March Entry: The Old Singer

Not much in the way of poetic inspiration this month ... but I'll offer this small token:

Stumbling in midtune
the old singer turns miscue
into joke ...
frets about it afterward
talking with the band ...

(c) Bob Loomis, 2011

February Post (Late Again)

We're on the road on our annual trip to visit friends near Olympia, attend the Wintergrass Festival in Bellevue, WA, and do a week of R&R in Cannon Beach, OR, so of course I forgot to post for February before the month was up. Herewith a better-late-than-never poem:

Now sweet young things
look right through me
on rapid transit --
where's the stop
for the Fountain of Youth?

(c) Bob Loomis, 02-02-2011

January Post: Whatever Happens, Happens

I wrote this in reply to a poem by Jennifer Simon on The Well (kind of a thinking person's Facebook). You can view the whole thread, if you are a Well subscriber, by going to the topic More Work: Poems by Conference Members in the Poetry conference and starting with entry 573. Here's my part of what was a roundabout discussion in poetry:

Whatever Happens, Happens

Ah, yes, that was our band's motto
& as The Geezers we more or less continued it
even after band co-founder and
major mainspring Mike Robertson
died, claimed by some sort of cancer
wrapped around his lower trachea
in a way that prevented treatment.

We watched him waste away,
he who already had beaten throat cancer
several years before
and had at last found his new mate,
and I sometimes think
of the oddness of our motto
in light of that latest whatever.
None of us wanted to accept it,
especially him.

But the music plays on,
we dance the dance
and pay and/or play the piper
each in his own way,
still hoping, even as the road sign
"Dotage Ahead" becomes legible,
that no matter what,
we can put off that last whatever
forever.

(c) 2011, Bob Loomis

December's Posting ... A Bit Late

Even with the most painful loss of our daughter Shannon and resulting emotional and material upheavals, 2010 has been a year that included many blessings. We’ve been able to help our two grandsons cope with their tragic loss. I’ve gotten to take some memorable trips with Beverly and friends and look forward to our annual trip to the Wintergrass Festival at the end of February. I’ve been able to begin playing mandolin again, so far without the left-hand tendon problems of the past. I’ve written a few new songs, and had some success and good feedback at West Coast Songwriters competitions and other open mics. I look forward to 2011. May it be a year of good health and happy, creative experiences for everyone.

Christmas Day --
rain by buckets
on bare trees

(c) Bob Loomis, December 2010

Thanks for the Future

I sort old photos
and memories,
our oldest grandson fills out
his college app ...
his younger brother
practices for his band's
appearance at the high school.
Life plays and dances
to its own rhythms.
We watch
and sometimes play and dance, too,
glad to have had the chance.
We thank the Great Spirit
for this perfect day.
Let us walk in beauty
all the way.

Halloween Haiku (October Post)

Halloween
memories haunted
by our daughter

tears but no fears
this Halloween ... grim reaper
called way early

Halloween
her orange and black wall hanging
suits the night

day of dead saints
we remember
how she loved Halloween

Here and there
around the house, her gifts
bequeath her love

(c) Bob Loomis, 10-31-2010
Concord CA USA

Late Again! The September Post

Just since this morning
the laundry basket
lined with autumn leaves ...

Bob Loomis
09-30-2010

Running Again, Sort Of

Note: I'm a bit late with my August post, but here it is.

I am running again, running from grief, running from sorrow. running not as I did when I was 40 and running 10-mile workouts at 8 minutes per mile, but jogging short intervals, a tenth of a mile in between walking intervals: 200 left-foot walking steps to warm up, then alternating 100 jogging and 100 walking steps out the trail a mile and then back in with 200 walking steps at the end to cool down.

Occasionally, I see wildlife: Many coyotes over the years, recently one carrying a ground squirrel in his mouth and loping leisurely along, scarcely glancing my way as he slipped into the woods. I see many hawks, usually redtails, and never tire of them. Cottontails, red squirrels, peregrines, quail, lizards, and the other day we saw the most beautiful rattler we’ve ever seen, iridescent. He must have just shed his old skin. I almost stepped on him but leaped four feet to the side in midstride when I heard his dry whirrrrrr! For that brief instant his presence restored the alacrity of youth! We faced each other then he turned and slid into the tall grass, tail still whirring, waving farewell as we thanked him for the warning.

The hills are dry and yellow-brown as September’s song commences. I still think of Shannon but already sadness is … well, not receding, but now arrives accompanied by resignation each time it hits. What is, is and cannot be changed. As Dodo Miller always said and sang, “Life goes on.” She was correct, of course.

So I run again, recalling how I ran in younger days, when I ran to escape responsibility, to flee the pressures of job, of the fathering and husbanding I really didn’t know how to do. I am now I hope a much better grandfather than I was a father. Either way, I run out, but always return, wondering how many more years I’ll be granted this gift.

The gift of running has been passed along, apparently. Cameron, our eldest grandson, has joined the ranks of runners, perhaps also running from his grief, but also because he wants to. He’s gone out for the high school's new cross-country team. That makes me happy: to see another in my line lace up the shoes and fire up the endorphins. May he find as much joy in it as I did and do still in my somewhat feeble way.

Sometimes I dream of running. I am jogging along some familiar street and my stride becomes longer and longer and stronger and stronger until each step is an almost flying and I am bounding past the other runners, and taking even longer strides that are now almost flying! Then, just as I begin to soar away into the sky, I wake up, back to earth again.

Life goes on. The earth repeats her cycles, making necessary adjustments, recovering from disasters, ignoring the sorrows and joys of humans, but also providing comfort in her wild beauty and the possibility of fulfillment. Shannon’s run has ended. Ours goes on. May we meet at the finish.

Song for Shannon

On June 20, 2010, our lovely daughter Shannon Christine Loomis, 43, took her own life. It was a tragic end to an eight-year struggle with bipolar disorder. Her obituary, with a link to a guestbook, is here:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/contracostatimes/obituary.aspx?n=shannon-christine-loomis&pid=143894026

I am working on a poem in her memory, a short section of which is this month's post:

I

After her death,
Her cat waits at the front door
meowing.
We sit staring,
Still expecting to hear
Her footsteps on the stairs.

Among her papers
The eulogy she wrote
For her cat, Godzilla.
He sat on the tub’s edge
During her darkest times
Keeping her alive.

This cool morning breeze
She will no longer feel.
Summer and the other seasons
Roll on without her,
Now we must do the same
Though it breaks our hearts.

Our daughter, gone.
We hold in our hearts
The memories
Of her best times,
The love she shared
So willingly with others
In their need,
The gift she had
For nurturing friends
And children.

The morning breeze
stirs the red oak leaves
whispering her name.
She cannot answer.

Song 48 for Beverly Loomis

On the occasion of our 48th wedding anniversary:
By Bob Loomis

We had no intention
Of lasting this long.
Back then life was simple:
Some laughter, some song.

But now here we are
After 48 years,
No known end in sight
But the one we fear.

Yes, we still laugh,
We still love and sing
Though lately our dance
Has somewhat less spring.

We still smile a lot
And love the old songs
Of life’s music track
As we journey along.

There’s not much to say
After I love you’s said
But we know we’d start over
If we could carry the sled

Up the hill for one more run
Down the slippery slope
(We know that won’t happen
But we can hope).

So just take my hand
And sit in the back yard
And know it’s been worth it
No matter how hard.

Look into my eyes
And share this one truth:
In love we’ve been lucky,
Thank the gods & forsooth!

-- For Beverly with love,
(c)06-20-2010

May Poem: Till Strips of Cactus

Work continues on Homage to Kurt Schwitters, so this month I'm posting another poem from that work in progress:

Till strips of cactus cover muted sobbing of coroners’ deputies with medicinal spines … till lost faces give love to celluloid mummies … till end of thyme & rhyme … till Everest crumbles atop Dutch apple pie … till solons act to empower idealistic surgeons … till collectors of tardy, tawdry minutae find hollow logs for shelter … till woman with obsolete grocery cart finds discarded hamburger wrapped in 14k gold foil … till we recover all lost words in found forgotten manuscripts written with Lindy ballpoint pens in ancient tongues … till Moses lets Red Sea depart … till Sahara goes green again … till Mommy tells last of red-hot Daddies to cavort with fire engines & beer-belly bailiffs … till final triumph of Reason heralds New Age of gropeless sex … till bank bandits stop wearing pantyhose masks … till remains of the day are laid to rest in temporary vault of night … till we run out of elliptical romances whispered only in purple undersea grottoes … till music goes round and round and comes out here … till Kerouac blesses consensual iambic pentameter in Latinate murmurings … till then, my friend, till then & then some …

© Bob Loomis
01-22-2010

April Poem Posting: The Top 500 Poets List

The Top 500 Poets list
awaits mouse or muse,
not sure which …
Is my mouse
my muse?
Does my mouse
in da house
inspire me
or does my spouse?
Does my mouse
in da house
make my poems click?
And then there are
the Classic Poets
all waiting
at the corner of
Hubris and Pride …
or is it the corner
of Rhyme and Meter?
Or Words and Wisdom?
Or simply a tiny back alley
in the guidebook
of literary history?
Rhetorical questions
posed on a rainy Tuesday
when neither mouse
nor muse seem interested
in doing much
more than this.

(c) Bob Loomis
04-30-2010

March Pome 2010

This month's poem is a hay(na)ku, a three-line verse form in which 1, 2 and 3 words are used in succeeding lines. Google the term and you'll find Web sites on the topic. The poem:

Wind,
Light from
The east and

Foliage
On the oaks
Has overnight become

Thick
Enough to
Block the view

From
Second story
Resort condo window

But
Not the
Roar of motorcycles

On
Their spring
Gold country runs

Nor
Happy cries
Of children playing

In
The dry
Wash below the

Balcony:
“Mom! I
Caught a lizard!”

We
Sip coffee
Above it all

Remembering
The time
Just last year

When
We stayed
Here with the

Kids
And grandkids
For Geezerpalooza Eleven

Our
Annual music
And potluck gathering

Revived
After a
Three-year hiatus.

Now
The condo
Seems somewhat empty

Without
The company
Of our descendants.

But
It’s nice
To have some

Time
Alone together
Too, nice to

Be
Here while
It’s quieter than

It
Was in
Late summer 2009.

Nice
To be
Here, be alive

Together
After all
These many years

Though
In retrospect
It hardly seems

Long
Enough even
After four decades.

We
Give thanks
For being allowed

To
See another
Spring in Twain’s

Celebrated
Jumping Frog
Mother Lode country …

Treasure
Indeed beyond
Measure and not

Hidden
After all!

(c) Bob Loomis
03-29-2010

February Poem: Untitled

We're off to WA and Wintergrass on Saturday and have a busy prep week ahead, so I'll make this poem inspired by some of Ron Padgett's work my February entry here:

Untitled
© Bob Loomis, 02-05-2010

I sit in the new
Many-windowed bump-out

Having morning
Coffee and

Watching the red oak tree
Slowly and proudly strut

Across the
back yard

So slowly
It appears not

To be moving
At all

But with such
Stateliness

That I know
It must be traveling

At least
25,000 mph!

Then the neighbor
Lets out his three

Big dumb
German shepherds

And they
Begin to fill

Their day’s
Barking quota:

BARK! BARK! BARK!
BARK! BARK! BARK!
BARK! BARK! BARK!

And so on
And on

And on
And on.

And I try
To learn from

The tree,
Which pays

No attention
To the noise

And in fact
Appears not to

Hear the dogs
At all.

Yes, I think,
Sipping my coffee,

I will be
Like the tree.

I will not
Go next door

With a
Large-caliber rifle

And put a final
End to the barking.

I just wish
The dogs

Would bark
More like our tree.

Happy New Year, Etc.

Last year around this time I decided to try to write a poem a day, no matter what. Like most of my resolves, this one soon dissolved. Nonetheless, I'll post one of my January 2009 efforts and one piece of word collage work done this month as my first 2010 blog entry:

Frost on the cars,
Sun rising over it all –
Diamond sutra!

(c) Bob Loomis
01-03-2009
Concord, 39 degrees, 8:15 a.m.

---

Happy New Year Collage

Happy New Year from dilapidated back hoes digging wiggy wainscoting … gentle drizzle raining kindness on beds of phlox … Ima Sumac singing “Poison Ivy” to nude, gasping matrons in enemy-of-the-state-of-the-art prison cell jodhpurs … forgotten Charles Manson admiring jihadeen bombers … BBQ’d bare black rock awaiting picnic-table diners … man spewing venom dressed in holy raiment … lovers leaping into marriage eyes wide with hope … newborn children asking forgiveness for joblessness … young people enlisting in armies to earn death benefits … old English lit professor snorting lines of verse off mirror of eternity … pulses quickening at Verdant Boulevard & Green Street … wisdom planted in center dividers out of reach of long arms of the lawless … exaggerated silence after last night’s riotous cacophony … shredded confetti remains of improvised party explosive devices scattered all around … another calendar year heralded by childish bedlam … stealthy bulldozers clear onramps to virgin freeways … Pope blesses everyone, blesses plastic statuettes of himself on dashboards of obsolete roadsters … acolytes entice foxy ladies to surrender furs for new papal capes … roving gamblers throw switches on new AC/DC solar energy stations … set purple curtains afire each night in ghostly opera houses … put frankincense & myrrh back in yule decoration box in chronological order while choirs clangorously sing new ironclad resolutions … disembodied spirits wish everyone a corporeal new year in shape-note tones … tax attorneys advise gathering rosebuds while ye may … experts warn of thorns lurking in fine stems …

© Bob Loomis
01-06-2010

Word Collage/Homage to Bob Kaufman

For my last post of the year, I’ve collected one old piece of writing and one new one. The first I dedicate to Dorothy (Dodo) Miller, who died last month at age 92. She was a true friend and source of light and good spirits. Her grand smile and always lovely greeting remains fixed in my memory.

This first piece was a word collage that I wrote somewhere around 1970, by taking books randomly off a shelf and opening and choosing random phrases from them, one after another. I had in mind the work of Kurt Schwitters, whose collages I’d seen at the old San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the cut-up writings of William S. Burroughs along with the cubist period of modern art. I’ll let you decide whether it works:

Collage 1

That morning’s ice, no more than a brittle film, had cracked and was floating on an updraft of politics … summer hot air as it were … slowly melting like open admiration over the countenance of Wright Diehl, the man who a dozen times in the past had explained events as the outcome of character or intentions, the personal defeat of this or that statesman … or the boom of water in the rising gorge.

Now he sat stringing himself out endlessly into the hazy noonday sunshine … Nearby Moira Mayheekana, gifted with sound, obstinate, practical common sense, swayed mischievously in the evanescent wind, sand and stars … standing out against the edge of day while their son Form shrieked joyfully in his winding sheet.

At nightfall … with the hoarse clamor of a dreamboat steamboat barking out at sea guiding myriads of tiny flames across the ocean … came an odor of parrots, cockatoos and art dealers wafting across the hours to his ears with memories of a curious sense of relief.

“That fellow I knocked down was her brother,” he recalled absently, presently gazing at the subject. “Mine, too.”

He laughed then, a golden necklace of laughter links from his throat cast out into the gracious evening breeze like blown kisses, lusty in the true style of the old court.

“Till we have faces! Till we have faces!” he called, stooping to pick up a fallen sparrow at his feet … amazed to find it was only his shoe that had come off.

(c) Bob Loomis
---

This second piece is one I improv’d yesterday at the dentist’s office & completed this morning after earlier rereading some of Bob Kaufman’s Cranial Guitar. I dedicate it to his memory:

Homage to Bob Kaufman

used to actually SEE you pass on the street, usually Grant Avenue or in the Coffee Gallery drinking beer … listening to Young Rabbits by the Jazz Crusaders on the jukebox … drinking a beer or two … in sainted serape & tilted hat … not talking in those days … not declaiming the Abomunist Manifesto … eyes silent, too, & dark … waiting for wars to end … for legal state murders to end … waiting for God to admit his malfeasance, admit mistaken identity … give refunds on all unsatisfactorily answered prayers … return all to sinlessness …

waiting for top intellectual guns to stop misfiring … stop contracting out services to the highest bidders … waiting for everyone to learn via TV how to be gourmet chefs … cook up something grand & epiphanal … holy wafers to surpass all holy wafers … a more erudite poetry spun like fine webs of music from saxophones of jazz deities … Howard Hesseman behind the bar waiting wryly for his career to take off … thinking he’d use you in TV series … you’d be the weird guy down the street babbling sermons & host of late-night jazz show no one listens to … together you’d make avante-garde movies in between walks up & down Columbus Avenue & Broadway and upper Grant & all North Beach … & the universe ...

& back to tiny flat and wife & son & happy marriage of mind and soul … a marital heaven … or hell … or both … sinuosities of fleshy connections … check coordinates please, get location …

lunch break over, back to work, everybody has a job that’s disappeared from the Blueknighted States … everybody’s work gone to Asia … all Asia seeking bliss in factory production & export business … nobody left here with money to buy anything … except Big Boys … & god bless the child that’s got his own …

Bob Kaufman same initials as Burger King … BK the burgeria did not exist back in the day … Tic Toc Burgers up on Columbus … good place to score a bite to eat in wee hours … no worries then about cow methane & global warming … chow down in ignorant bliss ... or go get good glass of port at San Remo bar … long-gone now, all … replaced by Burger King et all … flipping gaseous patties … try the 99-cent value meal! ... as cheap & filling as Tic Toc … righteous manna from pole-axed cattle …

BK the poet unknown to me then ... mysterious cat in hat & serap' … I in callow marshmallow youth … now tops my Beatnik Hall of Fame list … spouted verse extemporaneously, then suddenly shut up … vow of silence till ‘Nam war’s end … now silent forever except in libraries … schools? … memories … books still available City Lights … maybe even Amazon dot com … maybe even China? … perhaps reincarnated as capitalistic purchaser of politicians? … lobbyist for Big Bucks & chemically fed beeves? … no! never! … no soul or stomach for sale here … no fast-food poesies … no drive-thru poetry … no metered verbal value meal … no cheap shots …

just two dark eyes brooding over glutenless breakfast ricecake muffin … humming modal songs from beyond … ghost-walking North Beach streets in search of boho hearts ... finding trendy wifi bars, cafes … adios, mofo! … keep stroking Cranial Guitar … keep serenading generations to come …

© Bob Loomis, 12-11-2009

Happy Holidays to all!

NOVEMBER NOTEBOOK GLEANINGS

I see I've almost let November slip past without a monthly post, so here 'tis:

Just this morning
it started -- brown and red leaves
drifting down
and the sun hiding out
behind distant hills.

Big full moon
up before dark
eager to be seen.

Put out
at his usual time
the neighbor's dog yips loneliness.

Quiet morning--
the autumn time change
has spread a hush
over everything.

Why now
after all these years
does her face
still appear in a dream
to haunt me?
Memory's so tricky.
Who knows if
that version's even close?

I scribble on,
still searching
for the key
to the door
of the wordmusic room.

Autumn leaves
relax out of the wind
in the wicker deck chair.

Our band Awed Ducks played its first coffeehouse gig in almost two
years on a recent Friday. Almost no one showed up, but I did find
these poems in it:

Cold evening --
three coffeehouse musicians
serenade rows of empty chairs.

Coffeehouse trio
almost as numerous
as their audience.
Outside, warm yellow
streetlights
belie winter's chill.

First night of winter
almost no one
in the trendy
plaza cafes.
At the outdoor tables
one guy sits smoking.

A small audience.
Afterwards, the manager
is gently evasive
about future gigs.

Almost no one there
but one guy
about our age
stays through
the entire show,
applauding each song.



(c) Bob Loomis, 11-27-2009

Halloween Treat

Against autumn’s golds And browns,
A sudden, almost
Psychedelic
Purple-blue:
One jaybird on the trail.

Plop, plop! …
Plop … plop … plop!
From this one old oak
An acorn shower!
Browsing on the Summer-sere hillside,
The first turkeys
Since spring.

Time-change weekend,
We’ll regain an hour.
Start it with
A cup of coffee.
Too dark at 7 a.m.
To view the
Lovely garden.
Not even a single Neighbor up
This early on Saturday.

Strip of paper
Used as bookmark
In tanka collection
Bears one printed word:
“Untitled.”

So desperate
For a poem
This morning
That I use
Anything that
Comes to hand!
But nothing good
Comes to mind.

Suddenly I think
Of Dutch poet
Anselm Hollo –
Without discussing
The quality of his work
(Which is very
Good, IMHO),
What a great name
For a poet!

Stacks
Of vacant thoughts
This Halloween morn.
No mask needed now
I come costumed
As Old Man.
OK, then!
TRICK OR TREAT!

Hated Halloween
As a kid.
Never had the money
For a decent
Costume
And no one
In my family
Passed along the gift
Of invention.

Even that one year
When I got that
Great rubber skull mask
I hated how hot
It was to wear
And how it
Made my glasses
Steamy. No
Chill of grave there!

I was always glad
When we were done
Trick-or-treating.
Didn’t like candy
All that much
Except for
The bittersweet,
Dark chocolate.

(Don’t tell
My grandsons
About all this –
They love Halloween
And I never
Wanted to spoil
Anyone’s fun.)

Thinking on it,
I always hated
Mysteries and
Scary movies.
Something in me
Made (makes?) life
Itself mysterious &
Scary enough –
I need no further
TERROR.

Must have been
A combination of
My gentle genetic bent
And my mother’s
Constant paranoia
(In her defense,
It was fed
By her generation’s
Pre-sulfa-drug,
Great Depression
Era) about
Almost everything.
She always
Kept the shades drawn
Even on the most
Beautiful days,
And would caution all
To be on the
Lookout for
“Bad Guys”
(The chief of whom,
In her mind,
Was my father).

The click … click … click
Of the battery-powered
Clock on the mantel
Sounds almost like
The old key-wound clocks of childhood.

Nothing to be done
After all this
Time
But write it
All down
In ersatz verse,
A lovely way
To help pass the
Remaining days,
Or, more accurately,
The mornings.

Used to love to write
Late at night
When dark thoughts
Crowded in,
Or weed-fueled
Silliness.
Now, my mind
Works best
(& none too
Quickly at that!)
In morning’s natural
Sunshine mode.

Even the friendliest
Cat looks wary
& disturbed
If addressed
While eating.

I’m writing with
My new harmonica pen
That was one of two
That were gifts
Along with
My Harrison Harmonicas
Company coffee cup
For buying
One of their
Custom instruments.
I canceled my order
And got a refund
But they’d already
Sent the rewards
For ordering, so
Just told me to keep
The cup. They
Didn’t mention pens.
They gave me
The refund and
I didn’t find
The pens till
I was about
To use the box
To mail something else.
Ah, life’s
Unexpected blessings!

Now how to pay
My monstrous
Credit-card debt?
The refund
From the harp purchase
Won’t do it.

Must sell
EVERYTHING!
Get out of debt!
Or win the lottery
(Almost typed
“loitery …”
I’ve already
Mastered that)

Fat chance!

Saturday, October 31, 2009:
(c) Robert Loomis

CONCRETE SEASONS, A Collection of Urban Tanka

Decades ago, a number of my haiku were published in journals such as Modern Haiku and Dragonfly. As time passed, I wrote fewer and fewer poems and stopped submitting them for publication. Since retiring in 2001, I've slowly returned to poetry. This brief book, Concrete Seasons, A Collection of Urban Tanka, is the first result, completed in 2005. With a few revisions and deletions, I have collected them in August 2009 for this blog.

Like haiku, tanka is a Japanese poetry form. I originally was inspired to try it by the books and quarterlies of Jane and Werner Reichhold's Aha Press and since then have pursued it via the Web and publications such as Ribbons, Modern English Tanka and translations such as those by Kenneth Rexroth and Jane Hirshfield.

Traditional tanka generally were love poems. Modern tanka take many different directions. Concrete Seasons is basically my personal poetry recycling project. I took a number of old urban haiku I had written and found unsatisfactory and reshaped them, usually by combining two or more, into the tanka form. In Japanese traditional tanka that form is five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Modern tanka in English are more fluid, but the five-line protocol is usually followed. Because of the humorous content, some of these might be classified as kyoka rather than tanka.

Since these were originally haiku, they are more seasonally based than tanka might normally be. I have divided them into spring, summer, autumn and winter sections.

I hope the reader enjoys them. I dedicate this book to my wife Beverly, whose birthday it is today.

(c) Bob Loomis, Concord, CA, USA, 08-31-2009

---

SPRING

This morning's rainbow
ends at the shopping center bank
but the only gold
available to us there
is our own earnings.


Two sparrows
hunt for tidbits
near the laundromat door.
Inside, a young couple
nag at each other.


The first warm day
but the bus driver
has the heater on.
Our ride becomes
a mobile sauna.


Another spring --
in the office planters
weeds sprout,
pigeons strut and coo
on the window ledges.


The light turns green
and a single blackbird
strolls across.
Two teenagers
hurry toward the mini-mart.


Even where traffic
spews exhaust all day
purple lupin flourishes.
Drivers speed past,
intent on their destinations.


In Monday morning's
sea of sidewalk faces
just one smiles back
highlighted by the sun
above the skyscrapers.


Nothing to throw
so he yells "HEY YOU!"
but the squalling tomcats
remain oblivious,
backs arched, eyes locked.


SUMMER

Late dinner out --
the youngest child
slumps, eyelids drooping,
too tired now to complain
of being hungry.


Crouching,
but not flying
from the traffic --
a city pigeon
hunts for scraps.


Bobbing carefree
in the freeway fast lane:
an orange balloon.
An aluminum ladder
clatters off a speeding truck.


At the toddler's squall,
the street mime flees
in whitefaced alarm.
Lunchtime diners
relish the drama.


Behind the front seat
the remains of last night's fun:
empty beer cans.
The car is heavy
with the odor of regret.


The slain woman's houseplants
draw admiring comments
from one detective.
Even her housedress
has a flower pattern.


Headlights at high noon --
a funeral procession
stuck in traffic.
On a bus stop bench
a young couple smooches.


Late summer sunset --
in the parking lot
children play ball.
BART train riders stare,
recalling such days.


Her truck overheated
she stops at the hillcrest
to pick wild berries
while commute traffic
creeps past.


AUTUMN

His happy pooch
crosses the finish line
ahead of the road runner.
Both hurry
to the water fountain.


Early autumn night
too hot for covers,
too cold without them.
She gets up
to change nightgowns.


Autumn's gusts
quickly fashion
new hairdos!
A child's homework
blows along the street.


Autumn night:
the rustling tree leaves
flicker the neighbor's light.
Somewhere nearby
a window slams shut.


Bamboo windchimes
clatter in the storm.
The wind even tries
to snatch the wool watchcap
off my head!


Blue eyes wide
baby reaches
for the windchimes,
then pauses to look at Mommy
for reassurance.


Batiks billow
and paintings topple
at the fall crafts fair.
Even Mother Nature
is a critic!


Taking off
in close formation
at the airport:
a flock of ducks
heading south.


WINTER

The first chilly night --
the children come in early
from their street games.
On the stove
the kettle whistles.


A brown rain hat
skitters down the street
faster than the traffic,
not even pausing
for the red light.


A shopping cart
abandoned
in a vacant lot,
one empty plastic bag
in the basket.


Even at noon
every park bench empty.
This gray day
the pigeons also
look forlorn.


Midwinter wind
but two street ladies
wear miniskirts.
Hunched forward, they walk fast
hugging themselves.


On the wet street
spots of oil and grease
take on rainbow hues.
Freeway traffic
floats on fine spray.


Black ants
enjoying the day
after Thanksgiving
dining luxuriously
on leftovers.

ON THE PEAKS WITH GARY SNYDER

I have been reading the Desolation Blues section of Jack Kerouac's Book of Blues. I was inspired to it by Poets on the Peaks, an excellent book by John Suiter, whose text is augmented by his excellent photos.

Suiter recounts the experiences of beat poets Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and others on fire lookouts and examines how their time in isolation on the peaks of the Cascades affected them and their writing. It resonates for me especially because of the summer I spent at age 15 on Poison Rock Lookout in Mendocino National Forest and because the Beat poets were my gateway into poetry some years later as an adult.

Kerouac's writing has always been a love/hate thing for me (and for many others). He is capable of some of the most poetic writing of his generation, yet spends much time wallowing in the dark side of life. This aspect seems to worsen as he ages and sinks into his alcohol addiction. Yet in his later writing, he was capable of producing Pic, a book that manages to reach outside his own self-absorption. I would say his best books are Tristessa and The Subterraneans. They are concise and poetic. Desolation Angels and Dharma Bums are also favorites and it was the first one I read, On The Road, that sent me north to San Francisco at age 22, searching for signs of beatnik life and intent upon wriing the Great American Novel. Of that effort only a bulky and verbose first few chapters survive in a trunk in our storage shed. I ultimately came to most relish shorter poetry forms, especially haiku. Kerouac has some wonderful haiku in his Book of Haikus. A sample:

Brighter than the night
my barn roof
of snow

Kerouac was superseded for me by, first, Whalen, whose Every Day Poems I thought was a masterpiece back when I was 25 or so. I would come home each night after work at the Vallejo Times-Herald and read and write in my small studio at the back of our house at 185 West J Street in Benicia, CA. I loved Whalen's humor and still do. Ultimately, though, his writing is so erudite and filled with classical references that he loses me much of the time. An excellent essay by poet Tom Clark on one of his books, Overtime, is here, with a sample of Whalen's work at the end:
http://jacketmagazine.com/07/whalen-clark.html

In the final analysis, Snyder is to me the best of the so-called Beat writers. He has continued to evolve and mature throughout his life and has been a leader in environmental awareness. His poetry to me is the best there is in our day and age, much akin to the great Chinese and Japanese poets and in its worldview to native peoples everywhere. A short sample:

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
-- Gary Snyder

Whalen died a roshi, a Zen Buddhist priest in San Francisco. Kerouac died of internal hemorrhaging after a beating by two men at a bar in Florida, having long since abandoned his pursuit of the dharma. Snyder lives on at his home near Nevada City, CA, still writing, still espousing and practicing green living. He of all of them seems to have retained that awareness that springs from spending time in the mountains, on the high peaks. He is able to communicate that awareness and knowledge with as much humanity and wisdom as any American poet I know.

Among his books, not necessarily in chronological order:
Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems
Mountains and Rivers Without End
Earth House Hold
Axe Handles
Turtle Island
No Nature
A Place in Space
Danger on Peaks

A good anthology of his work:
Left Out in The Rain, New Poems 1947-1985

An online selection of his work:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/s_z/snyder/onlinepoems.htm

Many thanks for the great work, Gary Snyder.