from this week in March, 1976 (I was 31)
That classic sidestep by the matador
that en passant of the bull ring
what’s that called?
It’s the basic deception
the stare over the cape
then the move upon the toes
looking right and going left
What is this, longing for Hemingway
or for Death in the Afternoon?
No it’s for that clean break
befuddlement of the opposition
without a blinking compromise
The arrogant and the dumbfounded
together on the floor of the arena
from this week in January, 1976 (I was 31)
There are worse virtues than courtesy
even for the revolutionary.
In fact, identifying the proper enemy
before opening fire
becomes an essential weapon
to insure sympathy for the cause.
How often failure to exercise this mere gesture
is read in the biographies of dead soldiers
from this week in January, 1976 (I was 31)
The Cow in the Road
Hello.
Welcome to your real life
(remember the other
the one with the golden hair
the one on the rocks by the sea
and the wind and the wave
that broke in trembling tetrameter
o’er myriads of naiads
gamboling upon the shore)
All that’s given way to tap dancing
up and down the stony steps of Sproul Hall
and all kinds of other groovy things
All that ended when the war did
All the soldiers were underground
waiting again to inhale the smoke and breathe the fire
Then came who cares leading up to now
and the ha ha of personal commitment
sitting on its own lap on our doorstep
saying its been there all the while and somehow
that has to be the truth and suddenly you know
you’ve been to the beach again
and there’s an oh-oh from the basement
and a rustling in the woodwork
and memories of the night the bats were loose in the house
But then all those things went by
not for everybody, but at least for us
We didn’t know the beginning
though we kept on surviving the end
and we will until one of us
fails to recognize the cow in the road
December 25, 1976 (I was 32)
I’ve ignored daily evidence
disregarded the point of each lesson
So now it is I’ve flunked visceral learning
I have not had the compassion
to massage my own neck
It’s not that I lacked the feeling
but settled for powder in the stomach
when I could have conjured organic bicarbonates
bubbles in the brain
Dilated pupils should not be overexposed to sunlight
elementary enough
but not more primary than good posture
nor more essential than breathing good air
It is a corruption of the knowledgeable
to believe occasional indiscretions will be overlooked
in the face of their general wisdom
Christmas Bonus:
I Google Translated the above poem into Mandarin, then translated it back from Mandarin into English. The line, Dilated pupils should not be overexposed to sunlight, came back, Obese students should be excused from physical education
December 12, 1976 (I was 32)
Steam Heat
First time I was stoned
it was on steam heat
Mad dog winter bite your ass off outside
me lying on the carpet
five year old face up against the register
hearing only the blower roaring
eyes closed against a desert wind.
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
July 7, 1976 (I was 31)
from the school to his house
My wife and I
On the Fourth of July
walked the lawns of Hibbing High
And read its plaques
commemorating wars for the ball of wax
then walked up 7th Ave. past Blessed Sac.
We hit 25th I think we were smilin’
about the store clerk who corrected me
and showed me their one album by Dy-lan.
May 13, 1976 (I was 31)
Playing Guns ca. 1953
Pretend this area is the swamp
you can’t go through here
or you’ll sink in quicksand and die
You hafta go around this part past those trees
or over those rocks the mountains over there
No using binoculars they are illegal weapons
When you shoot someone you gotta say their name
not just bam bam bam but bam bam bam and their name
otherwise they’re not dead
and you gotta shoot loud unless you say before
you got a silencer on your gun
And then you can only use it for close kills
and when you’re dead shut up
No telling where anyone is
or pointing at ‘em with your gun either
Taking prisoners is dumb
there’s never anything to do with them
So shoot to kill Okay you guys hide first
from this week in May, 1976 (I was 31)
little communists
Children of the commune
you hide your laughter behind your hands
and let us look at you naked
tanned all over and dusty
Your dreams are without ferris wheels
You will not be broken down and stuck at the top
A stick is your wand Wave everything green
Watch your parents planting in the sun
Watch strangers instead of television
Understand what all children know
This is today wait no longer
Let’s have a look Let’s have a look
and maybe more than a look
“You grow up like this
when you’re little
then go into the outside world;
it blows your mind.”
says Jeff age 12
Jeff perceives all other as majority
to his minority
just as we all have since we were 12
The collective mind is blown
Jeff is as old as his elders are young
He tames the world in a loving glance
and they settle for the secluded vegetables
they can grow themselves
April 18, 1976 (I was 31)
notes for The Poetry Class, day 39
The period was given over to a tangential topic. I explained
why I hadn’t read the four notebooks I had taken home last night.
I said a friend asked me to accompany him to the Alameda County
Courthouse Lock-up to visit one of the prisoners who was due to be
sent to Death Row, San Quentin. I described the courthouse building,
the disinfectant odor of its polished hallways and the apprehensive
atmosphere of the visiting process. I talked about the elevator ride
to the twelfth floor, the officially courteous guards, steel walls, viewing
slits, cell-like cells, echoes, the tinny sound of the visitor phones. I
told them of the crime of the prisoner I visited –pushing a guy off the
San Mateo Bridge after a drug deal gone bad. I described some of
the other visitors there. I mentioned the victims and the sense of
depression and tragedy. When I asked Rick if he met any prisoners
whose cases he had read about, he pointed out Eldridge Cleaver three
feet away at the next phone. Cleaver leaned over for a look through
our view slit. On his white overalls he had inscribed HELP in marking
pen across his right breast. Rick said many prisoners wrote prison
poetry and he was a captive audience.
December 12, 1976 (I was 32)
Blues Song
You know and I know
we both know now
we don’t have time for
the shit comin’ down
This day’s goin’
that one’s gone
If we ask how long we’ve been here
we’ve been here too long
I see and you see
we don’t see eye to eye
I look at the ground
you look in the sky
From that room to this
we don’t even talk
Meeting in the doorway
your touch is a shock
This life is goin’
that one is gone
How long have we been here
We been here too long
November 14, 1976 (I was 31)
Just out the door and down the street
outside this literary stupor
exists a world of real people and real things
things of weight and measure bought and sold
cups of coffee drunk
boards nailed together
The newspaper is read
last night’s TV editorial is parroted
Clocks tell you where you are
straight-forward and in a hurry
Things get done business is transacted
with just the kind of people you want to see
when there is nothing more you can do with the pipes
Their every moment devoured by action aimed at purpose
people with a quick ignorance of any karma beyond next Tuesday
and a hatred of anything done for free
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
July 21, 1976 (I was 31)
Touring Soudan Underground Iron Mine
Every green smile
pulled from under
the silly hard hats
issued at the entrance
tells the embarrassing truth
that we nineteen crammed
into this rumbling shovel bucket
on a cable to plummet
thirty-two hundred feet
through greenstone rock
and red vein ore
might ride this angle
all the way
to the darkest chamber
of this pyramid
to join with Julius
and his demon miners
screaming deaf from diamond bits
and pressure changes
five hundred forty fathoms
beneath an iron sea.
July 13, 1976 (I was 31)
Incident on Howard Street
In Feldman’s Clothier where his mother had worked
a sales clerk asked me where I got my Dylan T-shirt
Certainly not in Hibbing I teased first
then smiled and told her Berkeley
She told me
she had been Bob’s next door neighbor
that she’d stored some of his stuff in her basement
I told her I grew up in Keewatin
My wife graduated in Hibbing and knew his brother David
She said she was Mrs. Schneider
and one of her daughters graduated the same year
Bob removed his stuff some time ago
She served him coffee in her kitchen
and he gave her a signed copy of the album
with Blowin’ In The Wind on it
Later she saw a letter he wrote to his mother
Don’t believe all you read about me
I still brush my teeth everyday
July 1, 1976 (I was 31)
A dynamite blast shakes the town
If I were home I’d think the fault had shifted
5 point O on the Richter –I’d blame God
This shook the foundation
the concussion rattled the windows
even at some distance
like standing in front of a big pedal bass drum
If I’d a been in Berkeley
I’d a thought they got the Bank of America again
This is Keewatin
and that is iron ore
exploded in dry clots from the pit
lifted and hauled out in shovels trucks and trains
by sanguine physicians of the stainless steel economy
When I rumbled in with a noisy tailpipe
nobody even heard
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
March 30, 1976 (I was 31)
Sunrise Litany
At dawn someone always comes
to the church on the corner
the only one coming this morning
to climb each small step up to the heavy door
which holds the odor of prayer inside
the first to echo down the long aisle
the first to see which candles expired in the night
the first to dent the kneeler
the first to ask forgiveness
the first of the congregation to dampen a veiled forehead
breaking into a sweat for the Lord
from this week in March, 1976 (I was 31)
Air Play
sitting in the studio longing
egg cartons stapled to the ceiling
listening to the tapes again
damning the fidelity
praying for air play
everybody’s gotta have air play
all we really need is air play
Diving from planes like bombs
We had to have a note from our moms
saying it was alright
she gave her permission
for us to have air play
air play air play
How can you open your chute
if you don’t have air play
Maybe the mikes are weak
but the voice is cutting
even on the tapes
through all this smoke
you can hear it it’s there
Programmer give us air play
air play air play
We deserve and demand air play
Who gives you the air play
