My 2024 CAC artist panel application

Note bene: Each year I reapply to be a CAC panelist and each year I never get selected because—I’m a white older woman? Elder warehousing? This year I was solicited with no less than three emails from the CAC urging me to reapply, saying I was in the panelist pool, so clearly I was accepted in the pool for previous years, but was never chosen. Each year the application form shrinks so we have fewer and fewer words to deliver our sales pitch. This year it was less than 2500 words whereas last year it was at least 3000 characters. I had to get inventive to squeeze it all in. All this on Leap Day! Ribbit.

Because I’ve worked as an artist in residence most of my life within diverse communities, I’ve a unique viewpoint as to what makes for a good CAC-AIR grant. Having written scores of grants I know what to look for as I’ve been an artist in residence for the NEA, Montana Arts Council, Oakland Arts Council, KQED-AIR, so I have direct experience with a broad range of artist grants & organizations.

 I’ve taught artist-in-schools residencies in rural & urban schools in California since 1979. I’ve implemented arts programming, trained poets & artists in rural Sonoma Co. & urban Alameda Co. Clients include inmates at Napa State Hospital, elders, preschoolers. I’ve had 7 individual CACAIR grants in Sonoma & Napa counties & grants from the Montana Arts Council.

I’ve administered/taught in CAC multi-artist residencies including Poetry Flash (current), a PBS/KQED AIR grant, & two Oakland Cultural Arts Council grants. I’ve mentored/ trained artists, writers and teachers through several arts organizations including California Poets in the Schools, Young Audiences, Artists in Schools of Sonoma County, and Rural Arts Services.

I’m widely published & won prizes, fellowships & awards for my work. I was a photojournalist for alternative newspapers, writing arts & feature stories. From 1980 to 1997, I produced 100s of literary events in Sonoma Co., for Russian River Writers’ Guild, Sonoma State University, Johnny Otis Club & other venues. I was staff photographer/ workshop leader for Napa Valley Poetry /Bahamas conferences. My photos will be featured in an upcoming Julia Vinograd film.

I’ve worked in Bay Area schools, teaching poetry & art to historically underserved students in Oakland & Hunters’s Point, developing culturally relevant arts programming. I’ve worked with many cultural demographics with a diverse language base & cultural focus, including training Middle Eastern and African health care providers to teach creative writing to their clients. 

Though not fully bilingual, I speak Spanish & can converse in several languages. I also volunteer at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center working with elders. I am a coordinator & current coordinator and emcee for the annual Poetry Flash Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, as well as administrator of the Poetry Flash CAC AIS John Oliver Simon Legacy Poetry Project grant.

I’ve taught clients in a diverse range of communities of all ages/abilities throughout California. The sites are historically underrepresented in all the arts—I utilize poetry & language from their respective cultures. I also invite guest artists & poets from the community. For example, at Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley, we developed a long-term poetry & art project that celebrates racial equity, diversity and inclusion.

Yet another Facebook rant

Another thing you can’t do when Facebook throws you in jail for “going against community standards” is to remove spam posts you are tagged in. My latest crime: I edited my comment, I fixed a typo. Oh, my! Aren’t I the bad girl? 

I know that at least three friends were also singled out by Facebook for editing their own comments on their own pages— on the same day —and who are also in the FB slammer. One infraction was for “going too fast.” Are we supposed to be slow messy typists? Inarticulate, even?

In my case, since it was my second comment of the day on a friend’s page—and only my second attempt to fix a typo on Lyn Hejinian’s name. BAM! The white wall of denial arose from the bowels of the Facebook police state and denied me egress to fix my typos. 

So, “going too fast” can’t be the reason why I am in jail again but I was rather inarticulate on Ron Silliman’s page. Mea culpea. At least I know he would understand. Ask him about how Google censured him for posting about poetry. As for AI authorship, see Dana Gioia’s post on an atrocious IA-generated obit for #LynHejinian.

This is the comment in question. I tried to add Lyn Hejinian’s name, then Facebook misspelled it as Lynn Hijinian. I tried to correct it. In jail again.

I make a lot of typos, or rather Facebook autokrap, I mean oughtacorrect—makes them, and I also write in fits and spurts—sentences do not come to me perfectly hatched. And don’t even get me started on where commas need to go. I also have dyslexia. FWIW We can’t comment on anyone’s posts, including our own, but we can write status updates and repost and like other peoples posts. Heh!

Meanwhile, the real spammers are allowed to continue spamming by tagging us in public forums, and we have no recourse to remove our names. I wonder why Facebook doesn’t shut them down—or does Facebook just have it out for outspoken little old ladies? Facebook is a bully. Reminds me of being back in the USSR.

Don’t worry Facebook, I’m keeping track of all your ridiculous bullying. Whatever happened to “let the punishment fit the crime?” And how, exactly does cleaning up a comment, that is fixing grammar, spelling or punctuation go against community standards? Please explain. Or would you prefer that we were all barefoot, pregnant and illiterate? Not to mention, inarticulate? in my case, it’s too late now. 

I deliberately over-edited my status update post just to see if I could trigger the Facebook AI censorship bots. And I was rewarded with a notification that “We’ll let you know when your post is ready.” Too bad the FB sniffers are AI, meaning no human will read this—except youse guys. My intention is to let Facebook know that this censorship is ridiculous, not to mention unfair. Ultimately, I just want it to stop.  Someday…. 

The gauntlet has been thrown down. I will use my extra jail time wisely. I will remove all ads from my newsfeed. Game on. Doesn’t Facebook know by now that I’m a bad article? Don’t you know that you can’t shut a a baddass Irishwoman up?

I will answer your comments here:

Lauren Boyd McLachlan in for a penny, in for a pound. Five more days.

#Facebookfail

Yet another epic Facebook fail—censored twice in one month for correcting typos!

 

Facebook AI bots really have it out for me because I edit my comments, or post a blog link. In this case, I was responding to Ron Silliman‘s post where Lyn Hejinian had read for our RRWG reading series at the Johnny. Otis Cabaret, that I produced back in 1993-94, and as I typed in her name, I was immediately thrown in the FB slammer again.

Last time it was for trying to add the word crêpes with circumflex to my Shrove/Pancake Tuesday comment. The time before that was because I was commenting on my cousin who had recently demised himself and it also happened with another Irish cousin too. And the time before that was for posting a botany post about native uses of California fan palm seeds.

Apparently the words GAZA and DEATH trigger the FB AI bots. And I guess in this case, RIP triggered the bots too. Or  it was the Google blogpost link itself? I had posted a Press Democrat obit in honor of Johnny Otis. I thought Ron Silliman would enjoy seeing it since they all read at his cabaret. He had mentioned reading there for us. And Kit Robinson too. I do remember Kit’s reading because I hadn’t seen him since the early 1980s CPITS days.

Now I’m just flummoxed. I would love to have the RRWG flyers—and especially the dates of those readings because I made a Russian River Writers Guild archival blog post listing all the poets who have read for us over the decades. It’s a pretty impressive list.

And now I am reduced to writing to my friends in my status update.

Andrew – this will have to suffice as a link.

Zana – no, it is not a friend reporting me. It’s FB.

Marylu and Maxine – this is the comment in question. Alors! I had added Lyn’s name and misspelled it, and when I tried to correct it, I was thrown in the Facebook comment jail. That’s why I’m writiing to you here because I can’t add any comments to any posts, including my own. But I can LIKE comments.

Donald – Tori and I are definitely on Facebook’s frenemy list because we’re outspoken and we have posted about gauze a.

Joan – tell me more, or post the link below. I would be very interested to read it.

Molly- Second time this month in the comments slammer means can’t post poems in your Poem a Day group.

Weirdly I can post photos and a status report on my home page so I guess this is how I will communicate with the world for the next six effing days. I just can’t post, nor can I correct any comments. Oh bhuel.

See, Facebook otto-krect loves to substitute the wrong words in my comments, or add excessive, commas, (case in point), or inserting random periods. mid-sentence after I post them. And I am definitely OCD when it comes to typos. FFS, I’m a writer plying my trade. And yes, I have completely turned off AutoCorrect on my iPad.

So today I am deleting all Facebook ads and reporting them as irrelevant. Sweet revenge. Literally every second or third post is a sponsored ad. Talk about irrelevant ads. Poop ads for cats AND humans! Maybe they come in tandem. A new batch of shitty irrelevant ads, and the Facebook AI sniffer bot—and certainly the word for one’s demise seems to be a trigger as well. I refuse to use the word passed. I wanna say DEATH. Unfortunately, because Facebook is a private entity, there is no recourse for this continued bullying.

Yeah, I’m more than a little cranky now and don’t worry, Facebook, I am keeping track of you. and I won’t be silenced.  #keepingitreal #badarticle 

WHAT THE MIND WANTS

My mind wants hot buttered scones, 

not too sweet, and best dripping with salted butter. 

It wants that fat that delivers flavor, 

those omega fatty 3 acids, you know, like salmon. 

It wants payload, it wants soothing. 

It is always raging against something—

including the dying of the light. 

Sometimes I can’t control all that anger and angst. 

It doesn’t want burnt toast, it wants new ideas, 

new horizons, not the dregs of the past, regurgitated. 

That’s all it asks for. Nothing more.

2/24 Write the mind open with Patrice Veccione

Maureen Hurley Guest Poet @Claremont Branch

 

— Clearly Meant presents -

Maureen Hurley

Guest Poet @Claremont

2:00 to 3:00pm

Saturday

February 17, 2024

Claremont Branch

2940 Benvenue @ Ashby

hosted by Glenn Ingersoll

Maureen Hurley reads her poems, followed by an interview and discussion

A West Marin native, Maureen Hurley has taught poetry for many years in Bay Area schools, including here in Berkeley at Alexander Valley and Malcolm X. Her writing appears in a variety of venues, in print and online, including in the anthologies Atomic Ghost, House on Via Gambito, and a forthcoming anthology of poems on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Catching the Last Light. Also a visual artist, Hurley's photos of Julia Vinograd will be featured in a documentary on the Berkeley Street Poet.

A free chapbook is available at Berkeley Public Library branches. Please pick one up!

For directions or other information call the Claremont Branch 510 981-6820

BERKELEY PUBLIC LIBRARY

www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org

510-548-1240

MAYDAY, MAYDAY

I do love a good parade and a procession.
There’s a lamplit parade down by the harbor, 

Victorian women and children all dressed in white 

circle the lake carrying Chinese paper lanterns lit with candles,

the trail snakes on for miles. What are they celebrating? 

A Mayday parade? Suffragettes? A ghost army on the move? 

From the wrought iron balcony two men look on,

they flex their biceps with their sleeves rolled up,

as if the muggy evening were asking for trouble. 

2/14/24 Molly Fisk PaD

Since when does posting a recipe go against “community standards” on Facebook

Was it the word “Wensleydale…” i tried to add that triggered the Facebook AI bots? I tried to fix a typo on a Facebook post I had written. I added the word, Wensleydale, which I used to stuff my crêpes with, and to add the circumflex on crêpes. And then I got shut down by Facebook for six days for “going against community standards.” Surely that can’t be right. 

Besides, Facebook tends to change whatever I write deciding that I couldn’t possibly want to use that particular word, and changes it into something really ridiculous—leaving me feeling like an idiot. So of course I’m constantly correcting my comments.

So now I am banned from making comments on anyone’s post, including my own—for six days. each in fraction expands exponentially. What I am specifically being punished for, I’m not exactly sure. Hell’s bells, I’m not even vaguely sure. However, I discovered that I could edit my Mardi Gras status update notice to alert my friends. Sweet revenge.

I actually went back and looked at all my Facebook activity for the day to see if that would shed some light. Was it the Robert Reich quote and link on Gaza? But the opinion piece is also posted on his Facebook page.

Or was it my rather pedantic comment on the Oregon plague case, when I said it probably wasn’t the cat to blame. I explained how plague fleas come from rats, not cats. They are completely different species, the fleas, the rats, the cats. And I posted a link to my blogpost on the plague as I had done extensive research on it.

But the only other comment I could find that might be considered vaguely upsetting to those stinker Facebook bots, was a comment I had left under the new Midsomer Murders season ad, “I’m really surprised that anyone is still left alive in Midsomer.” It’s an insider joke—25 seasons of murder and mayhem in a small fictitious English village is a lot of bodies. Must be the bawdy count.

Update: my dear friend, Claudia Siefer just had her profile picture, a Cease Fire in Gaza peace sign removed by FB—after being up for three weeks. So I think the mention of Gaza is the culprit. Talk about body count.

Post hip blues

I re-injured my hip from my August mishap. My left leg fell asleep while I was writing. I was too impatient to wake it up. So I charged down the stairs, like a rhino, and got a colossal Charley-horse for my troubles. 

I pulled my psoas and hip flexor muscles, along with my thigh and calf muscles. my leg turned magenta, I thought I was going to die. I did myself in good this time. Then I thought I was going to die from the pain. My impatience and my urge to work through the pain laid me up for more than two months during the summer.

Fast forward, various minor abuses, mainly from moving all my stuff into storage In December because I had to move all my stuff from Donna Champion’s house, resulted in a re-injury of my hip flexor muscles two weeks ago, Wednesday. 

Week one was excruciating pain. I thought I was going to die. But I knew the drill. Week two, I was able to hobble about a bit. Tomorrow is week three. I can walk, but it hurts and threatens worse to come. There is no cure except rest and time—and the biggest punishment, not standing up. I have to teach tomorrow. How will I do it? Horizontally? Here’s hoping it’s not too soon to be up and about.

All this to say I am not in my Wednesday zoom writing group because I teach Wednesdays and I’ve been in far too much pain to write in Molly‘s February poem day group. Playing catch up. You think with all this downtime, I’d have some good writing bits. Nope. You can’t write when you’re in pain.

CABARET

Vanity, thy name is Peacock standing on a vanity. 

Well, actually the peacock is preening himself 

in front of the mirror in a public restroom, 

possibly at a park, but at least he chose the men’s room. 

It could be worse. Maybe he was avoiding the long loo lines.

He admires himself and his tres chic body double,

never taking on his reflection like some birds I know. 

No head-banging against the glass like that chickadee 

I finally had to capture to give him a time out 

before he broke his beak in a testosterone-induced rage.

The peacock’s long tail is like a ballgown train, 

perhaps he is planning to attend the Oscars for best of show. 

Or he’s an exotic dancer escaped from the Folies Bergère. 

He’s got the long legs perfect for the role. But this is not Paris.

Why he chose that place to admire himself and preen, 

I suspect it is something we will never know.

2/13/24 Molly Fisk PaD

Wardrobe malfunctions and butt capes

 I hope Amal remembers to pick up the front of her gorgeous long dress before she begins her ascent up those stairs. That’s a whole lot of train to drag uphill. Even Handsome George won’t be able to help her out of her predicament if she walks up her skirt.

When I used to usher for the plays at College of Marin, we would dress up in Elizabethan attire for Shakespeare. Robin Williams was running so far off script with Malvolio that director Jim Dunn was having apoplexy. We thought he was going to stroke out. James Harper was playing…awk, some head honcho, can’t remember…. 

During another performance, he magnanimously slammed the door on his voluminous cloak, and kept on walking until he hit the end of his, er, cape… well…. Unfortunately, I shrieked out laughing because it was so unintentionally funny. Then it was payback time.

And besides, cross-gartered Malvolio had totally broken the fourth wall with his ad-lib antics between scenes, sticking up his legs—encased in yellow hose and cris-crossed in scarlet ribbons—in the up in the air to do aerobic scissor kicks as if he were in a water ballet class. Talk about hosing the audience. I nearly wet my knickers.

Anyway, imagine if you will, I was leading some folks who were late, to their seats, with flashlight and tickets in hand, but I didn’t lift up the front of my dress. I trod right up the inside of my velvet empire dress a few step until my dress literally brought me to my knees. Luckily, the neckline was made of elastic, and I proceeded to bare my entire chest to the navel to everyone coming down the stairs. Luckily the lights were dimmed.

Luckily, too, that I was wearing a bra. At least I think I was. In those days I didn’t often wear a bra. It was the 1970s. Besides, there wasn’t a whole lot going on upstairs to begin with. But I had to back down off my dress, therefore running over the poor people behind me….backwards. In the dark. They were not happy. I was not happy. No one was happy. I was still half dressed.

Moral of the story is if you’re wearing a long dress, remember to pick up the front so you don’t walk up at. Especially if you’re wearing a heavy train.

But someone else posted a photo of her turning around. The reveal. No wonder she’s not picking up her dress, it’s not even a dress with a long train, it’s a voluminous butt cape or a half-assed overly inflated tutu. Unfortunately, that look makes it look like she stole someone’s flouncy floral curtains from the living room. The bustier is a nice touch though, with the yoga pants. Does this mean she is cross-dressing? or is it curtains?

WORK HORSE, DAWN RUN

Seagulls frantically circle the trawler at dawn, 

hoping for a handout while the dark sky broods, 

threatening rain, but the morning sun 

ignites the surface of the sea with an amber fire. 

The Sea Farmer chugs south towards the open sea, 

or perhaps he’s headed to Tomales Bay or Bodega Harbor 

while the landfolk sleep sound in the coastal hills, 

recumbent as a woman tangled up in sheets, 

and no one in the houses is awake. 

All the dark windows of the soul are closed,

dreaming of an open sea.

2/11/24 Molly Fisk PaD

FOUR STARLINGS

In the photograph, four speckled starlings 

still in their baby fuzz, congregate, 

their shadows aligned to the sun. 

This is how murmuration begins, like that. 

Soon they will take to the sky and dance on the wing, 

following an inner music only they can hear 

as they pulse and weave at dusk 

while we listen to the thrumming of feathers 

beating out a percussion in the air. 

Nothing prepares you for the sound, 

it’s something you have to witness at least once, 

to see those unpredictable sentinels queue up 

for a rave in the sky, as dressing a prayer 

for the wind.

2/10/24 Molly Fisk PaD

SELF PORTRAIT AS A SEA URCHIN

It’s all in the exoskeleton, where divergence occurs. 

Or what makes us different from the others. 

How we reshape our inner landscape to fit our vision. 

Someone posted a psychology test 

where the beginning of a maze dead-ended. 

Nowhere to go, as if offering a conundrum 

was beneficial to teach children to think different.

But I learned from that playbook the hard way 

because I can’t help but think outside the box. 

So I went in the exit and worked my way back

to the center, not knowing it was the answer. 

And I thought of how we present ourselves in our finery. 

Call it armor if you must, so as not to let anyone in,

or that urge to catch a glimpse of our fictitious selves, 

in our attempts to hide from what is in front of us.

2/9/24. Molly Fisk PaD.

Baby wood dragons

So last week, I was teaching poetry to fifth graders, some of whom I have known since kindergarten, but haven’t worked with them in a few years, at Malcolm X Elementary School in Berkeley—when I mentioned the four elements and the six Chinese elements for our I Am poetry prompt, which led circuitously to the upcoming year of the dragon. And I said, I’m a dragon, I was born in the year of the water dragon, and many of the kids raised their hands and said, We are dragons too. OK so our calculations may have been a tad off, but that’s all right. And then I thought, here I am teaching poetry, kindling the imaginations of baby wood dragons. The next generation to ignite the world.

Gratuitous sex and violence in films

Pretty-faced actor, Henry Cavill who looks like he could be related to Mel Gibson, sparked a debate when he said that he cannot stand sex scenes. I concur. I absolutely cannot stand watching gratuitous sex scenes in film and television—as they are boring—especially when the scene doesn’t drive the plot. You get 10 minutes of gratuitous grunting, or violence. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the difference.. Creepy enough as it is, I also dislike being put into the role of being a peeping Tom, or a voyeur. 

For starters, most of us don’t need instructions. And the sex and violence scenes go on forever. Blow by slovenly blow. Sometimes I wonder who is getting off here. The director? The producer? And who is the audience? Puerile teenage boys? Certainly not the actors. Ditto that for gratuitous violence. 

Having survived the Summer of Love, the 1960s and 70s, I am hardly a prude. Especially since I come from the hot tub capital of the world. Not to mention living in the Bay Area home of free speech and civil protest. And a few riots... I was at that Abbie Hoffman rally at UC Berkeley.

How many people saw Cyra McFadden‘s The Serial: A Year in the Life of Marin County? My grade school classmate, Mark Rasmussen, was the dude in the hot tub with all the peacock feathers. it’s funny that it’s become such a cliché, because, though we had hot tubs and peacock feathers, we did not to have them together. It was a figment of McFadden‘s imagination.

The imagination is much more interesting when it comes to things like that. I usually do something else while they play it out in real time, as it were. I am usually guaranteed at least 10 minutes downtime while the producers get off.

GRAZING IN STARK BEAUTY, MONTGOMERY PASS, NV

A band of mustangs grazes 

in high mountain meadows, 

ignoring the man resting against his motorcycle. 

To each his own, horsepower is horsepower, 

even when it’s twice removed from beauty. 

The granite range the continental divide 

dreams of the snow that will paint 

the alpine meadows in white.

The weary sagebrush bend their heads,

grizzled before their time, 

scud clouds portending snow.

2/8/24 Molly Fisk, poem a day

Full moon bridge

The medieval bridge built in a half circle meets itself full circle in the middle of the placid river. It could be Tibet, it could be Italy, or Scotland. Once I saw a perfect reflection of Kelvin Bridge down at the river bank. 

The shore lined with hypodermic needles tied us to this century. Go down to the river and flirt with death, seeking a path to nirvana that will take you down. The circle of Kelvin Bridge and river contemplates itself in a wilderness out of time with the mean streets of Glasgow. 

Meanwhile in Tibet, the photo is of a primitive cow and her calf follow their owner across an old bridge, still standing. He should be from another era with his bamboo hat and palm frond rain cape. He carries the harness yoke for her on his right shoulder. She needs no lead line to know that they are going home.

Once I crossed the Brig o’ Doon in Alloway, a pure arc across the river. Someone had strewn red carnations on the cobbled footpath. There is a new bridge for cars, but here time stops and lets no one pass. 

The herringbone pattern of cobbles was laid to confuse and thwart witches, a drunken Tam O’Shanter on the run. Well done, Cutty Sark.The creatures of the night cannot cross the water so they sulk and wait for the poet. While he had the DTs, Rabbie Burns taunted too many thirsty warlocks looking for the keystone. Not to mention Nannie, who caught the tail end of the horse.

2/7/24 Molly Fisk, poem a day, OK, so it’s not a poem.

storm front

After five days of back to back storms, no power, I’m getting desperate. I am housesitting at Sam’s place while he is in hospital. I am desperate for tea, or anything warm, really. An all electric kitchen sucks when the power goes out. I am freezing as well. No heat, no hot water. No showers. I ache. My hip hurts. After five days of no tea, and no coffee, I have massive headaches and am cranky as shit. 

The power has been out everywhere including at the community center. Even their generator died. Sam’s landlord, Jay has solar panels but who knew they needed Wi-Fi in order to work? No way to talk to them. Go figure. So any chance of power is nixed for the long run. 

The nights are long when I am sitting in the dark. Luckily I have books on tape, but my iPad is having trouble keeping a charge so I spend afternoons in my car charging my iPad. I can’t sign into my Zoom writing class because there’s no Wi-Fi to be had anywhere in West County.  

So I drive into Fairfax, looking for godlight and for Wi-Fi. The library was closed, but it had an outdoor outlet, so I boiled water, and paid homage to the electric kettle gods. Hot tea never tasted so good. I charge up my iPad with the car and surf like a madwoman until it’s time to go. Click. Shit. Dead battery. 

So I roll the gray guppy backwards in the parking lot pushing off with my bum hip. I’ve been laid up for a couple of weeks now, somehow I managed to strain my hip flexor muscle again so walking is agony, but apparently pushing a car one-legged is OK. Go figure. 

I push the car out of the parking spot, get it rolling down the hill backwards, and, damned if it didn’t start up. Backwards. First two times I popped the clutch, I pre-empted myself, I forgot to turn on the ignition, then popped the clutch too soon. The car juddered. Third time’s a charm. 

A momentary break in the storm before the next front arrives. Sometimes it’s good to have faith in the ordinary, trusting that things will work out in the end. Now, that’s love.

But wait! Not content with just warm tea, I took a mug of soup down to the community center Hoping to find power. PG&E was their supplying power, but no Wi-Fi, no kitchen. Dorothy and Alexa were in the office. Dorothy Cox had power in Woodacre so we drove to her house where I heated up my soup, beautiful soup, chicken Thai coconut soup. 

And now that’s heavenly, or maybe it was divine intervention. Dorothy is a lay minister. God is not a metaphor to her. And now the thunderclouds are painted in pastel hues. Now that’s God painting the sky after the storm.

FALLOW DEER, ABANDONED HOUSE

And why wouldn’t a fallow deer 

jump through the open window of a building 

with paint crazed like the melting ice sheets 

of Greenland and Antarctica?

The lower four square windows are gone.

Maybe the buck sailed through the open window 

to get to the center of things, a portal, 

his spots, so like stars guiding the way. 

Adobe walls, a skin of plaster lime 

fashioned in the style of wainscotting. 

They say a wild bird in the house portends a dream. 

Where is he going? Someone said 

it’s a Wyeth kind of window, 

a painted dream remembered in half light,

forgotten by dawn.

2/6/24 Molly Fisk, poem a day

MACY’S DAY PARADE, 1969

Two young girls dawdle at the bay window 

anticipating the big Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, 

but at the last moment, turn their backs to the window, 

to face the photographer forever trapped in black & white, 

while a 3-story Snoopy balloon photobombs the image. 

The downtown skyline, opulent as a paste necklace, 

embraces the heaving bosom of the sky. 

What did they find so interesting in the living room? 

Canvas cushions line the window bench, 

an old wooden steamer trunk, relic of a bygone era 

of steamships and luxury liners,

turned into a chic coffee table,

that will no longer sail abroad to Egypt or the Continent, 

is docked in a walk-up apartment, 

strewn with glossy books offering distant vistas 

that no one will look at. Places they’ll never go. 

Snoopy dressed as an astronaut, moons the crowd,

takes that first giant leap into the future.

2/5/24 Molly Fisk Poem a Day

FRUITING BODIES

Budding like ripening cherries on stalks, 

a colony of slime mold raises cerise orbs skyward, 

holding aloft the next generation, small suns,

while droplets of water reflect a slippery realm 

of fruiting bodies so like a family portrait 

of Chihuly sculptures in the lobby of a Las Vegas hotel. 

They gamble, and grow a backbone to greet the storm.

2/4/24 Molly Fisk Poem a Day

AEOLIAN WIND

If you must yield, always yield to a whim 

because it’s a secret your heart admires. 

At the top of the ridge, it will hold you to it, 

show you your heart’s desire, even though the skies 

are laden with dark clouds, and the trees 

gossip about the upcoming storm. 

Hog wire fence tipped with strands 

of barbwire dazzled with rain

is for sheep, or horses, not for cattle 

who will push their way through it.

But the wires play an atonal melody 

with the aeolian wind.

2/3/24 Molly Fisk’s Poem a Day

Remembering Herb Caen

“Sacramenna Kid,” Herb Caen (April 3, 1916 – February 1, 1997), San Francisco’s epic satire columnist had a lifelong love affair with The City. He immortalized San Francisco with nearly 60 years’ worth of pithy columns chock full of local happenings, insider gossip, and puns. He was credited with coining the phrase, “Baghdad by the Bay,” and bestowed the term, “Beatnik” upon poet Bob Kaufman.

Caen introduced and popularized the term “hippie” (never hippy—unless you were a hippo), Summer of Love and Frisbeetarianism, and Berserkeley. But San Francisco, his real mistress, was always The City. Caen’s daily columns were paeans, "A continuous love letter to San Francisco" and a special Pulitzer Prize called him the "voice and conscience" of San Francisco.

Herb Caen loved what he dubbed "Namephreaks"‍—‌people whose names (aptronyms) were appropriate or inappropriate to their vocations including substitute teacher Mr. Fillin, piano teacher Patience Scales, orthopedic specialist Dr. Kneebone, and the Vatican's spokesman on the evils of rock 'n roll, Cardinal Rapsong.

I had a seriously uptight ramrod of a science teacher in seventh grade called Mr. Sliney. And the other science teacher who replaced him (after he broke a ruler over a student’s hands) was called Mr. Plant.

The quasily-fictional character, “Strange de Jim” was Caen’s chief informer, alter ego, and purveyor of naughty puns. Caen called him "gu-ru di tutti guruskies.” (Strange showed up to Caen’s memorial to deliver a eulogy while wearing two Sesame Street pillowcases over his head.) But soon everyone got into the informer act—he had an “army of reliable tipsters.”

If you made it into one of Herb columns either as an informer, or by (un)honorable mention, you had either arrived, or you had to live down the tale. It was an honor to be lampooned in Herb’s column. Even my father who lost his wallet to a combative squirrel in a park never quite lived down, or up to his new moniker, “Squirrely Hurley.”

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Many of Herb Caen’s stellar columns were published in collection of essays, “Baghdad-by-the-Bay,” in 1949, and in “Don't Call It Frisco‍”—‌after a judge's rebuke to an out-of-town petitioner ("No one refers to San Francisco by that title except people from Los Angeles")‍ in 1953. In total he wrote 11 books, including children’s stories.

One reader remembered: When Herb Caen left Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner to join the San Francisco Chronicle, he took 10k subscribers with him. Our man about town was so popular he was nominated for president at the 1984 San Francisco Democratic Convention. Word has it some of those buttons are still floating around in bottomless martini glasses.

Caen received a special Pulitzer Prize (which he called his Pullet Surprise) in 1996 for "extraordinary and continuing contribution as a voice and conscience of his city."Caen was an astute collector of The City’s urban folklore.

After writing upwards of 16,000 columns, at a thousand words a day on his loyal Royal, he thought it was a joke. "Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist," he wrote. "Well, it does have a certain ring to it. And it will definitely add a touch of class to the obituary.” Then he shut his door and wrote his column.

June 14, 1996, was officially celebrated in San Francisco as Herb Caen Day replete with a parade to the Ferry Building. TV news legend Walter Cronkite even showed up and the Damnbarcadero was rechristened "Herb Caen Way…

Caen, the king of what he dubbed "three-dot journalism" was famous for his signature three-dot ellipses separating his short news snippets. And the characteristic three asterisks designating a sea change, separating the acts from the grind.

“In 1993, he told an interviewer that he declined to retire because "my name wouldn't be in the paper and I wouldn't know if I was dead or alive," adding that his obituary would be his last column: "It will trail off at the end, where I fall face down on the old Royal with my nose on the 'I' key.” —Wiki

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In his eulogy, Robin Williams said, “A very special Herb communion will consist of dry martinis and sourdough bread. And if you don't see God then, you never will.” And “I think that I know that you wouldn't mind me making jokes up here today because that's part of what you did. You made it kind of possible for us all to gather here and appreciate this very bizarre place.” Williams owed his early career success to Caen’s promotions.

My college schoolmate Robin said, I'd like you to turn to your hymnals. This is (Caen's book) "Baghdad by the Bay." and he read from it: 

"The crowded garages and the empty old buildings above them, the half-filled nightclubs and the overfilled apartment houses, the saloons and the skies and the families huddled in the basements, the Third Street panhandlers begging for handouts in front of pawn shops filled with treasured trinkets, the great bridges and the rattle-trap street cars, the traffic that keeps moving although it has no place to go, thousands of newcomers glorying in the sights and sounds of a city they suddenly decided to love instead of leave." —Herb Caen, Baghdad by the Bay

“I'm sorry you had to leave, man, but you're still here. See ya.”

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“If I do go to heaven, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, "It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco." —Herb Caen

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The day Herb Caen died, it was standing room only at Grace Cathedral, and at all his local watering holes, people stood a dozen deep, the Stoli and gin ran like water and the bartenders ran out of martini glasses, so they improvised with wine and water glasses. All for six-bits as Herb would say. A few parched souls opted for this infamous Vitamin V shot - Stoli over ice in a wineglass with a twist.

People noshed on his favorite meal, meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Next day, the entire city awoke with a massive, pulsating hangover. Pass the aspirin and Alka-seltzer.

Yesterday I had meatloaf and mashed potatoes in honor of Herb Caen, but I passed on the six-bit martinis. I had adult gu…I mean wine, instead. Here’s to you, Herb, wherever you are.

ONDINE’S REALM

That painting of drowning Ophelia at the Tate 

always haunted me, even in sleep. 

As a child I had nightmares of tsunamis 

or swimming the Australian crawl 

up the back roads after school.

Yeah, most people have flying dreams. 

Mine were always couched in subliminal terms, 

stranded somewhere between air and water.

When the tsunamis engulfed me, 

I discovered I could breathe underwater. 

Sometimes my safety raft was a shoe, the flat, girly kind. 

I was too young to read symbolism into my dreams, 

but I loved merging with the elements,

in the bathtub where everything was fish-eyed,

but after I nearly drowned, my grandmother dragged me 

down the road to Barbano's salt water pool, 

at 25 cents a lesson. I was an 8-bit swimmer.

That summer, I circled neighborhood pools 

seeking a baptism between air and water.

I gawped at pools, slipping in when no one was looking.

When I took to snorkeling, in the tropics,

I couldn’t get enough of that underworld realm 

where the sky and sun were distant wavery thoughts, 

the world I inhabited was painted anew.

Did Monet think about Ondine’s slippery realm 

as he painted canvases of waterlilies 

large enough to fill the imagination?

2/2/24 Molly Fisk’s Poem a Day

VENICE BEACH

My grandmother always said,

Never turn your back on the ocean. 

I learned that it was a seething monster 

riptides whisked you away to the great beyond. 

I learned to swim late, but water was a siren call. 

I had found my element. Small water dragon.

My grandmother, who taught me to count the waves,

tried to swim at Sutro Baths. It never took.

She never trusted the water. I was fearless. 

Even at ten, riptides whisking me out didn’t scare me. 

When I visited my mother one summer in Venice Beach, 

I spent every waking hour in the water. 

She had an apartment right on the boardwalk.

She slept all day, went out by night, 

leaving me in charge of my baby brother. 

But the mornings were mine alone.

There was never any food in the house 

so I ate cream of wheat until the box was empty. 

The taste of brown sugar and butter 

still takes me back to those days. 

Lately, I’ve returned to that sweet elixir. 

Call it a second childhood, it invokes 

those sandy southern California beaches, 

misted mornings, and the ocean, whispering, 

huge outsider waves urging me onward, out to sea, 

no strangely cheerful Pikachu offering a life-raft.

Just the raw power of the waves 

and the liminal horizon urging me onward.

2/1/24 Molly Fisk’s Poem a Day