September 30, 2017 (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
from this week of September 29, 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.
from this week of September 28, 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.
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
from this week of September 26, 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.
September 25 –posted over teaching years
Slogans from the 8th 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
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.”
from this week in September, 1979 (I was 34)
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
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
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
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
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
-first published in Arts Event In Shallow Water, 1975
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
September 17, 2001 (I was 56)
(A Week Later...)
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.
September 16, 1971 (I was 26)
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
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
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
September 14, 2019 (I was 74)
My grandfather owned Joe’s Tavern
a three-two beer joint with a few old regulars
He was Croatian but some Serbs were among them
A couple thousand miles from home
can turn enemies into drinking buddies
My Uncle Pete owned the Vene Qua
just up the alley and across Hwy. 169 from Joe’s
The Qua had a hard liquor license
since it was home to the Legion Club
Anyway after Sunday Mass my cousin Peter
would have to clean up the place
It was an Iron Range mining town
One time I must have been 11 and Peter 13
I was with him sweeping up
(I refused to empty and rinse the spittoons)
After restocking the coolers
we would sample a recipe
from Uncle Pete’s Bartender’s Guide
Peter decided we’d try a martini
gin vermouth ice and an olive easy
It was so bad we tossed it and ate the olives
burnt our lips and couldn’t figure out
why they were so popular in the movies
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 our own
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
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 themovie,
hoping Frost too, had heard the voice and realized how
well it fit. (Hear my reading of the poem at JohnKalllio.com)
September 10, 1973 (I was 28)
Bob Dylan’s biography
props open the hinged window,
fights the wind,
is a little too thin to be tight
and may fall off the ledge.
He always knew it could happen,
was readily available for the job;
less vital volumes were not.
