Bread & Roses Festival handbill 1982, photos

Misc  Bread & Roses letters

CPITS Teaching Notes, Montgomery ES, Westside School, Healdsburg ES, journal

10/29/82 Dear diary, after 20 hours of fruitless arranging of a SSU Public Poetry center benefit reading with Herb Kohl on November 11, then the 10th, then canceled completely because I couldn’t find a venue—then I got the Cotati Cabaret to agree to host us which is a good connection. God, how can I even write because of the exhaustion and the frustration. I was sick in bed for three days, so zoned out, I never wrote up my teaching notes. This is a recapitulation.

Since my last entry, I’ve taught nature poems of 4 to 11 lines. Write four obvious things and four obscure things. Pat Solen‘s class went well but Gary Reeves’ class was out of control. Dick Peters’ class had low energy with minimum output. I got so-so results. I talked lots about images for concrete poetry. 

After Gary’s second class, I had my doubts about going on with the lesson plan. Lee and I did animal poems during the next section. It was like regression. Dumb it down. We each read lots of examples and told them to start writing when they got something in mind. That went well and some of the best animal poems were produced ever. 

Peter’s’ class we did a repeat lesson and got some mediocre stuff. I think they’re doing what they think I want, not writing about their feelings. We went ahead with other lesson plans in Pat‘s class. Day, one four elements, four seasons, four more elements. Write a nature poem with at least one from each category, then do a drawing of it. Went well.

Day two make a simple sketch. Cut out the words that describe your poem or drawing and organize them on the page in a shape, that’s concrete poetry. These poems came out wonderful. Example if you wrote tree and did a silhouette sketch of a tree and looked for lots of words for example, and only found tree tree tree tree, you’d have a hard time trying to find enough words, but if you describe the things a tree is to you you get more ideas. The poems were very good. 

We went ahead with it in the other classes. I have to do follow up from the last class. Peter’s’ class is lethargic but they did the best poems I’ve ever witnessed. Gary Reeves’ class went well too. 

I’m learning self-control, pacing, etc. The logistics for concrete poems takes up the whole afternoon. I need lots of time for students to hunt for the words. Techniques for getting their attention at the beginning. Don’t say a word. Just stand there until they get the message. Then begin.

I told them about the upcoming anthology and to please write more poems at home to be considered for publication. The idea of appearing in print is always a siren call.

PPC I had a public poetry center student reading scheduled on October 28 and no one showed up. The poets conducted a workshop which was small and lasted from noon until 4:30 PM so it wasn’t entirely wasted.

Reading for a day in on November 18 all set up, negotiation with ICC intercultural center, poster is made—I made it, etc. it’s all finalized. Press release needs to be done. Art show classical guitar and poetry reading for Alta, Jonathan, London, and Beatrice Lagos at the Laguna is all set up. We have free floor space. We keep the door in order to pay the poets. Poetry show with flamenco dancing and classical guitar.

Mandala magazine is getting submissions and the class I’m teaching is unreliable, so lately I am recruiting outside help from PPC members. I’m learning to administer work to be done provided that the class is there to receive instruction. 

Tomorrow I start teaching a calligraphy class at Montgomery, Elementary school in Cazadero. I will give a history and show work and ask them to find feathers to make their own quills.

11/3 Poetry reading at Garbos with George Englander. I thought it went very well. My best so far reading from journal entries mostly.

11/6 reading at SSU in my fiction class with Elizabeth Herron, I read short story stories from my journals. I am not cut out to write fiction. I need to write about real things or listen to my poetic voice.

11/18. Busy busy putting on readings, Boschka Layton, Jonathan London, and Beatrice Lagos with Alta. I’m pretty jazzed as Alta doesn’t often come out to read. I was surprised that she said yes. It was very time-consuming, setting it up. Boschka’s art and poetry reading was a smash success. Her daughter, Naomi was wonderful on the guitar and we had a full house. My photos are in the Sonoma County Stump.

I haven’t had time to write any of my teaching stuff. The Mandala classes coming along. Calligraphy at Cazadero, I spend a lot of time researching material. I’m teaching third and fourth grade, I suspect there may be some problem with the teacher. She seems annoyed. Does she even want the program? 

Paul’s class by comparison, is a dream. Kids are doing well but I don’t always have the same kids each session, so It’s impossible to build continuity, something you need when learning calligraphy so, that’s not working out. I don’t like the bait and switch. I have one student who is left-handed. So we worked with many systems before we got something to work for her. I had to learn to do left-handed calligraphy, and she learned to do right handed Calligraphy.

Garbo’s meeting for coordinators at Jim Montrose’s house. Hammer and tong.

10/8  teaching notes from Healdsburg Elementary school fifth grade I taught intro to poetry to three classes. The format is what is poetry and why do I write? It was hard for me to talk about myself. I discovered that the information, what is poetry, was too detailed and that I couldn’t throw out too much. They became space cases if I did. I would be lucky to teach them all. 

I want to cover in one day plan during the next five sessions. I passed out two pages of poems with words, like metaphor and image and rhyme on it. They read poems out loud and we discussed big words in the poems and what the poems meant. I asked them if they had ever experienced any of those things? 

In all three classes, they picked the fire poem versus the Sexton poem (fury of overshoes had appeal), but I was flummoxed when they picked my poem about light. I told it was one of my list, and I said the reason why I started to write it was because I wanted to paint pictures with words. That’s when I discovered poems are made up of images. We can all see an image and write about it. I say an image is a picture worth 1000 words. And also an image is worth 1000 nouns. 

In the first two classes on Monday, Lee Perron, the arts coordinator, and my trainer came in with a guest so I invited him up to the front of the classroom and we each made up alternating lines out loud so the kids could see the process. We used objects they could see hear, taste, touch, and smell both in and out of the classroom. We made up the beginning and the kids wrote the last line.

On Wednesday I was on my own! I had the teacher working with me, but the fire alarm went off right when they were starting to write, so I took control of the class and asked them to finish. I rekindled the interest by reading some of the other endings out loud.

Time: to prepare for the first day is idiots delight work, and it took me three hours. Teaching time, etc. it was there from I was there from 10:30 AM until 4 PM. Wednesday was better, I taught from noon until two. To prepare the lesson plans, 10 hours total and one semester of observation, ouch. Talk about time commitment.

I also met with all three teachers on 10/3. The conferences went from 10:30 until 2 PM. I was reeling with exhaustion.

On 10/4 I reported back meeting with Lee, and for a half hour I met with another new poet, Pam Rafael. We went over her book for the Horicon anthology, and I did the calligraphy for it. We also discussed our first day. She tried to instill confidence in me. And I was terrified. I had these pictures of 6 foot tall fifth graders waiting to beat me up. We are already on our way to be coming friends.

I also did some other CPITS related work on 10/7. I won’t always mark down my time as it is a lot to write it down means I won’t have as much time to do my incredible workload of school work. Poetry Center, and calligraphy, not to mention my own classes. For example, it took me 45 minutes just to write this up. 

PS, the reading Tuesday with Elizabeth Herron, David Bromage and Roshni Roshtomji drew 80 people.

Press release photo see the Stump photo Roshni, set up and clean up, making posters etc. eight hours

Also I made the front page of the Healdsburg Tribune today as poet and residence to kick off arts program at Healdsburg Elementary school. It’s a big deal I was shocked to see a photo of myself in class teaching.

11/18. Focus on chores at Garbo’s for the RRWG. Lee and I will do the entertainment plus booking for February and March to generate some capital. The grant we applied for, technical assistance, for $3000 has 175 applicants so the CAC did not award it to anyone. It will be turned over to a region. We may have to rewrite a grant and the most we could ever hope for is around $200 so what’s the point? We spent that much and maybe more just writing the grant. 

Basically this means I go unpaid again. If this continues the burn out what rate will be great. Bad news. Good news I was asked to teach a guest CPITS residency at a private school in Marin. My former employer’s daughter’s class as a memorial to her great grandmother. Negotiations with the school will proceed on Friday. I have a 10 AM appointment at Saint Mark’s school with Mr. Bizjak, the principal. I am asking for the full $650 plus money for anthology.

I got the CPITS countywide poetry anthology to the printers all camera-ready to Reprographics. 

Yuck. A bit of domestic theater. The cat is acting crazy and the frightened mouse can barely move. The cat is high on it. I wish he just eat it. Don’t dare throw him or the mouse out as a second mouse has been caught. I really wish the cat wouldn’t share He’s caught two in two months in my house is too small for mice too. It’s an eat, or be eaten world. The mouse and cat are banished for the evening.

Last session CPITS with Pat Solem’s class. We made creation myths. I read some and then told them one. They wrote their own myths and some had trouble getting started while others loved it. I got my first fan club going because of it. Dick Peters’ class went along well with concrete poetry, but surprise!they needed less time than we planned for.

12/17 since last month, lots has happened. The Sonoma County anthology was taken back from printers by Michael Dow. I hereby throw up my hands in despair because the anthology now represents too much anger and frustration. And Michael has been a prime blocking force for entirely selfish reasons. 

And six months is just too long to be spent hustling over some things such as this. Too many power trips. The man has no concept of how to put a magazine out or what kind of commitment it requires. He’s already ruined relations with the county printer. Not good. And this is after Lee and I set that one up too. He’s afraid to release power or afraid to be honest. Too much to deal with. I find it ironic because of his involvement with Tibetan Buddhism. But life is full of such paradoxes. Enough on Michael.

(When MIchael doesn’t show up for our annual meeting, that he produced, Lee deposes Michael and becomes de facto area coordinator. MIchael said he was held up by an escaped bull and had to capture him but he didn’t call us or anything. He just left us floundering. 

Michael’s holding on and keeping us from expanding or going into new schools has became positively crippling. It was not a pretty sight. I felt so badly considering that MIchael was my first mentor and it was he who brought me into the CPITS program through the child and changing times conference at SSU.

TOCALOMA ROAD

TOCALOMA ROAD

—for Alan Mclssac

The round sound of Tocaloma rolls off the tongue

like night drowning in the gibbous moon.

The herefords stop grazing and low to each other

as I help my neighbor gather topsoil for her lawns. Tocaloma.

We stop afterwards at the Western Saloon.

I sip sasparilla as she rolls down another beer

beneath the cobwebbed mooseheads.

At the other end of the bar, a gaggle of men

bang down a cup of Liar's Dice for another round.

Ranchers in overalls and gumboots

argue over what's the best feed for cattle. It's a lean year.

Two-wire bales of alfalfa sell at the price of three-wire bales.

We overhear them talk of planes dropping emergency feed

to livestock stranded on the open ranges.

Toby's Feed is shipping in the last of the Nevada hay.

I'm having trouble feeding my horse.

The corners of Agnes's mouth turn downward when she sips bourbon—

as if it were an uncertain pleasure.

She salutes the empty morning air, saying, Sköl pifiskin,

and I look for the toofta from Norway who always steals her drinks.

When her husband is at sea, and alcohol loosens inhibitions,

she tells strangers met in bars we have no socks.

Their eyes fill with easy tears, and during whiskey runs,

they take us to the General Store, buying me more white socks

than I know what to do with.

Tocaloma. To touch the earth.

The McIssacs went from milk cows to beef.

Alan says they couldn't make it any other way.

In the barn, we step over a dead weaner calf. He says, Don't look.

Their ranch stretches from the sky to the old Tocaloma train station.

Alan has a “Stop” sign in his bedroom, but the cattle erode the hills

and fine silt settles in Papermill Creek. No good for salmon.

On Sundays, her husband sends tightly written letters

on thin blue airmail tissue from Bombay, Hong Kong, the Mekong Delta.

When his ship, the “Baton Rouge” loaded with secret ammunition

was torpedoed, we watched the news again and again, but got no word.

The weeks uncoiled a glittering chain of days before she heard if he was alive.

I played with leopard cowries from the Indian Ocean,

and Caucasian silk dolls with Japanese eyes.

My music box chimed a tinny Sayonara, filled with foreign coins

as she showed me on the big map where the stamps and letters came from.

On Sunday evenings, we'd listen to “Hawaii Calls” on the radio.

When the liquor warmed her blood,

she'd spend hours rolling white bread into little doughballs.

After they got good and gray, she fed them to Smoky, the springer spaniel.

She made me feel unclean for becoming a woman—

as if it were something I could control— like those doughballs.

It was O.K. when we were still kids playing in the thistles.

My neighbor died in summer, when the waves turned golden,

and the lawn stretched to the hills like a green wave.

We pulled weeds, stood under sprinkler rainbows,

tumbled on the grass, until sky and land blurred, became one.

The rich black soil from Tocaloma sprouted healthy thistles

nourished by the cow paddies we stuffed into empty feed sacks.

Her husband drinks and thinks about the sea: Korea. Vietnam.

He planted the disease in deep so she never had children

(other than us). Couldn't, says Gram'ma, tisk-tisking.

Her insides blackened. The surgeon trimmed what he could,

but it wasn't enough. I felt nothing when I heard the news—

as if she were never there. And only now, twenty years later,

I am remembering all those lawns, and Tocaloma—

this place where we touched the earth

because the rolling hills and grazing cattle

weren't enough to feed the eye.

10/1982

1988 Creative Discourse
1987 California Quarterly
1986 Marin Poetry Review

Russian River Jazz Fest, Adam Makowicz interview

Top Polish pianist's escape to the home of jazz

BY MAUREEN HURLEY

At the Russian River Jazz '82 music festival, world-renowned Polish pianist Adam Makowicz made his  Sonoma County debut to an enthusiastic audience of nearly 1000 Sept. 12. Billed for the past five years as Europe's number one jazz pianist, and chosen by America's jazz bible Downbeat international critics poll in 1979, Makowicz is making huge inroads on American audiences coast to coast and the Jazz '82 audience was no exception.

A recent emigreé to the United States, Czechoslovakian-born Makowicz lives with his wife in New York. He describes himself as a country boy used to open spaces and villages living in the middle of Manhattan. He emigrated to the US from Poland nearly five years ago because, the wholesome-looking, blond haired pianist said with a twinkle in his blue eyes, "America is the home of Jazz!"

Sculptor/Poet, a performance piece Zara Altair, Bill Snow, Mo

We met several time during the fall of 1982, to produce this piece, but our inspirator, Bill Snow, never followed through, and so it was abandoned, though we did a rough performance at Bill's Gallery, Dec 21, a Tuesday. I have pages and pages of notes.  The Architecture of Bones came out of it.

Journal Drawings, Napa

Napa Poetry Conference poems 1982

After a Galway Kinnell reading

The stillness of time, bones, 

hands filled by the harvest of want

There is time, still time for one 

who can groan, who can sing 

for one to be healed.

August 1982

Galway Kinnell workshop


Drowning

Bone-kelp fingers of the dead

clutching at my ankles
slip off, harmless and beckon
to the breeze, lifting the clouds 

over the mountains. 

August 1982

Alan Soldofsky workshop

When writing, you are balancing language and experience. It's a balance between experience and metaphor there is little reward in poetry except a sense of posterity. Why do this? To try and write great art is to put everything into the line, and give up everything else.

August 1982

Alan Soldofsky workshop

Every bed is a mouth
That's what poetry is.

August 1982

Alan Soldofsky workshop

In the blue regions of afternoon
there is but one desire, for a boat,
a red reflection plays off the water
And it is a slow levitation of joy.

A bowl of dead bees covered with rose petals 

a green dream emerges from the rind 

of a cantaloupe and everything seems possible 

There is no need for narration in the poem 

the ravens will keep us awake
Only the force of brushstrokes
keep lilacs from the pathos

Lilacs against white houses
You can hear pain singing, it is not a song

it is hard to let go of summer 

remembering, then forgetting loss.

launched a lunch of raw butterflies

Bob Hass workshop Bantu Rhythms

August 1982 (also 85)

added 9/2016
I need to edit them

Orphan Calf

Today, I rubbed the face of a young steer. His horns were erupting under the furry pole. His long forelock covering the bulge. It was like teething. A young orphan calf, reassured by the steer's presence, sidled up to suckle upon my outstretched finger, he tasted the saltiness of the steer. Spat it out. His lower teeth were perfectly flush with the gums, like the toenails of elephants. I walked over the hills covered with Diogenes' lanterns and Ithuriel's spears. And wild lillies—tulips called pussy's  ears. Lavender hair on the triangle that joins the ovum. Thought of the calf's disappointment of finger. The illusion of mother. The breast.

8/13/1982

added 10/16

THIRST

THIRST

I am trying 

hard not to 

think of our 

water contaminated by 

pollutants. As I raise a glass 

to my lips and drink, 

I discover the 

throat has 

memory.

8/13/1982

added 10/16

first draft

SKIN DEEP

SKIN DEEP

They say beauty is only skin deep

Imagine the snowy skin of mountains 

able to transform the bleakest mountain 

into a thing of beauty. 

But without bone structure 

that skin of snow would not be seen. 

It's the bones of the mountain 

which lend the snow its beauty.

8/13/1982

added 10/16

Mr. Abatni of Avelar Road

There's a man from my dreams, whose name is Mr. Abatni. He's a smallish, balding man who lives on Avelar Road. I don't know much about him except it's been over a year now, and still his name randomly crops up like a mantra.

It's like the two are intertwined Avelar Road and Mr. Abatni. I have no idea why. Maybe it's the way the two words sound so close together that haunts me each time I pass the road. Maybe Mr. Abatni doesn't even exist, except in my own mind. Even so, he's clamoring to get out and I keep stuffing him back in. Because I don't know what the story is. What if there is no story?

But you see, I've been so busy dreaming lately and it seems that I just don't have the time to write about him. I resent the way he keeps introducing himself and intruding upon my life. Especially since he's a fictional character. Especially when I'm feeling depressed. Especially when I dream.

I like to hide out at home and make plans on catching up with myself. Put away my clothes that are still draped all over the bathroom since the last time I went away, how many months ago? Do my laundry properly, not this wash the underwear, and the white dress I've gotten so fond of, in the sink.

Actually, I've quit wearing underwear because I hate to wash them. It doesn't really matter when I wear a dress anyway. No one is looking. Who has the time for a born-again virgin in a white dress?  The best part about hiding out from the world is that you can break all those plans you made.

Sometimes I don't answer the phone, especially when it's Lee on the other line. I always know when he's there. I always know when he's calling. He has a way of calling whenever I think about him—which is the most of the time. It drives me mad.

At least, when we're fighting, he won't call. Sometimes the fugue state can last for weeks. That gives me plenty of time to catch up with myself—except, then I'm so preoccupied with rewording and analyzing what I should've said, could have said, that I sit in a stupor. There goes the laundry.

That's when the story of Mr. Abatni crawls out from under the pillow I'm sitting on. Sometimes I think I'd like to banish him from my memory banks forever, but he's like a bad tune that gets stuck in your ear, and plays over and over until you want to punch your own ears out. Even now he is haunting me, and yes, I still can't seem to write about him. Because I don't know who he is. Or what he wants. So this non-story will have to do.

Ah, the sound of Avelar, like the halls of Avalon. It jogs the memory like a fairytale, or a novel that one becomes so absorbed in, that reality seems less likely than the story.

The dreaming at night gives birth to the credence of the tale. Enter into that landscape of far distant pavilions. Avalon, huge halls where knights still dwell. King Arthur, in my dreams, yes, Avalon. Avelar. Echoing through the cavernous depths of my brain.

But I detract from my story, that's the way he is. Puts a fog over my brain. Doesn't want to get born. I guess. I heard  rumor that he and the missus ran Casini's Campground in Duncan's Mills for a while. That was before she got religion. It seems she didn't want to live with him anymore after that.

So he moved over to a small cabin on Avelar Road. He didn't have a whole lot to look forward to. No job. No missus. The TV was the only saving grace, I guess, or maybe fishing. He used to tell stories about the one who got away. I was never sure who is getting away with what, the fish, or Mr. Abatni.

The choppy sound of Abatni. Short, rotund, and balding—like the man. He drove a little sky-blue car, a Toyota, the valve rings were so bad that that little circles of black smoke drifted out from the exhaust pipes like twin fumes of dragons.

Who says dragons aren't real? They've just been reincarnated. Get it? The pun: inCARnated. It could be worse, dragons mating with cars. In this advanced technological age, anything is possible.

Grendel really does live in the bottom of the mirror. That's why I avoid the looking glass. Beowulf was right, you know. But it's too late to do anything about that. The treasure's long gone. A mere reflection of itself.

Abatni. There is no Mr. Abatni. It's a name my dream made up. It's a bit hard of hearing. Oh, I get it: abat ni—it's all about me, or not—with a headcold. Or I'm dreaming in Church Latin again. Or is it Provençal? It happens. Pay no heed. Carry on. Abat means blind. and clearly I am blind. Or not. Said the knights of Ni. Nay. Ave Maria. And avalar is to to endorse. Endorse nothing.

The ducks bobbing along the coast of Santa Barbara are nursing black milk from the mother. Long live Beowulf. He slew the wrong enemy. Grendel and his dam were not the enemy, Herrot, the meeting hall, and civilization—were.

Blame is due, where credit is given. And when I walked along the shore, my feet were covered with black milk, black gold. How crude. Oil companies insists the crude comes from a natural seep at Coal Tar Point. What a wonderful way of covering it all up. The not me syndrome. Do they think we are blind? Where is the dragon when you need him?

The oil companies feed the nursing public a cockamamie story and they all swallow it. Blind endorsement. Good milk. Black milk. Milk drips like honey from the open sores along the coast of Southern California. SoCal, lo-cal. Calories from the black mother. Feed the children. Nursing. Weanling. The great teat. And there's rumor that they want to drill off our northern coast too? I think not.

May all the oil companies get udderitis.

August 1982? Other poems bundled on the same paper, on 8/13. Friday the 13th! It fits.
added 10/16.
Minor changes and connections to make the story work. I still don't get it, but it wanted to be written, so, I indulged.

AUGUST SNOWSTORM IN THE SIERRAS

AUGUST SNOWSTORM IN THE SIERRAS

As I gain elevation leaving the valley floor
Water drips from the rocks
And collects in pools
And ripples along sandy, pathways
Light juts out from behind a cliff

and penetrates the valley floor

My vibram soles cup soft

Against the rocks. 

Rain turns to snow

Moss needs little light 

My pack weighs too much. 

My shoulders are familiar 

As the backs of horses

August 1982

RITES OF EXTREME UNCTION FOR MONO LAKE

RITES OF EXTREME UNCTION FOR MONO LAKE

In these unadorned camelid hills, ancient 

clam beds seek absolution from baked adobe 

while unseasonable green fountains of corn 

suck water from this desert oasis. 

Sacrament. This morning, the priest wore 

an alb and the purple robes of penitence,

as he offered up the blood of the earth,

the palms give voice to parched santana winds. 

Grapes from Chile at two dollars a pound; 

the price of water from Chilean earth 

3,000 miles south of this desert where 

campesinos struggle for the dailiness of bread.

And in the north, an ancient lake 

 is dying of thirst so a garden may grow. 

What is the color of forgiveness 

when mirages of real water slick the surface?

Easter 1983?  It may be 82
Bakersfield

1984 Napa Poetry Review
         Poets of the Vineyard, First Honorable Mention

AFTER THE HONEYMOON

AFTER THE HONEYMOON

Yet another year passes

my lip remembers the curve of yours

the bed was a mouthpiece
and our bodies spoke simply.

All words are suspect.

Hands betray us

by covering the eye, the ear, the throat.

Our bodies never forget the touch of old lovers.

Sea voices whisper, "time is woman-shaped."
As the sand rushes through the  hourglass,
the sea hisses, "a drowning body
means the honeymoon is over.

I have no hands to turn the glass on its side
and the sand within is the color of white noise.

I come away, feeling old.

7/1982
Napa

SEASONALLY, LIKE A FLOWER

SEASONALLY, LIKE A FLOWER

I entered the church late and slip into the last pew.
At the altar, my uncle's widow remarries.
During the nuptual mass,
The priest raises his hands high holding the Host.

I glance up, after years of superstition
The nuns said, "Don't look at the body of Christ, 

or you'll go blind." Bells ring. Mea culpa.
I place my clenched fist over my heart
and close my eyes for old time's sake.

Mary Azalie marries again after 25 years of widowhood.

Her husband died so young of cancer.
My uncle's jaundiced skin
was yellowed like the pages of a book 

left too long in the sun.

I was four. I remember the way light 

filtered through the windows
of the hospital ward,
illuminating the sheets a radiant white against the skin.
The white tile floor, in chicken-wire patterns,
was stained with rust like his skin.
"It was the liver." they said. Melanoma.

When my uncle Myles died, he left behind a widow
and three sons — one in utero.
And my grandmother lost another son

so soon after her husband. 

She never got over Feilim’s death, at 17, 

a ruptured appendix.

Mary Azalie’s three sons consoled the mother. 

And then there were only two sons.

One lay dead across a parked car,
The Harley's stuck throttle roared like an enraged bull
in the neon-dawn.
When the news came, they couldn't waken me.
I wanted to sleep dreamlessly, without effort.
My dreams of violence.
Is the dreaming
waking?

Bikers from all over came to see my cousin off,
with their chrome and steel gods
roaring through the streets of Santa Rosa.
The last time I was in this church,
the pallbearers wore armbands of green, gold, and white,
and an Irish flag was draped over the coffin.
Another son dead.
And the mothers of Ireland keening. Mea culpa.

And the priest says to the married couple,
"Let us pray for those souls so long departed 

in the hopes that they will rise again." 

Pray for those who hope to rise again?
Hope? The charade of Mass —
And the priest gives the body of Christ to the living.
Should we go forward willingly into death
in the hopes that we too will rise again? 

We chant, "I am not worthy to receive you. 

Say but the word, and I shall be healed." 

And we shake each other's hands.

I kneel.
Dressed in virginal white.
After ten years of trying to cast off the faith
I'm beating my heart
and chanting mea culpa as the bells ring 

and the Heavenly Host is risen.
If I look, I'll go blind.
Body of Christ. Body of
Christ.

"...and a half a loaf of bread," the priest concludes. 

"I now pronounce you Man and wife." 

Christ said, "this bread is my body." 

Marriage, the sharing if the bread, the body. 

The priest says, "You may now kiss the bride." 

The congregation applauds.

Do we choose who we love
Or are we chosen by love?
The golden age of lovers is in the past.
And I wait for yet another man who can't say the words
as if love were death's handmaiden.
There is nothing to do but wait
with my fate sealed shut in the coffin.
And time marching through the unopened womb.

As the newlyweds leave the church,
I am sobbing.
Not for the wedding,
Not for love, or my lack of faith,
But for the sons.
The sons and lovers we all try to bury.
It's not the death we mourn for,
But the grief which starts anew each time,
and blooms seasonally like a flower.

I gather my bouquet and leave the church.
Beside me, my grandmother says,
"Its OK for me to grow old,
But I can't bear to see my children so old.
All those children with those bent grey heads,
they all belong to me."

7/13/1982

IN GENETIC MEMORY OF STONE

IN GENETIC MEMORY OF STONE

1. I read in the paper that men prefer blue and green
while women tend toward reds and yellows.
A man dressed in red empties his wash cart into the dryer.
Every item of clothing is red or in variations of red.
An occasional pink sock lightens the load.
He sits beside his woman who's also dressed in red.
Part of some religious sect dressing in red instead of orange?

A Mexican worker converses in hushed tones with his comrade
and his eyes are on every woman here.
His red skin glistens from the heat of the dryers.
Hola. Que tal? Como estas? but one can't address
a stranger in the familiar tense—only the putas, the whores do.
They eye the forbidden breasts of American women.
What is the attraction for pale sallow flesh
while dark wives sing niños to sleep in southern villages?

Young women with blank faces and bored boyfriends
attend the machines in some mysterious rite of passage.
They watch older women who ignore screaming children.
A child with a shaven head stares at the entrance
and the couple dressed in red return.
He wears red shoelaces on his red sneakers.

The Mexican watches women fold laundry to their breasts.
Is he thinking of darker-skinned women beating laundry
on the rocks of the stream near the village?
Or is that also just a myth fallen by the wayside
with overcrowded barrios and polluted streams?
The baby dressed in red reads the pink section 

of the Chronicle upside down. 

What is this fatal attraction to red?
Will he grow up hating the color of passion and life?

The Mexican waits for my dryer.
There are other vacant dryers near the maze of women
folding clothes on the table. But he waits for mine.
He places his meager load in the dryer—
a beige nylon jacket, polyester shirt and pants.
A friend told me, that in his country, Peru, the natives
dress in their polyester Sunday best
and climb the slopes of Macchu Picchu
expiring from the heat.

I fold ragged hand towels, my eyes
catching the furtive glance of the Mexican man.
His sad rabbit eyes drop floorward. No eye contact is made.

My maiden aunt told me she used to wash
the same clean pair of boxer shorts
over and over again so the men in the laundromat
wouldn't know she was single. What was she expecting?

2. A student of mine, Sally Luna, a slight, beautiful child
with black hair cascading to her waist wrote:
"I love the trees. They have feelings locked inside them
and they are brown like me. They understand."
She washes the hair from her leaves
and refuses to write poems in her own tongue.

No tears to turn into leaves and land on this earth.
Whole forests have been decimated on this earth.
They said there once was a time squirrels
could cross the entire country
leaping from branch to branch,
never once touching the ground.

Sally Luna's hair is a waterfall where wild birds nest.
To what oracles will the trees
listen to after her leaves fall?
We close our eyes to memory, Poland. Ireland.
Sandinistas of the world watching
someone go down.
The real struggle is in trying to forget
what you know to be true
but the skin holds memory.

They say every atom ever created
is still around after three billion years
of constant recycling.
On this earth, we are part tree, part dinosaur,
part rock, star, sky and air
the genetic memory of stone.

Memory continues unbroken.
They say red is the color of passion
and blue the color of tranquility,
but this beige, the pale earth tones
the brown polyester of the Mexican's work clothes
are the color of cultivated earth.
The oppressor and the oppressed.
They say their women pass the time
pressing strawberries between their thighs.

One can tell much about a stranger in a laundromat.
In the laundromat, we're all a little seedy,
hiding secrets from each other's prying eyes
because our worn clothing divulges too many truths
and the dryers whisper secrets to each other.

In this uncomfortable village
we're all eyeing each other up and down.
The mountain streams are gone.
There are no women washing clothing by hand
and sharing each other's dreams and sorrows in the sunlight.

No, we are not touched by those brown people
pruning vines in prize vineyards.
They drift in from across the border
and from the riverbanks they watch us swim
laughing silently at our pale nakedness.
They are shadowless in the bright sunlight.
Only in here, the laundromat,
do their shadows become faintly visible.

summer 1982

PAINTING THE HOUSE: for Lee Perron

PAINTING THE HOUSE
        —for Lee Perron

After dinner we walk in the strange July rain.
You say it's tornado weather
and the radio reports strange snow in the Sierras.
The Valley town of Winters was struck by its first tornado ever.

This bowl of landscape reminds me of Wyoming.
The Midwest, you say, and you couldn't be happier
tho you call yourself a Hoosier from the plains of Indiana
by way of Boston, stranded in a place called home, California.
What stirs in this alchemy of clouds
spread across the Healdsburg valley?

Cattle tear at the grass. Bullfrogs squeak like mice
as they dive for cover in the roadside ditch.
The cloud feathers funnel towards the east
and the sky burns like salmon eggs on pale gravel.

We return to paint the Victorian doors verneer and birch—
color names for variations of white paint.
Locked in thought, we quietly work,
our daydreams spread across freshly painted walls.
Soon, the house is flooded by the light.

7/82
added 10/16.

LOTUS IN HALF DARKNESS

LOTUS IN HALF DARKNESS
      —for Marty Goldstein

         Oct 14, 1949 - Jan 15, 1983

The sound of whistling
escapes from the lips of a solitary walker.
Down the empty corridor
a ringing sound echoes
from an empty can rolling across the cold cement
An escapee from the junk piled in the corner.

The corridor with its empty straight

lines and right angles leading no where. 

No one standing in the closed doors

and darkened windows.

The whistling sound—
a forced breath escapes 

from a friend 

who lies waiting
in a hospital bed.

His hand, a fragile lotus curled
on the white sheet can't stop the darkness
from creeping out of its lair
and spreading its viscous fingers of cancerous ink
across the soft grey carpet of his brain.

A song without words echoes through
the corridors of the brain.
The sentinel note sounds.
But there's no one there 

to open the closed doors
and the windows are locked shut.

We are all walking.
We take turns walking.
We all walk unannounced 

on that long, dark road.

6/29/82


A poem for Marty Goldstein, the first of my SSU classmates to die, of brain cancer. He was such a brilliant man, one of my close compadres in the Senior Seminar Literature survey class, and in the MA program. He died too soon, probably why this poem never made it to the electronic realm. Too sad. I still miss him. He died Jan 15, 1983, he was 33 years old. There wasn't a memorial, or if there was, we didn't know about it. So we never got closure. Next to go was Jim Montrose. We thought we were immortal. Here's lookin', at you, Kid.

Added 10/16

CAC/CPITS teaching journal, Working with continuation students, Bill Bradd

Working with continuation students, Bill Bradd

I work in small groups 10 to 12 kids, we create non-public poems, there’s no censorship. The ratio is more boys than girls, it’s usually 12 to 1. There’s always rebellion, you’re entering into a conspiracy. Bill uses the blackboard for anything, any thought. Class consciousness, he says, is a good place to start, but you can keep on writing if something strikes your interest. The way to love the thing you’re doing is to get to know it best. Overview—write a poem about it. Overview—kids know geography well. Start with their geography. Climb up a mountain and look down at your town like a bird. Write a poem about it. Maybe you’re looking down through time itself. Bill says, I introduce them to their own terrain, their own roots. Bill takes a piece of paper and marks all over it and then tells them that it is not holy. Not an icon. Does it work with them? On editing: Bill cleans their work up with them and throws words away correct spelling and grammar right there with them so that they see the process. Bill says, being eccentric helps. It intrigues them. The one-to-one attention I give them is all important. Bill says he is not there to sell them anything and they accept it. Bill likes to work without the teacher in the room. Says it hinders their creativity and self-expression.

6/1982

RRWG reading at Copperfield’s Maureen Hurley & Jane Hirshfield, photo

Boschka Layton’s bio for the Russian River Writers’ Guild

WHY DO TREES DREAM? and other questions

WHY DO TREES DREAM? and other questions

Why do trees dream always of sunrise?
Why does the fog creep behind the frees and slumber there?
And where does the horizon stop and the ocean begin?
Why does the breath of mice stir in the dreams of elephants?
Why are pencils yellow as the sun and as round as the moon?
Where does the breath of elephants live?
When does the sun sleep?
And what is the matter with the moon?
Where do most changes occur?
What can be said about the color red?
What does the shape of a human heaft represent?

6/82

Guerneville School

in class writing after Neruda's Questions

DIVIDED REALM

DIVIDED REALM

Divided in sleep,

we slip in and under

the watery realm

where I am tossed

from shore to shore

by the river

of your night journey.

The horizon of your dreams

merge into mine

and the eye of dawn

rising soft

as a pillow of fog

offers some chance of rest.

 6/82

NIGHTHAWK

Crack, the sound of the house muttering 

as the nighthawk flies overhead, 

crying kiree, kiree in the moonlight. 

Shadows of the great oak shelter me 

as I lay half asleep. Beside me, comes a sound, 

the sound of gentle slumber. 

While I think of his strong, young body, 

feeling his hips upon mine, and his firm back, tight ass, 

my fantasy unfolds and reveals romantic tendencies. 

I visualize nibbling upon his cock and his surprise. 

Meeting someone is exciting but as you get to know them 

the excitement fades, takes some new characteristics. 

After seven years, there’s not much surprising about either of us. 

We have known each other that long. 

So my fantasies provide me with new inspiration, 

but tonight my thoughts were interrupted by the nighthawk’s cry.

No date, not even a clue but by the tone, it sounds like it was written in 81 or 82. More likely 82.,On the other hand, seven years suggested it was written about Bob Hamilton, whom I was with for nearly 7 years.

I’m going with June 1, 1982. But it could easily be June 1983.

GRANOLA MAN

Roll over Sonoma granola man. This bed only carries one. 

Take your aging frisbee and press it between the leaves of a book. 

I don’t want no nacho eating macho cowboy sitting on my couch. 

Take your four-wheel-drive bronco out of my kitchen. 

And tank up somewhere else.

I don’t want a new age mechanic who gets to his garage by noon. 

Take your blackened hands and monkeywrench 

and tighten someone else’s bolts. 

I don’t want a new age man. 

I don’t want a ménage à trois. 

I prefer even numbers. 

Give me a rock ‘n’ roll man and a boogie woogie night. 

Don’t give me a poet. The next thing you’ll know 

we’ll all be splattered in the public domain. 

Take your typewriter keys and pound them out on someone else’s flesh.

? Gotta be spring but when? 1980-82

No date, no clue other than it’s written on the back of a press release for Jim Kohn, who I think was a classmate at Sonoma State in Expressive Arts. He was director of Ali Akbar College of Music in Fairfax. I wonder if he hit up on me and I got annoyed. I do remember the frisbee. It was red. So that places it at Sonoma State. Since during 1979 and 80 I wrote in my big journal, and this is on a loose piece of paper, I am guessing that it was written in 1981 or 82. And the tone is closest to what I was writing in June 1982.

AT THE 10,000' HUT

AT THE 10,000' HUT

The glacier rose up like a tongue
lolling out of the frigid mouth of the north.
I climbed over an ice wall
to trudge to the summit.
Ptarmigans, in half-summer plumage
chuckled in the undergrowth
of huckleberry and mountain heather.
The sun warmed us as our feet
crunched over rotten snow.

From the Olympics,
a sudden summer storm growled in,
threatening snow.
Dressed only in summer gear,
we were foolishly alone on the mountain.

The first sign of hypothermia
is the rhythmic rotation of frozen fingers
and your numb cheeks no longer sting.
Earlobes feel warm,
and your skin turns from red to blue.
The white patches of creamfat
like small islands adrift on your skin
are the first signs of frostbite.

Then, the overwhelming need to sleep,
euphoric warmth, and dreams—
a jumbled series of memories
out of proper sequence, take you in farther.
Soon, you reconstruct your memories
to fit the shapes of snowdrifts,
and you float into that warm tide of snow.

A thunderbolt cracked,
stirring the thick air and our senses.
Ptarmigans dove for cover
as snowflakes settled on their mottled backs.
We turned and ran down the mountain,
each gigantic stride brought us closer to home. 

At lower elevations, the snow turned to hail,
then to rain, whipping our legs,
as we descended to Paradise Lodge
nested on the slopes of Rainier
2,000 ft. below the hut, to safety.

6/82

slight revision

2/2017

ACROSTIC More than I can say

ACROSTIC  More than I can say

More than I can say
A letter drifts slowly
Upward like a
Red kite loosened on a string
Except that I'm supposed to write about about me.
Every time I begin, I get distracted by
Nouns, verbs, the shape of letters...

But letters strung sideways are
Another way of viewing the world.
Better start writing about me.
Absolutely distractable, loves the color

Violet—putple, and sunsets before a storm.
Intuitive, irresponsible, irrepressible
Open-eyed, both
Lazy-eyed, and slothfully
Ambitious at the same time.

Hurtling along at 9,000 miles per hour
Until something stops me
Right dead in my tracks
Like a train hitting a brick wall.
Everything crashes.
Yet out of the chaos, curiosity persists.

6/82

in class poem?

acrostic

added 2/2017

PARALLEL UNIVERSE

PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Give me an 0 as round as the eyes 

of snow monkeys sitting in hot pools 

on the island of Hokaido.

E's a hungry Pacman 

attacking the letters in front of them 

eating up all the other vowels in sight 

And U's are. the twin horns of the water buffalo
balancing the red Egyptian sun between them.

A U for Isis and Osirus.

Pyramids of A's buffeted by desert sands 

standing in memory of Custer 

And A's framing the camp 

as the Indians ride north to hunt.

I, the megalithic monsters of Carnac
with 900 stone teeth projecting skyward

I want W's. Double U's to hold up the moon,
the earth's axis, temples of the sun
I want W's swinging from cloud to cloud
Like monkeys in the temples of India
A place where Custer can take his last stand
Where Reagan can see his last redwood tree
Where Einstein can safely bend the universe
Where nuclear bombs can sleep for an eternity
among the bits of floating debris of deep space.

6/82

in class poem after Rimbaud

Guerneville School?

added 2/2017

POCKET GOPHERS OF SPACE

POCKET GOPHERS OF SPACE

Drifting, drifting on a memory,
The pocket gophers of space
are devouring the Milky WAy.
They are holding galaxies
between their teeth
as the scissors of time snip
snip at the purse strings
of the past, The pillow of
infinity bursts forth
and new galaxies are born
to the.volcanos of history.
Drifting, drifting on a memory,

6/82? 

Moon fragment with Galway Kinnell

To type the ambiguous is to launch into something new. Where in the outer stretches of boredom, does creativity lie? To talk about nothing is nothing—how it is a “no thing” thing. It balloons like flaccid cock, dangles from the lamp stem. La Luna esta brilla en El Mundo. There is no moon. It’s a cat eye. Venus in the sky is casting shadows before the sun arises. Galway said Jupiter and Saturn were so close together that long shadows were cast on the New Mexican desert last summer. And I spent years watching these planets, follow the stars across the night sky. They conjunct in darkness.

(No date, but I wrote a poem to Leonard on  4/12/82 So, close enough. I was a mess after taking care of Leonard, and Galway was reading at Sonoma State for me. If it wasn’t for Galway, I don’t think I would’ve gotten through that week.)

THE ADDICTION OF SIGHT

THE ADDICTION OF SIGHT

         … What appears before the eye is simple illusion.

              – from Double Sonnets from the Subconscious

                                  —Leonard Cirino

            for Leonard and those who have ridden the black mare

What separates the word desert 

from something sweet 

is the twin presence of slithering S curves 

of snake tracks in the sand. 

The letter S has no consciousness of desert sand 

or, of dessert peach.

One singular S stands alone. 

The second S changes meaning

gives plurality, gives possession 

and ownership to words.

Snakes go blind during summer molt shedding 

even the skin over their eyes.

In their hot blindness they strike anything warm 

with an accuracy surer than sight.

In the twin mirrored lakes of horses, 

verdant green blades stab at the sky.

Cows easily slip into the past.

Their prehensile tongues covet only grass, 

not the thrones of one eyed kings.

Cows carry the mark of Cain in their eyes.

Sheep pressed their lips to the earth, 

always trying to get closer to the source, 

and they forget how to move on.

They graze until there is no grass left 

and the cattle starve.

Horses tear at the tops of grasses, 

their eyes always on the next bunch. 

In the boneless desert behind the eyes,

we all carry the carrion crows within.

In the fallow fields where the grass is greener, 

the convex lens covering the eye, carries light 

to the arid folds of the brain.

The eye is the cistern in the arid boneless plain.

Yes, the same sheep graces in the same pastures

and need no eyes to find the turf.

Maybe it's the size and shape of cows 

on that always leads them onward.

Or maybe it's the cloven hooves of the goat 

and the sheep that carries the shape of death 

in its eye, bringing us still closer to the earth.

Still, it is a privilege to see the milk-blue eyes of babies, 

unfocused, half blind, closed, asleep at the breast.

As they gain age, the focus sharpens, 

clarity leaps forward, images fall into place, 

and the foraging begins.

King Lear said, "a man may see 

how the world goes with no lies."

Do we truly learn wisdom with our eyes?

What appears before the eye is simple delusion.

Reduced to the level of beasts, Gloucester, 

blinded by the pelican daughters of Lear, said,

"I have no way, and therefore want new eyes."

No, we can't return to that first sight.

There are no thrones left for one-eyed kings 

and beggars will never ride in the dry desert kingdom 

of the blind with the surefootedness of second sight.

5/1982

Revised 8/82, 10/82

Leonard’s revision of my poem

REFUGE OF WILD BIRDS

REFUGE OF WILD BIRDS

Like hearts of wild birds
riding the storm
or panthers defending sectors
of the universe
we seek shelter
before the visions of stars.

5/82

Letter from Leonard Cirino

Dear Maureen,        April 12, 1982

Ah the rain I wish it would end but that's not the forecast. I traded some work hauling manure for some strawberry and lettuce starts so there will be something ready by June. This is the poem that is an "answer to your one about my eye. Read it and tell me what you think. Please have someone let me know for sure about May 10 at the reading date because I always make plans ahead so 1 can't change them. I have a whole lot of new work since december at Garbo's so 1 won't be repeating any poems if anyone asks they will all be rather new or at least never read in Sonoma before. These damn typewriter keys keep getting and hitting in the wrong order so I hope you can make sense of this letter. All is well except for my truck which still is without transmission and no transportation. Costs me less money as I am very poor these days—no job at all—I quit dishwashing because of the ten-mile one-way trip and the minimum wage. Are you going to Pt Townsend this summer? I might go if I could  take my dog and find a ride. Hint Hint. Must close now and write other letters hope to see you next month or sooner if you want to visit. Get Simone and you up here sometime soon.
       love,

                      Leonard

Leonard Cirino, LeePerron, Karla Andersdatter reading

No date but probably 5/82

THE LETTER S

THE LETTER S

What separates the word desert

from something sweet 

is the slithering S-curve 

of snake tracks in the sand
Leonard writing rebuttals in the green grass 

reflected on convex lenses covering the eye.

Eyes – the addiction of sight 

in the twin lakes of horses and cows 

verdant green mirrored blades of grass 

stabbing the blue sky.

The letter S has no forgiveness, 

no consciousness of desert sands 

or a dessert peach 

But one S, singular – 

the second S changes the meaning, 

gives plurality, 

gives possession and ownership 

to the concept previously implied 

in the word preceding it.

Snakes go blind during summer molt, 

shedding even the skin over their eyes, 

in their hot blindness they strike out anything warm.

Cows easily slip into the past 

their prehensile gray tongues covert only grass
the cloven hooves of cows, camels, goats, deer, sheep, 

ungulates who ruminate – chew their cud.

Sheep pressed closer to the earth, 

they're always trying to get closer to the source, 

and they forget to move

Horses, have you ever watched 

how they tear the tops of grasses,

there is always on the next clump of grass, 

their fluid joints making popping sounds

as they shift towards the next elusive hummock of grass.

Eyes are mirrors, all of us carry death within us.
It is it is a privilege to see the milk-blue eyes of babies, 

unfocused, half blind, as they gain age, 

the focus sharpens, the clarity sharpens, 

images fall into place and the foraging begins.

4/15/1982
also a prose poem, there's also a poem version....somewhere.

added 9/2016

ICARUS FALLING

Imagining myself at the Musée des Beaux Arts looking at Breugel's painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, while listening to Paul Winters' composition of Icarus in Flight. And yes, Auden, and WCW enter into it.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Breugel

The Phoenix, suffering

turns away from disaster, and weeps.
I think of Bruegel. Old and new children,
aged, waiting for birth, martyrdom, and danger.

They've gone to the dogs, it's all torture, of course.
On the untidy spit where Minos and the Minotaur jousled.
Al, the the labyrinth, you say. Yes, and feathers.
Don't forget the sailor or the plowman.
A boy falls from the sky
because I sailed calmly by.
Cause and effect.

The mind, the palm at the edge of space.
Such gold feathers, the phoenix sings
and rises from the edge of space,
his shining feathers and ashes,
and 500 years of human feelings
are too much for the bird to absorb.
The foreign songs, the bird sings,
the fire feathered bird sings
until his heart bursts,
and his feathers dangle down
in the wind and tangle in the branches.

In Crete, both the great Goddess
and the youth sacrifice to the sun
while the phoenix rises from the ashes.
He sings once every 500 years
and the wind in the branches of the palm trees
whispering secrets of distant oasis.

I think: maybe Palm Springs or 49 Palms
Dedalus gathers the feathers of the phoenix
to give his son the power of flight.
There's a sailing ship in the bay,
but the plowman turns away.
The shepherd turns away.
Such a tiny splash that was never heard,
such thin ankles, such a slender boy,
and Icharus falling, falling, fall-
ing in slo-mo forever trapped
in the pool of his father's eyes
as he reaches into the void.

4/82
added, rev. 9/17

EQUINOX, AFTER THE WEDDING

EQUINOX, AFTER THE WEDDING

All night long tiny tipsy men
tiptoe past my fridge.
As they walk by
they ask me
"Are you ready yet?"
"No," I tell them.
There must be eight of them
crowded into my kitchen by now
celebrating the equinox.
My cabin is populated by dwarves
stacking up like plates,
they are breaking the crockery
with their clumsy bodies.
Determined to stop this nonsense,
I roll out of bed
holding my hangover in both hands
and vow never to drink again.

Spring Equinox 1982
added 2/2017

The white wool of sleep

The white wool of sleep

The white wool of sleep
is knitted with the purple pollen

of opium poppies 

The ringing sound you hear
emanating from clouds
is made by someone
drinking the detail out of the sky
with their eyes
as lovers look deep
into one another's eyes

and all is voided.

3/22/82? 81?

sounds like an in class poem

added/2/2017