A road leading to the imagination...

This will be my last posting from my location in West Palm Beach, Florida. After 82 little writings, I am heading to the Big Apple to try my turn in that big town. I look forward to the challenges that await me. This little writing below talks about a road filled with challenges, detours, bends and turns;

An Old, Long-Winding Road

There’s an old, long-winding road
behind my house, seldom used anymore
except for the occasional walk
or the contadino who herds his sheep
or the hunters off to hunt.
The road, like the young poet’s unpaved imagination
is congested, is cluttered
with overgrowth from under-use.
Nature, herself, has become the re-creator;
slowly, with unfathomable patience, she has distorted
the road, she has determined the scene– the manner in which the snow impedes,
the way in which the moss proceeds
to grow on the stone embankments.

As I walk, ducking and bending through the brush,
a slap of branch at cheek,
a trip of weeds at foot,
attempting to keep balance and thought intact– pense me–
Has the original purpose of the road altered?
Were the first builders solely interested
to quicken distances between podere to podere? Or indeed,
did they too seek the detoured tranquility, the serenity,
of a meditative walk where their imagination
tangled with the Supreme Imaginator?
For sure, if shortening distance was their prime concern
the road should be straighter–
(for reason tells us the shortest distance between two point is...).

So each curve in this road,
each bend, each turn,
represents the imagination in the act of imagining.
And these first builders saw in this road
a form, simple and utilitarian as it be,
that required shaping and molding
so as to reflect its truer purpose;
that of the mind in its curious,
circuitous course to understand
itself and potential.

Ain't nothing we can do about the heat...

This little writing goes back to a summer that I remember in New York City that was just exceptional in its sweltering heat and humidity. I would remember having a suit on and by the time that I got to and from different appointments I was just soaked through with perspiration. My little tribute to New York's heat;


HEAT

Slow,
slow summer’s
heat hangs...
hangs,
like the tired, orphaned child
lumped,
slumped
on the woman’s slouching back.

She lingers, ...
lingers long,
long
into the day; draws–
draws pores of sweat.

New York’s humid, August character
claws,
claws like the lean, hungry, black
back-alley cat
hunting for its prey.

Through the swelter
the cries,
the cries,
fly,
fly through the deep thick of night–
no rest in sight...

A harlot’s baby, sleepless plight,
sleepless,
in this asphalt jungle’s slow,
slow summer’s
slow,
seething heat...

The beauty of resilience and fortitude...

I return to provide this little writing below after several days from being out of commission. It seems my body just gave out on me and I needed some refeuling. As I regain my strength, I hope the muse continues to visit me and encourages me to write. The writing below is in response to the need for resilience no matter the climate or circumstances;

Love, Like the Resilience of a Tuscan Weed

You can see them everywhere
prospering in this arid land
where rainfall is sacrosanct.
A neophyte to this farming life
learns almost overnight
the plant suited to survive
in such environment.

Varied in form
establishing its dominion;
germinating, multiplying and proliferating.
The ever-present wind– gusting
seeds to sow in some other
part of the garden.

The soil rips, buckles and bursts
like sore, parched lips– in need of water.
But the tenacious weed, scoffs
almost laughs, brazens, as its produces a flower
in defiance to the climate
and its natural persecutors.

This weed will not relent.
It does not know such sentiment.
With manacle roots deep
it anchors itself, bonds itself to the soil;
ready to be pulled at by a naive gardener–
who thinks he’s cleared his plot so clean–
snaps midway so as to grow again
stronger from this most recent assault.

Were I to have one wish for us,
it would be that our love
could in such climate
display the resilience
of these damn Tuscan weeds...

He would say, "you cannot kill a mountain..."

My father, my Papa Jean passed away this morning at 5:ooam eastern time. He went gently, and with dignity-- just as he had led his life. There are not words that I can string together to convey the love and respect that I have for him. He was from such a different time and place both generationally and geographically. He taught me humility and perserverance and the deep respect for my cultural roots. The writing below is the one request he asked of me;


In My Time of Dyin’
(for Papa Jean)
(b. November 29th, 1921– d. April 22nd, 2010)

In my time of dyin’
don’t want nobody to mourn.
All I want for you to do
Is take my body home.
So I can die easy, yeah...yeah...yeah...
so I can die easy, yeah...yeah...yeah...
(African-American Spiritual)

Papa said that when he died
he wanted to be cremated.
He was adamant about this request.
Entrusting me, to carry this out
he asked that his ashes
be spread over his parents’ grave
in Rives, Isere, France –
the hamlet where he was born.
I told him plain– I would.
Papa also said he would prefer
if we did not mourn his death;
for he had, had an abundant life.
In his provincial humility
he asked only that we enjoy
"a good bistro", and savour
a memorable meal in his honour;
(great French chefs think this way)...

...Jesus gonna make it
to my dyin’ bed.
And if these wings should fail me Lord
won’t you meet me with another pair.
So I can die easy, yeah... yeah... yeah...
so I can die easy, yeah...yeah...yeah...

What's in a name?...

I have always held an interest in the origins of words and their meanings.In the bible one gets a sense of these great charaters in the Old Testament. So I have chosen a little writing about the biblical name of Catherine;


Musings

Of Beauty– like poetry– the old, old
pragmatic Biblical scribes
understood its position.
In the simple, clean lines of their language;
magnitudes conveyed.
The millennia cannot change you
C a t h e r i n e.
Roots of your namesake deep, well dug.
Orientation cannot alter
implication, impartation of the name
(infinitely...contained).
The envy of Helen and Hera to remain.
You have been a fourth-century Christian martyr of Alexandria;
an Empress of Russia (twice);
and a Queen of England.
From the myth of you
modern civilization took ground.
You are the stone foundation–
the allegorical anchor–
that Jason, on a bobbing, wind-beaten Argo,
sailed and sailed to secure
his frail ship
to the shore of you.

Tradition and the individual talent...

As a student of literature I leaned towards the modernists; T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and Marianne Moore. It was in their poetry that I immersed myself. I have often walked through the subway station at Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. It is a maze of underground tunnels used by commuters to get to work. So this little writing below touchs on these two aspects;

The Modernists
(for Eliot, Pound & Moore)

Hair combed neat, still damp.
Clothes pressed– she with stockings,
he with cravat.
We are the routine ones;

moving through these steamy,
‘wet, blackish boughs’...
made to ease our arrivals
and departures.

"Like the crowd on London Bridge
heads bent towards their feet."
Movement a slow, silent
procession towards separate
destinations.

There is little laughter in such faces;
but the myriad of frowns palpable
from excessiveness. "I too, dislike it..."

Yet, we are no different
from classicist’s passed,
nor avant-gardist’s to come.
Perhaps, this is the collective denouement
the wise men foretold;
just more subtle.

Wasted ones in a hollow land.

'Speak in small bursts of truth...'

I want to start by paraphrasing the great writer, Saul Bellows, who said; 'No one will be heard in the future if they do not speak in small bursts of truth.' The little writing below is my way of expressing Mr. Bellows sentiment;

In Memoriam To
William Earl Anderson
(d. September, 1988)

...And it took aim again, this time
‘deep in the heart’s core.”
I lost my friend.
When will it end? This death,
this scourge, this utter sadness
that knows no (AIDS).

Whose instrument has wrought
this menace? Whose bow has plucked
this wicked tune?

A virus– methodical, brilliant
in the eyes of the scientist.
Yet, virtuous men & women
fallen to its cunning.

Howling, ‘I see the best minds
of my generation’,
reduced to nothingness...

This is my sad song sung
to a hard head wind
that blows no pity, but dirt in my face.

I miss you, William.
Rest in peace my good friend...

A metropolis the Greeks never knew...

The writing below is about my favorite city, New York City. It has an energy one has to experience to really understand it. I have been a walker in this city for as long as I can remember. Each time I take a stroll I always see something new. The little writing below is just a snippet of what I perceive about New York City;


The City-Scape

The city wears itself well.
Rain-soaked leaves–
fallen embers, amber hued–
lend to this season’s canopy.

The city wears its dampness well.
Moisture strewed about these street;
water wets the pavement deeper grey.

The city wears its people well.
Clothed in winter’s chosen wools,
random lives compose these walks–
the harlot, the homeless, the rich
that must share these blocks.

The city wears its music well.
The caustic cacophony; rapped-
packed, or the slow, smooth-cool
jazz, the roll-flow of sound never-ending...

the city wears all its rhythms well.
The edifices unperceivable sway
to the drone which is the bass,
the city’s beat to avoid the country-side sleep.

A continuance of time and place merge...

I return to my Tuscan days and found a poem I had left uncompleted. The sense of daily life as a repetition and the beauty one can find in the everyday chores inspired this work. I hold much respect for the Tuscan farmers and this writing is for them;

an ordinary day in Toscana

...sunlight silhouette
sets over Pienza. Embers
of the ordinary day,
cool terra-cotta crimson–
fall on these ordinary people.
It is January.
It will be dark soon.
The contadino works with hurried purpose
to complete diurnal chores;
manure is cleared from the stalls,
the pigs are fed,
the goats are milked,
dry wood is brought inside
for the long night ahead

There is a stillness to the landscape.
A return to the plain sense of order–
(or perhaps, only the sunlight playing tricks?)
The endless columns of vineyard
stripped of their leave-coated armor
slump stoic, like frozen troops
in their amazing, uniform march to nowhere.
The grain fields of spring
wait laconic and fallow.
Deciduous trees now bare,
a certain chill chides the air.
The mind of winter is the contadino’s,
who knows the season, as always...
Time for the land to repose,
to quench its thirst, catch its breathe.

Chimney smoke dissipates
in the waning din.
The little towns set on these hills
soon undistinguishable in the night.
Tomorrow will come,
the rooster will call
a simple ordinary repetition will begin anew...
a continuance of time and place merge
a player upon his stage.

To know each other there can be no fakery...

This poem was written on the occasion of my parent's 30th wedding anniversary. On February 11th 2010 they just completed their 50th anniversary. I marvel at their fortitude. Given the grave situation of my father's health I thought it would be meaningful to post this poem out of respect to them both;


Diamonds & Pearls
(February 11th 1960 -February 11th 1990)
(Jean Ulysse Vergnes & Pauline Jacqueline Cordeau)

Of two like no others.
From separate places you came
to rendezvous – and catch one another’s eye.

Thirty years have brought you here;
a menagerie of attic memories,
slightly dusted, sometimes forgotten...

But time can never alter
what lured and lulled you together;
the encounter, the attraction,
the courting and the love.
From a place called La Shangrila
une amour a commencer.

Thirty years, and a little less hair
a wrinkle here & there
a certain fatigue now.
Though time has marked the facade
love’s strength, its subtle visage
shines, unaffected by the years.

To know each other
There can be no fakery,
no act sub-rosa.
All that is, between you, appears
in its bare truth – naked.

Theses words want only to say
What three decades together conveys;
You have shown your strength by example.
Love is swayed by more than diamonds & pearls...

To storytellers and their stories...

The poem below is a type of vignette about an art form that is dying. The oral tradition of storytelling and the characters who would tell the stories. There is nothing quite like hearing a musician or a poet live on center stage articulating their chosen work. So this little writing is dedicated to the art of the storyteller;

For Him To Be Remembered
(the town’s storyteller)

Now mortality was setting in.
He was rocking-chair rolling in recollection
of things he had thought and said.

Then, seemed so long, long ago.
He hadn’t realized now
could creep up so fast.

Now seemed so alone-like.
He had out-lived all friends.
His present was the recompense of the past.

With deliberateness he took his labor-wrinkled hand
and put it in his pocket pulling
out a tattered handkerchief. With his other lined
hand he removed his metal framed spectacles
and cleaned the lenses methodic.
A routine honed through the years.

He took note of me watching him,
and with the same worn cloth
he patted the beads of sweat
from is forehead as he said to me;

"son, I have but one wish after I am buried–
like all men–
to be quoted on occasion..."

In tribute of chiseled forms...

I have always held a fascination with sculpture. I can remember seeing Michelangelo's Slaves at the Academie in Florence, for the first time. I can also remember seeing Botticelli's David at the Ufizzi Museum in Florence. These works left a strong impression on me as true masterpieces from the Old Masters. The little writing below pays tribute to the chiseled form;


The Stone Carver

Bit – by bit – by bit – is chip-
ped to reveal, perhaps?,
what was always
there sub-rosa.

Granite poet, etcher of stone sonnets.
You set down in slabs
what no pen
can pour on paper.

Mortal maker of, near, immortal artifice.
Your sculptured poetry, your chiseled forms,
stand, for some time to echo...
your place with the old masters.

Your calloused hands without effort,
labor to give character to your work.
As with Mogiri’s gargoyles–
(twenty-eight years to complete)–
On Washington’s National Cathedral.
They appear to smile and laugh, with us–
amazed that a (man)
could wrought such smooth beauty from stone...

Life is not hard edges...

I have often walked along the shore whether here in West Palm Beach or in East Hampton, Long Island just staring at all the myriad of shell and stone forms that wash up on the beach. It made me think about the power of the ocean and the vulnerability of the shells and stones. The little writing is a reflections of such walks along the beach;


Soft-hearted Stone
(found along the endless beach)

It is not the hardness
of stone that impresses.
It is the suppleness
of its core
that allows it to be shaped
by the ebb and flow
of the endless sea....
into such forms.

Life is not hard edges,
but, more often, soft curves,
sadness and beauty;
as that which I see in you–
And such stones of rare
subtleness...

In the Fields of Elysium...

My uncle Frank died in July of 1986 from a cancerous tumor in his lungs. He was a great uncle. The kind of man you couldn't wait to see as a young boy because he would participate in all sorts of activities with my brother and me. I think his wake was the first one that I ever went to and the writing touches on my impression of the event;

The Wake
(For Uncle Frank Tobiasson)

It’s rather odd
how we dress up the dead.
Death has no bias
towards its next guest’s attire.

Yet, the ladies and men whisper–
in praise of the mortician,
as if some magician,
for creating the illusion
of life in death.

Kneeling to view uncle Frank one last time.
Up close, I see through
the cosmetic veneer
of the under-taker’s skill.

He is an emaciated ninety-six pounds.
His cancerous bones protrude from the casket
as fresh tombs in soil.
He has not gone ‘gentle into that good night’
as the Charon now ferries him along.

Rising now, in the calm contemplation
that Hades lets him roam painless
in the Fields of Elysium...

You cannot be changed...

I have watch for almost a year now my mother tend to my father's worsening condition. After fifty-two years of being together you can still sense the love she has for him. I came to this little writing as a way to pay tribute for all that she does as a wife, mother and grandmother;


Maman

...Of strong stock, yet soft-souled
the frigid cold
of Montreal’s long, long winters
never changed you.

The Church which formed
your fleeting youth– (the Sisters)
in their black & white robes,
under their strange hooded caps
and conservative cloaks–
never changed you.

Your father, sick and weak,
who, perhaps, wanted a boy;
his laconic love
came late in life
never changed you.

The man you married
the family you raised–
two sons, and grandchildren–
to praise and hold dear
never changed you.

All these things
of nature & time
cannot change you,
will not change you, you of
strong stock & ever so, soft-souled...

The Chain of Command...

When I took my first publishing job in New York City I quickly learned the enormous bureaucracy that needed to be confronted each day. This little piece comes from gaining a sense of the powerplay involved in surviving in such an environment. It's serves as a reminder to those who wish to be individuals in corporate environs;



A Chain Needing Oil


A mere cog within

this chain of command.

Mettlesome as I am,

my movement is linked

to other hands.

Whether this shackle is wrought

from pure metal?

Or by chance coupled

by human ingenuity,

or both – remains a mystery?

Indeed it is a bond

to be bro-

ken.

For it makes us paltry leaden creatures;
laconic kinks whose mettle hue rusts...

Words sent with just paper and pen...

This little writing began as a letter and when I looked at the draft I had made I wanted to turn it into a poem. It's fairly straight forward and I will let it convey itself;



Preferring to Convey with Paper&Pen

There is still something raw
when paper is touched by pen.
I care not to blog,
tweet nor twitter,
trick nor treat, nor
Facebook, nor read Redbook.
my space– is this the place
where I plot and plod pad with pen.

A long, slow slog
with no disguise,
nor username...
a stamp-licked letter
is something to be said.
Within this form
the words conform
to express in colloquialism
the idiom of their maker.

To jot, spot, splotch and stain
this broadside
with plainness and germaneness
so it could be said,
‘he never left one thing behind...’
just this paper touched by pen...
just these words sent...

"Music, sweet music"...

There's a place in New York City where I've been going to catch different artists playing their music. It's a real small space and it fills up quite quickly at night. The venue is cool because you get five different musicians playing 45 minute sets. You get a nice mix of music. This little writing is about the place;


Rockwood Hall

Just tell the cabby,
Allen Street between
Houston and Rivington,
as I recall.

“Music, sweet music...
I wish I could caress with a kiss”...

The room unassuming,
no place to move nor hide...
Once inside these lower
East Village walls.
Just you, your stamina,
the sound and the subway
boxcar of space.

The bar cumbersome,
the crowd funnels in–
from, (I) don’t know where.
These proud and astute
musicians play acoustic–
lyrics and melody–
to the captivated throng
that gathers... and
gathers...
within.

Within these spaces that we reside...

It's been two weeks since my last posting. I have been away and did not have access to the computer on a consistent basis. The writing below touches on the value we place as New Yorkers on the small spaces we are afforded to live in. Living space is an issue on a island like Manhattan. I once lived in a small flat on West 85th Street between Columbus Avenue and Amsterdam Avenue on the upper west side. This writing is in memory of that space on 85th Street;

West 85th Street Flat
(or, spaces we dwell in...)

In this autumn light
a mere fraction of the city’s
silhouetted, skylined, sky-scaped
landscape appears
from where I sit, on balcony.
The day’s near end.

One returns
to find empty rooms
as we left them so in hurry
in the morning’s brutal light rising...
Last night’s clothes tangled
in odd forms, dangles
and linger on the disheveled bed.
The coffee pot with unfinished liquid...
A letter half-opened waiting to be a voice...
Still life(s) of our urbane
existence.

Now, within sanctuary of home
however small.
Space measured by footage.
Like being within ourselves
these walls of wood and sheet rock
express us to those who may enter
such narrow hallways.

Within this space we make–
the thrills and downfalls
of every day echo
and find some resolution.

Here in this cockpit
I plot my course;
pilot-like, wanting to touch down
in what will tomorrow bring
with sleep’s landing strip approach...