UNTITLED LOVE POEM Please stay the night

UNTITLED LOVE POEM

please stay the night

   again the night

once again the night

             stay

7/7/1979

KINDERGARTEN DROPOUT

I walk down the road
It's a mile to the highway 

and the bus Is waiting.
School, where children grow to fit.

But a snake lies across the road.
Is it a rattler? 

He's a gopher snake 

blocking the way. 

No school today.

I board the yellow bus
The faces and the noise 

distract and confuse me.
Who walks down the road 

a mile to catch the bus.

Bus stops at the highway.
This child won't go to school.

Too many distractions along the way.

I watch the sun warms the grass 

and play in my new school clothes. 

Next year, the bus will come 

all the way up to Baranca Road. 

First grade will be completed.

2 July, 1979

rev. slghtly 11/2/2015

I don't think this poem was ever typed up.

TILLING THE FIELD Michael Dow workshop

DRAFT (don't know if I ever typed this one up)

The moon is almost fitful tonight.

A train whistles and moans

midway between night and morning
Cylindrical wheels resonate,

a throbbing echo and clatter.
The ticking of the clock echoes

the throbbing train, and the heart.

Systolic/diastolic. Open & closed.
There is a storm gathering 

in the direction of her eyes.

A line should be the length of a row.
It's the breath feeling, 

a staccato furrow of assonance 

dissonance and consonants.

The break in the link 

the breath and the line 

is a unit of breath.

Maybe we should go back,
chant in the rhythm of the hunt,
chant in the rhythm of plowing.
A line runs the length of a row.
To make a verse is to turn back on itself

and go against the direction of the row.
Go against the direction of the chant
boustrophedon, as the plowman walks.

There is a gathering storm.

July 1, 1979 Michael Dow workshop

minor rev. 11/2/2015 (mostly consolidated line breaks) 

Child in Changing Times Conference  

Arts in Everyday Living

6/28 to July 1

SSU

HISTORY CONTAINED IN THE BREATH

this whole history is contained
in the breath, he said
fogged on cold windowpanes
her eyes—
don't draw on the windows he said
it leaves fingerprints
when the breath dies
her eyes keep wandering
our history lies with God, he said
but he interfered with space and time
and her eyes keep wandering
shadows of darkness drawing her in
and her eyes keep wandering
to far horizons, distant shores

6/30/79?
this may be an earlier poem, there's a note: "old poems rediscovered, 1979"
slightly rev. 11/2/2015

GATHERING STORM

I need hard copy of this poem  DRAFT

I awoke with this sentence:

there's a storm gathering in the direction of her eyes.

She stands waiting

for him by the green pond. 

Conversation drifts by with the water, 

floats with the hours. His lichen eyes, 

impenetrable as the surface,

leave her stranded 

by all the ponds of the world

As he turns to leave, her image ripples,

her eyes gather in the storm.

Tonight there's a promise of rain in the air. 

June 29, 1979

Michael Dow workshop

Child in Changing Times Conference  

Arts in Everyday Living

6/28 to July 1

SSU

HOLLYHOCK Michael Dow workshop

Michael's Hollyhock DRAFT
In the afternoon room of dust and summer's heat,
Michael picks up a flower from the red carpet
where it had fallen from her long a gleaming hair.
The hollyhocks edges were bruised,
withered from the wearing.

Pollen scattered across its petals
Yellow flecks on the maroon petals
He raised it gently to his nose to inhale its scent
so like the first sip of tea in the tea ceremony.
It had no special older, just color to keep it afloat.

The flower thirsted for water, or even nectar.
She plucked it during the hard heat of day
The sap that coursed through its veins
in such sweet green succor
like a lazy river on a summer's day,
severed from the umbilicus.

The flower adorned her hair
by the hand that robbed it of life.
The humming bees in the flower,
their legs, laden with pollen,
dandled around that plucked blossom.

Flower trumpet faded, read into the carpet,
red in the hand, withered in the hair.

6/29/1979

Michael Dow workshop

Child in Changing Times Conference  

Arts in Everyday Living

6/28 to July 1

SSU

Solstice

Solstice

golden sun presses down upon the high hill of the horizon
crickets shake the stillness of the air
blood courses thru my ears like the rippling wind
tall oat grasses empty of seed
pods rustle In the warm night breeze that once sowed them

venus is first to appear on the horizon at twilight 

followed by the double u of casseopia and the twins 

if you can see the double star of the big dipper 

the indians said your eyesight was good

no warm air inversion tonight as twilight 

spreads its sheets of color on the horizon
few warm nights this year at austen creek park
this season's wildflowers were slow to unfold
and the event was not witnessed

Summer Solstice 1979? 80?

added 2/2017

FELL INN

FELL INN

In a kitchen at Fell Inn

a plastic cup of coffee 

the odor of compost thick with fish
it is morning in a strange house

Waking to an empty room
I slept on the floor, and dreams 

as sharp as razors 

grapefruit tastes rotten on my tongue
what is it that separates the hand 

from the brain 

from the body?

nausea whirls

the peripheral edge
of the eye

Walk in the park alone  

to confront the fine line of fear and loneliness
bitter in the mouth 

like boiled coffee

Bus exaust curls around 

the red hibiscus
trumpet gasping for air

Feet upon the earth 

what's left natural 

is as slimy as the sidewalks 

where winos spit 

morning in the city

it is a fine edge.

6/1979

diPrima Workshop

added 2/2017

Dream Sequence with Peter Kapp

DREAM IMAGE: AGGRESSION

A mask of Peter Kapp emerged from the struggle of yin and yang, it spun so fast that they became round and viscous, glistening black, and chalky white. They raced around each other counter-clockwise. They spun like the planets and became gray.

Peter's face was a mask made of gypsum. His right side was black, and his eyes were sightless, like the eyes of classical statues. He couldn't see because the power, the internal balance was off. The struggle to overcome the past blocks in the structure of personality. It didn't work and there was no going back to what once was, no matter how hard he tried.

Balance and harmony came unwillingly to the student.

6/8/1979

WINGS OF STONE ANGELS

From a Diane di Prima workshop, collagraph, Altar Book, SF Zen Center, June 13, 1979

THE AGES OF TREES

They live for an age
take another age to rot.
The ages of trees.

6/12/79        

THE EDGE

In the kitchen, a plastic cup of coffee

abandoned, rotting odor of compost 

thick with fish, impossible to ignore.

It is morning, it is morning in a strange house.

Waking to an empty room, 

I slept on a floor as sharp as razor blades, 

while bums sleep on street corners.
Breakfast of grapefruit is bitter on the tongue. 

What separates sound from the brain? 

From the body? Black nausea swirls, 

blurs the peripheral edge of the eye.

I walk in the Panhandle alone. 

It's the fine line of being afraid 

and being alone, to be tested. 

Bitter in the mouth like boiled coffee. 

The line is a fine line.

Bus exhaust curls around a red hibiscus. 

Its trumpet gasps for air.

Feet upon the earth, what's left 

is slimy as the sidewalks where the winos hawk. 

Morning in the city, it is a fine edge. 

6/10/79

Diane di Prima workshop

SF Zen Center

MOON CUP

MOON CUP

touch the red moon
the cup is full
the pouch holds the cup
like the moon in Gemini

liquid birth
of the moon in a cup
cup full of moon
the body full
the moon blood full
like the heart

eclipse
of dragon's blood
spilled from the cup
the blood of the moon

6/10.1979

Diane di Prima workshop?

SF Zen Center

A BURIAL COMBINATION

it provided immediate inspiration

and maximized limited resources

it continued to be used

with down-to-earth impact

6/9/79

Diane di Prima workshop

I later stole the title and used it for another poem

IF THERE'S A CRACK

cracks in cosmic eggs
make a mess of things

June 1979

Diane diPrima workshop, June 8-10, 1979, San Francisco Zen Center, journal

June 8-10, 1979, San Francisco Zen Center, Diane diPrima workshop journal notes.

Diane began the writing workshop with a visualization, she said to relax and let the imagery flow. We could either be in a prone position, or sit in a meditation triangle. We were asked to write down 30-second takes, haiku-like, and to use them but to rely upon all our senses. She asked us to try visualizations of our dreams.

She pulled out some tarot cards, and said that dreams of love and aggression, death and flying, and falling are your victories. Ask to see the spirit behind the mask. Bring back a dream song. Bring back a balance between the dream world and the real world. If you grow fatigued, retrace your steps before waking.

We played games of chance. She said to use pieces of articles, random cut-ups, she said to pick out phrases and re-combine them with new work. Or mix them up with old poems.

She also asked us to to word-gamble with dice. Take six books, then roll the dice for a stanza, roll for words, roll for images, roll for found sentences. We slammed down the liar’s cup and called it poetry.

She told us to collect objects that tell stories, we met in groups and wrote a composite poem from each of them.

She also suggested creating collective verse where we all share in the process.

She asked us, what am I? Each line is a separate take.

She reads from her own work and she reads from Frank O’Hara. I love Frank O’Hara’s poems.

We work towards disjointedness and let our fantasies play.

Using the Alastair Crowley tarot deck, I drew the universe and wrote about a dappled gray horse coming in from the sea. The horse was carrying armor of a human but it was empty inside and they were cobwebs across the eyeholes. The wind blew through the armor with a hollow lonely sound.

The horse said, My name is Equus. I told him he wasn’t my God, nor was he my myth. He said I am your God. I always have been since you were a child and you’ve ridden upon my back. I thought of the Welsh hobbyhorse with the horse’s skull, the ghost mare, the Mari Lwyd.

I unmasked the stallion. I peeled away his flesh to find his bloody face, and another layer. l breathed on it—it was the face of a white wooden horse beneath the third layer, the skull beneath the fourth layer was bleached white and in the eye sockets and the spaces between the nostrils was a scenic landscape of Drake’s Estero in Point Reyes. I wanted to ride the red mare.

I followed him down the pathway to the valley below, to the river, to the sea. I left my red mare behind on the hill underneath the pine tree and left the red amanita undisturbed.

When we reached the end of the rise that followed the pale strand, we took a canoe across to the other side. The horse had become a knight in armor who was prone, on his back, either dead, or gazing skyward. The shore and the hills became surreal as if I had become the landscape and I could taste the green, the blue, the shimmering sea.

6/8/1979

▼  June (most of the poems came from her workshop)

TUFTED PUFFIN

TUFTED PUFFIN

I. The sighting
Surf rock sound, pounding ocean of perches,
Polyp colonies and brittle stars.
Sea palms sway in, and pacific waves roll wet
While pelagic puffins wing wearily northward.

This parrot of the sea
Has bright bandied legs of green,
Orange feet, tri-colored beak,
And harlequin eyes edged in black.
Upon a white cheek, and black crest
A white feather tuft dangles.

He lives mid-ocean,
Sleeps, and fishes on the waves.
Only when he nests
Does he come to the land.

II. The journey
He flies, not gracefully —
This portly bird sets his course
to the north tundra,
To the barren rocky islands to nest.
Blowing off course, or lost,
He lands on the Farallone Islands,
Islands also drifting northward.
Their migration is measured in inches a year
As the techtonic plate shifts
along the San Andreas Fault
Stretching all the way to Alaska,
and to the Bering Sea.

Continental plates bend and shape the land.
Where the Sea of Cortez once flowed
Lies the Great Central Valley,
And beyond, the mighty rift that lifted the Sierras,
Young mountains still growing.
On their crests, the sky blooms.
Sky Pilot and Penstemon intertwined in the roots
Of Bristlecone Pine, older than the calender of Christ,
Twists in cascading snowfields of the White Mountains.

To the north, liquid sunshine of the Pacific Northwest

Drizzles down on the Hoh River Valley.
Budding pseudopods, amoebas, slime molds,
And copopods slip sideways in the marsh night.

In the clear brook, myriad rainbows
Prism the sunlight between bearded oaks.
Farther to the north, zebra-striped tundra mosquitos
Suck the blood of caribou.
Salicylic willows provide shelter for insects.
The tufted puffin returns home to the north
To nest in the willow-down with the eider ducks.

The blood of the caribou runs.
That's why the leaves of the huckleberry are red.
At home, the fruit stains purple 

the teeth of Inverness Ridge.
Through pine needles, coastal fog
Tastes of salt, salt of the earth.

This land is too valuable to grow food 

For the people who live in the houses 

Planted upon sugar-beet fields,

And the ghosts of apricot blossoms 

Gathering nectar for bees in April orchards.

The caribou's tendons crackle as they trample 

Miniature forests of willow, pine, and Pasque flowers. 

Growing with the lichen, they eat the fragile landscape.

Deep snow comes and covers the lichen, 

Wolves howl and anticipate fresh meat. 

The lucky ones manage to live until spring thaw.

III. The visitation

Fog trespasses along the Point Reyes coast,
Paying no heed to fenced land,
As it drizzles upon rein orchids and huckleberry.
Fog and ocean blend into one
Where the tufted puffin drifts in the surf.

1978-79

THE CHERRYPLUM (haiku)

THE CHERRYPLUM (haiku)

The honey bees dangle
on the wild cherry blossoms 

snowing on the ground

i sit on the porch
windows cobwebbed and painted 

frame the afternoon

sonorous buzzings 

yellowjackets devour 

fallen cherry plums

yellow leaves swirling
burned cuttings in bonfire split 

wood stacked up high

open the windows
coastal snow and rain sweep in 

gather wood for warmth

sit by the iron stove
wood from the cherry plum glows 

thru the freezing night

bright budding branches
sap runs upward during thaw 

night blackens new growth

sap runs in yr veins
the stirring of dormant seed 

and budding flower

smell of musk honey 

on yr fingers, on yr beard 

mingles on our bodies

stamen and pistil
the anther and the ovum
pollinates the fruit

warmth of sun on skin 

nibble upon ripened fruit 

and nourish the fire

tongues seek out nectar 

limbs seek shelter from the night 

lips touch each other

on yr arms i am 

gathered up again for warmth 

in the freezing night

the honeyed scent drifts 

up in smoke to the nostrils 

blood warms and flows

Chinook breezes blow 

sap runs with energy renewed
bees stir in their hives

bees stir in their hives 

fragrant cherry plum blossoms 

unfurl their petals

Spring 1979

added 2/2017

Mindless interjection

Mindless interjection of unlocking words, interpreted throughout the seamwork of a fine conversational linen soliloquy, folded carefully and placed in the closets of inattention, while a harmony of silent moths nibble at the frayed yellow edges unraveled with age.

No date, written on the back of a Gary Snyder poster from April 1979.

Gary Snyder poster reading at College of Marin

This is sort of where it all began. I saw Gary Snyder at College of Marin; and said, "I can do that." At least, it was at the College of Marin reading that I began to take myself seriously as a poet. Clearly I have work that predates this date. This date works out as April 17, 1979. The back notes set the day of the week as a Wednesday for April 11, which makes it 1979. I thought it was earlier than that. Maybe something else will turn up. I had torn the poster in half to use the back as writing paper...

Traces of the Goddess

Traces of the Goddess

she surveys the night because 

the answer is, of course,

traces of the goddess

a foot beneath the cover 

a light in the window

mostly in April 

new growth 

presses against 

the leafless tree

what brings you here 

bearing heavily down 

with such force? 

the pounding heart
sees the blood
here on the cut glass

these essences that spill 

she bites the flesh 

the body turns and heaves 

to a rhythm that lasts 'til dawn.

April 1979

added 2/2017

Dolphins, Inland Passage, journal

We walked down four flights of stairs of bleached wooden cedar planks that connected the cliff with the shore, and the railroad tracks below the town. The stairs, like the ones at Pike Street Market in Seattle collect all the town winos, and the Indians.

We are on foreign soil, their stares tell us. The streets are for white folks that ride the ferry up from the mainland in there well padded Winnebagos. They are like metal wombs that completely isolate them from the people that live here. They're all bound for Prince George to go fishing and hunting. No one stays long in Prince Rupert.

With our grubby backpacks and jeans, a symbol, just as the Winnebago is, we wandered down the tracks where the vegetation grows the thickest. We watched the natives of the forest with their cheap wine watching us.

The mid day summer sun warms the railroad ties that smell of creosote and tar and the light shimmers wet on the inland passage that faces to the west to the Queen Charlotte Islands, and beyond them the open Pacific.

Why aren't the Indians somewhere out there and dugout canoes like the Haida in Curtis's film? What's here for them? Work in the floating ship factories? They drink down their two weeks pay before the weekend is over.

I've been to the coast of Vancouver Island. Uclulit, another fishing town 40 miles away by sea, some 90 miles by road, wouldn't want to spend the winter in either place.The intense loneliness of the isolated towns along the coast. Even the sun seems indifferent as it filters down to the hemlocks.

The quality of light in the north, a difference of angle of sun to the earth. The sun didn't set until midnight and then it arose again too early. Orange sky for three hours as the sun dipped to the horizon. Haida Bear stands sentinel to  the deserted longhouses, rotting away  in the wilderness on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Winos lying along the railroad tracks, when's the last time they saw their totemic ancestors? Last night, dolphins escorted our ship into port.

No date, but a copy was attached to my Hoh River piece, 7/25/1979, though the experience was from 1977 or 78.
This may be a piece I wrote in 1978. By fall of 1978, I had turned it into a poem and added it to my poetry MS (calligraphed), so it dates from 1978 or earlier. But it's interesting to see them side by side. If I wrote the prose in 1978, I was clearly a much better prose writer than a poet. If only I had known.

Inland Passsage

Added 10/16.

MEASURING THE DAY

MEASURING THE DAY
A leaf scuttles across the blacktop

on four tiny feet

and leaps up the embankment

where the full moon lamp post

illuminates the way

In the western sky the new moon 

carries out the aging moon 

in her crescent arms

The sword of Orion dangles at his side
the hunter and his dogs bound 

along the western journey
through darkness

Does his sword slice through the perfect orb 

of darkness and light 

making an even cut across its surface 

this equinox?

Do the days end nights 

dole out their essence carefully in spring?

Does Orion chase after the setting sun 

or does he hunt for something else 

only in darkness?

Does the new moon flee 

from the edge of his sword
with the encased egg of the old moon 

in her arms like a spider
protecting her young?

Will we never see the stars 

from the Southern Cross from here?

Why is everyone chasing through the sky? 

who brings in the day?

Spring Equinox, 1979

added 2/2017

A mile a minute past midnight

A mile a minute past midnight, my memories of you reminds me of tiny words pattering across my mind at night when I'm about to go to sleep. I'm not aware at first, that I haven't gone to sleep, and that I'm not dreaming, but I catch myself thinking at 60 mph, and it's an hour past midnight, and I'm still not asleep.

I can't shake the words out of my head and onto a piece of paper when I need or want them. Fickle words, they raced back-and-forth willfully and disturb my sleep, or whatever else it was that I was doing.

They seriously disrupt my every thought process until my poor tired mine looks like an oatmeal porridge bowl fraught with tangled, snarled, wounded, mutilated words limping back from the wars with goblins and hobiyas.

I have to gather them up neatly and packaged them and place them in the proper crannies and knotholes until I need them again.

The problem is, they won't stay of their own free will. They kick off their wrappers and start making themselves heard, and so I spent a lot of time repackaging and re-rapping them to put them back where they belong in the dusty recesses of my mind.

Like you, they tip-toe out uninvited and run rampant as soon as the lights go out.

Good night… Again.

Spring 1979? No date
added 10/16

Driving to K’san, Skeena River

Driving to Terrace

I admired the rough beauty of the Skeena River and the glacial sweep of the mountains. We were nearing Terrace. There was Old Terrace where the Indians mostly lived, New Terrace, a government project most likely, and there was a lot of empty road between it and 'Ksan, a reconstructed Indian village near Old Hazelton, that Vernon helped to design. Something to do with national pride. The Gitxsan Indian Nation.

Vernon was nothing like the Cherokee man we met in Vancouver who wanted to annihilate all white folks. But he liked us right enough. He wore a breastplate made of bones in the Cherokee style. Bones that reminded me of the delicate bone of my forearm. Paranoid, I told myself.

Vernon Stephens was driving down the Yellowhead at 110 mph in an old 60s pickup truck. Our packs were in danger of flying out the back of the truck. But I trusted Vernon implicitly. He picked us up in Prince Rupert. Liked our foolhardiness. "Anyone nuts enough to try to hitch out of that place deserves a ride," he said.

I had briefly met Vernon years before in front of the de Young museum (or was it the UBC?) I once spent an afternoon watching him carve a totem pole in the old way. I never expected to run into him again in Prince Rupert, of all places.

Vernon's hair was the most beautiful wavy black cloud I had ever seen. Bob's hair was long, and curly, California style, but he always wore his hair tied back in a knot, like he was secretly embarrassed by it all, and only grew long to be defiant after he got out of the army.

Vernon wore his hair like a bride's veil and he walked with the comfort of the man in touch with his body, his energy directed from his hips led him forward with grace and ease. Bob was head oriented. Like there was this string attached to the top of his head, lifting him up every time he stepped forward. Not of the earth. But then, that was Bob's way.

I'd been with Bob for so long, I'd gotten used to his ways. I'd forgotten about them, actually. Vernon made me aware of it. Made me turn over in my subconscious. Took me two years to realize it. Bob made me unhappy and I didn't even know it.

We stopped off to have a beer in Smithers. Vernon knew everybody there—there wasn't enough room for another chair at our table. "Can I buy you another round?" another face asked. I couldn't even place the name with the face, there were so many buyers.

I noticed that I was the only woman drinking in the bar. This was truly a man’s world. I was gatecrashing.Again. I asked, "So, don't women drink beer around here?" No one answered. The waitress was the only other woman I had seen since leaving Prince Rupert. Rosie was her name. Vernon said she was a great gal. He knew her well. I think. It made me a little envious.

Amazing to watch this man who had the profound respect of all these white folks. Not like the ones who hurled slurs at Indians in other towns. Not like the drunks sleeping it off below Pike Street in Seattle.

Vernon is a goldsmith. A well-known goldsmith. Most everyone around here is wearing one of the chased wristbands he makes for the Provincial Museum in Victoria, and other tourist shops. One of those bands costs more than what Bob and I have to live on for the entire summer.

Vernon takes off his cuff to show us how he makes it convex. I dabble in silver and show him my turquoise rings. I can tell that he is not impressed which makes me sit up a bit, as I'm pretty good at it, but I have no intention of becoming a jeweler, and he knows it.

The beer keeps coming. Soon, I'm slithering under the table, and they all have a good laugh. "She can can't even hold her beer," Vernon says smugly. I feel the implied dig and I slur, "I'm Irish. 100% Irish. We feel it sooner. It's this Canadian beer, it's stronger than our American beer." He laughs.

"Yeah, that’s real piss beer," someone offers. I retort, "Hey, listen, you got to account from my relative size. I am a lot smaller than you guys." And then I pretty much fall into a heap on the floor. Vernon takes my unfinished beer and drains it down. Lifts me up. Says, "Well, we gonna hit the ground. I got to get to Terrace. Thanks. Be seeing you."

Vernon pulled the battered truck into the only gas station in town. It took us two tanks of gas to drive from Prince Rupert to Terrace. We paid for gas. Least we could do. Nothing is close these parts. To go to the nearest bar, you have to drive 40 miles or so. No alcohol on Indian reservations.

Soon we have to take a break, return all that rented beer. There's so little traffic in these parts, the two men just stand there jawing on the side of the road at dusk. Male bonding in action. Twin rivulets track across the road and head down to the Skeena River. My beer frothed into a little well of sacred earth by the side of the road, making me realize, that despite the company, I was very much alone. In retrospect, I should’ve folded my bad hand, and run off with Vernon. But it was not in the cards.

typed 3/1979

SKEENA RIVER

Skeena River and vast glacial mountains
We drink from a pure stream along the way.

Why did Vernon say he hated the river?
Whey did it ever do to him?

Halfway to Terrace we stopped off for a beer

Soon the table was crowded with Indians
and two gringo hitchhikers.

After several rounds, I slid under the table
and all the men laughed because
a woman couldn't hold her beer.
We returned the rented beer to the river.

I’ve backpacked through British Columbia
and slept wherever it suited me.
But in Vancouver there was nowhere to stay.

So we slept in the shrubbery
at the University of British Columbia

and under a tree in Beacon Hill Park in Victoria
only to be awakened by an aphid rainstorm
and to a young man waking the swans with his flute.

And after a hangover from the Beaver Pub
we slept in the shadow of the lofty Empress Hotel.
In Stanley Park where we watched the ships in the Straits.

At Jasper, deep in the Rockies, We slept in a hotel lobby
with other travelers of the thumb

And we snuck into the showers upstairs.
Ah, such heaven.

On the reservation

she was young and big and brown
and seemed so much younger than I.

She looked forward to the day
when she could join the RCMP Academy.
She said her grades were good.

I looked at her in disbelief
and thought to myself, ah well,
one can be miserable in the midst of splendor
but it still is a kind of hell for her.

I have traveled so far to see her hell.
I camped by the Skeena River
in the bushes that night
and I got sick from the water.
Another hind of hell.

3/79

Journey of Wishes no efile

EMPTY SIDEWALKS

EMPTY SIDEWALKS 

Empty city sidewalks

Light gushes out of the streetlamp 

like water from the faucet 

and bathes the stone-cold midnight sidewalk 

with its fluorescent spray, 

while the parched earth wait 

for the new dawn. 

No date. But it is making a note of the drought even back in 1978 or 79 whenever this poem was written.

THE LINGUAL ARCH OF THE RIVER AND THE SEA

THE LINGUAL ARCH OF THE RIVER AND THE SEA

The river is a tongue leading into the dark

whispering ocean of many tongues 

The mouth of the river is interlocked in an embrace 

with one of the many mouths
of the ocean

The polygamous ocean ' tongues ' rivers everywhere
Those mouths exchange the souls of those 

who are indifferent to living 

Those who slipped into the grey snags 

of willow along the river shore 

They slid down thru the roots of the willow 

into the river to that long journey downward 

The river is a molten tongue

carrying them downward to the sea
The words on the tongue of river 

are words of all those who still wait to speak 

The ocean is tongue 

The river is tongue 

They share the same mouth 

To speak they each need separate mouths 

Women have two mouths and one tongue 

Men have two tongues and one mouth
Mouths and tongues each need a place to lie in 

before they can speak 

1979  summer

added 2/2017

The Lingual Arch of the River and the Sea (dream) 

Faces

Faces

I have many faces
my faces as you
ask me to stay, my faces
as you ask me to leave, make
me warm with love
love, change I
follow you, my
faces upon the mountain flank,

my faces under the stars,

your warm lips intertwine with mine,

your tongue enters my mouth
my faces
there in the moonlight, 

there in the meadow
smell of musk, summer dust
poison oak and bay laurel 

as we talk about living, 

my faces search yours,

the faces we share melt
like waxen masks 

in moonshadow
we melt into each other's bodies
on the path many
faces intertwine
in the moonlight.

1979

added 2/2017

Morning Poem

Morning Poem

Stiff eyes search out another cup of coffee

lids scratch across the surface of nausea 

flies crawl in on my skin, sun sweats it 

my hands so stiff i can barely write 

as last night catches up with morning 

I'm too tired to wake up, it's too morning 

to go back to sleep 

as humming birds flit on our voices

1979

added 2/2017 minor changes

Of That You're Certain

Of That You're Certain

I am like a water pipe that freezes and thaws 

until the stress breaks the pipe 

the pipe is my body, the thaw is my heart 

the freezing is the restrictions of our love

The ground is unstable under my feet
and I am afraid of falling on frozen earth
the path is always forward
it is not a hopeful path
soon it will freeze and the pipe will burst

The frost is black and white
the hoar frost is white
the black frost is a killing frost
and you are water that flows thru the pipe
you are night that freezes the pipe
you are the sun that thaws it over and over again

1979

added 2/2017

Mother Simplex

Mother Simplex

I taste the lie upon my tongue
martyred flesh
life is a breath of...
and the images flash before me
mother's meat to be crucified

She barks like a dog
wolf mother with fear in her voice
as she slowly dies

1979

added 2/2017

The Swim

The Swim

Harvest of spring and midnight swims

in snakeskin

she breaks star ripples in a pool 

of moon fungus water

Water fingers caress her body
amniotic birthing
water thru spread fingers
water thru splayed toes
the toes of childhood 

like frogs, full breast stroke
thigh frog-kick shatters moon, star reflections

float in the water, breathing sea mammals 

we exhale into the water 

we are water, we are water

She swims in liquid night wrapped around her body 

thousands of tongues lick and lash her 

she stands by the pool
cement slurps up the water that streams down 

her curve of spine, belly, nipples erect

the water licks down

down

1979

added 2/2017

men in the landscape

men in the landscape

there are those who would stay on the land 

until the land takes them back again 

it is their mother

there are those who were once firmly rooted 

who wish to escape and fly above it 

it is still their mother

it holds to them and brings them back into the fold 

when they love women 

it is the mother

they are the ones who resist the hardest

their death brings them back again 

it has been and always will be

the great mother 

1979

added 2/2017

Is It Time?

Is It Time?

Depression sets in

it is nearer time to go than to stay
amid the stars and
sliced segments of orange moon

lips full of envy
and i have teeth to caress
this blood orange
bittersweet

listless limbs drape
over the sounds of a ticking clock

that melts down too slowly for time

it sets in for days 

memories of

my hands absently strokes my breast 

is that you i hear?
no? then melt down the clock faster 

it is not time yet.

1979

added 2/2017

MEMORY

MEMORY

Rings on trees 

signify the passing of years

the pale wide rings dividing the wet years 

from dark dense wood when the rains don't come 

I'm looking-down at my fingernails & it occurs to me

that there are growth rings embedded on them too, 

where growth measured in weeks, not years 

What drought is measured on my nails? 

Is it a loss of the heart?

Or a loss of love? 

A memory lapse? 

Loss of the poet? 

Loss of protein?  

Or a loss of fear? 

Maybe ridicule? 

Or antibiotics?

A pregnancy?

Memory gain? 

Weight loss?

Or water?

Drought?

?

1979

added 2/2017

very minor changes to make the tree shape work

Maelstrom

Maelstrom

The grinding stream, the maelstrom 

is a way to the land of the dead 

dilate yr mind beyond the unbearable 

it is not a forgiving universe 

it is inexorable as the stars in their courses 

where no sparrow could fall unnoticed 

for there are seeds which propagate 

themselves along the jetstream of time 

the mud has lost its cutting edge 

the omphaloessa, the umbilical cord has been severed 

"into water wind has come, into water wind will go" 

time to separate heaven and earth with a sickle

It Is a Part

It Is a Part

it wraps itself around you

a drop of water splats the top of your head
where the part is 

warm water in the tub
down your cheek it trickles
as you pull the plug
it escapes slowly down
the drain
where it collects in the pipes 

and your sorrow runs underground 

to the briney sea 

taste the tear that bathes the sea 

the tear is salt for your tongue 

to taste

1979

added 2/2017

For Worse, Replies My Friend

For Worse, Replies My Friend

naked you walk
naked you walk
netting is suspended at night from stout cords
stars overhead are the presage of summer
and bright stars

i hold myself here and alone through the mist
lost but not completely
and far out into the dawn the first bird of morning

opens his beak and sings

this dawn is shaped by the sole scream of ecstasy 

and you just stand there free from it 

made free by it

limbs touch the suppleness of a woman
the straightness of a man
now it expresses itself, in control
if we had hope for an excuse, or even love
the apple cuts at your mouth like broken glass
and you lie there like a sick cat in the gutter
while the great bed sighs to itself
i, instead of being dutiful, write letters

the pathology of the life processes is known
as well as the normal
is this an unnamable joy, or a sorrow being named?
there will be some discomfort

1979

added 2/2017

To an Eclipse in the Moon - dark Past

To an Eclipse in the Moon - dark Past

Deep sleep lies down within the well gone dry amid boquet of rags on the carpet

fingers explore and massage the erotic zones of the mind the depths of ecstacy dangle on a phallic cross painted red

Paint it red

Paint it red Lately she has taken to painting the lips of her mouth a fragment of the true cross is lodged within her bones, her breast she sought a reflection of it" but her eyes , they cast no shadow in the mecuriaal glass

The church bells are ringing

The bells of the church

They are ringing

The bleedings begun

The bleedings begun What are those flecks of white so like the stars growing upon her feet?

It is the skin

Skin of the dead

Skin of the dead She must wash it away with her hair , lest it adhere and grow there

Let it grow

Let it grow there He was born(some say he was born) during the full of the eclipse moon the eaten eclipse of dragons blood, and he was a man disguised as himself

The needs of the flesh

Made flesh , proud flesh

Being eaten among you

The blood of the dying

The bleedings begun His fingers make sing to another song of her cunt liquid runs in her veins, liquid fire thrust down deep withtn her she is strung out on beads of lapis and bloodstone sweat trickles down between her breasts, she is liquid in the well liquid night of the stars to melt down the yolk of the moon, half eaten see the silver crest of the cock as it crows for the light of the egg flickering stars witness the ritual cannibalism of cocks egg

Visions of pressed wrinkled

Splintered bloody bone

Crushed beneath the weight

The bleedings begun Her bare feet christen the pine steps as she walks like champagne flowing down from the bow of a boat at baptism clouds pass behind the moon moving with the wind

wind... and the flagellation of trees as they whip at the night air she sits with the wind ,and the moon on the horizon she follows it across the ocean on a breath they speak to each in their own

Behold the body

Visions of the flesh

Being eaten among you

The bleedings begun

Patterns

Patterns

The annual and diurnal patterns hold 

it seems always to be connected with the notion 

that in the savagery of love
the skeleton set in motion collapsed flaccidly 

as we take off from now 

the spider crawled all the way down and delivered him
blue as the star
blue as the gull
the bull headed monster
of the double axe

Body whose hands broke ground for that thrusting head 

years have passed since that autumn

it had promised to be too hot 

but just enough sun warmed them

Pleasant whiteness of pearl barley 

or woman's body, a communal drink 

Antares glows faintly without sparkle 

behind all that maleness of that mulling night.

1979

sounds like another diPrima workshop pome, june?

added 2/2017

She Steps out of the Mirror

She Steps out of the Mirror

she waits
she is always waiting
she was born waiting
waiting to be reborn
she will die while waiting

she lives in the mirror
she sees only the reflections
looking out of the mirror
at the others looking in
at themselves, at her
none knowing which side of the mirror
they stand behing or in front of

so they wait to see
who will move first
to betray the reflection
in the mirror that waits for them

they are frozen

as they wait to see 

if they are reflections 

or merely real

they grow old together
die and are reborn
and still they wait
while looking into the mirror

the mirror ages glass
slumps mercury
peels off
warping their reflections

pieces gone missing
like holes in a painting
cracks appear on the glass
across their faces
still immobile
they wait

silica seeks its own 

as glass returns to sand 

sand in an hourglass 

shifts through time

1979

sounds like a Diane diPrima workshop, if so, then June

added 2/2017

LIGHT

LIGHT 

Light cleaves to walls 
ceilings & floors. 
It sticks to you 
& you can't shake it 
or wipe it off. 
It always comes back looking 
for exposed surfaces to cling to. 
As you crawl out of darkness 
it waits & attaches itself to you 
until you hide to avoid it.
But still it comes—
waiting to be freed
from the darkness
that tempers it.

1979?

The Paper and the Sonoma County Stump

Since I've discovered that I can now backdate my old blog posts that were crammed into the years 2007, and 2008, when I first began blogging, I've been rearranging old posts. However, they no longer have context. So here's a bit on the newspapers I worked for during the 1980s and 1990s, to give you some kickoff perspective.

See also Old Posts, New Posts

The Paper was first launched in 1979 by Elizabeth Poole and Nick Valentine, in Guernewood Park, and later moved to Monte Rio. After Bliss Buys and Joe Leary's Sonoma County Stump folded around 1981, Simone Wilson and I began working for The Paper. Somewhere along the way, it became the West Sonoma County Paper. Nick Valentine, or the new owner, John Boland (of KQED fame) may have changed the name again. John Boland moved The Paper from Monte RIo to Forestville to Freestone, to Santa Rosa and it became the Sonoma County Independent.

It was purchased in 1994 by Silicon Valley-based Metro Newspapers Group (a chain of 10 weeklies: AAN Metro Silicon Valley and Metro Santa Cruz).  Soon after that, I left The Paper, the thrill was gone, micromanagers and myopic editors, and turfy journalists including Gretchen Giles, ran roughshod over us. I didn't survive the politics. The jerk with whom I was sharing darkroom duties (I was on the road a lot in those days) stole my negatives and  job. And that was that.

The Sonoma County Independent morphed into the Northern California Bohemian in 2000, or rather, The North Bay Bohemian. Alas, the archives only date back to November of 1995. I use the same name throughout, though I worked for at least three iterations of the paper. I got some good stories, I learned a lot. For that I'm grateful.

More here on The Paper.    THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2011

Remembering Nick Valentine & Phil Osborn at The Paper

Activist Mary Moore wrote to the Bohemian editor: Your birth was in Monte Rio around 1979 as The Paper and I still have many articles saved from that time. With Nick Valentine as editor and Tom and Elizabeth as publishers, this brave little weekly with beautiful graphics and extraordinary layout (before computers) became must reading for all us counterculture types. It replaced Bliss Buy's previous paper, the Sonoma County Stump as the activist publication, and was one of the reasons that we were so successful in 1980, the first year that we protested at Bohemian Grove. It took us through the early 1980s protests at Rancho Seco, Diablo Canyon and the Livermore labs as well as covering all our doings here at home.

Impossible to find anything online about The Sonoma County Stump. But I found this:

Patrick K. Lanzing, Editor/Photographer/Life StudentSonoma County Stump1972 – 1975 (3 years) Russian River, California
Learned how to run a local-area community newspaper in the beautiful Russian River region of Sonoma County, CA, alongside one of the great unsung heroines of the American Free Press: Bliss Buys (ne: Cochrane). Helped organize a benefit featuring the Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter Bands. Photographed the Russian River Rodeo and stomped grapes with folks who nowadays own their own wineries. Walked in the redwoods, happy but dirt poor. Wrote stirring editorials and knew my community. Then I went to the big city and got a "real" job.

I found this reference in the March 1978 Oak Leaf: Jerry Garcia Band and Robert Hunter’s band Comfort will be appearing at the Sebastopol Veterans Auditorium on March 22 to do a Benefit for the Sonoma County Stump, a local newspaper. Tickets are on sale now so if you’re interested, go get ’em while they’re still available.

The White Goddess

The White Goddess

you have slept within the worship of the divine child
you have also slept with the white goddess
she has stolen from you your light
she will always steal it from you
you will always give it to her

she is the moon, she waxes and wanes at your touch
she drips liquid from her crescent
she is the old moon going out in the arms of the new moon at dawn

her crescent is the horns of the bull-headed monster in the labyrinth 

she is the rebirth

she may steal your darkness
she may restore your light
she may devour you
she will kill you yet, in her hand 

is the double-bladed axe

you will be reborn from a tear in her eye
you will trickle down her cheek onto her breast
you will evaporate and become frozen salt of the tear
you are the bearer of that name which you have lost

it is not precisely lost 

it is not precisely missing 

and she is dressed in lion skins

1979?

It sounds like a poem from the Diane diPrima workshop in which case it was written in June/

added 2/2017

THE UNDULATION OF DESIRE

THE UNDULATION OF DESIRE

My belly in your hands
undulating 'til it swells as round as the glass float
that broke loose from the fishermen's net
carried by the Japanese current

past the fog shrouded coast of Hokkaido,
past Russia, the Bering Straights,

to the shores of California
where waves deposited it on fine sand.
- a glistening ruby of the sea.

Making a journey up the coastline of your body
my breasts envelop that firm resistance
a soft frothy cradle for your blind mouth
to spill the surgences of the sea in my kelp hair,

Gentle bells, my breasts softly swaying
two windblown tulips
their nipples the center of the flower
- a stamen for your lips.

In the dark, your hands reaching for me
as I sit astride, I am a dancer 

with back arched to the wind.

1979

added 2/2017 this sounds like a first draft of

FISHNET

The red glass float from the fisherman's net

rides the Japanese current past the Russian coast

and the Bering Straits to California

where it glistens like a jewel in the sand.

Making the journey down the coastline of your body,

my breasts cradle your blind mouth.

The essence of the sea spills into kelp hair.

From the net, your hand uncovers precious stones

and the arching dolphins at the crest of the wave

rise in the wind like love's cry.

After the River

After the River

You melt like words on my tongue
bitter pith of lemons
essence of oil to salivate
sweet and sour on the sides
the tip tastes of salt
from the sweat that drips from the eye

Slow bits of dying lie scattered about
like chunks of flesh bitten out of a living whale by sharks
the ten percent loss of body mass is followed by death
the sharks swim on only after they've each eaten their fill
plus the tongue of the leviathan

Devour your flesh live
the essence of being is still there
to share with you in the communal meal
the sweat of salt heightens  your olfactory senses
on the tip of the tongue tastes of ocean

Words almost spoken
rest by the banks on the river tongue
that eddies and swirls around incomplete thoughts
the blossom of the lemon is sweet, honeyed
doesn't prepare the tongue for the fruit

that's why we taste both sweet and sour 

on the same banks of tongue

We add sugar to sweeten the burden

but it's still the same sour fruit

the back of the tongue recieves the bitter pith 

as it journeys to the throat

There is no return to the sweetness
the bitterness of taste is to be sophisticated
like coffee and dry martinis
sweet teeth are for children

The appetite never ceases
tolerance for sugar increases tongue's addictive appetite
we eat each other down and starve from lack of nourishment 

     we are the world's hungry
     see the hunger in our eyes
     the salt, the sweat, the tears 

     to increase and stimulate the taste

We strap on promises we can't keep across the flesh of our tongues 

intolerable links of sweetness across the pith of the lemon
essence of oil escapes from the rind
voilatile into the air we breathe
our nostrils flare and we hunger for more

     we starving bodies 

     we hunger 

     always we hunger 

     for more

1979

added 2/2017

Breath of Wind

Breath of Wind

The death it strikes
the anger it comes
it goes it comes again
like the tide that flows
increasing rhythm of life
its ebbs and flows
Time: time to, go, come again
the pull, the push 

of the moon upon the earth
we are of the earth
we return to it again
we unite, we become the elements
we flow into the oceans 

to nourish the living
the living
it is teneous like death
a breath, we exist
a breath of wind stirs the water
whips it into a frenzy
a breath of wind stirs the water
it evaporates into air
moves the clouds to land
a breath for rain
water completes its cycle on the land
the rain to nourish the living
Water: we are 97 percent water
tissue of the living
to seek it
always the seeking
we are the living.

1979

added 2017

Berries in Winter

Berries in Winter

there is nothing more

red than the color of hawthorn berries 

in winter

berries the size
of bird's eggs against the grey
of last year's grasses and the pale green
of winter sprouts

herring-bone pattern of pines
on steep hillsides
softwoods crocheted on the north slopes

the top of the ridge snakes in and out 

of the barbed wire stretched 

along its surface like strings 

on the neck of a fiddle

the trees on the top of the ridge 

are like a fine Chinese comb 

grooming the fleece of clouds

we live on the western slope 

on the eastern side 

of this mountain.

1979

added 2/2017