one word city limits: fate

ashen marketplace
feeble encroachments
out of egypt
marching crosswise
the visual
tendencies awaken
the touch
of four
o'clock upon
your pate
the whisper
that now
could be later
than usual
organisms
of light,
we quiver
taste fever's
rush on
skin, rush on
blistered memory, rush
on all these
times
of need.

one word staving: pit

touch and go,
the bull
shit, pitted
against pithy
anorexia, sublime
retreat
from the day's rest:
you would
know
the difference, you
would know
where Mary
led the way,
'scaping Egypt,
Pharaoh tailing,
should we
wed
the fairest one
of all, or
is
the last
truly first,
in fractal
disarray?

Sunday Scribbling #178: Ceramics Class

[bath water]

sharon took
her olds down
to the river -
bath time - she
ain't never,
it was all
antici-
pation,
down by the river,
'patin' by the river
tang,
as if we ain't
never -
gone - by the wayside
& heard
the sharon-baby
word a god,
mighty sweet
blues
if you nevuh,
if you even
wonduh,
if the grit in the bot-
tom of your
clawfoot tub
nevuh told
you, then
now's the time, now's
the ready-do, cuz
sharon gonna tell
you, though
the Devil probably
already
did.

10,000 Angels couldn't deliver the Oscar he should have won for this...

mercy

watch out for the explosion in the middle:



queen of 'em all:

i shall never ever grow so old again: segues du breton

polly

fogelberg

yo yo ma

Maxwell

mellow

d’arby

rufus

bluebird

van

one word pedagogy: teacher

james charleston the Seventh
broke his nether
lens while
scraping the rest
of his anatomy class
off the wall:
he optioned
his last itty bit
of granular
wisdom
for chocolate
from julia's
secret stash,
the dark
choco-stash,
ambiguities nestling
all down
the lines of her
ubiquity. balloons
have the crash
course capacity
for cryogenics.
we wish for many
things in our
vigorous youths,
but it ain't
nothing compared
to the wishes
that
be comin'.

one word free range hearts: [un]cage[d]

[match the wine]
for tina

mistress minstrel
freed across
time's limitations
freed from
the lapidary
setting of
all dreams
lost & found:
these were
lasting visions
nearing the longitudes
& latitudes of
capricorned cancer,
tradewinds
trading wings
unfurled
in the upper rooms
of love's rampant song.
you look for gold
in the estuaries
as you find them,
you pray for
the ends to match
the heart's wine,
you claim what
sends you round
the moon's
harvest, the sun's
drumbeat, the pulse
of fires
that blaze night
when night
blazes best.

Image: Joseph Cornell, "Navigating the Imagination"

one word you and me: assume

possibility
assiduous possibility
the orange quilt
in the back 40
the rollover minutes
squelching the dreams
of the five and dimers
down the tripsomatic
cast iron
skilletheads
visually bursting
with
times new roman
and the new
comic sans
a revolution a
revelation
on the order
of
the new world
passersby in
straining diapers
congregationalists
of
the naked eye.

one word wiggy: sneeze

casual it ain't,
not
in this day & age,
the usual
fisheries
fishy in their
flimsy gowns,
ancient mardi gras
balls detonating
with thrilling splendor,
hummingbird grills
of afterhour
klezmering: we
didn't miss a thing,
cherubing down
the cherub highway.

one word bucky: habitat

bosch dealer
hobbitat
the wee people
furry feet
furry muzzles
furry brains on
media fasts
rubbernecking
the very well, nigh
on dowdy,
parables of variable
surmise
questioning the status
quo, from the covers
of ecclesiastical ermine.

one word chisme: bars

casbah:
the stinky review -
after you fished out
your life lessons,
ate the cake of fools,
fool's golding
the atypical
plants, cheese
on a stick,
sodas popping
this way &
that. Names
left
in the terlet:
games of chance,
all cat
in the
hat.

Sunday Scribbling (on Sunday, even!) #177: Adult

Adult was not:

Registering for the draft.

Changing majors.

Co-directing the student counseling crisis hotline.

Summer interning at the juvenile detention center as a "social worker."

Opting out of the rush to graduate school.

Graduating in June 1975.

Working as a psych tech at Villa Rosa Psychiatric Hospital, September 1975 - January 1977.

Falling in love with a woman ten years my senior.

Moving to the country.

Learning to survey land.

Reading Gravity's Rainbow on a spring-splendored hilltop, while learning that craft.

Having a relationship with a married woman.

Marrying that previously married woman and stepfathering her beautiful four year old child.

Getting married, becoming a stepfather, starting graduate school all at the same time.

Buying the first house.

No, ADULT was buying the weedeater.

mouth of babes, iii

Full-fledged
hygienic beans...

Teachers

Floreta over at The Solitary Panda (link in the blogroll) posted a meditation on teachers; she ended by asking about our own transformative teachers. This was the comment I left:

1. John Robert Barth, Jesuit priest, perched atop a lecture hall table in sock feet, reading from Faulkner's Light in August. Political science never had a chance after that.

2. Can't remember his name, but my undergraduate sophomore poli sci seminar leader whose first two assigned books (for poli sci, mind you) were R D Laing's The Politics of Experience and Ram Dass' Remember: Be Here Now. Said grad student had all but abandoned his dissertation to write and recite poetry; I was soon to follow.

3. Bill Wallace, grad student mentor extraordinaire: shaped the therapist I was for 20 years and the teacher I am now.

4. Innumerable clients and students who have taught and inspired me through the years.

5. My wife Tina and my son Walden.

6. Sophie the WonderBullmastiff; Lucia the Neapolitan Mastiff; Thunderheart, the Bighearted and gorgeous red Bullmastiff; Blue the BlueHealing WonderDog.

7. Writers: Grace Paley; Denise Levertov; Campbell McGrath; Charles Olson; Michael Ondaatje; Andre Breton; Mina Loy; Henry Miller; Hoa Nguyen.

one word foliage: destination

this is it:
the one we
sought,
the pinnacle,
the slithy toves,
the gimbling gyres,
the towers of babylon:
variable intimates
dusting down
the road,
convivials:
meteor showers
of the fluent
mind, carefully
drawn to the flame,
elegantly tossed
to proclaim.

Commence

For some years now, I've become something of a connoisseur of graduation ceremonies and speeches. Not your elaborate, highfalutin ceremonies and speeches, mind you. I gave a speech at my high school graduation 38 years ago, one I'm sure was full of words meant to impress: highly forgettable words, words of the head and not, surely not, from the heart. I am not trying to be overly modest here: I know my MO from those days: if I could say it in more words, and longer words, and more incomprehensible words, I was all for it. Readers of the posts here in Muravia might argue that not much has changed in that regard, but the distinction is this: here in Muravia, my incomprehensibility is in pursuit of a muse; at Callaway High School in 1971, I was in pursuit of ego gratification; my words then might have impressed, but they were, I'm sure, highly predictable as well.

My tastes in graduation ceremonies and their inevitable speeches, then, run to the short and the sweet and the deceptively simple: I want my speeches to steal in and bring tears to my eyes: I could give a shit about longwinded (and long-winding) circumlocutions.

I first ran across such speeches at a local career school at which I taught for about four years before settling down at the Instituto. I found myself quite moved by very simple stories of thanks and gratitude and inspiration. At one graduation, I listened while one adult graduate thanked her classmates for pulling her through a nine month bout of dealing with cancer as she also pursued her education. Folks simply spoke from their hearts, and I invariably found myself deeply moved.

Last night, I attended a graduation ceremony for a former student who finished up at an alternative school here in Tres Leches. She was part of a larger group of summer graduates from the high schools of one of our public school districts: there were perhaps 80 or so grads in all.

The commencement speaker, representing all the graduates, strode confidently to the podium and laid down a wonderfully affirming speech for all of about four minutes. As she brought her comments to a close, she said, "I think I can sum up what I'm trying to say here in 5 words: Love wins. Love ALWAYS wins."

I was rocked and blown away, and I feel as if the words were inscribed on my heart.

Imagine all the bullshit that could have been thrown down for the occasion (the kind of bullshit I have certainly tossed in my day) and this one chica, summer graduate of the Winston Churchill High School Class of 2009, cuts through it all and nails it.

May we all commence in such fashion, because in spite of all our fears and cynicisms and modern day forgetfulness, it certainly does. It always does.

one word immortality: coffin

listen: right in
here
yes: right there
the night will
guide
presence will
allow
the rest will
tarry:
marry into your
dreams
bid them follow as
you, they;
time will match
the heart's brimming
fever, appleheaded
wonder will be
your place,
applehearted wisdom will
be
your grace.

one word gorgons: optional

gerber baby:
the transitions are
optional,
funky cloud patterns
dissipate,
while the legos
roam westward;
we
in the bleachers
sing hallelujahs,
wrangle dreamcatchers,
can-open
remaining worm tins:
frugal Orwellians
announce
the bellwethers,
the fiscal undertows,
the carefully pruned
sanctuaries of our
optimal prose.

one word quinientos: gong

gadabout town,
Barris in his
will to live
wonders if this
one deserves the full
throttle,
or if titillation
has its bounds:
the company does him
favors,
while sucking the juice
out of his joie de vivre,
mr mucketymuck valentino,
mucking out the stalls
with Hercule,
amortizing the fleabag futures,
animating the frivolous climes.

one word electrolux: itch

-ycoo park
all the hoi polloi
the hoidy doidy
the polyester paisley
college prep preppers
in their calomine
waders
we instigate
by push & shove,
we enable
with
copious mongrel effluence
we envision
the better days
through the hi
dee-hos of our
eternal youth.

Sunday Scribbling #176: Fantasy Dinner Party

[the swell crowd]

giddy giddy savoir faire
nickel in the juice
we dine for fashion
and fashionable taste:
lucky dogs a la Ignatius -
Dickens loose in the Quarter -
amiable misfits galore
five and dime-ing
the afterhours.
seven, besides moi:
Pynchon in sailor garb
(it's a costume party, natch)
to sign the first editions as
Tyrone or Pig;
Foghorn Leghorn,
not as meal, but
to match TP's
erudition, southern
style; Van to tickle
the ivories and drain
the swill; Padgett
in Shelby-drag, Grace
Kelly for (and to say)
grace, Secretariat, so
we can all say we
ate with a winner,
& Fistula Babcock,
for her segues to heaven,
her eminent domain, her
Etta James without
the sass, &
her Irma Thomas without
the rain. Horseradish
on them Jesuit dogs,
sweet tea for the non-
swilling, paletas
(cookies and cream or nues)
in the aftermath,
cold and rushing.

one word gene rayburn: match

fractal aneurysms
you might have heard
the weather is splendid
down java way
in the interest of
character analysis
we offer the remainders
in telluride
the blissful contemplations
will ever do
with prismatic
satisfaction
you will ever do
if you never do
the dewdrops
of pass me round
the scylla
the charybdis
of adolescent blue.

mouth of babes, ii

"The president of deluded fruitcakes."

"When the Jonas Brothers sing, it sounds like they're screaming...quietly. And I know there's a girl's voice in there somewhere."

one word ruud: conditioned

Yemaya drips wet
by the first,
takes him into her
drizzle,
this heir-conditioned
heirlito, first-born &
generative -
a ludicrous price
for one less
than humid
summer afternoon,
rent by grilled
cebollas, taquitos,
& beer.

one word chantilly lace: cleanse

ghastly:
solitary brooms,
aquifer in the distance.
these diamond wiles -
castaway varmints -
casually gliding
down whimsy;
if I ever travel
there,
the return will
be twice
as sweet.

Found it.

hope for us all...

[From Christopher Orr's review of "Julie and Julia" (why in that order?) in The New Republic; that italicized last sentence kills me, as does Streep's "I'm growing before you" line in the trailer. I've not seen the movie yet, probably will wait for Netflix, but in one trailer Streep has redeemed the "Mamma Mia!" fiasco.]

"The Childs are mutually devoted and supportive, yes, but also committedly carnal, whether it's Julia's description of the lunch and "naps" with which the couple filled her midday breaks from Cordon Bleu training, or Paul's feisty translation of a tricky French recipe: "Bathe the thighs in butter and then stuff the hen.... until she just can't take it any more." I won't even relay the obscene simile Child deploys to describe the firmness and heat of boiled manicotti, but it's enough to make Judd Apatow blush. The couplings of this giddy giantess and her bald, bespectacled hubby will probably do more for sex in America than all the frictionless collisions of aerobicized abs that Hollywood inflicts upon us for the next decade."

Sunday Scribbling #175: New

[new drink]

Sister, come away with me
Lay ye down:
We’ll cross sapphire black water
Churning home, as home can be
Mountain dark
You’ll know the rocky shore
Atop the world’s gloom
Fire at your back, my tin cup in hand
That’s life you’re drinking, lass
Nothing more or less
Black life, ancient life, swooned life
Ours—

Clouds feather your hair
I’ll gather leaves to match your eyes
Shade green upon your limbs
Remember as it was before it wasn’t
Those times, the fire of blood in the body
Time well spent
None of the dismal that did us in

There’s rivers for you, sister
Moons to swell the belly and set it free
Our mountains will grow as grows your fine lad

Take boat with me, girl
I’ll take you to darkest bloom
A rose to swell the heart
You’d not think the world
Such beauty as our mountain’s cry

Tis good—
I am never far—
Never—
I’ve me longboat to take your pains to shore
My weave of flowers to braid ye
My evidence of things past to things new
Drink this, darlin’, for all that ails ye

Yea, it will pierce the wound.

I’ll carry ye
I’ll row ye
I’ll mother ye as sweet and loving ye did your boy
He’ll carry ye in his heart always

Up the mountain, girl
There are waters hot for
Body & the mooring mind
Scald the tar out of demons
But leave the living slack,
Blessed, vital in the Mother’s loom.

Come, my sister
Do not tarry
There be moon in your tea
And in your heart there be merry.

mouth of babe

From the back seat in recent days, Mr. Baby crooning. A list poem:

ceviche stormtroopers
bubonic plague
kitty carlisle
bean juice
cash cow

The lines are punched.

The Child is father of the Man. - Wordsworth

one word rothko chapel: gallery

vitality
the bloody marys
of the turfside
exquisite vagabonds
the road to cairo
blazing
time sits with
her mermaids
the squalor
of sassy friends
calculations divvied
by the time
we get there.

one word aviary: geese

kremlin rodents:
geburtstag - the only
way to go - via brine, via
twine time. all
negotiations are off
the wall, off
the effervescent jungle,
in visitations
of twos & fours:
minnie comes walkin', but
cab's the show,
the hi-dee-hi-dee-hi-dee
ho.

one word federal reserve: idol

gaggle
the thrones are bare
the minstrels
sway
with the days of
charisma
we wonder when we
fall
the vision is always
after
plummeting through space
asking
for price
cost/benefits that
mangle the taste
evade the question
the 42 you didn't ask for
this was before
the time of
the golden calf
the golden bowl
hell, even the golden
ass: it's all in the woodwork,
it's all
down
for the count.

one word scheherazade: idol

don your cowls, babies,
spread your mishmash
for all to see:
sanguine turpentine
in the brew
missing the point
of red sea moses
evening out the turpitude
erasing the visionary's
calculus
finding the way home
while one and all
are fit
to be tied.

one word edisto: idle

best left unsaid
the grueling genuflect
wisdom deflected
angel hair pasta
& all that jazz
mystery underwear &
padgett is coming
questions and all
visitation will out
when you least expect
the northern lines
to merge &
the brakes to peel
within the hair's
width.

one word elfin fish: collapse

terremotos
amiable trysts
you find your way
alone
or with
down the main
streets
the hardware of
living
regales us
with all you want
& more: you
wouldn't know it
now, would you?

Ahem...

"He may be dead; or he may be teaching English." - Cormac McCarthy (Use of semi-colons suggests early provenance; CM hates 'em.)

one word dogtown: planet

fallopian connivance
convivial dissipation
treasured jewelry in
the western storms
you will
ask
why the pandering
(why the panda?)
while brisk
biscuitry
the busy-ness
of shangra-la wills
herself
past the furnace
the desire
the inquisitive nature of
surfdom
in pacific bliss.

Sunday Scribbling #174: Anticipate

[bloom turbulent]

quartzite: flash of a diamond mind
under her crown of glory.
enter wavelength, down the stairs of
empty worry. never the wary captive,
never the ancient doom, she
cries a sun bold, nubian strong
yearning into midnight’s dark yearning,
nearing the wested ways of ample bloom,
turbulent bloom, volcanic estuary,
halving the distance between points
inward, points astral, points ferried by
all that binds fierce to birth, face to worth.

[Twinned Water]

somewhere in your triumphant jubilation
there lurks the imp of wisdom -
a young girl whose heart’s brain
collects leaves the size of people,

elegant in her silences,
yearning for truth. you say that
flight is no longer in your plans: you
resist the notion of wings on your back,

even as the quill pricks your skin.
elation is your calling:
doubt, dismay, your double foes,
erased from the conjecture of your genius.

near the brink of pacific waters
there waits a twinned fate,
housed in delight, bursting,
a sunflower whose crown is zealous, whose

love is dappled green.

[this blue]

still not there I want to tell
you when my face twisted
looking up from beneath lake Ontario
tunneling in darkness
a babe in dark morn, pink wrapped &
even now my heart is spilling without
words, better the beating organ
on page, stilled by pain
collision of fiction with story
this is no place &
yet am I here
this is no place &
yet I have traveled shit
& catfish & rotgut booze &
still no place & yet we are living
this blue chapel our one hope
each with what we carry
will you dream me back to a
mouse dream, will you stagger
my faults without worry,
will you fill my heart with
balm, o my wee bright poetic
champion, wheelwright of the western
gleam. My sun, too, has brightened my day
on breast asleep – my beloved, too, her bright blue shining.
wreak havoc, heart: break day, bring down
mighty doom, bring down gwyneth’s
dream of plenty.

[less green]

quiet
in the middle of the night
derived from sighs
tenderness
bravely sung
an island full
center of incandescence
desire
two syllables long
ridden from sleep
in the voice of one who weeps:
nothing shall move
we embark
belief wanders west
a dilated silence of oleanders
the green of your dilemma
vibration beneath sky / beneath journey
shadow of dreams
exploding
(tomorrow’s decision built
beyond green dream)
nothing shall move
embarkation complete
in an hour more grand
than turbulent
an hour less green than you

[burning after]

loosen the nots loosely knit
all the western suns sunning

tarry, merry tarry in my long limbs,
inching the wild ways of mercenary

nesting, can you forgive, oh please forgive
all my solar sins, my lost

moons in midnight eclipse.
i who will roam your heart

far far far beyond memory’s lance
at the pass of noon i am

more than my mouth can say, twittering
impish fool that he is, twittering.

lay down beside me, down all the downs you have lain
in fire, in seed, in water of your wyldwoman burning

after, your wyldwoman burning mind.

one word gasp: humid

bacchus on the back wall
visitation was seemly
visual campaigns are
the last thing you
expect. raspas
chill the fever
a little
gorgon infatuation
carrion overload
gargantua in the mist

one word slough: respond

this will only take
a moment:
of your time, my time
of nevertime: listen
to the song unfold
listen to the river
run
through your chest
the rest of
the journey
cascading down
the nevertime you
nevertold.