Poetry & Prose

On poetry- Poetry? choosing words for meaning and image and music; should give a buzz, a shudder like the feeling (although not as horrific and frightening) you get when you pass an accident on the road- how glad you are to be alive; to use another image: you’re diving around a reef where it drops off and the huge, mottled flank of a monstrous, awesome creature slowly passes beneath, barely in view. Is it dangerous or gentle with its beautiful spots? (probably a whale shark) (relation to gravitational lensing in astonomy). You scramble up the side of the boat, and the gizzled, veteran guide has dropped an anchor to catch it. "Dit you see that?!?!?"

The chain comes up- bit through- and that was a large chain. “Whatever it was, it bit right through it!” That’s what real poetry is like! I could add: "we don't see much of that round these parts...."

In case you hadn't noticed: I'm very opinionated. Sometimes I think poetry should be kept out of the marketplace, it's bloom unspoiled by money- sometimes I think no one should see it at all but the author...it should bloom unseen. But then maybe I'm just trying to be more radical than thou or I'm "sour grapes "because my poetry isn't looked at more! Besides, the sound of it- that's important- and getting reaction! Whenever I'm tempted to put down other poets, I meet them and actually like them- it's a very positive field of endeavor.

4 short poems (these and the Nat'l Geo poem are out of the book sequence- I just wanted to put'em up front!)

1 An orange squeaks when you peel it

What rain means to a tiger.

2 Black angus scald in melon fields.

3 Return to desire, that pure well.

4 As rose is to tobacco…

me and coleman barks- rumi channeler par excellant- at Visonary Art Museum- June- 2006- # 1 was dedicated to rumi- that mystic galoot

one further interruption: two short poems from the earlier book- The Tree Calendar . A short poem is the ultimate test- maybe because Emily D set such a high standard- it's very hard to do something worthwhile and short-much harder than the long- worth trying:

River of No Return

Fire works

On its log

Like a saw

In the shape of

The core

Of the wood,

And the river

Steps down

Through rapids

Repeating

Rock underneath,

Pine cones

Mimic

The tree

And the pure

Forms of love

Or of what

Love is the form?

Wind moves

Through pine

Over a fire

By a river.

Richard Wilbur liked this poem. I wonder about the pernicious influence of W C Wms and Robt, Creeley- I mean- what's would be different abt it in prose? e.g. Fire works on its log like a saw in the shape of the core of the wood"? , etc. Why cut the lines off in certain ways?

Spiral/Medallion

A face, places,

The inside of a tree

If you stand looking up inot it-

A sieve, a cache, basket

Of light,

Or a tree puts its limbs out

Step after step

Into YES- the great spiral-

Your home and your smile.

and a poem out of sequence from Blue Running Lights:

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SPECIAL

a courtship poem

Someone kept watering petunias?

On the glassed in front porch

Of the summer house (but

It was fall- no one there!)

`til they shone like pink beacons

In the fog weeks when the horn's

On all the time telling

`bout rock ledges and waves

And blue spruce keep

Crusting and breaking.

Our love could grow like that...

Bantams screech after

Waialeale Forest storms,

Sharp orange,

Gleaming rust with red wattles,

They display their chrome bibs.

And so I have showed off....

We follow shamans to

The stone wheels high up

In the Sawtooths, the Siskyous;

We watch daggers

Of sun sink down a cliff face

At solstice, sink into

The spiral we carved there

Beyond First Mesa, beyond Taos...

I stand in awe of the other......

How you painted suns onto

Your face for the corn

Celebration, how you adjusted

Your head band, that one dance

"Of the women" (only they

Know your true name),

But I know it!

.

back to sequence of book- see index above

PREAMBLE, SELMA, ALABAMA, CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

homage to Wallace Stevens

Police cannot become, there are

Aubades then just a pause

For hope, it's

Filled in by their badge,

A kind of ache, a silver ruse.

The dawn

So full of grainy light, its

Flux of light like marl-

A dream of bits and pieces,

Swims under "the law", is gone.

The it's daylight clear,

"Here comes the law."

The cops, who always "are"

Never "appear;"

The ideals

Behind your protest may seem real....

Cops ARE!

POSSIBLY POLITICAL POEM

"Little America"

Salt Lake

For the Mormons

Was "the place,"

Now, not far past

Is Barry's Amoco/ "Little America"

With

35 pumps, maybe

The world's largest

Gas station...

and in the French (o yeh- i'm pretty sophisticated)

Poem un peu politic? "Little America"/ Le Lac Sale/Pour les Mormons/Etait/L'endroit parfait.

Maintenant/ Depuis peu/ C'est la station d'essence/ De Barry- /"Petite Amrica"/ avec trente cinq pompes, peutetre/ La plus grande station/ D'essence du monde?!

DEMONSTRATION FOR AMERICANS

in memory: Phil Berrigan

Settlers,

A bright compost

Like must or

Haze from gaps,

Frost on lichens,

They’ve got the

Knack of

Running away

And starting over,

They leave so often

(For the mountains)

It’s hard

To get to know them.

Still, we’ll

Pin down the best in them.

and in the French: Manifestation Contre/Pour les Americains Les pioniers/ Un composte brillant,/Une essence, une brume legere accroche/A la montagne vallee,/Du givre sur lichen.

Ils ne restant jamais en place/ et doient toujours recommencer./ Il partent si souvent/ (Vers les montaignes)/ Ces difficiile de les connaitre.

Cependant/ Essayons d'en/ Extraire le meilleur.

demo at Andrews Air Force base- photo de

ANTI-WAR POEMS

Dedicated to Jonah House

1. O Lord give us

Loose clothes,

Peace in the

Body,

In the

Snake brain, the

Horse one and especially

The "human", its

Electrical storms under

The skull tops, goddamn, they

Go zizzing too!

Seigneur donne-nous

Des vetements amples,

La paix de notre

Corps,

La paix de notre cerveaux

-cerveau reptilien,

cerveau de cheval et surtout

cerveau humain-

Ou bourdonne

Nom de dieu,

Les orages electriques!

2 Army relies on

Machines to

Replace men as in

Westmorleand address to Congress ('69)

The old cavalry

Drone planed out of

Existence

Makes it easy

On conscience-

All you do is push buttons.

(in a jaunty Kiplingesque style)

After Vietnam, our wars'll be squeaky clean, boys

And, sadly, girls- you won't have to break a sweat;

You won't miss a meal, it'll be so surgical.

And only the lower class will be fighting.

L'armee se sert

Des machines pour

Remplacer les hommes

Comme l'a declare Westmoreland au

Congres, en '69

La vielle cavalerie

Rayee de la carte

Par l'arrivee des helicopteres

Et les drones.

Les chose sont ainsi

Plus faciles

Pour la conscience.

Car il suffit

D'appuyer sur un bouton.

(style desinvolte, a la Kipling)

Apres le Vietnam, nos guerres seront super propres, les gars

Et, malheureusement, mesdemoiselles, vous n'aurez meme plus besoin de suer.

Plus besoin de louper un repas; la guerre sera devenue tellement chirugicale

Et seultes les classes defavorisees devront se battre.

3 Yes Americans (take out space below)

Can be

Cynical, human

Beings can be, see

Each other as

Role plays, not as

Humans, we

"Have withdrawn from binds

To the human community".

Oui, les Americains/Peuvent etre/Cyniques, les etres/Humains peuvent l'etre, ils peu/seconsiderer/Non come les humanins,/ mais comme des personnages de jeux de roles/Nous "nous sommes desengages/ De la communaute humaine.

4 Long time in peace movement (take out space below)

Finding no peace, only mucho

Problems, people always

Their egos, the wildness

Of a beast not to be tamed

By a structure or too often

Tamed by one, some corporate

Format or grid layout

With boxes labeled "VP" or

"Fiscal" or "Procurement"

Laid out under each other

Box to box

With lines drawn to show

Hierarchy and boss pattern.

Where everyone "fits".

And yet there are

“Plowshares” actions-

Attacks against

Aegis battleships

At Bath Iron Works

Or vs. "warthog" A-10s at

Martin Marietta- I remember

A demo there- Max, Dan and

The others- some poured blood..

Berrigans bit by bit building

A movement...

Longtemps presents dans le Mouvement de la Paix,

Ne trouvant jamais la paix,

Mais des problemes incessants, les gens toujours,

Leur ego, la liberte

D'un animal sauvage inapprivoisable

Par une structure ou bien, justement, trop souvent

Apprivoise par le formatage

D'une entreprise ou par l'organigramme

Aux libeles evocateurs "Vice-President", "Fiscal" ou "Obtention"

Classes selon une hierarchie et un schema patronal/capitaliste.

Et purtant, il y a

Les actions des "Plowshares", ces pacifistes,

Leurs attaques contre les missiles "Aegis",

Aux acieries de Bath,

Ou encore, contre les "Warthog" A-10,

Aux usines Martin Marietta; une manifestation.

Elizabeth, Max, Dan et

Les autres, certains degoulinant de sang...

Les Berrigans construisant

Un movement

Brique par brique.

5 More peace in

Bodies touching than

Most peace work (Air

Force not included

As peace work as in

"Peace is Our Profession"

Slogan of theirs). Peace alot in

Land curves like

Shell Rock

State Park as of

Evenings (the cedars

I would not have expected

To find here in Iowa).

Davantage de paix dans

Le contact des corps qui se touchent que

Dans la plupart des missions dwe paix (sans compter

l'Armee de l'Air

en tant que mission de paix comme pour

le slogan inepte:

"La Paix est Notre Metier";

La paix en quantite dans les

Courbes du paysages comme

Au Shell Rock State Park, a la nuit tombee (des cedres

Que je n'aurai jamais imagine trouver ici dans l'Iowa).

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