poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
the stars in Grand Central
the stars in Grand Central
are reversed on the ceiling
as if painted by aliens
from a distant galaxy
or by the hand
of an omnipotent God
or, more likely, by painters
who set the star map on the floor
rather than holding it above
their heads as intended
Grand Central is for traveling
to the Hudson Valley, to Connecticut
without meaning to, the painters
added another destination
millions of miles away
25 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
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Eli on fire
the back of the room was so dark
I couldn’t see my hands
but I could see his hands clearly
holding that silvery trumpet
a cloud of mist around the mouthpiece
the bell burning under the lights
and Eli, still as stone
and every bit as strong
calling down the walls of Jericho
in a basement under the West Village
24 January 2013
Auburn, AL
variations [(variations) variations]
I don’t understand
(I’m listening)
I like the empty spaces
I imagine Glenn Gould
I remember the night
on the floor (with Bill Evans)
feeling like Buddha
I’m searching for the morning star
in the surface of the lake
23 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
The version above is the third version of this poem. Here’s the second:
variations (variations)
I don’t understand what I’m listening to
but I like the way it fills the empty spaces
I imagine Glenn Gould hunched over the piano
recording take after take
I remember the night I finally got Bill Evans —
sitting on the floor of my studio apartment
in Tucson, listening to Sunday At The Village Vanguard
and feeling like Buddha on seeing the morning star
I’m searching for that same enlightenment
with the Goldberg variations
but so far the essence of the music eludes me
leaving me with glimpses of the surface of the lake
but never the depths of the water
23 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
Josh Rutner wrote a variation on this poem called “Two Song.” You’ll find it at joshrutner.com.
This is my second try with this poem today. Here’s the first version:
variations
I don’t understand what I’m listening to
but I like the way it fills the empty spaces
(Glenn Gould is hunched over the piano
recording take after take until the perfect
piece is born, delivered into the world with
a minimum of fuss but a lifetime of preparation)
I went through a phase where I was collecting
classical music, guided by a book I bought
I drove to work with symphonies and concerti
crashing or floating from my car speakers
(Glenn Gould and Bill Evans are, to me,
two sides of a coin, one interpreting, one
improvising, both somewhat odd geniuses,
to whom no one ever truly got close)
I listened to hundreds of hours of music
and certainly found a lot to love
(I remember the night I finally got Bill Evans —
I was sitting on the floor of my studio apartment
in Tucson, listening to Sunday At The Village Vanguard
and feeling like Buddha on seeing the morning star)
but like so much of my life, I think the essence
of the music eluded me, leaving me
with glimpses of the surface of the lake
but never the depths of the water
yet here I am again, Goldberg Variations
in the air around me as I search for answers
23 January 2013
Auburn, AL
What to do at Schalmont
(when there’s nowhere to go for lunch)
On my lunch breaks I would sit
in a graveyard, reading aloud
the poems of Robert Burns in
what, to me, was a fair Scottish
accent. If this behavior struck
the dearly departed as odd,
they never said, which was
kind of them.
22 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
The image above is of the mausoleum at St. Cyril & Method Cemetery, which is the cemetery referred to in this poem. (Photo source.)
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MLK Day
all these feet and fingers and hearts and brains
all these lungs and muscles and nerves and veins
all in the service of the greater good
in these times, making art is a revolutionary act
beauty is a power that can vanquish despair
“this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender”
if a banjo can change the course of history
imagine what all of us together could do
building a new world, one street corner at a time
21 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
PHOTO: Poets and others gather on Toomers Corner on MLK Day. [Photo by Brennen Reece]
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apples and peanut butter
(for Sally T)
a Braeburn sits on the tabletop
it’s destined for your ever-present backpack
nestled between your Macbook and
a new jar of Santa Cruz peanut butter
(I haven’t seen inside your backpack
but that’s what I imagine is in there)
Braeburn and Mutzu and Winesap
are words in foreign tongues to me
I’ve never tasted any of them
(to be honest, I’ve probably eaten
two apples in my entire life —
I didn’t come from a fruit family)
you make me want to eat more apples
not in a Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt way
but in the way the best people make me
want to explore new bits of my surroundings
peek around corners I didn’t realize were there
to find streets full of apple carts
20 January 2013
Auburn, AL
clothing
I have a painting of myself, half-naked
hanging on the living room wall
at times, a fully naked version
walks around the rooms upstairs
but even when I’m wearing my clothes
most of my vulnerable bits are exposed
19 January 2013
Auburn, AL
The Norphan
I remember when the Norphan first came to stay.
None of us had ever seen a Norphan before.
Mr. Mondegreen suggested that we put it out,
but we didn’t. It was so small and helpless.
Instead we set it in a warm bath, where
it played happily while listening to
The Velvet Underground & Nico
on a small turntable placed atop the toilet.
Not knowing its language, we had to
communicate via hand signals and smiles.
Over time we discovered it liked broccoli
but not lima beans. (And who could blame it?)
On sunny days, the Norphan would sit in the yard
watching the butterflies flutter by as it sang
“Heroin” or “All Tomorrow’s Parties” —
without the words, of course. Just a high,
flutelike voice beautifully recreating the melodies.
Then one Tuesday morning, ’round about nine,
Mr. Mondegreen came in from the yard to say
that the Norphan was gone. Where it had been
sitting on the lawn there was a single yellow flower
of a kind none of us recognized. I thought I heard
the strains of “I’m Waiting For The Man” coming
from over the hill, but Mr. Mondegreen said
I was hearing with my heart, not my ears.
We never saw the Norphan again.
18 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
I can’t remember ever writing a poem like this. The phrase “a Norphan” is a mondegreen, hence the name of the character in the poem. I heard someone read a poem with the phrase “an orphan” in it, and I briefly misheard the words. The drawing at the top is also mine. I think you can see why I chose words rather than painting as my medium.
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high school
we played Dungeons & Dragons
and we had girlfriends
(I can’t explain it either)
while the popular kids
were getting drunk and
(if the rumors were true)
snorting coke in their
mansions on West Lake Road
we were hanging out
in a parsonage listening to Marillion
or at Travis’s house watching
Monty Python Live At The Hollywood Bowl
or Robin Williams Live At The Met
or Big Trouble In Little China
we memorized every line of every movie
and Kevin knew the phone numbers
of all the people and places
we might ever want to call
at one time or another
everybody had a crush on everybody
some of the guys had a band
the rest of us cheered them on
now we’re scattered like dice across a table
and although we’re too young
for one of us to be dead
that doesn’t make it any less true
or any less painful
between us we have enough kids
to field a very nerdy baseball team
but they’ll never play together
different families live in our houses
most of them, anyway
that’s what you’d expect
in this age of no anchors
maybe it’s for the best
17 January 2013
Auburn AL
the sublime landscape and the apocalypse
we walked through streets overgrown
with the detritus of desperate lives
bordered on both sides by high walls
of grey concrete reaching for a grey sky
plastic bags and candy wrappers
wafted upward like hawks on thermals
searching for a glimpse of heaven
as if by magic, we came upon a tree
not a towering, majestic tree
but a tree nonetheless, alive and thriving
growing through the concrete
like Lieber and Stoller’s rose
people stood in clumps around it
struck dumb by the shocking green
the finding was all that it took
for us to know there was hope
and more than hope, there was strength
strength enough to search these streets
for the next root, the next branch, the next tree
16 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
This poem is inspired by the work of artist Orion Wertz, who has a show right now at the Biggin Gallery at Auburn University. The title of the poem, and the line “the finding was all it took” are taken from the talk Wertz gave before the opening of the show. The image at the top of this post is Breeze (Detail, 2012). Orion Wertz. Oil on canvas, 33″ x 25.5″
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| From East River Ferry Adventure – July 10, 2011 |
bohemian gangster
(for Nicole)
he waits for the boys to come back from the job
he’s in the back of the café, smoking a clove cigarette
picking lint off the front of his plaid work shirt
he keeps a hand-crafted artisanal hatchet
concealed in a quick-draw sling under the table
you can’t be too careful these days
there was a time, not so long before,
when the gangster’s life was easier, safer
the coffee shops and independent bookstores
and the head shops — especially the head shops —
paid their money and kept their mouths shut
no one bought a bong or a copy of Ginsberg
in this city without him getting a piece of it
now, though, with every Barnes & Noble
selling coffee and Kerouac like it was nothing
things just ain’t what they used to be
it was getting so a man couldn’t even ride the L
without some flip-flop-clad Portland beard
sitting in the seat he always sat in
he was starting to wonder if he shouldn’t go legit
open up a little place of his own in DUMBO
or maybe Sunset Park, where the normal people live
hell, even a hookah shop would be easier than this
he stabs out his clove, runs the stirrer through the
foam leaf on top of his latte, sighs deeply
15 January 2013
Auburn, AL
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| From 080725 Commuting Life |
commute
heart pump blood
blood through veins
brain send signal
signal through nerves
nerve move muscles
muscles move leg
leg push pedal
pedal drive chain
chain turn wheel
wheel roll forward
repeat
14 January 2013
Auburn, AL
centerpiece
for Nicky
I filled a vase with rocks
gathered from a nearby stream
covered the rocks in water
to bring forth their perfect
imperfections
the vase is the centerpiece
of my dining room table
it helps me to remember
that food comes from somewhere
and that I, like the rocks,
am made from the stuff of this earth
13 January 2013
Auburn, AL
making fried rice
slicing the potatoes
dicing the onions
chopping the garlic
slivering the ginger
heating the wok
adding the sesame oil
pouring the soy sauce
mixing the veggies
stirring the mixture
inhaling the aroma
boiling the rice
filling the wok
drizzling more soy sauce
tasting the fried rice
eating it all
12 January 2013
Auburn, AL
