Poet Gene Berson touches on the river that flows within all of us.
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Friday, August 27, 2010
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10/10/16 Podcast no longer active.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/
Saturday, September 26, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, July 17, 2009
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
Saturday, June 6, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, May 22, 2009
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
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
Wednesday, April 15, 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
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
Thursday, April 9, 2009
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 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.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
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”
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”
Saturday, March 21, 2009
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
(To return to this page, press the BACK arrow.)
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
(To return to this page, press the BACK arrow.)
Friday, February 27, 2009
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
Saturday, February 7, 2009
“MEXICO UNCONQUERED” / “AS FREEDOM IS A BREAKFASTFOOD”
This summary is not available. Please
click here to view the post.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
WELCOME TO PLANET DIRT
We all live underground here on Planet Dirt.
Don’t want to show our faces.
We like to hide in holes,
Where all questions have the same answer.
Roaming the tunnels through roots and rock,
Sniffing the ass of the one in front.
This is what we like to do.
Kings of the Rodents, that’s us!
We’re #1!
April 2006
Don’t want to show our faces.
We like to hide in holes,
Where all questions have the same answer.
Roaming the tunnels through roots and rock,
Sniffing the ass of the one in front.
This is what we like to do.
Kings of the Rodents, that’s us!
We’re #1!
April 2006
Thursday, January 15, 2009
THE RIVER
There is nothing so beautiful
as the blue smoke rising from the camp fire,
my tender lady tending the coals
her back to me,
the steam from the coffee pot mingling
with the long soft smoke,
my children sitting up in their mummy bags
rubbing the sleep from their eyes.
The river runs like blood through my heart.
July 19, 1982
as the blue smoke rising from the camp fire,
my tender lady tending the coals
her back to me,
the steam from the coffee pot mingling
with the long soft smoke,
my children sitting up in their mummy bags
rubbing the sleep from their eyes.
The river runs like blood through my heart.
July 19, 1982
Friday, January 2, 2009
REAL LIFE
Young squirrel
Sitting in the birdseed dish
Elegant tail
Sunflower seed in little rodent hands
Rapid chewing rodent mouth and nose
Black, almond rodent eyes. Wary.
Sitting in the birdseed dish
Elegant tail.
Sitting in the birdseed dish
Elegant tail
Sunflower seed in little rodent hands
Rapid chewing rodent mouth and nose
Black, almond rodent eyes. Wary.
Sitting in the birdseed dish
Elegant tail.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
SHARDS OF SONG - BERSONE
Shards of Song
So what aesthetic
Can come
From constant interruption?
The Praise Houses
Come to mind for some reason
Where voices could be heard
Five miles away, voices
Before Ma Rainey that sang --
Our need to sing
Stronger than our need to sleep --
and perhaps even
more compelling our need
To find a unifying voice
Formed in the throat’s cauldron
where the necessary angel’s wings,
persistently scrape the iron sides
Like scratches on an old recording,
Distract us with her struggle to fly
From the flames
On a coherent song.
So what aesthetic
Can come
From constant interruption?
The Praise Houses
Come to mind for some reason
Where voices could be heard
Five miles away, voices
Before Ma Rainey that sang --
Our need to sing
Stronger than our need to sleep --
and perhaps even
more compelling our need
To find a unifying voice
Formed in the throat’s cauldron
where the necessary angel’s wings,
persistently scrape the iron sides
Like scratches on an old recording,
Distract us with her struggle to fly
From the flames
On a coherent song.
LOOKING OUT THE WINDOW - BERSONE
Looking Out The Window
Standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee
Listening to sparrows pecking seeds from the carport roof
Like . . . beginning rain
September 11, 2005, feeling the turn
But giving in to it today
Not holding back like yesterday
No rancor, no resentment, giving
In. And so a tenderness
Like the gray sky, has been
Bequeathed me.
Last night
After pulling over to take a leak
As I was driving through the valley:
Lightning in the clouds
Over the Sierra, far away. Lightning within
The clouds. The sweet wind. Passed a
Bunch of lights, after midnight, generators, trucks:
Loading tomatoes: an urgency to get them
To market. We need urgencies
And repose to reflect. Even during war
Like the soldier in Red Badge of Courage, when he leaned
Against a tree in a calm clearing, after the battle, the sun weak --
A wafer hung in the gray sky
A yellow flower or two still
Swaying indifferently among the bodies.
Standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee
Listening to sparrows pecking seeds from the carport roof
Like . . . beginning rain
September 11, 2005, feeling the turn
But giving in to it today
Not holding back like yesterday
No rancor, no resentment, giving
In. And so a tenderness
Like the gray sky, has been
Bequeathed me.
Last night
After pulling over to take a leak
As I was driving through the valley:
Lightning in the clouds
Over the Sierra, far away. Lightning within
The clouds. The sweet wind. Passed a
Bunch of lights, after midnight, generators, trucks:
Loading tomatoes: an urgency to get them
To market. We need urgencies
And repose to reflect. Even during war
Like the soldier in Red Badge of Courage, when he leaned
Against a tree in a calm clearing, after the battle, the sun weak --
A wafer hung in the gray sky
A yellow flower or two still
Swaying indifferently among the bodies.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Three Voices - Works in Progress
Email to the Buffalo
08/28/08 3:51 PM Bersone:
There's more to this than meets the eye. I'll attach latest version
-- it's a little thing, I know, just something I noted down while driving to work -- it's easier to get going on lighter things sometimes. I've had my trouble getting going after the last two weeks.
Going Too Fast To Stop
Something has fallen off the truck
What’s in the package
That tumbled from the truck
Still taped up
It bounces on its corners
As another truck blows past it
What’s in the package
Bouncing along the concrete wall
The wall between the bridge
The bridge and the gray cold water
With its murky facets
Below the low dawn sky
Is there something of ourselves
Wrapped in the package
That will never be opened
The package bouncing fatefully
Only a short wall
Between it and the water
It seems to jump by itself
But that’s only the momentum of its fall
Whatever of ourselves is inside
Is at the mercy of its fate
It has no inner direction whatsoever
But there’s something in that goddamn package
I tell you
It’s jumping by itself
Like a Mexican jumping bean
There’s something inside
And it has fallen off the truck
Still taped up!
08/28/08 5:21 PM Buff:
Yes, yes. Getting tight. It’s a fascinating concept – something of us in a taped up package bouncing down the road as if of its own accord – something alive yet hidden, unknowable except in the imagination – something we must trust about ourselves. Fascinating. It holds the reader like a magnet.
08/28/08 3:51 PM Bersone:
There's more to this than meets the eye. I'll attach latest version
-- it's a little thing, I know, just something I noted down while driving to work -- it's easier to get going on lighter things sometimes. I've had my trouble getting going after the last two weeks.
Going Too Fast To Stop
Something has fallen off the truck
What’s in the package
That tumbled from the truck
Still taped up
It bounces on its corners
As another truck blows past it
What’s in the package
Bouncing along the concrete wall
The wall between the bridge
The bridge and the gray cold water
With its murky facets
Below the low dawn sky
Is there something of ourselves
Wrapped in the package
That will never be opened
The package bouncing fatefully
Only a short wall
Between it and the water
It seems to jump by itself
But that’s only the momentum of its fall
Whatever of ourselves is inside
Is at the mercy of its fate
It has no inner direction whatsoever
But there’s something in that goddamn package
I tell you
It’s jumping by itself
Like a Mexican jumping bean
There’s something inside
And it has fallen off the truck
Still taped up!
08/28/08 5:21 PM Buff:
Yes, yes. Getting tight. It’s a fascinating concept – something of us in a taped up package bouncing down the road as if of its own accord – something alive yet hidden, unknowable except in the imagination – something we must trust about ourselves. Fascinating. It holds the reader like a magnet.
08/28/08 2:13 PM Buff:
I shouldn’t do this, but I’m attaching something that has occupied my attention for the last few days. Can’t quite seem to make anything out of it, but still feel there might be something there.
THE WIND
By your will does this wind blow
Through the hollow chambers
Of this ailing heart.
Is that your voice I hear,
Or the craggy surface of the mountain
laughing at these tears?
Over the breathing sea
Salt air whispers,
Shhh, I bring you life,
Shhh, I breathe for you,
Shhh, I give you dreams.
Sand rises from the desert floor,
Riding the wind like flocks of sparrows.
Dust settles on the mountain pine,
Where Jays feed on nuts and insects.
All great lands and seas comingle,
Riding on the wind,
The song of earth.
By your will does this great wind blow
Through the hollow chambers
Of this ailing heart.
You sing my joy and my grief,
You sing my dream through this long night,
You sing my soul into the darkness,
Yet,
you do not
know my
name.
08/28/08 6:30 PM Bersone:
I just read it through a couple of times: beautiful grief, transcendent yet felt. Your courage and availability, trembling at the brim yet not spilling over: what we learned many times in the sixties: we're surrounded by heroes. When we think about it: two million years of history behind us, every bravery and tenderness making room for each other, like the Italian movie about shoes where the guy hides his gold coin in a horse's hoof: fools, wonderful fools, doing what we do under the indifferent beauty of the stars. The poem is very good. Yeats once said that the mood of tragedy should be sorrowful calm, yet yours lifts, and lifts. It makes you think about wind.
08/20/08 8:52 AM Buff:
Here’s a poem Wendy wrote in response to the news story about the woman who died on the emergency room floor:
Managed Care
Blinding light
Binding plight
Doctor's waiting room
Heart a flight
Wait all night
Prostrate on the floor
Linoleum tile
Magazine pile
In a different room
Cold steel bench
Disinfectant stench
Staring at the door
Dr. Important arrives
Downcast eyes
Tell me why you're here
Pages flutter
Did the Patient mutter?
What, I didn't hear
08/21/08 7:05 AM Bersone:
Doctor Important! That's classic. Form is tight, strict rhythm. I wonder who she's read to write so disciplined. If it's natural, it's rare. Emily Dickenson-like, compact. I'll have to read her blog and drop her a note. Next week or this weekend I hope. It excites me to talk to Wendy about poetry. Dr. Important, that kills me.
08/27/08 9:05 AM Bersone:
This is to you Wendy: a note to tell you how much I liked your poem: very well-observed, and felt: the tough eye in the poem keeps the feelings in check, making them stronger by such severe containment and we get the wonderful humor as a result. Terza Rima I think, the form, I'll have to look it up. An Italian form. The magazines! Who doesn't notice them in those surroundings! There's a couple of lines in a Leonard Cohen song: "on a chair with a dead magazine / in a room where love's never been" Anyway, great poem. Says a lot for everyone. All my best to you and hope to hear more poetry from you. Stan Rice would have loved you poem.
-- Gene
Monday, August 4, 2008
The Acoustic World & Other Poems in Progress - Bersone
Email to the Buffalo
07/20/08 6:43 AM Bersone:
Buffalo
I heard an interesting interview on http://www.ttbook.org/ with d j spooky, who just wrote a book called Journal Unbound and has
a latest cd out, Rebel Creation -- influenced by Cage and into the digital collage world we live in where people rip, mix and remix: plagarism displacing individual conceptual genius into a mix -- more like how it was in Shakespeare's day actually. Very confirming of your work. MIT press issued book. I attach poem I mentioned this morning, re: global warming circa mid seventies. Mucho Mulato adiamente quel que fois!Attachment:
(oneski)
geno-cide
brown smoghaze fades into the infinite today
smothering the hills of Marin from view
dead starfish roll onto the beach in small
sick waves
another weird
dry winter
where is the lyric poet
without clear air?
we eat mushrooms & run around Point Reyes naked
the deer don’t mind us & we hear the wings of crows
breaking overhead, as we lie still in the gray grass
back in the city
we eat pizza & pass out
exhausted, having wrestled another physical day
from the death going on all around
everybody working too goddamned hard for the wrong things
we’re at the top of the seashell: the spirals going faster & faster
we’re at the top & all about to crash & even that’s no news:
what the fuck are we going to do?
how can you not follow your nose?
(twoski)
eleven convicts escaped city jail
A snitch tipped the cops that one
was holed up in a hotel downtown.
They surrounded the place, broke
down doors & windows, shot teargas
into his room: waited. He didn’t come out.
Finally they busted in only to find him sleeping.
“didn’t the teargas bother you?” they asked.
“Not really,” he replied. “I just
thought it was a little smoggier than usual.”
We breathe the same air, convicts & I.
We have many similar convictions.
SF, 1977
07/21/08 6:55 AM Buff:
I like the Oneski, Twoski rhythms. The piece is like brilliant shards of glass glimmering in the morning sun - each shard complete within its shattered self. A few shards that caught my eye immediately: "we hear the wings of crows" "the spirals going faster & faster" "We breathe the same air, convicts & I" Your eye in the center of your humor brings a pleasing depth. You said that Valline didn't respond to this. Again, I think she may be taking herself way too seriously, looking for something "epic" and missing the jewels you expose right there in the gravel of our daily lives. I'd like to see Threeski, Fourski, etc. Perhaps the driving poems could be added in this sequence. However they are organized isn't all that important. Each is a little peek at the truth; the delightful truth of this marvelously absurd life.
07/21/08 5:50 AM Bersone:
thank you for your cherished and respected responses to my poems, which I rarely acknowledge but which mean so much to me. I must share a little thing I observed/overheard this evening, as I approached the BART stairs on Market and fourth in the cold summer fog of the city: a middle aged black man was retrieving, unexpectedly it seemed, an almost unsmoked cigarette from the pebbled trash receptacle, and almost absent-mindedly remarked to himself quietly as I passed hurriedly by, "You can pretty much give up the chastity pose." obviously an educated man down on his luck. I wished I'd had the presence of mind to slip him a twenty, but the rush swept me by as he dropped his pearl into my ear, completely free and dearly earned
07/22/08 5:53 AM Buff:
Wow! What a gift.
I heard this one recently from a black man talking in a loud voice on his cell phone as he passed through a small crowd of us waiting for access to the sidewalk ATMs:
"Girlfriend? Girlfriend! The only girlfriend that nigger ever had was his right hand!" None of us so much as flinched, stoic and hardened as we are.
:)
07/25/08 6:33 AM Bersone:
Man I wish I was up there; I'm in uncharted territory here, on about my seventeenth or eighteenth day. El bizarro not zorro: attaching a little thing I've been plucking at for a couple of days before work, it's turned into something of a hodgepodge but it'll sort itself out. Different ways to get a sense of the whole hanging together, sometimes the structure and sound of the words, sometimes the theme and content, sometimes a voice, sometimes trying to connect dots in the chaos like seeing leo in the stars. So many people agree that three stars are Orion's belt you've got to wonder if its mass hypnosis. Hope you're refreshing yourself. No emotion's pure but only emotion endures.
Attachment:
This Acoustic World
The snarl of Hell’s Angels’ Harleys
comforts me, as their bikes land
and take off through the night,
giving a little vibrato to the cello
playing Brahms on the radio.
I think this is because the universe is so deep
at this time of night -- the sound
of the threat
seems to stretch and
bend until it is finally
absorbed into the resolving silence.
And yet we’re so afraid to let ourselves out!
In a world that can take everything you’ve got!
I think of you in our house in the foothills
and wonder what you hear –
maybe rain
on the ivy outside the window or
deer delicately stepping between sticks,
as if trying to avoid walking on the dead
who are everywhere in the living ground.
I am listening to you listening far away
just that much extension
of whatever I am makes me
sense possibilities beyond myself, and I
battling for a buck in the bay area
am an exile
from a promising dimension
where all my real responsibilities lie hapless
abandoned as my grandfather’s tools
after a stroke paralyzed his left side.
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