Back in the day

9/30/17   (I was 72)

Back in the day

when I’d write late at night

I thought it would awaken insight

to the noire side its atmosphere and feeling

melancholic melodies played solo

depressive cigarettes and whiskey

to capture an uncertain mood

encountering more than doubt

maelstroms of swirling discontent

with light at a table a roof overhead

and a bed to sleep it off  

It was an imagined venture

back when I knew I’d awaken young

energized by the unreality of it all

Near the end of LIFE

from this week in September, 1972  (I was 27)

            Near the end of LIFE

I’m flipping through the pages of LIFE

listening to a recording of Woody Guthrie

and wondering at the circumstantial evidence

that he fathered Bob Dylan.

Bobby was born at the age of twenty-one

(a conception right out of the Old Testament)

That leaves Woody in one place only

(amazing the way the metaphor leads one away…)

Anyway, I’m flipping the pages pf LIFE

must have been back in September of ’72,

maybe October, there is a P.O.W.

and his liberated wife.

It’s the kind of article I can’t read

I already believe everything I’ve ever heard

about the War.  The War.

The concept is incredible, the War,

There are other things in it too,

a European starlet and great ads.

It all sells to the great camping American

and it’s the best satirical review around.

Minimalism in social survival

from this week in September, 1977  (I was 32)

Minimalism in social survival keeps me on the edge

and sometimes just over.

Transportation breaks down and I’m a hermit.

The only fear in solitary existence

is its lack of creative responsibility.

Metaphor loses its amusement.

Personally, I am as fond of cliché,

and I soon take to drinking soup from the bowl.

The Intrinsic Connection ‘tween Magic and Evolution

Sept 27, 2015  (I was 70)

The Intrinsic Connection ‘tween Magic and Evolution

The magician nurtured deception

It kept him alive in the tribe

If skillful and cunning

he was seen as supernatural

Modest displays induced fear

feigned humility gained respect

Awarded the title of shaman

granted him time to observe and concoct

He crafted an arcana or aroused conviction

So was born scientist and charlatan

Street Incident

from this week in 1970  (I was 25)

        Street Incident

Once I met a pedestrian moth,

a strolling man of the cloth-

had winged his way into the flame

long ago.  Like this, hobbled and lame

I could tell he wasn’t the same.

I asked his mission,

he couldn’t claim one

but said he had begun

exploring terrestrial concepts.

Slogans from the 8th Grade Bulletin Board

September 25 –posted over teaching years

    Slogans from the 8^th Grade Bulletin Board

Brother, can you paradigm?

If you don’t execute ideas, they die.

Only the ephemeral is of lasting value.

Ignorance is the mother of admiration.

Insanity is hereditary.  You can get it from your kids.

Does war determine who is right or who is left?

Media…sounds like a convention of spiritualists.

That was Zen, this is Tao.

Half a bubble off plumb.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.

Reality is the refuge of those who lack imagination.

One man’s karma runs over another man’s dogma.

Eat all that you kill.  Love all that you eat.

It is not possible to step into the same river twice.

Water is stationary; earth flows uphill.

That’ll be the day I’ll be skating with the devil!

Never try to teach a pig to sing;

      it wastes your time and frustrates the pig.

Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

September 24, 1968  (I was 23)

            Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

            “I do not know whether behind appearances there lives and moves a secret essence superior to me.  Nor do I ask; I do not care.  I create phenomena in swarms, and paint with a full palette a gigantic and gaudy curtain before the abyss.  Do not say, ‘Draw the curtain that I may see the painting.”  The curtain is the painting.”

            “I have one longing only:  to grasp what is hidden behind appearances, to ferret out that mystery which brings me to birth and then kills me, to discover if behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding.”

            “In sudden dreadful moments a thought flashes through me:  ‘This is all a cruel and futile game, without beginning, without end, without meaning.’ But again I yoke myself swiftly to the wheels of necessity, and all the universe begins to revolve around me once more.” 

At This Junior High School

from this week in September, 1979  (I was 34)

        At This Junior High School

Affluence swings around the parking lot

and rocks to a halt in the circular drive

Her brow is wrinkled in the sun

Her head is balanced in one hand

whose arm angles at the elbow

to rest upon the window edge

She opens a door across the car lane

Books and kids spill over plush upholstery

They slam the door and she beeps impatience

at the pedestrians and their children

Occurrence at Sea

from this week in September, 1976  (I was 31)

                  Occurrence at Sea

The Titanic has gone down in the waterbed

You made waves and there were no survivors this time

Clifton Webb and Debby Reynolds straight to the vinyl liner

No more to sing about there

I was too far gone to observe the individual rituals

Each water logged page of every sunken story print dissolving

Me clinging prone to a rubber raft in another ocean

The warm Mediterranean enclosed by continents

Away from tempestuous North Atlantic whitewater ocean storms

Icebergs with their cold asses beneath the sheet

Cabin 89 Sunol

September21, 1971  (I was 26)

          Cabin 89 Sunol

There’s something about wood

that makes me feel good

Walls stained only with age

ceiling and beams

exchanging breaths with me

open and receptive

rather than painted reflective

I believe they release energy

to make room for mine

and what I breathe of them is fine

old images mellowed myths

fit for ballads sung with lutes

secure fables from the past

Truths lived here seem to last

Life is sacred only in expression

September 20, 1972  (I was 27)

Life is sacred only in expression

The artist loves his paint

only as the paint worships the artist

On the palette self-contained thick hues

On the canvas the art runs off

or is caught and carried by the brush

The paint reacts

It would color the floor 

The artist has other ideas

 

smaller in dimension larger in concept

The theory may be shaky

but the execution deft

People will say

Who did this

you goddamn right I’ve got questions

from this week in September, 1973  (I was 28)

you goddamn right I’ve got questions

I got a hell of a lot of questions

I collected so many

I don’t need answers any more

I just gotta learn to weave baskets

be concerned with dying cane

meshing those fibers into self-container

a gift made to be placed upon a shelf

a quiet duck upon a still pond

If he flashes white under wing

he will rise and be gone

the reeds lean together

the rhythmic quilt of intersecting ripples

reflects the image of a dissolving cloud

emigration

September 18, 1999  (I was 54)

            emigration

The borderline is unmarked, non-linear, invisible

First crossing finds confusions

also present in the homeland

familiar feelings of minor disorientation

escalate immediately beyond manageability

swallowed to the burning neck

in a quick sucking quagmire

that allows incoherent ranting

but pins limbs too fatigued to flail

then and most cruelly refuses

to finish the job

Reduction to hopeless despair

belches release upon the new shore

in a state of redefined nothingness

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

September 17, 2001  (I was 56)

I climbed the hills last Tuesday knowing

the airplane drone was gone from aum,

a profound absence in a brief lifetime.

I took undistracted notice of the birds.

I was occupied by the silence.

It has long been my habit to send

a prayer of simple recognition to souls

I happen to notice in aircraft overhead.

This sky was a pure blue of emptiness.

It was not the sky of the new world,

it was the heaven between worlds.

Again we lost an innocence

we did not know we had;

something we’ve done many times.

Tomorrow would be the first sky

to dawn upon an unfortunate century

where warring gods prove their fallibility,

or where man reflects the gold of daylight.

That man is gone

September 16, 1971  (I was 26)

       That man is gone

Yesterday I wrote about that man

and visions in the mountains

Then I bought leather boots

to wear with pride and other fancy clothes

That man is gone

I shouldna let him go

He always talked of leaving

but he always walked so slow

Today I pace the chamber

never say his name

afraid that if he comes back

he’ll find me just the same

I don’t have time to live another life

September 15, 2010  (I was 65)

I don’t have time to live another life

where things don’t change

I did it once myself

and am not going to do it again with you

You need more from me

than I have to offer

The tank is empty or nearly so

and only the fumes of wishes are left

Buddha Masque #1

from this week in September, 1991  (I was 46)

Buddha Masque #1

It was for him intense incomparable struggle

filled with desperate confusing thoughts

and shadows overhanging his beleaguered spirit

He has no set form

yet can manifest all forms with any attributes

The moon appears over the city the village the mountain the river

He sometimes appears the incarnation of evil

may be woman god king or statesman

The fourfold noble truth opens the eye

the Truth the Cause the Cessation the Path

Beyond suffering are the eight Rights

Ignorance and greed are desires of blindness

Impermanent ego, nothing is thine

My generation gave the country away

September 13, 2010  (I was 65)

My generation gave the country away

We sent the work to India and Brazil

at handsome profit for some

Expecting what?

All our kids to be off shore managers?

We put our parents’ bombs in the basement

and only used the littler ones

Allowed deception to be our business

and took greed as our birthright

Allowed myths to be our faith

Though there is but one god

we each have one

Slow erosion has a polishing effect

September 12, 2010  (I was 65)

Slow erosion has a polishing effect

flowing water sliding snow and ice

tumbling stones wind blown dust

scraping branch of adjacent tree

metal sliding across metal

bones in dirt

Friction smooths the differences

when there is no consciousness of time

no desperation of a single passing life

Getting even can take centuries

mountain to molehill

glacial stare to tepid contentment

retribution of ancestral wrongs

Wise pearls begin in irritation

swimming in gall
most often never recognized

nor appreciated by the carrier

Acquainted With The Night

September 11, 2003  (I was 58)

Acquainted With The Night

Note from Jay Parini,

Robert Frost: A Life, Henry Holt 1999, p. 246

Acquainted With The Night:   “The poem was, Frost later

suggested, ‘written for the tune.’  Although a sonnet by

form, with a closing couplet, the poem has the fluid

repetitive aspect of a villanelle with the three line stanzas

mimicking the terza rima of Danté –appropriate for a

poem about the descent into darkness.”

     I always read the poem to students mimicking the voice

of Bela Lugosi in Dracula.  It puts an appropriate spin to

the narration.  The movie and the poem are of a common

era.  The poem is circa 1927 and the film was released in

the U.S. on Jan. 1, 1930.  When I discovered the voice for

my interpretation, I wished the poem came after the movie,

hoping Frost too, had heard the voice and realized how

well it fit.  (Hear my reading of the poem at JohnKallio.com)