Thursday, December 31, 2020

William Tell Ravine

 [second version]


(a tributary of the North Yuba River, Sierra County, California)


Before he'd heard anything about Switzerland, Schiller,

Rossini & stuff, he'd looked across the river from the house

at the long white beard of William Tell Falls. The sheer-drop

ravine looked perpendicular.  No home for trout.  Im-


pulsively, at 17, he decided to hike up there.

Headed out, crossed the river, climbed straight up,

more laddering than walking. Ravine was path in form 

of bedrock. Manzanita brush walled the sides.


He got as far as the pool the falls slapped in jagged

pulses. Sounds of that constant collision careened

around the stone box. There was no climbing further.

In soaked jeans and wet boots, legs loaded up


with lactic acid, he slithered down like an arthritic

snake, satisfied to have spied on a geologic scene,

to have introduced himself to William Tell Ravine,

and to have witnessed water and rock in their own time.


Sunday, December 20, 2020

Merry Christmas, Mary Magdalene

Merry Christmas, Mary 
Magdalene, you who to me
are the most interesting of all.

First one to the tomb.
Long black hair, deep brown
eyes, say I. Vigilant in chill
darkness, stars heavy overhead.

You were the first to see
refabricated Jesus, your friend--
now a floating Christ,  now close 
to but forever distant from you.

You: who knew his smell, his temper
and teeth. Laughed with him.
What was funny to you both?
Watched him tortured in the sun.

What is wrong with people?
That's a pertinent religious query. 

At the tomb, soon other women
assembled. (The men, long gone.)
They saw what you saw and talked.
You stayed quiet. My God,
your thoughts, Mary Magdalene:
if somehow we could know them . . . .

McCoy Tyner

 (1938-2020)


Once

in Berkeley, smoke like Bay fog lay

over heads of cool-hip-jazz-club-clientele &

waitresses slivered through tables/bodies/chairs,

kept drinks coming, ice and glass and liquid held aloft &


Mr. Tyner


--he hit the mthrfckn keys

so hard one time strings

popped & whipped  like snakes out

‘the belly of the grand dark


piano


& the percussionist had some

mojo stuff hanging from racks—

bones, steel tubes, feathers—


all


humid and scratchy and knock-talk

click-back bicker-bock-a-zone

sounds, & McCoy was rippin and roarin,

working the gift


out


of Keyborderland. And the horns. It was a big

marrow-filling, ear-enlightening night. Outside

after encores:


cool, misty Berkeley. Had a look around

to see which way the karma blew,

got in the ’67 Camaro, drove back up EYE-80

to plain brown-cow Davis, college town,


brain


humming like the lowest pianoforte

E-note pedaled through the measures.

"Winter Solstice," by Kara B. Imle

 A link to a fine poem by Kara B. Imle, "Winter Solstice," in the online journal medium:

https://kbimle.medium.com/winter-solstice-3d415e434d2a

Friday, December 18, 2020

Traveling Cat

 (second version)


He was a traveling cat. He raced

and slunk, padded and trotted, sleek

and balanced, tendons full of

future speed.  He moved soundlessly

but for a hiss or a yowl now

and then, or a crazy crash,

never his fault. Yes,  a


questing cat, moving from this to

that, from at to at, detecting

motion, smooth as lotion, reading

air, decoding sounds from

everywhere. Itinerant and


cool, self-possessed and freely

feline--leonine, nined up with lives,

purring worries, cagey but uncaged,

guileless and wise.  Green eyes.


2020

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Bartok and the Stars

 (second version)

"The ways of life are infinite and mysterious."- Georgio Scerbanenco, Traitors to All, translated by Howard Curtis



In spite of my playing, the piano

produced a simple minuet by Bartok, 

which made me think of walking

cautiously across a frozen pond.


An empty coffee cup sat there

on the bookshelf. Cool ceramic.

Out there, and "up":  night.

And stars, which we think of


as a permanent installation, 

not a chaotic map of explosions

or freckles on an infinite face.

I dream recurrently about new


stars, close and bright, 

flowing past in a sky-parade

as I look up from a meadow

in mountains and watch, 


thrilled and terrified. I almost

forget to breathe. Someone I can't see

says, "Words are stars. I've

told you that before. Many times."

Istanbul Evening

 (second version)


A white, four-masted yacht slips between

dingy barges and trawlers, disappears into

a blue haze on the Sea of Marmara. The call

to prayer's an hour away. Swallows dive

and glide, pigeons prowl, the sun's

about to settle down. 


Below the terrace, lush maples and oaks

sigh and sway, leaning west. Sounds of traffic,

children, and work never cease. Near a mosque's

minaret on the hill, a faded Turkish flag

flutters in slow motion. Now a seagull appears.


It glides in a wide arc, which now becomes 

a large invisible circle. The glide traces

ever smaller concentric circles against 

the backdrop of the sea until the gull 

lands precisely at the point of a rooftop

below. The gull stands,


strong and ready, facing a low sun, and

something in the scene says all is well

this evening, even when it may not be,

especially if it may not be. 

Poetry Consulates

 (second version)


Pushkin loved the idea of St. Petersburg
and the bronze horseman who saw
the city before it was built. Langston
Hughes loved the idea of Harlem,
also some people there. Did Baudelaire

love Paris? Splenetically, maybe.
I don't think Dickinson loved
any cities. The village of her mind
sufficed, urban in its way.

It pleases me to think
of all the poets writing now
in Istanbul and Mainz, Hong

Kong and Honolulu, Uppsala
and Houston, Brasilia and Berlin,
Tehran and Tangier and all
the other cities where poets
live--every city in other words,
in their words, which
follow their cities around,
no matter how often the
cities change disguises
or suffer horrors. Poets'

words attach themselves to love
and food, despair and dreams,
rage and work and filth and beauty.
If only these poets could meet
and read their poems and argue
but not fight, ask questions
about language and children,
mountains and rivers and trains.
Should we, then, build poetry consulates
in all these poem-filled cities?
Yes, yes we should.

Saturday, December 12, 2020

10 Tips for Successful Holiday Entertaining

 (re-posting one from long ago)


1. Hide

2. Surprise your guests by dressing up as Santa Claws, the Beast from the South Pole.

3. Invite friends of many and no faiths and from across the political spectrum. Insist that they discuss only politics and religion. If the conversation lags, bring up the topic of sports teams.

4. Hold a seance and summon the spirits of dead-gifts-past: Soap on a Rope, the Gensu Slicer, 007 Perfume, Medieval Scholar Barbie.

5. Take any Martha Stewart recipe and add absinthe.

6. Spend an evening with your favorite nice-and-naughty person and insist that she or he be good, for goodness sake, if not excellent.

7. Host a small gathering of Philatelists, and have them display their holiday stamps from around the world.

8. Play "The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" backwards and listen for secret messages.

9. Sponsor a cage-match between Frosty the Snowman and Jack Frost.

10. After the chestnuts have been roasted on an open fire in the street where you live, put on a bright red nose (and nothing else), dance ecstatically, listen for the festive sounds of sleigh bells, dreidels, and police sirens.