Incant for September 30

September 30, 1973  (I was 28)

   Incant for September 30

In other years

I have believed,

I have acknowledged

the magic of ritual,

the panacea of incantation,

the forceful paths of planets.

October has been

one of my good months,

the autumnal recess,

reflection and changing colors,

wind and clean air,

rain and moss in the woods.

This year,

faith was last year.

Hope is a wish

for an ironic joke of optimism,

a magical laugh

issuing from dark stars.

Expectation is a dream,

wonder is naïve.

I watch children

passing out the door

and back in again;

futile summer is on some other side.

oh light dark duality

pulse polarity

hot cold

insane humane

release me sun

carry me rain

Stanley likes to skate

September 29, 2010  (I was 65)

Stanley likes to skate

Ollie buys the tickets

Stanley watches the performer practicing

and imitates his confident stride

Ollie knows he is out of shape

and the cost of medical bills

sees another tumble and skates along the rail

Stanley rounds the curve to hook Ollie’s arm

Stanley slows Ollie gets up to speed

Stanley glides in humble pride

Ollie in arrogant fear

a competent partnering

-I began a series of pieces using Laurel and Hardy as

representations of right brain and left brain perception.

Not an original idea, I got it from Colin Wilson’s study,

Frankenstein’s Castle.  More appear in other posts.

Down at the vehicle house

September 28, 1975  (I was 30)

Down at the vehicle house

they congregate in the driveway.

Each day as I pass

I see the supplicating parishioners

bent over like ostriches into open hoods

of the car, station wagon, camper truck, tractor

and jeep.  They climb in and out

of the boat.  Mary and Joe Vehicle

watch the earth mover clearing more space

next to the triple stall garage whose doors

are always open.  Neighbors seem to drop by often

Young Jesse flies by on his un-muffled cycle

to give the boot to a few garbage cans

on his winding way up the hill.

His sister kicks the horse into third gear

riding bareback across the field.

These people are movers;

they are not about to ignore the salesman’s dogma

steaming off the showroom floor

They know that getting there is more

than half the fun.  This family is tuned

and running smooth.  Only a spark gap

separates their generations.

late night in Long Beach

September 27, 2012  (I was 67)

late night in Long Beach

reading Shunryo Suzuki’s, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

The swinging door of the throat

the singularity of duality

To hear a dumpster diver in the alley

is to smell the dumpster into which I do not dive

To not read the book I read

the diver becomes one of my characters

working in my alley making noise

stirring up scents he does not smell

until he sees the reading light in my window

Last Night September rain

September26, 1971  (I was 26)

Last Night September rain

began to launder the trees.

They will shrink, fade and run,

lose leaves like buttons.

The cold clotheslines are bare,
we hide our bodies in thicker coats,

play ballads on the phonograph,

the tragic refrain in the air.

Translating Tao as the way

from this week of September, 2018  (I was 73)

Translating Tao as the way

whether the actual path through leaves

across bridges and the rip rap below the cliffs

or as the method the gait and pace

or the resolution of polarity the practice

a pursuit of personal perception of highest good

a view of one-ness the uni-verse

the single poem one line solitary word

inclusive of all before distinctions were created

All the droplets that comprise the flow

the stars from here a milky way

the visible yet incomprehensible reality

the non-dual nature of suchness

intuitive indivisibility

spontaneously disciplined liberation

from separateness yet I resist the other

as the other repels me as well

our sameness anti-magnetic

Passing Time

September 24, 1974  (I was 29)

Passing Time

My wife’s old aunts live

across the street from their cemetery plots

Quite a view

from the window above the kitchen sink

They already live in trailer homes

Actually quite spacious they say

as one washes and the other one dries

They walk over there everyday

It’s good exercise they say

and they are nothing if not ordered and regular

It’s not sad at all barely poignant 

Rather efficient emotionally speaking

I can admire that

I’d like to be buried in a hole

convenient to the digger

I don’t like fire or cold water

but I wouldn’t complain

if they took my ashes to the ocean

and threw them in there

Older vultures know

September 23, 1998  (I was 53)

Older vultures know

the invisible adversary;

lack of will makes the mountain,

and the updraft

once so exhilarating

brings fatigue of oxygen deprivation.

Missing wing feathers

destabilize flight;

beauty now,

a struggle for efficiency,

for continuity of thought,

physical resolve

against the strength of gravity,

shoulder tugging neck burning

weakness of heart.

Ollie and Stanley at the Studio

September 22, 2010  (I was 65)

                  Ollie and Stanley at the Studio

Ollie:  in disgust, Look at us; Stanley does so.  I can not get us a contract with the studio. 

Stanley:  I think you can, emphasizing the I.

Ollie: I could not even get in the door; Stanley stares blankly at Ollie’s girth.           I was speaking figuratively, emphasizing the figuratively.  I could not      get an appointment.

Stanley:  I think you could, emphasizing the you.

Ollie: I could not.  They see only agents.  We have no money for an         agent.

Stanley:  You could be our agent.

Ollie:  I am not an agent.  I do not have the experience.

Stanley: What are you?

Ollie:  pauses, I am an actor, emphasizing the actor.

Stanley:  Act like an agent.

Ollie:  How does an agent act?

Stanley:  Exactly the question an actor should ask. 

            Ollie smiles intrigued, drumming his finger tips on his chest.

Cut to a cleaned and polished Ollie as he is ushered into the office of a studio executive.  Stanley follows exhibiting quiet curiosity. 

Executive: reads Ollie’s business card, Oliver Olivier, Talent Agent. 

         Never heard of you, who do you represent?

Ollie:  Abroad, I represent a guild of noted thespians; to Hollywood, I     bring the team of Laurel and Hardy.

Executive:  Never heard of them; he indicates Stanley, And who is this?

Ollie:  The pair perform in all genres.  This is Stanley Laurel of said duo, also my partner.  I am Hardy. 

Executive:  I can see that.

Ollie:  I mean, I am Oliver Hardy.

Executive:  I thought your name was Oliver Olivier.

Ollie:  That’s my agensorial name, so to speak.

Executive:  What sort of act do you do?

Ollie:  Though we’ve played every endeavor of the theatre arts, I am      often typecast as a sophisticated gentleman of means, with     Stanley as my gentleman’s gentleman.  Stanley brushes off the        shoulders of Ollie’s jacket.  Mr. Laurel has played Watson to my      Holmes –though that seemed to create some audience        confusion.  In Chatacqua revue we did Socratic dialogues, highly     esoteric and highly regarded.

         Throughout, Stanley performs subtle expressions, bits of mime, all conveying support for Ollie.

Executive:  Why should I contract you.  Your story is the same as every   potential waiter in town.

Ollie:  We work cheap.

Stanley:  He works cheap; I work for nothing.  Ollie smacks Stanley with his          hat. 

Ollie:  I thought we agreed that you’d shut up and leave the agenting to          me.  Stanley is forlorn.

Stanley:  But Ollie, you are not telling Mr. Executive the most important thing.  to the Executive:  Ollie is seriously funny.  In any role he    plays, emphasizing the any.  Ollie turns crimson.  He is irate and    attempts to shove Stanley behind him.

Ollie:  I have never played a clown, never the buffoon, naught the joker.          I do not say funny things.

Stanley:  calmly, No, you say things funny.

Ollie:  Stanley, you irritate me in places I cannot discuss.

Executive:  I get the idea.  You’re hired.  I want twelve of those bits,       fifteen minutes each, in the next three months.  Standard        contract will be in the mail.  Miss Pool will show you out.  Next      please.

Outside the studio gate:

Stanley:  And you said you didn’t know how to be an agent. 

Ollie:  I don’t know how to be an agent.  That, was acting.

-I began a series of pieces using Laurel and Hardy as

representations of right brain and left brain perception.

Not an original idea, I got it from Colin Wilson’s study,

Frankenstein’s Castle.  More appear in other posts.

from The Litanies of Mistrust

September 21, 2008  (I was 63)

         -from The Litanies of Mistrust

Never trust:

         Hansel to follow the crumbs home

         a dinner invitation from Mother Hubbard

         the Sprats to serve a salad

         a cow’s worth of beans

         Bo Peep to tend your sheep

         a ba-ba-black sheep to give you a ba-ba-bag of wool

         a little piggy who has none

         Johnny Flynn heading to the well with a sack

Never trust:

         the swan within your ugliness

         Mary to be more than contrary

         Pete’s wife to come out of her shell

         a puss in boots

         a woman with a whip who lives in a shoe

         a spider to scare every muffet away

         Eency Weency to stay out of your spout

Never trust:

         Jack Horner to keep his fingers out of the pie

         Charming Billy not to try the young thing’s mother

         Rapunzel to let down her hair

         Boy Blue to wake up and blow

         Spoon not to run away with your dish

         a courting frog to be unarmed

         a monkey to pop your weasel

         nimble Jack to clear the fire plug

Exertion –a song

September 20, 1976  (I was 31)

         Exertion –a song

Ply the oar

with might and main

hammer the tongs

with heart and soul.

Do double duty,

strain every nerve

take pains

Work toil strive and strain

take pains

Make the pilgrimage

smoke the pipe

Prepare the ground

and watch for rain

Summon with drums

cry the hue

maintain

Gasp pant puff and blow

take pains

At daggers drawn

risk a neck

face the opinion

and stare daggers down

Bite against the grain

alone and unarmed

take pains

Astute artful crafty and shrewd

take pains

Thinking About Snow

September 19, 1974  (I was 29)

Thinking About Snow After Listening to

John Chancellor Talk About Drug Research

little flakes

damn dissolving crystals

millions becoming liquid

brain fuses melting with every breath

Blizzard Blizzard lost in the z’s

ozone snow twenty below

channel thirteen all day long

cloud breath

Jack London on snowshoes

Conrad Aiken blowing about the corners

frozen lungs

son of snow

patron saint of slippery streets

sleet’s elite one

profound drifts

alive in an igloo

If you walk by the fountain

from this week of September, 2014  (I was 69)

If you walk by the fountain

you will be calmed by its waters

If you walk in the desert

the hot sun will set to cool night

If you drift on the feathered breeze

you will light on the dewy grass

This is what the flute says

as you listen alone in dim light

Its notes bring the conscious breath

into plain sight the hum of life

From within her creative being

the musician colors the air

Change in perspective is what makes home home

from this week of September, 2018  (I was 73)

Change in perspective is what makes home home

Away possibilities are expanded

Imagination can get the best of you

the vision of becoming something else

Fast-forward role playing entices belief

Immediate time restraints are temporary

commitments reworkable

finances merely financial

Reality is home being home

In more complex ways than realized before

If you mention what it is

September 16, 2008  (I was 63)

If you mention what it is

it isn’t anymore

It begins in premonition

playing on the floor

Light and shadow from a window

cast from leaf and curtain lace

projects a shaded glow of age

across a youthful face

Eventually it sees the sound

and sound reflects the light

If you don’t say what it is

you hear a lovely sight

In home movies more than sixty years ago

September 15, 2011  (I was 56)

In home movies more than sixty years ago

the family poses grouped as for a still shot

They don’t know what to do after the first click

keeps on clicking they look uneasy

Then they each wave their idiosyncratic salute

obviously on cue from the director/cameraman

as one by one they walk toward the lens

smiling as they are reminded in passing

leaving the frame which pans Grandma’s garden

The cameos are standard improvs

Grandma pointing to tomato plants blushing

The back screen door of his tavern opens

Grandpa steps out already looking older than he is

Young boy dons a leather football helmet

Young girl almost cartwheels on the lawn

Aunt Lucy turns to hide behind a tree

In the alley cars new then and humorous later

are classic relics now more well-remembered

than anyone who drove them