Poet Jim Montrose dies

 

ARC/ Rural Arts Services symposium drawing

Charles Simic drawing

Obligatory Hug, Jan-feb, 1984, Luther Burbank Activity Center, Sebastopol (Mo, drawings)

MOUNTAIN FLOWERS

MOUNTAIN FLOWERS

Under azure skies and robins

roseated cyclamens

exude such exquisite warmth

that the sun is struck dumb

by comparison

1984

GAMBLING ODDS

GAMBLING ODDS

Seeing old lovers again

is like playing tic tac toe

with the moon.

Like with Jimmy the Greek

the odds are 100%

in the moon's favor.

1984 date? I think it's older

1983? Marin Poetry Review 

MOUTHS

MOUTHS

too much speaking

too much eating

kissing, shouting—

all in that simple line

drawn against

folded flesh.

1/ 1984

JADED PRINCESSES' TALE

JADED PRINCESSES' TALE

Oh, Lord
how many nights
shall I kiss a prince
and awaken
with a toad?


1984

INDIA

Footprints in the mud

begin in the Ganges

where ashes take wing

In the bazaar, women’s eyes flash,

bracelets and bicycles jangle

the clattering herd

races toward the sun

spokes intersecting with light

the clattering train

Pancot in the hills

84? 85?

Footprints in the snow

slipping backwards downhill

squeak of new snow

blue light reflecting in the forest

Dog’s tongue clacks

as he catches his breath

84??  written in Mimi Albert’s class

Short Poems 1984

And the robins sings of smashed mates
the feathered triumph of my VW
mercilessly breaking the bondage of robins

April 1984






DELUGE

Just as I was beginning to forget,
you arrived at my doorstep
and music burst from your eyes
even before I could hear the wings of Icarus
whisper danger from the sun.
Broken wheels in the desert are as useless
as the arms of a saguaro's embrace.
The yucca-pale dreams brought a deluge of rain
and I am drifting in the lake of your eye
once more.

 5/84



 GAMBLING ODDS

Seeing old lovers again
is like playing tic tac toe
with the moon.
Like with Jimmy the Greek
the odds are 100%
in the moon's favor.

1984?




JADED PRINCESSES' TALE

Oh, Lord
how many nights
shall I kiss a prince
and awaken
with a toad?

1984



MOUNTAIN FLOWERS

Under azure skies and robins
rosiated cyclamens
exude such exquisite warmth
that the sun is struck dumb
by comparison

1984




MOUTHS

too much speaking
too much eating
kissing, shouting—
all in that simple line
drawn against
folded flesh.

1/ 1984




NIGHT VISION

Caught in my headlights,
eyes of young bucks
not leaving the dead body
of their mother.

12/84




Primal

As Richard plays the piano late at night
Coastal fog drips from pine trees
a morose foghorn sounds in the distance
Do we respond to those notes
the sounds we heard as children
What makes us respond to music?
Certain chords touching off the coastal fog
dripping off Presidio Pines
and the forlorn cutting the fog

1984




When his hand grazes on my body
reality and memory cease
and all there is is the moment.
What I want to tell the fish
rolling in my bed at night
is that none of us can crawl back
to that place called home
no matter what coast we seek.





wish bad poems were more like clay pots
slumped at the wheel
Instead they're fired with air bubbles
trapped within the clay wall
and they explode in the kiln
or break with ease leaving us
to piece them back together,
our hands sticky with glue.

No date I'm guessing 1984