JOEY AWAKE NOW

Some poems,
right some poems.

I’m a lover of poems.
And yes, we lovers of poems

must stick together. Don’t mind me. Pardon? Glenn?
Glenn? Glenn. It is nice to meet you, Glenn.

You are thinking you are in luck.
Because look,

a strange old man has joined you at the bar.
How fortunate you are

this fine day. I beg your pardon? Indeed.
The secret’s out. I am indeed

a man with English, how do you say Raul, issues,
exactly, English issues.

No, not for fifty years.
Hoboken Italian now for fifty years.

I’m English when there are wars.
I was English when there were wars.

Oh no you don’t have to pretend
you give a damn. You came here to write, my friend,

then a sleepy old fool comes dropping by to tell you
what it was like in his day. Well I’ll tell you:

I was extremely handsome. It took me
seconds to go to the bathroom. End of story.

Raul, the same for him and the same for me,
he’s being much too polite. English, you see,

not like us. I’d have said Bugger off
by now. Raul doesn’t get that, ‘bugger off’

he thinks it’s some kind of cool
new vodka, don’t you, Raul?

Raul says he understands,
he understands

bugger off
it’s what I was afraid of,

no secrets now, no secrets
for the Brits,

not from Americans
Glenn, no secrets from Americans.

The war?
Ah-ha.

Look at him, pen at the ready, like I could say
some poetry. We lovers of poetry.

What’s so important in the world that you can’t
stop the ride a moment,

open a little black
empty book

and remind the world you’re blue? There’s not a thing.
Burning building? Nothing.

Love of a lady?
‘I am at work. Please ask her to wait in the lobby.’

His eyes are glazing over, he’s remembering
something he’s forgetting

something. If you ask me, to tell you,
Glenn, if you’re sincerely truly going to,

I may
do so. I may

tell you a thing or two, I wouldn’t do so,
I wouldn’t—muchas gracias—I wouldn’t do so,

only it’s Saturday.
Not Saturday,

Black Saturday.
And in sixty years of rinso white Saturdays

it never did find
one to hide behind.

You go through morning into afternoon
and it’s always sunny, Saturday, in rain

or snow or storm who cares?
you pass the hours,

you’re free and the crowd is free and the whistle blows
a goal is scored, the long shot by a nose

then you happen to glance at the sky
and I say you I mean I . . .

I say you I mean I, me
riding on my bike and I

saw this mass of planes
in patterns they were their planes

and with the sky so thick
the light was weak, your hold on it was weak

your life so far
some kind of lucky break. They were everywhere

and in the day,
not in the night in the day like your worst fear suddenly

figured it out and came.
What’s stopping us? I rode my bike straight home

to tell my gran and I’m pedalling for my life
I know they can see me up there! Hey Ralf

shoot zat paper boy or he’ll never stop!
Never stop

telling ze vorld on us . . .
Raul’s laughing at me. You’re not? That’s how it was.

Personal, kind of. Felt you were in their minds.
They were in our minds,

pale types, munching schnitzel! Here
well it’s true they had thejaps but not here,

they didn’t have them out of a blue sky
over the skyline on a Saturday.

September 7th. What do you mean it’s the 8th?
The Saturday was the 7th, it wasn’t the 8th.

He’s telling me. Where do you come from? Pardon?
Say again what garden? Well-in-the-Garden?

Oh there.
Shredded Wheat’s made there.

That was the sort of place we thought we’d get to.
Because we had to get to

somewhere, we were bombed out
on the first night of the thing. Or, we weren’t bombed out

precisely, me and my gran,
she always believed what I told her, did my gran,

Mrs Katherine Mabel Stone.
Truth of the matter is, I had my own

reason for getting out.
It isn’t a thing you know when it’s happening. But

you’re young,
you’re wearing a wedding ring,

we figure it out in time.
You’ll understand how it was if you give a damn.

And if you don’t give a damn it’ll still be there
a year or so anywhere

you find me. Soon I won’t be giving one either.
Then you and I can give not a damn forever.

  — Glyn Maxwell (b. 1962), English poet.

For a dear and beloved friend in San Francisco, who was ordained into the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi on August 10 of this year.

WRITTEN ON THE WALL AT CHANG’S HERMITAGE

1.

It is spring in the mountains.
I come alone seeking you.
The sound of chopping wood echoes
Between the silent peaks.
The streams are still icy.
There is snow on the trail.
At sunset I reach your grove
In the stormy mountain pass.
You want nothing, although at night
You can see the aura of gold
And silver ore all around you.
You have learned to be gentle
As the mountain deer you have tamed.
The way back forgotten, hidden
Away, I become like you,
An empty boat, floating, adrift.

2.

In spring mountains, alone, I set out to find you.
Axe strokes crack—crack and quit. Silence doubles

I pass snow and ice lingering along cold streams,
then, at Stone-Gate in late light, enter these woods.

You harm nothing: deer roam here each morning;
want nothing: auras gold and silver grace nights.

Facing you on a whim in bottomless dark, the way
here lost—I feel it drifting, this whole empty boat.

  — Tu Fu (712 - 770), Chinese Poet of the Tang Dynasty.
  — Translations by Kenneth Rexroth (1) & David Hinton (2).

Some of the amazing cloud formations in the sky over Holladay after an amazing microburst storm blew over Salt Lake County this afternoon.

these quiet nights

after the storm
there is a hush.

a held breath
in moist silences.

after the storm,
these quiet nights
are all that remain.

we work hard all our lives
battling forces
we cannot defeat,

our voices mingling
with the roar of passing time.

but after the storm
there are
chances to wipe the water
from our eyes and
see with
uncertain clarity,
to rest our ragged throats,
to hope.

these quiet nights
refuel us

as
            dark clouds
gather

in
threatening
skies.

  — christopher cunningham.

From the GPP Reader: Selections from the poets of the Guerilla Poetics Project.

CC will have a new chapbook published by Kendra Steiner Editions within the next few weeks, as well as a limited edition broadside from 10pt Press. Both are bound to be outstanding.

THE STORM

1

Against the stone breakwater,
Only an ominous lapping,
While the wind whines overhead,
Coming down from the mountain,
Whistling between the arbors, the winding terraces;
A thin whine of wires, a rattling and flapping of leaves,
And the small street-lamp swinging and slamming against
        the lamp pole.

Where have the people gone?
There is one light on the mountain.

2

Along the sea-wall, a steady sloshing of the swell,
The waves not yet high, but even,
Coming closer and closer upon each other;
A fine fume of rain driving in from the sea,
Riddling the sand, like a wide spray of buckshot,
The wind from the sea and the wind from the mountain contending,
Flicking the foam from the whitecaps straight upward into the darkness.

A time to go home!—
And a child’s dirty shift billows upward out of an alley,
A cat runs from the wind as we do,
Between the whitening trees, up Santa Lucia,
Where the heavy door unlocks,
And our breath comes more easy,—
Then a crack of thunder, and the black rain runs over us, over
The flat-roofed houses, coming down in gusts, beating
The walls, the slatted windows, driving
The last watcher indoors, moving the cardplayers closer
To their cards, their anisette.

3

We creep to our bed, and its straw mattress.
We wait; we listen.
The storm lulls off, then redoubles,
Bending the trees half-way down to the ground,
Shaking loose the last wizened oranges in the orchard,
Flattening the limber carnations.

A spider eases himself down from a swaying light-bulb,
Running over the coverlet, down under the iron bedstead.
The bulb goes on and off, weakly.
Water roars into the cistern.

We lie closer on the gritty pillow,
Breathing heavily, hoping—
For the great last leap of the wave over the breakwater,
The flat boom on the beach of the towering sea-swell,
The sudden shudder as the jutting sea-cliff collapses,
And the hurricane drives the dead straw into the living pine-tree.

  — Theodore Roethke (1908 - 1963), American Poet.

Oh my hell, is it hot!

I can’t believe I just typed “Oh my hell” … I’ve been living in Utah for too long; local colloquialisms are starting to rub off on me …

But that’s not the point. The point is that it’s been effin’ hot the past few days, and my air conditioner is on the fritz. Thankfully, I have a home warranty that’s still in effect, so assuming they don’t try to screw me, then I should be able to get the air conditioner fixed at a minimal cost.

Problem is that the contractor won’t be able to get over here until NEXT Tuesday … although thankfully, there’s a storm coming in overnight, and it’s supposed to be in the 50s and 60s through the weekend, and hopefully only in the low 70s on Monday/Tuesday of next week.

Sigh …

What a wasted weekend. Friday night was wonderful, but I slept in yesterday (sort of … got up at 5:00, went back to bed at 8:00, then got up at noon), expecting the storm to roll through yesterday, and the weather to clear up today so I could go skiing

But no … the storm decided to hang back, and not roll in until today, and while I don’t mind skiing when it’s snowing, flat light, wind and face-stinging ice is not my thing.

This is the side of “sprinter” that I’m not fond of. I don’t mind if it’s 60 and sunny one day, and 30 and snowy the next … but this 40-degrees and rain shit in the valley has got to stop.

It makes recreating extremely difficult.