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
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.
from this week in September, 1979 (I was 34)
This Junior High School
Mrs. Affluence swings around the parking lot
and rocks the Lincoln 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 a pedestrian mom and her 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
September 21, 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
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)
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.
from this week in September, 2021 (I was 76)
I am not steeped in sleep
I do maintain a mountainous mien
I drink coffee steeped from bean
I have stepped from where I've been
schlept from where I slept
soundly steeped in silent dreams
Visions of sights unseen
phantasmic volcano in tropical clime
subliminal eruption in mind sublime
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 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.
from this week in September, 1977 (I was 32)
Random Notes
Hemingway, from “Indian Camp”:
“is Dying hard, Daddy?”
“No, I think it’s pretty easy, Nick. It all depends.”
Wilde, “De Profundis”:
“It seems to me that we all look at Nature too much and live with her too little.”
Rimbaud, “Illuminations” (at age twenty):
“Perfect and unpredictable beings will offer themselves for your experiments. Around you the curiosity of ancient crows and idle luxuries will move in dreamily. Your memory and your senses will only serve to feed your creative urge.”
Huddie Leadbetter:
Take this hammer (wahh)
and carry it to the captain (wahh)
Wilde, “De Profundis”
“…there was nothing that either Plato or Christ had said that could not be transferred immediately into the sphere of Art and there find its complete fulfillment.”
“…Christ’s place indeed is with the poets. His whole conception of humanity sprang right out of the imagination and can only be realized by it.”
from this week in September, 1970 (I was 25)
Beatrice Beatrice
I’ve sunk to the depths
I’ve walked barefoot
through caves of hot gold
I’ve been to the markets
where men’s blood is sold
I’ve floated in chains
across seas of repentance
I’ve been there before
when Pilate passed sentence
and wherever your name
has escaped my breath
men have shrunk in terror
saying Silence
her name is death
from this week in September, 1970 (I was 25)
mathematicians
one two three four
five all in a row
like a garden they grow
into numerical eternities
following their ancestors
arguing the point moot
as to whose grandfather
was the greatest square root
from this week in September, 1972 (I was 27)
Time is out of joint
might as well anoint my head
as even try to lift me from this bed
there is no point
Let’s you and I take a joint time out
Hope to shout hope to shout
join my groin in a groan
screw the phone Damn
I feel like a paper doll
that can’t get folded again
I tell you it’s out of joint
or I lost the point
You can’t put a cast on time
I tried that last time
Now I just run up the hill at night
(it’s outasight) bad back or not
I don’t know if there are more snakes out during the dark
but I sure as hell hear more still
I ain’t been bit yet
