Reading and Writing

 Covid seems to diminish as Spring begins to take hold. I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel in ways that I have not imagined light. I am reading an essay every so often from Owning it All by William Kittredge, and Erosion by Terry Tempest Williams . They are of the land and speak of it eloquently from different times. Speaking of light my poetry is changing which is always fun and a challenge. After writing most of my life it is trusting in the birth of the unexpected. I write a lot about Jonah from the myth of Jonah and the Whale. The latest poem was a real surprise. My muse rouses me at night with a word or a phrase and leaves it to me to roll over or get up and write. So hear it is:

Not Looking at the Whales Dork

 

The man in the public shower

Looked like a whale breeching, over

And over. He was a whale, what type

I’m not sure. Truth be told, his tattoo

From toe to neck, undulated me to believe

That Jonah’s head peeked out of a substantial

Opening

Before, the infamous Nineveh vomiting.

 

Staring in a shower is way wrong,

If straight on. A glance or a turn

Is permissible, but one is not to

Take in the whole body. Think

Ray Bradbury, with just one illustration.

 

I was like a harpoonist, clutching

A bar of Ivory soap. The man

In the public shower turned off

The continual water as I dove

Into increased spray. He followed

The tide of the drain  

To the mustard colored exit.

I trust the word the muse sends me.

  

Eyes to See Ears to Hear

I called out all the criers from Sydney BC.

Loaded them on the Victoria Clipper

Placing them next to trees due for removal.

Voices up and down to plead.

A human boulevard

Along a cutting swath.

They are going to cut down a large number of trees in Bellevue Wa. to make room for power lines. The street 148th has a wonderful tree-filled boulevard even with the increase of car traffic  it makes one pause. The poem above is my imagined protest

Bill T. Jones reading Ross Gay Poem

This morning I listened to Bill T Jones read a wonderful poem by Ross Gay: https://vimeo.com/343521470. It reminded me of a book I am reading Something Wonderful about Rogers and Hammerstein. It is the Soliloquy from the play Carousal that seemed to bump and flow  with the Ross Gay poem. Billy who sings this piece is a proud papa to be. Here are the lyrics:

I wonder what he'll think of me
I guess he'll call me the "old man"
I guess he'll think I can lick
Every other feller's father
Well, I can!
I bet that he'll turn out to be
The spittin' image of his dad
But he'll have more common sense
Than his puddin-headed father ever had
I'll teach him to wrestle
And dive through a wave
When we go in the mornin's for our swim
His mother can teach him
The way to behave
But she won't make a sissy out o' him
Not him! Not my boy! Not Bill!

Bill, my boy Bill
I will see that he is named after me, I will.
My boy, Bill! He'll be tall
And tough as a tree, will Bill!
Like a tree he'll grow
With his head held high
And his feet planted firm on the ground
And you won't see nobody dare to try
To boss or toss him around!
No pot-bellied, baggy-eyed bully
Will boss him around.

I don't give a hang what he does
As long as he does what he likes!
He can sit on his tail
Or work on a rail
With a hammer, hammering spikes!
He can ferry a boat on a river
Or peddle a pack on his back
Or work up and down
The streets of a town
With a whip and a horse and a hack.

He can haul a scow along a canal
Run a cow around a corral
Or maybe bark for a carousel
Of course it takes talent to do that well.

Aha-ha-ha-ha!
He might be a champ of the heavyweights,
Or a feller that sells you glue,
Or President of the United States,
That'd be all right, too
His mother would like that
But he wouldn't be President if he didn't wanna be!
Not Bill!

My boy, Bill! He'll be tall
And as tough as a tree, will Bill
Like a tree he'll grow
With his head held high
And his feet planted firm on the ground
And you won't see nobody dare to try
To boss him or toss him around!
No fat-bottomed, flabby-faced,
Pot-bellied, baggy-eyed bully
Will boss him around.

And I'm hanged if he'll marry his boss' daughter
A skinny-lipped virgin with blood like water
Who'll give him a peck
And call it a kiss
And look in his eyes through a lorgnette...

Hey, why am I talkin' on like this?
My kid ain't even been born, yet!
I can see him when he's seventeen or so,
And startin' to go with a girl
I can give him lots of pointers, very sound
On the way to get 'round any girl
I can tell him
Wait a minute!
Could it be?
What the hell!
What if he is a girl?
What would I do with her?
What could I do for her?
A bum with no money!
You can have fun with a son
But you gotta be a father to a girl
She mightn't be so bad at that
A kid with ribbons in her hair!
A kind o' sweet and petite
Little tin-type of her mother!
What a pair!

My little girl
Pink and white
As peaches and cream is she
My little girl
Is half again as bright
As girls are meant to be!
Dozens of boys pursue her
Many a likely lad does what he can to woo her
From her faithful dad
She has a few
Pink and white young fellers of two or three
But my little girl
Gets hungry every night and she comes home to me!

I got to get ready before she comes!
I got to make certain that she
Won't be dragged up in slums
With a lot o' bums like me
She's got to be sheltered
In a fair hand dressed
In the best that money can buy!
I never knew how to get money,
But, I'll try, I'll try! I'll try!
I'll go out and make it or steal it
Or take it or die!     

Truly a different generation but the same energy!

Here is Gordon MacRae  singing it.

https://youtu.be/uq0UAdvGdII?list=RDuq0UAdvGdII

Augmented Reality

     A new year begins but I am stuck on some Ads. that will trickle into 2018. The idea of taking something out of context or just plan lie is not new, Just look in the White House. Put it in an Ad. that goes by so fast or the "truth" is printed so tiny it is impossible to read. I got Tivo to escape Ads. now I see that they are a tool, a deceiving tool that most don't see what they are up to. Oh don't forget the truck they are showing you does not have the outer Antenna. You might not buy it but you'll see it on the lot fully exposed.

Lexus steals the inner child to talk about its latest car. It is a physical relationship; the child into the adult woman is draped over the car, and a male voice brings her into the present by saying "the car is for both of us." She tells the car to ignore him. If the inner child is to be put into this commercial it is attached to a thing not a being. As we grow some of those growth edges are the inner child, not the outer child wishing and hoping and not growing up. The woman's response is a child to a toy not to engaging  growth.



Winter Olympics Ad. by Comcast. Sentimental, not. The music is surely Peace Train but the lyrics are not quite the same, jumble. So I get nostalgia and lost. They can't escape a song that is bound in the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. Mixing does not always match up.

We are shown pictures on computers and phones that are not there. The disclaimer is to small. Go back and another piece of your setup blocks the info. Hey here's and idea since you wont raise the font put the info on the top of the screen!

Adidas wants all the creative people to gather at the table of  creators. It is one minute of youth, sport and music, oh and wealth! The creators are still everybody on earth. At least one of these "dem-gods" could say meet me in your neighborhood, the gritty community center, the Y! This table did not have an empty chair.

the Xfinity WIFI has a mom push a button that takes everybody of their devices, even dad, to sit and eat pizza. Just boxes and crusts on the family table. Could they not show something like the family taking a walk outside or a board game!?

I went to the Edmond's Art Festival last night and found a woman Cheryl Brown cherylbrownstudio.com who know how to create a crow! I am glad I ran across her.

Philocetetes, and why he is important to us.

                                   Philocetetes, and why he is important to us.

     Philocetetes reached inside of me and held on tight. After reading Susan Sutclifes version of his story, Black ships Before Troy, I wanted to know why this Greek character had a hold on me. This is no minor role player yet he is put off on and island because he was bitten on the toe by the dragon/serpent he slew. This caused him to scream constantly, and have a wound that smelled and oozed. The black ship he was on put him off on Limnos to continue on to Troy.

    I was struck that Philocetetes was left on the island for ten years. I began to imagine: what would a wounded part of me hidden for a number of years look and feel like? I might not have been ready to deal with it at the time it occurred so I suffered it away or a better way of putting it for me is I kept eating to keep it at bay. Maybe it was so traumatic all I could do was to bury it. At some point I must face that wound, heal that part of me. That part of me I call the child of awe. From an early age I was not given the light to shine but shamed and abused wounds I could not comprehend but felt. In my case it was an ulcer at age nine.

      This immense war with Troy is not going well for the Greeks. The Greeks talk to their soothsayer that tells them to bring Philocetetes back from Lemnos. I am sure this is not what the kings had in mind to turn the tide of battle. They send two of their best warriors to fetch him: Diomedes (Divine Cunning) and Odysseus (Trouble Maker) It takes much strength, and yes deception and time to face our wounds. When the two men face Philocetetes, he does not recognize them. They raise their arms to show no harm will be done. Two strong men humbled. It is a survival skill to push a wound away but left in the dark it is hard to recognize yourself.

     Philocetetes carries the bow of Hercules, a gift. Now this gift rests in a place we would not usually go to for the sake of winning a battle or in my case to get up in front of my family to speak my truth about our parents, and to read poetry at gatherings about my parents. What the wounded part of ourselves brings forth heals us.

     They bring Philocetetes back with them. But note how they handle him. There is tenderness even with defeat on the horizon. He is bathed and his wound tended to. This is the hero’s journey. We need to think of our wounded ness as a royal blessing. The gift: the bow and arrow and poison tipped. This is Philocetetes gift and he has to use it his own way; some of the soldiers do not want this poison. There will always be a part of us that will be skeptical of our wounded ness, hold those feelings very gently. There are parts of me that struggle with how I should teach or read a poem surrounded in wounded ness but it is mine and I must claim it, and claiming is a comfort and a process.

     Even with ten years of shooting birds on Limnos the shot to take out Paris glances his hand, not the shot of great bowman. The poison becomes more the necessity for this glancing strike. It also lets the story go on as Paris dies a painful death.

     Philocetetes has done his job but it is like he fell off the beach, we don’t know if he is ever totally healed or continues to have this wound. In many stories about healing you will run across this, the character does his job and exits. Philocetetes received much to come and turn the tide of war but I put my imagination into him, what would he do next? I would continue to monitor the wound. It is much deeper than the oozing. I would go to the soothsayer and ask about the circumstances that brought him to such a place. Any counselor worth there salt knows, like I said earlier, that this healing takes time. How we use that time to get healthy, to get to a place of healing. My Goodness! A gift lost then found- what else might this important work produce? Philocetetes needed the poison, at some point I feel that he will not need the poison or the bow to do his healing work. Phielo means to love. Ctetos means something that can be gained. I know I have more then one gift wrapped in my wounded ness.

     Look to these old stories and myths for healing they are there as well as many islands to explore.

No go Ballard Bridge

This has been a month of losses for me. The Ballard Bridge would have been great but being in residence and a full time job, that would have been tough. Three other poems I put out for publication were rejected and into this mix the death of my sister Mary. After having coffee with my brother this morning I revised this poem:

Her name is Louisiana

A rambling girl. A bigger

Purchase never visited by me.

She had many a spat

Tit for tat- Katrina

A recent cat fight.

Mass exit makes for mass entrance

Big chiefs lead parades.

Streets pour with water

Occasional sofa and love seat

Blister alleyways. She’s pretty

My Louisiana- that ninth ward

Should have been exhumed earlier

Or been more honest in presentation.

I see my Louisiana on TV, its super

Dome like a Tierra, tossed.

But she comes back dressed and sweaty

For the next event- that’s my girl.