STEP ONTO THE PLANET

Step out onto the planet

Draw a circle hundred feet round

Inside the circle there are 300 things
no one has ever seen before

And maybe no one even knows about

How many can you write about?

Ever since I lived in the woods
I've had a passion for Mozart

Didn't you know he composed in the woods?

Grass collectively bends toward light

Crow feather sheen on labs room

Collision of relief on wood

Circular prisms of sunlight
parallel inversion

on delineated shadows of leaves on earth

Spoor tracks of trucks

Chicken wire roof, a net to catch sunlight
from falling too hard against the earth.

Wrinkled pachyderm skin
the arch of a limbo

Woodpecker delineations

Shadows of trees keeping them in check.

The leaves maiden journey through the air,
branch tips circling up to light,
breaking away from gravity.

Gentle blur of aqueous tale,
synchronization of grass and wind.
A jungle for thought.

Pattern of blowing desert sand
frozen within the plywood.

All those pillars of sand
locked within an oak,
frozen dreamtime in the Sahara.

6/11/1983

Date may be wrong on these, it could be 6/25/1983

Ideas from Lou Welch, Jack Grapes workshop

CPITS WORKSHOP POEMS, CAMP CAZADERO, 1983

EMINENT DOMAIN

EMINENT DOMAIN
—for Will Staple

At the 16-mile marker

the melody of surf leads us deeper

into the heart of the jungle

where we slide on ancient terraces,

and fruit flies rise up

from their mango prayers.

Barefoot, we re-emerge from the tangle

and follow the old Hawaiian trail.

On the cliff, a windmill places us in time.

In the surf a man shows his son

how to spear a fish.

They talk with their hands.

You offer a red flower for my hair.

The breakers confront the fish in you,

and the dorsal fin in me.

The ocean wipes all traces

of speech from our lips.

6/5/ 1983 Kulike, Maui ?

WS Merwin's place

8/90 rev.

1993 We Are Not Swans, Cecelia Woloch

FOUND POEM FOR KENTUCKY PENDERGRASS

—for Kentucky Pendergrass

Suicide is a bridge,
The bottle of wine, the ocean.
Age brings on a comic mask
of reverent death.

The first time I knew
I could kill someone
was when I had a baby.

My grandfather’s sword
is next to my bed
and I wear a purple heart
next to my heart.

I don’t believe in senility.
A friend will drive you to the ocean
and read you a treatise on agent orange,
how 9% will live.

He mopped blood off the floor
after he caught them together.
I took pictures of the house afterwards.

Is it more justifiable to kill someone
before you kill yourself?
The violence is so subtle.
You don’t even know it’s there.

6/7/83
Café Perfetti, Santa Rosa, found poem.

1983, 1984? He was convicted June, 1983
I suspect I was reading the Press Democrat at the time. So I’ll use that date. I was also working for the Paper, so the I who was taking photos was me.

Convicted double-killer Ernest "Kentucky" Pendergrass died in Santa Rosa on Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2013. He was 90. “Pendergrass was a big man about town and a widely liked one. So the tragic turn of events that he set into motion while full of booze on the night after Thanksgiving in 1981 struck the county like a temblor. Pendergrass had a shotgun in his pickup when he drove from Santa Rosa to the home on Thorn Road, southwest of Sebastopol, of the newly reunited Rick and Rosemary Edmonds, both 35.”

POEM FRAGMENTS TO MICHAEL LARRAINE

He said:

I am a writer astride Verlane's. white stallion 

and Lao Tsu's donkey and all paths lead to poetry.

My writing appeals to some, its surrealist elements,
Others respond to its Buddhist nature.
Some get off on the language.
And others are tickled by its erotic nature.

In my work I try to hold all the voices
The voices are part of the process 

no one wants to make you solely into it

Making love to you would be like 

both of us getting laid by the White Goddess.
We are both fish mongers
Catch of the day
Neptune coughs back up
Where poor shepherds 

offering the sacrificial lamb to the beast
Except the lambs blood is 1200 years old 

and he died for can't read it
Darkness essence 

we push across the page this writing

Cotati 6/7/1983


To Michael Larraine 

after Lindys poetry reading 

I've been told how my writing appeals to some 

because of its surrealist elements,
Others respond to its Buddhist nature. 

Some get off on its LANGUAGE form
And the rest are riveted by its erotic energy.

I tried to hold all these voices which emerge
It's easy to pantomime a singular voice
All those voices are a part of me 

and none want to go down 

as the sole survivors of poetry.

6/7/1983

EROTIC NITE, GARBO’S

I once introduced  Michael Larraine
as the only poet who can write
of the entire universe
experiencing an orgasm
in the space of a single line,
a.k.a. the writer of the Big Bang Theory.

1980?

I ride astride Verlain's white stallion 

my Harley eats up the miles 

and my men wander another path 

while Lao Tsu's donkey brings up all the rear.
All paths lead to poetry.

6/7/1983



You'll have to confuse 

the state my house is in 

I lead an excused life.

Please confuse the state 

my house is in 

I lead an excused life

Please confuse the state my life is in

I lead an excused existence

6/7/1983

Hawaii poem fragments

On the condition of my camera

you know it's bad news
when the camera repair man calls
and says well, to start with,
when I took the back off the camera
a spider jumped out.
Have you considered getting another?



Well, since you asked,
this dream is a semi sweet
chocolate covered 

macadamia nut in Waikiki.

Since you've asked again
Making love to you
would be like both of us getting laid
by the White Goddess
end comparing notes afterwards.

We're fish mongers throwing back the day's catch
And it's the same finny fish
Neptune keeps slapping back 

on the platter of sacrifice

We are both shepherds 

offering the same sacrificial lamb
to the goddess over and over again
Except the lamb no longer bleeds real blood.
The real blood is 1200 years old 

and has long since faded
into the darkened existence
we dutifully push across the page:
this writing




After making love to you
the footsteps of victory
chalking down
the carnivorous road of need and regret
would resound across the deaf mute page

6/7 1983



Calling Will in Maui
waking up until it's 130 here
so it will be 1030 there
when's the best hot fucking time
to call you I asked.

6/7 1983

She's dressed in red
making brownies after meditation



Hawaiian frog prince

Gary said quick, 

jump out of the truck.
You know what to do 

only you can save him
He's been waiting 

for your kiss all these years.




Washing off Haleakala dust 

Will hands me soap 

He said if you wash my back 

I'll wash yours. 

Gary yells, are you two 

still in the shower?

Question On laurels

Snyder said I thought old poets 

got to rest on their laurels 

and money just came in. 

You have to keep working 

as hard as you ever did. 

Harder. There are no laurels.

When I told Gary Snyder his poems about Cousin Jack spurred me into writing about the ordinary, he said I am honored and he bowed. I said I was a visual artist having come to poetry later in life. I discovered the joys in communicating verbally. He said he wished he was a visual artist, feeling the need to visually express himself. And there you have it. How green is the grass in the next pasture anyway?

Enlightenment 

late fall and mangoes 

for breakfast every day 

for two months 

Repeat on an as needed basis.

6/7/1983

added 9/2016

Drawings from Journal

Lindy’s Cafe reading, Maureen Hurley

GECKO LUCK

GECKO LUCK

In the islands, everybody believes 

that geckos bring good luck. 

Mokoli'i means lizard Island.

I am carrying damp eucalyptus wood
to the redwood hot tub up the hill. 

Two geckos slither down my arm 

another slides down my leg. 

I am covered with red mud 

and the TV camera is rolling.
I'm dreaming in geckos and it all
comes true. Mokoli'i everywhere.

Later, I'm at a party in Kula 

with Will, Jacques, and Gary. 

We are talking about Haleakalā,

the plight of the flightless geese,
and feral pigs eroding the island.
On a painting two geckos are dancing 

on a checkerboard. At home, 

a solitary gecko chucks at midnight. 

6/1983   6/1-6, 83 could be any of those dates

Maui Zendo

added 9.15.2016 edited slightly


TWO GARDENIAS

after hauling wood all morning
I sit in the hot tub, grateful for its warmth
two gardenias break the surface like heavenly farts. 

6/6/83?


LONG DISTANCE CALL

Calling My friend Zara on the Mainland
2600 miles away, I exclaim
your voice sounds like
it's coming from underwater

6/1/83?

EARLY MEMORY: STORM

EARLY MEMORY: STORM

The hillsides were open: deer crossed the meadows intermittently, like domesticated cattle. Under the cover of foggy days, they brazenly came down to the creek to drink. On sunny days they prudently waited for the cover of dusk. 

When it rained too much, water came spouting out from the gopher holes draining the forested gullies, and upper reaches of the hillside. Thinking it was quartz, once I found what seemed to be rendered fat in a gopher hole. White globules waxed my water withered fingers. 

My grey and blue pants that my grandmother had made from a remnant from the church bazaar, were heavy with rain, and hung low on my hips, the additional burden of chocolate mud on the cuffs. My tennies were slurching like a powerful thirst as I wandered up the path, turned into a small river, battling my way home.

Once inside, I dropped my clothes on the thick layer of newspaper that took up residency at the front door each winter. They fell like the hide of some beast too much in a hurry, like the gritty rhinoceros. 

Mad rush to the fire; this is the kind of wet-cold that doesn’t leave willingly. My grandmother clucked about catching cold, the dreaded bronchitis, and the tiny tubes everyone in the family inherited.   

Thick coating on my tongue, dark breath, and roaring ears. In the night I begin a cough that goes on and on for weeks; soon the doctor will give me orange flavored syrup. Years later, I will hate the taste of oranges. 

Tomorrow we will have to beg a ride to the doctor’s whose office is out in Point Reyes. A long winding ride through Taylor Park, where the redwoods cover the sky, and it is always dusk. I suffer from carsickness, but can’t tell the difference between illness and motion.

At the top of Olema hill, near a small curve in the road, we searched for the first glimpse of Tomales Bay. Onto the flats, past the old artichoke fields, I eagerly awaited the pasture where the donkey and goose lived with the wooden “Library Car” caboose. The goose was happily swimming in the volunteer lake at the low end of the pasture while the donkey’s ears dripped at 30° angles as he huddled next to the meager shelter of the chrome-green caboose. 

Green like the smell of the doctor’s office: alcohol and Pinesol. The odd couple lived out their days together, the caboose was eventually taken over by the blackberries and poison oak. I learned to overcome my aversion to orange juice but equated donkeys and geese and green cabooses with doctors. How can you express what is inexpressible?

Another early memory of Tomales fogged in, the steady drip of trees thrumming the ground. I licked rain from the thick potato chip edges of salal leaves, salt tang. At Heart’s Desire Beach, I kept looking for the heart, not understanding the concept of desire. That would come much later.

6/3/83?  CPITS writing

Haleakala, drawing

Lobster study, Maui, (drawing)

At Bob Marley‘s memorial bash

Maui madness across the moon
dark clouds over Haleakalā.

Haleakalā, a persimmon-colored bowl
to feed the sun.

Dark clouds brood over Haleakalā
Lahaina, Maui at Bob Marley's memorial bash.
Ziggy works the crowd. Jah love.
Every little thing gonna be all right.

The moon rises over the West Maui Mountains
in a reggae rhythm, clouds of blue smoke roll over us
while Gary and Steve sleep inside the Haleakalā crater.
Inside the vault, the story of striated volcanic ash.
Haleakalā's ambergris, a gift from the a’aina.
Turn on the headlights in the clouds.

Coco-lulu, Maui while we, while we…
Every little thing, reefer madness.

I’m a Haleakalā Howley. Deep ecology.
A’aina waihini. Lanai hula call Ina.
Ina oaka oaka oaka i ka lani la.
Hula dancers. The earth abides.

The sky sweeps the land of now, we are cursed.
They will return from the crater with empty pockets
and an empty heart gladdened by the sun.

On the whale road, curved water, Lahaina.

I’m a Haleakalā Haole
howling at Bob Marley's memorial reggae bash.
Moonrise over the West Maui Mountains
takes my breath away
while Gary and Steve dream
inside the Haleakalā crater.
Striated volcanic ash, a gift of ahinahina
Silversword and ambergris of Haleakalā
turn on the headlights in the cloud.
Marley’s last words: Money can’t buy life.

5/26/1983

The rocks of Maui are cursed
remove no rocks from the island he said
for bad luck will follow you.

Will Staple sleeping, Maui Zendo, 1983 (drawing)

2 POEMS: FAMINE FOOD, MONGOOSE MANGOES

FAMINE FOOD

Finger bananas 

banana toes 

little apple bananas 

taking seven years to grow

Will chopped down the banana tree 

famine food for the crossing.

5/25/1983

MONGOOSE MANGOES

Jacques, having some trouble 

with his English, asks me, 

have you picked any 

mongooses for breakfast?

5/25/1983

added 9/15/20116

Hawaii Journal 5/25/83 doodle drawing

Hawaii Journal 5/25/83 fossilized bones, extinct flightless Hawaiian bird, drawing

Fossilized bones of a large flightless extinct Hawaiian bird

Kay Kepler drawing! Hawaii Journal 5/25/83

Kay was our host for the deep ecology conference in Maui with Gary Snyder as the keynote speaker. We spent an afternoon and evening in a bungalow halfway up the slopes of Haleakala viewing a slideshow of indigenous species. She showed a slides of bromeliads and asked what we thought the parent plant was. In a room full of ecologists and botanists, I was the only one who guessed that it was a geranium species. The flower gave it away, Like the silver sword that grows on the slopes of Haleakalā, it looks like it should be in echium like pride of Madeira, but its parent plant was a California tarweed. 

2 POEMS: FLYING TO MAUI, DREAM SEQUENCE

FLYING TO MAUI

Scut cloud shadows on the ocean 

like darkened continents

Or sunken coral reefs

Modern mariner plane 

writing the air currents 

a ship of the sky.

5/24/1983?

 
DREAM SEQUENCE

I come from the past 

unerringly into your thorn shadow 

and we drink the deep water

from under the bridge. 

5/24/1983?

added 9/13/2016

2 POEMS: UP THE PALI, GUAVA JAVA

UP THE PALI

Up the Pali, the Chinese called this place 

the land of Sandalwood. 

Ginger and plumeria laden the air.

A solitary gecko chuckles in the night.

Koko head, Koko crater 

last point of volcanic activity in Oahu.

Pele, the fire goddess went looking 

for a last home here. Found none.

On the plains of Oahu, 

pineapples grow green skirts.

Dance in the wind.

8/23? 1983

added 9/15.2016

minor revision

GUAVA JAVA

The sun sculpted rain on the mountains

exoderm of ridges leaving rigid lava teeth exposed

The weight of ironwoods anchored in Pali winds.

8/23? 1983

added 9/15.2016

LOS CAPRICCIOS DEL PARADISO

LOS CAPRICCIOS DEL PARADISO

 —one breakfast delight, $2.45 plus tax

The mangoes aren't ripe,

the papayas aren't perfect

and the last tango was in Paris.
Pineapples ripen ever four years,
bananas take seven,
mangoes come twice a year

and in Waikiki—home to the spenders of paradise,
no grass hut for John Steinbeck
or anyone else for that matter,
pods of bronzed bodies outnumber 
the Hawaiian monk seals before colonization

where every season, the season of the tourist.
There is an open season on paradise every two blocks

But the fish still swim in Hanauma Bay, 

their bodies drift with the current

like leaves in the wind, 

and all is forgiven.

5/23/1983

Oahu, HI

added 9/15/2016

POSTCARD TO MARIANNE AND DAVE WARE

POSTCARD TO MARIANNE AND DAVE WARE

Aloha from Oahu.

The birds of paradise 

seem to get stuck up tourist noses

And the only real cure 

is to spend some puka puka.

The waihinis in bikinis on Waikiki

give rise to mail expectations,

But, the fish don't mind 

and that's the current count in the end. 

We all shaka shaka bro, Da kine,

Okay, okay, we hang loose.

The sign says it's okay, okay

And da water, she fine.

No Pele tears here.

Pele, she quiet for now.

Missionary man, he slapped her down good.

But she be like yeast bread 

in a bowl, rising, rising.

Soon, she make ready for da oven.

Oahu, HI

5/23/1983

added 9/15/2016

THE BIRDS OF PARADISE

The birds of paradise 

seem to get stuck up tourist noses 

and the only real cure 

is to spend some puka-puka.

The wahines in bikinis on Waikiki 

give rise to the mail expectations 

but the fish don't mind 

and that's the current count in the end.

We all shaka-shaka, dakine, okay-okay, hang loose.

The sun says it's okay-okay underwater, she fine.

No Pele tears here

Pele, she quiet for now.

Missionary man, he slapped her down good.

But she, like yeast bread in a bowl, rising. Rising.

Soon she make ready for the oven.

Aloha, Mahalo, mahalo.

5/23/1983

Obligatory Hug, May 1983, Franklin St. Clubhouse, Santa Rosa (Maureen Hurley, Marianne Ware)

THREE POEMS from Hawaii

CHILDREN OF THE SEA

The children of the sea, 

the children of Mauna Loa

Pele raging against the sky

The fish swim between her toes 

in Hanamua Bay.

Her crying reaches the sea,

her black tears cool in its depths.

PAPAYAS

Papaya trees holding their clutch 

from beneath their leafy crowns.

Papaya trees holding their plantations skirts 

above their clutches of fruit

Waking to the cooling of Japanese doves 

wondering where I am anyway.

BREAKFAST DELIGHT

Papaya, Plumaria, papaya 

papaya papaya papaya.

White doves on the lanais in the tropical rain

Mahalo wahini, aloha welcome to Hawaii 

Hibiscus sunrise. Mahalo, Mahalo.

One breakfast delight, $2.45 plus tax.
$2.45 plus tax.

5/20-22/1983

Oahu, Hawaii

added 9/15/2016

RRWG reading, Franklin St. Clubhouse, with Marianne Ware, Maureen Hurley

MANINI

MANINI

How does the current level wave

capture that luminescence from the sky?

Tiny transparent fish in the surf 

schools of manini grazing on the coral 

as the wave changes, they suddenly shift 

as if they were fall leaves blowing in the wind.

The shifting wave swings the aspen leaf 

bodies of the fish about, as if a sudden dance 

of fall stirred them to madness.

Pale rainbow fish, zebra-striped eels, blue string worms.

How can one describe the hundreds of fish in the reef?

May 20-22? 1983

Added 9/15/2016

FRAGMENTS

FRAGMENTS

The tentacles of the Banyan tree strangled, 

seeking wisdom from the earth.

Too much of a good thing is good for nothing.

Watching Hawaii 5-0 in Waikiki'i

is like déjà vu all over again.

The USS Arizona Memorial 

rests atop a thousand soldiers 

entombed beneath its decks.

5/19/1983

added 9/15/2016

RIDING THE NUMBER 20 BUS

RIDING THE NUMBER 20 BUS

Riding the number 20 bus

the driver singsongs the stops in duplicate:

Diamondhead, Diamondhead

Nimitz Highway, Nimitz Highway

Two types of coconuts over dere 

coconut tree, over dere, coconut tree.

Good shave ice. Shave ice. Kailua, Kailua.

Windward side, Windward side

Punchbowl Arena, up dere Yea, up dere.

Condominiums, condominiums.

See da banyan tree, da banyan tree

Ala Moana, Ala Moana. Hang loose, 
hang loose, bro, sistah, we almost dere. 

Almost dere. Aloha, aloha.

5/19/1983

added and slightly revised 9/15/2016

LAHAINA

LAHAINA

The tentacles 

of the Banyan tree 

dangle down 

seeking wisdom 

from the earth.

Too much 

of a good thing 

is good for nothing.

5/19/1983
I added title later.

2000 MILES FROM SHORE

2000 MILES FROM SHORE

Flying west along the path of the sun, 

a perpetual noon blazing on the ocean, 

occasional clouds, carpeted white against the blue—

I awaken from sleep with words 

slowly crystallizing in the conscious realm of thought.

Where do thoughts sleep?

Clouds forming vast mountain ranges at sea

Clouds forming milk skins across the volcanoes.

Tiny islands, mid-Pacific, land catching the clouds, 

a shawl draped over paradise.
All cultivated lands look the same from the air.

The vacant gleam of dark eyes:

the twin summits of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea
watching the sky for signs.

5/17-18/1983

Oahu, HI

added 9/15/2016
slightly revised

Mimi & Livena drawing, Hawaii Journal 5/17/83

FIRST TIME

FIRST TIME
— for Jim Byrd

Our canoe rounded a sheltered river bend

collecting calm emerald water

until it glistened in a slow curved smile.

The towering trees punctuated its mirrored speech.

From our raised paddles, words escaped

unannounced as water droplets

spawning concentric ripples

in an undulating desire toward shore.

Who is naming these silent tremblings,

sneaking up, canoe-like along the river

where, like deer coming down for an evening drink,

our hearts stopped, afraid to slake their thirst?

Who will stand guard while they ask the river

where the trees stop and the reflections begin?

Through the trees the wind is trickling.

Only the shore answers in a slow curved smile.

Years later, while drinking from separate rivers

we keep asking each other the same questions,

and our hearts, no less thirsty or afraid,

find nothing in the backwaters, except ourselves.

1983
rev./88
Forestville

1984 Deepest Valley Review

Obligatory Hug, May 1983, Franklin St. Clubhouse, Santa Rosa (poem)

I was scheduled to read with Marianne Ware at the Franklin St. Clubhouse in Santa Rosa on May 22, but according to my journals. it looks like I stayed in Hawaii instead. However, I had a poem in the Obligatory Hug. So I'm posting it as a publishing credit. Rites of Extreme Unction

AMBER

AMBER

From the listlessness of fog,

and the dark regeneration of cherozim soil

to the pungent breath of hot summer’s evening,

comes my whispering shadows

trading secrets with the wind.

After a long winter, animals bend

me toward their mouths and learn

the tender filaments of spring.

Worn around the neck of a woman,

I am the pine forests weeping before the fire,

and the artists’ solvent, I am the amber tears

pressed to the deep bosom of the earth,

liquid sun, frozen sun, the eyes of tigers,

the eyes of snakes, bees hidden inside me.

The fog rises until I no longer see

the grey whales drifting on the Baltic.

5/83?  84? with Susan Kennedy’s class CPITS

I was in Hawaii May 17