Dharma Bum

Aimless Love

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door –
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor –
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

~ Billy Collins ~

via Upaya

Making Time..

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

So the other night I was meeting a friend for dinner and she let me know she was running late. I took the extra time to head over to my sanctuary, aka Barnes and Noble. It wasn't long before I found myself in the poetry section. As I was thumbing through one of the anthology's I thought to myself, God I love poetry. Ever since I started Grad school a lot of things I enjoy have had to take a back seat to writing term papers and reading text books. As I was standing there it occurred to me that I really need to make the time to sit down and write again, to send of poems to lit journals and to receive the rejection letters and who knows, maybe get another one published. I love the whole process. I left with a couple of books that night and when Michele saw them she asked if we could go back to a poetry reading again. Yes, I would like that.

 

Flood

By Eliza Griswold

I woke to a voice within the room. perhaps.
The room itself: You're wasting this life
expecting disappointment."
I packed my bag in the night
and peered in its leather belly
to count the essentials.
Nothing is essential.
To the east, the flood has begun.
Men call to each other on the water
for the comfort of voices.
Love surprises us.
It ends.

Kerouac Reading

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

On Turning 10

        The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.        

Billy Collins

Billy Collins

The wife and I ran up to the Skirball after work tonight to catch the Billy Collins poetry reading. It was great! Here's a quick vid of our evening. I didn't get Billy Collins doing any poems because I was afraid they were going to get mad, but you get the general idea of how the evening went.

 

Billy Collins @ The Skirball

I just discovered the one of my favorite contemporary poets Billy Collins will be at the Skirball on Tuesday night. Anybody interested? So I can use the carpool lane??

Examples below:

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

Robert Hershon

Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge

My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?

What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand

Slow Children at Play

Cecilia Woloch

All the quick children have gone inside, called
by their mothers to hurry-up-wash-your-hands
honey-dinner’s-getting-cold, just-wait-till-your-father-gets-home-
and only the slow children out on the lawns, marking off
paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths, ohs, that glow and go out and glow. And their slow mothers flickering,
pale in the dusk, watching them turn in the gentle air, watching them
twirling, their arms spread wide, thinking, These are my children, thinking, Where is their dinner? Where has their father gone?

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Ted Kooser

Rejection..

My first poetry rejection letter of the year. Thought I'd share the writers plight...

Dear Chris,

We appreciate all the work that goes into writing but, unfortunately, we are unable to accept your submission. Please consider submitting to us again in the future.

Sincerely,

{redacted} Staff

Old Poem by Me

Garden Buddha

Her voice from the house

Signifies we’re not through

A signal for the sun to

Adjust his spotlight, trying

Not to miss any of the drama below

And stone Buddha

Sits still

contemplating his next move.

Two butterflies

Take jagged flight

Hoping to meet somewhere

In the middle

Song birds hum and

Pick guitar string high wires

I consider their rhythm

And blues

The calico hides in the

Shade of the garden

Purring a mantra of

Want and loss

The Breeze struggles to

Move the trouble here

And stone Buddha

Sits still          enlightened

And I move

To return         envious

I Resolve

I haven't really talked about resolutions this year. I have a few. I normally have none but over the last few years of learned there's a certain power in goal setting. It has also been confirmed by a certain Psychologist (Ph.D) who is a regular in my poker game that research supports goal setting. That being said one of my goals this year is to get some of my poetry published again. I haven't written anything for awhile and I miss it. Sure I write a couple of blogs but that's just an oulet for my ADD. So the plan this year is to attend a couple of writers workshops, get back to readings again and  attend lectures by writers I admire. And most importantly I'm going to set aside time each week just to write.

So, I have finished the first poem I have written a long time. I'm a little rusty so go easy. In all honesty I started this poem a couple of years ago but just went back to it recently. The first for 08, Enjoy:

The Cutting

Number One

The monsoons arrived early

That fevered summer in Phoenix

When she swept away her husband

To settle with me

He was taken by surprise

Like the lone hiker trapped

In the wash, every July

In the northern desert

Number Two

We bickered about the lemon tree

She needed it removed

Could give me no real reason

Said it didn’t fit the yard

She informs the gardener

No gold, amber or coral

Planted in the garden

She never said as much but

She did not want to be reminded

Of desert sunsets and cactus flowers

Often I find her at the window

Mumbling under her breath

About the extreme job the

Gardener did removing the

Lemon tree

Appalled he left half the intention there

For her to be reminded

Of the cutting

On The Death of a Collegue

By Stephen Dunn

She taught theater, so we gathered
in the theater.
We praised her voice, her knowledge,
how good she was
with Godot and just four months later
with Gigi.
She was fifty. The problem in the liver.
Each of us recalled
an incident in which she'd been kind
or witty.
I told about being unable to speak
from my diaphragm
and how she made me lie down, placed her hand
where the failure was
and showed me how to breathe.
But afterwards
I only could do it when I lay down
and that became a joke
between us, and I told it as my offering
to the audience.
I was on stage and I heard myself
wishing to be impressive.
Someone else spoke of her cats
and no one spoke
of her face or the last few parties.
The fact was
I had avoided her for months.

It was a student's turn to speak, a sophomore,
one of her actors.
She was a drunk, he said, often came to class
reeking.
Sometimes he couldn't look at her, the blotches,
the awful puffiness.
And yet she was a great teacher,
he loved her,
but thought someone should say
what everyone knew
because she didn't die by accident.

Everyone was crying. Everyone was crying and it
was almost over now.
The remaining speaker, an historian, said he'd cut
his speech short.
And the Chairman stood up as if by habit,
said something about loss
and thanked us for coming. None of us moved
except some students
to the student who'd spoken, and then others
moved to him, across dividers,
down aisles, to his side of the stage.

Born Into This

"I've never met another man I'd rather be" - Charles Bukowski

My DVD of Bukowski: Born Into This just came to the office from Amazon. Very happy right now.

Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad

I think you are most yourself when you are swimming;
slicing the water with each stroke,
the funny way you breathe, your mouth cocked
as though you're yawning.

You're neither fantastic nor miserable
at getting from here to there.
You wouldn't win any medals, Dad,
but you wouldn't drown.

I think how different everything might have been
had I judged your loving

like I judge your sidestroke, your butterfly,
your Australian crawl.

But I always thought I was drowning
in that icy ocean between us,
I always thought you were moving too slowly to save me,
When you were moving as fast as you can.

Jan Heller Levi 

Confession

By Charles Bukowski

waiting for death like a cat that will jump on the bed I am so very sorry for my wife she will see this stiff white body shake it once, then maybe again "Hank!" Hank won't answer. it's not my death that worries me, it's my wife left with this pile of nothing. I want to let her know though that all the nights sleeping beside her even the useless arguments were things ever splendid and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said: I love you.

The Goose

By Muriel Spark

Do you want to know why I am alive today?
I will tell you.
Early on, during the food shortage,
Some of us were miraculously presented
Each with a goose that laid a golden egg.
Myself, I killed the cackling thing and I ate it.
Alas, many and many of the other recipients
Died of gold-dust poisoning.

To A Frustrated Poet

by R.J. Ellmann

This is to say
I know
You wish you were in the woods,
Living the poet life,
Not here at a formica topped table
In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits and allowances offered to
employees of this college,
And I too wish you were in the woods,
Because it’s no fun having a frustrated poet
In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me.
In the poems of yours that I’ve read, you seem ever intelligent and decent and patient in a way
Not evident to us in this office,
And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble,
Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair,
I give you this check representing two weeks’ wages
And ask you to clean out your desk today
And go home
And write a poem
With a real frog in it
And plums from the refrigerator,
So sweet and so cold.

The Selfishness of The Poetry Reader

By Dick Allen

Sometimes I think I'm the only man in America
who reads poems
and who walks at night in the suburbs,
calling the moon names.

And I'm certain I'm the single man who owns
a house with bookshelves,
who drives to work without a CD player,
taking the long way, by the ocean breakers.

No one else, in all America,
Quotes William Meredith verbatim,
cites Lowell over ham and eggs, and Levertov;
keeps Antiworlds and Ariel beside his bed.

Sometimes I think no other man alive
is changed by poetry, has fought
as utterly as I have over "Sunday Morning"
and vowed to love those as difficult as Pound.

No one else has seen a luna moth
flutter over Iowa, or watched
a woman's hand lift rainbow trout from water,
and snow fall onto Minnesota farms.

This country wide, I'm the only man
who spends his money recklessly on thin
volumes unreviewed, enjoys
the long appraising look of check-out girls.

How could another in America know why
the laundry from a window laughs,
and how plums taste, and what an auto wreck
feels like-and craft?

I think I'm the only man who speaks
of fur and limestone in one clotted breath;
for whom Anne Sexton plunged in Grimm; who can't
stop quoting haikus at some weekend guest.

The only man, in all America, who feeds
on something darker than his politics,
who writes in margins and who earmarks pages-
in all America, I am the only man.