We did this today

It's birthday month for Kent and he's gotten excited about the idea of the climbing wall thing; a couple weeks ago he even showed me the website for the Berkeley Ironworks which is pretty new, I think. So we went today, a birthday present. We learned how to belay (that's what the guy on the ground does so if the climber falls he doesn't fall) and to climb (use your legs to push yourself up, not your hands to pull yourself up).

What next? Kent asks.

Indoor skydiving? I said.

andrew topel

That's one of the many images posted at Andrew Topel's vviissiioonnss blog. A great gallery.

It was neat having a Follower

but he turned out to be a spam blogger, so I had to block him.

fear and pain and anger

After the blow of the passage of Prop 8 on November 4th, writing on my blogs seemed frivolous. The Mormon Church had marched its jackboots into my garden and attacked my family, a deeply, purely personal attack intended to cause fear and pain. It did. It also brought a fierce flare of white anger. That also might have been intended, I don’t know. Likely they would prefer servile acquiescence, groveling and guilt-sticky. Anger can be dangerous.

I was going to write about poetry then? Books? I was going to write about my shopping or a migraine? I caught a flu shortly after the bad news came down and, yes, a migraine. The flu hung on, a longer loiter than any recent flu, even now a tension in my throat urges me to cough.

Timid mouse used to nibbling on wood pulp I’m not equipped with the confident claws of the cat. My imagination can be a tiger but I am no tiger. I have to think up mouse strategies.

comments on "Mom"

A portrait of Mom. Supposed to be simple and light. It amused her, I think.

Mom

Mom


63
she doesn’t jog
does walk briskly
swinging her arms
crunches over the gravel
by the RR tracks
talks about health
(raw fruits and vegetables)
beach, redwoods, state parks
sure she takes the easy walks
she has a slow stroll uphill
but she’s got a ruddy face from the sun
she hops, she bounces, jounces
on her home trampoline
she plays a banjo
doesn’t write poetry
but she sings

*

another poem from February 1985

another poem from February 1985

Car After Discovering That the Lights Have Been Left On


RUBRUBRUBRUBRUBRUBRUBRUB
phootitit

RUBRUBRUBRUBreedlereedlereedle
reedlereedlereedlerrumbrumhu—
boompoophititit…it…i

RUBRUBRUBRUBRUBreedlereedle
boomboomroom
BUBARUDDATOOOOMMMMMM
rumblerumblerumble
brrrr

*

another poem from February 1985
I’m not expecting any further versions of this one.

comments on two poems combined, version 2

I rearranged the lines. It struck me that most of the poem breaks into couplets – “I dry my hand again. Look, pie! / The crust will hold guests,” for example. I tried couplets as stanzas but after a couple readings decided the space was asking each couplet to stand on its own in a way they just wouldn’t do.

That coupleting is a sort of halfway place between the single-line statements of the first of the two source poems and the sentences that wind down through multiple lines in the second source poem. I prefer sinuousness in sentences; yet the stiffness of version 2 here appeals to me for its insistent strangeness. That line – “Ugh, that uncut handkerchief – yuck!” – has a particularly unnatural quality.

two poems combined, version 2

The handle comes unglued
while being dusted damply.
Starting to hear the window,
I draw spirals out of the glass’s ring.
In the lather over the dish dinge
the shape of my remaining hand.
Nothing in the cupboard looks like water
or like food, nothing on the counter adds up.
I dry my hand again. Look, pie!
The crust will hold guests.
In the easy chair in the living room
I press the guest book. Of five pens,
four are long gone.
The ceiling has done shadows,
the ice also a suggestion.
Weakness in fingers like flowers.
Haven’t eaten the evening black.
Went shopping hungry,
scrubbed kettles.
Sprouts and bread, peas and milk.
Ugh, that uncut handkerchief – yuck!
Small glass of water sipped slowly
to make it last until blue.

comments on two poems combined

OK. Here it is. You didn’t think those two poems could be combined?

Dave King in a comment said he preferred the second of those two, the one that starts, “I have no fingers like flowers.” I have to say that line is my favorite line. Yet in this version I’ve turned it around; rather than having “no fingers like flowers”, the fingers are “like flowers.” Kent told me he preferred the first of the two, the one that starts, “Weakness in limbs.”

two poems combined

Weakness in fingers like flowers.
Haven’t eaten the evening black.
Went shopping hungry,
scrubbed kettles.
Sprouts and bread, peas and milk.
Ugh, that uncut handkerchief – yuck!
Small glass of water sipped slowly
to make it last until blue.
The handle comes unglued
while being dusted damply.
Starting to hear the window,
I draw spirals out of the glass’s ring.
In the lather over the dish dinge
the shape of my remaining hand.
Nothing in the cupboard looks like water
or like food, nothing on the counter adds up.
I dry my hand again. Look, pie!
The crust will hold guests.
In the easy chair in the living room
I press the guest book. Of five pens,
four are long gone.
The ceiling has done shadows,
the ice just a suggestion.

comments on two poems

More poems from the 1985 notebook – I could spend the rest of my life there! The two poems have a similar look, don’t they? And a similar feel, though “Uneaten” attempts to be straight reportage while “I have no fingers like flowers” tries some imaginative flourishes.

I post them both here because I decided to combine them for the new version.

two poems

Uneaten


Weakness in limbs
Haven’t eaten yet at 4:40
went shopping hungry
sprouts and bread and peas and milk
drink a small glass of water
sipping slowly to make it more
starting to hear things
harsh breathing at the window
I draw wet spirals on the table in the glass’ ring
nothing in the cupboard looks like food
nothing in the icebox looks like food
pour another glass of water
leave it undrunk on the kitchen counter
sit in the easy chair in the living room
can’t read
nothing on TV
can’t close my eyes
can’t open my mouth
can do nothing but look at the ceiling
the ceiling empty of shadows


*


I have no fingers like flowers
and can’t imagine the evening as black as
unscrubbed kettles. I fry an egg.
I despise uncut handkerchiefs,
shaped clay unbaked
make a ceramic pot, glaze it blue
in years hardly used the handle comes unglued
while being dusted with a damp rag.
I dip my hand in dishwater,
the handprint still visible in the lather
not even the pie dough
has to be remarked upon
or the filling
I station myself at the door
with the guest book and five pens
which disappear in succession
I close the book gently
still reading the names.

-- 3/5/85

life in Berkeley

I'm sitting on the couch, a blanket over my legs, cat nestled between my shins. Listening to CDs. Moe Tucker's solo work is reminiscent of the Velvet Underground -- Tucker was their drummer so no surprise there. She even has a vocal delivery about like Lou Reed.

I've been fighting a flu. Had a fever dream night last night, which might or might not have been better than the night before -- at least I slept! Dreams too frequently were wrapped up with evil of Prop 8. Fighting, fighting.

We have Chinese food leftover from dinner last night. Will watch America's Next Top Model at eight.

YES TO LOVE, NO TO 8

Yes, this is a parody of YES ON PROP 8 commercials. I'm not going to link to their evil. But I think you can figure out their arguments from the parody version.

receipt

Mormons are bad people

All their marriages should be destroyed!

Poetry & Pizza video

I asked Kent to bring his digital camera to Poetry & Pizza last Friday, the camera that took the great whale movies, and use it to capture me reading a short poem or two. I'd intended to bring a tape recorder but forgot. I wish we had a nice digital audio recorder ...

So Kent set up and got some video of me telling people to settle down we're just about to start, then several exciting seconds of my back as I fiddled with the amp trying to rid it of that weird waah it often adds to the vocal. I'm the only one of our technologically challenged crew who has the courage to twist a few dials -- courage but little understanding.

Of the three short clips Kent captured before the camera decided it was full (no reason for it to be) the one of my announcing the readers (Glenn Ingersoll, Mel C. Thompson, and H.D. Moe) is the only one I'm going to post. No, there's no substance to it, but it's short.

Glenn Ingersoll at Poetry & Pizza

7:30pm Friday, October 3, 2008

GLENN INGERSOLL
H.D. MOE
MEL C. THOMPSON

POETRY & PIZZA meets the first Friday of each month
at Escape from New York Pizza, 333 Bush at Montgomery
(Montgomery BART or Sutter/Stockton Parking Garage)
in downtown San Francisco and offers free pizza to all comers.

http://popizza.white.prohosting.com
poetryandpizza@yahoo.com

Donations of $5 benefit an organization of the poets’ choice.
This reading benefits SAN FRANCISCO FREE CLINIC.

GLENN INGERSOLL’s poems have been seen in Exquisite Corpse, Prairie Schooner, and Snow Monkey, and online at 3rd Muse, Siren, and Tryst, work is forthcoming in Shampoo. He maintains two blogs, LoveSettlement and Dare I Read. Ingersoll lives in Berkeley and works for the Berkeley Public Library. He is one of the coordinators of Poetry & Pizza.

H. D. MOE is an experimental Poet/Philosopher, who has over 30 books published, including "Plug In The Electric Dictionary" - Community Press; "Muse News" - City Lights; "Bean Trip" - Canterbury Press; "Only A Cage Should Be In A Cage"- We Press; "Jazz Pajamas" - Mother's Hen Press; "Blackwidow Vitamins" - Coo-Coo Clock TV Press; "Wingéd Wows" is his latest book. Some of Moe’s Poems have been translated (an almost impossible adventure) into French, Portuguese & Russian.
For 13 years H.D. Moe published “Love Lights, The Erotic Poetry/Art Newspaper of San Francisco”. Currently, H.D. Moe edits "The Berkeley Review Of Books", and gives talks on women Philosophers at Humanist Hall in Oakland. He also coordinates the "Living Philosophers Forum" at The North Berkeley Senior Center in Berkeley. Be sure to check out his website: www.hdmoe.com

MEL C. THOMPSON was born in 1959 in Los Angeles County. He was raised in the suburbs of North Orange County, California. Thompson began as a songwriter but switched to poetry, then he moved to the Bay Area and founded Cyborg Productions, a well-known underground press of the early 1990s. His own work has been published in mainstream and small press magazines such as the SF Bay Guardian, The Chiron Review, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal and Lynx Eye.
Thompson’s civil rights work for free speech and his legal work for California workers has been noticed by USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, NPR Radio, Canadian Public Broadcasting and KRON Television. For a time he was a radio personality and musical performer on KMEL.

SAN FRANCISCO FREE CLINIC, 4900 California Street, provides comprehensive medical services at no charge. It is a training site for medical students and residents from programs throughout the country. The SF Free Clinic exists because over 150 physicians pool time, medications, supplies, equipment, and funds. Services include cancer and heart disease screening, diabetes care, childhood and adult vaccinations, and family planning and contraceptive counseling.

Pizza is Free, Poetry is Priceless

Sarah Palin

That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.