for folks who live on the coast, every hurricane season is like playing a game of Russian Roulette without knowing how many bullets are in the chamber and when the trigger will be pulled.

A lot like life, that way.



Restoration: A Memorial - 9/18/91

Berlin again     after chemotherapy
I reach behind me once more
for days to come
sweeping around the edges of authenticity
two years after Hugo blew one life away
Death like a burnt star
perched on the rim of my teacup
flaming the honey drips from my spoon
sunlight flouncing off the gargoyles opposite.

Somewhere it is Tuesday
in the ordinary world
ravishment fades
into compelling tasks
our bodies learn to perform
quite a bit of the house is left
our bedroom spared
except for the ankle-deep water
and terrible stench.

Would I exchange this safety of exile
for the muddy hand-drawn water
wash buckets stashed
where our front porch had been
half-rotten vegetables
the antique grey settling over your face
that October.

I want you laughing again
After the stinking rugs are dragged away
the crystal chandelier dug
from the dining-room floor
refrigerator righted
broken cupboards stacked outside
to dry for our dinner fire.

A few trees still stand
in a brand-new landscape
but the sea road is impassable.
Your red shirt
hung out on a bush to dry
is the only flower for weeks.
No escape. No return.
No other life
half so sane.

In this alien and temporary haven
my poisoned fingers
slowly return to normal
I read your letter dreaming
the perspective of a bluefish
or a fugitive parrot
watch the chemicals driving my nails
as my skin takes back its weaknesses.
Learning to laugh again.








Here I go again, talking about the weather.



beyond the fence

four days in a row
of dreary winter-wet
and the weather
grumbles start
from the
always-greener crowd

but not me
for i know what's
on the other side
of the fence
and it's not green pastures,
but a hundred kinds
of south texas
summer misery,
ticks and cactus,
dead, dry grass,
rattlesnakes on
flat-rock hot
days and dead-still
sulfur-tasting nights

i am a
northern light
hung
on a southern
cross
and i know all to well
what is coming
all too soon








Here's one last piece from Crossing Water.

This piece is by Cyril Dabykdeen, a poet born in Guyana and currently teaching Fiction Writing at the University of Ottawa. He has published four volumes of poetry, two short story collections, and two novels.



Adrift

You knew the world, miraculously,
like an egg on your palm, studying its shape,
geodesic in a way ...

Italy's or Spain's shores, going farther away,
our Europe's distance, an entire ocean throbbing
in th sun's eye -
each wave an eyebrow really...
beginnings all over again, other places, a twig's
foreshadowing, a travel of lost time,
twirling fingers, all hands on deck.

This thrashing of waves all around,
the momentum of a fish flying suddenly,
or a miracle of trinity-peaked mountains.

Further images of men with heads between their
shoulders, beasts or gods; my Arawak's or Carib's face
of fear - welcoming, mirageous again.

The ocean rolling back like a giant carpet,
and mindful of you, lifted up,
pushing, from behind a huge boulder,
feet firmly planted.

On new soil, this groundless earth,
looking up at a contemptuous sky.








Norman Anderson, also, has not been with us in a while. Well, here he is again, with an interesting twist on an old story.



Sun Devil

Well, I was born in 1925
in a little town known as Wilcox, Arizona
Mom split up with dad so I
lived with the Carbajal family
we were dirt poor
but I made it to Arizona State and then USC
then what do I do?
I go off and join the Army
I was in airborne
then in '51 I was
sheep dipped
by the Company
oh, it was a happy day.

See, I had "Old Glory"
wrapped around my brain
get the commies
that was the name of the game
or take over an entire nation
we all got on board the cold war train

In Guatemala
we hit Arbenz
I did what i was told
In Chile we tracked down
Che Guevara
'ol Felix Rodriguez still has
Che's Rolex watch
yah know Che wasn't that bad of a guy
but,

I had "Old Glory"
wrapped around my brain
I was the top "Mechanic"
for The Company
My mind was made up
it's all about security
for our great nation
and the rest is history

In '61 we hit the beach
the Bay of Pigs
Jack left us out to dry
many a great man
died on the sand
Bobby tried to keep it going
with the Zenith Corporation
it was just a front
man, me and Johnny Roselli
and Bill Harvey, Ted Shackley
we had us some fun in Miami
JMWAVE
then there was Operation 40
and Alpha 66
but we all knew it was a big pile of
sh##

Like I said, We had "Old Glory"
wrapped around our brains
we did our best
so who is to blame?
looking back
I guess to the Company
it's all fun and games

In Dallas me and Frank Sturgis moved around all the time
waiting for the "Big Event"
Jack had no security
Dealy Plaza
a snipers haven
the motorcade route was changed
the patsy was in place
Three shots?
now that's funny
the "Magic Bullet"
I'm busting a gut here!
geez ya know
the last true president of this country
died that day
but nobody wanted a Kennedy dynasty
the military complex wouldn't have it
the "secret team" wouldn't have it
and nothing has been the same
because the shadow government
plays an evil game

I'm sorry but I had "Old Glory"
wrapped around my brain
they called me "El Indio"
killing is all I know
oh, forgive me for the
Phoenix Program in Nam
I did what I was told
god, I felt like Attila the Hun
somebody please
save my soul
we hit Bobby in '68
because he knew who killed Jack
he had to go
Listen I died before I could testify
before the HSCA
in '78
I would'a told everything I knew
I did it for our country
My name is David Sanchez Morales
and that's my story .








The next two poems are from the works of Richard Wilbur taken from Collected Poems, 1943-2004, published by Harcourt in 2004.

Wilbur was a prolific writer, known for both his translations and his own work. The book contains both so I have included in the poems below, first, one of his own poems, followed by his translation of a short poem by Charles Baudelaire.



Security Lights, Key West

Mere minutes from Duval Street's goings-on
The midnight houses of this quiet block,
With their long-lidded shutters, are withdrawn
In sleep past bush and picket, bolt and lock,

Yet each facade is raked by the strange glare
Of halogen, in which fantastic day
Verandah, turret, balustraded stair
Glow like the settings of some noble play.

As if the isle were Prospero's, you seem
To glimpse great summoned spirits as you pass.
Cordelia tells her truth, and Joan her dream,
Becket prepares the sacrifice of Mass,

A dog-tired watchman in that mirador
Waits for the flare that tells of Troy's defeat,
And other lofty ghosts are heard, before
You turn into a narrow, darker street.

There, where no glow or glare outshines the sky,
The pitch-black houses loom on either hand
Like hulks adrift in fog, as you go by.
It comes to mind that they are built on sand,

And that there may be drama here as well,
Where so much murk looks up at star on star:
Though, to be sure, you cannot always tell
Whether those lights are high or merely far.


by Charles Baudelaire

Correspondences

Nature's a temple whose living colonnades
Breathe forth a mystic speech in fitful sighs;
Man wanders among symbols in those glades,
Where all things watch him with familiar eyes.

Like dwindling echoes gathered far away
Into a deep and thronging unison
Huge as the night or as the light of day,
All scents and sounds and colors meet as one.

Perfumes there are as sweet as the oboe's sound,
Green as the prairies, fresh as a child's caress,
- And there are others, rich, corrupt, profound

And of an infinite pervasiveness,
Like myrrh, or musk, or amber, that excite
The ecstasies of sense, the soul's delight.








Out of all the expressions of right-wing Christian arrogance and exclusivity, none set my teeth on edge more than the frequently stated claim that the US is "a Christian Nation."

Well, just stick it where the sun don't shine, friends. The Jews can have their Jewish state and the Muslims all the Muslim republics they want, that's all none of my business. But I live in the United States of American, land of freedom and religious liberty and we don't allow no ayatollahs telling who are the select and who are not.

Not in my country we don't.



it's a Christian Nation, i'm told

though long has been
my belief
that i lived in a nation
of freedom and liberty,
i learned
instead,
this week
that i live in a
Christian Nation
and people like me
aren't supposed to be here
and maybe you, too, if you are

Baha'i, Buddhist, Confucian, Hindu, Muslim, Jainist, Jew, Shinto, Sikh, Taoist, Voodooer,
Asatru, Druid, Wiccan, Caodaist, Deist, Druze, Eckankarian, Gnostic, Gypsie,
Krishnaian, Lukumi, Macumba, Mowahhidoon, Santerian, Satanist, Scientologist,
Unitarian Universalist, Yazdeanist, Zeroastrianian, Itian, Neo-paganist
or

like me
just don't have much interest
or patience
with any of that hocus-
pocus

if your are any of those Christ-denying
religions,
then
just face it,
you aren't supposed to be
in this Christian Nation
any more than i am
and are allowed to stay
(provisional status only)
by temporary grant of the Council
of Christ's Own Holy Posse of Pristine PooBaas
who meet every Thursday
over the sacred sacraments

- sweet tea, chicken
fried steak and pecan pie -

there in Waco, Texas,
right down the road from
where those crazy people
burned up all their kids
cause they didn't think their kids
could ever grow up holy enough
without the AK-47's the black
helicopter gov'ment guys
wanted to pry from their cold
dead fingers

it's my continued tenure in this
Great Christian Nation,
that's decided every week
right at God's Little Steakhouse
and Titty bar, and yours, too, if
you are not, like me, at one with our
holy bejebbers Christian Nation, one
nation, under the big dark eye,
of Christ the watcher of all, highly
divisible into the uses and pagan
thems who better damn sure
watch themselves, with liberty
and justice for the uses but not for
thems who never learned the necessary
arts of proper prostrating -

thems being me
and maybe you -

who, like i said, better watchit
or their asses are going to be burning
in hell sooner rather than later, like
we all know their going to be anyway

- see, it's anti-Christian comments
just like that that are going to get
me thrown right out of this country
some day, i mean, hellfire and
tarnation, how can you be a
really good soldier for Christ
like those poor dead Waco children
tried to be, without your AK-47 and grenade
launcher and ballistic missiles
and Starwars fibrillating bodymass
disintegrator, i mean, holy sweetpotatoes,
Jesus needs all the help he can get
and if he can't get it from you, well, you
might just as well turn in you temporary
non-Christian residency card -

so that's mainly what i learned this week,
about how this is a Christian Nation
and all my damned humanistic, Antichrist thinking
is bound to get me shipped out to France
for sure

so see you later, maybe,
on the Champs de Ellesse -
we can maybe split an espresso
and baguette - though one of us
is going to have to play the
accordion if we want to fit in








Next, I have several poems from the anthology 300 T'ang Poems.

The T'ang period in Chinese history, often called the golden age of Chinese poetry, stretched from the years 618 through 906. All subsequent Chinese poetry derives its forms from the creations of that time.

The editors of the anthology include a very interesting introduction to the book that includes, among other things. discussion of the particular difficulties of translation from the Chinese language, which is non-alphabetic, has no articles, no gender, no case, no tenses, and, in poetry, few pronouns or prepositions.



The first of the T'ang poets for this week is Chang Chiu-ling who lived from 673 to 740. He was a native of Ch'u-chiang in Kuangtung who rose to the highest office in the earlier part of the Emperor Hsuan-tsung's reign. As Chief Minister he tried to warn the emperor about dangers to his rule but his warnings were not heeded. He was forced out of office in 737 and was banished to Ching-chou.


Looking at the Moon and Longing for a Distant Lover

A clear moon climbs over the sea;
To its farthest rim
    the whole sky is glowing.
Lovers complain - how endless is the night!
Their longing thoughts rise till the dawn.

I blow out the candle
    to enjoy the clear radiance
Slip on my clothes
    for I feel the dew grow thick.
Since I cannot gather a handful of moonlight
    to give you,
I shall go back to sleep
    and hope to meet you in a dream!


The next poet is Liu Shen-hsu, a poet of the 8th century and holder of various official posts, including Collator of Texts in the Academy of Letters.


Poem

The way leads into white clouds
    and disappears;
The spring day is long
    as this glassy stream
Bearing away its freight
    of fallen petals -
Their scent follows the flow of the water
    into the distance

A hermit's door
    fronts the mountain path,
A study set secretly
    in willow trees;
Full sunlight ever flickers
    on this quiet place -
Its clear shining
    blazes on my garments.


Now here's a poem by Wang Wei, a native of T'ai-yung, Shansi. He was a success in service to the Emperor, serving as Court Musician, Censor and Court Secretary and Vice-Premier. In later life he became a Buddhist and lived very simply a his county retreat on the Wang River, where he died in 759. He was an accomplished painter, as well as poet and musician, and is considered the founder of Southern School of landscape painting.


Written by My Country Retreat by the River Wang, After Heavy Rain

Days of rain in the empty woods,
    wavering chimney smoke -
They are stewing vegetable and steaming millet
    to send to the eastern acres.
Over the still flooded fields
    a white heron flies,
In the leafy woods of summer
    pipes a golden oriole.

I have practiced quietude in the mountains
    contemplating the "morning glory":
For my simple meal under the pines,
    I rather dewy ferns,
An old countryman now, I've abandoned
    the struggle for gain -
Why are those seagulls
    so suspicious of me?


My last poem from this anthology is by Li Po, considered by many Chinese as their greatest poet. Born in 701, he died in 762 after a life of mostly wandering in Eastern China. He apparently never set up his own home, never took any of the official examinations and never served in any official appointment except, for some time, Court Poet. At one time, after becoming involved in court intrigues, he spent some months in prison, but was pardoned and returned to his wandering, given the nickname "Banished Immortal," He died in 762.


Tzu-Yeh's Autumn Song

A thin strip of moon
    over Ch'ang-an,
From a thousand homes
    the sound of beating clothes;
Autumn wind
    blows without ceasing.
Their thoughts are all
    at Yu-men pass:
"When will the Tartars be thrown back
And our husbands return from the distant battlefield?"








Back in the grand old days of weekly picture magazines like Life some of the greatest photographers in the world were paid very well to go around the world to take pictures to be published every week. (Imagine that, and the volume of pictures that had to be taken to meet that production schedule.) Along with the photographers, there were writers paid, not as much, to write little 15-20 word prose pieces that could turn the pictures into stories.

I've been experimenting (too grand, fooling around, better) with doing the same sort of thing, combining the two arts with the idea of maybe doing a book some day. The photographs, by Thomas Costales, a series of night images, are terrific and book-ready. The problem for me is writing those little poems that catch the essence of the images.

Though I still have a ways to go before my art matches the photographer's, here are a couple of my early attempts at doing just that. They are much too long and much too not good enough. But, one must forge ahead until they are good enough, or, until I decide to forget the whole idea.

As I envision a book, the photos (about twice the size of the ones below) and the poems would be on facing pages.






wheels
do not turn

hub
locked
in silent watch

life slips away
for
hours
of neon dark





bright treasures
beckon
from an island light

around
the corner
dark

around the corner
other treasures

treats

or maybe
tricks
darkly hidden

around the corner -
a kind of truth

or maybe just
little little sharp-eyed tricks

a monkey-faced boy
and three sharp-taloned
girls

blood
treasures
around corners
dark

you
choose





a chubby little man
with perfect little feet
and perfect
little buffed and polished
toes

a fantasy pedicurist,
that's his dream,
harmless, i'm told -

just
remember
to keep your feet
safely
secured
to you shoes





secrets
nestled in the
deepest
shadows of night

known to those
who find in the dark
their home

and not to us,
shy creatures
of the lighted
over-world,
knowing
only what we
can see





eastern light
brings warm
promise
to cold concrete
night

promise
of light to heavy
dark

promise of new
day
to all
worn by the
rub
of past days'
loss








Here's a poem by Leslie Ullman from her book Slow Work Through Sand, winner of the 1997 Iowa Poetry Prize published by the University of Iowa Press.

Author of three books of poetry and winner of numerous poetry awards, Ullman directs the creative writing program at the University of Texas - El Paso.



Running Horse

It's not because the halter in my
hand has any final say
that my black horse, floating
like a planet around me the past
twenty minutes, suddenly gathers himself
from daybreak and air and stops
just inches away, all
the fireworks of first sun caught
in his black tossing head -
he's ready to let gravity
touch his feet and settle him
into mammal again: sweat, hair, hard
lungfuls of air. He slips
his nose through the halter

and I'm caught in the current
between us as though born to it,
a shimmering silence, slow-motion glints
of hand and hide, non-words rising
like bubbles into my mind's washed light
as wait, listen, touch, while the sun
pulls itself up another notch
and dissolves the black hole I woke to
this morning alone in my breakable
bones and my memory full of holes,
alone in my other language
forming itself again into lists.

I lead him to the saddle and bridle
and the corral full of jumps. His hide
glows and ripples, volcanic, but his head
doesn't worry the rope, doesn't
lengthen or close the space between us.
He moves on tight springs. The rope
shivers in my hand. My pale body
rises from its crouch over a fire
so deep it may be a dream,
rises in its blanket of fear
and muscle, rises again in its
blood that warms the cold caves.








Here's a poem to close out this post. I wrote this earlier this week.



watching though the window at the drift of morning fog

watching
through the window
at the drift of morning fog
i'm
reminded
of days twenty-five
years ago, driving to
early meetings at the university,
slowly, carefully,
on the road that separates
Corpus Christi Bay and Oso Bay,
a swirling, shifting
gray cocoon of gulf coast fog
hiding everything
but the patch of
yellow light
i cast ahead of me as i drive

isolation
from the world of the new day,
nothing to see,
the only sounds breaking
through the gray mist, the faint call
of a gull, the slap of jumping fish
breaking the water on either side,
until,
faintly,
the lights of the university
like small lace curtains
show along side the road,
so close, unseen until
i'm nearly passed

outside, today,
i see little lights passing
on the interstate, like lightning bugs
flickering in the gray -
if i was outside
i could probably hear a dove
coo
from a tree
i could not see

like this,
each day brings
memories of days
not to return, only remembered now
on new days
that will pass as well,
leaving us,
eventually, with only memories
of memories remembered








And that's it for 2009. "Here and Now"will be back, bright and early, in 2010.

As usual all the material in this blog remains the property of its creators. Also as usual, any of the stuff created by me is available to whoever wants it.

I am allen itz, owner and producer of this blog and I wish you a merry christmas, if you do that sort of thing; if you don't, be happy anyway. We all deserve it of ourselves and of each other.

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A Winter Day on Grape Creek Road   Friday, December 11, 2009

IV.12.2.



This is a shorter than usual post, but I'm worn out by the Christmas mania all around, despite everything I do to avoid it and didn't want to do any more. Short, but still with some pretty good stuff for your literary entertainment.

A word about the photos this week -

I took a drive in the hill country a couple of days ago, a short run up to Fredericksburg for my quarterly ration of Koch Kasse (German cooked cheese), liverwurst, and dried beef sausage.

Found me an interesting road on the way back, Grape Creek Road, to be exact, a winding little thing that follows the creek through the hills to a quarry, paved at first, then caliche, then, toward the end, more holes than road.

I took pictures along the way, stark winter pictures with little color, and decided to fool around with them to enhance the stark wintriness of the images. I also tried for an effect that would remind me, and maybe you, of the hand-tinted photos that were popular early in the last century, black and white pictures with just a hint of color. I can't know if it works on the blog until I get it posted. Some of tho photos worked pretty good on Photobucket and some didn't work at all. Oh well.

Here's what i have this week on the poetry side of the business.


Campbell McGrath
Florida
The Orange
The Key Lime

Gary Blankenship
Road Cherita

Me
my cat looks like Charles Laughton

Annamayya
Temple songs

Gary Blankenship
Write Cherita

Me
boots, no saddle

Gary Blankenship
Cherita Too

Cyra S. Dumitru
Mary's Midwife

Me
hoping we will be true

Gary Blankenship
Cherita: Memorial for the Lakewood Officers

Sapphire
My Father's Silence (or, Last Night He Heard Two Poets -
    One Korean, One African American

Me
astonished by the cold

Charles Bukowski
simple kindness
a good try, all
proper credentials are needed to join

Me
about round

Yang Wan-Li
Drinking at Night
Eating Frost to Sober Up
I Sit Lazily All Day Because My Feet Hurt
In the Gorge: We Encounter Wind

Me
islands








I know several "Here and Now" readers are from Florida, so here's to them, three poems by Campbell McGrath from his book Florida Poems, published in 2002 by HarperCollins.

McGrath's previous collections include Capitalism, American Noise, Spring Comes to Chicago and Road Atlas. Among other awards, he has received the Kingsley Tufts Prize and fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations. He teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami.



Florida

Paradise must resemble this realm of clouds, birds and flowers!

Red woodpecker in the royal palm: so too in that forum shall trees
   uphold the firmament!

Mockingbird in the neighbor's garden, wild green parrot in the
   grapefruit tree:
twisted of years, stretching its scaly neck across the hedge,
strange to know this branch has grown precisely thus to yield its
   shapely fruit unto my hand!

So shall the limbs of that eternal orchard be laden!

Hibiscus, ixora, alamanda, oleander: so shall every flower be given
   voice!

There too, below, the billows of the sea: above, the reefs of dawn and
   sunset,
thunderheads risen like the fists of immortals,
celestial cumulus like the bearers of something immense held dangling.

Perfume of jasmine, egret in moonlight, trade wind through the
   jacaranda: nor night shall mast their glory,

nor darkness still the turmoil of our senses.


The Orange

Gone to swim after walking the boys to school.
Overcast morning, midweek, off-season,
few souls to brave the warm, storm-tossed waves,
not wild but rough for this tranquil coast.

Swimming now. In rhythm, arm over arm,
let the ocean buoy the body and the legs work little,
wave overhead, crash and roll with it, breathe,
stretch and build, windmill, climb the foam. Breathe,

breathe. Traveling downwind I make good time
and spot the marker by which I know to halt
and forge my way ashore. Who am I
to question the current? Surely this is peace abiding.

Walking back along the beach I mark the signs of erosion,
bide the usual flotsam of seagrass and fan coral,
a float from somebody's fishing boat,
crusted with sponge and barnacles, and them I find

the orange. Single irradiant sphere on the sand,
tide-washed, glistening as if new born,
golden orb , miraculous ur-fruit,
in all that sweep of horizon the only point of color.

Cross-legged on my towel I let the juice course
and mingle with the film of salt on my lips
and the sand in my beard as I steadily peel and eat it.
Considering the ancient lineage of this fruit

the long history of its dispersal around the globe
on currents of animal and human migration,
and in light of the importance of the citrus industry
to the state of Florida, I will not claim

it was the best and sweetest orange in the world,
though it was, o great salt water
of eternity,
o strange and bountiful orchard.


The Key Lime

Curiously yellow hand-grenade
of flavor; Molotov cocktail
for a revolution against the bland.








Gary Blankenship, our friend from Washington state, introduced a new poetry form to those of us on the Blueline Forums House of 30. It's called a "Cherita," a Malay word meaning story or tale. The form consists of three stanzas, the first, one line, with a narrative focus, the second, two lines, imagistic, and the third, three lines, suggestive.

Gary has done four so far, included here in this week's post.

Here's the first one.



Road Cherita

the highway ahead disappears

my eyes unable to distinguish
headlight from white line

old age
night vision
tired eyes collide








My old cat is breaking me up again.



my cat looks like Charles Laughton

my old cat
looks like Charles Laughton
in that Witness for the Prosecution

movie, especially
during her dramatic
protestations

when she wakes up
enough
to discover

her food dish
is empty -
same quivering

jowls
same fierce glare
from beneath stormy

brow -
though it is true
that cat has only one

eye
and one eye can glare
much more fiercely

than two,
giving her dramatic advantage
over Laughton,

an advantage
undone by her willingness
to forgive

and forget
all when allowed
to curl up on my lap,

something
which Laughton
would never do -

but
still she
does pretty darn good for a
cat








For a change of pace, here are several temple poems by Annamayya from a collection of his daily homages to god of the hilltop shrine of Tirupati in South India, Venkatesvara-Vishnu. The collection is titled God of the Hill, published by the Oxford University Press in 2005.

Annamayya, who lived in the shrine in the fifteenth century composed a song every day and late in his life, or shortly after his death, thirteen thousand of the poems were inscribed on copper plates and stored in a special vault in the temple. This number is said to be only about half of his total output.

The poems, in Telugu, one of the classical languages of south India, were meant to be sung, although the precise original manner of singing has long fallen into disuse. The poems saved via the copper plates are divided into two types, the metaphysical and, the majority, the erotic, dealing in great detail with the god's love life. These are usually meant to be sung by a female voice. The metaphysical poems, by contrast, are meant to be sung in the poet's voice, first person, and deal with his sense of himself as an agonized, turbulent human being in relation to his god.

The poems were translated into English by Veldcheru Narayana Rao and David Shulman.

The songs are untitled.



~~~~~

I'm so happy I chose to marry you.
You're a big man now.
What can I say?

You're a skilled lover, and you're only
one man. But your affairs
are counted by the million.
If I look at your bed, I see sixteen thousand women.
I can't know your mystery.
What can I say?

If you really want to, you can put a woman on your chest?
or ask her to sit on your head.
If I open your door, there are cow-girls all over.
I can't win.
What can I say?

If you lie down, you're Govindaraja.
If you stand up, you're the god on the hill.
Two women are always at your feet.
Among all of them, you cared for me.
What can I say?

~~~~~

These marks of black musk
on her lips, red as buds,
what are they but letters of love
sent by our friend to her lover?

Her eyes the eyes of a cakora bird,
why are they red in the corners?

Think it over, my friends:
what is it but the blood
still staining the long glances
that pierced her beloved
after she drew them from his body
back to her eyes?

            What are they but letters of love?

How is it that this woman's breasts
show so bright through her sari?

Can't you guess my friends?
It's the rays from the crescents
left by the nails of her lover,
rays luminous as moonlight on a summer night?

            What are they but letters of love?

What are these graces,
these pearls
raining down her cheeks?

Can't you imagine, friends?
What could they be but beads of sweat
left on her gentle face
by the god on the hill
when he pressed too hard,
frantic in love?

            What are they but letters of love?

~~~~~

The loveliness of this woman
can't be measured.
Think abut it, my friends.

Her long black hair flows like night.
Her face is brilliant as the sun.
Night and day have lined up
front to back.

            Think about it.

Her breasts so high,
Her waist as thin as empty space -
hills and sky
are upside down.

            Think about it.

Her hands hold the shoulders
of the god on the hill
and his hands cover her breasts:
branch and vines
intertwined.

            Think about it.

~~~~~

Why learn more? Why read books?
The mind never learns to rest.

An ignoramus reads and reads,
and his greed is compounded with interest.
When a blind dog goes to the market,
what it gets is the stick.

            Why learn more?

If you go around blaming god,
you'll never know his mind.
If you don't give yourself
to the god on the hill,
your mind will never be free.

            Why learn more?








And now, a second cherita by Gary Blankenship.



Write, Cherita

The voice in Levi commercials demands

We party until the sun rises
unable to find notes we wrote with a dry pen

The garbage truck late
leaves recycling bins
for raccoons and stray dogs








Don't wear boots anymore. As a diabetic, I grew concerned about being slipped into the fire two feet shorter than normal.



boots, no saddle

never
was a cowboy
but did wear boots

most of my adult
life,
always owned

two pair of dress boots
one black
and one brown

worn depending
on the color suit
i was wearing that day

one pair of
not-dress-up boots,
that were the dress-up-pair

last replaced
and one pair of
work-outside-in-the-rough

boots,
the-not-dress-up boots
in their final

incarnation -
never paid more than
$100 for a pair of boots,

no fancy stitching,
no alligator or lizard
or emu or boa constrictor,

just your basic plain old cow-wear,
and all were beneficiaries
of multiple visits

to the shoe repair elf
as they made their way
through their various lives

from boardroom
to muddy field -
well-traveled

were my boots
when finally
discarded -

now
i've been to
run-of-the mill

shopping mall
boot stores
with boots on their shelves

with $3,000 to $4,000
price tags
and have never figured

out
why people with that much
money to spend

on basic footwear
would spend it
on ready-made off-the-shelf

boots
when there are so many
master-craftsmen

in the business
of custom boot-making
in South Texas,

cobblers
to presidents and kings
who would custom-create

a one-of-a kind pair of boots
made precisely to the buyer's feet
for half that price -

has to be some kind of
deviant mental or moral condition
is the way i see it

from my perch
in the $100 boot
section








Here's the third cherita from Gary Blankenship.



Cherita Too

The definition of insanity

The dog lunged when she tried to pet him.
Tomorrow, he will lunge like he did the day before.

Cowbirds
invade the robin's nest.
Crows sing out of tune.








The next poem is by Cyra S. Dumitru from her book Listening to Light, an investigation of religious figures in a more modern personal light. Even though not a christian myself, I thought the movie, "Last Temptation of Christ," was a profound and moving evocation of that religion's belief in the dual nature of Christ and the sacrfice he finally chose to make, while many of believers saw it as blasphemy. It makes me wonder how they would view this poem, which, to my mind, brings a strong human element to the event that is the focus of this season.



Mary's Midwife

You might like to think
the birth was spotless as the conception.
It was a baptism of water and blood.

Instead of crowning,
the baby tried to come feet first.
I reached inside Mary

and turned him around.
On that cold night, we had no fire,
just the warmth radiating from cows and sheep.


While outside a great star filled the heavens
we had no windows either,
just cracks in the barn wall where light trickled in.

Gusts of wind blew out our lantern.
Joseph plugged the biggest crack with his own woolen cloak
then returned to rubbing Mary's neck, back.

Her eyes shone like two moons
burning with a sad knowing.
But most of all, I remember,

how cushioned only by clean straw
Mary rode the hours of waves with hardly a moan.
How she reached for that child when he landed

squalling, skin patchy with her blood.
The moment she held him he stopped crying,
looked straight at her, opened his huge hands.








Here's a view contrary to those of many I know.



hoping we will be true

in 1968, flying in
from Peshawar
in a DC-3
that struggled to top
the peaks of the Hindu Kush

i remember
my first sight of Kabul,
a green oasis
in the middle of dirt brown
mountains

traveling through the city
to our temporary AID
residence
was liked we had
jumped ahead

several centuries
during our flight from
Pakistan's
Northwest Frontier,
a mixed jump it was, true,

to a city with poets
and intellectuals and bookstores
downtown and a zoo
and museum, while camels
rested on the roadside

a city center of low-rise,
mostly wooden structures,
except for the Spirazan Hotel,
where westerners could go
to the top floor where

whiskey was served and
Hank Williams was played
by a traveling band
of booted Filipino cowboys -
a gathering place

for Americans, Russians,
UN aid workers and anyone
else with a thirst
and a non-critical love
of cowboy music

on the mountain side
surrounding the city, another
city of terraced mud-brick homes
where the keepers of tradition
lived, where a thousand years

of Afghan history still lived
and was sustained, a benevolent
king governing loosely
through a system of consensus
and widely dispersed power

a pleasant place to be
where foreigners could walk
the streets under tall leafy trees,
eating from round loaves of
sweet nann bought from street

corner vendors, could listen to children
in their uniforms as they walk
too and from their schools,
singing in high sweet voices,
Americans

greeted everywhere by smiles
and friendly, open faces -
these were the good days,
before wars and occupation
by foreign forces, before

the murderous rule of warlords,
before free thought and centuries
of culture were erased by
the religion of fanatics
and evil, twisted minds -

the good days before
hell on earth descended
on people who,
from the time of Alexander's passage,
had outlived their conquerers

I remembered all this
last night
while listening to the President speak,
knowing that twice in the past 30 years
we have deserted these good people,

having first encouraged them to believe in us,
then leaving them behind without a thought
when some misadventure or other
came to obsess us,
hoping,

as i listen,
that this time
we will be true to them
and to our
word








And now our fourth cherita by Gary Blankenship. I expect those of us at the House of 30 will be seeing more cheritas from Gary and have already seen first attempts by other members. I haven't tried one yet, but will after I work up my confidence.



Cherita: Memorial for the Lakewood Officers
      December 8, 2009

The evil that walks earth infects.

A community comes together
brothers and sisters, guardians honor the fallen.

Not a leaf stirs,
not a blade of grass,
the silence of broken hearts echoes.








I have a poem now by Sapphire from her book Black Wings & Blind Angels, published by Knopf in 2000. Her poems are rough and raw, even brutal sometimes. I have not read her fiction, but her novel Push was recently made into a movie, Precious, that I have not seen, but have heard a lot about, mostly rave reviews.

I had decided to use a poem from Sapphire this week because of all the talk about the movie, and I'm glad I did because, in the doing, I found this poem so different from everything else I've read by her, much truer, more personal, it seems to me. What I've read of her in the past, for all its explosive power, seemed, unlike this, about things observed, not lived.

I have respect her poems I have read before, an intellectual, not emotional response. This poem I like very much.



My Father's Silence (or, Last Night He Heard
Two Poets - One Korean, One African American)

The Korean woman reads first
& I hear the torn foot
of war
the bloody footsteps
that connect us
like jewelry around our necks
choking out words, creaking
like my father silent
in his easy chair.
But the photograph talks:
"Korea 1950" written on the back;
black and white, serrated edges
like butterflies. He is tall,
thoughtful, in the blood bleached
green fatigues of war.
A huge tent, the flaps rolled up -
a white man back to the camera
pounds on the typewriter.
Another looks to my father
in deference - up,
like he never has before
in Alabama, Peoria, Mississippi,
San Jose -
like he never will see again.
The tent, the jungle foliage -
which are flowers, shrubs & trees
to the natives -
grow forever in a chair, vinyl -
new kinds of plastic crying sounds
we never her from a silent father
who prides himself on
never talkng about the war, wars,
there were two.
But I hear in the middle of life
in the barb wire poem of a sun
filled porch they used to drink
iced tea upon & look out on their land -
I hear my father talking
& it is the slow sound
of a man who wants to die.

The black woman reads next -
meat, the kitchen, the Saran Wrap
melting dream of garbage floes
like we couldn't know then, in 1950,
what the aggression would cost us.
The true price of napalm
rolling through the aisle of America
on the wings of a war
that didn't make sense,
he said.
No, he said, silent reactionary
man twisting like a big car
on the huge Erector Sets that haul
automobiles to market,
for a moment, a bump in the road,
& the vehicle, in its trek
from assembly line to grave,
rolls off one time unexpectedly
gumming the works
& a lifetime of petticoats,
Goodyear rubber, file cabinets turn channels
& he says, No,
my sons won't go. And they don't.

He sits silent armchair
of a newspaper dreaming blood barb wire,
the torn integument of the soul
mute in Alabama, Peoria, patient in Mississippi,
pass for white in San Jose
speaks like shrapnel
in the retina of a child's eye,
the fence he couldn't climb
he walks around
twenty years later. The dead
years stacked up like Melnac plates
wrapped in plastic & Styrofoam
even though they can't,
like him, beak,
& the gesture is paralyzed
on the fence,
he is blind before he can see
the other side.
In order to die peacefully
he would have had to talk
about things other than
a photograph to his sons.
He would have had to ask
forgiveness,
demand retribution for
the stolen snapshot of his soul.
Somewhere the wings of a butterfly
needed to be rearranged;
as it was
he walked along the fence
the major fold in his brain
dividing his days & the nights
choking on Saran Wrap with
petticoats dark as nuclear winter
frozen on the little legs
of a tricycle.








We are such wusses here in South Texas when it comes to cold weather. We huddle up like eskimos in their igloos in weather that would send other people from other places out to the park in muscle shirts and cutoffs to play softball.



astonished by the cold

those of us
born and raised
in lands were days are hot
and nights are warm
are always
astonished
by the year's first winter cold,
stepping out our front door
into the dark
of an early winter morning,
stepping into a cold
that seems universal,
cold that stretches from the dirt
beneath our feet
to the furthest star
we can see -

a transformed
universe we see,
cold as the
meat locker
at the grocery store
where we earned
our first wages -
it just doesn't seem
reasonable
that the world all around
could ever be as cold
as that locker,
with beef quarters
hanging from hooks
in the ceiling, chicken
frozen in boxes
on icy shelves

growing up
in a world where
cold has a cost per
kilowatt hour, we
can't help wondering,
who's paying the bill
for all this cold








Haven't done any Bukowski lately, so here he is, Charles Bukowski, from his book The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain, another in the series of what seems like dozens of books published since his death. A hugely prolific writer during his lifetime, he seems to have left a full library of unpublished work at his death.

Along with all his great poems about the life of a drunk, a philanderer, a brawler, a gambler, he also gave us insight (and a lot of hope for a late-blooming poet like me) into the life of a poet.

Such as this one.



simple kindness

every now and then
towards 3 a.m.
and well into the second
bottle
a poem will arrive
and I'll read it
and immediately attach to it
that dirty word -
immortal.

well, we all know that
in this world now
that
immortality can be a very
brief experience
or
in the long run:
non-existent.

still, it's nice to play with
dreams of
immortality
and I set the poem aside in a
special place
and
go on with the
others

- to find that poem again
in the morning
read it
and
without hesitation

tear it
up.

it was nowhere near
immortal
then
or now

- just a drunken piece
of sentimental
trash.

the best thing about self-
rejection
is that it
saves the obnoxious duty
from being
somebody else's
problem.


And, always, there's the drunk and the unreliable lover as well.


good try, all

did I fail those fragile tulips?
I think back over my checkered past
remembering all the ladies I've known who
at the beginning of the affair
were already discouraged and un-
happy because of their miserable
previous experiences with other
men.

I was considered just another
stop along the way
and maybe I
was and maybe I wasn't.

the ladies had long been used and mis-
used
while undoubtedly adding their share of
abuse to the
mix.

they were always
chary at first
and the affairs were much like reading an
old newspaper over and over
again (the obituary or help-wanted
sections)
or it was like listening to a familiar
song
too often recalled and sung again
until the melody and words became
blurred.

their real needs were obscured by their
fears
and I always arrived too late with too
little.

yet sometimes there were moments
however brief
when kindness and laughter
came breaking
through
only to quickly dissolve into the
same inevitable dark
despair.

did I fail those fragile tulips?
I can't think of any one of those ladies
I'd rather not have known
no matter what stories they tell of me
now
as they edge again into
the lives of new-found
lovers.


proper credentials are needed to join

I keep meeting people, I am introduced to
to them at various gatherings
and
either sooner or later
I am told smugly that
this lady or
that gentleman
(all of them young and fresh of face,
essentially untouched by life)
has given up drinking;
that
they all have
had a very difficult time
of late
but
now
(and
the NOW
is what irritates me)
all of them are pleased and proud
to have finally overcome all that alcoholic
nonsense.

I could puke on their feeble
victory. I started drinking at the age of
eleven
after I discovered a wine cellar
in the basement of a boyhood
friend
and
since then
I have done jail time on 15 or
occasions,
had 4 D.U.I's,
have lost 20 or 30 terrible
jobs,
have been battered and left for
dead in several skid row
alleys, have been twice
hospitalized and
have experienced numberless wild and
suicidal
adventures.

I have been drinking, with
gusto, for 54 years and intend to
continue to
do so.

and now I am introduced
to these young,
blithe, slender, unscathed,
delicate creatures
who
claim to have vanquished the
dreaded evil of
drink!

what is true, of course, is
that they have never really experienced
anything - they have just
dabbled and they have just
dipped in a toe, they have only
pretended to really drink.
with them, it's like saying that
they have escaped hell-fire by blowing out
a candle.

it takes real effort
and many years to get damn good
at anything
even being a drunk,
and once more
I've never met one of these reformed drunks
yet
who was any better for being
sober.








And here's another piece that started with something in the Times Tuesday Science section, though it is not, I think, what they had in mind.



about round

like shadows in the dark,
round is everywhere
though usually

unseen -
circles, regular or
rough,

nature's
perfect form,
a line never ending -

find the place
where the earth
begins,

find the place
where the sun and stars
begin,

the place where
their perfect roundness
ends -

the circle of life
a line
unbroken

never ending,
a circle of circles
intertwining

all other forms
are death,
endings

like the sharp
cornered box
they put you in

the sharp cornered hole
where your soul and heart
are boxed forever

pulled
from the circle
to end in rot








Next, I have several verses by Sung Dynasty poet Yang Wan-Li from a collection of his work, Heaven My Blanket, Earth My Pillow, published in 2004 by White Pine Press.

The Sung Dynasty was a relatively brief period during China's long history, beginning in 1126 and ending when the Mongols overthrew the Sung in 1279 to establish their own Yuan dynasty.

Born in the same year as the Sung Dynasty was established, Yang lived the relatively uneventful life of a scholar-bureaucrat, moving from one post to the other until he retired in 1192, declining several subsequent requests to return to service, finally dying in 1206.

Yang is known as "the colloquial poet," writing in direct and unadorned language about the everyday aspects of life as well as greater themes.

I like the way these poems take me to strange and wonderful places, strange and wonderful, yet so common place and real I feel like I'm returning to a place I've already been.

The poems were translated by Jonathan Chaves.



Drinking at Night

I drink alone in my cold study,
huddled close to the brazier.
The wine is fresh - just strained this evening.
The candle is short - left over from last night.
I chew on a piece of sugar cane as big as a rafter
and eat tangerines sweeter than honey.
When the wine takes effect, a poem comes to me;
I grope for my brush, but I'm too high to write it down.


Eating Frost to Sober Up

Hung over from last night's wine -
my chest is heavy, my stomach upset.
Below the railing on Peony Bank
I break off a ball of frost
      and roll it down my tongue.


I Sit Lazily All Day Because My Feet Hurt

For three or four years
my eyes have been hazy,
      and my hair has turned to snow;
yet I've somehow managed to get along.
But now my feet hurt
      and I can't walk;
I stay home all day, sitting like a Zen monk!

I drop my fan beside the desk,
      but I'm too lazy to pick it up;
I try reading by the window,
      but I can't get anywhere.
People envy the immortals because they can fly;
for me, an immortal is a man who can walk.


Rising From a Nap at Noon

How can you stay awake all day?
At noon I think of taking a nap.
My bamboo bed has been warmed by the sun;
I toss and turn but cannot fall asleep.
So I get up, scratch my white head,
      and walk around the verandah a hundred times.

Just as I'm feeling most depressed
a strange thing happens to me -
a breeze blows through the northern door
and past the southern window,
      past the southern window,
            wafting to me
the fragrance of young orchids.

Cooled by the breeze, this old man feels refreshed,
as if he had returned life.
But in the future, at times like this,
will the breeze come again?


In the Gorge: We Encounter Wind

Our boat is becalmed in the middle of the river -
the mountains are silent and gloomy at sunset.
Suddenly a clap of thunder sounds in the darkening sky
and the trees along the shore begin to sway.
A powerful wind blows in from the southern sea
and sweeps angrily through the gorge.
The sailors cheer;
      the great drum is beaten.
One man flies to the top of the mainmast,
As the sail unfurls I pull my hands into my sleeves
and watch ripples like goose feathers
      swirl by in the water.








We finish up this week with this poem. I'm satisfied with most of what I write, and, if I'm not, I just say "what the hell" and set out to write another one. Every once in a while though, I do something that I really, really like. Like this one.



islands

no man is an
island,
said Stevenson

but that is not true
for we are all islands
mysterious

and remote
and while some
may plumb our shores

none ever sees
the bedrock
of us -

thus it is, alone
on the fearsome
sea

we must abide,
awaiting the the cataclysmic
shift

that set us all apart to come again
to heal
our birth-separation, to bring us back

to the wholeness of all,
to be again the sea
and not an island on it








Two weeks until Christmas. May you all be cheery and bright and stuff. I'll be back next week, but not certain about the week after. Nobody's going to be reading "Here and Now" the week between Christmas and New Year's anyway, any work to put it out seems a waste.

I'm calling a conference of my senior advisors to discuss this. In fact, they're all in a circle around me, ready to begin discussions now, two dogs and three cats. It depends, I guess, on whether or not I get bored and start looking for something to do.

As usual, everything here remains the property of whoever created it. The stuff I created is available to anyone who wants it.

I am allen itz, owner and producer of the blog. If you find anything here you don't like, you can contact me to complain. But you have to find me first.

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Snow Day   Saturday, December 05, 2009

IV.12.2.



I am sitting here by the window, waiting to watch it snow, which it's not going to do despite four days of prognosticator promises. Feeling bereft, I turn to the only snow available to me, pictures from trips to Colorado this year and last. I will share those photos with you in this issue.

Here are those on the duty roster for this unsnowy day.


Me
i am not watching it snow

Leroy Searle
Turkey Shooting on Mount Monadnoc
Sheep

Elizabeth San Juan
Moths

Joe Mockus
Last Day in Idaho

Me
it's a left-right world we live in

Stan Crawford
How I see it
Observed in Belize

Charles Levenstein
Sabbath

Gloria Fuertes
To Have a Child These Days
The Birds Nest in My Arms

Me
300 miles, south

Grace Paley
Stanzas: Old Age and the Conventions of Retirement Have Driven My Friends from the Work They &nbso;   Love
On Mother's Day

Charles Levenstein
Walker

Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Arguments of Everlasting

Me
if you see Alvin, tell him i'm looking for him

Sudeep Sen
Durga Puja

Charles Levenstein
Window of Desire

Pat Mora
Los Ancianos
Mi Tierra
Desert Woman

Me
Sunday quiet

William Matthews
The Blues

Charles Levenstein
Bees

Me
winter slips in at midnight

Ray Gonzalez
Three Snakes, Strawberry Canyon, Berkeley

Me
before i forget again








I start with this piece, written when the snow did not come as promised.



i am not watching it snow

so
the plan was

i'd be sitting
here

near downtown
San Antonio

on the corner
of San Pedro

& Mistletoe
looking out the great

windows
at Timo's Coffee House

watching it snow
right here in near downtown

San Antonio
but it is not to be

for
Houston

New Orleans
on the bayous

but with no soul
and no music

and too many
people

too many
rich people

in $10,00 suits
and $5,000 boots

and too many poor
people

living three blocks
on the wrong side

of the edge of
desperation

Houston
the city of the big

suck
has sucked up all my snow

and how like them
that is

(and lest you
be suspicious

Mistletoe
is the true name

of the cross street
upon the corner of which

today's drama
did not transpire

promise)








I hit the mother lode at my used bookstore last week, a copy of Poetry, February, 1973, and a copy of the Berkeley Poetry Review, Winter, 1977. They cost me $1.98 each, more than they sold for when new and who said there wasn't any money to be made in poetry.

I love my used bookstore.


I following my "find," here two poems from Poetry (February, 1973) by Leroy Searle, making his first appearance in the journal. In 1973, he was assistant professor of English at the University of Rochester. He is currently a professor at the University of Washington.



Turkey Shooting on Mount Monadnoc

I saw all the signs:
"Turkey Shoot on Sunday,"
Well now,
Come in your pickup;
drive right to the village green
and load your shotgun.

Bluster of feathers,
gobbling in a wire cage,
neck-tics gesturing
the hape of space.

I took my turkey,
a Swift's Premium Butterball
weighing eighteen pounds.
Hung it in a tree
where it swayed there, peaceful
as a moon of fat,
glistening like a great carbuncle.
And I sat down calmly
and shot it several times.

It seemed like the thing to do.


Sheep

As they would come,
they lit up the distance
like rocks at dusk;
the low bagpipe
of their voices filling the afternoon,
flowing over its brim
into the center
of the field.

Sheep, with a common failing,
they knew each other
and that was all:
perfect victims
that the dogs could tease,
as helpless, one
by one, as clouds.

Seeing them at sundown,
tight against each other
like some freezing
arctic infantry,
they move,
a single beast, looking
foolish as they
plunge against the dark,
against the imperfect
scent of wolves,
shipping them to run.

They seem demented
in their following,
slaves to a law
invisible to all but them,
going over waterfalls
in its service,
dead in canyons
at the foot of cliffs.

Dead sheep: voiceless,
inexplicable
to men who never
saw their priesthood
and devotions;
saw how passionate
dumb beasts can be,
saving the appearances,
fearing the teeth and claws
of the active, silent
blank.


Next, I turn to two poets from Winter 1977 issue of the Berkeley Poetry Review.


The first poet is Elizabeth San Juan. The Review doesn't include any information on contributors. I was also unable to find any google-reference to the poet, so all I have to represent her is her poem.


Moths

say yes
to the moths.
they wish to speak to you now,
while it's quiet,
dark,
while they see the glow
of your eyes
in the grass
and the dew
beaded on your bangs
and lashes.

stand up to meet them.
you know you can't fly so let them see
a bodyprint of crushed grass,
the film of green on your skin,
show them
the magic
that wets their wings


The second poet from the review is Joe Mockus. I found reference to Mockus as contributor to the summer, 2008 issue of r.kv.r.y. quarterly literary journal, with a note that, as of that issue he assumes the duty of poetry editor for the journal. He is a criminal defense attorney, rock and roll drummer, and, as a poet, has been published extensively in the small press.


Last Day in Idaho

Lodgepole pine cracked up the dawn
the day I drove Keith's pickup truck
off the road and down
the cliff, leaping from the cab
into blackberry, wild rose,
watching it bounce like a dream,
rolling helplessly into the cherry trees
snapping their sapling necks.

Stinging fingers gripping thorns, body stiff
biting against the dire
and quickly the deep quiet: I watched the sun's light
pink behind the lodgepole pine, trying
to awake, sensing the hillside
not the place
to turn back to sleep.








The next piece form me this week is from one of those "my how interesting" stories you run into in the New York Times Science Section.



it's a left-right world we live in

it's
a left-right world
we live in

even snails
have their differing
orientations

(amphidromus perversus
snails
to be exact)

the difference
is in the shell and on which side
is located the little opening

from which citizen snail
can poke out his little head
to survey the world

around him -
snails of the right
have their opening on the right

while
snails of the left
are open on the left -

you can certainly understand
how this fundamental
difference in orientation

governs
how the lefties and righties
view the world

they slowly
traverse, creating, no doubt,
corresponding differences

in the most basic
snail
philosophies,

so basic are their
differences,
marriage

between a lefty
and a righty
is fundamentally

and genetically
not possible -
that does not mean

they are asexual
creatures,
both enjoying mutually satisfying

sex
with their own kind
at a moment's notice

this is especially true
of the righties
who, in addition to their sack

and plunder philosophies,
are physiologically
better equipped for the act

being that their right-wing
orientation
allows their genitals

to touch
and touch again
while making snail whoopee

while, lefties,
on the other hand would usually rather talk,
mostly about boring things

like political philosophies
or the plight of the poor
in southern Guatemala,

with the additional handicap
of non-touching genitals
due to their lefty orientation

meaning
the only lefties who are able to reproduce
are those with extensive study

of yoga

there is some justice in the world,
however,
that keeps the lefties from being overrun by righties,

that justice comes in the form of
snail-eating snakes
with asymmetric jawbones

that make a fine feast of righties
while
making the lefties impossible to swallow

the latin name
for this genus of snail-eating snakes
is keitholbermannus








Inprint is a nationally recognized nonprofit literary arts foundation in Houston. The organization conducts workshops and other literary events and, occasionally sponsors publication of poetry collections, such as Five Inprint Poets, published by Mutabilis Press in 2003.

I have chosen Stan Crawford to feature this, one of the five poets included in the book. I will return to other poets in the book in weeks to come.

Crawford is an attorney who practices civil trial law in Houston. He has a B.A. from Brown University, where he studied poetry, and a J.D. from the University of Texas. His history as a poet is much like mine. Both of us wrote when we were younger than quit for many years, 30 years in my case and 25 in his, returning to poetry later in life when other obligations began to consume less of our life and time.



How I See It

This morning's light
holds its shoes and tip-toes
past the windows.

Soon recycling
trucks will come for everything
we go through twice.

Three lemons on
the kitchen counter keep
a quiet vigil.

Someone spilled
gin and a little tonic on
the only map.

We lit midnight
cigarettes. Acrid
lacy smoke.

That raccoon who fled
up our pecan tree never
came back down.

By five A.M. your eyes
went out like fireflies.
I love you, off and on.


Observed in Belize

You saw him first
beside the sandy track
puddled with rain
white as cafe au lait -
a blue crab still as an exposed root,
one claw held high,
the pincer torn,
his gray meat open to the wind.

Then I looked at starlight
metastasized how many centuries ago,
give a familiar name;
Invader of Shallows,
Breathing Bone, Crab Nebula.
Muzzy pricks of light
over restless palm trees
shadowing your crab.

Let us close our eyes and dream
one eye acute enough
to see particular each instant lit
by stars exploded years ago,
kind enough to capture with a glance
the broken crab in shadow
by the tin-roofed shack
dispensing Chinese takeaway.








This week I am featuring poems from our friend Charles Levenstein. Chuck is professor emeritus of work environment at University of Massachusetts - Lowell. He has published his poetry widely in e-zines and currently has two books available, Poems of World War III and Animal Vegetable.

This is the first of his poems you will read this week.



Sabbath

Such comfort, the music of bathwater falling,
the other household sounds are stilled,
even the cats have stopped their scrambling,
a cup of evening ease is filled.

In my mind, you are surrounded by bubbles,
Carib sponges and exotic soaps,
the scent of flowers seeps under the door,
the mystery of the bath gentle, hopeful.

A wonderful day, a sabbath of dreams,
we have taken our time together, enjoyed the sun,
we are home now, traveled enough,
home now, water falling, preparing for sleep.








Next, I have two poems from Spanish poet Gloria Fuertes. The poems are from The Defiant Muse, published by The Feminist Press at the City University of New York in 1986. Subtitled "Hispanic Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present," the collection is a bilingual anthology featuring the original Spanish text and the English translations on facing pages. The poems I'm using this week were translated by Kate Flores.

Fuertes, born in 1917, summarized her life in these words: "I began to write before I learned to read. I recited my first poems to the kids in my neighborhood. Then I was taken to Radio Espana to recite my poems and later they took us all to war, which turned me into a pacifist and I went on writing for children."

Fuertes died in 1998.



To Have a Child These Days

To have a child these days...
only to deliver him into the hands of men
- if at least it were to deliver him into the hands of God -
to have a child these days,
only to deliver him into the mouth of a cannon,
to abandon him at Sorrow's door,
to cast him into the waters of confusion.
To have a child these days,
only to have him suffer hunger and sun,
and not listen to my voice,
only to earn the catechism later.
To have a child these days,
only to have him blinded with passion
or victim of persecution,
only to witness destruction.
To have a child these days...
I carry him around inside me,
where even he himself cannot hurt him,
where only God can make him die.


The Birds Nest in My Arms

The birds nest in my arms,
on my shoulders, behind my knees,
between my breasts I have quails,
the birds think I'm a tree.
The swans think I'm a fountain,
they all come down and drink when I talk.
The sheep nudge me going by,
and the sparrows ear from my fingers;
the ants think I'm the earth
and men think I am nothing.








It was a pretty normal Thanksgiving, seeing everyone we usually see.



300 miles, south

300 miles,
south -
we go every Thanksgiving,
almost to the banks
of the Rio Grande

300 miles,
south,
the story of my life
in reverse

the story
of the 45 years
since my 20th birthday,
moving north,
always,
pushing north
always, looking
to find the life i grew up imagining,

passing
with almost every mile
markers of my life

300 miles, south,
turkey dinner,
some time with family,
and today, the day after,
a visit to the cemetery
where my parents are buried

to where time
slips away
mostly unnoticed

this year,
for the first time,
the years were heavy
on my mind

as i looked at the gravestone,
looked at the dates
and measured them from now

my father, died in 1980, 30 years ago,
how is that possible, and my mother,
11, with her smile still so fresh, 11
years in the ground

time passes
and memories fade,
the big ones mostly lost,
the little memories, the flashes
of a moment, are the ones
that hang on, like it seems
they always will

i do not remember the sound
of my father's voice, but
i can see him, in lost moments
as clear as if it was this very day

his face in the sunshine, his smile,
him, at the kitchen table at night,
with crackers and the stinky cheese
he loved, the tears, one time
near the end, as he worried about my mother
after he was gone, and his reserve,
his reticence when it came to displays
of emotion, of affection

(not a hugger was he, acknowledgment
with a nod was the most i could expect
from him, a deficiency i inherited and
overcame with my own son
when he was young, finding now
as we're both older my father's distance
becoming, against my wishes, my own)

and my mother, later gone, still fresher
in my mind, finding now, like every man
when they finally get old enough
to understand the true things, recognizing
the hard truth and the guilt we earned
for never seeing how
our mothers were owed much more
than we ever paid


our unpaid debt, like the so many
other things in life we learn to late

then,
today,
going home
300 miles, north,
leaving behind many things,
including some
i still don't know i lost








The next poems are by Grace Paley, from her book Leaning Forward, published by Granite Press of Penobscot, Maine, in 1985.

In her short bio at the back of the book, Paley says of herself that she was born in 1922 and has lived in New York City most of her life, living with her husband, writer Robert Nichols, in Vermont part of the year. She calls herself a combative pacifist and a cooperative anarchist and says she has always been active in anti-war and feminist causes. At the time this book was published, she taught at Sarah Lawrence and City College.

According to her Wikipedia entry, Paley died in 2007.



Stanzas: Old Age and the Conventions of Retirement
Have Driven My Friends from the Work They Love

1

When she was young she wanted
to sing in a bank
a song about money
               the lyrics of gold

was her song
               she dressed for it

2

She did good. She stood up like a
planted flower among yellow weeds
               turning to please the sun
               they were all shiny
it was known she was planted

3

No metaphor reinvents the job of the nurture of children
except to muddy or mock.

4

the job of hunting of shooting in hunting season of
standing alone in the woods of being an Indian

5

The municipal center
the morning of anger
the centrifugal dream
her voice flung out on plates of rage
          then they were put in a paper sack
          she was sent to the china closet
          and never came back

6

every day he went out, forsaking
wife and child
with his black bag he accompanied
sewed our lives to death

7

One day at work     he cried
I am in my full powers
               suddenly he was blind
with slaps of time and aperture returned
dear friend     we asked
               what do you see
he said     I only see what has been
               seen already

One day when I was a child     long ago
Mr. Long Ago spoke up in school
He said
Oh children you must roll your r's
no no not on your tongue little girl
IN YOUR THROAT
there is nothing so beautiful as r rolled in the throat of a French woman
no woman more beautiful
he said     looking back
                               at beauty


On Mother's Day

I went out walking
in the old neighborhood

Look! more trees on the block
forget-me-nots all around them
ivy    lantana shining
and geraniums in the window

Twenty years ago
it was believed that the roots of trees
would insert themselves into gas lines
the fall    poisoned on houses and children

or tap the city's water pipes
or starved from nitrogen    obstruct the sewers

In those days in the afternoon I floated
by ferry to Hoboken or Staten Island
then pushed the babies in their carriages
along the river wall    observing Manhattan
See Manhattan I cried    New York!
even at sunset it doesn't shine
but stands in fire    charcoal to the waist

But this Sunday afternoon on Mother's Day
I walked west    and came to Hudson Street    tri-colored flags
were flying over old oak furniture for sale
brass bedsteads    copper pots and vases
by the pound from India

Suddenly before my eyes    twenty-two transvestites
in joyous parade stuffed pillows
under their lovely gowns
and entered a restaurant
under a sign which said    All Pregnant Mothers Free

I watched them place napkins over their bellies
and accept coffee and zabaglione

I am especially open to sadness and hilarity
since my father died as a child
one week ago in his ninetieth year




>



Now here back again is Charles Levenstein with his second poem for the week.



Walker

Starts his day in a usual way.
Barred from salt, measures calories,
surreptitiously jiggles his belly
to check the progress of a new
diet regime, no discernible effect
although an already sour
disposition is getting worse.

He throws out the heavy cream;
in the refrigerator so long,
won't pour down the drain.
No bagels left, so toasts German
pumpernickel. Maybe he'll have
a pickle for the strength he'll need
to circumnavigate the reservoir
on a cold shiny morning.

Suppose I live forever, he thinks,
without the taste of chocolate,
the delight of opening a pie,
melting vanilla ice cream on a cobbler,
suppose I never look a potato
in the face again.

Pulls on ragged sweat pants,
itchy socks and sneakers,
dons polar fleece over an old peace t-shirt,
decides to wear the woolen watch cap
that makes him look like a thug,
or a fat old slug with delusions.

Walks along the muddy path,
he's passed by sturdy youth of the rugby team,
golden girls of track zip by,
only the ancient Vietnamese pushing
the stolen supermarket cart moves more slowly
than he who pursues immortality.








My next poem is by Brigit Pegeen Kelly from her book Song, published in 1995 by BOA Editions Ltd. The book was the 1994 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets.

Kelly was born in Palo Alto, California in 1951. Winner of numerous literary prizes, including being a Pulitzer finalist, she has taught at the University of California at Irvine, Purdue University, and Warren Wilson College, as well as numerous writers' conferences in the United States and Ireland. In 2002 the University of Illinois awarded her both humanities and campus-wide awards for excellence in teaching. She is currently a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.



Arguments of Everlasting

My mother
gathers gladiolas: the little tubes
shout and clamor: a poppling
of unstoppled laughter: the guileless leaps
and quiet plosives
of the fountain when it is working: when
mechanics and meaning are flush
and untroubled. Not like
my brother's stammer: speech and its edicts
broken by that intruder
between tongue and tooth: something
winged: of insect color.
               My mother
gathers gladiolas. The gladness
is fractured. As when
the globe with its thousand mirrors
cracked the light. How
it hoarded sight: all the stolen perspectives
and the show of light
they shot around us: so that
down the dark hall the ghosts danced
with us: down the dark hall
the broken angels.
               What keeps
the grass from slipping? The steep
grass? Like my brother
it imitates the; stone's arrest: this done
this done and nothing
doing. In the face of the wind
it plants its foot
and fights its own going:
a traveling line
of adamance.
               My mother
the doves are in full cry
this morning.
The leaves are heavy
with silken grieving: soft packages
of sorrow: cacophonies
of sighing. It is a pretty
thing, a pretty thing,
the light lathered like feathers,
and the day's spendage
beginning. The flag unspools its furl
above the school,
pulsing out and our: a wake
of color in the air:
blue: red: blue:

and how white the sky is. How white.








Barely December, and I'm already going crazy from Christmas.



if you see Alvin, tell him i'm looking for him

ok
call me a scrooge
if you must

but the next chipmunk
i see, whether he's named
Alvin or not

is gonna be one
dead
rodent

and
it's not even
December yet

and Perry Como
and Andy Williams
and Dean Martin

were pretty darn good
lounge singers
but do we really need

to drown in their
too-sweet Christmas schtick
every year

i mean
if it wasn't for Christmas
these guys would be on the radio

maybe once
every forty-seven years
and then only on PBS pledge week

and
Bing Crosby?
another candidate for pledge week

I mean,
Der Bingle and Bob Hope
were lifetime friends

but even Hope
would throw his golf club
at the radio

at the 63rd
playing of
"White Christmas"

it really frosts
my eggnog that i have to listen
to this stuff for a month and a half every year

and
even worse
during that whole month and a half

they almost never play the good stuff - like
"Grandma Got Runned Over By A Raindeer"
for example

i haven't heard that classic
even once
so far this year








Here's a poem by Sudeep Sen from his book Postmarked India, published by HarperCollins in 1997.

Sen is a widely recognized and widely traveled poet (my copy of his book is autographed and presented to its buyer at a reading he did in San Antonio in 2000). He was born in New Delhi in 1964 and lives now in London and New Delhi. His education took place in India, the United Kingdom and the United States. He studied at St. Columba's School and read literature at Delhi University. As an Inlaks Scholar, he received a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York. Sen was an international poet-in-residence at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.



Durga Puja

          Today/man will triumph over gods
               T Khair, "My India Diary IV"

          1

     Through the swirling fumes of the scented incense, the arati echoes
as the priest hums, and the Chandipaat chants in a scriptural rhyme.

     From the bamboo pedestal she stares through her painted pupils, frescoed
and tinseled, the three-eyed pratima of the Goddess Durga -

     resplendent, statuesque, armed with ten hands on her roaring chariot,
her glazed clay demeanor, poised, even after the mythic bloody war.

     Every year after the monsoons diminish she comes partly to perform heriot,
high from Himalayan palace sculpted in fresh snow and the open sky,

     to the earth where she once belonged, her home with the voice
of her parents and people, reminiscing the quadrangle of her playful days.

     Today and the next four days, we worship and rejoice
at her presence and her victory over Ashoor, the demon,

     half-emerging from the deceptive black buffalo, as she spears
his green body crimson in a cathartic end to the Crusades.

     These five days are hers, exclusively hers, even her
children - Saraswati, Lakshmi, Ganessh, and Kartik - fade in her presence.

     For five days we spark and light, sing and dance, laugh and cheer,
untutored, uninhibited, unlike the rest of the year.

          2

     The dashami came even before we realised the baribe was graced.
After the mid-afternoon rites, the procession began -

     Durga's face totally effaced, red and white with sindoor and sandesh,
or perhaps it is the residual stains of the fervent worship;

     her body weary, her coat of arms mutilated, often dismembered,
as she sits on open lorries, while he young men and women

     dance the continuous drum beats, possessed - and Durga, bewildered,
now one of the multitude - a rare frozen moment when the gods look human.

     Though it may seem today that men will triumph over the goddess,
that her immersion at the ghats with mortal hands seem real,

     it is, like some myths, only an illusion of victory and sadness,
as she mingles, melting with the great silting Ganga,

     her soft clay body browning the greenish-blue bhaashaan waters, the damp
stripping her flesh bare, as we hear the receding din of the last offerings,

     see the muted wick's faint glimmer of the floating earthen lamps,
and the moonlight's occasional flicker on the damp strewn petals,

     as she wades her way upstream miraculously through the cantilever
of debris, dirt, sewage and homage of many unknown towns and villages,

     back to the pristine snow-crowned peaks, where triad incarnate Shiva
welcomes her home in an unusual dance of life;

     while we, on the earth, await her return the following year,
perhaps to celebrate, perhaps to pray, perhaps to forget

     the life around, but perhaps to believe that really, without fear,
the life force lives, that the celestial cycles still exist

     just as Durga visits, once every year, ceaselessly,.
just as, at the close of every season, she whispers from the heavens,

     "Akhone aami aashi" - that I'll return once again - Shashti, Shaptami,
Ashtami, Nobami, Dashami...Shashti, Shaptami, Ashtami, Nobami, Dashami.








Here's a third poem by our friend Charles Levenstein.



Window of Desire

If you sit in the same place each morning,
The blind cat snoozing on a leather hassock,
The wild one prowling for Cinderella moths,

Seasons walk by, slowly enough
To document colors and preeminent wildlife,
The urban skunk ever present,

Squirrels from fat to lean and back again,
Sparrows and starlings, songbirds and cranks,
Until winter, a time for theory, not practice.

We migrate then with more ambitious fowl,
Find a beach where mango daiquiris are served
And a pile of novels consumed without interruption;

Or we remain at this window of speculation,
Watch endless snow cover our mistakes,
Contemplate the dimming landscape of desire.








Pat Mora was born El Paso in 1942. She taught at the University of New Mexico as an distinguished visiting professor. She also was a museum director and consultant for US-Mexico youth exchanges. She's received two degrees. She got a BA from Texas Western College in 1963 and got an MA from the University of Texas, El Paso in 1967.

The next several short poems are from her book, Borders, winner of the Southwest Book Award, published by Arte Publico Press at the University of Houston in 1986.



Los Ancianos

They hold hands
as they walk with slow steps.
Careful together they cross the plaza
both slightly stooped, bodies returning to the land,
he in faded khaki and straw hat,
she wrapped in soft clothes, black
robozo round her head and shoulders.

Tourists in halter tops and shorts
pose by flame trees and fountains,
but the old couple walks step by step
on the edge.
Even in the heat, only their wrinkled
hands and faces show.    They know
of moving through a cloud at their own pace.

I watch him help her
off the curb and I smell love
like dried flowers, old love
of holding hands with one man for fifty years.


Mi Tierra

Men wonder why
I remove my
shoes. They think it's the high
heels, but I kick
off sandals too, press
my soles closer
to your hot, dry skin
feel you move up my arms,
through me
and into the world
through me, but in
me, in me.


Desert Women

Desert women know
about survival.
Fierce heat and cold
have burned and thickened
our skin. Like cactus
we've learned to hoard,
to sprout deep roots,
to seem asleep, yet wake
at the scent of softness
in the air, to hide
pain and loss by silence,
no branches wail
or whisper our sand songs
safe behind our thorns.

Don't be deceived.
When we bloom, we stun.








No such thing as a "day of rest" anymore. But you can get a little feel for what is used to be like early Sunday mornings.



Sunday quiet

things to do
today
but

i'm not ready
to start
yet

enjoying
this quiet Sunday
morning

a good breakfast
a cup of thick
black

coffee
and through the windows
the beginning

day
at just that point
of sunrise

when the streetlights
begin
to flicker

off
the traffic on I-10
in Sunday
quiet

a few people
early-risers like me
and the truckers

the never-stop
truckers
headed west on I-10

El Paso
and all points west
to the Pacific

as all else
is still
sky overcast

with a promise of rain
and the smallest flicker of movement
in the oak trees

i am an
oak
enjoying the smallest flicker

of movement
while i can
knowing

Sunday is a temporary state
of mind
soon broken

for
still
the storm is coming








Here's a poem by William Matthews, from his book Blues If You Want. published by Houghton Mifflin in 1989.

Matthews was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 11, 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 and a book of essays, winning the National Book Critics Award as well as being finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize.

He served as president of Associated Writing Programs and of the Poetry Society of America, and as a member and chair of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. He received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Ingram Merrill foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, and in April 1997 he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize. He 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, he was a professor of English and director of the creative writing program at New York's City College.



The Blues

What did I think, a storm clutching a clarinet
and boarding a downtown bus, headed for lessons?
I had pieces to learn by heart, but at twelve

you think the heart and memory are different.
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works
backwards," the Queen remarked. Alice in Wonderland.

Although I knew the way music can frill a room,
even with loneliness, which is of course a kind
of company. I could swelter through an August

afternoon - torpor rising from the river - and listen
to J. J. Johnson and Stan Getz braid variations
on "My Funny Valentine," and feel there in the room

with me the force and weight of what I couldn't
say. What's an emotion anyhow?
Lassitude and sweat lay all around me

like a stubble field, it was so hot and listless,
but I was quick and furtive like a fox
who has thirty miles a day metabolism

to burn off as ordinary business.
I had become me, after all, the bare eloquence
of the becalmed, the plain speech of the leafless

tree. I had the cunning of my body and a few
bars - they were enough - of music. Looking back,
it almost seems as though I could remember -

but this can't be; how could I bear it? -
the future toward which I'd clatter
with that boy tied like a bell around my throat,

a brave man and a coward both,
to break and break my metronomic heart
and just enough to learn to love the blues.








Now, one last one from Charles Levenstein



Bees

Maintaining this hive,
an enterprise started as divine joke
or, at most, an explosion of interest
in the otherwise dreary void,
requires more of my time
and less of hers, she seems to have lost
interest, preferring hard bodies
or growing minds to an old honey -

Possibly standards have risen,
in the beginning, "dirty" was without substance,
but with germ theory and profit centers,
leaving well enough alone won't do.
Perhaps we/I have been dropped off
in a distant suburb, too much bother,
loving care of an untrainable, slothful
swarm, best returned to the no-kill pound
which is where I find myself
considering honey in a superannuated apiary.








Like everyone native to a warmer climate, we get a little bit of what might be winter and go overboard with our response to it.



winter slips in at midnight

a cold, damp
day
and people

are out in
the streets
with their
polar bear

coats
braving
the elements

most people
would say
it's not really

that cold
but we're not
used to it

and usually
overreact
when the first

cold snap
slips in
at midnight

and
it makes for
an exciting morning

everybody
hugging themselves
under their dead-of-winter

hats, stomping
their feet
on street corners

how 'bout
this weather
they say

as the north wind blows
leaves finally give
evidence

of loosing
their grip on the trees
and by tomorrow

gone
leaving stark branch
shadows

on the sidewalks
under tomorrow's
winter sun

meanwhile
everyone wants to drink their coffee by the window

watch this cold-slow day as it passes








Now I have a poem by Ray Gonzalez from the anthology From Totems to Hip-Hop, edited by Ishmael Reed. The book was published by Thunder's Mouth Press in 2003.

Gonzalez was born in El Paso and has received many awards for his poetry, essays, short stories and editing. He has taught at various universities, including the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota.



Three Snakes, Strawberry Canyon, Berkeley

The Rattlesnake

We really didn't see it,
but the guy walking ahead of us
said it struck and missed him.
He pointed to the tall grass.
"If you get closer,
you can see its eyes."
We looked, but couldn't see it
and kept walking.
I thought of the rattlers
I killed as a boy,
back home in Texas,
the next of six baby rattlers
we found in the yard,
my mother insisting I cut
their heads off with a shovel,
saying the babies were more lethal
because they could fill you with venom,
and not know when to pull back
like adult snakes.
I recalled how I killed them
and regret it still,
and wanted this rattler
to bite the hiker so I could forget
his bravery, his wonder.

The Garter Snake

It looked like an overgrown worm,
tiny and quick as it flashed
across the trail,
its sidewinding motion
leaving marks in the dirt.
As we noticed it, we forgot
what we said about poetry,
how those things vanish,
then reappear before us,
how we admit black and green bands
of the garter snake
are the same colors
we keep missing each time
we try to write something.

The Gopher Snake

We found it sleeping
in the middle of the trail.
It didn't move,
but glistened as we approached,
but I knew it wasn’t the rattler
that haunts my footsteps.
The snake looked
like a giant slug,
a slow, wet creature
that sunned itself
so it could dissolve
into the ground.
Suddenly, we realized
it was good luck
to have snakes cross our path
like the unknown pulses
in the earth that
traveled underground,
ahead of us, all the way
to the bottom of
the surprising, moving canyon.








I end this week with this little absent-minded love poem.



before i forget again

reading
about hiking
down the Grand Canyon

in winter -
remembering again
of all the things

i have waited
too long
to do

which
reminds me
before i forget

again
to say i
love you








That's it for this week. Just a couple more weeks before the fat guy comes (no, not me, the other fat guy). Until then, remember, he's making a list and checking it twice (no, not Dick Cheney, the other list-keeper).

All the material presented in this blog remains the property of its creators. As owner and producer of the blog I declare any of that made exclusively by me to open to whoever wants it, so long as, if used, it be properly credited to me...allen itz.

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