Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 9

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, Day 12

7/9 Thursday. Jocelyn's class is late again, the kids are crazy, we didn't accomplish much. We made letter poems but the there were too many attitudes problems. Last week's negative kid dictated a poem to me without being asked.

In Linda Wargo's class, two kids from another class, Louis and Julie, joined us. Louis and Julie were so jazzed from the Tuesday afternoon class, they were so excited about working on a poem. Word cards rock, said Louis. He told me he tried to write more poems back on the ward but it wasn't the same. We had a 45 minute session. We wrote using word cards, and my name is like... Linda said she will have the students make drawings for their poems for the second hour.

Ward T – 12, three guys asleep on the table, three new customers. One is light footed, so the doors need to be kept locked. It's stuffy in the classroom. I'm glad to see that Darrell's back, and that Kurt's still sticking it out.

We read their poems from last session. Kirk's god poem is not bad. It's an uneven group, but Darrell is a real poet. I read the Soledad poem to them. I also read Nazim Hikmet's,Things I Didn't Know I Loved. They quit fidgeting around and look begin to listen when they realize Hikmet's writing from prison. Something clicks. Hector wants to read the second half of the poem. I tell them to underline parts of the poem they like. I'm trying to get them to become active readers.

We made a group poem about Napa. They're still not totally into it. So I tell them to talk about this place and then, to wake them up out of their complacency, I ripped the velcro curtain from the window and say look out that window, there are bars. Talk about this place. At that point I had their undivided attention and we wrote a long poem together. It was a breakthrough day. One guy was rocking and moaning and holding his head, reality was too much for him.

It's not all cigarettes and drugs. their shaken out of their their stupor now. Mitch write some moving poetry. Nurses shoes like clocks. They're impressed by my craziness and they open up.

I have an appointment with Darrell after lunch to have a one-on-one session. His poem was okay, at least it was real.  it'll be interesting to see what happens next week.

FREEWRITES
These must be word cards 

we were schooling reality 
teaching it how to walk 
like a woman with a basket 
balanced on her head 
and her smile playing with the sun. 

The future dawn in a tree 
slowly with dry thoughts

My name is like the hourly perfume of bells 
my name is the light behind the clouds

Tired blackboard of glass shatters 
beneath the stars of hope 
and the bricks of emptiness
fill a room with nothing more than air.

the rich perfume of winter 
reminds us of the futures not taken 
the resurgence of light scatters the hours 
until the sand, lonely for the shape 
of an hourglass, repeats its endless task.

The cup of sadness dropped from the counter 
and baby corn was a factor 
because the basis for a civilization 
is hidden within the tenants of time.

• • • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 13
    • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 6 & 7
    • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 15 & 16

MANNA

From the whirlwind of a passing truck,
the robin's body luffed & raised
like a leaf; orange breast flashing
the dawn back into the sky.

I wanted to stop the car, mend
the random fluttering of small wings
in their strange and useless flight,
& turn this tiny teacher of Icarus
back toward the sun.


7/8/1987

1989 Sculpture Gardens Review

FREEWRITE

From the from the wind of a passing truck 

the body of a robin luffs and raises 

like a leaf and autumn leaf 

the orange breast flashing

the color of dawn back to the morning sky. 

Tiny wings flutter randomly useless 

in its strange head over head flight 

along the side of the road, 

fragile grayness like a soft fog, 

no longer lifting into air, 

the last flight of the robin 

into another kind of world.
Early autumn
Where the steady pool of darkness 

descends upon us all 

neck broken, his head tucked under one wing 

for preparation of that final sleep. 

I wanted to stop the car, 

hold that tiny teacher or cousin of Icarus 

in my hand, straighten its wings 

and turn it towards the sun 

to escape the island of death. 

Each time we witness the death 

of any living thing we feed the manna of our own death 

we die too, we witness the mortality 

of every new day. 

We bear witness to our own sleeping 

in summer, autumn's descent into winter

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 8

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, Day 11

7/8 Wednesday. Short critique this morning with Barry on his poem; he's doing a lot of writing.

Linda Wargo's S -1 group, the ones with the lowest academic skills, didn't do too badly. Eric may sound slow, at first, but he always has a poem ready to write. The word cards worked well for him. We also made some drawings for the book. I met with Linda and Steve Weeks to discuss the layout of the book. Linda offered hundred dollars to help pay for the rehab students' portion of the book I don't know what all we will need yet. But I am grateful for her assistance.

Afternoon recap. Busy day. We wrote to the prompt: what's in the name? Brook's quite a writer. We have a good time. I have two new clients. Ned's so heavily medicated, he's a little too out of sequence. He's a musician. Goes with the turf.

The other new client explains how he can't see without his glasses. It's been seven years without glasses, he says. He writes a poem and struggles to read it, he says he didn't know he could still even read, let alone, write. Seven years! I can't imagine it. At any rate he's really enjoying the writing process. Even if he is half-blind.

Ned finally gets down, so we do all right. It's a matter of reaching in. Howard is very cool, he writes poetry like the way he plays chess. Howard checks us out, dictates a poem to me about his name—strong work.

Barry and I finish our day's critique. These guys are getting more quality writing time in than I am!

7/8 Wed. I've fallen hopelessly behind in my journal. Impossible to catch up. At least I'm still writing my own work, part of the stipulation of this grant.

FREEWRITE

From the from the wind of a passing truck 

the body of a robin luffs and raises 

like a leaf and autumn leaf 

the orange breast flashing

the color of dawn back to the morning sky. 

Tiny wings flutter randomly useless 

in its strange head over head flight 

along the side of the road, 

fragile grayness like a soft fog, 

no longer lifting into air, 

the last flight of the robin 

into another kind of world.
Early autumn
Where the steady pool of darkness 

descends upon us all 

neck broken, his head tucked under one wing 

for preparation of that final sleep. 

I wanted to stop the car, 

hold that tiny teacher or cousin of Icarus 

in my hand, straighten its wings 

and turn it towards the sun 

to escape the island of death. 

Each time we witness the death 

of any living thing we feed the manna of our own death 

we die too, we witness the mortality 

of every new day. 

We bear witness to our own sleeping 

in summer, autumn's descent into winter.

MANNA

• Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 9
• Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 6 & 7
• Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 15 & 16

WARDROBE MOTHER

WARDROBE MOTHER

She dresses in mouldy costumes
and the bug-infested mountains
of clothing in her rooms,
she attacks with Raid roach killer.
In her purse, along with crumpled bills
and dry marking pens, she carries Aquanet
to spray in her ears to stop the voices
and bugs she claims have crawled in
during the night.

When she talks, words tangle
and flop like shoes
with each utterance
as if she were playacting,
not matured into the part of age.
She remembers the stage,
boasts of roles, and curtain calls.
Her mascara drips and melts,
and on her false teeth, lipstick smears
like blood on ivory piano keys.

When the medication isn't working,
she hides behind unfocused eyes,
the generic beer in hand
bringing comfort and oblivion.
An endless chain
of cigarettes, the only thing
she remembers—ties her to this world  
where her "friends" wait it out
in downtown hotel rooms until
the SSI checks come in.
Then they mug her,
robbing her of more than money—

this woman I continue to call Mother.


7/1987
rev. 7/7/94


Man, digging through some of this old work is painful...

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 6 & 7

7/6, Monday. Call to Kathy Russell, I can't believe I still don't have a contract. And I haven’t been paid. Apparently there are two contracts one for 1986/87 fiscal year that goes to June, and one for 87/88 fiscal year which includes July through September. The paycheck should be in the administration office by Thursday afternoon, or so I have been told. Kathy said to wait until Thursday before panicking. I haven't been paid yet. A call to Gail McGovern would be in order.

Kathy Russell said she will try and visit the site the last week in July, 21st to 24th, if there's travel money, if not, she still needs to do a site visit in September, my new schedule. Send her a note about not working in August. Remind her.

7/7 Tuesday recap. Late with Annabelles kids, I can't remember what we did. There was a problem with doing the residency and I'm doing a recap two days later. Not good. Time flies, never a good idea to put off the journal until later.

During lunch I typed up poems trying to catch up. It's so easy to fall behind. 

Afternoon class, five new kids—Louis, Julie and two others are great. We had a hot writing session.

Full day, not enough time even to record the day's events. I had a long critique session with Barry as well. I went home feeling good, despite the fact that I feel so rushed.

• • 
    
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 8
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 2

• • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 15 & 16

REMODELING THE HOUSE

REMODELING THE HOUSE

From the hardware store
a couple step into summer
glare carrying a large white
rectangle between them
like two students
at dance school, stiff,
concentrating on their form.
But the portliness
of the long-married,
beginning to resemble
one another betrays them.
The mirror they carry between them
reflects the greasy sidewalk.

What do they really know,

even after all these years?

7/2/87

Napa

From the hardware store a couple emerges
 carrying a large white rectangle between them. 
They watch walking such careful concentration 
it draws attention to them. 
They are like two students at a school dance 
learning how to do stuff together
 in formal concentration with wooden steps. 
You think they just met. 
But they had that long married look 
the portliness of couples who begin to resemble each other 
how much do they really know about each other 
after all these years? The mirror they carry reflects 
only the sky and their feet and move
 to a rhythm of their own. 

CHICKORY, ii

CHICKORY, ii

In a field of chickory,

I wanted to wander

and pluck enough petals

to fill my lap with blue

until the sky came down

to reclaim the patchwork

of its small silken self.

The nonsense we've collected

has all the hidden answers

& we fall into a muddle

of vicious stars.

I am slowly calling

the fallen leaves,

wet with rain faces.

I saw a piece of sky

blow across that field

until there was nothing

left of spring.


7/87  (I don't seem to have an original)
Napa

See Napa State Hospital notes for first draft).

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, Day 9, July 2

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, Day 9
7/2, Thursday.

FREEWRITE

I wanted to wander in the field of chicory 

and pluck enough petals 

to fill my life with blue 

and the sky would come down 

to see what it had lost, 

to reclaim a part of itself, 

to reclaim its small silken self.

(chickory on 101)

In Jacqueline Campos' class, we read poems and I asked students what they knew about the sky. Squirrely boys. I had to really lean on them. One new kid belligerently refuse to work, so I took his “I don't know…”  attitude as a starter line. Sufficiently tweaked, he responded. And we made a good poem out of it. A busy class. I can make them work and like it. But it's not always easy. A good thing I used to train horses.

Barry wanting attention, was frustrated because I wasn't immediately available. We got into a confrontation because his frustration was focused on me. Quick to anger, I refused to be coerced into being responsible for his frustration. It wasn't pleasant. It was a stand-off. But I am not staff. I am an artist working in confinement without any backup help should something were to go wrong.

We scheduled a time as a means to problem-solve the situation. He was still angry, and we weren't using the time productively, so I needed to move away. Later, he calmed down, and we worked it out. Hold your ground. Never let a horse walk all over you.

Peter came in to say good morning in the midst of all this. I really felt Barry was trying to monopolize my time and  I get that he really wanted to work with me one-one when he came in. That I was otherwise engaged, must've been frustrating for him. I get it, but there's only one me last time I looked. If only I was a Gemini, or schizophrenic. Ship of fools. What ticked me off was when he said, I'm not getting enough of your time. Partially understanding it and partially a monopolization of my time. But this utter selfishness and lack of self awareness is part and parcel of the game.

Patricia said that's the  Q 2–1 Ward for you, the center of the universe. What I should've said, was, I'm sorry you're frustrated but I haven't got much time. Also, I had no idea he was waiting for me. So much for that. Live and learn.

Meanwhile, John G did do a poem for me in the morning. He said that morning was his best time, right after he woke up. He handed it to me with no demand on my time. After I cooled off, we talked about his poem. Physics, the bomb—we looked up the physics and talked about neutrinos and quarks in the electromagnetic spectrum. I learned how a microwave works and why radio waves are less harmful than x-rays. I love this intersection of poetry and physics. Some of these guys are off the chart smart. I feel a kinetic kinship when we spark and during those moments of epiphany, I realize how dangerously close creativity is to sanity.

A young Chinese boy tied down to a wheelchair, paces the aisles and stacks like a hungry tiger. His hands are constrained in round white mittens, like saucers, like animal paws. Unable to pick out a book, let alone turn the pages, what utter frustration. But he was an at-risk patient. He proceeded to tell me a poem in two and three line fragments. I absorb everything.

Earl E, one of my favorite patients, came over, ever gentle, and ever polite; he said he wasn't very together in the morning. Sorry he missed our meeting time. 

The afternoon appointments are canceled due to 4 July games to be held on the second of July. 

Erica, Patricia's supervisor, wants me to mingle, and get to know people. I make plans to meet Earl outside the library at 3 PM. We have so little time left—only four more sessions. The little mini sessions in between, like today, really help a lot. 

Yesterday when Earl read his work from last week, about the nuclear bomb home, he didn't recognize it. He added that he liked it so much, then he asked who wrote it. He was so surprised when I told him that it was his poem. You could see he was about to explode with pride.

What system am I going to leave in place for them in order to continue the writing workshops when I'm gone? When the workshops are over, who will replace me? 

I can only encourage my students to read more poetry and to continue to write poetry themselves and to get their work published. I need to make them aware of what's available. I tell them how the Kenneth Koch how-to poetry books are excellent. I will ask Patricia to set up a poetry corner with copies of my lesson plans on file so students can use my ideas for future work when I’m gone. Set up a poetry circle so they can read their work to each other.

For evaluation I will need to get Patricia to make some written observation notes. I don't think the clients will be able to give me evaluations for the California Arts Council grant. It looks like I can't get additional funding from the William James Foundation. I am disappointed. 

Afternoon recap. We hung out at the games until 3 PM. I ran into Michael C who was trying to socialize more—and wasn't coming to class. I don't think he's writing. I told him to start coming before the class is over. At 3:30, Earl came in a bit low and lethargic. We read snippets from Romeo and Juliet, J Alfred Prufrock, and a poem by Rexroth. We talked about modern poetry and we noticed that the lines he dictated fell into threes and that they were all 5/7/5 without counting it was there before him. When he became aware of the pattern his imagery weakened. Sometimes there such a thing as knowing too much.

FREEWRITE

From the hardware store a couple emerges 

carrying a large white rectangle between them. 

They watch walking such careful concentration 

it draws attention to them. 

They are like two students at a school dance 

learning how to do stuff together 

in formal concentration with wooden steps. 

You think they just met. 

But they had that long married portliness of couples 

who begin to resemble each other 

how much do they really know about each other 

after all these years? The mirror they carry 

reflects only the sky and their feet 

move to a rhythm of their own.

Guerneville Road Hardware
this freewrite became
REMODELING THE HOUSE

• • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 2

• • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 30
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 15 & 16

Red Heifer on Trenton Road, Ralf in the Swimming Pool, Best friends

THE OLD HEIFER

The elderly red heifer on Trenton Road in Forestville, lived in an upscale horse paddock; she was daily fed grain and good hay, windfall Gravensteins and an occasional carrot. Somebody’s pet, probably an abandoned 4H project, the child having long since left home.

The old couple faithfully feed their ward, sometimes grooming her red flanks, as she cuds the alfalfa. A Hereford heifer, never bred for milk, not for beef, she leads a solitary existence, the people who feed her have become her herd. She bats long white eyelashes, rolls her eyes nervously until the whites gleam like marbled fat.

Her coarse tongue flicks rhythmically from nostril to nostril in nervous anticipation. That sandpaper rasping noise of her tongue, threads of saliva spool and stretch in the wind like spider webs. If you come too close, she’ll back off—blowing, but soon curiosity will get the best of her.

But today, the fat, barren lady is gone from her whitewashed paddock and I fear the worst. Did they finally give her to a rancher where she’ll have to learn the ways of being a cow? Did she die old and in the mud of the back pasture or was she slaughtered for beef?

How I miss her corpulent exactness, somebody’s pet. Or am I homesick for another life? Did they buy her as a token pet to keep them in touch with themselves? The past she kept alive in me?

*        *        *

RALF IN THE SWIMMING POOL

We called her Ralf because we liked the rough transition from the tongue into the air—like the feel of her tongue on our bare skin as she bathed us so tenderly, we were her changelings. No amount of parental explaining would convince us to change her name into something more suitable for a Jersey lady cow with the hugest eyes you ever saw.

When my best friend Steph’s dad dug the hole for the swimming pool, it filled with rain water and Ralf went in to quench her thirst but couldn’t get out. It took several men to rescue her from the shallow end.

Ralf was a consummate escape artist. She also get stuck climbing over the electric fences—she’d always forget that her udder hung well below her hocks, and she’d mournfully low for help until someone came along to rescue her from the electric fence. Zap. Zap. Zap.

Ralf was a wayward cow, she'd disappear each winter to find a bull, then sneak off each spring to give birth to a fawnlike calf. We’d track her down following the calf’s mustard yellow milk spoor and marvel anew at the life quivering in its luminous blue eyes.

Ralf gave Stephanie's family many calves siblings: there was Thumbelina, Thelma (yeah, a bull calf), Mr. Schmitz, also a bull calf, who having been raised by ponies, thought he was one—forsaking the company of split-hooved ungulates for horses.

Mr. Schmitz was also confused about his sexual orientation. He’d mount the ponies and then with a look of utter despair he’d slide off them, and resume chewing his hay as if nothing had happened. In the company of ponies he remained a miniature Hereford bull that we’d sometimes ride, with our legs dangling to the ground. We used his horns as a steering wheel, but soon he got wise to us and would kneel down to dump us off. Or he’d ride the back end of the ponies, as we rode them—a strange piggyback beast. We were in constant danger of getting horned in the back.

Captain Beefhart, AKA Thelma, was Ralf’s first bull calf who grew into stupendous well-muscled Hereford proportions and eventually we ate him—a just revenge for the time he treed me up the telephone pole covered with poison oak. I didn’t know I could climb such a pole so fast. He turned mean when he bulked up.

Not like Ole Grandad, the Hereford bull up on Mount Barnabe, who was a bit long in tooth but was still able to put out, or should I say, get it up, so Ralf  managed to pull off a yearly tryst.

When the freezer filled with white wrapped parcels we didn’t think too much about where they all came from, until the house filled with a strange dark aroma of beef heart for dinner, more powerful than new blood. It was the odor of the soul, of life itself, dressed in laurel leaves and thyme. It escaped from this world and the small lessons of death filled our stomachs that night.

Death in the barnyard was not something new to us. We’d seen the chicks, kittens and puppies that didn’t make it. At the time we had no name for it, but the idea of soul was something new.

*        *        *

Ralf’s idea of being milked was to stand in the milk bucket or to kick the pail across the goatshed but Steph's mom, Johanna must have managed it somehow because I remember how sore my arms were from churning the butter lifting and plunging as we took turns while watched TV: Rin Tin Tin, or Sky King. We also learned that butter won’t churn during a thunderstorm.

I spent most of my waking hours with Steph. We were blood sisters. Kinship—these stories are not about my family they’re of kinship, of bonding. Like a stray cat, I adopted, and was adopted by people. Maybe I was following the traditional kinship patterns of Irish foster parenting: maybe it's because of my own divorced parents who left me with my grandmother, so I gravitated toward that strange unit, the nuclear family. From each family, I learned a little of how to survive. The same is true of recent friends and lovers—they are my teachers. I only hope I gave them something in return for all the meals I ate as they gave me much more than food.

*        *        *

How much to trust memory with adult concepts of childhood feelings? Memory is faulty, a kind of fiction, what we remember and want to believe in, searching for patterns in this chaos we’re born into.

School in a random universe would have no logic; it is like memory—or false cognates in a foreign language— meanings suggested because our experiences with our natal language but the word means something entirely different—like exito in Spanish does not mean exit. When I was young, I remember saying to myself: Remember your childhood, remember your dreams, remember, remember everything because you will write about this one day when you are seeking something that was lost. And so my apprenticeship began.

7/1/ 1987

Slightly revised 2/26/2014

CORMORANTS

CORMORANTS

You used to drive me out to the ocean

and I'd sit there wondering what

the hell was going on.

The guano-whitened rock is a spray of wave

frozen against the surge of the sea.

Women in relationships turn it inward,

the grief and the sorrow,

like heads of seaweed, listening

for secrets. You sit there

looking out to sea, inscrutable.

The crab is homeless.

He clings onto kelp

until it breaks under his weight,

the sea sweeping him away to another rock

another woman.

All rocks are his home.

Men go so easily, without the trauma.

A decade later I cannot return

to Russian Gulch. Scene of the crime.

Cliff shadows on a wall of sea-mist.

Cormorants wing seaward

and the wind keeps their secrets.

87

rev. 88

COUNTRY ROADS

COUNTRY ROADS

I begin to recognize a particular bend

of road, not only by its morning face

or how it looks the other direction

in late afternoon, but with that

simultaneous flash, as the images mesh—

both coming and going at the same time.

Like a film played backwards,

I learn anew the portrait of each bend,

and each curve. Intimacy comes

with the continuum of road;

a thread along the silver needle of the creek

weaving canyons and mountains

into familiar patterns. Exlovers

throwing in their lot with Orpheus,

find a song of common salt

but the mate of the small bird I hit

fluttering by the roadside

has no future at all.

7/13/1987
rev. 6/89

Forestville, CA

Driving along country roads 
their twists and turns remain
secretive until I learn each bend, 
each curve and it unwinds
like an arhythmic ribbon 
the intimacy comes with time
I begin to look forward to certain bends 
that remind me of other roads 
passing under redwood trees at Papermill Creek
Mark West Springs, or along SF Drake
I'm beginning to recognize a particular bend in the road
not ony by its forward face 
but how it looks when I come the other way 
in late afternoon
like film clips played in reverse
there's an odd sensation as the reverse image meshes 
with the current one
the road threads between the mountains
along the silver needle of the  creek.

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 1

Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, Day 8, Library.

7/1, Wednesday morning was spent finalizing my schedule. Bonnie Whitting will need to be moved and she's not going to like it. My first priority is to work with the rehab patients. But I've been caught up in a scheduling crossfire. It’s a power struggle. Patricia foresees problems in my getting paid. Oh God, we're trying to second-guess the SNAFUs and I still don't have a contract. This is not good. Linda Wargo's Juvie class was canceled—my first lockdown. It must've been pretty serious. We meet and talk about how the classes are going, the William James Foundation funding, the upcoming poetry book, etc. I want to collect drawings and make a couple of posters for the upcoming Napa Valley Poetry Conference in three weeks as well, share it with the larger community.

This is the electronic shaman.

The road across the young world 

sizzled like a bridge of light.

Wednesday afternoon. Brooke Hatcher's group. Rick and Wayne are too out of touch to do poetry, no really, the first ones I've gotten who are out there on cloud 9.

I feel sad 

almost defeated 

but buoyant 

– Peter D

Peter wrote fragments, the poem's defeat turned into elation, and he said, I feel much better now, thank you. I was elated too.

Barry, angry, came in and wrote a fierce poem to the failure of technology. Computer devolution? 

Peter said I was in the boat that sunk in the bay.

Barry said electric schizophrenic gear. Ok, word salad. I can work with that.

Barry and I did a collaborative poem on crystal shadows, and he added two last lines. Really quite good.

Peter especially like the way I read it. He said that I should read out loud more. Because people can't even read here. Keeping one’sspectacles is more than what most of the folks can manage. 

Peter referred Guy R to me, who rewrote from memory, a poem, The Yearling, about a deer skull, it had good alliteration etc. I am really feeling my way here. This is a completely experimental program.

Guy is something else. He said the rats ate his journal—he elaborates, literary rats. We talked about Whitman's Leaves of Grass and alliteration. Word is getting around via the grapevine about this poetry workshop. Guy asked me if I was in occupational therapist. No, I said. I'm a real live poet. Published and all that? he asks. I answer, yes, and all that. Note to self: bring in some published poems for show and tell.

Anyway, it was a hard day. But I'm really enjoying this process. Funny how I was so scared at the beginning. 

Peter and I talked of revolution, Trotsky and the 1960s. It turns out that he knew Richard Sloan. Small world. We talked of how free we all were then. How everything seems possible. But hippies were all middle-class kids. The uneducated steel worker, the uncultured class as Peter called them, will emerge strong. I dunno. I come from that blue collar background. The immigrant class.

Peter said that he had a tarnished gem inside of him. He said he didn't think those fragments were a poem. And when he read it, he said yes, it's a poem, and he dictated two last lines. Thus baptizing the lines and giving them form. He said that this was his first the first thing he's written anything in eight years. He said the writer's block is over. He dictated to me a few more lines. He couldn't stop. We went way overtime. Time as we know it, doesn’t exist here.

It took time and a lot of conversation and many tentative start to get Peter to open up and write. I received an unexpected compliment. He said he liked me because I was real. I said, I hope so, otherwise I'm a figment of my own imagination. What would my mother say? He laughed and said he likes the way I talked with my hands, I grasped the air with substance. My hands interpret the nuances of my thoughts.

The change from tentative start and abrupt departures, to the confident dictation of a poem—already I see the progress made. The project is working!

Wednesday afternoon recap: normally Wednesday afternoons are slow, I have 1 to 2 people at most. Sometimes none. Then I work on my own work. Today it was crowded, the afternoon attendance is increasing. And this is all by word-of-mouth. I need extra handouts, and a head count. Help!

• • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 21 & 23
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 16
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 14
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 13
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 9
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 8
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 6 & 7
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 2
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, July 1

• • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 30
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 25
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 24
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 23
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 18
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 17
  • Napa State Hospital Poetry Journal, June 15 & 16

BLIND, I COULDN'T SEE

BLIND, I COULDN'T SEE

Blind, I couldn't see the spaces

between where universes collide.

These worlds are eating time

as if it were the Last Supper

and we say Oh, God again

and again because this breathing

together is conspiracy.

In a blue sky,

a dragonfly, a thread

to pull the strings of the word

from the interior of the eye—

A dragonfly

in a blue sky.

 7/1989?

This may be 1987
Napa State Hospital