HOW TO SURVIVE AN ANXIETY ATTACK:

Find five things you can see:
His old guitar leans on the stand,
body like a leathern curragh of the saints,
strap curled up like a cat's tail. Silent as death.

A corduroy dog my grandmother made,
something from my childhood.

A friend's mother's ornate framed mirror,
a bejewelled beveled arch, a portal to the past.

A vase of wing feathers from the wild geese
long since departed from this clement shore.

My latest gift: a soapstone carving
of Chaak-mool waiting for the sacrificed heart,
something that I already gave away long ago
to a man who didn't want it.
After the cancer scare, he cleaned out the past.
Thought I might want it as a memento mori
to remember him by.

Four things I can touch:
An old sheepskin rug on the couch,
once a seat cover I made for my first car.

The polished floorboards of an old house
built before the Crash,
built before my mother was born.

A dead poet's worn Balouch rug
hides the futon couch where I sit in the sun,
where a splash of rainbow light hovers,
an ephemeral gift from a crystal in the window.

My latest favorite tea mug, empty,
yet filled with unspent grief. I still cannot eat.

Three things I can hear:
The incessant tide of freeway traffic,
everyone hurtling down the road in all directions,
but going nowhere. Growling trucks.

The tinnitus in my ears,
like midsummer crickets,
distant caroling of bells.
Imaginary sleighs.

An early robin yelling Chock!
at the squirrel burying his acorns
in the water bowl. Again.

Two things I can smell:
Faint lavender odor from a cashmere sweater,
but the moths had their way with it.

Acrid dust, the silica souls of trees,
houses, the sum total of people's lives,
reduced to base metal, carbon and ash.

One thing I can taste:
Bitter gall on the tongue
the aftermath of fire,
mixed with salt tears.

I've grounded myself in the past.
But the muscles surrounding my heart ache,
the obsidian blade cannot sever the pain
from time present.
So I offered it up to Chaak-mool.
Then the blessed rains fell,
and the skies wept.

10/20/2017

THE MAN WHO LOVED FALCONS

               —for Monte Kirven 1936-2017

We never knew what to believe:
his tall stories and epic fish tales,
cliffhangers woven into tapestries.
This man who helped to ban DDT.
After the dinner guests had departed,
the falconer shuffled off to bed, sated—
but an inferno raged, a river of fire
swept though Larkfield and Wikiup,
flooding the vast Santa Rosa plain.
No time to escape with his bird, still caged,
while my own kin fled a funereal pyre.
May the lone pern in the gyre
lead him onward to ride
the thermal updrafts
of those wide
 open skies.

Oct 20, 2017



Much love to Brian Kirven during this time of grief and sorrow.

What is the most random thing you grabbed when you evacuated?

In the heat of the moment, people grabbed the oddest things. A cat tree. A hole punch. An eraser. Homework.

Yesterday, Shana Berger Van Cleave‎ a pediatric dentist at The Children's Dental Health Center, in Santa Rosa, posted a question to a Facebook group, Santa Rosa Firestorm Update

She asked the group: What is the most random thing you grabbed when you evacuated?

The Facebook post took off like, er, wildfire. Shana got more than 2000 hits on her question in less than 24 hours. Most people's responses were hilarious. I was laughing hysterically well into the night as I read the posts, and decided to pull a few. But soon I had hundreds. Single shoes, inappropriate clothing, sex toys, electronics. These are a few of my favorite things in no particular order. (It's been shared 1.2k times, just about breaking the internet) thus proving that laughter is the best medicine.

Some of my favorites:

LAWN THIEVES

All is quiet on the eastern front
and no more Nixles. A good sign.
Someone said the lights are still on
in much of Oakmont, a ghost town,
which is still under evacuation.
Another good sign. There is still power.
We all live from sign to sign.

Being a Depression era baby,
one old woman worries
about all her food spoiling.
Others fret over whether or not
their homes are still standing.
The pages are full of so many lost pets.

When there was nothing else left to do,
one vintner returned to his vineyards.
and said, fires be damned,
he brought in the last ton of grapes.
Said it'll be a hell of a vintage
with smokin' overtones.

A woman said thieves stole her lawn.
How do you even steal someone's lawn?
She shrugs: They left the trampoline?
Why would looters take my lawn?
Both front and back! The only green spot.
At least her house is still standing.
Someone said: watch Craigslist
for a plotless lawn for sale.

With the news of cannabis farms
going up in smoke, I'm betting
those lawn thieves are dumb enough
to think they'll get a good price
for their grass on the open market.

10.16

After a week of wildfire, what phoenix rises?

There's no way I can even begin to process this last week of hellfire. I can only hope that the words will come. I am desperate enough to turn mindless Facebook questionaires (at bottom) into poetry. I removed all the questions and worked on that skeletal poemography. Then, I revised, tosssed some lines, and reposted it. Because it's a random assortment of bland facts, it forces the mind in different directions with odd juxtapositions. I came up with this:

Yes, I dislike blue cheese but I once shot a Luger.

It kicked my shoulder back into last week.

My ears roared for days. Like an inferno.

Forget coke. Forget Pepsi. Or Dr. Pepper.

Look, I barely passed the electric candy Kool-aid test.

Wish I could say Jack Daniels or Four Roses

but I don't like the taste of whiskey, or whisky.

I don't like hot dogs either. Give me haggis any time.

I never could shake the image of Atticus Finch

standing up to the mob like that in To Kill a Mockingbird.

I wear my Celtic necklace and amethyst rings as talismans.

I don't have hobbies, I do everything full tilt,

as if my life depended on it, I'm an artist and a writer.

Am I ADD? Yup, and/or dyslex.... What? Ohhhh. Shiny!

I can't add either. Forget long division.

Even Archie Williams couldn't teach me algebra.

I don't know which I prefer, Roadrunner or Coyote. Meep-meep.

The past week I've posted countless Facebook PSAs, and wept.

Then I wept some more. Salt tears of grief. For no reason.

Not enough to douse the flame inside.

Daily I drink tea, milk and wine. Definitely need more wine.

This year's harvest is ruined, and next year's too.

And the year after that as well. No more good cheap wine.

I worry about fire leaping across the valley,

my cabin in Forestville, and the literary memorabilia in it.

Letters from Seamus Heaney, Galway Kinnell, Dave Brubeck, etc.

Yeah, well, I dislike .45. Celebrate the new year? Why?

Didn't bother. What's the point? Like I said, .45.

Yes. I miss the mountains, and the sea. The sea, the sea.

I love violet skies, with a side bar of royal blue

tinged by distant cerulean dreams.

I would like to visit Ireland, again, and the Baltic.

The moaii of Easter Island. Maybe the Caribbean.

Go back to Angermeyer's farm on the Galapagos.

Forget satin sheets. Overrated. Give me flannel sheets

or give me a sleeping bag. Or a lawn any time.

I can put my lips together, and I can blow,

but I can't whistle. However, I can drool in tune.

Where am I? At home. The air is toxic with smoke.

The statue of the Cotati accordian-playing mayor 
wearing a smoke mask made me laugh out loud.
He was a nice guy, Jim Boggio, the mayor of Cotati,
whom I once met on a swingset in the park.
We talked until dawn rasped its fiery claw on the sky.

Yes, I love cats and horses. And red-tail hawks.

What about all the animals? Who will survive?

Someone spotted a giraffe ungulating in Larkfield.

I fear that all the birds are dead. What about the deer and mice?

When I tore my knee. When I had a kidney infection.

When I tore all the muscles on my lower back.

When I smashed my nose on a rock

doing a faceplant on the Continental Divide,

that day, my blood ran in both directions at the same time.

It all hurt. And keeps on hurting. Like this fire.

I'm an orphan. All my aunts and uncles are gone too, save one.

I'm the last generation of my family, and the eldest grandchild.

Sometimes it seems that I am channeling my grannie, 
who was both mother and father to me.
Yes, I loved to dance, but you see, my knee....

Of course I love life. Mightily. With a passion.

My advice? Become the light in a darkened land.

Oct 14, 16

(This was from Liz Haas' questionaire, Oct 11)

Then I turned it into a poem.)

Today, I cried useless tears. California is burning.

Ashes fall like daisy chains and pikake leis.

I want the soothing coolness of ice cream.

Chocolate, coffee, or vanilla will do. Or an iceberg.

I can't read, I can't write, I can't think,

even a road trip of the mind won't do.

All I can do is listen to is fire updates, and worry

about what I cannot control. Acts of God, they say.

Everybody praying, what good is that? 
Thoughts and prayers don't rebuild a life.

After a fiery sunset, the angry sun 
dipped into the ocean to cool off.

I long for the indigo supplication of clouds and rain.

My hair, redbrown embers, my eyes swollen with grief.

Even salmon, and chocolate cannot assuage this pain.

Thanksgiving and my birthday is coming soon

(but no one remembers, the turkey, center-stage, again).

I open another bottle of Chardonnay.

Why not? The vineyards are burning.

Soon the wine will run out. and the bitter harvest 

of ember and ash will be our distillation for years to come.

These days, I am both night owl and morning person,

burning the candle at both ends. Afraid to sleep.

After a week of wildfire, what phoenix rises?

10/16

HURRICANE OPHELIA

I deign to say that the latest hurricane
is expected to hit Ireland full force.
Evidently, Hurricane Ophelia wasn't satisfied
with a simple "Me too" on her Facebook page.
She plans to take revenge on every hamlet.
After all, the original story was set in Ireland.

In Yougal, the Celtic Sea heaves and pitches
like an exuberant lover beneath lace curtains.
Stabs the land with a parry and a thrust.
Rusted scabbards. Cars leap sea walls like stags.
Fortinbras in the wind. What army of pints
lined up along the bars, into the dark night?
Iron-age bodies were unearthed at Forlorn Point,
Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford. The sea
uncovered an ancient burial ground.

My cousins talk about the weather
while venerable trees let go of this earth,
a fallen army across the roads of Bantry.
With all the lashing and smirring,
that is general all over Ireland,
will anyone even notice the hurricane
flogging the coast along the Wild Atlantic Way?

10.15

GIRDING THE LOINS (haiku)

Girding up our loins
for the next catastrophe—
a permanent state

of being ready
for what comes next, calling it
an Armageddon,

of sorts, we prepare
for the worst, another onslaught—
day still follows night.

Call it storm, or fire,
or earthquake, mass shootings—
oh tenuous life.

Facebook censorship in a time of crisis, Tubbs Fire

Facebook, now is NOT the time to decide we are spamming. We've got an emergency in Sonoma, and Napa counties, and your spambots are not helping. We're trying to be dead accurate with our information. Lives may depend upon it. So yes, we do revise our posts for accuracy. I'm trying to respond to a post plea getting 56 horses out of Chalk Hill and you keep blocking my posts. 

Facebook has tried to block my posts, including a link to a surreal photo of a loose giraffe sighting in Wikiup/Larkfield, north Santa Rosa. A bewildered giraffe looming over the burned foliage, no joke. An escapee from SafariWest. Glad their rhino isn’t running on the randan. The story of how Pete Lang saved all his animals, including newborn Mr. Tubbs, a baby lechwe antelope. There’s a photo of an emu trucking down the road, another photo of firemen petting the rescued rhino. So far, they’ve rescued horses, cows, chickens, bunnies, goats, llamas, and seven YAKS? A pony stuffed into a Honda. Then there’s the story of Odin rescuing his goats. Facebook considers all this as spam.

I posted news that the landmark Fountaingrove round barn built of first growth redwood is gone, along with the daft hotel. The Round Barn: the last remnants of an utopian dream. I never went inside. One of Emperor Hirihito's mythical white Arabian stallions was horsed in that barn. Our history is going up in flames. The Luther Burbank Center is charred, but standing. Historic Stornetta dairy is gone. I posted mandatory evacuation notices and lists of shelters. Ten dead, 10,000 displaced, not to mention all the animals. We’ve lost Coffey Park, the Snoopy Ice Arena. Mark West, Glen Ellen, Paradise Ridge, all gone. Fire is at zero% containment. This is what Facebook has deemed as spam. Epic Fail, #Facebook. 

Facebook please turn off the spambots. Every time I correct a post comment I am blocked. Every single time I make a correction or clarify a comment, I get this window. Yes, I complain, early and often to an empty room. FB wants me to post less often, and it sure wants me NOT to edit my posts. Another window tells me I'm posting too fast. I'm not a fast typist, but I'm a fast errorist. So I might revise a comment 2 or 3 times before I get it right. I'm also dyslexic. This is such a punitive algorithm.

If I am too quick in my editing, it grays out my post and blocks it so I can't repost it with corrections. It's a flawed algorithm. It somehow thinks I'm abusing the system. How?

It's a numbers game. Once I post too many comments in a certain unnamed timeframe (variable, within an hour), then the blocking begins, and lasts for days. Once I post something, I can't make changes, or add to it or correct it...which drives me crazy because I'm a terrible typist and a great revisionist.

Complaining to Facebook does no good as our complaints go to bots. No humans. I once did get a response and they said it's an algorithm flaw. It's not supposed to do that. Clearly nothing I post could be construed as spam or hate mail—except maybe toward FB, that is. Sometimes I save my responses to FB. Just because. But, TG I've found a workaround, as soon as that happens, I copy the post with changes, and repost it as a new post, and delete the offending post.

TO compound and confound things  even more, FB alsk keeps locking my posts to an audience of Only Me. I needed to move a post over to my page via iPad so I sent it as private, so I could edit it later. And FB turned off ALL my posts! Took some time to track down why. I'd make my posts, which are important PASs, public several times over, and Lo, 'twas a miracle, they would revert to locked down status, to be viewed by Only Me. Not a particularly useful feature during this time of crisis. You can see why my language might become, erm, flowery. I realize that this rant will fall on deaf ears. Or no ears at all. But documenting this travesty is important. What about the next time?

• Dear Facebook, stop blocking me

• Facebook censorship in a time of crisis, Tubbs Fire
• Is anyone else being blocked by Facebook censors?

• Facebook FAIL Rant

22nd Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival

22nd Annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival
Saturday, October 7, 2017, 10:00 a.m.
Strawberry Creek Walk, poetry, talk, and a walk along beautiful Strawberry Creek through UC Berkeley and its underground path through downtown Berkeley to the Watershed Festival at Civic Center Park.�Led by poet/eco-educator Chris Olander with readings along the way by poets Raphael Block, Tiffany Higgins, Jahan Khalighi, Maw Shein Win, El Cerrito Poet Laureate, nature commentary by Tim Pine, UC Berkeley Environmental Health and Safety, and naturalist Glen Schneider. Meet in the Cypress Grove, often called the Redwood Grove (southeast corner of Oxford at Center, near the sculpture of the World Globe as you enter the UC campus) at 10:00 am.
Saturday, October 7, noon-4:30, Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park, Berkeley

"Stand Up for the Earth" with music and dynamic readings by over thirty poets and writers, including Robert Hass, Pulitzer Prize-winner and US Poet Laureate 1995-97; Maxine Hong Kingston, Camille T. Dungy, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Malcolm Margolin, Alison Luterman, San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck, Tess Taylor; Invocation by Berkeley Poet Laureate Rafael Jesús González, with Gerardo Omar Marín on conch and flute; Malcolm Margolin on The Way We Lived: California Indian Stories, Songs, and Reminiscences, 35th Anniversary Edition; Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Raphael Block, Tiffany Higgins, Jahan Khalighi, El Cerrito Poet Laureate Maw Shein Win; California Poets in the Schools K-12 students read led by poet-teachers John Oliver Simon and Maureen Hurley; Chapter 510’s The Biography of Water read in English and Arabic by North Oakland Community Charter School students; emcees Kirk Lumpkin and Richard Silberg. Music by The Barry Finnerty Trio; WE ARE Nature Open Mic (enter drawing on site at noon); RIVER VILLAGE exhibits with Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Sixteen Rivers Press, Ecology Center, Poetic Matrix Press, Sugartown Publishing, California Poets in the Schools, River of Words Children’s Poetry & Art Contest, St. Mary’s College MFA in Creative Writing, Poetree writing with Sharon Coleman, Berkeley City College, Milvia Street Art & Literary Journal, and more; readers books for sale and signing at the Pegasus Book Tent. Bring your lunch or visit the Farmers’ Market; one block west from Berkeley BART; 100 Thousand Poets for Change event. Presented by Poetry Flash, co-sponsored by the Ecology Center/Berkeley Farmers' Market, Pegasus Books Downtown, Moe's Books; wheelchair accessible.For more info, visit Poetryflash.org, call (510) 525-5476, or e-mail: info@poetryflash.org. Save the Bay Day partner event.
Join us at the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival—October 7, 2017!

POETS WILL ‘STAND UP FOR THE EARTH' AT FESTIVAL
October 3- 6, 2017 | Berkeley Voice, The (CA) ESt Bay Times, Mercury News

Author: Chris Treadway, STAFF COLUMNIST | Page: 2A | Section: News

Heavy-hitters of the poetry world, more than 30 in all, will be in Berkeley on Oct. 7 to "Stand Up for the Earth" at the 22nd annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival.The event, hosted by Poetry Flash from noon to 4:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr, Civic Center Park, 2151 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, is a partner in Save the Bay events being held around the region and will feature insights and meditative thoughts from poets and writers such as Robert Hass (Pulitzer Prize-winner and United States Poet Laureate 1995-97), Maxine Hong Kingston, Camille Dungy, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Malcolm Margolin, Alison Luterman, Kim Shuck (poet laureate of San Francisco), Tess Taylor; Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Raphael Block, Tiffany Higgins, Jahan Khaligi and El Cerrito Poet Laureate Maw Shein Win.
Heavy-hitters of the poetry world, more than 30 in all, will be in Berkeley on Oct. 7 to "Stand Up for the Earth" at the 22nd annual Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival.

The event, hosted by Poetry Flash from noon to 4:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr, Civic Center Park, 2151 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, is a partner in Save the Bay events being held around the region and will feature insights and meditative thoughts from poets and writers such as Robert Hass (Pulitzer Prize-winner and United States Poet Laureate 1995-97), Maxine Hong Kingston, Camille Dungy, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Malcolm Margolin, Alison Luterman, Kim Shuck (poet laureate of San Francisco), Tess Taylor; Kirk Lumpkin, Chris Olander, Raphael Block, Tiffany Higgins, Jahan Khaligi and El Cerrito Poet Laureate Maw Shein Win.

Teachers John Oliver Simon and Maureen Hurley will lead a reading by K-12 students, and "The Biography of Water" will be read in English and Arabic by North Oakland Community Charter School students.

Rafael Jesus Gonzalez (poet laureate of Berkeley) will present a ceremonial invocation with Gerardo Omar Marin on conch and flute.

For more details visit Poetryflash.org, call 510-525-5476 or email info@poetryflash.org.

Allergy Season (looon)

I must admit I'm mad for sage. Such incredible diversity. I was in Lone Pine marveling over the vast variety of sages. I nearly sneezed myself into oblivion. I sneezed so long and hard, my heart was having a hard time figuring out when to beat. OK, so I don't have native sages, but they're still blooming, and the bumble bees are rolling on their backs in euphoria. Who am I to deny them that? The butterflies and the hummers too join in the tasting. This unseasonable season, sage still blooming in fall.

 FWIW, I also water the squirrel, as the nearest fresh water is so far away for him. In return, he leaves me acorns. Then changes his mind, nearly drowning in the process of trying to retrieve his nuts.


If I were a crawdad,
I would have sneezed myself backwards
into the next watershed.

AFTER THE HEATWAVE

I love the way the fog
galumphs over the headlands
like a doughty grandmother
in her Wellies & a flannel nightie.

Las Vegas shooting

Aw Geez, I stepped away from FB for the day & the news yesterday (still reeling from Puerto Rico ), I saw a fleeting reference to a shooting at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. I had no idea it was a massacre. Devastating. All those poor innocent people: 59 dead and 515 wounded victims, hospitalized. 

How to even process this? Again? Columbine, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando, now this. The worst shooting in American history. A horrific, senseless distinction.

We need stringent gun control laws. Not this continued free reign to domestic terrorism, or lax gun laws where anyone can obtain assault rifles and silencers. A 65-year-old retiree killed 58 of his fellow Americans at a concert—for no reason. I don't want to learn the term, "soft targets." 

Trump dismantled Obama's regulation that made it harder for mentally ill people to buy guns. Then he prays for the Las Vegas victims? What's with that? This is on you, Congress, for allowing the NRA to have this kind of power over our nation. Thoughts and prayers are not enough. If you want to help, please donate blood.



Most of these assault rifles are bought from dealers, or over the internet, not stolen. In some states, there's virtually no background check. Responsible gun owners usually don't own sniper or assault rifles. We're not talking Smith & Wessons here.  

I'm old school. Guns belong in a gun safe. Gone are the days of driving around in your truck with a rifle stowed in the back window rack, to get groceries. Gawd, I actually remember those days, in West Marin! I'm not against guns, surprisingly. I don't like them. I'm against illegal ownership of guns. Australia bought everybody's guns, and allowed those who had permits, to keep theirs (stowed away), and crime and suicide rates dramatically dropped.

So, how does a guy smuggle ten assault rifles into his hotel room? Make that 19 guns in total.

I'm way more stressed than I realize, cousins' deaths, hurricanes, a dysfunctional president, and the Las Vegas shooting have turned my brain into Swiss cheese. Everything requires more effort and my synapses are off. Talk about a bout of dyslexia. And everyone is so raw. Misunderstandings abound. We tend to think world events don't affect us that profoundly, but they do. And we've all been subjected to a tremendous amount of unrelenting stress.

Atop of all this, Albert Buswell  who is friends with Horton Deakins, said: You are an idiot.

Stunned, I said: Please elaborate as to why you think I'm an idiot. Because I am concerned that 58 innocent people needlessly died yesterday, and 515 innocent people at a country music concert were wounded, And the death count will surely go up, because someone, who was unstable, was able to purchase 10 assault rifles without an adequate background check, because Nevada's gun purchase screening process is so lax, that the gunman even used his girlfriend's ID to purchase additional guns? 

If someone buys ten assault rifles all at once with color-coordinated matching ammo, you'd think that should be cause for alarm. Or just maybe the current gun vetting system is flawed. You might want to read my above comments as to my personal stance on guns. Either remove yourself from my page, or I will block you. Your choice, Amadán. 

Silence was his loud reply.

Visiting Boschka Layton's friend, Kat WIlliams

On Monday, we visited Boschka's old friend, Kat Williams in the hills above Guerneville to take photos of Boschka's work. I had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to do this as a favor to Max. I didn't know Kat had moved to a remote homestead, so the previously scheduled meeting had to be cancelled as there was no way I could even get to Guerneville in the time that I had.

We arrived on a high mountain top facing south, and could see all the way to Mt. Tam, and Mt. Diablo. We were up that high. It had taken us 2.5 hours to get there and we were fast losing light but Kat had to settle in to this break in routine and she gave us a tour of the house, and garden, and a catch-up visit as we caught up on the past 41 years! We visited Boz's grave, he died 5 years ago.

We ate warm tomatoes from the garden with basil leaves and mozzarella cheese with balsamic vinegar. The BV wine I had brought was chilled, and we drank chardonnay under the well-endowed kiwi vine trellis. It was hotter than Hades. The cat told us so. We shared stories of the past, and our own journeys to time present. An extraordinary day. We got back to the city long after dark, tired from such a journey back into time.

How many states, and countries visited?

Another one of thise mindless Facebook games.
I've been to 23 countries; 27 US states
(but some I was just passing through)

UK (Scotland, Wales, Britain)
Ireland
Holland
Belgium
Luxembourg
Switzerland
France
Germany
Serbia (Yugoslavia)
Portugal
Hungary
Austria
USSR (Ukraine, BelaRus, Russia)
Finland
Canada
USA (27 states)
Mexico
Guatemala
Bahamas
Ecuador
Peru

And I'm probably missing a few places too.

POEM SCRAWLED ON A ZUCCHINI BOX

From that pale sky bereft of blue, 

ask what is possible in the world, 

a place where alt-night is always right, 

the sky robbed of color, call it alt-white. 

The day’s lure, an olive branch, 

once a gesture of peace, or surrender. 

Fennel lines. He is an interloper, not a refugee. 

When did we become refugees in our own country? 

In our eyes, held hostage to the skies, blue eyed sons. 

It takes such strength in order to be kind.

10/17

The Blogger update that keeps on giving

Ah, the Blogger update that keeps on giving. My old posts with photos are rendered into blank boxes. Sections of text are randomly supersized, or there are inexplicable gaps and multiple carriage returns. Or the typography is an odd color. Makes me look like an idiot.

Wiki links are hardest hit. Cleaning it up is not an easy task. I'm tip-toeing through my 2014 posts, HTML and visual landmines! It's taken me hours to clean up the posts, about a quarter of them had HTML warnings, and I have 135 posts. Ironically it was in 2014 when I really began to run afoul of Blogger, with hanging posts, and disappearing posts. Dear Google, Using Blogger is a Painful Experience. 

Adding old journal entries, part 2

I seem to work in spates, bringing my old journal entries and poems into the electronic age. I've had a stack of journals haunting me at the foot of the bed for months, now. So I've been revisiting old writing for the past week. (Besides Facebook, where I continue to mine bits from the recent past, is boring as feckall these days.)

Right now, I'm mostly revisiting work from the 1980s. There's more to choose from. The 1990s and early 2000s will be lean years, as it was about that time when I sloughed off writing in my journals. Well, I was writing, but it had more to do with going back to school, academics, rather than writing, or art.

I finally got around to adding my Azores and Lisbon journals from 2001 (high on my To Do list), and it proved to be a rich trove. Only thing is, I didn't particularly need more work from 2001. The years 2000, or 2003-06, were lean, yes. But it seems to work that way, they years where I don't need more work, I have lots of entries.

My goal still is 52 posts per year, and I have finally fleshed out the lean 1980s years, 1984 in particular, was spare, until I discovered there was a whole lot more to my Hawaii journals, as compared to first read, or rather first skim.

The Field

Nothing is going on in the field. There is no field. Other than the field of imagination and a collapsing of history. The past is reasserting itself in time present in the form of memory. Like the buttery taste of Proust's madeleines. Buttercups melting on cow's tongues.

Lost followers on Facebook

Facebook has this rather strange concept of followers. I hardly know where I’m going, let alone  even knowing they existed until one of them unfollowed me. Follow, fallow, folly.

John Oliver Simon, CPITS AC retreat, Lone Pine (photos)

Storm Alphabet

Well, hurricanes Harvey and Irma certainly trounced us. So, I take it that Hurricane José fizzled out? Steve said no, José was last seen off the Carolinas and was headed for The Big Apple. Did someone call ICE? Will it reach The White House? What were the names of hurricanes K, and L? Someone said it was Katia, not Kyle X (no bellybutton). Maybe we should switch to Cyrillic. After all, the election was stolen. I was in the Dry Tortugas when Ivan struck. We've literally run out of storm grade categories. Let's face it, both Harvey and Irma were both way larger than Category 5. Tell me again how climate change is a myth. How did we get to tropical storm Maria so fast? It's only September. What about L? Do we even want to meet a girl like Maria under this context? Someone said Lee was a tropical depression. Sounds like an old boyfriend of mine. And now Nate's brewing in the Pacific. Storm Ophelia is yet to be born. How did we get around to naming storms anyway? How come we still name most tempests after women? Apparently “Female hurricanes are deadlier than male hurricanes.” But people think they can outride the storm if it's named after a woman. What happened to naming hurricanes after the saints? It's nearly October, and we're running out of hurricane names. Then what? Hurricanes Andrew, Ivan and Katrina's death kills were so high, their names have been retired forever. Add Harvey and Irma to that list. Since 2000, some 30 cataclysmic Category 5ish storm names have been retired. When a tropical cyclone reaches tropical storm intensity (40MPH winds), it's christened with a name. Irma's winds reached 185MPH. What happens when we get to the letter T? Call it Trump? Last time we hit storm T (Tanya) was in 1995. What's the last highest alphabet named storm? Did we ever get to storm Z? Did we invoke Zeus? We got up to Wilma in 2005, it was a watershed year, with Katrina, Rita, and all. That year five storm names were retired, a record. I just found out that the storm alphabet excludes the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z, because it's a challenge to come up with names: you can only have so many Quinns, Uriahs, and Xerxes. What happens if we run out of alphabet? Then what? Do we start over at the beginning, switch to the Greek alpha-and-omega-bet. Storm Chi and Hurricane Omicron sound smallish, and Storm Psi is rather onomatopoetically wettish. Like I said earlier, maybe we should switch to Cyrillic. Or maybe we should just invent catastrophic new letters for the new monster storms.

AT EVA'S CABIN

At 6000 feet we are that much closer to the sun
I watch the vagaries of heat and wind
leave ripples on the pond
while words surfacing like hungry fish
feed upon the vagaries of air.

9/16/17
Olivas Ranch Road
Above the Alabama Hills

HIKING BACK IN TIME

I had a couple of hard miles ahead of me
up the first two long switchbacks, 
past Carillon Creek, the north fork of Lone Pine Creek
into the deep gorge at the base of Mt. Whitney, 
well above the waterfall at Whitney Portal. 
I gained just enough altitude 
that with each step I hiked backwards in time 
back toward the very beginning of summer.

9/15/17
Mt. Whitney

SUNRISE, MT. WHITNEY

SUNRISE, MT. WHITNEY
     After John O'Donohue's poem, At the end of the day: a mirror of questions

The night dreamed of its own beginning.
My eyes lingered on the spires of mountains
I was blinded by the dawn light.
I was wounded and no one knew
I read the dark script of canyons.
The trees closest to me whispered old secrets.
I forgot about the old speech of the mountains.
I neglected that part of myself
that traversed the secret trail heads, into the past.
What did I begin today that might endure?
These small words, everyday conversations
are meaningless next to that of the ravens at dawn.
I keep forgetting that kindness costs nothing
so I greet everyone and every thing with respect.
And when I smile, my heart is lighter for it.
For I remember the dead today, and every day.

I remember my cousin who died too young in his sleep
whom my family will honor at the Druid's Hall in Nicasio
today, with the cows looking on, while I, here,
gaze upon the face of beauty.
These mountains comb the indigo sky
Sometimes it's the only love I allow myself to receive.
The moment of self, a friend unexpectedly hugs me
on the back side of the Sierras
where the past and the present are one thing,
a deep imprint on the psyche.
The poets see me as I see myself,
a speck of dust in the vastness of what is.
I did not avoid that gift I was given—only to ask:
Why was I given this day?

7/15/17
Lo Inyo High School
With Kathy Evans
Lone Pine, CA
video

LAST NIGHT I DREAMED

Last night I dreamed the moon spoke in tongues.
It talked of distant dreams, and far horizons.
It whispered of the past and it splashed
across the stone faces of the mountains.
It danced with the shadows of dark trees.
It sang with the lonely coyotes
who consider it their mother.
The moonlight was well pleased with itself
and the stars seemed brighter still,
if only for a moment, and then the mountains shifted.
They stood a little taller in the darkness.
The world turtle shifted in its sleep,
and the earth moved in its slumber.
There was no one there to translate.

9/15/17
Lo Inyo Elementary School
With Kathy EvansLone Pine, CA

(there was an earthquake)

The Scandinavians in the parking lot

The Scandinavians are having breakfast in the Lone Pine parking lot at dawn with their rented Harleys. In another century, they would’ve been horses in the parking lot. I can almost understand what the Scandinavians are saying... I keep thinking that if I tilt my head a little more, just so, it will become clearer.

Last night I listened to the Norwegians and Finns sing American folk songs badly. But they knew all the words. And they sang with gusto. They've ridden rented Harleys from San Diego to Zion and are headed towards the chilly fog of San Francisco. Adventure of a lifetime.

They are mostly from Oslo. They're singing Happy Birthday to one of their friends in English. Oddly, I will miss them. Today is a birthday of sorts. They're off to San Francisco. Where will they park all those bikes?

My next door neighbor was from Finland, but didn't speak a word of English. He leaned on his bike in the parking lot and smiled. I tried to communicate, and realized that Finnish has few cognate words with English. I was hoping that via the dialectic continuum from English to Norwegian... nope. 

I was looking for loanwords. I didn't even know the word for poet in Finnish, so I said Kalevala. It was pretty surreal. He looked startled, laughed, and said I no speak English, coughed over his cigarette, and smiled again. The universal language.

Dawn, Mt Whitney, from Lone Pine (photos)

The firebird of dawn only sang for a short moment and Mt Whitney was ablaze. I was not expecting to see the magenta shadow fading to purple. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I would've thought the camera was fibbing. The smoke is a prism lens. The edge of the rainbow's spectrum revealed on the face of Mt. Whitney. I watched the shadow of the White Mountains draped on the Alabama Hills, the sun rose in a gap in the White Mountains which followed the contour of Whiitney's foothills. Synchronicity. A cradle of light. 



When I first got up, the mountains were a drab dove grey. I was disappointed. But then, sometimes, when you least expect it, magic happened. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right moments to align with the universe. Channeling pure Galen Rowell light this morning. It's a gift from the gods when you catch a moment like that.

Lone Pine Peak, a band of magenta above the shadows. 

A slightly better photo of Mt. Whitney a few minutes later. 

And then the color was gone. A lone raven in the sky.

Later, I visited Galen’s storefront, Mountain Light, to pay homage. And yes, I was talking to a window with his name on it, to tell him a story of mountain light. I got up early for the next several mornings to witness another roseated dawn on the face of Mt. Whitney. It never glowed like that again. 

CROSSING TIOGA PASS

It snowed at Tioga Pass, just a sprinkling.
The vagaries of weather, still in the high 80s,
back side of the Sierras. No respite from the heat.

When we drove over Tioga Pass at sunset,

the air was so thick with smoke from wildfires,

we could see godbeams piercing the clouds.

I watched the sun set on the crest of Mt. Whitney.
Magical. Dow Villa is loaded with movie memorabilia.
The light still shines on the place where the Duke once slept.

9/14/17
Lone Pine

WHAT ROUTE?

WHAT ROUTE?

So much depends
(no, I'm not there yet)
upon what route
to take to the Eva Conference
to Lone Pine
What deep canyon
to traverse?
The wildfires
are raging,
licking at the venerable
heels of giant sequoias.
What pure poetry combusts
in the form of stardust?

Old poets and lovers debate
on the best route
to take: Highway 50
over Carson Pass,
or ascend 10,000 feet
to Tioga Pass
and risk a blizzard?
Mono Lake eyeing
our descent
to the backside
of the Sierras—
that Range of Light
It's all smoke
and more smoke—
no mirrors
involved.
No weapons, 

other than

the hindsight

of memory.

9/7/2017
Tioga means where it forks

THE NEW NORMAL

Welcome to the new normal. We have corrupt cabal of Mammon-worshiping politicians in power, an impotent toad-puppet in the White House, myriad wildfires, even in Greenland, a triple digit heatwave dubbed Lucifer, massive flooding in India and Africa, a deluge of biblical proportions, the mother of all hurricanes spinning out of control, category 5 leveled Barbuda, Saint Martin, St. Barts, St. Kitts, Turks and Caicos, destroyed Puerto Rico, islands stripped of all vegetation and structures, down to primeval rock,  earthquakes so strong, they’re creating their own light show, followed by 20-foot tsunamis...  It’s raining grasshoppers and fish. What's next, locusts? Locusts on Viagra is not something I want to envision. Lie, Lie, Lie Pinocchio!, said the girl sitting on his face. Meanwhile Jabba the Hut plays with his nuts and denies climate change.

What? Locusts next? We need rain.
Bring on the frogs.
The measly fog spit over Oakland
is not even enough for frog spawn wet dreams.

Rev 9/7/2018

FIRST RAIN OF THE SEASON AFTER WILDFIRES, haiku

This measly fog spit
over Oakland, not enough

for frog spawn wet dreams.

On the publication of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the rise of literacy during the Industrial Revolution

A Facebook friend posted an old link from The Economist magazine on Mary Shelley whose birthday it was. She prefaced it with "When Frankenstein was published only 10% of people could READ and WRITE, /there is a big historical tell."

The Economist,  August 30, 2016 · The author of “Frankenstein”—who was born on August 30th 1797—was marked out from the beginning. As a child, Mary Shelley was intensely interesting to intellectuals for being the creation of an anarchist political philosopher, William Godwin, and a feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft, who died—like Dr Frankenstein?— in giving life.  Mary Shelley: complex and unpredictable, a woman of hidden fires. The poet was born on this day in 1797 The Economist 

The 10% literacy rate figure grated upon what I knew of 18th and 19th c. England. So I said: That's not entirely true. It is estimated that literacy was about 12% worldwide. And how would anyone ever be able to figure that out? It's some scholar's guesstimate.

YET ANOTHER CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

YET ANOTHER CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES

Rather than living in a Confederacy of Dunces,
it seems as if we are living in a nation of idiots
with a jester-in-chief & there's no consolation prize.

My morning resting bitch face

In my nicest morning (I'm not awake) resting bitch face, I explained to a neighbor who had blocked the driveway to the garages with her car without leaving a note, that my partner didn't know it was her car, and so, had to park the car way down the hill, as it's a cleaning day.

As I was explaining the situation, (I was sweeping the steps) and not gratuitously grinning at her at the same time, she snarled, and called me a bitch. And when I laughed it off, while still sweeping the steps, it made her madder yet.

Apparently I am also a troll. And I haven't even had my second cuppa tea yet. Now, the resting bitch face is the real deal. And the steps and driveway are really, really clean! LOL. The thing is, I was actually very restrained (for me). She has no idea of what I'm capable of....heh. I tend to avoid conflict. Until I don't. Then I'm all in. Next time, I'll just be my usual snarlly self. Save the bother.

She was spoiling for a fight. She's always been rude to me whenever I say hi, so I no longer interact. She actually said I was messing with the wrong woman. I said Likewise, I'm sure. 

I believe self-righteous indignation is the mantle she's wearing. I needed to step out of the verbal circle sooner, even though she was the aggressor. I think she wasn't expecting me to talk back. Now that makes me laugh!

And ultimately it has to do with the fact that I don't readily engage in the rules of superficial social etiquette. Yeah, and I don't do small talk well on a good day....  At least not before my third cuppa. She's never liked me, which doesn't help matters. Because she's been rude in the past, I often act like she's not there—but I do mutter under my breath....

We're 10 cottages sharing the same driveway, but she doesn't have a garage, so her parking in the driveway to avoid a cleaning ticket, I get. But not the rudeness. She thought I was rude. So it was a preemptive strike on her part. But I could care less. Which made her madder yet, hence the taunts. As if name-calling actually worked.

I didn't say anything denigrating, or hostile, not even once. I just refused to engage in her rules. And yes, I do talk to myself, I mutter under my breath...which drove her nuts. Apparently she didn't get the message that I was born under a sarcastic sign. I'm not a fire dragon for nothing. It's a good thing she's not the thought police. Or she would've really gotten a real earful.

Must be the post eclipse-alistic blues, or there are far too many planets in retrograde.

Bread & Roses certificate of appreciation

I worked for Bread & Roses at the end of the 1970s through the early 1980s; I've been singing in the holiday chorus for nearly a decade, and I sometimes volunteer at the booth at the Kate Wolf Festival. This is the first time I've ever received a certificate of appreciation. Wow! Thrilled. Tickled, even. Ironic, also, in that I was the resident in-house calligrapher for Mimi Fariña, and times have evolved since then. Now a Mac can mimic calligraphy. My calligraphy teacher was a student of Lloyd Reynolds. Another odd note: Steve Jobs attended Lloyd Reynolds' calligraphy classes at Reed, which impressed him so much, that it became the design face of Macs, ushering in the desktop revolution. Full circle.

• On iClouds & Motherships
• Lloyd Reynolds' Calligraphic Legacy

Gettin' jiggy with 23andme

On DNA testing and the idea racial "purity", it seems that many of the alt-right folks have some bones to pick with DNA genetic sequencers upon finding, shall we say, alt-white in their family trees. Call it family weeds and grafts on the old family tree. Or alt-right vs. alt-white in the family tree. Gettin' jiggy with 23andme.

...if you traffic in alt-right circles, proving your ‘whiteness’ is essential. ...members of the movement are using genetic testing to “prove their whiteness” to win bragging rights within the movement and establish their place in the American white elite. —23andMe: Alt-right mistaken, DNA tests can’t ‘prove their whiteness’

White nationalists are flocking to genetic ancestry tests to prove their superior whiteness so they can be bona-fide -toting members of the big-daddy white supremacist racist organization, Stormfront, that promulgates racial hatred. But some Alt-rightists don’t like what they find. So they keep retesting or reinterpreting the findings until they get the results they want. One way of coping with extra family tree branches is to reject all genetic ancestry testing with the mirror test:

(“When you look in the mirror, do you see a Jew? If not, you’re good”) were better tests of racial purity, some suggested. Others offered up conspiracies about DNA testing companies led by Jews: “I think 23andMe might be a covert operation to get DNA the Jews could then use to create bio-weapons for use against us.” —When White Nationalists Get DNA Tests That Reveal African Ancestry

But my personal favorite is this one:

“Sweetheart, you have a little black in you,” the talk show host Trisha Goddard told Craig Cobb. But that didn’t stop him from redoing the test with a different company, trying to alter or parse the data until it matched his racist worldview." —White nationalists are flocking to genetic ancestry tests. Some don’t like what they find

The Irish, and the Italians were once considered to be alt-white and denied citizenship based upon race and religion. Add Portuguese, Poles, Spanish and Greeks to that list. (Or any Catholic, or Jewish immigrant group.) 

But what's most frightening is how the accuracy of the DNA test results are are explained away with a distorted white-nationalist interpretation of history. "For example, the mixing of DNA in a region would be explained by the heroic conquest of Vikings. Or a white female ancestor was raped by an African man." (White Nationalists) Call it alt-history After the election of Trump, the ultra right-wing white supremacists are crawling out of the woodwork and they are swarming. Where will they land next?

Oh, how the world burns.

from a FB post, rev. 8/19

BROKEN ARGUMENT haiku

He said: I will break
you. Too late, I am shattered
well beyond repair.

But I'm the willow
resilient stems weeping
on the farthest shore.

I spend the morning
writing of Paul's last concert.
We knew all the words.

Now I've none at all
Summer fog filled with useless
tears, laden with anguish.

His apology
like spitting in the ocean.
Sky mirrors my thoughts.

White bridge, a life-line
shrouded shore of no return.
Barricaded heart.

An act of selfless
preservation, or fear?
Run from the enemy.

Who says: I will break
you, expecting no resistance?
The picket line crossed.

I have no words left.
No tears to soften the heart,
this final trespass.

8/14-16/17