THE SIGHS OF WOMEN

THE SIGHS OF WOMEN

As if listening to secretsseaweed heads press into the rocks
like women, always turned inward.

Beneath stinging surges,
sea anenome breasts blossom,
and dine on the fatal attraction of small fish
who mistake them for a floral refuge.
Snails graze on kelp hair
as their flambouyant kin, nudibranchs,
tiny dragons of the sea,
unfurl their finery for another kind of god.

The sea never stops its ceaseless fingering
widening subterranian crevices
until there is nowhere left to hide.

Under swaying sea palms
mauve-skinned byrazoan and coralina offer
small shelter for the flesh.
Sometimes you can hear the sighs of women.

The crab is homeless.
He clings onto kelp
until it breaks under his weight
the sea sweeping him away to another rock,
other women.

All rocks are his home.
Can you hear the women sighing?

Cliff shadows pause on a wall of sea mist.
Cormorants wing seaward to unmapped regions
where the wind keeps their secrets well.
The guano-covered rock is a spray of wave
frozen against the backdrop of the sea.

Russian Gulch
1979
rev. 1980
rev. 1986

Zen of Archery

A black bumblebee buzzes through my bean garden, his shiny body is sparsely covered with hair. Does he know that he may be a new species? He so huge he can't fit into the scarlet blossoms. Is that the reason why my beans bear no fruit?

A delicate breeze touches my skin. Their leaves quake even now. Better than yesterday's wind that blew down from the Northwest. Yesterday 's wind brought the chill of snowstorms in July with it to my bean garden. The leaves turn brown, and shriveled. Fruit aborted, the flowers fell, leaving scarlet snow on the ground.

The delicate breeze caresses the soles of my feet as I lay prone upon the earth between the rows of my bean garden. Above me is green, the leafy foliage stirs gently like the sleepy memories of childhood. Thick hairy stems crawl upward, wrapped around kite string. How do they know which way to grow? I tried to get one to curl downward but it died rather than grow in the direction alien to its nature.

The liquid sound of of the capiz shell windchime, the smell of ink, and freshly ground coffee mingles with the odor of beans growing. Spiders live among them, and woolly bear eats them, as I lie between the orderly rows of beans with my kimono open and my arms akimbo. The word akimbo comes from a keen bow, or a sharp bend.

The center of archery is interrupted by flies coming in on my silence like firefighting jets, remind me of the time I was on Mount Whitney. The jets flew so close, I could see the pilots' faces as a forest fire raged through King's Canyon.

The smell of wolf dung is carried in on the breeze. They howled last night, the moon was so full it seemed to hang in the sky for hours.

What I've learned: never look directly at a wolf, caged as these wolves are, or otherwise. To stare directly at them is a sign of direct confrontation and these wolves will launch at the fence if you do. Suddenly the chain-link fence is much too frail —like the rib cage of your beating heart as you stare into the yellow wildness of their eyes. Odd the town dog catcher raises captive wolves.

Rooster crows in the distance. Does he crow because of the light of last night’s full moon or for the day? Birds twitter like hens laying unnaturally large eggs. And the sound of cars is like the ocean roaring, clumping, and beeping in the distance, as I lay here taking in the morning.

The leaves of the bean vines reach for the sun and the smell of just picked green beans triggers a response somewhere deep inside. A poem is knocking. Let it wait a little longer. Morning is for waking and today is morning.

Summer, 1979
Cotati
added 10/16
Lol, in 2018, I found out it was a carpenter bee....in 1979, I didn’t even know of its existence. Do I change it? Or leave it stet?
https://mohurley.blogspot.com/2018/05/carpenter-bees.html

PATTERNS IN THE STEAM (AKA The Clinging Odor of the Sea)

PATTERNS IN THE STEAM
           —for J.H. Montrose and Yukio Mishima

As I prepare the evening meal

the odor of just-picked green beans

rises up from the steam

and drifts like the taste of sea in the fog

I am reminded of the clinging odor of the sea

in my hair swaying like kelp in the waves

Hair curls to the pattern of sliced watermelon

watermelon mimics a tsunami wave

Red tsunami wave red sky the black seeds

Japanese fishing boats on the water    in the sky

The steam rises and repeats the sound of waves

Shiosai Shiosai

Steam rises from a cup of coffee

milk fat swirls on its surface

my lips curl to the motion in the cup

The cup is the ocean

deep basin to harbor water

our blood runs thru rivers of veins to the ocean

Our blood is the ocean

the watermelon's capillaries pump water

to the heart to the seeds

Take a bite

the moon took a bite out of the sun

it was black like the seeds

the earth took a bite out of the moon

Red moon watermelon moon

dragon's blood hanging in the sky

the crescent moon holds water

pick axe moon spills it white again

The stars       severed ends of capillaries

facing your eye head on

light leaks out day seeps in

old moon spills blood

dies and is carried out in her own arms

she is shrouded in the sky by swirling clouds

Steam rises

like the surface of skin on a lagoon

steam rises

the clouds are oceans floating

steam rises

and carries the clinging odor of the sea

into my mouth

5/79?

rev. 7/27/1979

rev. Spring 1980
Forestville
Shiosai means the sound of the waves
(AKA The Clinging Odor of the Sea)

BACK TOWARDS THE DEAD

Back towards the dead  

(This one may have been typed up. The title seems familiar)

Foxes and wild boars abound 

in red pigment
An imprint of the hand
The hunt, an arrow 

wounded the bison. 

His hour was promised.

Who sought me 

under the high sun 

in the dust of limestone caverns? 

Ancient fire scars 

bones of hunted beasts, 

thigh bones to gamble by, 

while the stars rush outward 

to darkness like mosses 

on the flood tide.

Neither by day, nor by night. 

Cow dung and red Earth, 

granite (then your brain). 

I am stone, I am stone, 

the chief and the priest in one. 

I have not trembled. 

And I'll stare down 

from the brightness of stars. 

Who carries this jewel on one hand 

before the vividness of stones? 

7/10/1979

very, very minor tweaks  11/2/2015

TUESDAY POEM

sitting cross-legged on the floor
we share meals, and the bed-mat
side by side in fairness
your thoughts still follow and fill me
our thoughts touch
what is it, it is what we share
your hand upon my hair
gently cradling my head
you touch me as if in wonder
like a child in awe of another child
and I, in awe of you, touch back.

7/10/1979
slightly rev. 11/2/2015

THE WEB OF REASON

THE WEB OF REASON

it's not a simple seam
It has a power, not in the parts
but in the whole
That divinity which is earth and sky
Receives the power of the mountain
receives the power of the dance
the king wearing the bull's mask
receives the power of the mountain
The bull is running, the dancers
seize his horns and leap over his mountain back.

7/10/1979

HOH RIVER VALLEY

GREY MORNING LIKE THE HOH RIVER VALLEY GREY

last night the moon was unbelievably full and i slept alone

as the clouds raced by with 3 a.m. nightmares add to today's grey 

coffee in hand, i curl around the couch like fog and stare

eyes focused
the hum of the fridge, the clicking of the oven and the clock

keep a 20th c. profile
one foot rests inside the arch of the other like lovers

and i think of tongues traveling up my leg

today i will go to work and the day will be long

the sun lightens and i'm still drifting in the pacific northwest

the quality of rain on the hood canal made the trees seem even

more green there,
i waited it out in a day shelter with morning coffee

made on an electric stove that runs on dimes
rain comes in on all fours and the water licks the rocks
where i gathered oysters

the sun breaks like mendocino sunlight or monterey sunlight

mysterious rays filter through pine trees and illuminate carmel

fort bragg and here

grey too, this morning curls around crisp edges
of yesterday's intense heat. 

grey to block out the stars and last night's moon

i slept heavily, comforted by the presence of fog

i hated to awaken from sleep, my mind still in a nest of bed,

carves that sensation of relaxed skin, just loved skin
tingling as the blood flows through

grey cement, grey tin roof, day and the contemplative cat

stares at the sky. i reach for a warm cup of coffee.

the red pelargonium is deeper against the muted greys and greens,

against the weather-stained redwood fencing and cedar shingles

the biggest red cedar is on the olympic peninsula.
there's a shortage of red cedar.
not enough to keep up with the demand. i place

my hand on the trunk of that tree and feel its rough texture,
the camphor smell in my nostrils. sign says

the tree is worth so many millions of board feet.

better touch it while you can.

grey morning again. i wake to a sky of high fog. is it early

and i can't see the blue yet

or is it late and what's out there is fog again?

if I don't get out of bed now i'll be making love in my mind
for the rest of the morning. the rest of this morning
and many other mornings have been grey.
i sit here, heavy lidded, waiting to write, relaxed in an oak chair,
cushion for my ass, feet propped up on the only other chair i own,
and the cat is being a freaking past. he thinks he needs love,
and being a true marinite, he wants it all now,
and lays on my writing, stroking my pen with such tenderness.
Hell, we all want it all now. why won't the words come?

my mind rambles and i tell myself, did you know that quark
comes from Ulysses? quarks and outer space.
the sound of seagulls and the man sitting in a pub in dublin
drinking down his beer, quark, quark.

there are black holes in outer space and seagulls in LA cry smog, smog.

It is still grey morning in the fridge sounds like an air conditioner.

i think i'll have another cup of coffee. one is enough to get off.

sometimes it gives me the shakes, 2 cups have me positively shook.

and I wait for the words to come, for the grey to go.

7/9-25/1979

Hoh River Valley journal entries, 79. 15 & 25

Gray morning like the Hoh River Valley gray . Last night, the moon was unbelievably full and I slept alone as the clouds raced by with 3 AM nightmares, which add to today's gray. Coffee in hand, I curled around the couch like fog and stare, eyes unfocused. The home of the fridge, the clicking of the oven and the clock keep a 20th-century profile. A foot rests inside the arch of the other like lovers, and I think of tongues traveling up my leg. Today I will go to work and the day will be long.

The sun struggles and I'm still drifting in the Pacific Northwest. The quality of rain on the Hood Canal made the trees seem even more greener, I waited a squall out in a day shelter with morning coffee made on an electric stove that runs on times. Rain comes in on all fours and the water licks the rocks where I gathered oysters. The sun breaks like Mendocino sunlight or Monterey sunlight mysterious race filter through the pine trees and illuminate Carmel, Fort Bragg, and here.

7/9/1979

Gray too, this morning, the fog curls around crisp edges of yesterday's intense heat. Gray to block out the stars and last night's moon. I slept heavily, comforted by the presence of fog. I hated to awaken from sleep, my mind still in the nest of bed, that sensation of relaxed skin, just loved skin, silken,  tingling as the blood flows through gray cement, gray tin roof roof, the contemplative cat stares at the sky. I reach for my tepid coffee. The red pelargonium bleeds deeper against the muted grays and greens, it bleeds against the weather stained redwood fencing, and the cedar shingles. The biggest red cedar is on the Olympic Peninsula. There's a shortage of red cedar. Not enough to keep up with the demand. I place my hands on the trunk of the tree and feel its rough texture, the camphor smell fills my nostrils. A sign says that the tree is worth so many millions of board feet. Better touch it while you can.

7/15/1979

Gray morning again. I wake up to a sky of high fog. Is it early and I can't see the blue yet, or is it late and what is up there is merely fog again? If I don't get out of bed now, I'll be making love in my mind for the rest of the morning. The rest of this morning and many other mornings have been gray. I sit here, heavy-lidded, waiting to write, relaxing in oak chair, Coushin for my ass, feet propped on the only other chair I own, and the cat is being a fugging past. He thinks he needs love, and being a true Marinite, he wants it all now, and lays across my writing, stroking my pend with such tenderness. Hell, we all wanted all now. Why won't the words come? My mind rambles and I tell myself did you know that quark comes from the novel Ulysses? Quarks and outer space. The sound of seagulls and the man sitting in a pub in Dublin drinking down his beer – quark, quark, quark. There are black holes in outer space and seagulls in LA call: smaug, smaug, smaug. It is still a gray morning and the fridge sounds like an air conditioner. I think I'll have another cup of coffee. One is enough to get off, sometimes it gives me the shakes. Two cups have me positively shook up. I sit and wait for the words to come, the great to go.

7/25/1979 ,

UNTITLED LOVE POEM Please stay the night

UNTITLED LOVE POEM

please stay the night

   again the night

once again the night

             stay

7/7/1979

KINDERGARTEN DROPOUT

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

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

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

He's a gopher snake 

blocking the way. 

No school today.

I board the yellow bus
The faces and the noise 

distract and confuse me.
Who walks down the road 

a mile to catch the bus.

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

Too many distractions along the way.

I watch the sun warms the grass 

and play in my new school clothes. 

Next year, the bus will come 

all the way up to Baranca Road. 

First grade will be completed.

2 July, 1979

rev. slghtly 11/2/2015

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

TILLING THE FIELD Michael Dow workshop

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

The moon is almost fitful tonight.

A train whistles and moans

midway between night and morning
Cylindrical wheels resonate,

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

the throbbing train, and the heart.

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

in the direction of her eyes.

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

a staccato furrow of assonance 

dissonance and consonants.

The break in the link 

the breath and the line 

is a unit of breath.

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

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

There is a gathering storm.

July 1, 1979 Michael Dow workshop

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

Child in Changing Times Conference  

Arts in Everyday Living

6/28 to July 1

SSU

HISTORY CONTAINED IN THE BREATH

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

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

GATHERING STORM

I need hard copy of this poem  DRAFT

I awoke with this sentence:

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

She stands waiting

for him by the green pond. 

Conversation drifts by with the water, 

floats with the hours. His lichen eyes, 

impenetrable as the surface,

leave her stranded 

by all the ponds of the world

As he turns to leave, her image ripples,

her eyes gather in the storm.

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

June 29, 1979

Michael Dow workshop

Child in Changing Times Conference  

Arts in Everyday Living

6/28 to July 1

SSU

HOLLYHOCK Michael Dow workshop

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

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

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

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

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

6/29/1979

Michael Dow workshop

Child in Changing Times Conference  

Arts in Everyday Living

6/28 to July 1

SSU

Solstice

Solstice

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

venus is first to appear on the horizon at twilight 

followed by the double u of casseopia and the twins 

if you can see the double star of the big dipper 

the indians said your eyesight was good

no warm air inversion tonight as twilight 

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

Summer Solstice 1979? 80?

added 2/2017

FELL INN

FELL INN

In a kitchen at Fell Inn

a plastic cup of coffee 

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

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

as sharp as razors 

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

from the brain 

from the body?

nausea whirls

the peripheral edge
of the eye

Walk in the park alone  

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

like boiled coffee

Bus exaust curls around 

the red hibiscus
trumpet gasping for air

Feet upon the earth 

what's left natural 

is as slimy as the sidewalks 

where winos spit 

morning in the city

it is a fine edge.

6/1979

diPrima Workshop

added 2/2017

Dream Sequence with Peter Kapp

DREAM IMAGE: AGGRESSION

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

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

Balance and harmony came unwillingly to the student.

6/8/1979

WINGS OF STONE ANGELS

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

THE AGES OF TREES

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

6/12/79        

THE EDGE

In the kitchen, a plastic cup of coffee

abandoned, rotting odor of compost 

thick with fish, impossible to ignore.

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

Waking to an empty room, 

I slept on a floor as sharp as razor blades, 

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

What separates sound from the brain? 

From the body? Black nausea swirls, 

blurs the peripheral edge of the eye.

I walk in the Panhandle alone. 

It's the fine line of being afraid 

and being alone, to be tested. 

Bitter in the mouth like boiled coffee. 

The line is a fine line.

Bus exhaust curls around a red hibiscus. 

Its trumpet gasps for air.

Feet upon the earth, what's left 

is slimy as the sidewalks where the winos hawk. 

Morning in the city, it is a fine edge. 

6/10/79

Diane di Prima workshop

SF Zen Center

MOON CUP

MOON CUP

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

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

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

6/10.1979

Diane di Prima workshop?

SF Zen Center

A BURIAL COMBINATION

it provided immediate inspiration

and maximized limited resources

it continued to be used

with down-to-earth impact

6/9/79

Diane di Prima workshop

I later stole the title and used it for another poem

IF THERE'S A CRACK

cracks in cosmic eggs
make a mess of things

June 1979

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We work towards disjointedness and let our fantasies play.

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

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

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

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

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

6/8/1979

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

TUFTED PUFFIN

TUFTED PUFFIN

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

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

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

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

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

To the north, liquid sunshine of the Pacific Northwest

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

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

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

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

This land is too valuable to grow food 

For the people who live in the houses 

Planted upon sugar-beet fields,

And the ghosts of apricot blossoms 

Gathering nectar for bees in April orchards.

The caribou's tendons crackle as they trample 

Miniature forests of willow, pine, and Pasque flowers. 

Growing with the lichen, they eat the fragile landscape.

Deep snow comes and covers the lichen, 

Wolves howl and anticipate fresh meat. 

The lucky ones manage to live until spring thaw.

III. The visitation

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

1978-79

THE CHERRYPLUM (haiku)

THE CHERRYPLUM (haiku)

The honey bees dangle
on the wild cherry blossoms 

snowing on the ground

i sit on the porch
windows cobwebbed and painted 

frame the afternoon

sonorous buzzings 

yellowjackets devour 

fallen cherry plums

yellow leaves swirling
burned cuttings in bonfire split 

wood stacked up high

open the windows
coastal snow and rain sweep in 

gather wood for warmth

sit by the iron stove
wood from the cherry plum glows 

thru the freezing night

bright budding branches
sap runs upward during thaw 

night blackens new growth

sap runs in yr veins
the stirring of dormant seed 

and budding flower

smell of musk honey 

on yr fingers, on yr beard 

mingles on our bodies

stamen and pistil
the anther and the ovum
pollinates the fruit

warmth of sun on skin 

nibble upon ripened fruit 

and nourish the fire

tongues seek out nectar 

limbs seek shelter from the night 

lips touch each other

on yr arms i am 

gathered up again for warmth 

in the freezing night

the honeyed scent drifts 

up in smoke to the nostrils 

blood warms and flows

Chinook breezes blow 

sap runs with energy renewed
bees stir in their hives

bees stir in their hives 

fragrant cherry plum blossoms 

unfurl their petals

Spring 1979

added 2/2017

Mindless interjection

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

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

Gary Snyder poster reading at College of Marin

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

Traces of the Goddess

Traces of the Goddess

she surveys the night because 

the answer is, of course,

traces of the goddess

a foot beneath the cover 

a light in the window

mostly in April 

new growth 

presses against 

the leafless tree

what brings you here 

bearing heavily down 

with such force? 

the pounding heart
sees the blood
here on the cut glass

these essences that spill 

she bites the flesh 

the body turns and heaves 

to a rhythm that lasts 'til dawn.

April 1979

added 2/2017

Dolphins, Inland Passage, journal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inland Passsage

Added 10/16.

MEASURING THE DAY

MEASURING THE DAY
A leaf scuttles across the blacktop

on four tiny feet

and leaps up the embankment

where the full moon lamp post

illuminates the way

In the western sky the new moon 

carries out the aging moon 

in her crescent arms

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

along the western journey
through darkness

Does his sword slice through the perfect orb 

of darkness and light 

making an even cut across its surface 

this equinox?

Do the days end nights 

dole out their essence carefully in spring?

Does Orion chase after the setting sun 

or does he hunt for something else 

only in darkness?

Does the new moon flee 

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

in her arms like a spider
protecting her young?

Will we never see the stars 

from the Southern Cross from here?

Why is everyone chasing through the sky? 

who brings in the day?

Spring Equinox, 1979

added 2/2017

A mile a minute past midnight

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good night… Again.

Spring 1979? No date
added 10/16

Driving to K’san, Skeena River

Driving to Terrace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

typed 3/1979

SKEENA RIVER

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

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

Halfway to Terrace we stopped off for a beer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the reservation

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

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

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

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

3/79

Journey of Wishes no efile

EMPTY SIDEWALKS

EMPTY SIDEWALKS 

Empty city sidewalks

Light gushes out of the streetlamp 

like water from the faucet 

and bathes the stone-cold midnight sidewalk 

with its fluorescent spray, 

while the parched earth wait 

for the new dawn. 

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

THE LINGUAL ARCH OF THE RIVER AND THE SEA

THE LINGUAL ARCH OF THE RIVER AND THE SEA

The river is a tongue leading into the dark

whispering ocean of many tongues 

The mouth of the river is interlocked in an embrace 

with one of the many mouths
of the ocean

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

who are indifferent to living 

Those who slipped into the grey snags 

of willow along the river shore 

They slid down thru the roots of the willow 

into the river to that long journey downward 

The river is a molten tongue

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

are words of all those who still wait to speak 

The ocean is tongue 

The river is tongue 

They share the same mouth 

To speak they each need separate mouths 

Women have two mouths and one tongue 

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

before they can speak 

1979  summer

added 2/2017

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

Faces

Faces

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

my faces under the stars,

your warm lips intertwine with mine,

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

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

as we talk about living, 

my faces search yours,

the faces we share melt
like waxen masks 

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

1979

added 2/2017

Morning Poem

Morning Poem

Stiff eyes search out another cup of coffee

lids scratch across the surface of nausea 

flies crawl in on my skin, sun sweats it 

my hands so stiff i can barely write 

as last night catches up with morning 

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

to go back to sleep 

as humming birds flit on our voices

1979

added 2/2017 minor changes

Of That You're Certain

Of That You're Certain

I am like a water pipe that freezes and thaws 

until the stress breaks the pipe 

the pipe is my body, the thaw is my heart 

the freezing is the restrictions of our love

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

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

1979

added 2/2017

Mother Simplex

Mother Simplex

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

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

1979

added 2/2017

The Swim

The Swim

Harvest of spring and midnight swims

in snakeskin

she breaks star ripples in a pool 

of moon fungus water

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

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

float in the water, breathing sea mammals 

we exhale into the water 

we are water, we are water

She swims in liquid night wrapped around her body 

thousands of tongues lick and lash her 

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

her curve of spine, belly, nipples erect

the water licks down

down

1979

added 2/2017

men in the landscape

men in the landscape

there are those who would stay on the land 

until the land takes them back again 

it is their mother

there are those who were once firmly rooted 

who wish to escape and fly above it 

it is still their mother

it holds to them and brings them back into the fold 

when they love women 

it is the mother

they are the ones who resist the hardest

their death brings them back again 

it has been and always will be

the great mother 

1979

added 2/2017

Is It Time?

Is It Time?

Depression sets in

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

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

listless limbs drape
over the sounds of a ticking clock

that melts down too slowly for time

it sets in for days 

memories of

my hands absently strokes my breast 

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

it is not time yet.

1979

added 2/2017

MEMORY

MEMORY

Rings on trees 

signify the passing of years

the pale wide rings dividing the wet years 

from dark dense wood when the rains don't come 

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

that there are growth rings embedded on them too, 

where growth measured in weeks, not years 

What drought is measured on my nails? 

Is it a loss of the heart?

Or a loss of love? 

A memory lapse? 

Loss of the poet? 

Loss of protein?  

Or a loss of fear? 

Maybe ridicule? 

Or antibiotics?

A pregnancy?

Memory gain? 

Weight loss?

Or water?

Drought?

?

1979

added 2/2017

very minor changes to make the tree shape work

Maelstrom

Maelstrom

The grinding stream, the maelstrom 

is a way to the land of the dead 

dilate yr mind beyond the unbearable 

it is not a forgiving universe 

it is inexorable as the stars in their courses 

where no sparrow could fall unnoticed 

for there are seeds which propagate 

themselves along the jetstream of time 

the mud has lost its cutting edge 

the omphaloessa, the umbilical cord has been severed 

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

time to separate heaven and earth with a sickle

It Is a Part

It Is a Part

it wraps itself around you

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

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

and your sorrow runs underground 

to the briney sea 

taste the tear that bathes the sea 

the tear is salt for your tongue 

to taste

1979

added 2/2017

For Worse, Replies My Friend

For Worse, Replies My Friend

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

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

opens his beak and sings

this dawn is shaped by the sole scream of ecstasy 

and you just stand there free from it 

made free by it

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

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

1979

added 2/2017

To an Eclipse in the Moon - dark Past

To an Eclipse in the Moon - dark Past

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

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

Paint it red

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

The church bells are ringing

The bells of the church

They are ringing

The bleedings begun

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

It is the skin

Skin of the dead

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

Let it grow

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

The needs of the flesh

Made flesh , proud flesh

Being eaten among you

The blood of the dying

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

Visions of pressed wrinkled

Splintered bloody bone

Crushed beneath the weight

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

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

Behold the body

Visions of the flesh

Being eaten among you

The bleedings begun

Patterns

Patterns

The annual and diurnal patterns hold 

it seems always to be connected with the notion 

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

as we take off from now 

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

Body whose hands broke ground for that thrusting head 

years have passed since that autumn

it had promised to be too hot 

but just enough sun warmed them

Pleasant whiteness of pearl barley 

or woman's body, a communal drink 

Antares glows faintly without sparkle 

behind all that maleness of that mulling night.

1979

sounds like another diPrima workshop pome, june?

added 2/2017