Poetry meet art. Art, poetry.

My dear friend Angela is coming to visit me in a couple weeks!  I'm so excited to see her, it made me open a box of pictures that she had drawn for me one birthday.  More than a few years ago, she illustrated some of my poems as a gift, and I had them framed and hanging on my wall in my old apartment.  Since The Great Move of 2010, I haven't put them back up yet.  I was trying to figure out why and I wonder if it's because I don't want to commit that much to this new place.  I like the apartment okay, but it's just a place to live, not a home like the last one.  Possibly this is because I haven't put up any pictures.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take photos of her artwork and post them here.  At least I'll feel at home on my blog.

This one accompanies a poem written about a trip to Venice I took with my family.  It's called "A Native's Dream":

 

This one is "Through the Keyhole," written at a particularly angsty time in college:

 

I realize it might be hard to read, which makes me thankful for my shoddy photographic skills.

And finally this one you might be familiar with already:

 

 

A Native's Dream

Rain ruined my first impression 

of Saint Mark's Square, flooded

enough to force people to balance, elevated

on wooden boards while we sought refuge

in the cathedral, guarded 

by bronze horses,

with my father, quite taken 

by the mosaic tile floors

slanting toward the altar.

"How long do you suppose," 

he asked, head bowed, 

"it took them to piece this place together?" 

I forgot to answer

in awe of those flashing cameras.

We struck out again into December

toward jade-colored waves that spilled over

concrete docks on the Grand Canal.  

Gondoliers stood in the wet drops like needles

and called to us, offering

special deals "for only today."

One young man in a black cap promised

in exchange for 80,000 lira

to wipe down the vinyl seats on his gondola himself.

My father agreed, making his familiar declaration

that this was "his city" because he came from

a full line of Venetians with trademark blue eyes, dark hair.

Our guide squinted his brown eyes and held out his hand.

We sat rocking in the boat under our huge umbrella,

the young man at the helm like a tired god

informing us that he was also a fireman.  Luca 

told my father how one could only be a gondolier

if he father was, and his father before him.  

As we passed under the Bridge of Sighs, 

the trail of my fingers swirled the canal like marble.

Fat Tuesday

My freshman year of college we were trying to decide what to do for spring break.  My friend pointed out that it just happened to fall on the week of Mardi Gras.  We were at school in Memphis:  what if- and she was just throwing this out there- what if we drove down to New Orleans to see what it's all about?  It's about an eight hour drive.  So we did it, the two of us and another friend.

To this day I have no idea how we got a room at the last minute in the center of town.  We could walk to Bourbon Street and see all the festivities.  This was pre-Katrina.  There were random parades happening all the time.  It's all kind of a blur to me, not because I was wasted the whole time but because there was so much going on.  I wish I could go back now and do it over because for some reason we were eating at places like the Hard Rock Cafe and not really taking advantage of the culture down there.  Everywhere there was music.  The whole city was one big party.

There was this one store we went into that had a song playing that I loved immediately.  It was what could only be described as zydecajun music.  This was around the time of the dawn of Napster.  As soon as we got back to school, I tried to find this song and download it.  Unfortunately, it was nowhere to be found.  It has haunted me for years, and sometimes I wonder if the internet had been too young or if I just didn't have enough information to find it.  Guess the only thing to do is to take another trip to New Orleans and retrace my steps, hoping that that same store is there, still playing that same old CD.

Slim Greer in Hell 

by Sterling A. Brown

I
 
Slim Greer went to heaven;
St. Peter said, "Slim,
You been a right good boy."
An' he winked at him.

"You been travelin' rascal
In yo'day.
You kin roam once mo';
Den you come to stay.

"Put dese wings on yo' shoulders,
An' save yo' feet."
Slim grin, and he speak up,
"Thankye, Pete."

Den Peter say, "Go
To Hell an' see,
All dat is doing, and
Report to me.

"Be sure to remember
How everything go."
Slim say, "I be seein' yuh
On de late watch, bo."

Slim got to cavortin'
Swell as you choose,
Like Lindy in de Spirit
Of St. Louis Blues.

He flew an' he flew,
Till at last he hit
A hangar wid de sign readin'
DIS IS IT.

Den he parked his wings,
An' strolled aroun',
Gittin' used to his feet
On de solid ground.

II

Big bloodhound came aroarin'
Like Niagry Falls,
Sicked on by white devils
In overhalls.

Now Slim warn't scared
Cross my heart, it's a fac',
An de dog went on a bayin'
Some po' devil's track.

Den Slim saw a mansion
An' walked right in;
De Devil looked up
Wid a sickly grin.

"Suttingly didn't look
Fo' you, Mr. Greer,
How it happens you comes
To visit here?"

Slim say---"Oh, jes' thought
I'd drop by a spell."
"Feel at home, seh, an' here's
De keys to hell."

Den he took Slim around
An' showed him people
Rasin' hell as high as
De first Church Steeple.

Lots of folks fightin'
At de roulette wheel,
Like old Rampart Street,
Or leastwise Beale.

Showed him bawdy houses
An' cabarets,
Slim thought of New Orleans
An' Memphis days.

Each devil was busy
Wid a devlish broad,
An' Slim cried, "Lawdy,
Lawd, Lawd, Lawd."

Took him in a room
Where Slim see
De preacher wid a brownskin
On each knee.

Showed him giant stills,
Going everywhere,
Wid a passel of devils
Stretched dead drunk there.

Den he took him to de furnace
Dat some devils was firing,
Hot as Hell, an' Slim start
A mean presspirin'.

White devils with pitchforks
Threw black devils on,
Slim thought he'd better
Be gittin' along.

An' he says---"Dis makes
Me think of home---
Vicksburg, Little Rock, Jackson,
Waco and Rome."

Den de devil gave Slim
De big Ha-Ha;
An' turned into a cracker,
Wid a sheriff's star.

Slim ran fo' his wings,
Lit out from de groun'
Hauled it back to St. Peter,
Safety boun'.

III

St. Peter said, "Well,
You got back quick.
How's de devil? An' what's
His latest trick?"

An' Slim Say, "Peter,
I really cain't tell,
The place was Dixie
That I took for hell."

Then Peter say, "you must
Be crazy, I vow,
Where'n hell dja think Hell was,
Anyhow?

"Git on back to de yearth,
Cause I got de fear,
You'se a leetle too dumb,
Fo' to stay up here. . ."

Back to La la land

It pains me to type this, but as I am preparing to attempt a post-blizzard flight from the East coast back to LA, I also realized that once I get back I will be devoid of internet until Time Warner can come out and install it in my new apartment.  So keep checking back for new postings, and I will be using this time in the dark to think up something really spectacular. 

AAA Vacation Guide

“Philadelphia isn’t as bad as Philadelphians say it is.”
—Billboard on Interstate 95

Paris in the Spring, Autumn in New York,

Singers pair a city with a season

As though it belonged to it all year long.

They should try to put a few more to work:

Trenton in winter needs a good reason;

Scranton in summer seems so very wrong.

How about Cincinnati in the spring?

Autumn in Passaic, or in Oakland?

Some cities just lack glamour and appeal,

And there is no point arguing the thing.

No one reads through stacks of brochures to spend

A honeymoon in Allentown. Let’s get real.

Most places on the map, you must believe,

No one wants to visit, only to leave.

 

-Ernest Hilbert

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."

I love this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  It reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas memories, when my family was traveling in Florence.  We ate dinner on Christmas Eve at a place called Buca Mario that consisted of bread, olive oil, wine, and several courses in between.  Then we walked back to our hotel full and sleepy and later awoke to hear bells ringing all across the city for Christmas. 

Hearing church bells is one of my most favorite things.  And while we're on the subject of favorite things, I suspect it comes from a scene in The Sound of Music (the first movie I ever saw).  There's one part where they show a boy ringing a church bell just before Maria marries Capt. Von Trapp.  That sound is just so joyful, but I think I like it because it also evokes something "old world" to me. 

Well, if James Lipton ever asks me his list of questions, I guess I've got one down!

Happy Christmas.

Glaring is caring?

The other day when I was waiting for the airport shuttle to pick me up, I was getting angry because it was a half an hour late.  I called the company twice and was assured the driver was "almost there," "almost there" but cars came and went and my blood pressure continued to rise.  When the van finally pulled up I rushed down the driveway and loaded my stuff inside.  I was already in a bad mood, exhausted from moving right up until the hour I had to leave, and I really wasn't planning to tip this driver.  Then he struck up a conversation.  I was surprised that I was the only person in the shuttle.  The driver asked if the company had called to tell me that he was running late.  I said, no, but I called them.  He told me they gave him this assignment at the last minute and he had to hurry down from Burbank.  They told him he had to be here by 10:30 and he said, there's no way with traffic, but I'll be there as soon as I can.  We proceeded to have a really nice conversation the entire way to the airport.  The company let him give all his other passengers to someone else so he could rush me to my plane once he picked me up.  I was ashamed by my bad attitude.  Here I was ready to unleash my stress and frustrations out on someone who was only doing their best to help me.

Over and over this year, I have been struck by the good nature and simple human kindness displayed by strangers.  Another example:  On my flight, the overhead bins were completely full by the time my section was boarded.  I had a laptop bag and a large purse, but they couldn't both fit under the seat in front of me.  I was debating whether I was really going to have to check my laptop when the woman beside me offered to let me put my purse with hers under the seat in front of her.  Who does that?  Nice people, apparently! 

I know I have a terrible tendency to myopically view things when life gets too crazy or times are tough, but meanwhile all around the city doors are being held open and even postal workers have been greeting people with a smile.  Then I watched this video a friend posted on facebook, and boy did I feel sheepish.  Yes, I'll try to be better in the new year.

The God of Loneliness

It’s a cold Sunday February morning
and I’m one of eight men waiting
for the doors of Toys R Us to open
in a mall on the eastern tip of Long Island.
We’ve come for the Japanese electronic game
that’s so hard to find. Last week, I waited
three hours for a store in Manhattan
to disappoint me. The first today, bundled
in six layers, I stood shivering in the dawn light
reading the new Aeneid translation, which I hid
when the others came, stamping boots
and rubbing gloveless hands, joking about
sacrificing sleep for ungrateful sons. “My boy broke
two front teeth playing hockey,” a man wearing
shorts laughs. “This is his reward.” My sons
will leap into my arms, remember this morning
all their lives. “The game is for my oldest boy,
just back from Iraq,” a man in overalls says
from the back of the line. “He plays these games
in his room all day. I’m not worried, he’ll snap out of it,
he’s earned his rest.” These men fix leaks, lay
foundations for other men’s dreams without complaint.
They’ve been waiting in the cold since Aeneas
founded Rome on rivers of blood. Virgil understood that
death begins and never ends, that it’s the god of loneliness.
Through the window, a clerk shouts, “We’ve only five.”
The others seem not to know what to do with their hands,
tuck them under their arms, or let them hang,
naked and useless. Is it because our hands remember
what they held, the promises they made? I know
exactly when my boys will be old enough for war.
Soon three of us will wait across the street at Target,
because it’s what men do for their sons.

-Philip Schultz

And the book addiction begat the shopping habit which begat the intervention

I have a serious book problem.  Here I am packing, transferring all my junk from one residence to the next, hustling things on Craigslist, celebrating like it's New Year's Eve when the Department of Sanitation agrees to pick up my old box spring mattress, and then what happens?  I pause for a minute and suddenly panic that I won't have anything to read on the plane to DC next week.  I won't have any books because I packed them all!  Horror of horrors, this will not do.  I remember that I have a $20 gift card to Barnes & Noble.  Packing break! 

I know exactly what I want.  In the store, I make my way up to the third floor-- fiction/literature.  The escalators are kind of weird in this one: when you step off on one level you're supposed to turn and walk behind you to the escalator that continues up to the next level.  I always forget and walk across to the other side of the floor to the escalator going back downstairs.  On my way, I pass the music section.  Then I am hit with a sudden, intense desire to own Keith Richard's memoir.  There they are, dozens of them stacked up, 30% off.  An employee hands me a copy.  Hardcover.  Huge.  Not intended for travel, but I'm determined to read it. 

Now to continue on my original mission to find the third book in the Stieg Larsson triology:  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  A few weeks ago I had finished the second book, and it kind of left me hanging.  I finally locate it and am dismayed to find that it, too, is only in hard cover.  Yeesh.  These are going to be taking up all the space in my carry-on luggage.  The good news?  It's also 30% off.

So, let's recap.  I-- a person who is trying to get rid of stuff-- now own two new hard back books and have nowhere to put them, not even in my luggage, and certainly not in my home as I have pretty much exhausted all the space on my bookcases both in my room and the living room. . . trip to Ikea, anyone? 

Branch Library

-Edward Hirsch

I wish I could find that skinny, long-beaked boy

who perched in the branches of the old branch library.

He spent the Sabbath flying between the wobbly stacks

and the flimsy wooden tables on the second floor,   

pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratching

notes under his own corner patch of sky.

I'd give anything to find that birdy boy again

bursting out into the dusky blue afternoon

with his satchel of scrawls and scribbles,

radiating heat, singing with joy.

That little horse is so darn cute.

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

-Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This poem always evokes images of the holiday season for me.  It brings to mind the frantic planning, the travel, the shopping and just general noise of the outside world.  Of course none of that is in the actual words Frost wrote, but we sense it because the woods are so quiet in the snow, the horse's harness bells ring out.  There's a special kind of quiet when the world is covered in snow, isn't there?  It's almost like everything is padded in a sound-proof room.

This traveler is expected someplace, yet he wants to linger.  Maybe he has to visit his in-laws and he wishes he could stay in the woods forever.  When I read this poem it feels like taking a deep, calming breath.  Next time I am standing in the security line at LAX, I'll think of it and try to forget the "miles to go before I sleep."

Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels.

Air - Color TV

There is a sign on Olympic Blvd that I have passed hundreds of times, and each time it fascinates me.  It's nothing special to look at.  In fact, it's kind of ugly.  Behold:

 

I love it because it advertises color TV as if that is still a major selling point.  It makes me wonder what else this motel could brag about: a remote control connected by cable, hot water, deadbolt locks? I realize that this sign must be pretty old, a relic of days when a color TV was something new and special, but these days I think a 15" black and white TV would merit more of a mention.  

I was curious to see when color television sets really came into wide use.  I found a nifty "invention of television" timeline that laid it out.  Apparently, the first color television broadcast was in 1946.  By 1967, most broadcasts were in color.  And by 1972, half the TVs in homes were color.  So I'm going to guess that this sign is left over from the late '60s or early '70s.

The motel itself has only one review that I can see online, and it is scathing.  I don't expect I'll be recommending it to any visitors, but I'm glad it's still around just the same.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is OzymandiasOzymandias Pharaoh Rameses II (reigned 1279-1213 BCE). According to the OED, the statue was once 57 feet tall., King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Damn Thirsty

You know how you used to know something really well?  You knew it like the back of your hand, then you grew up and you forgot about it.  But suddenly something jostles that trunk where it's stored in the cobwebbiest corner of your mind, like under a tarp, and it pops open and you go, "Hey, I used to know that!  Wow!" There must be a scientific name for this phenomenon.  I even remember it occurring at the tender age of five when it consistently blew my mind to realize that bugs lived in the ground.  Now I feel that way when I read about buffalo (i.e., "Buffalo? Aren't they extinct? Is that the same thing as a bison? Oh, they still exist? Phew, glad to hear it!"). 

Anyway, a friend of mine sent me something I feel like I read before.  It's vaguely familiar, and all the time I'm reading it I'm kicking myself for ever forgetting it.  It's about a fish:

First
The fish needs to say,
‘Something ain’t right about this
Camel ride-

And I’m
Feeling so damn
Thirsty.’

I didn't write this poem.  Hafez did.  But I am the fish.  I know my friend feels like she is the fish.  Maybe you are, too.  And maybe you just woke up and you looked around and thought hmm something's . . . fishy.  (Sorry, it wrote itself.)  How did I get on this camel?  Fish aren't supposed to go on camels!  Who booked this ticket? 

And also, why are some of the best poems about fish? (see: Elizabeth Bishop)