You are in another country

 

January 19, 1979  (I was 34)  

 

You are in another country

Had I asked you to be here

you probably would have stayed

I told you to go

You are in Mexico

I don’t voluntarily go places

though I have been lured to a few

I have not gone to Mexico

I think of second marriage

You are in Mexico now

living for awhile in Mulegè

and it is January

Maybe you think of having babies

and maybe I’ll resign myself

to a life of fatherhood for your love

and hope that the price in years

is not your love

And in Mexico I imagine you toughening

like a native in the sun while I’m soft

and white as the underbelly of the U.S.

Pilgrim Age

 

December 15, 2003  (I was 59) 

 

         Pilgrim Age

This is a journey of some experience,

travelers who have packed some bags…

have dangled from hot high voltage wires

separated the Constitution from political desires

who at times have lived from hand to mouth

nursed their way from the deepest South

ran the field and have lain on the table

hung onto the shaken until they were stable

Travelers of fine craft and detailed décor

all haunted by journeys traveled before.

They know when to walk and when to run

travelers rewriting what they’ve already done.

 

Rothenberg at midnight in December

 

from this week in December, 2011  (I was 59) 

 

Rothenberg at midnight in December

The night watchman has cleared the streets

We emerge from the smoke of the Altfrankishe

and a deliberate encounter with strangers

The cold air is good in the lungs

we exhale frost against the moon

We walk frozen stones under St. Jacob’s archway

permitted a quiet encounter with history

We follow the church shadow in the dark

as so many have done before

Peter the Rock asleep in the Garden

Moonlight falls upon the Lord in Prayer

depicted precisely at his desperate hour

We are witness with new awareness

At this time the city is ours

The chill plays upon my spine

from those other centuries

those other December nights

Those other walkers welcome us

into the niche of their granite company

I give it solitary contemplation

across the cobbles to Rodergasse

bowed to the wafer moon

Though I am a citizen and I live here

 

November 30, 2010  (I was 66)

 

Though I am a citizen and I live here

this is not my country

No matter that I always vote

and campaign for those who speak my voice

Our arrogant governance in the world

humiliates me

the autocratic savior complex

I am told and I know

what we do maintains the lifestyle I enjoy

But there are many lifestyles I can love

and the enjoyment of what I have

is relative to how many others have it too

and what we did to get it

So this is not my country yet

 

Rothenberg at midnight in December

 

from this week in December, 2011  (I was 59) 

 

Rothenberg at midnight in December

The night watchman has cleared the streets

We emerge from the smoke of the Altfrankishe

and a deliberate encounter with strangers

The cold air is good in the lungs

we exhale frost against the moon

We walk frozen stones under St. Jacob’s archway

permitted a quiet encounter with history

We follow the church shadow in the dark

as so many have done before

Peter the Rock asleep in the Garden

Moonlight falls upon the Lord in Prayer

depicted precisely at his desperate hour

We are witness with new awareness

At this time the city is ours

The chill plays upon my spine

from those other centuries

those other December nights

Those other walkers welcome us

into the niche of their granite company

I give it solitary contemplation

across the cobbles to Rodergasse

bowed to the wafer moon

The learning of the new

 

from this week in November 2008  (I was 63)

 

The learning of the new

comes not from the ground

not the baked clay of California

nor the black loam of Minnesota

nor the pyritic glass of Hawaii

The few foreign grounds I’ve walked upon

seem not much different

in towns and cities built over

with shops and churches

And in the country field and forest

yield as ever the fragrant must

of knowledge that has always been

from Harangutan

 

October 30, 1994  (I was 49) 

 

      from Harangutan

Young paleontologists spend four

months in the southern Sahara recovering

dinosaur bones of previously unknown species;

stories of predators and victims’ cases reopened

eons beyond the statutes of limitation.

Young historians working hard to become history,

elated to be a footnote, potentially a chapter.

The energy of adrenaline dims memory

of double fortnight jeep caravans

across treacherous sands more vast than

a capitalist nation and with threats as real.

Persistence brings home the bones;

the clever young scientists vow

this is only the beginning.

 

HALLOWEEN TREAT!   johnkallio.com

Go to AUDIO page, Listen to my rendition of

Aquainted With The Night  by Robert Frost 

I walk the invisible dog in the park

 

October 17, 2013  (I was 68)

 

I walk the invisible dog in the park

It follows without a leash

Sometimes other people’s dogs

half know the invisible dog is there

There is no canine confrontation

My attention is invisibly occupied

Other dogs chase squirrels that can see

The invisible dog chases nothing

I do not know where it sleeps  I do not feed it

It does not arrive in the car with me

Many dog walkers bag the defecations

Many of us do not  I go unnoticed

I don’t know what kind of shit the invisible dog leaves behind

It is not my intention to walk the dog

I am here for the exercise the light the serenity

which I achieve only in moments the dog minds itself

Most of the time it trots alongside

close enough for me to count its breaths

It is not in the car when I drive to the rest of my day

The distant wail diminishes but does not cease

I’d like the invisible dog to successfully run away

Whatever path I walk I remain a familiar scent

Street Incident

 

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.

emigration

 

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

 

I am not steeped in sleep

 

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

Random Notes

 

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.”

Beatrice Beatrice

 

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

Up on Cold Mountain

 

from this week in August, 1973  (I was 28)

 

Up on Cold Mountain

no moment is humble.

Every action is magnificent,

there is no hearth to sweep.

 

I know something of Cold Mountain

I have been there alone.

Summer nor winter did I see Han Shan.

 

No doubt he resides there.

We did not find each other;

we did not drink tea.

 

Upon Cold Mountain

no man speaks to his reflection,

no man speaks to his shadow.

 

Out of the house before anyone knew

 

August 17, 2015  (I was 70) 

Out of the house before anyone knew

across the park behind the band shell

at the village hall library read a mag

around the school closed for summer

past the Catholic church under the water tower

Through a neighborhood where neither of us lived

I saw the ghost in the trestle underpass

looking for me as he waited there

to walk beside along the tracks

The few who knew him didn’t see me

The few I knew did not see him

We walked past twilight in solitary accord

eager and content in the presence of silence

shared a language of few words

and other sounds drowned in darkness

All our palaces disappeared with our Alices

 

from this week in August, 2012  (I was 67)

 

All our palaces disappeared with our Alices

down some rabbit hole portal

Graced the small town with charm and renown

adding the Im to mortal

Nobody lived at the castles

but we visited to feel more alive

Spines cheer a chandelier

Minds work with miners in a mural

Pilgrimage of sculpted saints stationed on the wall

Ritual danced across a polished wood floor

perfume enhanced each chamber’s décor

An aisle of incensed books we genuflected to discover

faded through that passage with our adventurous lover

 

You say you want to migrate to Mars

 

from this week in August, 2019  (I was 74)

 

You say you want to migrate to Mars

Even at my most adventurous

I wouldn’t accompany you to Best Buy

Let alone a planet named for a War God

Left alone to my own device

I’ll become a citizen of the Old World

while you forage in the Newer Frontier

We’ll refer to you as The Colonies

and repeat exaggerated stories

of your encounters with the Natives

Not even your discovery of gold and platinum

would lure me to share your artificial atmosphere

 

All our palaces disappeared with our Alices

 

from this week in August, 2012  (I was 67)

 

All our palaces disappeared with our Alices

down some rabbit hole portal

Graced the small town with charm and renown

adding the Im to mortal

Nobody lived at the castles

but we visited to feel more alive

Spines cheer a chandelier

Minds work with miners in a mural

Pilgrimage of sculpted saints

Cathedral Image

 

from this week in August, 1996  (I was 51)

 

         Cathedral Image

From under frond covered palapa

cloud covered afternoon in Cuernavaca

shades the view of cathedral hill

and the gardens of Posada Xochiquetzal 

 

Cricket clicks on incoming mist

in the midst of midsummer rifts

rippling soft from fumbling fountain

where stone frogs spit bubbling foam

 

The trill of droplets off the curving dome

begins to drill and file upon roof tile

then streams to wash bloody pyramids and licks

the wounds of the ancient conquering crucifix

 

A Chinese lacquered bowl

 

from this week in July, 2011  (I was 66)

 

A Chinese lacquered bowl

         passes from one to another

old men with bony hands

         from which they measure

spoonfuls of white sugar

         She enters with swift grace

a blur of perfume

         the blue porcelain teapot

blowing plumes of steam

         From the veranda she hears

water slapped onto the dry stone

         and she imagines the dark boys

smelling of hair oil and talc

         beaching their boat on the rocks

in the deep black under the trees

         stirring an unmeasurable sweetness