11/25/2008
For those of you who have toiled long at this website, you'll probably remember when I posted a poem and offered it to anyone who wanted to publish it. And somebody did! I thought I'd put it here again. You new readers (hello Sara Labadie, you goddess!) probably didn't see it. It's in Flyway: A Journal of Writing and Environment (vol 11.2, etc.) from Iowa State University. It's a great hournal. You ought to support them--and you'll get really good stuff to read. They're at: 206 Ross Hall, Iowas State U., Ameas IA 50011-4300. Or go cyber: flyway@iastate.edu.
Here 'tis:
#
The Duck
immense waves of flight
out from forests, out
from broken-mirror beaver
ponds of frozen muntains,
they fled from ice storms coming.
their shadows fell across the freeways
for days as I too nigrated from frost,
falling downslope and west,
looking for rest under a forgotten sun.
end of the continent--
it wasn't working. San Diego
after this bad spell I had, after
one too many ghosts in my bed, you know
how you wake up some mornings with the smell of the
invisible on your fingers and the ruined broken plates
of your plans in slivers in the fireplace.
the first time I made these mistakes I was young
and poor: I was not young
anymore, but was still poor and making the same bad
moves.
had enough for gas--1,000 miles: got to the house
of an old lover who stripped me naked
and drew me a bath.
I hoped
to find a home in the city I died in
for my first quarter century.
the water did not
wash away my sins.
she said: get
out, so I went out to see if my old dead home town
had anything as interesting as an aspen, anything
as good as glacier water or
buffaloes churning in the purple shadows of far
Nebraska.
down
to Mission Bay,
put the club
on the wheel in case some vato was in the market
for a snow-beat jeep, and donned my
Colorado Deprtment of Wildlife baseball cap.
old body made older by the fabulous
hunks of Southern California flesh jogging arund the bay.
just my rusted ankles and aching back and stupid, dark
ideas in a splitting head. sewage
afloat in the bay, the famous California
brown trout--idiots from El Cajon sped away
on ski-do's yawping "Yahoo!"
my usual splendid pace.
feeling hideous.
you have to remind the body it exists.
it's not all bad dreams and drooping lusts.
I passed
old men staggering along
the bastards
until my rusted right ankle
threw red sparks into my bones and
caught fire in the kindling of my leg
and pulled me down on a rock
in the piss-yellow sand, feet in rotting seaweed
and heart in the guano.
the cool felt wonderful.
a train rolling out of San Diego, going anywhere
I wanted to be
sounded its long cry and faded
north.
I walked to the water, put in my feet.
warm as a bath.
OK,
not bad,
I confessed.
fish fine as needles
tried to sew my toes
together.
near the effluent pipe
that carries tampons,
teardrops and coffee into the sea,
a duck.
just one.
a mallard male,
balding and ragged.
asleep.
I sat on my rock and said, "hey."
he jumped, looked at me. wack, he said softly,
talking to himself, wack
wack. I said similar things
to myself when I
typed or did
the dishes. he turned his head and watched the water.
so did I.
"all right," I said.
he looked back at me, clacked
his beak four times,
settled. he fluffed
himself and tucked
his head under a wing and went back
to sleep.
a loud wind-surfer rattled by.
"what the hell!" I said. waaack!
he cried. wack-wack-wack!
our heads swivelled in unison
when the absurd slapping of joggers' shoes
went past us.
we watched them recede: we lost interest in their errands
at precisely the same moment
and turned back
to our meditations.
the wind ruffled his feathers.
the wind lifted my hair.
me and the duck:
compadres.
suddenly
I understood
the winos
of my youth,
the filthy old men
in the plaza downtown
when a fountain gurgled greenish water
and they still called the town "Dago"
and sailors rushed up Broadway
looking for tattoos
and hookers:
those old men shuffling
their vague plaza circles
reeking of urine
and port, no cents
to get on a bus
out of there: tossing
stale bread
to the birds
of the sidewalks.
holy vermin,
all of them:
dead.
those lonesome rummies
with their beautiful pigeons
sharing daylight
before winter got there.
suddenly,
I couldn't stay.
I didn't know
where I had to get, but
I had to go and never
come back.
wack,
he said when I called, "so
long."
I had miles to flee
before it
snowed.
I left him
to rest
before he too
rose
to his own
impossible
going.
Fifteen Degrees
Here 'tis:
#
The Duck
immense waves of flight
out from forests, out
from broken-mirror beaver
ponds of frozen muntains,
they fled from ice storms coming.
their shadows fell across the freeways
for days as I too nigrated from frost,
falling downslope and west,
looking for rest under a forgotten sun.
end of the continent--
it wasn't working. San Diego
after this bad spell I had, after
one too many ghosts in my bed, you know
how you wake up some mornings with the smell of the
invisible on your fingers and the ruined broken plates
of your plans in slivers in the fireplace.
the first time I made these mistakes I was young
and poor: I was not young
anymore, but was still poor and making the same bad
moves.
had enough for gas--1,000 miles: got to the house
of an old lover who stripped me naked
and drew me a bath.
I hoped
to find a home in the city I died in
for my first quarter century.
the water did not
wash away my sins.
she said: get
out, so I went out to see if my old dead home town
had anything as interesting as an aspen, anything
as good as glacier water or
buffaloes churning in the purple shadows of far
Nebraska.
down
to Mission Bay,
put the club
on the wheel in case some vato was in the market
for a snow-beat jeep, and donned my
Colorado Deprtment of Wildlife baseball cap.
old body made older by the fabulous
hunks of Southern California flesh jogging arund the bay.
just my rusted ankles and aching back and stupid, dark
ideas in a splitting head. sewage
afloat in the bay, the famous California
brown trout--idiots from El Cajon sped away
on ski-do's yawping "Yahoo!"
my usual splendid pace.
feeling hideous.
you have to remind the body it exists.
it's not all bad dreams and drooping lusts.
I passed
old men staggering along
the bastards
until my rusted right ankle
threw red sparks into my bones and
caught fire in the kindling of my leg
and pulled me down on a rock
in the piss-yellow sand, feet in rotting seaweed
and heart in the guano.
the cool felt wonderful.
a train rolling out of San Diego, going anywhere
I wanted to be
sounded its long cry and faded
north.
I walked to the water, put in my feet.
warm as a bath.
OK,
not bad,
I confessed.
fish fine as needles
tried to sew my toes
together.
near the effluent pipe
that carries tampons,
teardrops and coffee into the sea,
a duck.
just one.
a mallard male,
balding and ragged.
asleep.
I sat on my rock and said, "hey."
he jumped, looked at me. wack, he said softly,
talking to himself, wack
wack. I said similar things
to myself when I
typed or did
the dishes. he turned his head and watched the water.
so did I.
"all right," I said.
he looked back at me, clacked
his beak four times,
settled. he fluffed
himself and tucked
his head under a wing and went back
to sleep.
a loud wind-surfer rattled by.
"what the hell!" I said. waaack!
he cried. wack-wack-wack!
our heads swivelled in unison
when the absurd slapping of joggers' shoes
went past us.
we watched them recede: we lost interest in their errands
at precisely the same moment
and turned back
to our meditations.
the wind ruffled his feathers.
the wind lifted my hair.
me and the duck:
compadres.
suddenly
I understood
the winos
of my youth,
the filthy old men
in the plaza downtown
when a fountain gurgled greenish water
and they still called the town "Dago"
and sailors rushed up Broadway
looking for tattoos
and hookers:
those old men shuffling
their vague plaza circles
reeking of urine
and port, no cents
to get on a bus
out of there: tossing
stale bread
to the birds
of the sidewalks.
holy vermin,
all of them:
dead.
those lonesome rummies
with their beautiful pigeons
sharing daylight
before winter got there.
suddenly,
I couldn't stay.
I didn't know
where I had to get, but
I had to go and never
come back.
wack,
he said when I called, "so
long."
I had miles to flee
before it
snowed.
I left him
to rest
before he too
rose
to his own
impossible
going.
11/21/2008
Cold morning duties as Dad-Man. Cinderella is down in U of I territory hangin' with the son. So I'm here, presiding over the early morning. Megan went to the midnight girl-scream-swoon-fest showing of Twilight. Chayo and I were up at 7:00. Fifteen degrees and Spongebob--Dada trying to figure out breakfast and lunch, signing mysterious third grade parent sheets, trying to engineer the daughter's hair-brushing (I Am Tangle-Man). Coffee. Um, where is the coffee? E mails from writers and readers--a woman upset I used the word "illegals" in Devil's Highway. (I just wrote Devo's Highway...awake? Nah.) I had to confess that was a product of sheer rage--I wanted to shove the bad word in readers' faces until they got sick of it. That's why I did all that stuff with terms ("undocumented entrant") and epithets ("wets" and "tonks") earlier in the book. But I'm less angry now, and don't have so much of an axe to grind, and if I wrote the book today, I'd follow a different path. Man, it's too early for this. Squidward is having an employment tiff with Mr. Crab. OH! It's time to walk to the bus!
Bundle! Hood! We walk down there in the brittle morning. My nose is burning with cold. Kids gather. One tyke says to me, "Are you an author?" I say, "Yeah." He says, "Cool." I say, "Yeah." He says, "If we see that turkey in our yard, my dad's goinna take his bow and kill it." I say, "You don't like the turkey?" He says, "It's irritating." I say, "But it's our mascot. Not every neighborhood is lucky enough to have its own turkey." And he says, "I want it dead."
Bus trundles off with the kids, I stagger back. Coffee. Not even for the caffeine--it's WARM. Feed the cat, feed the bird, check the rat--the dogs are in bed with Megan, who must have been bitten by the vampires because she is too pale and wan to rise for school. I'm supposed to write a book-blurb. Send poems to a journal. Send an essay to a magazine. Mail signed bookplates to a collector. Show drawings to a publisher. But I see Spongebob has a new episode starting.
Am I an author? Not right now. Not for a few more minutes.
Yrs., L
For Trivia Buffs Only
Bundle! Hood! We walk down there in the brittle morning. My nose is burning with cold. Kids gather. One tyke says to me, "Are you an author?" I say, "Yeah." He says, "Cool." I say, "Yeah." He says, "If we see that turkey in our yard, my dad's goinna take his bow and kill it." I say, "You don't like the turkey?" He says, "It's irritating." I say, "But it's our mascot. Not every neighborhood is lucky enough to have its own turkey." And he says, "I want it dead."
Bus trundles off with the kids, I stagger back. Coffee. Not even for the caffeine--it's WARM. Feed the cat, feed the bird, check the rat--the dogs are in bed with Megan, who must have been bitten by the vampires because she is too pale and wan to rise for school. I'm supposed to write a book-blurb. Send poems to a journal. Send an essay to a magazine. Mail signed bookplates to a collector. Show drawings to a publisher. But I see Spongebob has a new episode starting.
Am I an author? Not right now. Not for a few more minutes.
Yrs., L
11/15/2008
I was lucky enough to have a feature on my free-handing compositional interests (writing in a journal as much as possible) in the new issue of Stylus magazine. I was slightly chagrined to see how many $3,000 pens they lovingly photograph in there, since I basically write with a supermarket G2 plastic pen! But I did mention I had a jones for the old Rotring Core monster pen. But I was way out of my fancy-pen league. As a side note: you can snicker at the ghastly author picture. Not that it's a bad photo--it's not. My photographer is skilled and wonderful. It's...me. I look like somebody's hard-drinking degenerate swinger grandma. I keep telling myself I look like, oh, Bullitt, or maybe, you know, Jack White or somebody. But, no. More like the demented Mrs. Paddlegate, the nude escapee from the Bluebonnet Rest Home.
But my heart is pure and I'm a good kisser.
See ya,
L
Kobayashi Matsuo Urrea: The Tour Haiku, Vol. III
But my heart is pure and I'm a good kisser.
See ya,
L
11/12/2008
this burning moment
I resolve to inhabit
until the next one
#
first thought, best thought
the masters have often said
oh! I have no thought
#
friendly notebook--
when all the world's against me
you open your arms.
#
en el espejo
espero ver la cara
de mi difunta
#
Critics know nothin'--
when I need to love writing
I ask ol' Beat Jack.
#
expressway in rain
fighting the clock to O'Hare
one last autumn flight.
#
abandoned airport--
automatice walkway runs,
bearing only ghosts
#
I don't find poems
in neon tubes, empty chairs--
wait, maybe I do.
#
old man at counter
ordering ticketing crew
to change the weather
#
"I'm not freaking out:
woman on cell phone tonight--
"I'm just saying this."
#
aspens face winter--
before snow, bare white tree trunks--
why do I see God?
#
three Mexican maids
bring me more hotel coffee
Spanish is our summer
#
wish my handwriting
were handsomer than it is--
hell, I can't read this!
#
Onitsura laughs--
Kerouac pours Basho's tea--
Buson paints a crow.
#
walking up the muntain--
in Basho's sunlit river
trout stalk fishermen.
#
the writers gather
before rows of microphones
lonely for silence
#
the gift bags contain
chocolate and vino--
I take an apple
#
wild turkey in yard
was never deeply impressed
the provost called me
#
Dear Academics--
I confess I thought of elk
all through your meeting.
#
slant ontogenies:
memes of gnomic poetics--
please someone kill me.
#
must have gone insane--
told a workshop of strangers
I loved all of them
#
Tender young writer
you face savage storms alone--
will you bend or break?
***
Home now. Family's playing Wii. I'm drinking coffee. Trying to finish the semester. Will probably venture one final round of tour haiku.
Every time I am in the frozen sky, I am thinking of you.
XXX, L
Detraction Distraction: No Traction for that Faction
I resolve to inhabit
until the next one
#
first thought, best thought
the masters have often said
oh! I have no thought
#
friendly notebook--
when all the world's against me
you open your arms.
#
en el espejo
espero ver la cara
de mi difunta
#
Critics know nothin'--
when I need to love writing
I ask ol' Beat Jack.
#
expressway in rain
fighting the clock to O'Hare
one last autumn flight.
#
abandoned airport--
automatice walkway runs,
bearing only ghosts
#
I don't find poems
in neon tubes, empty chairs--
wait, maybe I do.
#
old man at counter
ordering ticketing crew
to change the weather
#
"I'm not freaking out:
woman on cell phone tonight--
"I'm just saying this."
#
aspens face winter--
before snow, bare white tree trunks--
why do I see God?
#
three Mexican maids
bring me more hotel coffee
Spanish is our summer
#
wish my handwriting
were handsomer than it is--
hell, I can't read this!
#
Onitsura laughs--
Kerouac pours Basho's tea--
Buson paints a crow.
#
walking up the muntain--
in Basho's sunlit river
trout stalk fishermen.
#
the writers gather
before rows of microphones
lonely for silence
#
the gift bags contain
chocolate and vino--
I take an apple
#
wild turkey in yard
was never deeply impressed
the provost called me
#
Dear Academics--
I confess I thought of elk
all through your meeting.
#
slant ontogenies:
memes of gnomic poetics--
please someone kill me.
#
must have gone insane--
told a workshop of strangers
I loved all of them
#
Tender young writer
you face savage storms alone--
will you bend or break?
***
Home now. Family's playing Wii. I'm drinking coffee. Trying to finish the semester. Will probably venture one final round of tour haiku.
Every time I am in the frozen sky, I am thinking of you.
XXX, L
11/10/2008
Just got back from Bend, Oregon. I attended the Nature of Words writing festival. I taught two workshops there, did a reading, and attended events. Faithful readers of this blog know already that if I mention famous writers, some helpful sort will tell me I am a star-whore. (I kinda dug, in a weird way, the last guy who said I was a degenerate like "Fat Elvis." Uh....YES!) But these are the people I work with when I'm not alone in a room with the writing machine. Other writers. So be advised, there were famous peeps there, my homies. Don't freak out!
One last event left on the grueling (at times) 2008 Endless Tour. Phoenix. In December. And I am done and vanish from sight until February. Hiding out!
The galleys came in for Into the Beautiful North while I was in Bend. It is quite beautiful--Geoff Shandler and the Little,Brown army have once again made a pretty package for my words. I feel like Pink Floyd must have felt, with amazing graphics making my own work seem better. I stayed up till 3:00 in the morning, re-reading it all in one go (no, Fat Elvis--it wasn't a self-ego-stroke). It was my last chance to make sure I hadn't perpetrated something on you readers that I wasn't proud of, and I am glad to say I was proud of it. It's my small quality control policy--if I can't stand it, I won't ask you to put up with it, either. We'll post the cover here soon, and you can expect the book itself in April. Then on to Hummingbird II, if I can muster the super-human strength for that little party.
Anyway, Bend: beuatiful place. I was lucky enough to go on a good brisk hike along the Fall River, into the hills, to the subterranean source of its headwaters. Walking through snow, walking along the clearest water I have seen in a long time, watching as the bed of the river wobbled and changed colors in the fall sunlight. (Some of you will recall that this is one of my personal writing rules, from Basho--writing that is as clear as the bed of a shallow river seen through clear water. Well, there it was!) Famous Writer Alert: Craig Childs, one of my pals, was at Nature of Words, and when I told him about the hike, he said, "Did you want to take off your clothes and jump in the water?" And I realized that was exactly what I wanted to do--something I am not prone to, especially if there are witnesses present. But Craig knew exactly how drunk the water and the sun and the snow and the silence and the fallen logs that had sprouted slim long gardens down their lengths made me feel.
Among the writers there were the great poet, Judith Barrington, the eternally brilliant Chuck Bowden, Pam Houston who hates fancy dinners as much as I do, poet/slam-poet Patricia Smith (we sang "Ebony and Ivory" to the crowd). The brilliant young Mexican poet, Ekiwah. Many great souls and talents. But of them all, none is greater than my beloved Ursula K. Le Guin.
Ursula is the one who found me, as a boy. She came to UCSD as a visiting writer in my senior year. She accepted the story I had written about my father's death for an anthology. (Edges, Pocket Books--if you ever find one, let me know!) She lifted me from despair and dread and launched me on this...career. Oddly, right before I left for Bend, I was rummaging through my stuff (uh, I guess a library would call it an archive). I found the actual mimeograph master I had written that story on back in college. Man, that's old. Might as well have scratched it on a slate with charcoal. But there it was, all blurry, but with the writing workshop professorial corrections still scrawled on it.
I sprung it on her at my reading, and I read the story in her honor--for the last time ever. I retired it that night forever. (If you're keeping score, it's in Six Kinds of Sky.) A fitting tribute, I thought, to the great Ursula. Like burning your guitar--what else can you offer?
Well, I guess I'll hear about this. Really, it's okay--pro or con, it's okay. I do what I do, and I have my reasons. Sometimes my reasons are as simple as a crow's--that object is shiny and I'm gonna pick it up...or it looks darned tasty and I'm gonna eat it. It has been my folly to try to share the writer's life with you over the years--good or bad, silly or profound, in success and, in the much greater in abundance, failure.
I am changing this blog for 2009, just because the world around me has changed. But I will continue being exactly who I am. I am way, way too old to change now. I have my paths through the woods, and I have my favorite places, and I go there and drop antlers every season. And then , in the not too distant furutre, I will lay my bones down there too. I am so happy that you go with me--and that I have gone with others, like Le Guin. It's a good thing. I am not going to stop.
Writing is stronger than badness.
Writing is stronger than silence.
I am stronger than dirt.
See you in Phoenix, sports fans.
L
One last event left on the grueling (at times) 2008 Endless Tour. Phoenix. In December. And I am done and vanish from sight until February. Hiding out!
The galleys came in for Into the Beautiful North while I was in Bend. It is quite beautiful--Geoff Shandler and the Little,Brown army have once again made a pretty package for my words. I feel like Pink Floyd must have felt, with amazing graphics making my own work seem better. I stayed up till 3:00 in the morning, re-reading it all in one go (no, Fat Elvis--it wasn't a self-ego-stroke). It was my last chance to make sure I hadn't perpetrated something on you readers that I wasn't proud of, and I am glad to say I was proud of it. It's my small quality control policy--if I can't stand it, I won't ask you to put up with it, either. We'll post the cover here soon, and you can expect the book itself in April. Then on to Hummingbird II, if I can muster the super-human strength for that little party.
Anyway, Bend: beuatiful place. I was lucky enough to go on a good brisk hike along the Fall River, into the hills, to the subterranean source of its headwaters. Walking through snow, walking along the clearest water I have seen in a long time, watching as the bed of the river wobbled and changed colors in the fall sunlight. (Some of you will recall that this is one of my personal writing rules, from Basho--writing that is as clear as the bed of a shallow river seen through clear water. Well, there it was!) Famous Writer Alert: Craig Childs, one of my pals, was at Nature of Words, and when I told him about the hike, he said, "Did you want to take off your clothes and jump in the water?" And I realized that was exactly what I wanted to do--something I am not prone to, especially if there are witnesses present. But Craig knew exactly how drunk the water and the sun and the snow and the silence and the fallen logs that had sprouted slim long gardens down their lengths made me feel.
Among the writers there were the great poet, Judith Barrington, the eternally brilliant Chuck Bowden, Pam Houston who hates fancy dinners as much as I do, poet/slam-poet Patricia Smith (we sang "Ebony and Ivory" to the crowd). The brilliant young Mexican poet, Ekiwah. Many great souls and talents. But of them all, none is greater than my beloved Ursula K. Le Guin.
Ursula is the one who found me, as a boy. She came to UCSD as a visiting writer in my senior year. She accepted the story I had written about my father's death for an anthology. (Edges, Pocket Books--if you ever find one, let me know!) She lifted me from despair and dread and launched me on this...career. Oddly, right before I left for Bend, I was rummaging through my stuff (uh, I guess a library would call it an archive). I found the actual mimeograph master I had written that story on back in college. Man, that's old. Might as well have scratched it on a slate with charcoal. But there it was, all blurry, but with the writing workshop professorial corrections still scrawled on it.
I sprung it on her at my reading, and I read the story in her honor--for the last time ever. I retired it that night forever. (If you're keeping score, it's in Six Kinds of Sky.) A fitting tribute, I thought, to the great Ursula. Like burning your guitar--what else can you offer?
Well, I guess I'll hear about this. Really, it's okay--pro or con, it's okay. I do what I do, and I have my reasons. Sometimes my reasons are as simple as a crow's--that object is shiny and I'm gonna pick it up...or it looks darned tasty and I'm gonna eat it. It has been my folly to try to share the writer's life with you over the years--good or bad, silly or profound, in success and, in the much greater in abundance, failure.
I am changing this blog for 2009, just because the world around me has changed. But I will continue being exactly who I am. I am way, way too old to change now. I have my paths through the woods, and I have my favorite places, and I go there and drop antlers every season. And then , in the not too distant furutre, I will lay my bones down there too. I am so happy that you go with me--and that I have gone with others, like Le Guin. It's a good thing. I am not going to stop.
Writing is stronger than badness.
Writing is stronger than silence.
I am stronger than dirt.
See you in Phoenix, sports fans.
L
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