Tribute to WCW

 

May 31, 1976  (I was 31)

 

                                 Tribute to WCW

 

 

                                           upon

                   a lot depends                      the unreality of

                                          sunglare

               off everything                           after rainfall

                                           glaze     

                 red convertible                     blinding white chicks

Later that year he died but before that

 

re: May 30, 1951  (I was 6)

written November 7, 2017   (I was 72)

 

Later that year he died but before that

he had designed and made a model house

of balsa frame and beams an accomplishment

a step up for a draftsman’s dream of architecture

I didn’t know he’d done it nor the hours it took

too young to have an understanding of any of it

From the backseat of the car I watched

He carried it out the door of the office in the rain

both arms under it as if he held the earth beneath  

I’m sure I saw him smile coming through the wet until

I saw him slip and toss it airborne for ghastly seconds

before it shattered and splintered between us

The source of reflected light is insignificant

 

from this week in 1997      (I was 52) 

 

The source of reflected light is insignificant

Any dim illumination is appreciated

Whether off the fog bank from a point on shore

or rebounded through clouds from the sun

matters not once the thought of destination is dismissed

Adrift however does not mean directionless

Preoccupation with waves keeps one afloat

I am not in the same place I would have been

had I not been paying attention

Nor am I in position I might have been

attending to some other 

Never somewhere to get always someplace to be

Colors of inspiration reach me indirectly

then glance off and onto something else

My diminished vision of what is there

is all I have to distinguish what is not

Brightness is enhanced with a little imagination

That has always been my occupation

and I’ve done it to see where I am

before I glance off and onto something else

At the Dance At The Land

 

May 28, 1977  (I was 32)

 

At the Dance At The Land

We got lost getting here.

Can you believe wrong roads

Named Woodstock and Altamont Avenue?

Barn hall open-beams, plank floors

Map of The Land tacked to the wall.

This knowledgeable collection of hippies has survived

Without a change of clothes since 1968

And they were here to dance tonight.

After a wine and pistachio stop we wound

Up Moody past Foothill College and down again

A number of times; gas station maps were of no help.

Everybody danced all night long.

The band was hot and we were addicted to bliss.

We were lost until we resolved to keep driving up

Roads we couldn’t believe –narrow hairpins

Moonlight reflections off hills, tunnel through tree shadows.

“Chains,” brought on the floor stomping

And the bass and drums rebounded off the walls

Right through your chest to end the first set with “The Shape I’m In.”

The band left them screaming for more.

It is as if I have decided

 

May 27,1998  (I was 53)

 

It is as if I have decided upon

a certain incarceration

which I have resolved not to escape.

It feels like a chosen sphere

of mental limitation.

It is selected repression

taking up ugly residence within me,

commitment more oppressive

for its lack of physical restraints.

It is a bondage and servitude

without redemption.

No devotion, no holiness, no light,

no ecstasy, rapture, hope of nirvana,

no grail nor golden fleece,

no solace in the ridiculous.

My vision is tainted with clarity;

no mist of compassion

blurs the view of artifice and deceit.

Not obliged to stay non-judgmental,

no amusement tempers disgust;

no match kindles the incense of freedom.

This small discipline

 

May 26, 1974  (I was 29)

 

This small discipline

The little monk

kneels in sealed rooms

to pray away various dooms

 

He expects enlightenment

He expects a vision to shatter his brown world

a gift of tongues a voice of fire

He chants the sun and forecasts rain

 

What is this practice of limited ingestion

these weeks of rice and lettuce and cheese

this fine attunement of visceral media

manipulating wavelengths of the nervous system

 

What is this small carpet from which to see the world

this drifting lily pad this flying prayer rug

from which to flick a sticky tongue at sustenance

Ritual diet floating in the middle of a ripple

Children of Keewatin the North Wind

 

from this week in May 2020  (I was 75)

 

Children of Keewatin the North Wind

whose seeds were snowflakes

planted in his winter migration

south from his Arctic realm

 

Keewatin whistled their birth through the pine

whistled their birth out of the mine

blew the blast across town in its roar

to sound the emergence of valuable

it all happens on the hippo campus

 

May 24, 2012  (I was 67)

 

it all happens on the hippo campus

where the walnut man lives

He is not a tough nut to crack

has a list to survive in the wild west

seems drawn or easily slips cross campus

for another journey to the east

toward the light so as to chase it west again

a swirling sort of Asian balance

that leaves him feeling like Rod Serling

back on the Hippo Campus where in

a bicameral shell the walnut man lives

Certain nouns,

 

May 23, 2010  (I was 65)

 

Certain nouns,

things, have parts to be named

like Henry Reed’s rifle

with its breech bolt and cocking piece

Updike’s telephone poles

with insulators and such

Frost’s wall in need of mending

with its round stones that refuse to sit

without incantation

Pinsky’s shirt buttons sizing and facing

Objects of mankind

need mankind to point out their insignificance

someone to balance the weapon and the garden

to spike the trunk of the greenless tree

to refute the wisdom of division

to set flame to the parachutes of commerce

In a book of poems I saw each

 

May 22, 2010  (I was 65)   
   

In a book of poems I saw each

                    (title)

set in parenthesis

                         (like an afterthought)

(or a secret) that might otherwise escape

(a pair of icons) signifying ‘If You Insist’

(a full moon) reflecting everything inspired

(summarized here for you)

(a direction to the destination)

on the trail that follows

 

Anonymous is the author

of the best work in each of us

the one who uses us to say the best truths

in a way so clear it’s obvious to everyone

that no one wrote it

Another slight man

 

May 21, 2011  (I was 66)

 

Another slight man like me

declared today eternity

This may be the last of the last I write

but that is my same thought every night

What should I do if it be true

that this mark may be my final dot ?

And what to write that might be new

should it happen that it be not.

I read slow

 

from this week in May 1978  (I was 33)

 

I read slow

real slow

I think I read good

but I do read slow

 

I have to say the dialog

at least in my head

sometimes 3 or 4 interpretations

I want to know if I would have said that

or how I’d inflect it if I did

 

Sometimes I don’t think I see the print well

it kind of disappears

or the words turn around

until I say dyslexia

then they line up straight again

(that’s why I think it’s just me

rather than the equipment)

 

I’m not a patient reader either

I mean I’ll wait for awhile

but I’d just as soon go throw Frisbee

or just daydream as I look at the words

I’m pretty entertaining myself

Even when I’m attentive I read slow

Oh exclamatory verse you failed to hide

 

May 19, 2020  (I was 75)

 

Oh exclamatory verse you failed to hide

a heart worn on a tattered sleeve

never a thing to be kept inside

so apparent it may yet deceive

 

With alas and gasp doth thee emote

I feel the rope around my throat

Sadly woe is me quote unquote

I'm breathless I guess this is all she wrote

My great great grandmother

 

May 18, 1971  (I was 26)

 

My great great grandmother

used to talk to any snake

who’d come wandering through the grass

Times have changed a great deal since then

but not at all my great great grandmother

Let some old rattler come up shaking his tail

like a kid tapping a penny on a candy counter

and it don’t faze her a bit

She just stands there with her hands resting lightly

on her hips and says “What do you say snake?”

and like or not the snake tells her something

My great great grandmother says

there’s a lot to be learned from snakes 

I guess I take after great great grandpa’s side

I never heard one tell me something useful yet

and a lot of people I hear

don’t pay snakes any attention at all.

I misplace things

 

May 17, 2009  (I was 64)

 

I misplace things

hard to have a place

for each and every

after every use

things quickly

resolve into nothings

The mind moves on

before the body picks up the tools

You could be known

 

May 16, 2009  (I was 64)

 

You could be known by the things

you did not write about.  If you wrote

thoughtfully about something, you thought

about things of which you did not write.

Composition is what it is called.  Composing

is what you do when you don’t

choose certain thoughts or certain words

because they are uncertain.  Uncertainty

in meaning or how the meaning is perceived

is taken into consideration when things are unchosen.

This does not mean the unchosen ones

are not revealed.  Their invisibility

is a strong presence in every written line.

They express the doubt the indecision

the fear the disgust the nakedness

the unspeakable truth you do not want

to reveal.  Watch what you do not say.

The Credo of Hypocrisies from pro athletes

 

May 15, 2009  (I was 64)        

 

The Credo of Hypocrisies from pro athletes

makes us all look like idiots:

We’re grown men here

we take responsibility for our actions

We create extraordinarily high

expectations for ourselves

We have impeccable work ethic

We always give 100% but

we know how to step it up when we have to

I live for the pressure of game seven

It ain’t trash talk if you can back it up

I know I am blessed and ordained by God

I believe everything happens for a reason

We’re done talking about it

We were embarrassed

and it called into question the character

of some of their players

We’ve had tough ones to swallow before

but this one just snowballed

It wasn’t nerves

it was just a matter of settling down

We regret that it happened but

we’ve put it behind us and we move on

 

The message to kids should be

you don’t have to talk like that to be successful

I’ve heard it called many things the moon

 

from this week in May, 2014  (I was 69)

 

I’ve heard it called many things the moon

read as many more the moon

a hole in the night a garden stone

something to rhyme with the word alone

It is the pearl and the oyster too

the cloud tossed ship the silver sliver

oval face of the man saying ooh

A button a bead a bun a seed

eye or navel or thumbprint of God

marble cue ball mushroom mothball

halo and horns maiden and magician

slipping in and out of the dark

shadow caster light who defines the night

summoner of owls author of howls

reflection of the lotus meditative bindi

mathematician of the months

Neptune’s conductor

Last night during innovative fireworks on San Francisco Bay

 

May 13,2007  (I was 62)

 

Last night during innovative fireworks on San Francisco Bay our party of 18 in a charter fishing trawler booked for the occasion, floated directly under the spectacle while KFOG wafted musical accompaniment over the boats.  Many gathered for the luminous event. I had never before seen fireworks carried aloft by miniature hot air balloons. They rose among other bursts showering downward. All was choreographed to fit the musical selections.  I hoped some young couple newly in love, was crossing the bridge to the city for the first time, while hearing Tony Bennett sing about losing his heart.  And the night sky burst golden sparkles continuously all around them in wondrous frivolity.

A little girl approximately

 

May 12, 1966  (I was 21)

 

  A  little  girl  approximately

eleven with freckles and dangling

blond hair and round Keane eyes

      followed the spasmodic

         downward dashings

            of a silver pellet 

                  pinball

                       o

            Lights flashed

        springs thunked and

       bells bink bink binked

         a barrage of points

    Her fingers with bitten nails

snapped flippers and stabbed flippers

      flaunting a professional flair

With big girl ferocity banged the glass

bumper gunch and didn't jump joyously

    when the ball plunked down

                  SPECIAL 

                       O

                  WHEN LIT

She just pushed the reset to begin

the reverse score calculation spin &

flipped her hair in arrogant satisfaction

Thirty-one years ago on this night

 

May 11, 1998  (I was 53)

 

Thirty-one years ago on this night

about this time I became a father

twice and too dumb to be fearful

and too ignorant to have remembered

much of how it felt or what it meant,

and in the intervening years

too smart to think I could figure it out.

Too indifferent now to philosophy

to believe we ever arrive at truth

too numb to days to hope they add up

as they subtract

Too blind at night to see how we divide

as we multiply.

And certain it is better to be lost in now

than found at some future date;

better to be lost in now

than remembered as part of something gone.

Behind the screen

 

May 10, 2009  (I was 64)

 

Behind the screen:

         the embroidered image is reversed

         on the silken Japanese landscape

         muted sheen of a silent pond

         miso and sushi

Behind the screen:

         spatters from the surgeon’s cut

         the nurse practices

         deadpan bedpan humor

Behind the screen:

         the puppeteer pulls the strings 

         shadow puppets are cast

         giants and dwarfs

         the deferential fool falls dead

         stabbed in the abdomen

Behind the screen:

         the drama ends

         a dusty backstage

         the door leads to the alley

Behind the screen:

         the priest hears sins

         wizardry is revealed

         in charlatan platitudes

         anonymity is ensured