"We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing." 

Charles Bukowski

The River In All Of Us

Poet Gene Berson touches on the river that flows within all of us.

THE WANDERING POET

NANAO SAKAKI

Photo by John Suiter

If you have time to chatter
Read books

If you have time to read
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean

If you have time to walk
Sing songs and dance

If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot

Nine Eleven 2010

9/11. This day has become a symbol. A political symbol that has been used to mute our true feeling of grief and horror for that day, and ignite in this nation a national terror, a political terror that was then used by Bush and Cheney to advance their perverted political ideology that otherwise would never have been accepted. The terrorists could not have hoped for such success. I remember President Double-yuh saying with fist pounding emphasis: “This will not stand!” and he was right. It did not stand, but was advanced by him and his puppeteers. I watched in disbelief as people were jumping from the windows of the towers and falling to the pavement like stunt doubles in an everyday Hollywood movie. But this was no movie. Then the collapse of the buildings, like hot wax melting and the dust clouds that seemed to have been released for the purpose of covering, finally, the horror of the scene. I kept saying, in my profound American ignorance, What do these people want? What are they so pissed off about? I was ignorant and detached, just another cookie-cutter Ugly American picking his nose in disbelief.


As a nation, we had a chance on that day to wake up and smell the stench of our selfishness and ignorance. Sadly, we blew it. Instead, what is now called 9/11 has become a call for our deep seeded bigotry to rise to the surface. Hate, hate, and more hate. Us and them. Axis of Evil. How many innocents killed since then in the name of American Freedom? The rise of a frightening nationalism (Nationalism is always frightening!). Religious zealotry. The invocation of God’s fucking name to somehow justify our pitiful anger and fear. We are a nation of morons. Tens of millions of us voted for Bush – the SECOND time around, and we are about to do it all once again. Why? Because we are angry. Angry that our pillows have not been fluffed properly. Angry that a black man is now the President of the United States. Angry that our greed and stupidity is finally catching up with us. Angry that our “I’ve got mine, and fuck you!” attitudes are no longer paying financial dividends. Angry that our precious, polluting, greedy, selfish nation is in deep decline, a decline from which we will not ever recover. The poor are angry because they want it all. The rich are angry because they can’t have more. The sick are dying. The children are ignorant. The hard working are unemployed. The wise are silent. The singers are mute. And the masses are pointing fingers at one another. Hate is our touchstone. Fear is our god! We worship fear and will kill for it. Why? Why, all this? Because we are not alive. Because we are not vital. Because we are not singing with the birds and swimming with the fish – the few that remain. Because we are all stuck in the spinning mantra: Make a living. Face reality. Do your duty. Pay your dues. Suck it up.

We have but one job in this life and that is to live. LIVE! Live our vitality. Live our dreams. Live in each moment. Live together as the brothers and sisters that we all are. Live the truth. Share the wealth of all this life provides. Help those in need and ask for help when in need. Don’t want for anything; accept everything. There is enough on the earth for all of us. Everything is provided. There is no need to hoard out of the fear of not enough.

This day can be transformed into a day of thanksgiving – thanksgiving for the moment in time when we, as a nation, turned away from the darkness of fear and into the light of hope and trust. This day can be transformed into a holy day, a celebration of life. It takes only our will and our dedication to joy and our renouncement of fear and our acceptance of the abundance of life of which we are an integral part.

Don’t worry, be happy!

Peace and love.

THE SHIRT

A Short Story

By Tom Reddock

Only moments before he died my father looked at me and said,

“I like your shirt.”

I never knew what he meant by that.

The End

Pod Cast: GENE BERSON READING HIS POETRY 08/07/2010

Gene Berson circa 1070s

From HONEYDEW magazine

10/10/16 Podcast no longer active. :(

On August 7, 2010, Gene Berson read some of his poetry at the Center For The Arts in Grass Valley, California. On that night David Meltzer ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Meltzer ) and Neeli Cherkovski ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neeli_Cherkovski ) were the headliners and Gene read during the Open Mic segment. Gene renewed his friendship from the 1970's in the poetry scene in San Francisco with Neeli, and met David for the first time. David and Gene have since been in frequent contact and have developed a mutual respect for one another's work.

We recorded Gene's reading with a handheld portable recorder from the middle of the audience. 11:20





You can enjoy more of Gene Berson's poetry at: http://jeweltrance.blogspot.com/

Pod Cast: CLASSICAL EDGE with TOM REDDOCK

Tom Reddock - way back when

Photo by Larry Miller

10/10/16 Podcast no longer active. :(

Eric Tome is the host of "The Classical Edge", a quasi-weekly music interest pod cast produced by KVMR fm in Nevada City, California. On August 23rd, 2010, we recorded the following radio show which focuses on many of my musical compositions, called Sonic Sculptures. Durring the 1:48 min show we discuss how I came to the idea of making Sonic Sculptures, the concepts involved in the process, and the inspiration behind some of the compositions.

Please enjoy the show. Your comments are appreciated.

TR

Please Call Me By My True Names

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow -
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is a birth and a death
of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself in the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh


This poem was written in 1978, during
the time of helping the boat people. It
was first read at a retreat in Kosmos
Center in Amsterdam, Holland,
organized by Niko Tideman. Daniel Berrigan
was there.

From the book: Call Me By My True Names,
The Collected Poems of
Thich Nhat Hanh

THUS BEGAN MY DAY

Walking back from Yvonne’s, having discussed the new day’s weather, on my porch two skinks, six to eight inches in length, prehistoric legs with tiny toes and claws, lizard heads, cold patience, one’s mouth open and clamped onto the head of the other, their bodies erotically side by side, eyes open, frozen in mid-gesture, obviously in the throes of passionate reptilian intercourse when interrupted by the clomping feet of my arrival.

I stopped to stare.

In a synchronized flash, one jaw still latched to the head of the other, they dashed in perfect unison across the deck and leaped off the side onto the grass beneath an oak tree. There, again frozen in reptilian time, open jaw still clamped onto the head of the other, side by lizard side, they waited. I, flustered for having interrupted their passion, paused and then stepped inside and closed the door quietly.

The Living Universe

The first thing God had to do when he decided to create the universe was to sacrifice himself. He needed the raw materials to do the job. God is the matter of which the universe is made. God is the living universe, all the various forces of energy, including spiritual, and all living things, and things inert.

And each individual part encompasses the whole. That is the miracle. When you pray to God you are praying to yourself and to everything else, so listen carefully.

We have a job to do. Our job is to live. Beautifully.

ESCALATOR DREAM

1985

I am sitting on a small white beach. The sand is clean and fine. There are a few others on the beach, but not many – some children playing in the waves, as their parents watch from near by, and a few other groups sitting quietly, or wading in the lapping surf. The beach is enclosed by sheer cliffs and fronted by the empty sea. High over the cliffs where they cannot be seen run broad fields of tall grasses, stretching as far as can be seen in all directions. The green grasses wave in the afternoon breeze. In the distance graze a small herd of white horses.

It is pleasant to sit like this on this beach with no sense of urgency or need of anything. I feel that I could stay on this beautiful beach forever.

Presently a man of about my age jogs past and continues on to the far end of the beach, then returns. As he jogs by he turns to me and smiles in a friendly way. I get the feeling that he looks familiar but do not recognize him. At the other end of the beach he turns again and jogs toward me. As he nears he motions for me to join him. I jump up and run along next to him. He increases his speed, as do I to keep up with him. Soon we are running at top speed, exhilarated and laughing.

Near the end of the beach I notice a small group of people gathered together and I stop to see what they are doing. I see that there is an escalator going down into a hole in the beach. Some of the people are stepping onto the escalator and disappearing into the darkness. A woman, who I suddenly recognize as my friend Susan S., is helping the people step onto the escalator. She notices me and waves for me to come over. I wave back, but decline to go over to her. My jogging friend passes by and I join him again for another run across the beach. As we return once again near the escalator, I look at him and suddenly realize why he looks familiar. He is me! As I realize this he laughs and waves good-bye. I stop in amazement and watch him as he runs down the beach and gradually fades from sight. I hear Susan calling for me to come over. She motions for me to step onto the escalator, but I am hesitant. “It is time”, she says, and holds my hand as I step on.

The steps of the escalator are as wide as I can see. There are a few others scattered along the steps, but no one close to me. In a few moments it becomes pitch black, and I cannot see or hear anyone. As I glide smoothly down into the darkness, I notice that the temperature is rising steadily. The further I go down, the warmer it gets. Far down below me I can now see a small light. The temperature continues to rise and it is getting hard to breathe. The light is growing larger as I move closer toward it. Soon the heat becomes near unbearable, and the light is growing brighter as it becomes hotter and hotter until I can’t stand another moment, and then I hear a pop and I evaporate, and I am back on the beach sitting quietly on the sand.

My double jogs past again smiling as he goes by. I watch him pass without responding, and he fades from sight. Without thinking I stand up and walk over to the escalator. Susan is there urging me to step on, but I say, “No, I just tried that.” She smiles patiently and reaches out her hand to me saying again, “It is time.” I step onto the escalator once again and slide down into the darkness. As before, the temperature begins to rise as I go deeper into the darkness. The light is down there as before, and grows larger and brighter as the heat rises. The heat is pressing against me and nearly suffocating. I stare into the bright light determined to reach it this time, but as the heat becomes unbearable there is the pop once again, and I evaporate as before, and there I am once again on the beach, and Susan is waving for me to get back on the escalator.

“But why must I go?” “Because it is time”, she says, and once again I step onto the escalator and sink down into the darkness. As the heat rises I stay focused on the light. I feel that I must reach the light and am determined to make it this time. The heat is pressing me as I get closer and closer to the light. It grows hotter and hotter and just as I come very close to the light I hear the pop and I evaporate once again.

This time I am sitting on a bench in a very large room the size of Grand Central Station. The floors are marble and the ceilings are very high with glowing lights hanging down from the peaks. People are walking together or sitting quietly on the benches talking. There is no sense of urgency as one might feel in a railway station, but on the wall across from me is a large clock with the second hand jerking from second to second. The time is 11:29 PM. I stand and walk across the room. I pass through a tall door and there, once again, is the escalator and Susan helping people get on. She waves for me to come over. As I reach the escalator she smiles, reaching out her hand to me, and says, “It is time”. As I step onto the escalator, I glance at the large clock on the wall just as it turns to 11:30 PM.

Down into the darkness I glide once again, this time determined to reach that bright light. The heat begins to build and far below in the darkness glows the small white light. As the heat increases my determination is focused and fixed on the light, which grows larger and brighter. Hotter, and hotter the heat builds and presses against my body, but I am determined and keep my attention focused on the light, which is now quite bright. As the heat intensifies I feel as if it is pushing me in a throbbing motion. I realize that I could not stop now if I wanted to. The heat is throbbing, and the light is larger and brighter, and coming nearer and nearer, and just as I am about to suffocate from the pressure of the heat I suddenly emerge through the opening into the brightest light I have ever known and I let out one long scream. The doctor who is holding me in his hands smiles up at my new mother and says, “It’s a boy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh and Henry Miller

I’ve been reading both Thich Nhat Hanh and Henry Miller at the same time. They speak the same language in different tongues. They sing of life with exuberance, skill, and clarity. The force of their honesty cannot be ignored. They oppose fear and all of its extensions: anger, greed, authoritarianism, power lust, denial, dependency, ambition, materialism, boredom, inadequacy, failure, self incrimination, disrespect, selfishness, hopelessness, in short, all the common qualities of politicians, lawyers, cops, military generals, university officials, bureaucrats, and most school teachers, priests, and business leaders as well. They opt for life in the moment with the fire of love in their eyes and peace in their hearts. They refuse to kill for any reason, especially patriotism. They open their hearts to everyone without exception, reaching across the great divide of ignorance to the forces of fear on both sides while refusing to take sides. They speak with everyone in mind, including the Hitler’s and Bush’s of our life and times, because they recognize that we are all here together in this wonderful moment, and they sing with forgiveness and grace in their hearts. Their goal is peace on earth in this singular, beautiful moment.

Death is a bicycle.

THE ARTISTS JOB

MORNING AFFIRMATION

Thank you, God, for this beautiful life
And all my blessings.

I thank God for this beautiful life.


I live in peace and harmony with all living things
And all the forces of the universe.

I live in peace with the universe.


I continuously pursue the limits of my potentials
Without attachment to results.

I pursue my potentials without attachments.

THERE IS SOME SHIT I WILL NOT EAT!

Email to the Buffalo

Saturday 09/26/09 8:00 AM Bersone:

We're in San Diego; at a best western on shelter island. Intel show
was a bloodbath and I face hard questions when I get back as to my
"numbers". Fear predominates, as usual, in all affairs human, given
our attachment to the sea of forms of which our precious egos are our
finest fabrications.

Boy, reading these Flannery O'Connor letters
brings you into a consciousness that held a rare vision of the
Catholic Church; quite an integrity in that woman -- unflinchingly
unsentimental yet profoundly devout. Interesting to see, sprinkled
throughout her letters, which range through the fifties and early
sixties (she died in 64) various writers who were in the news then:
Miller, Salinger, Ginsberg, Kerouac, Nabokov etc. She was quite
centered and lived on a chicken and peacock farm in Georgia with her
mother, bound there by her illness (lupus), although was a national
light in the literary scene with various reading trips to colleges.
Wonderful ear. We have to set aside our experiences, in a way, or
sort through them, to see what has stuck. Your novel is a process of
getting down to what was real, what mattered, what really happened.
What happened! that's the question. You can't know unless you re-
inhabit the soul of that little boy who hung by the fence waiting for
his mother in the middle of a sea of changes he couldn't understand. The compassion required for that is a bridge to all other suffering and may be the key to allowing characters to come to life.

Glad to be down here, through Wed am, by the way. I've had it tough,
brother, but I have a strange self that is more and more difficult to
conceal. My speeches to my crew are my favorite activities, and
represent my best accomplishments for the day, although what I have to do is like asking a monk, after delivering a sermon, to climb into a tank and drive it through a minefield under fire. I must say that much of my strategy lies in occupying a sublime indifference to explosions going on around me. I'm probably not the best man for the job. Many times I think, "So what?" when presented with our careening off the budget. I mean, what do you expect me to do about four guys bullshitting on the third floor when I'm busy on the dock prodding egos into a higher realm like a mother bird gently turning her eggs in the hope that they can develop in some sort of balanced way. People like to go from zero to sixty, blaming everything and everyone but themselves, and hope the problems go away. They do go away, of course, one way or another. The river carries it all down the hill. Even the sewer is a river, regrettably, more and more. Let it flow; only the flow will clear the stream.

I saw a documentary the other night where they showed about sixteen feet of some creature's stumpy footprints in the mud: they felt secure in the deduction that they were made by the first creature who came out of the sea, a fish who could breathe but not a fish, not a fish and not a reptile, a representative of a whole group of life forms before the reptile, who held sway on the earth for some time, slithering and swinging their curious heads from side to side in the strange realm of the Air into which they lurched and, to their amazement, found they could survive. This one apparently made it sixteen feet. More than most of us.

Talk to you later.


Saturday 09/26/09 9:21 AM Buffalo:

When I finally made my break from the realm of the "employed" it was in a spasm of anger. I had been "put upon" for the final time.


I'm on an airliner waiting for the final passengers to board when my cell phone rings. It's Ron Blatt, the Chief Financial Officer, to whom I, as they say, answer. I am the Warehouse Manager.

"Where are you?" bleats Blatt.

I give him a moment of silence as I consider all the options and implications. I feel a red stillness in my forehead.

"Hey, Ron, what's up?"

"Where are you? It's only three O'clock?"

Another moment of silence just to feed his angst. It's Friday and I'm on my way to see my dying mother.

"What's that? You're breaking up a little."

"Where the fuck are you? It's only three O'clock and you've got a warehouse crew here with no supervision!"

"No sweat, Ron, I put Enrique in charge."

"Enrique! He's a fucking idiot! And did you check with me first before taking off early on a Friday afternoon? Hell no, you never do. You need to get back here right now. Be in my office by 4:00 pm!"

I give him a long moment of silence which he cannot endure.

"You hear me Reddock? 4:00 PM!"

"Hey Ron, what did you say? You're breaking up." The red stillness in my forehead heats up. I see my mother sitting on the lawn swing on the front porch waiting for me to drive in. I see Blatt's red face, spittle on the lips as usual.

There comes a moment of clarity in which I say rather softly, quoting e. e. cummings, "There is some shit I will not eat!"

The lady in the seat next to me turns to look at me, judgment all over her face like thick mascara.

I think of my mother and the cancer that is growing on her bladder. I see the tall fir and pine that surround her home, and hear the soft wind high in those trees. I see her sitting on the lawn swing on the front porch, waiting. I see the warehouse crew farting around for the last couple of hours of a hard worked week. I see Blatt at his desk, furious, the spittle on his pale lips. Yes, there is some shit I will not eat. I speak into the cell phone in full voice.

"Hey, Blatt. Go fuck yourself!"

Snapping the phone shut, I turn to the lady next to me, giving her a warm smile.


One day you will hit that moment.

Glad you're here. Just let me know when you see some clear time and we'll get together. I can take you to a great beach with tide pools.

Buff



i sing of Olaf glad and big
by E. E. Cummings


i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

“Albert Einstein is reputed to have said that if he had an hour to save the world he’d spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only 5 minutes solving it.”

http://www.happinessinthisworld.com/

Would you give this man an hour to save the world?

ON HAROLD NORSE

I'm Not a Man

I'm not a man, I can't earn a living, buy new things for my family.
I have acne and a small peter.

I'm not a man. I don't like football, boxing and cars.
I like to express my feeling. I even like to put an arm
around my friend's shoulder.

I'm not a man. I won't play the role assigned to me- the role created
by Madison Avenue, Playboy, Hollywood and Oliver Cromwell,
Television does not dictate my behavior.

I'm not a man. Once when I shot a squirrel I swore that I would
never kill again. I gave up meat. The sight of blood makes me sick.
I like flowers.

I'm not a man. I went to prison resisting the draft. I do not fight
when real men beat me up and call me queer. I dislike violence.

I'm not a man. I have never raped a woman. I don't hate blacks.
I do not get emotional when the flag is waved. I do not think I should
love America or leave it. I think I should laugh at it.

I'm not a man. I have never had the clap.
I'm not a man. Playboy is not my favorite magazine.

I'm not a man. I cry when I'm unhappy.

I'm not a man. I do not feel superior to women

I'm not a man. I don't wear a jockstrap.

I'm not a man. I write poetry.

I'm not a man. I meditate on peace and love.

I'm not a man. I don't want to destroy you

San Francisco, 1972

Harold Norse
July 6, 1916 - June 8, 2009


Recent note from Bersone:

Harold Norse died a few days ago. I remember attending a reading of Stanley Kunitz with him and Erika, during which Kunitz soared. After the reading people gathered at the White Horse Tavern where he was staying, modeled after an English pub, cozy with rich wood and softening plaster walls. Robert Bly was there, and I remember him saying to Kunitz, “you really knocked ‘em out!” said in a kind of contemptuous, competitive way, unfortunately typical of disenfranchised groups such as poets. I remember Kunitz, who had never overcome his feeling of being an outsider, despite his success, took no notice of Bly, but was gently and sincerely respectful of Harold, the two of them seeming to share a true communion. In such circumstances, where someone is exalted on a highly publicized reading circuit such as Kunitz was on, one can feel quite alone. It seemed to me that Kunitz felt some of that and appreciated Harold being there as perhaps the only one who felt real to him, and the respect he gently conferred on Harold showed me where Norse stood in the pantheon, a place that is so earned that it need not be shouted out, for it is earned by following a path that humbles the greatest among us, and is beyond us all. It was a bit of an eye-opener for me to see this bond between poets from such different categories, one being currently lionized by the literary establishment and the other more obscure and often associated with the Beats. For true poets, dedicated to showing the kinship between all living beings, such categories are illusory distractions that divide us unnecessarily.

For much more about Harold Norse:

Harold Norse tribute site: http://haroldnorse.com/
This is an excellent "all you want to know" site about Norse complete with many photos, comments, obits, links, and poems.

Also:

Obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/13/arts/music/13norse.html
Three poems: http://www.abalonemoon.com/norse.html
Obituary: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jun/17/obituary-harold-norse
Remembrance by Jan Herman: http://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2009/06/harold_norse_rip_1.html
Photo: http://www.glbtq.com/literature/norse_h,zoom.html

Bersone on Poetry, Hart Crane and Ted Hughes

Email to the Buffalo

Sunday May 24, 2009 6:44 AM Bersone:

Buff,

The mornings are like something peeled away the scabs from the eyes, even the view of the Oakland container docks -- huge seavans stacked like a giant child's blocks beneath white cranes hanging still in the summer fog, the freeway empty. Everyone sleeping. I remember being bugged by the light on in the hall of the barracks, knowing that someone was on duty down in the office: there should be times when everybody sleeps, to give the world some relief. I suppose, though, as we age, we are heading for a state of Eyes-Wide-Open. Sleep is a condition of health and communing repose. Like looking into a soft pond -- maybe I got that from a poem, yes, I think maybe from Hart Crane "angles of repose" he said, looking at the light slanting down into a slumbrous pond. Unfortunately he jumped off the fantail of a cruise ship coming back from the tropics. Didn't want to come back. His great work was a long poem about the Brooklyn Bridge: his mistake was struggling to integrate the scientific-industrial world with that of art, a sort of poetic bau-hous, That was his mistake, that and not accepting his homosexuality. We're well past the temptation of suicide. At any rate: angles of repose. Slumbrous as a salamander still moving like a predator from the dinosaur age, beyond our time, that's for sure. When did we come up with Time? Tie your shoes, kids.

I've been reading Ted Hughes' poems, from the seventies, when I met
him; he was into farming, and wrote some vivid unflinching poems
about birthing calves, rain -- the larger events, told with passion
and objectivity.

Ruby read our correspondence; she correctly observed my tendency
toward verbosity. Well, some people have trouble even opening up
their yap. I remember Wallace Stevens, in a letter to a young woman
who was trying to turn him onto Henry Miller, that he thought Henry
was prolix, although, he conceded, perhaps he wanted to be prolix. I
think they were contemporaries, but at that point he felt too old for
the cancer books. both great writers. this world spits out many
stars, some lie in the alluvial mud like rubies until some poor
fucker feels around for them with the desperate intuition of a beggar
fumbling for his cock in a soaked sleeping bag on Market Street. God
help us. It's the spirit that makes the flower bloom, the flagrant
flame even cast off in an effort to catch the train. Things is what
they seem, in a certain light, altering everything. Dim Sum.

WORK IN PROGRESS

The following exchange is in reference to the previous posting called, “Here Comes The Sun”: http://bufflo.blogspot.com/2009/04/here-comes-sun.html

Email to the Buffalo

Wednesday 05/20/09 5:01 PM Buffalo:

I read your Easter poem in the Buffalo blog very closely today – both versions – in a very meditative mind. It has a epic resonance – a part of a huge story, a great and traditional singing, a revelation. I especially like the first version because it is fresh and raw and unpredictable. The other version at the end of the posting seems to have been filed down smooth, having lost a bit of edginess. I think my preference is because I tend toward the spontaneous, like hip-shooting in photography, modern jazz in music. The last version may be a better poem, I really don’t know, but that was my reaction today.

Buff


Thursday 05/21/09 7:30 PM Bersone:

Hey Mon,

Thanks for reading through those versions so attentively. I know you've got your own preoccupations, which I'm anxious to keep up on and talk to you about, so taking this time for poems is very generous. Of course, we have a back and forth, a rare but happy rapport that places the work first. Most people think such a focus is selfish, not acknowledging the gifts that come from creating things that enhance their lives, even little songs that are humming through many peoples' minds. The benefit I get from our correspondence is a paradox: the opportunity to share something very close, ( my observations, thoughts and feelings ) but in the context of making something -- just as you would make a deck or a planter box, so that often enough a technical comment can clarify a spiritual or moral matter, a point of inner growth. And, as you said of Steve's comments, certain difficulties the reader has frequently come at just those places where one is confused, defensive, unsure oneself, so that problems of a technical nature often reveal how we may be hiding from what is trying to come out. And we know how devious we can be with ourselves. That's the intimate struggle we're sharing: how to reveal the demon, the real deal, the song itself that takes shedding after shedding of snakeskin after snakeskin to see and hear. As Henry Miller pointed out, the artist is always working on the skin you can't see. I experienced just such a realization (that you had with Steve's comments) back in junior college when a teacher I had, David Savidge, a sardonic soul if there ever was one, but very real and very eccentric, as well as brilliant and tough-minded (he's the one who wrote at the end of one of my essays, where I had rhapsodized to my heart’s content, not knowing the difference between bullshit and saying something, "So what?" ) made critical comments, usually in favor of more clarity (sense?) that came just at those places where I was hiding, defensive, unsure, derivative. What shocks us, I think, is that someone is listening. That realization conveys a responsibility: to do the work of making what's coming through clear and full-blooded. But we don't know what we're giving birth to. Not only do we not know what it looks like or sounds like but we don't even know what species it is. We may think it's Hamlet but it's really Laurel and Hardy. I read an insightful review of Katherine Ann Porter, 1890 to 1980 I believe, who was largely responsible for the new southern writing (Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, and that other woman, really great who died young of Lupus but I forget her name) a contemporary of Hemmingway, who wrote "Ship of Fools" and many good short stories, "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" "Noon Wine" and so on, but who ultimately allowed her persona to triumph over the artist in her, which had the effect of putting a coating of shellac over her poor lower class rural Texas characters to the point that you couldn't feel their life blood. Lawrence's integrity avoided this. In fact, I've been reading some of his short stories, "England My England" "The Blind Man" and so on that use the landscape and environment, as in a dream, so tellingly that you're really in a mix that reveals how major social events such as World War I are really lived out in the human soul as people struggle to fall in love and live their lives. In such stories any questions of social relevance and personal exploration are part of the same quest and consequence and no one can escape.

I haven't had time to really struggle through many versions of some things I've sent you; often, in the interest of creating art, I strangle the creature to make a better poem. Eventually, I usually work through it. I do understand your comments, and Steve's preference as well, but these poems are works in progress. I am interested in a kind of sensual probing, as in that poem I sent you, Mother Wasp. The method is like Lawrence's animal poems, where he observes an animal, a snake, a tortoise, an elephant, describing it, expanding into some meaning, coming back again, deeper, until his thoughts are wedded with the creature and an illuminations is reached. This method is very primitive, depending on close sensual accuracy, and a kind of inviting the spirit of the animal into the writer so that it can give voice to some human concern. The success often depends on the level of concentration one can bring to bear on what is observed, and not drift off into mere words and solipsistic thoughts, which probably I do in the wasp poem. It's a matter of energy, I think. Because you must get outside yourself to observe, almost like on acid, and that takes energy and perhaps a kind of risk and a stifling of self-indulgence and ego.

Gene


Here we include the poem in progress referenced above:


Mother Wasp

I saw the wasp crawl under the collapsed sun umbrella
left out all winter
its folds grimy from the rain-washed debris the trees bequeathed us below

Opening the umbrella carefully for the first time this year
there the slim waisted mother worked
above her dull gray blossom of cells fanning over a goblet stem of mud
attached to the edge of the wood umbrella spokes

She saw me instantly
sending through me a reverberation of fear for my eyes
I, the giant with a magnifying glass,
eager to peer at the dangerous mother

On Mother’s Day: a maternal omen
Several days after the birth of my grandson, Tristan
A name that cannot be spoken without the echo – Isolde --
a couple whose passionate love was doomed by intense feuds
names of lovers who tried to entwine Ireland and Britanny in their arms, and,
who knows, may have sponsored the Vikings,
still intoxicated by battle,
to continue sending up their ships, studded with the sacred garnet,
through the mulch of their bodies,
to be unearthed by what came to be Englishmen
and placed in museums for our contemplation?

At any rate, this mother wasp is doomed
Her location unfortunate

How many mothers have worked at futile nest-building
In a world such as ours? What is the instinct

That strives against all odds
To fulfill its role in the wider circles of life?

When does the throbbing abdomen of the mother wasp
tending her cells
turn into Kali, the warmth of the Mother
dedicated to nurturing and ongoing

resort to her sting? Wikepedia tells us that her venom
Was adapted from an ancient virus. How ingenious! A parasite
Put to use by a parasite

But a parasite only in early larval stages.
The adults drink only nectar.

A predator mother
She is innocent, innocent as all mothers are

All evil and goodness also await in a reserve they contain
Until time releases
The urge they are prey to themselves: the duty of mothering.

In a world such as ours: nay, it not mothering that condemns us to futility
It is the lack of sharing the mothering
Beyond mere birth that we have lost, the communal effort holding forth
Like a plume of fire on a green stem wherein the mother is betrayed

And in that betrayal our little selves have been fragmented and lost. And so

Mother wasp
You have chosen your site unfortunately,
We will see where you go, since the gear of time
Moves ineluctably, and it is still early,
You may find a more secret place for your ongoing little beads of danger
That fly and sting
And keep a balance.

Gene Berson 2009

HERE COMES THE SUN

Resurrection is evolution. Change is constant. Death is birth, etcetera. If we don’t live it is because we are dead, and then not dead.

Life: Music. Rhythm. Harmony. Song. Voice. Sound. Roar. Cough. Snore. Poem.

Bersone sent this note and first draft of a poem, EASTER 2009. The notes between us that followed is the correspondence below. We’ll print only the first version of the poem here, and then the last at the end. This is how things grow, and how energy engenders energy, the universal law.

Evolution. Resurrection. Happy Easter.


Email to the Buffalo
Sunday 04/12/2009 11:07 AM Bersone:

howdy doody bro -- messing around with an old Ting: shooting it off
feeling it's a hodge-podge but part of the mix. Happy Easter, Mon.

Easter, 2009

I wonder if it’s some kind of sin
to take refuge in pleasure
at this time

birdseed that sparkles
like crushed topaz
on the carport roof

is it some kind of sin
to evaluate the rusty seavan
in the Laundromat parking lot
and be so gratefully repulsed by the bloating
garbage bags tossed on top of it
(swelling so silently in the sun)
to feel that this ugliness
confirms my presence

and allows me
to enjoy the couple that lives
in their car, the hood up, the trunk open and she
seated on a stool
as he combs her hair in the sun
dipping his comb into a bucket of water
occasionally, sparklets sprinkled
for a second as he flicks excessive
moisture into the air

when in the middle of everything
everything they do is done
carefully, for example, how he shaves
in the sideview mirror, and folds
his little towel so precisely

what has happened to time
during this mutual duration
are actions now some kind of diminution
of worry or simply a suspension
of consequences or is it really

a sin to wait it out like this
marveling at my improbable birch tree
its thin limbs pulled down by plump
sparrows that watch
me bring my coffee cup

to my lips. When will he throw out
more seeds, they think. When
will he get on his job! I am

in this world, that’s for sure --
just ask the birds. Perhaps my pleasure
is some kind of sin

redeemed only by my gratitude
for the El Tio Juan taco trailer
fate has put
next to the Laundromat, the Laundromat
with about eighteen
aluminum vents on the roof, quite silvery,
actually, beneath the cumulus

clouds bulging higher, there edges
so sharply defined by shadow
they’re almost solid . . . dear dear Life

accept my plea
I don’t deserve such beauty
that it expand before me so that all I do
is be stunned by wonder
when there is so much to do
to help our poor world

yet this poor rich world
so comically orientated by horror
with its little store, painted like a Mexican flag
and run by Arabs who seem to hate me
our poor rich world

with its headlines
of international events --
Christ! This neighborhood is an international event!

And the pleasure it affords
with its mariachi music out the front door
and rap out the back
and me at the helm on my porch
totally in charge of nothing
but birdseed, coffee, and reading
Yeats! For Christ’s sake! Look at the sparrows!

some focused on seeds
some on the cat licking its paws
as it reclines in the ivy
that has climbed with spring green leaves
up onto the corrugated greet fiberglass carport roof
left over from the fifties

everything proceeds from where it is
and everything is transforming itself
like a million Christs emerging from the underworld
or rummaging around
in the underworld off my back porch

buoyed by pleasureful sin
the smell of bacon! The refuge
of what is at hand: my neighbors
seem to be Mayans, and next to them
Vietnamese, and across the street
an old white couple continuously prepare
their car for a trip to the doctor

And Flo, with her two boys
and the neglected dog, and the birds
who have discovered seeds sparkling
like brown sugar on a fiberglass roof
while around the corner at the Hell’s Angels’
headquarters the throats of motorcycles are snapped
into fire purely for pleasure

O world you don’t
forgive us our pleasure, you give
more and more pleasure and beauty on top
of the horror and ugliness
in the mix of torrents and bullets and screams the flight
of lights in our minds will continue to ignite

our hearts until we get off the dime
Yes, I ask, who’s going to pick up
that old entertainment center even the Mayans
threw out. Inertia
will carry it downstream along with everything else.
What we have is the ride

and I’m at the helm.


Sunday 04/12/2009 3:34 PM Buffalo:

There is much fruit in this basket, my Bro - along with the Easter eggs and candy rabbits. The deepest sin of pleasure is to be blinded to life, a crime you have yet to commit. The greatest horror of the roadside bomb it to ignore the sparrow shitting without a second thought. And that is another crime you will not burn in Hades for - nor will those who read your poems with empty mind and open heart. Today is devoted to resurrection, while every day is a new resurrection. As for me, I'll take the erection over the resurrection any day. When I die I want to stay put. I am no Sisyphus. Once up the hill is enough, then I'm heading for the next hill, then the next. Today is Easter, tomorrow is not. What's most important is this Spring sun on my back, and the little birds fucking like rabbits. They sing so sweetly when they're horny, just as we did Spring after Spring after Spring.

So let's leave this with Leon Russell: Don't get hung up over Easter.

Good poem. Keep chewing, and don't forget to breathe.

Buff


Sunday 04/12/2009 5:55 PM Bersone:

I changed shit according to your reaction, dropping most of the guilt
stuff, which wasn't in the original but came in after I was reading
T.S. Eliot's more conservatively religious work. Acknowledged as a
Great Poet, I thought I'd read him a little bit. He was great but at
the end of the cycle, Lawrence more at the beginning. Anyhow, I stuck
more to the images, I haven't reread this over too carefully and
figure there may be some discontinuity here and there, lack of
bridges or transitions but it tries to catch us doodling on the brink
as we are wont to do as our canoe heads into the rapids.

Larry's coming over for some dynamite thick lamb chops Ruby picked up
at Taylor's, a great old neighborhood Italian deli in Sacramento.
Today was warm, and we working in the garden, turning over some dirt
and we saved a big robin that lost its tail last night; we threw a
towel over it and put it in a box and called some rescue wild animal
place Ruby found in the phone book. The lady said the feathers will
grow back quickly if they're pulled out not cut. Last night we heard
Maya in a bit of a fight and we presume chased off another cat;
perhaps this cat was what got the bird and maybe Maya disturbed the
assault because I don't think the bird could have escaped. It's
wings weren't broken, nor its legs, but it totally lost its tail and
showed some skin on its back making it unable to fly. It could hop
pretty well, and work the wings, but they need the tail I guess.

Talk to you soon.


Sunday 02/12/2009 6:26 PM Buffalo:

Some great images - a thread through it all - humor and horror stacked like a BLT. I love your work.

Inspired by Steve's stories I reformed the one attached. I think you've seen this. Every day is a marvel. Good lord, what a trip this all is!!!

The Robin is an interesting story. Demise is waiting behind every moment. The birds take it in stride, and they never whine. I hope it survives. We all need a little tail to make us fly.

Here's a toast to you all for your Easter lamb: To you, my friends, on this day of resurrection. You are my inspiration!

With love...

Buff


Monday 04/13/2009 9:05 AM Bersone:

Hi Buff,
Just finished reading through the story, Assassination, which is wonderfully fluid; the first line grabs you right away and puts the mind on a track of memory and line of thought that seems to run concurrently with the story. I breezed through the gambling details a little hurriedly, I noticed, and found myself at the end meditating a bit on the close relationship between sex and death. I remember Erika telling me, who was in her mother's womb during the bombing of Berlin during World War II, that her mother told her stories of mothers, feeling that death was imminent, and having adolescent sons whom they felt were going to die also and, realizing they would die without having known a woman sexually, had sex with them as Berlin was being bombed into rubble. And in New York, during the brown-outs, sex must have gone on at an unprecedented rate because there was a bumper crop of babies nine months later. As for your story, it is continuing easily; I'm not sure how you changed it, inspired as you say by Steve's stories. That the narrative has solid ground under it may be part of it. The story within the story, the fate of the artist within the young, diffident stumble-bum carrying the vision, holds the suspense for me, how he becomes a man, essentially, for the promise is that the man he becomes will define manhood differently than the inherited convention. Looking forward to more. This thing is coming out.

thanks for your reaction to what I sent you. I'll attach a version with a few corrections. Personally, I don't know what to think of it; some of the metrics I liked but I wondered was it a bit like crocheting a doily. I did feel pretty good about yesterday, though, and Larry came over for a good dinner.


Monday 04/13/2009 1:35 PM Buffalo:

Yo Mon –
Thanks for your comments on ASSASSINATION. I am happy that it took you somewhere. Yes, real sex is like dying, dying into profound peace along with your mate of the moment. Greed is also a form of death, but in the opposite direction, thus the whole Reno bit. The winning streak described actually happened to me much like it is described, minus the absurd fantasy bit, which, of course, is rather Milleresque.

The influence that Steve had on the story was that I suddenly saw it as a complete entity in itself (this, after reading several of his stories), rather than as just a part of the larger story – the novel. I’ve done the same thing with the first chapter of the book about Maxwell dancing in his underwear in the desert, the afternoon in the sand storm at the house of Charles and Jasmine, the coyote near the lake, and sleeping under the stars. (DESERT STORM) I intend to do the same with SUICIDE BY PRAYER. I should be able to make up a collection of these things and have them printed up in a volume through the self publishing route. This is what I am encouraging Steve to do, though he is rather cool to self publishing, and I honor his understanding of the profession about which I know nothing. I hope we can produce a collection of your work – maybe under a heading like SWIMMING JOURNAL, just as an example.

I got up at 4:30 and worked at the office until noon, which I will have to do tomorrow, as well. All this pisses me off because it is just a distraction from the real work; a pint of blood for the vampires of commerce. When will I finally call an end to all this shit!

I am enjoying reading and re-reading the Easter poem. It is a journey through the universe, down main street, into the backyard, to nowhere. Quite an accomplishment, that. One of my favorite lines:

me at the helm on my porch
totally in charge of nothing
but birdseed

That touches something true in all of us, if we have enough guts to admit it. How can all these people see anything in it’s true form, who are so full of self-importance? Even Obama is a funny joke; and the pirates; and the Governors, and doctors, hiding behind something called Science. What a joke they are, indeed.

Listen, I hear that poet singing – or is that a dove in heat? Hardly matters. The truth is always known no matter who tells it, or what. Just listen; that’s the job.

Thank you!

Buff

(Note: If you have an interest in the two stories mentioned above, ASSASSINATION and DESERT STORM, send me an email and I’ll send them along. Buff)


Monday 04/13/2009 3:1/ PM Bersone:

I learned something once. There's a long tragic poem, written oh I don't know -- in the ten hundreds, Tristan and Isolde, and I was reading fairy tales once, maybe in Grimm's, and came across a fragment of it. The whole story had been lost to the teller of the fragment, and he told his story like a short story, thinking no doubt that that was all there was to it. When I compared it to the original, longer work, where the whole plot was laid out, the difference was that the teller of the short story embellished his fragment with more details, which gave it a richness of texture, you might say, as a compensation for the powerful narrative drive of the original where the full tragic meaning came clear in the plot and trimmed off non-essential details. The illusion in the fragment was that there was more time, more time could be taken with details. I remember one of Picasso's teachers saying of him, when he was a student, that his work was as good as the others but the difference was that he didn't waste time in surface detail, presumably shading and clothing detail and so forth. He was after the visual rhythm in the figure, inside and out, so with a deft stroke or two he caught the movement of the bones which caught the gesture of the model. Sometimes it looked abstract, because he left everything else out. He wanted both the inner and the outer, and wasn't prejudiced only toward outer appearance. Maybe this is analogous to short story vs novel. I tell you, you've always had a powerful narrative drive but, I think, writing is like using muscles, you develop more stamina the more you write, and can hold forth the illusion and flow of language longer. Writers like Dickens, for example, or Steinbeck, are powerhouses like this. But your drive is natural, and would grow exponentially to use, I imagine. Of course, we must both caution ourselves in imagining so much superstructure that the whole thing collapses before we get pen to paper. It's a dance with oneself, I suppose, and we know the Fool. But sometimes the illusion of the Fool is necessary to get things done; the pragmatic man is full of limitations.

I can't tell you how much your appreciation of my little poem means to me at this point. Yesterday was a pretty good day and the poem seemed to come off ok by sort of working on it out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes the secret may lay in not taking it too seriously. By the way, the sandstorm description, once you mentioned it, came back in a vivid flash, with him looking out the window, at the streetlight swaying in the desert wind: quite a picture of the wasteland.


Monday 04/13/2009 5:29 PM Buffalo:

What a great lesson you share with me! You really nailed it! You are an excellent teacher, in part, because you refuse to teach – you participate. You know, this is exactly how Bob teaches his drum classes and precisely why he is so popular. I can see you teaching a string of classes in creative writing, much like Bob does. As far as making a living goes, wouldn’t that be more rewarding for you than what you are doing in the City? Anyway, thank you! I love this: “We must both caution ourselves in imagining so much superstructure that the whole thing collapses before we get pen to paper. It's a dance with oneself, I suppose, and we know the Fool. But sometimes the illusion of the Fool is necessary to get things done; the pragmatic man is full of limitations.” Now that I think of it, Bob has said almost the same thing to me about the Fool. We should ask him about it the next time the three of us are together. I just picked up this from the internet: “The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. He represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world.” How apt, exactly what you meant by the Fool. But the bigger lesson is your cautioning about imagining too much superstructure. Even when I was playing with Tinker Toys I tended to make things that were much too grand to stand alone. And yes, I must go to the writing gym every day for a workout, build my writing stamina which will bring more patience, and quit wasting my precious time trying to fulfill the dreams of others, an impossible task. How, how, how can I break away from these old and defeating habits?

Thanks, amigo! You are indeed an inspiration!!!

Buff


Tuesday 04/15/2009 6:18 AM Bersone:

thanks for your appreciation. What you said about going nowhere makes
me want to continue this spirit journey so I changed the ending of
this section by going into the falls. I'm thinking of Niagra Falls,
and I figure to enter it through its sound, sort of like an entrance
into hell, a wondrous hell perhaps, at first through the harsh sounds
of the several blocks of arcades you must ply before you come to the
calm power of the falls themselves which, however much they have been
taken over by corporations that specialize in vacation attractions
such as they are, standardizing them in gross commercial terms, the
falls still stand as a major power point. I've written a little of
another section, but I won't send it on now because I'm not too sure
of it and maybe I won't get it done (superstructure problem) but will
send what I have and maybe post it. check it out when you have time
and see what you think. Hope you're feeling ok, with the meds and
all. I know about the teaching but there's not much I can do right
now. What we're doing is what we're doing and it's more than what
I'm not doing.

EASTER, 2009

Birdseed sparkles: crushed
topaz on the carport
roof & the rusting
seavan with black garbage bags swelling
so silently on top
under the sun

in the parkinglot
behind the Laundromat
the Laundromat with about
18 aluminum vents
on the roof quite
silvery, actually,
beneath the cumulus

clouds bulging higher
edged so sharply by gray
They seemed carved

I don’t think I’ll ever get over them
when I notice

the couple that lives in their car,
hood up, trunk open and she
seated on a stool
as he combs her hair in the sun

dipping his comb into a bucket of water
occasionally, silently
snapping a whip of waterdrops
off the end of it before leisurely
resuming combing

so that in the middle of everything
everything they do is done
carefully, for example, how he shaves
in the sideview mirror, and folds
his little towel so precisely

forget time, now, that’s gone
you don’t think Christ in the underworld
underwent his last temptation
in three days do you…I mean
it was an eternity at least

as long as this mix of marvels:
my improbable birch tree
it’s thin limbs pulled down by plump
sparrows that watch
me bring my coffee cup

to my lips. When’ll he throw out
more seeds. When O when
will he get on his job! I am

in this world, that’s for sure --
just ask the birds. Yes I am grateful

for the El Tio Juan taco trailer
fate has put
next to the Laundromat
where everyone gathers

to watch soccer and washing machines’
round windows wet
clothes make faces in
children make faces back at

and a mix of languages annealed
by bickering into an amalgamated lingo
we’ve yet to parse: whoozit!

May we deserve such beauty
so ugly and real all we can do
is be stunned by wonder we
wonder what we can do to make doing
nothing holier than something
for nothing’s sake
to help our poor world

this rich Persian rag of a world
so comical with its horror
with its little store, painted like the Mexican flag
run by Arabs who hand me change
with a disdain so dismissive
its infuriatingly murderous

our poor rich world
with its headlines
of international events --
Christ! This neighborhood is an international event!

Thank you for the pleasure it affords!
Mariachi music out the front door
rap out the back
me at the helm on my porch
totally in charge of nothing
but birdseed, coffee, and reading
Yeats! For Christ’s sake! Look at the sparrows!

some focused on seeds
some focused on the cat licking its paws
as it reclines in the ivy
that has climbed with spring-green leaves
shining up onto the carport roof
left over from the fifties:

everything proceeds from where it is
everything is transforming itself
like a million christs emerging from the underworld
or rummaging around
in the underworld off my back porch

buoyed by our sin of pleasure in horror.
The smell of bacon! The refuge
of what is at hand: my neighbors
seem to be Mayans, and next to them
Vietnamese, and across the street
an old white couple continuously prepare their car
for a trip to another world

and Flo, with her two boys
and the neglected dog, and the birds
who have discovered seeds sparking
like brown sugar on a fiberglass roof
while around the corner at the Hells’s Angels’
headquarters the throats of motorcycles are snapped
into fire purely
for pleasure

O world you never deny us
our pleasure you give more and more beauty on top
of ugliness so real it turns
into torrents heaving up telephone poles, sirens spiraling and the flight
of light through our minds to continue to ignite

our hearts until we get off the dime.
Yes, I ask, Who’s going to pick up
that old entertainment center even the Mayans threw out.
Inertia
will carry it downstream along with everything else.
What we have is the ride
and the precious ride we carry within

and I am
at the helm as I nose my canoe
into the rapids and head for the falls.


Wednesday 04/15/2009 6:53 AM Buffalo:

I like your idea and will watch with empty mind.

The rhythm of the falls,
relentless, the roar
of the water dragon, and past
his blazing eyes
the calm of mist, holding
in mid air
the chirp of the Dipper.
Within this din is heard the drip
of mist
the uncoiling fern
the voices
of those long gone.


See what you do to me? Another moment has passed.

Home today. Doing the real work on a cool and cloudy day, but look! Here comes the sun!

Ahhh



Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right
It's all right

Here’s a good video of this BEATLES song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUS49XSN6Zs

"I CAN BREATHE"

Following is a delightful response from Bersone to the previous posting: The Old Model T.


Email to the Buffalo

04/10/09 10:34 AM: Bersone


el buffalo

I've just watched several of the leonard cohen blips that you linked
in buffloblog and enjoyed them, especially as the years come back
when the camera scans the academic audiences, revealing pretty girls
in tightly groomed hairstyles of the early sixties, the young people
seeming so well-mannered, deliberate and conscientiously thoughtful
as cohen reads his work. so many poems written before his songs which ultimately touched so many makes me realize that the development of an artist is something like a rock being thrown into a pond, the resonance of its path spreading out behind him into larger and larger circles, lapping against strangers, and further vibrations from the rock/artist's fall reverberating below the surface, leaving a wake behind him, causing still further echoes of his silent falling. there is danger in movement below the surface. for example, I saw on a documentary that salamanders, nearly blind, have special sense organs that pick up the slightest vibration of the water and, though prehistorically slow-moving as they are, are blindingly quick to catch minnows when they pick up a vibration from the living fish. to discern the vibration from a living being from the general vibrations of the universe is the artist's trick. amid all the sounds, images, metaphors swirling around us, their plenitude threatening to overwhelm us with choices, we somehow need to detect the ones that are meant for us. and how else to do that except by
diligent regard for who you are, aided my rules of craft or 'what
works'. every doubt, every blank page, every fear, every confusion,
ever tearing feeling of anxiety, every worry is not just a threat to
throw us off track but also an opportunity, an identity crisis: that
cohen seems calm in his journey is deceptive, perhaps. he is
confident of one thing: his road is wide enough for him, and the
universe large enough to receive his songs, with all their inevitable
mistakes and successes, so that all he has to do is to continue, like
the sinking rock or the bird lifting off the branch. you get the
feeling that he will continue. 'you'll be hearing from me, baby, /
long after I'm gone / I'll be speaking to you sweetly / from a window
in the tower of song.'

we sang your old model T to the tune of the red river valley as far
we were able last night. and listened to old cowboy songs, of which
larry has a unique collection. the old model T, being such a
critical memory of your father, conferring a blessing of music even,
can't be trivialized. Corny perhaps, but corn that is earned: how
that corn would disappear in an age old passion for the father, taken
seriously, is the promise. The red river valley tune is haunting,
also. Now here we are at another easter. a celebration of rebirth
and redemption. Songs to redeem us. that's what we're here to earn,
I guess.

yesterday I didn't do shit. and today I feel a bit more on track,
after checking out the LC videos. Why? a feeling of communion in an
effort to sing, the world on the brink, as ever. the cat sleeping in
the chair. the trees have finally stopped ticking. I can go out. and
I will go out because I'm up. I'm up and dressed and can go out, I
can go out and load up some wood into a wheelbarow and push it back under the carport. I can walk down to the mailbox. I can breathe. put that on the front page.

THE OLD MODEL T

Here's a song from a couple of years ago.

The only musical memory I have of my father, whom I didn't know after about age five, is a dim and distant mental daguerreotype of him singing “The Red River Valley”. "The Old Model T" is meant to be of that old western ballad style. If I ever learn to play the guitar I'll record this and become rich and famous.

Yah, sure. :)


THE OLD MODEL T

In the shadow of the valley
Sits an old Model T
Been neglected, disrespected
By the wind from the sea.

The windows are shattered
The tires gone flat
The seats torn to ribbons
Where the dandy once sat.

The black paint is peeling
From the sun in the sky
Empty bottles on the floorboard
Old whisky and rye.

There’s rust on the fenders
Where the shine used to be
The dusty road is but a memory
For the old Model T.

There’s no fox in the barnyard
There’s no hounds on the bay
There’s no horses a hunting
No more bugles to play
Where’s the fun of the chase
Where’s the prize up the tree
The fox is asleepin’
In the old Model T.

The fox is asleepin’
In the old Model T.

(Musical interlude)

There were nights to remember
Under bright shooting stars
And fights to forget
Broken hearts, jagged scars

There were mountains to climb
Golden cities to see
The open road is but a memory
For the old Model T

There’s no fox in the barnyard
There’s no hounds on the bay
There’s no horses a hunting
No more bugles to play
Where’s the fun of the chase
Where’s the prize up the tree
The fox is asleepin’
You won’t hear no weepin’
The fox is asleepin’
The old memories he’s keepin’
The fox is asleepin’
In the old Model T.

Tom Reddock 062206

Read the lyrics and hear the music of “The Red River Valley” here: http://kids.niehs.nih.gov/lyrics/redriver.htm

Video of “The Red River Valley”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yen95Xs-UBk

And a rare one by Leonard Cohen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Hnky4B46A


Really, really, corny. But something sweet about it.

THE LANGUAGE OF CROWS

by Steven Schutzman

Sons of Fathers
Fathers of sons
This is the story
of a family that won't be told
Passed like secret looks
among the astronomers of dust
Debris of a nation of destiny
dumped from buckets out back
Whimsically checked off lists
A frown a smile
A smile a frown
This is the story
of a family that won't be told
Sons of fathers
Fathers of sons
Who had their shoes cut open for feet
Their food examined for thoughts
Their blood checked for poems
Their children stripped of stories at the door
Crows watched from a fence
and remembered their names
as they ate
But where are those crows
and who can speak their language now?
This is the story
of a family that won't be told
Sons of fathers
Fathers of sons
Of a man who walked by a river
A visionary
Who saw where roads would be built
Where he could make it rich in hotels
Where he could go mad in his own hotel
And tell the story again and again
In all the rooms
Whirlings of the interior
Skull cap for an inner sun
Birthmark you never escape
Poverty
Remind me of the name of the continent from which I fled
Remind me of the name of the continent to which I fled
Remind me of the name of the one God
Here at least that God grows weaker
like the muscles of a drowning man
This is the story
of a family that won't be told
Europe a fat cigar
Five brothers smoked
Who are the ancestors of smoke?
Shadows
Who are the ancestors of shadows?
Smoke
No wonder
Lighting up prosperous after meals
We hear no singing
Only the fire sings
For the dance of smoke
And for the shadows
climbing walls to get out
________________________________________
Steve Schutzman is a survivor of San Francisco in the 60s and 70s where we met through our mutual friend, Gene Berson. He was working on a novel at the time, and published at least two poetry titles, “The History of Sleep” (1976) and “Smoke The Burning Body Makes” (1978). We experienced those socially tumultuous times meeting occasionally to share work, roam the rivers of the Sierra Nevada Foothills, or watch a 49er game. I knew him in those days as a poet, but he says he seldom writes poetry now, focusing on plays and stories. “The Language Of Crows” is a pleasant exception which we are honored to be able to post here.

One of his early plays, “The Beauty And Terror Of Being A Dog”, was performed in a small theater in North Beach, San Francisco, sometime in the 70s for which I did some sound design. I watched as a student while he worked with the actors and crew, gradually bringing together his visions and ideas, until the play literally danced under the lights. I lost contact with Steve shortly after this until a few months ago when we hooked up via email, thanks once again to Gene Berson. He is a delightful human being, witty and smart, who roams freely through the realm of his imagination, presenting his subjects from all angles at the same time so that his readers absorb his insights more through the pores than the intellect, receiving instinctively the common wonder of life that his works share.


“The Language Of Crows” was recently published in “In Posse Review” http://www.inpossereview.com/index.htm


For information about Steven Schutzman and his plays, stories, novels, and poetry you can visit his web site http://mysite.verizon.net/stevenschutzman/ . While there you should read “Tree Man”, a play in one act, and “The Bank Robbery”, a prize winning short story that will resonate in your mind for months, like the whisper of a Chinese gong.


The following paragraph was posted at: Pioneer Drama Service, Inc. http://www.pioneerdrama.com/authordetail.asp?ac=SCHUTZMANS


Steven Schutzman is a playwright and fiction writer, the author of seven published books and of numerous plays and stories in literary journals including The Pushcart Prize, TriQuarterly, Alaska Quarterly Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Third Coast, Scene 4 and the anthology "The Art of the One Act". More than thirty different plays of his have been produced at such theatres as New Jersey Repertory, Cleveland Public, Baltimore Theatre Project and Revolution Theatre in Chicago among many others. He is also a five-time recipient of Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Grant Awards and a three time top tier finalist for the Eugene O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference. His one-act "Tree Man" won first prize in the First Stage L.A. One-Act Contest/2004. You can read more about Mr. Schutzman and his work by going to his website.


Some links of interest:
http://mysite.verizon.net/stevenschutzman/ - Steve’s web site.
http://www.eclectica.org/v12n2/feature.html - 3 short plays.
http://www.uaa.alaska.edu/aqr/
http://www.thirdcoastmagazine.com/ - FALL 2007
http://www.postroadmag.com/
http://home.sprynet.com/~awhit/index.htm - Issues 15, 17, 20
http://www.triquarterly.org/
http://www.webdelsol.com/pbq/issue76/?home=1&frmLeft=frontpage.htm&frmRight=rightnav.htm
http://www.nighttrainmagazine.com/contents/schutzman_8_1.php - “Tonight, You’re Mine”
http://pipl.com/search/?FirstName=Steven&LastName=Schutzman&City=&State=&Country=&CategoryID=2&Interface=40 - Lots of information on this page.
http://www.abalonemoon.com/schutzman.html - Poem: “Thirty And Deep In My Shoes”

YOU ARE NOT DEPRESSED. YOU ARE DISTRACTED.

I ran across this posting today on a blog that I have been following for a few months. Check it out. It will make you feel good. I promise!

http://gravitando.wordpress.com/2009/03/24/you-are-not-depressed-you-are-distracted/

The blog is written by a young jewelry designer who lives in Costa Rica. I found her when I did a Google search for the writer Anais Nin and followed this link:

http://gravitando.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/winter-1931-1932-from-the-diary-of-anais-nin/

To see the whole blog, click on the blog title, AL GRAVITAR RODANDO, at the top of her page.

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GOD BLESS THE CHILD

Scene from my morning walk:

As I approached Bird Park, a small neighborhood park near my house, a small white Chevy pulled up to the curb and a full-sized lady of about 50 emerged after cranking the radio up full blast, rocking the quiet morning with some grooving R & B. She was wearing a bright orange pant suit, her hair up in style with flowers, as if she was on the way to church. There was a plot of blooming iris's of orange color with red and black spots planted along the sidewalk, really quite lovely. The lady broke into a boogaloo to the music, dancing before the flowers, arms in the air and then reaching for the flowers, large body shaking, huge smile on her quite lovely face. In her dance she was bowing to the flowers and as I approached her I could see that she was kissing them, straightening up, arms in the air again, bowing and kissing the iris's. As I got near I smiled and said Good morning. She looked at me beaming with joy and said, "You gotta be happy some time!" "I heard that!" I said. "I just had to stop and thank the flowers for being so beautiful!" I gave her a slight bow and a hands together "I honor your spirit." She said "Thank you!" and continued her dance. I moved on, beaming with joy in my soul. When I returned about ten minutes later I was hoping she was still there, but no, she had driven off. But I smiled anyway as I passed the iris's, for in my heart she was still there, still dancing, still filling the morning with joy. "God bless the child that's got her own."

Have a beautiful day!

Buff


GOD BLESS THE CHILD

Them thats got shall get
Them thats not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
Thats got his own

Yes, the strong gets more
While the weak ones fade
Empty pockets dont ever make the grade
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
Thats got his own

Money, youve got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When youre gone, spending ends
They dont come no more
Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But dont take too much
Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
Thats got his own

Mama may have, papa may have
But God bless the child thats got his own
Thats got his own
He just worry bout nothin
Cause hes got his own

Billie Holiday

You can hear her sing it here:
http://www.last.fm/music/Billie+Holiday/_/God+Bless+the+Child

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TULIP

Email to the Buffalo

2/27/09 6:27 AM: Bersone

It's a long draw these days, my man, stretched into a zone here, with no day off and the mind numb from superficial details and hectored by deadlines: interfered with soul: so what: well, you could say you're in space, finally, looking back, thinking maybe of a lawn you once knew as a kid, and now, a piece of the earth shot into orbit unlikely to make it back causing an odd grief, for the earth for you, a piece of her: so then an idea: you're a seed, shot out, an eye and brain: your viewpoint your achievement and duty even to attend to: that necklace of stars just junk on a bar slopped with beer and reflections and sprinkled with false laughter: the mix-up: then the cool, the buffalo in the snow, alone by the frozen lake, the plumes of his snorts pumped out, determined, asking nothing in return, his back like a mountain, rooted not rooting for nothing. Antidotes everywhere and always available. Antidotes and doseydotes and little lambee ivy: lots of frills, but the shadow-frill of a manta ray flying quietly relieves the human world.

just saying howdy. Attaching a little still life. Thinking of
cummings and monk, the iconoclastic stubborn bastards in common


Tulip

The pink is disappearing
the bloom opening
like a hand, held
down and
bending the green stem
lower
as I eat my cereal

saying here, here
I am
dying and
leaving a roomful
of pink

you can just feel

all this without a word
amidst the disarray
of the table

and the woman
who occasioned
these flowers has gone
for the time

being

suddenly very quiet
around here



2/27/09 12:34 PM: Buffalo

No matter where you are, my friend, there is the refection of the stars, the moon in orbit, hellgrammites under rocks. We carry everything with us in a knapsack on a pole over our shoulder, hoboes following the rail. Nothing is ever left behind. You might be hiring twelve rug-kickers from the union hall, or writing a poem. Nothing changes. You might be diving to the bottom of the pool beneath the waterfall, or sewing labels in tee shirts, or scratching the left side of your chest just under the collar bone where the pacemaker ticks under the skin, wired to the heart, or reliving in absolute clarity that moment in the Jazz Workshop when you stood just a few feet from Thelonias Monk as he danced to his own music with his back to you, in another world. We are everywhere at once, and always nowhere. The craft is balancing on one foot, or one arm, or one eyeball, one thought, one song. “Last call!” There is no such thing; there are a million Last Calls twisting out into the universe like DNA on a rope. You are a seed, indeed. You are the buffalo by the frozen lake, the manta ray, just as you are the High School dropout, the Father, Son and Holy Fucking Ghost, the old lady pumping gas into the Toyota. This is why we love, because we are everything, everywhere, all the time.

Peace and love, peace and love, peace and love, spare change?
Peace and love, peace and love, peace and love, have a nice day.
Peace and love, peace and love, peace and love…

“Tulip” is a love poem of the highest, clearest order! Thanks for speaking my words for me – the ones I couldn’t find.

I saw a tee shirt today that said on the back:

PEACE
LOVE
PINK


Buff

“MEXICO UNCONQUERED” / “AS FREEDOM IS A BREAKFASTFOOD”

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