California Autumn

Came up with these this morning:

Trees' bare limbs
etched on pale blue sky,
not one morning bird ...


The air chair hangs
under bare oak, bucket seat
filled with brown leaves ...


Leaves all fallen
unveiling winter's pale sky;
rooftops white, first frost ...

December 2008

Letter to a Long-gone Friend

A series of bizarre events
recently led to my digging out and
re-reading old letters (circa 1966-72)
from an old friend and former
journalism colleague who left this realm
a few years back. It made me wish
he were still around, and that we
could exchange thoughts as we
did way back when. It inspired, if
that is the right word, the
following, the kind of thing we used
to send in our correspondence:


Hey y'all! Merle Saunders dies at 74
old Garcia play-mate
Wasn't that a time!

I long for a simpler time
when we exchanged actual long
snail-mail letters, not
just two-graf e-mails
but now of course we're caught in
The Web ...

The cats bathe thoroughly
after their breakfasts
of beef bits in gravy
(so much of what we do
depends on killing
innocent animals ...
I recall the time
I looked closely at a
rare roast beef while
high on LSD and vowed
to become a vegetarian ...
this and other vows now vanished
dreams wafting over fallow fields
like wisps of smoke
to paraphrase stolen words
poorly remembered
from a haiku poet
on his death bed ...)

Let's kill more turkeys
and give thanks
for maximum violence

"Aw, them birds
don't know nothin'
they're just a
buncha turkeys ..."

Let's stay as ignorant
as possible of all the
processes of Modern Life
and pretend everything
I mean EVERYTHING
THE ENTIRE COSMOS
is run on credit
with no bill due
till the cows
come home to roost

Bumper Strip:
Bring Back the Family Farm

Hell, for that matter,
bring back the farm family
I mean the ideal
all for one, one for all
hardworking honest and
greatly rewarded by their
own virtues

Was the entire 20th century
a gigantic mistake?
Not according to those
who rule and prosper.
Some folks, of course,
have a different slant.
The Bad News:
All the have-nots
wannabe just like us!

No matter any more, eh, Richard?
What's it "like"
where you are now? Is
it another plane of existence
like Seth of Seth Speaks
or more like endless
unimaginable nada?

Send me your message
in a bottle
preferably along with
some good chianti
or shiraz
and a good music soundtrack
of your selections

OK, then. Good-bye,
good-bye. We'll meet
again, someday,
some way ...

Or then again,
maybe not.

--Bob Loomis, Concord CA, 2008

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT

We learn to use these words to try to clothe and parade our thoughts, to express that which is basically inexpressible. Some attempt must be made. Yet no matter how hard we try, we can only touch aspects of the essence, not embrace it completely. Finally, our words are like blind men touching parts of an elephant and coming up with definitions of what it is. Truncated views of existence, if you will. Or, again, views constantly expanded by the numbers of those observing. Rashomon, indeed!

DESTINATION MEMO

Time is the lady who won't take no for an answer. With her it's always yes, let's keep moving! She's the original Lady in Red who thinks you'd be better off dead. When you ride her train it's always one way, so enjoy the ride and the view while you can, the next stop may be where you get off. But it's great while it lasts, especially if Lady Luck is along for the ride, too. (I envision an accompanying illustration, a willowy lady in red gown with this, the gown having a hood or veil hiding her face. Her accessory: a scythe. But no, that's too obvious ...)

FREE OFFER

Robert this time will be different.
There is no cost or obligation.
The countdown has begun!

Free dinner seminar
on how to determine
when you will be financially able
to reserve your place.

Limited time offer. Some
restrictions apply. See
other side for details.

A few haiku

Walking Mitchell Canyon
escorted by a squadron
of ladybugs ...

06-20-2005


Vanishing into the woods
as soon as he sees me:
a big buck ...

06-20-2005


Leaves swirl on the trail
swept by in this morning's breeze
and fall's first touch ...

08-24-2008


"Eradicated"
3 years ago, wild berries
we miss your taste!

08-24-2008

(c) Bob Loomis

Dimly, and late in life

DIMLY, AND LATE IN LIFE

Dimly, and late in life

It comes to him

As from the dense text

Of a complex poem long pondered

That he has paid too little mind

To the expression of caring,

Has let what’s most important

Slip past, unseen, unheard,

Unrecognized until almost too late. What

Use regret now?

No matter,

He would have said when younger;

There’s time enough and more

To reach out with a gentle touch

And be aware when help is needed

And know how to give it freely.

Now, almost too late, he understands

And vows henceforward to embrace

Each who shares his life

Before ignorance becomes oblivion,

Before, in the eyes of those remaining,

Indifference becomes his legacy.

(c) Bob Loomis

08-11-2008

Sweet Arc of Time

Space bubbles
adrift on a sea
of darkness.

I dream much,
remember little.

Sweet arc of time
drifting down now.
Nobody knows
when it ends
or exactly how. But
there is no "if."

These sweet nothings
whispered in God's ear.
But God's not so easily
seduced ... at least
not as easily as we'd like.

Come here, my dearest.
We'll dally a while,
time permitting.


(c) 2008, Bob Loomis

Looking Back

Don't look back said Bobby Dylan, but that's what I'm finding myself doing a lot of lately. It started with an offer of a gig for the Martinez Historical Society. When I went to look at the gig site I learned that the Martinez News-Gazette was looking for former staff members to interview for a story for the 150th anniversary edition. I don't go back that far (yet) but I did work for the then-Morning News-Gazette from 1964 to 1966. It was the first newspaper job I got after receiving my bachelor's degree in journalism from San Francisco State.
I went to the News-Gazette office and was interviewed by Lorena Castillo, a reporter and photographer for the paper. We pored over the bound volumes of the N-G for 1964 to 1966 and I rediscovered how stingy newspapers were with bylines in those days. But we did find a few things and I managed to rummage around at home and come up with a photo of myself circa 1965 and a couple of old clips.
That led to recontacting a former editor of the News-Gazette, Bob Neuman, and his former wife, Connie Neuman, who was a reporter for the paper. More recycling, this time of old colleagues.
Meanwhile, at home, Bev and Devin and I have been painting the back bedroom that used to be Shannon's. It has served as a computer room/guest room/catch-all room for the past 5 years or more. The painting project has led to uncovering further geological layers of the life and times of yours truly. Old photos, old artwork, old writing, you name it.
Yesterday the nostalgia got really intense. I started sorting through hundreds of old LPs, many of them record albums that I bought starting right round the time I went to work for the News-Gazette. My initial thought, being thoroughly sick of having so much STUFF, was that I would simply take the records to used record stores and be rid of them for whatever price I could get. But of course that fell by the wayside as soon as I started looking through them.
Among them, for example, is a 1958 Bo Diddley self-titled album on the Chess label that was his first LP. It was purchased by Bev around the time she was attending Stanford U. It's in great shape, too, I hooked up my turntable and played it all. There are also albums by Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Stan Wilson, Elvis Presley, Odetta, the Youngbloods and on and on. Oddly enough, out of all these albums by pop music gods of the '60s, the one I picked to play after I'd listened to Diddley was the New Riders of the Purple Sage. This is partly because a friend, John Gallagher, recently saw them (or the current version of them) at a BMW Motorcyclists convention in Wyoming so our conversation about them was fresh in mind.
But it also is because Jerry Garcia played steel guitar on the album and Jerry could play with the best of the steelers, or could have if he'd stayed with it and forsaken that awful rock'n'roll guitar (joke). Oh, and NRPS was one of my favorite LPs when it came out. I learned to play Portland Women and I Don't Know You on flute because I loved those tunes so much. NRPS is right up there with the Clarence White-era Byrds for country-folk-rock sound, and relistening to this chestnut showed how well it holds up. Now I'm going to have to learn to sing those two songs and maybe more off this album.
Plus now I'm going to have to go back and listen to the old Van Morrison LPs. And the Sir Douglas Quintet LPs. And gawd only knows how many others as I slooooowly work my way through these albums. Of course, the closer I look at them, the fewer I'll want to sell. These are seminal, dude!
Not only LPs, though. When looking through my boxes and trunks full of old writing, I found lots of my own poems. Some are so bad I'd be embarrassed to let anyone else see them, but some are good enough to share, IMHO. And some of the rejects are providing useful fodder for my personal current poetry revival. I'll share a few with you in future posts.
Right now, I've got to get back to sorting through these LPs. Hard work, but somebody's gotta do it.
I'll bet some rap and hip-hop fans will be doing the same thing with their old recordings 30 or 40 years from now, feeling all nostalgic and wondering what their kids and grandkids can possibly enjoy in the music they will be listening to at the time. Oh, well, as we used to say, keep on keepin' on! And don't sell your old albums before checking them out again.

Listening to Jazz

Always makes me want to pick up the flute but the flute irritates and aggravates my tinnitus and so I can play only for short periods now. I pick up the flute and play a few notes, or play along with whatever is being played on Jim Bennett's show in KPFA-FM radio and then sit down and insert an ear plug in my right ear, the one that seems most to ring and whistle and shriek after too much loud noise, especially high-pitched noise. Lately I have had urges to drop all my other music pursuits, to drop the singing and the instruments I accompany myself with (guitar, ukulele, guitar-tuned plectrum banjo, autoharp) and go back to my second love, flute, which I began learning in 1969. It is still the instrument I play best and easiest of all simply because of the 15 years or so that I devoted to it and to no other form of music-making. However, to do that I must find effective earplugs, earplugs that cut the noise to a tolerable level yet allow me to hear the nuances of music. Guitar, of course, was my first love and as such still holds a prime position in my musical priorities even though I fear I will never really be all that fluent on it. I will not drop it in any event. Singing and playing guitar remains an essential part of my musical life. So, the search for perfect earplugs is on! Meanwhile, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Pelicans circle

Pelicans circle

© Bob Loomis 2007

Pelicans circle, fold their wings and plunge into the sea, pestered by gulls as they lunch on instant sushi. Dozens circle one spot where fish school . A surf fisherman aligns himself with the birds, hoping he’ll catch fish spinning off their orbit. As soon as he gets himself and his gear situated and casts his line out into the water, the entire mass of fish, pelicans and gulls shifts to a locus opposite where he was before he moved. He does not follow them.
More birds than people out today, yesterday’s sunbathers gone back to work, kids back to day care, weekend over, dogs home alone and barking at everything, bored and nervous till their masters return. One elderly couple strolls the strand and we lounge in our two-nights-for-the-price-of-one room, our 42^nd wedding anniversary celebration one week late. We are just 200 yards from where a week ago we scattered the ashes of Bev’s younger brother Thomas Byrd, dead suddenly at 62, and sheer coincidence that his widow chose this beach for the final ceremony. Too late to change our reservation, so here we are once more.
At dusk, we head off to dinner and when Bev goes back to the room to get something, a crazy woman approaches and tells me her life story standing on the sidewalk above the beach where Tom’s ashes were tossed. I reply with what we have learned from our own experiences with mental illness, hoping it will give her reason to follow up on treatment.
Bev rejoins me, and I say farewell and we go to eat our anniversary dinner at a nearby restaurant that was a gin mill in Prohibition’s heyday. It has its ghost, say employees, the ghost of the wife of a man who once drank and partied with her in these rooms. We do not see the ghost, who apparently prefers to appear or otherwise make her presence known after business hours. But we do see a fine sunset and have a fine dinner. Thus, another year of partnership is toasted. We look forward to more fulfillment and more ghosts of anniversaries past in the coming years. In fact, in this very evening.

Since no one reads this

I'll just post a few odds and ends occasionally to keep it alive. I am about to go sort books and CDs for a spring garage sale. Hope to see me there.

Just rediscovered this blog

After using another server's groups for this purpose when I became frustrated with the fact that anyone I invited to access my eBlog (created in 2004) had to register with eBlogger first. I'll send this just to see how things are working now that it's run by Google. Since this eBlog started, I've finished a rough draft of the first section of my autobiography and written quite a few (for me these days) haiku and other poems. Maybe I'll post some of it here if this is any easier to use than it used to be.