poetic end

at least for this April; thought I'd go with a pithy zen-like poem. 

As it is,
not as you would like it to be.

S. N. Goenka

poetic justice

too lazy to write up yesterday's amazing outing/author meeting, so will simply post this.  Spring is here--in the form of too much Scotch Broom and wayyy too many darting birds.

not really poetry

but still a lovely day for the arts. After school, and after teaching lessons, I popped on the ferry to catch the last weekend of SAM's Gauguin exhibit.

The city never disappoints in sharing pennies in my path, both literal and otherwise--this carved quote on the north side of Benaroya Hall was worth standing in traffic to grab a shot.

 "So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, 

music in some living form

 will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning."

From Copland's 1954 radio address titled Music as an Aspect of the Human Spirit.

While I am falling in love with modern art, there are still genres of it that baffle me.  This surreptitious photo is of some weird new art installation in SAM's hall.  These blurred objects are flattened cardboard boxes; hand to God.  Who knew that my living room is full of Art?

since I'm moving

In prepping to teach this poetry unit, I did a sample poetry portfolio to show the students what the finished product could look like.  And in doing so, I unearthed some previously published poems from my collegiate brain.  Thought this was appropriate as my life is sitting in boxes and piles at the moment.

(the history of this photo; took a shot of this globe the first time I was in Manhattan for a choir performance in 1992, when it was in the entrance of the World Trade Center.  This photo was taken December 2010 and is from what remains of it.  It is now in Battery Park.)

since I'm moving

          if it's true that the world is round,

if I move enough

                  will I be standing next 

     to you again?

 (I had one of these as a piggy bank as a child; perhaps after I finish this move, I shall get another one in which to collect my found pennies.)

saying yes!

Kitchen Practice
 

Tonight we gather
round a lamp-lit table
laying out words and hearts,
words and hearts that tell
a particular story about
our lives together and,
how tomorrow morning,
that story continues as it has
every other day this summer:
from dawn through dusk,
putting on our kitchen robes,
stirring awake the pulse of practice.

Isn't it our delightful duty
to do such work, the cooking of life,
of our lives and all life so that both
the difficult and delightful
become digestible?
Mmmmm...delicious.

I'm holding my finger
against my lips and there's
no one around but us now and
I want to tell you a secret that everybody knows:
how the complications of the human heart are unknotted by
kneading bread, frying onions, cleaning sinks;
how our lives unfold into endless offering
and the wide world over cared for by
scrubbing carrots, paying attention,
by saying "yes."

Chris Lance, Austin Zen Center

colliding with circumstances

 the beginner

Because in the morning, you collide with a new set of circumstances
which may or may not fix the ones that closed your last day.
Because while you were sleeping, your body replenished its cells,
including the ones you were hoping would be gone by the time you woke.
Because the weather is unpredictable, despite your best efforts at shelter,
and because you have an uncanny ability to unremember the mud puddle
you’d already stepped in, and your feet gravitate again toward the mess of it.
Your innocence is a constant interruption. You are always returning to the back
of the line somewhere, your tail between your legs. But that’s the gift of the beginner.
How the muscle pushing back the world can’t stop itself from getting thinner.  

maya stein 

vital life instructions

making it today

Today's class focus is on love poems; before the gag reflex kicks in, let me state that this is covering all levels and layers of love. The scent of a new book. A chocolate chip cookie, oven-warm. Watching a cat slumbering in the sunshine.

I am choosing to go with Silverstein today; it's a little kick in the pants to remind me that despite personal stress/angst, it is still important to bring whatever one can to the day's path. And with that mish-mashing of metaphors & philosophy, it is evident that I need coffee and need to go to class. 

skipping down alleys, trudging down paths...

I may have posted this in previous years, but as with re-reading a favorite novel or re-watching a favorite movie, poems are also enhanced by a re-visit.  Not sure who to credit for these words, but thank you to whomever penned them.  They are becoming my credo.

 she wasn't where she had been

she wasn't where she was going....

but she was on her way.

And on her way

she enjoyed 

food that wasn't fast,

friendships that held,

hearts glowing,

hearts breaking,

smiles that caught tears,

paths trudged and alleys skipped.

and on her way

she no longer looked for the answers,

but held close the two things

she knew for sure.

One, if a day carried strength in the morning,

peace in the evening,

and a little joy in between,

it was a good one.

 

 

And two,

you can live completely 

without completely understanding.

(I am nowhere near the level of zen provided in this last statement, but I am continuing down alleys and paths in hopes of sussing it out.)

tomorrow's dust

 
Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow's dust flares into breath.

"The Coming of Light" by Mark Strand, from New Selected Poems. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2007.

it's been heartening to begin to find pennies again this week; after a long damp winter of none to be found.  It's about time.  Time to have good luck.  Time to wish upon a star.  Time to shine and follow the next dream....

sounds of silence

Today is Day of Silence and we're observing in both in support of the GLSEN community, but also in a broader sense of anyone who feels silenced for any reason--fear, poverty, gender, politics.  (I've been part of another campus that did this exercise and it is always interesting to see how to teach/learn without talking....stay tuned for the results.)

 And as we are covering lyrics-as-poetry in class as well, the following Simon/Garfunkel lyrics are ideal.  This also is an interesting exercise--it is surprising how many times lyrics do not hold up as sheer poetry--they are so inexplicably tied to the music.

 Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools", said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls"
And whispered in the sounds of silence

and that you're humming along, my task here is done....

un-bear-able

Today's class centered on animal poetry--we covered T. S. Eliot's cats, Don Marquis whimsical cockrach, Mary Oliver's nature-triggered musings and played around with Ogden Nash's menagerie. We then spent time creating our own. Here's a draft of my morning musing.

growly & grumpy

   i greet the dawn

by mere hours of slumber sustained

     craving the safey & serenity

of a solitary slumberous cavern

months of silent solitude feels mandatory

     not to mention the joy

of the pre-loading months of food

    bliss of unconsciousnss

                 stressless slumber

e-i-e-i-o

(We covered children's poetry today in class--both for and about children; covering everything from Dr. Seuss to Shel Silverstein to poignant poems to unborn children and children's prayers. After we did our readings, we wrote whatever form/style we felt. This is my contribution.) 

where did that MacDonald guy get his moo-moo farm anyway?
      easy inheritance?  swindling through cards? 
          & more importantly, why does he (or his animals) sing the bloody vowels backwards?
And what happened to the a & the u?
     did he eventually go insane from the same refrain?

& while we're deconstructing childhood,
       what's with the stupid sheep that Bo-Peep continually loses?
               Sheep are supposed to be some of the least mentally acute animals around....
has she not heard of a herd dog? 
    or better yet, fences?
 and what exactly is she doing that she can lose an entire flock of large white meandering things?

and do not get me started on that Itsy-Bitsy moron,
      what is so marvelous at the top of that water spout?
                  and who is to say that he wouldn't be happier
in abandoning his Sisyphean efforts
     and enjoying a lush life in the verdant grasses at the bottom
                    with a gorgeous fresh water supply?

mish-mash

Trying to articulate something meaningful about life and choices and whether we are captain of our fate or merely pawns on the Board of Life, but there's been no coffee infusion into the brain yet this morning.  So, I will simply let Wordsworth speak, and allow whatever meaning you need to find, to appear in your day.

Glad sight wherever new with old
Is joined through some dear homeborn tie;
The life of all that we behold
Depends upon that mystery.
Vain is the glory of the sky,
The beauty vain of field and grove
Unless, while with admiring eye
We gaze, we also learn to love.

"Glad sight wherever new with old" by William Wordsworth, from Selected Poems. © Penguin Books, 2004.

leap before you look

The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

 

Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.

The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few smart wisecracks every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

 

The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.

 

Much can be said for social savoir-faire,
But to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.

                                                              WH Auden,   December 1940

all-day luck

bits of copper luck

sprinkled through my stepping out

awareness blesséd

Paw de Deux

This fits for both foreign language poetry, animal poetry and lyrical/poetry slam....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q34z5dCmC4M&feature=youtu.be

boxed

If there is any sort of unifying theme to my life, it would be cardboard.  Am gearing up for yet another move; as of this typing, not sure if it's across town or across the country.  Either way, for the next few months my life, will once again, be contained neatly in rows of labeled boxes.

How fortunate that Keillor sent me this poem for today's perusal.

That year we left the house we couldn't afford and put
our belongings in storage. We were free now
to travel or live in tiny spaces. We kept our chairs

and tables in a cement cell, our bookshelves,
our daughter's old toys, clothes we wouldn't wear
or discard. There were books we liked but did not

need and mattresses and pots and pans. Sometimes
we went to visit our things: sat in our rocking chairs,
searched for a jacket, listened to an old radio. It was like

visiting someone I loved in a hospital: the way, removed
from the world, a person or object becomes thin,
diminished. The furniture on which we lived

our young life had no job but to wait for us.
It remembered our dinners, the light through
our windows, the way the baby once played on the floor.

"Storage" by Faith Shearin, from Moving the Piano. © Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2011.

pre-rhymed sonnets

It was a smidge of trepidation that I introduced this exercise to my class.  This is where the class creates the end-rhyme words and then we write our sonnets around those.  It's challenging even in one's first language.  I am pleased to say that this particular class did splendidly well.  Here are my two creations of the day:

Once upon a time, Snow White found an apple,
this fruit, juicy or not, was not the bacon
crispy she desired.  If only as simple
as hopping into her shining Lincoln
and going to the market.  But now cake
was calling her name--a rich raspberry
torte; drenching chocolate, tooth-achingly
sweet.  Or perhaps she should use strawberry
for the flavoring.  So exhausted, a chair
was needed for deciding.  There was cream
also to be used.  But first her hair
needed to be fixed. A  look in a mirror; scream
was the reaction.  A princess needs her sleep.
And so, Snow White called Bo Peep and her sheep.

School is boring; I'd rather be home.  Pie
baking sounds like a better use of the day.
But I cannot tell a lie
I would rather not be here. I could lay
under a palm tree.  Refrigerator-
chilled beverage would be more comfortable
than classroom-bound.  Being a generator
of energy is unbelievably
tiring.  In my next life, I'd become a cat
and sleep and sleep with such abandon.
Alas, I cannot drop this life like a hat,
so one must strain sinew and tendon.
Guess I am glad that prostitution
is against this country's constitution.

(Just want to re-emphasize that the students generated this list.)

from stones to stars

One of the genres we're covering is poetry in another language: I'm covering German, French and Italian and my students will bring in Asian language poems.  Today posting is Rilke's Abend.

Der Abend wechselt langsam die Gewӓnder,

die ihm Rand von alten Bӓumen halt;

du schaust: und von dir sceiden sich die Lӓnder,

ein himmelfahrendes und eins, das fӓllt;

und lassen dich, zu keinemm ganz gehӧrend,

nicht ganz so dunkel wie das Haus, das schweigt,

hicht ganz so sicher Ewiges beschwӧrend

wie das, was Stern wird jede Nacht und steigt—

und lassen dir (unsӓglich zu entwirrn)

dein Leben bang und riesenhaft und reifend,

so dass es, bald begrenzt und begreifend,

abwechselnd Stein in dir wird un Gestirn.

(Or, as you would probably like to read.....)

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors

which it passes to a row of ancient trees.

You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you,

one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either,

not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,

not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing

that turns to a star each night and climbs--

leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)

your own life, timid and standing high and growing,

so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,

one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.