The New Book Has Been Published

RATTLESNAKE PRESS had a 7th birthday party last evening at The Book Collector 1008 24th Street in Sacramento and celebrated the publication of my new book of poetry A LIMITED MEANS OF EXPRESSION. The event was well attended and I did a reading that seemed to go well. The book is available through Rattlesnake Press. Go to rattlesnakepress.blogspot.com and you'll find a listing for the book. The price is $8.00 - way cheap for such a book. Please buy it and support the press and poetry etc. I'm running a photo of the image I made for the cover of the book above.

SPILLING

This poem is for Saint Therese of Lisieux. the photograph is an actual funeral photograph of Saint Therese .

SPILLING

We were not supposed to compare

The miracles when they occurred.

One was certainly not better than another;

The roses of Juan Diego to those of Theresa

of Lisieux. We were not to crumple at the

Tiniest comment. What of tears anyway?

We should be able to rise up to the very

Top of buildings without moving our legs.

Surely there would be the burning that carries

Us higher and higher to where finally

We could finally become less and less.

So we spill over and flush the earth

With our tears and quiet sorrows.

We will open the serape of Juan Diego

To see the face of the Virgin, we will find

Joy in the smallest things as we watch our

Hearts empty and fill with love like the locks

On a canal, lifting us up or lowering us

To the clear way around all obstacles,

The way singing does or looking into the eyes

of the beloved, the light reflecting, souls dancing.

Relative to the speed of the past

This is a poem about my mother's twin brother Bob Bellreng. The photograph of Bob was taken by my father Ray Wagner.

RELATIVE TO THE SPEED OF THE PAST

My mother’s twin brother was killed

At Normandy Beach while hanging

A telephone line from a pole. Never

Saw it coming. Came back in the

Late summer. The funeral was at home.

He was a handsome man, young and

Beautiful with a kind voice and a bright

Future. There were so many who did

Not come back. Every small town had

Some kind of board listing their dead sons.

Faster than that his nephews and nieces

Were growing old and laughing at how

They looked in the nineteen sixties, how

Long their hair was, how idealistic they were.

Even younger, their children are showing

Off their new babies and are being fussed

Over by relatives. There is still a war. It

Is much more informal these days. No

Boards with names on them in elementary

Schools. Now there are national monuments

With names on them. One must go to Washington

D.C. or the state capitol to see who these people were.

They still gave the same thing as their relatives,

Their lives. It isn’t legal, or barely so, to show

the boxes of the dead coming home.

The speed of the past is wildly furious.

Soon it will be lost again as it always is.

Soon we will stand in the fields of dead

And not one name will carry us away.

We will know nothing once again, implicitly.

Bach-some images etc.

The Orchestral Suites by Bach are gems, full of light and so solid. They are irresistible every time.

BACH: ORCHESTRAL SUITES

Here I am compelled to leave you.

I can see the pale violet light

Where the far mountains speak in secret

To the cumulus clouds and bunch

Them together for those afternoons

Where Bach becomes the perfect

Measure for all thought and we can

But follow, traipsing through

His math matrices with our feelings

Out where everyone can see them.

All music without words commands

The altar and demands respect.

Despite great declensions of information

It is simply not accessible.

Forever, make it part of our speech

Keep it under our fingertips

For as long as possible to recreate

At will a partita or a prelude and fugue

Or the incredible joy a conversation

Might have when we discover

Bach in a new and perfectly sensible

Landscape.

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.