CICADA STORM

CICADA STORM

Snake-blind I come from serpentine.

Under the monolithic science of stone,

the silence leaves me defenseless.

I am not yet cleansed of this place

of buckeye summer clouds.

The reminder of thistles,

and the marbled lichen plane,

a tomb for thought.

The heart learns to stretch

unlike unflexible scar tissue

diminished by old patterns.

In the tomb of my healing

the cicada storm reminds me

how taut the bow is strung.

The music of the shower,

the murmuring of my hips,

the thicket of my birth.

8/31/93?  Walker Creek Ranch
I also have 9/12, a Sunday

Poetry International journal, photo notes, translations & postcards from Vins

I finally developed the Tri-X photos and pushed the developing time to 1600 ASA, I had 12 rolls from P1 to 11 and one from Nord Brabant and Belgium. I push the film to 1600 and everything looks pretty good. Not too grainy. Not having a real telephoto lens was a liability so there’s a flat sameness to the podium shots and I don’t have all that many close-up candid shots. 

I’ve got two more rolls of Ilford KP2 still to develop, and I still haven’t made proof sheets. I only got a chance to peek at the negatives, and most of them look clear. 

My instant camera is lousy at group shots. The electronic eye keeps focusing on the far wall, no matter how I try to trick it. So I have too many shots of Bei Dao, Duo Duo and Paul Vangelisti, but the flash is so handy. I need a compact flash system, and a better camera. My flash cable broke on my Pentax. The Minolta is fine for scenery where the focus isn’t critical. But other than that, it’s not worth carrying around.

In the mail arrives two more postcards from Vins, one of a pun on Magritte’s painting, This is not a Pipe. Mam-am fume une pipe: women bring home the bread. He wrote, “So good, your call, deep joy jumps up in me on hearing your voice. And I love you as deep, or deeper, yet than ever before.” 

The other card, with two translations of poems from a Dutch woman poet, about the writing process, called Children. 

I needed some photo IDs of our Belgium trip. We visited an outrageous oval castle outside of Belgium, a steel van Beersel in Beginhof, in the town of Diest. There was also a round church in the town of miracles is Scherpenheuvel, or Sharp hill. During the Middle-Ages pilgrimages were made by pagans to a holy cross-shaped oak. The tree was "Christianized" with a statue of the virgin Mary. Clearly a Celtic hangover.

The river in Louvain or Leuven is called the Dijle, where the medieval drown girl, Magrietken, or Mariika, met her end in the moat and became a saint.

No date given

Uniting the World through Poetry journal, writing to all the poets

25 July, 1993: another Uniting the World through Poetry editing, and paste-up marathon in Bolinas, preparing letters to the poets for the two upcoming UWP issues, Middle East and Eastern Europe.

I’m sending out a raft of letters to world-famous poets, we are now on first name terms with most of them.

And on the homefront, I can’t seem to get any recognition for my own work. This is why I am putting my life’s blood into this poetry venture. Nature abhors a vacuum. This discouragement I have faced is becoming chronic. I know my work strong, but it seems no one else thinks so.

Another rejection letter from the California Arts Council. I did not get the writers fellowship for a mere $2000. Only 20 out of 182 entries were funded and I’ve got to wait another four years for the next round? This is the shits.

The Korean War poems anthology will be delayed again as there is not enough work. Green Fuse is holding hostage three of my poems hostage for final round. Someone gave them poems to give to me from Yugoslavia. Word is out, and poems arrive from all over the world. 

I was just writing to Tomaž Šalamun, whom I had met at Poetry International, lamenting that I wasn’t even sure if my letter would reach him, wondering if there was even mail delivery as he’s living in war-torn Serbia. What of the other poets—are they even still alive? So many poets living in exile these days.

I read some poems from David Charlton, wondering where he was living when he was there, in Dubrovnik? I remember the first time I was in Belgrade, it was a sultry August night, and we ate ice cream with dark cherries in syrup. The best I have ever tasted. On my return trip, my luggage liked Belgrade so much it stayed a couple of months before returning home to me.

The last time I was in Belgrade I bought an upcycled dress made from linen hand towels and the cuffs of fancy embroidered bedsheets (or what I planned to use as a wedding dress). Once I was hopeful about Oleg… Where did the love disappear to? Now burial shrouds are considered a luxury item in a war-ravaged country. My Croatian dictionary is buried under a pile of now obsolete books on Russia. Sigh.

I should keep track of my myriad correspondences with these world-famous poets: Tomaž Šalamun, Dr. Miroslav Holub, Breyten Breytenbach, Ana Blandiana, Boris Xristov, Bella Akhmadulina—How old is she now? Blaga Dimitrova, Sylvia Fischerová, Gulya Kodalini (sp?), Chenjerai Hove, Niyi Osundare, Hawad, and the contributing American poets: Maya Angelou, Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane Wakowski, Diane diPrima, Maxine Kumin—to just name a few. 

I am keeping the dour, stone-faced postmaster at the Bolinas post office busy, if not entertained. Such exotic addresses. You’d think he’d at least crack a smile once and a while. I walk back the long way to Herman’s place on the Mesa just to clear my aching head.

So far, we have 218 poems in both issues. Plus we also sent letters to every PEN organization in Africa and letters to all our Rotterdam contacts. There are so many unfinished bits and pieces to do before I do a mass mailing.

I’ve got working addresses for a third of the poets, and we still have to send copies out to the translators (many of the poems need additional polishing from English to English). If I can get their addresses that is, and then, send out thank you letters by the bushel. Sometimes I dream I am writing letters in my sleep.

• Letter to Niyi Osundare
• Letters to/from Charles Simic 

Dream journal: Stephanie Stone

17 July dream journal (see also Aug. 8 dream about Steph too.)

I dreamed my childhood friend Stephanie was still alive, but close to death. She and her father were spending a week up at Tahoe, or somewhere—maybe even up at Clearlake. At her nana and grandpa‘s house. Les’s parents.

I said that I had to work during the week; how about if I came up on Friday evening for a visit? Was I also housesitting for them? Stephanie loved the idea. But Les was distant and cold, and also weird. I was upset, I said, look it was only a suggestion. You can say yes or no, but don’t make me feel like shit. And then I ran away, crying.

Steph and Les fought like crazy, she was exhausted. The bone cancer was relentless. He carried her towards the house. We were at her other grandmother Mimi‘s place at the bottom of the hill, standing in the driveway. She was saying goodbye to all her relations.

I had run to the top of the field, to the far left corner and hid myself in the shrubs and sedge clumps. He carried her near to where I was hiding and put her down. They were both crying. She heard me sob, and they gathered me up too.

All three of us crying over the inevitable. There was blood all over the place. Why was my hair done up in multiple braids? Long ropes of dark hair like an octopus on the ground. 

Curiously, I was lying downhill trying to hide in what little cover there was in the upper pasture. My head and a purse or a bag—black objects. I was afraid they were too noticeable in the blonde grass.There was such sorrow among all of us. I still grieve for Stephanie, my childhood friend.

Dream Journal, David Om

16 July: I dreamed I was in a large gym. Many of us were there for the duration. For what, I do not know. I looked in one of the mirrors and most of my pubic hair was gone, worn off. I went, oh? The lice medicine must’ve done it. No, it was from my jeans that pinch me. I was horrified, one thick, brittle black hair came off in my hand. Would it grow back? Was this my biggest fear? Yuck.

Day One of my period gives me such weird dreams. Nightmare journal.

Last night I went over to David Om‘s house. My fax is indeed dead, but the modem still works. We went hot tubbing but it was greasy. He gave me a massage that involved my stomach and gut. That always makes me uneasy. I don’t like anyone touching my stomach. 

Then he eventually squeezed my breast, which made me angry. Yes it’s a massage and nothing ever happens, but I still get angry when he trespasses, even in the name of massage because I have zero sexual attraction for him. In fact, I am sexually repulsed by him. I like him for his brilliant mind. Much more sexy.

Also, it didn’t help that he had some lice shampoo on his toilet tank top. Gross. And sexual items by the bed. I have no interest, therein lies the rub, because he does have an interest in me.

I thoroughly scrubbed and showered when I got home. There was oil residue on my hair, making it appear gray and was laden with massage oil. Disgusting.

Also, his kitchen is a mess. We had a meal. Rice and veggies—but everything was so dirty. I felt uncomfortable, I feared for the health of my stomach, so I tried not to see anything. The image left a bad taste in my mouth. Hence the weird dreams. And my period. I had such bad cramps during the night which didn’t help matters any. 

Dream journal: Marilyn Stocks, teaching, & a dark-haired dream lover

15 July, Thursday. After cramming for my Elderhostel workshop, I had garbled dreams. One involved Marilyn Stocks, who was passing out my gift T-shirts to the class. I said wait, those are my gifts for family, and those T-shirts are for my brother. She held up a black one with tropical fish and hung it on the back wall paired with an outfit, a lime, green long undershirt beneath the transparent skirt. She laughs and make a makes a comment about enticing rapists.

She leaves, and one man stays. He is my lover. I don’t know who he is. I am also in the seat behind him watching myself. Domestic situation, hot plate. Like at Herman’s place, a kitchen terrycloth towel falls on it.

I’m also in the back of the classroom. I snatch up the towel, but it gets burned on the electric coil hot plate. There is a pile of sliced vegetables on the next burner. Red peppers, green beans, zucchini. I sweep them off and into a pan because I know they’ll cook better and then I jokingly say maybe we should just get married. Utter silence. 

There are domestic problems with this relationship. Clutter, something and domestic ugliness having to do with relationships in general, nothing specific.

I don’t know who this man is. Then I was awakened by the doorbell but I don’t have a doorbell. I tried to recapture the dream fragments, but no luck. Jim Bird, Jan, Bogaerts, and Vins van Neerven all crossed my mind as possible candidates. He was a dark-haired man, and I couldn’t see enough of his body to guess who it was.

UWP journal: poetry files from Vins arrive

13 July. Today I slept late. I’ve been depressed lately, especially yesterday as I dreamed I was still in Amsterdam, and Vins was sitting on the floor, I could see there was a disaster about to happen.

And he said, go home. Sort of like how you tell a dog to go home, the emphasis was on the word go. Cold and deep was his voice, but it wasn’t directed at me. Sure, there was trouble, yes. He was part of it. But he was also shielding me from it. I had no business becoming involved with him. He was telling me to go home out of love, not out of anger or hatred. To protect me from something, I know not what. His own darkness.

Yesterday I finished reading Dracula, it has a quality similar to that, protecting the women folk, especially Mina Leven, though she had a wondrous brain, “like a man’s,” someone said. What catastrophe was about to rain down on Vins’ head here?

I finished my letter to Jan Bogaerts, I’m sure it too is related to my depression. My immobility, my inability to work through the dilemma of both Jan and Vins, childhood friends not speaking to each other—and I was the fulcrum.

Vins says that he loves me, but he is not in love with me, and I know he can’t seem to live with someone. It’s too upsetting for him. Like me, he needs solitude. I leave, give him his space.

Saturday, a letter came with a copy of the poetry files that he had kept. We fought over the phone when I discovered that he went into the private files on my desk. He claimed it was an accident. But I am glad to get the Dutch to English translations. Some poems have gone through the sieve of three languages. Like Marta Manarini: Spanish to Dutch to English.

But it was a wonderful letter particularly adept in avoiding issues of the heart, shedding light on nothing other than I arrived at an unfortunate time. He took his crabbiness out on me.

With Vins, there is no equilibrium between work and people. He feels secure being with a community of teachers, scholars, and writers. I wonder if moving away from friends and lovers, to that of a colleague is the right direction? Then the yes. Our affair had run its course, but we were having trouble letting it go.

There was a very funny story about Vincent van Gogh, buying copiachu, a paint softener, and VO medicine. When Vincent asked if it could be mixed with turpentine, the shopkeeper replied, do you have to destroy your sorry ass even more?

Vincent wanted to give his colors more light and depth, and he used the thinner liberally. Even now his paints aren’t dry And probably never will be. The Potato Eaters and his windmill and trestle paintings are still wet. But the varnish over the top shrank, causing the paint to craze. In 1928 The Potato Eaters was given a new, backing and restorers hot-glued it onto a new canvas. The paint and varnish will remain forever wet.

At Schiphal, all the guards sport machine guns, in preparation for the Israeli Prime Minister’s arrival. Prime Minister Rabin, Dutch Prime Minister Lubin, and the Israeli Embassy are all out to greet the Prime Minister Rabin. Utter chaos.

Jan diagnosed Vins’ hennaed hair as a harbinger of midlife crisis. Maybe so, but it sure was fun slopping what looked like cow shit on each other’s heads, and then washing it out. All green and red.

Unfortunately the henna nested in my hair like a Rastafarian nightmare, and I had to resort to a comb and gobs of cream rinse to coax the last of the henna out. I like my hair hennaed as it’s much thicker and has a red sheen to it. It isn’t all that different from my natural color, but it covers the gray nicely.

Today’s mail brought a parcel from Vinz, half of his birthday roses, because he never bought me flowers, some chocolates, two love, notes, my modem cord, sweatpants, and a wooden Hans Brinker skate. Thawing treasures from the flea market.

UWP journal: Bolinas, Ana Baranova, Blaga Dimitrová

10 July: I awoke repeating the image: lakes and pools are the tongues of the river. I am dreaming of rivers, seeing my homeland from the air. I never finished writing about my flight home, flying over Shasta‘s cone, along the Trinity Alps and Longridge, over Snow Mountain and the Mendocino range, flying along the length of the Russian river, I could see places where I’ve swum in the river—the pool below, Healdsburg and Fitch Mountain. 

Then I actually recognizing the bend of river where home was located, then the mouth of the river. Jenner. Bodega. The Bodega Head hole where a nuclear plant was planned. Dear Rose Gaffney stopped PG&E. Now that’s power. We flew parallel to the San Andreas Fault, and it was a glorious site to see the land of home unfold. I recited the litany of the names of home: Olema, Bolinas, Point Reyes.

I spent July 5-9 at Bolinas, going through Herman’s chaos in order to make electronic the poetry files. It took me a full day of cleaning his house and another day of sorting through drawers to find all the UWP files and put them back in order. He misplaces everything. For how long this order will last, is anyone’s guess.

I answered poet letters, etc. I am a poetry secretary. If I am to do this job right, I’ve got to brace myself for Herman’s perpetual chaos. It may be more than I can take. We’ll see how long this arrangement lasts. As long as I’m paid as well. No way can I get paid for all my work. It’s the principle of the matter.

Making these regional poetry anthologies in tabloid format is utterly grueling work, but I am bitten by the power of editorship, an extraordinary way to make powerful contacts the world over. I’m hooked also, because I like the work, hearing all the voices. Ana Baranova, a poet I met at Poetry International in Rotterdam sent me some superb work. It left me breathless.

We’re constantly upgrading our files and contacts. So far, the anthologies we’ve published were all very well received; people seem to love what we are doing, saying, most of this is really good poetry. How did you get the work of so many famous writers? Luck of the draw, being at the right place at the right time. 

I showed our UWP newspapers to the refugee poets from Serbo-Croatia, and then found out that Blaga Dimitrová is the vice president of Bulgaria! Holy shit! I was in shock. Because as poets we were all equal in vision and passion.

Rotterdam journal, flying home

3 July. Last night, one of those final nights where hell is naturally defined as part of the process of saying goodbye. Poliny, a vice of icebergs as if spring, urged them south, ride the Gulfstream towards North America. Ice shelves at the north pole. I never knew that the polini were so tortures. It’s as if the eye of the sky had opened.

4 July. Flying over Baffin Bay and then, seeing the long striations on the rock, the finger lakes continue to amaze me. The relentless scouring of the glaciers from eons ago and still the land hasn’t recovered.

Am I looking at the Yukon territories? We’re pretty far north, you can see forest fires in the north, somewhere above Saskatchewan. The Columbia River below us, shining in the afternoon sun, a bend in the river. A lot of water even from this height. It’s big, not as big as the Mississippi, but bigger than the European rivers, even the Rhine. The mouth of the Rhine, Rotterdam, the world is poured in, and the mad rivers small by comparison. 

Herman, Ton and I took a boat trip up the harbor, visiting lock after lock, the cranes like strange beast at play, at rest. Ton, a drummer friend of Mark Peters, has become seduced by poetry, though. The festival is a bit sketchy. Herman brings him to several events as he is a houseguest. I had arranged the connection via Mark while I was in Lissel with Jan, but I digress… 

Back to the landscape, the only thing I can believe in.

Snowy summit, one of the cascade peaks, ravaged Mt. Saint Helens, and Hood at the end. We’re flying at a slight angle. Hard to get my bearings as there’s too much cloud cover all the way down. There is eternal sunlight this far north so close to the solstice. 

We experience mid-day all the way home, having left at 3:30 PM and arrive in San Francisco a scant two hours later with nine hours in the air. Stoppage in time. Suspended animation  Time is passing for us. Nine hours, we are experiencing some kind of adverse time travel where we age five times faster than the clock by flying with the sun. West to the edge of the continent. 

Of course the reverse is true when flying east, but it’s not so obvious that we arrive in a different timeframe. It was it is not so spectacular to fly back Mid day when there’s a cloud cover most of the way, or in the evening when it’s dark. I prefer to fly on the cusp of dawn and evening because the transition from light to dark is spectacular. 

Nothing has replaced that first vision of the earth’s curvature. When I was 19 on my way to London, over the Polar route, the plane turned, and I was looking straight up into the night, sky, stars, and all, and the curve of the earth casting a shadow upon the sunset, below me, in pale green and vermilions, and above me the stars. I have flown to Europe many times since then, and have yet to see such a sight. 

I’ve spent over four months in Amsterdam since last July and I’m coming back to teach a two-day class, a $200 commitment that wasn’t worth it, but I had promised. I could’ve stayed another three weeks. I love the process of living elsewhere, a part of the year but when I return, I don’t want to be here. This place doesn’t seem so much like home, but like stepping back into a mold, where I no longer fit.

My second night home, I dreamt I was still in Europe, and everything was cluttered and dark. I slept, walked to the front door and stood naked in the waxing moonlight, looking out over the shadows, thinking I was still in Europe, only to discover this cluttered dark past was my home, it was America and I didn’t feel like I belonged to her any longer. 

Living so long with Russians and Europeans since 1989 and half-and-half since 1998. I’ve lived nearly a year abroad since August 1989. It is my intention to try to get away from the states at least one time yearly in three month intervals.

Well, I’ve managed to fritter away several hours, watering, picking boysenberries, making pie and doing laundry. I’m housesitting at Marsha Connell’s in Santa Rosa.

I am in need of mindlessness and tranquility alone in America on the Fourth of July, the sizzle of sprinklers, the sighs of pines, the fireworks and sirens. The heat has bleached the color from the horizon as if in the pastel landscape not favored by Mary Silverwood, or Marsha Connell for that matter. 

This is the kind of day to sit on a chaise lounge and let the water ply over my feet. Anything to keep from writing about what matters—why do I keep avoiding it? I barely wrote while I was in Amsterdam, I’ve barely written anything since February. I’ve barely dreamed and suddenly I’m remembering my dreams for the first time in ages. 

Also, today was the first time I actually slept in until 9 AM, too keyed up at my place, too many things to do, too many pressures upon me. To sleep, per chance to dream.

And all those feelings towards the futility of life, call it depression, or am I deeply discouraged. Hard to say. Only that I want another life and I seem to be locked into this one, which allows me to travel, but something is missing and I know the lack of family in relationship is part of it. 

I’m finally tired of being alone. Funny most of the time. I love it. Maybe it’s because this is the first time I’ve been alone in months. First living part-time here at Marsha’s while doing the book, then with Vins for six weeks. I can barely stand to be still, some inner force is driving me onward every 10 to 15 minutes. This is how I’m writing this journal today, in spurts, afraid to be all in. What is lying in back of my subconsciousness? I never finished the journal.

We fly over Crater Lake, and see the bathtub ring of the central valley as we near Shasta. Shasta! An extraordinary snow, God, rising from all that lava. The return to America punctuated with the pristine beauty of the land compared to Europe’s cities and ruins and civilization. This is why I need both places. 

A part of me can never be free, or relax without the wilderness, another part needs the antiquities. Somewhere in all of this, I need both alone and a home and a relationship. Lee is right. Where I live is depressing. 

I still don’t know if I have my CAC grant, I am at a 3+, number 50 and the budget hasn’t been cut, I suspect I’m right on the borderline for funding, all residencies have first priority. We shall see. Reentry is rough.