Wyeth-Brandwhyn and two poems

A WINTER SUNSET IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY

The day was much too warm

To truly be called a Winter’s

Day. Narcissus were in bloom.

The greening of the fields was overloaded

For the time of year, but there it was.

Evening had loaded itself on moisture,

Banked the clouds into sheets,

Stretched them across a valley landscape

And was pushing the sun down behind

The whole thing in poured golds and

metallic hues that could easily have

Been kept and put aside for

late Spring or early Summer. Five

O’clock was not used to handling

This kind of display at all.

The sky was slightly embarrassed

But would never deny that wealth

Of colors and special fashion

Such a rare gem as this could command.

And so it commanded and looking we obeyed.

BURNING THE STAIRS

There is a low wail coming

Up through my skin. When

I listen in, head close

To the radio I can feel

The pulse, the full pulse,

The pulse, pulse of the electricity

In its circuits. I can smell

The ozone. I can tell

It needs flame. Even the music.

Even the announcers voice,

Lofting and falling, selling stereos

And car tires has the stink

Of flame around it. I wish

For evening, a room far away,

The arc of a great bird

Across the sky, etched air.

The wail will have none of this.

It becomes louder and shrill.

The dial begins flickering.

Its mouth full of flame.

It begins to melt.

I quickly pick it up,

Toss it into the air.

The stairs of the angels catch fire.

The air is filled with burning stairs.

There is no way to get to heaven

Any longer.

The fire storm rages down.

It is like dreaming.

It is like moving clouds

Away with one’s hand.

I stand at the top

Of the stairs and look down,

Someone is listening to a radio

So intently

I believe

They are an animal.

Some more about my new book-some poems-images

Well, it looks like the middle of April will be the release time for

A Limited Means of Expression, my new (spiralchap) book from Rattlesnake Press in Pollack Pines. I'm currently making corrections and trying to arrange the content. Kathy Keith, the editor, did a nice job already so Im not shirting much information around. Haven't decided on the cover but will by the second week of March.

MEDUSA'S KITCHEN has continued to publish my work and gave me space for three poems and two photos yesterday, which was a surprise and very nice. Seeing it is the only place I currently submit work, I am very pleased that they like the work.

“WHICH STAR DO YOU LIKE THE BEST?
(a poem in many voices)

...Kenneth Patchen

It seemed, at that moment

As if everything that was going

To be said would be of great

Importance, verging on a profound

Discovery, a sudden understanding

Only seen when the night

Reached in the way it did now,

Casting about the rooms for

The shadows it kept under beds,

Behind doors, inside of mouthes

That had seen too much today

And were hobbled knowing so much

Could be possible but no

Way of knowing what it was they knew.

*

We left through the carved

Door to the portico that ran

Along the side of the house.

Silence held everything in its hand.

This was hard to bear. The soft

Cloth of the year was only dust

Inside a barn turning from red

To gray, unlacing itself to be the night,

Allowing all of that star light to enter

Through shrinking ceiling boards and doors

That no longer quite closed.

*

“Which star do you like best?”

She opened the night with a gesture.

“All that heat where there is

No atmosphere, a gleaming from

So many stars” She moved her hands

As if she were touching all of them.

*

“That one.” he said as the night

Doubled their numbers.

“Or that one”, as it did it again.

“How beautiful.” he thought

As he wondered how it was possible

They could not have been here every night

Looking at the stars this way,

Feeling as if all things were forever.

ON LOVE

There is no

Forseeability

For love..

It has its own door.

It names the heart

In whatever language

It chooses. There is no

Defense. We stand

Naked before it and

Are committed upon

And within, it becomes

Like breathing as

Explained by wonder.

New Poetry Book announced + some photos and a poem or two

Rattlesnake Press in Pollack Pines announced yesterday that they will be publishing a new book of poetry by me this April. The title is A LIMITED MEANS OF EXPRESSION. I think i've used that phrase in a couple of poems. The book will be in two sections on one Angels and one on a lot of other things. i'm hoping we can bind it like I'd like to see it bound and i've asked someone to do a cover. I hope they can.

SLPY HLLW

I have caught and captured

Van Winkle just as he awoke,

Before he realized where he was

Or what had made his body

Remind him of the way it had worked.

I have shown him filmic images;

The Viet Nam war,

Automobiles of the 1939 World’s

Fairs, the moon landing,

Apartied and the meting ice

Caps. The miracle of television.

Go back to sleep Van Winkle.

This is not you waking at all.

It is a lullaby, a small voice

Singing a song to a French Canadian

Child just as the Winter days

Become coldest. A dream as bears

Have dreams, twitching in the limbs,

Devices that will never be believed,

Bowlers on the lawns in high places

Of the moraines of the Laurentians,

Sleep’s room made for birthing legends.

SONG IN THE AIR

Nobody’s riding and it looks like

This. We saw there was a road

But it was totally unforgiving.

It turned over and around like

The night as a snake and the day

As a landscape of bones and tired

eyes staring down to make one

Think that life had a compromise

Hidden somewhere in its freakish

Towers. But there is no one standing.

There is a song. Oh be sure there is a

Song and we sing it like blind men

Not understanding what the sweetness

Of words could be when smoothed

Into a bed. The voice of a lover

Or an owl or a deep pool. It

Becomes hard to recognize

Any of the friends, any of the lovers.

I am showing you my sleeve.

See this heart? It truly is mine.

couple of things and a photo of E.R. Baxter III and D.R. Wagner from last week in Niagara Falls

I went back to Niagara Falls last week to see my family. Lisa went with me. It was very cold. one day above freezing but very lovely as well. Went out to visit E.R. Baxter III on his farm. Had a lovely afternoon and poked around the farm a bit.

NIGHTINGALES

Summer breaks its face on my arm.

I can’t remember how your mouth

Felt on mine. How your hand was

When I put my lips on your fingertips.

My heart dances on my spine, fooling

Me into believing that love has a name

That sounds like yours but ends before

I can reach pit and touch your hips,

Your lips, it, as they said, trips me

Past the dream house built of pale

Moonlight and forever and a day.

Up among the concordance of moon,

Sun and our loving, bop style in mouth

Jazz explaining to each other from song

To song how wild this thing is, wind,

The keys ripping past; candles made of

Fireflies and mission bells, tearing

Sheets of song into tiny pieces, Oh yes how

And howl, spurl myself dingingly, plutridly

Fornicoulated, intensely exploding in charcoal

Mouth bar-b-que laughing. There is

No further town we can be found in.

Every stop on your skin unveils the

Brisk night, irresponsible, tales told

By the blind about how the hands

Know the name, the name of all the rains,

Their particular voice, their night thoughts,

On sidewalks, opened at last, no streetlights,

No mouth of sing following. I touch

Your crazy traffic and burn acetylene yellow,

Pure green. Aircraft land in the middle of summer.

My skin stretches, explodes and contains all

The mysterious rainbows from which we reconstruct

The language of all the endless nights of our youth.

NEW MATHEMATICS

They are busing everyone

With new ideas to a single

Room. It is huge. They are

Assigned a single letter of the

Alphabet, told to

Explain themselves.

I don’t go I am able only

To speak in numbers.

Some of them are significant.

I recall there used to be

Noises coming from the sun.

I thought it was music.

A single waves breaks in

The collective imagination.

It is so quiet it seems

Ridiculous it could have meaning.

The room of ideas is opened.

It is filled with the sea.

Language floats upon it

Like garbage..

I am asked to explain this in numbers.

These are visual calculations.

They are made with language.

Bok and a couple of Bluebook covers of sailing ships which Iove dearly

TALKING TO FISH

They do not know what water is.

They think the world is dancing

Constantly. Songs are ecstasy as they

Enter their bodies completely. They do

Not need ears to hear them.

o

We seldom see them in trees,

But there they are, thousands of them,

Decorations of the Amazon jungle

In flood. Leaves are the souls

Of fish, sculptures of fish

Never previously seen. Here

In the high jungle they become gems,

Tales of the elders. fish.

o

We used to walk along the edges of the smaller lakes in the summer. The crappie and small perch would rise in the evening and jump at flies or gulp bugs that fell into the water. They would make concentric circles on the surface of the water, soft splashes in the twilight. It was a language. We had no idea what the fish were saying but they were saying. Maybe it was about the heat or the rain coming the next day or what they had seen beneath the surface. All those years later without a word yet so much of blood and its salt, reeds and thin lines trolled through the water, the quiet that came from eyes that never close, from pressure on lateral lines, from talking on and on to fish.

o

NIGHTINGALES

Summer breaks its face on my arm.

I can’t remember how your mouth

Felt on mine. How your hand was

When I put my lips on your fingertips.

My heart dances on my spine, fooling

Me into believing that love has a name

That sounds like yours but ends before

I can reach pit and touch your hips,

Your lips, it, as they said, trips me

Past the dream house built of pale

Moonlight and forever and a day.

Up among the concordance of moon,

Sun and our loving, bop style in mouth

Jazz explaining to each other from song

To song how wild this thing is, wind,

The keys ripping past; candles made of

Fireflies and mission bells, tearing

Sheets of song into tiny pieces, Oh yes how

And howl, spurl myself dingingly, plutridly

Fornicoulated, intensely exploding in charcoal

Mouth bar-b-que laughing. There is

No further town we can be found in.

Every stop on your skin unveils the

Brisk night, irresponsible, tales told

By the blind about how the hands

Know the name, the name of all the rains,

Their particular voice, their night thoughts,

On sidewalks, opened at last, no streetlights,

No mouth of sing following. I touch

Your crazy traffic and burn acetylene yellow,

Pure green. Aircraft land in the middle of summer.

My skin stretches, explodes and contains all

The mysterious rainbows from which we reconstruct

The language of all the endless nights of our youth.

Nobody has ever asked me to write anything in this blog so I guess I'll wait for awhile. Been thinking of it however.

I would say that it a good place to listen some excellent reporting is by checking out Daniel Alercon on the publishing business in Peru. UCD had him speak at Berkeley recently. Very good stuff.

a short poem I recently re-discovered and 3 of my photos

ROAMIN’ IN THE GLOAMIN’

Leaves, be feet for the wind.

A passing of silver hands through the streets,

Eyes moving as though on great strings. Leaves.

Soft golden feet of my own age invents itself

Like a journey or the thoughts of a fine wolf.

Oh we don’t even look at the stars.

So many things keep us from watching.

The sounds of voices my little ones,

Listen to them rise.

some photos and a poem

WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME

You have found bits of song caught

In the spillway of a beaver dam. They

Are church-like in their praising. They shake

The collection of sticks

Piercing the face of the dam like so many

Bayonets. A rain begins and spills

Upon the surface of the pool, each drop a book,

A crowd, a child, a Golden Heart siging to the fools,

To what is left of the dancers, the poor shoulders

Of the river made to bear a cascade of tears.

They have built a monument on the edge

Of a cliff. It is impossible to get close enough

To look at it without plunging into the mind of God.

We stand watching the little fires in its towers,

The pitiful way it seems to contemplate the end

Of day. A vibrant eye peers from every window,

Some of them weep as only ones who have seen murder

Can weep. Ships send up flares to illuminate this place.

We walk along the edge of the pond where the grass

Grows tall and yellow. We stop and kiss each other

Before deciding to lie in this place and create

Another world, full of wings and the silence invented by snow.

We are unquenchable as acrobats before the highest throne.

House, knife, wonder, tears, cold, a flute,

Lambs, bridges, hills, the beautiful dark,

Silver bells opening like journeys, a crying,

Weaving a web around the heart that it may

Not break. All of the heavens resting

In the corners of your smile.