Poems by Raphael, Bertolino, Tremblay, Hotchkiss, & Pesznecker

           

  

Five Poems by Dan Raphael
                  

                                                

        

Autumn Jade
           
              

 i’m where rocks trick the sea into jumping to evaporation, a 
     place where not all who enter return.
the road attempts safe expedience but always surrenders to 
     the seas wild cousins, to lord gravity,
cause we yearn for the horizon, yearn to feel the moon pushing 
     us outside of our skin
              
as the shadow of winter grows, the shaman in my bones keens 
     caution and memory,
a winter ocean is immune to, balancing the sun’s heat or absence
with a constant current of arctic based chill, a life of immoderation—
constant night or constant day–or like Chicago with intolerable 
     winters and summers
where the fortnights of spring and fall are unbuttoning revels 
     cinched back
when thermal extremes burst through the neighborhood
echoing like  compressed storms in the hallway that starts 
     in my throat and ends beneath me
                 
i could use a bulbous headed kelp strand as a voodoo doll 
     for myself,
waiting for the dot-sized nibblers who may already be inside me,
sensing my beached stasis to awaken and feast, to dig their way 
     to the Valhalla of open air,
protected from the siren influence of rain, rain that would carry us 
     to a salty airless nightmare
            
 a hundred miles inland my room gets colder when i close the curtain 
     to contain the heat
fueled by electricity made from captured rivers and eons-old sunlight 
     refined with the trees it fueled :
                     
the ½ mile away freeway rumbles as if it’s the ocean, each car 
     a wave heading one way
passing its depleted self returning the other,
having visited or delivered, having spent and eaten. .
nothing swims beneath the asphalt surface, the tide of traffic
pulled by the incandescent moon of trade,
as if each wave is going to shore to work a 6 hour shift.
       
still gravity tugs,    rain insists,   
and the 24 hour mantra of 4 wheeled wave after wave will break 
     through this false bottom
to liberate soil kept decades in isolation, like rip van winkle
quickly evolving through microchips and self-hypnosis
inexpensive technology and sales techniques
              
the moon surrenders so  the tide keeps contracting, exposing the bones
of previous technologies, unleashing the weather from its 
     gravitational bondage,
putting up the sign “commercial property–will develop to suit.”
as another 3 thousand sq ft vacation home gets between me 
     and the ocean,
takes another nibble out of the horizon
i feel like a cormorant when the slough between waves sinks me 
     into a valley of mountainous water
and in a microsecond of lost faith im not sure i will rise back to level
before the waves surround me

                   
                 
               

==

      

    

Building Faces from the Ocean     
                 

the moment of exchange with water and flesh in equal balance
destroyed by arms and flesh thrashing for their own sake,
                    muscles toned by disruption;
knowing which members of the orchestra to erase, depending 
     on the work,
like  a quilt becoming a modern sculpture with many holes & 
     partial patterns
we can extemporize to intersecting planes of fabric
sketching, from sand to storm, the 6-dimensional flexibility of
             gravity    wind    cellbonds    waste    & need:
                    
the beige tympanum throbs 4 times a day—
                                             we cannot hear it
but come to the call, trying to read the walls of milky jade
crashing into pre-syllabic foam we grab a palm full and repeat 
     for days,
thinking the energy will not be dampened by asphalt & sheetrock,
by the apollonian tides of commuter, the rich chords that
           ghost crabs, sand lice, & clams geyser up through the sand
                               praising the water’s diaphragm
                               flexing more miles than I’ll ever drive
unless I’m racing the moon from Atlantic to Pacific
on a surfboard of fuel-efficient water surged by bridging polarities,
where all invasions begin:
         
                                                the ring of fire
              where earth pulls back to edit,   to reform,
                   where land is not the battlefield but the prize,
sharing only the rain and the ocean, the fish like brush
we need to get out of the way and like the flavor of—
                                    an easy place to get fat.
                        

       
                  ==   

               
    

[untitled]
  

i hear ducks
                long gone south
as rain never follows the same path but
seen in another scale is so many ounces per yard
        soaking    sweating    converting
                          making gaps in the soil/skin
   punching larvae’s time clocks and survival systems
                
            A holy man
                can be in the rain
      going nowhere
              brimming with the information
                           all the tastes in one drop
                                    good as it lasts
          an instant & forever  
               where has this been
                          broken from the air
           chlorophyll webs incant to decant
        
         as if our blood
                           also clocking
                to change with the seasons
             each latitude its own blood mix
      the dna grid reacting to geo-magnetic here
                  from loco to logo
                  
   crazy without a place     as if names were where
          maps distorted to have corners
            human scale a hand over hand rendering
            
            As a certain tilt of the earth
               calls the birds back
       wings just a way of making fire,
                  of putting space behind them
                     
       as these dance steps
       defined by leg,  gland,  moonset,   cellclocks,
                      energy gasming in eye walls
                 
                              this complex choreography
                         simple as a 2-step, a 3-chord blues
    makes all possible:
            
                          sprout of time
                            rout of death
                   welcoming the shed of 
                        this skin-mind fraught with hurries
                       
                 to get to that freedom
              home tilting toward us
                   earth sprouting for our arrival        
                 
                   

==             

                                 
    

The Year Starts Dark

           
   
morning must be brighter than this
like the sun left but didn’t close the door
the difference between internal and external shapes
how the body sculpts,   stores,    moves around
                                     where does the light come in
when clothes are forgotten, when skin stays in its own yard
as if the power had gone out and wont come back, diverted  
     & rationed
as if I have to show my ID to get to a neighborhood with light
the sky heavy but unyielding,
like the angry so-disappointed glare of a parent you wish would 
     start yelling
so there was hope of a better tomorrow
or the sky feels inadequate for letting in as much light as it does
when car headlights are on at 10 am I know this isnt the world I went 
     to sleep in
the school buses are beige instead of yellow
I see a straight seam in the horizon
no one walks,  everyone rides.        
if I went to the top of mount scott would I hit my head on the clouds,
would they shy away from me, would the cloud grab my head
and suck the rest of me up into its maw, as if the cloud a whale 
     swallowing me,
about to ram into snowy cascades & me without a gps or snow glasses
flapping my wet gore-tex above the ski lifts
settling into the gray like a leaf thick crevasse
rain cant touch me when im asleep
heat worms transforming water into flame
as if plaster wont crumble when I touch it
as if the window I tried to open would reveal its liquid memory
the ceiling is 3 inches closer cause im floating above the floor
eclipsing the negative light coming through my bodys uninsulated 
     windows
my stomach like a garage door any remote can activate
I learn to sing the channels, to increase volume with a chord
but i cant sing heat or rain, I can only recreate the sun that’s been 
     through me:
instead of gutters I have bones to sluice the rain away,
bones gray enough to see through. as some water always stays behind,
pockets full of trade,  rumors of skies you can see across, clouds as 
     decoration not command.

when, if you knew the date, you knew the weather 
  
  

  ==
                                                  

                  
          

Corn
   

the more the cornstalks hear the thicker they grow
freezing the moon in yellow crescent, the sky clear
but starless, droning that can’t not pulse.
        
to wrap ourselves inside the concentric green:
tomatoes chambered like the heart, beans like space canoes,
the long-houses of squash, grasses feathering the sky,
revealing the bricks within the air that can be removed
to crawl through into green-sun-land
where the walking people are never hungry
& those who kill are paralyzed & malnourish::
                   
in its cycle, the green sun multiplies;
with the 7th sun comes a mist of faces, a rain of
inundating sweet, a sleep where skin is shed   bones
return beneath the clay   spirits reveal their
blue & orange gem-turds of memory   & children fly
to breasts resonant as drums::
                     
the first corn goes to the crows,
then there’s enough for everyone to get sick & sleep,
corn milk to rub into your lovers skin, corn silk
to bring back the sun in winter, cobs for tricks
& reflexes, stalks the earth uses
like straws like telescopes to connect & trade
with all the winds, to hear the stars’ legends
repeated like another layer of loam
                

      
 ==   
         

   
              

Six Poems by James Bertolino
            

              
         

The Distances 

                 

Over the patterned feathers
and up the elegant curved neck
of the heron, to where the point
         
of its beak seems to touch
the snowfields on Mt. Baker:
        
that great space between
the island and the mountain opens,
and someone steps off through
the seven distances
             
to where the high cooling light
becomes a doorway.

       
    
==

     

        

Nuthatch & Dragonfly

                   
        
A feathered projectile,
the nuthatch drills the air
between trees, then leaps
         
like a superhero from branch
to limb. Now it stops, enthralled
by an electric blue dragonfly
               
hovering over the pond––
it slips sideways, backwards, each time
tilting its bulbed eyes toward the bird. 
                    
The nuthatch realizes it is being mocked,
looks to another grove, and flies off.
            

            
  == 

     

Pathetic Cries
           

Yes, there are pathetic cries—
we’ve all heard them, and have felt
our composure collapse.
           
My friend and I were on the bench
at the pond––reading to each other,
making notes, and sharing
the pleasure of cold beer.
         
What we heard sounded like a bird
in distress, a young one, and Anita set off
to find it, moving closer
to the bushes near the water‘s edge.
                                   
“It’s here,” she shouted.
I went around to approach from
the other side of the foliage and saplings.
Then we moved toward each other
to find the wounded, or lost.
                        
“Look,” she whispered, “a snake.”
She’d seen its tail thrash.
But I saw a broad head and glistening eyes,
and behind it the snake’s jaw distended
over the plump thigh of the frog
whose leg it had swallowed.
                     
We heard that heart-disturbing cry again.
                     
I picked up the snake––a thick,
three-foot garter––and tried to gently
work the frog’s limb free of its throat.
The snake wrapped its glossy length around my wrist
and hand––deep greenish black with bright
red stripes. Beautiful.
               
My strategy wasn‘t effective, and seemed unkind
to the frog. We knew there was no way
the snake could succeed, and decided if we threw them
together, in their awful connection
to the water, perhaps the frog might get free
when the snake went to the surface
to breathe.
                
So with both hands I tossed them over the pond.
            
When they came up, the snake writhed
like an anaconda among the lily pads.
It splashed and shook, not wanting
and perhaps unable
to release its prey.
                 
When they disappeared, we waited,
watched for any sign.
They had simply gone under, and
we’d become smaller. Didn’t know
what to feel.                   

                  
    

 ==
                    

                  

                                                 

Mountain Lullaby      
         

May your sleep follow
the mammal of four wishes,
and your fists unfold
to blossoms of pink.
           
My your fears lapse
like fallen leaves, and may wind
in the bare trees
purify your breathing.
          
May moonlight on the mountains
bring a song of gathering, and the soul
of water enter your dreams
to teach you symbiosis
            
the way your first lover
taught you to kiss.
           

  ==  
       
             

Minute
       
           
Dew-drop mountains
roll immensely 
        
down each leaf, while
hummingbirds pinch minutes 
                   
stretched by the ponderous
thought of the worm. 

                           
  

 ==                            

           

Praise
             

Let us praise the poetry of pinking
shears, sharecroppers, potsherds, 
                     
honey-slaked peers, skates,
air, golden-spoked prayer books,
           
and koala bears that rub their noses
in the spice of Spring.
  

                  

 ==                                          
              

            
            
             

A Poem by Bill Tremblay
 

                                            

On Easter Hill

            
          
1.         
     
Caterpillar rippling across grey rock,
you carry a Persian rug upon your back.
            
Soft tan
with black stripes down each side
& within them
one strand of gold.

             

2.
    
Small white clouds launch themselves off
Horsetooth Ridge. Crossing the low waters
their bottoms flatten–footprints of angels.
                 
                
   
3.
         
Distant snowy tops of the Mummy Range
covered with Walt Whitman’s hair.
 

                  
4.
        
Pick up a chip of pine. Trace its grain,
its season of sun & ice.
      
Turn it over.
A fish appears–a pickerel, jutting it lower law out
& then a New York cabdriver barking
“Whatcha gawkin’ at, buster?”
              
             

5.
              
Carry this away. Not the cloud or stone of it.
The manner of it.
         
Turn yourself over.
Who is this new person
with a voice to answer the things of this world?
Offer a wedding ring.
     

      (from The Anarchist Heart by Bill Tremblay, New Rivers Press, 1979)

                    

             

    ==
                                             

    
                   

Five Poems by Bill Hotchkiss
     

                      

Semester’s End

               (December 13, 2007)

It’s two in the afternoon, last day of the term,
Incipient winter rich in the air as I walk
Across campus, a bundle of papers in hand.
          
Clouds form and abate, afternoon light
Touches the needles of a young ponderosa,
Just so, and each glows, radiates brilliance.
           
The pond water is still, reflects perfect
Trees and buildings, and the big perch glide
Slowly, not even disturbing the surface.
             
Stormclouds rise in the west, moving inland–
They’ll bring rain after sundown, red sundown,
And I am walking away, not even limping,
I stride eagerly now toward this oncoming storm.         

                    
             

==

               
                

Girl in a Lime-Green Dress
     
                   
The fields are summer brown.
             
In the bare front yard
Of a farmer’s shack near Honcut
Beneath gray skies
A little girl in a lime-green dress,
She’s wearing a pair of red plastic glasses.
             
Yellow hair all atumble,
The child leans forward
Like a bird of prey
And spits on the dusty earth.

      
                       
                    == 

                     
                               
             

Satch and Dick and the Bear
      

I wasn’t there, mind you,
But Dick told me the story,
And he never exaggerates.
         
He was in the side ravine, working
To reset his water tank, and big
White Satch the Akita asleep
        
Beneath a manzanita, when
Down the hill a considerable bear
Came wandering, not expecting
         
Human or canine company:
Dick stood up, waved his arms,
And the bear stopped, peered
           
Downslope, then began a heaving
Ascent of the canyon, breaking deadwood
And thrashing through poison oak.
          
Dick shook his head, looked down
At Satch the dog, still asleep, oblivious,
Dreaming of cats, completely at peace.
            
                    

 ==
     

                               

The Winter is Here
          

                         
I do not regret it, but now the year draws short–
Light snowfall dusts the Sierra, and all streams
Are low in their beds.  Yuba is sunk in its boulder trench,
While trout and pike alike glide slow and dreamy
In glass-clear image-water–the alders and aspens
Are yellow above and in pools, yellow leaves
Drift down though no wind stirs them, and yellow
Alights upon yellow, with leaf disfiguring leaf.
            
The seasons of man and woman are brief,
New year devours the old–Janus, it may be,
Looks back in sad joy, forward in troubled
Anticipation, may the temple doors stand closed:
But new year comes at a time of deep cold.  Life’s
Arrested, the oaks  forlorn, only the moss ablaze.   

        
     
                                        

 ==
                   

            
            
For Granddaughter Lee-Marie

       (Late October, 2007)

Child, you stand in the springtime of life
As I write this, though the month’s October:
I see you playing outside, at the base of an oak,
When sudden a burst of autumn wildwind
Rattles the yellow, leaf traces release, leaves
Spiral downward.  Quickly you turn, laugh,
Stare in surprise as a current of shimmer
Spins near, and you reach out both hands
To capture deciduous bright portions of gold.
   

                   
 
 ==
                                   

        
      

A Poem by Sue Pesznecker

            
                                              

Hawthorne in Winter

                
As the Wheel turns toward
Solstice,
an unseen hand decks the hawthorn
with red berries
and chickadee trim.
The Mother is cold,
arms skeletal yet still
encircling life.
Berries festoon bare branches
like bits of spun fire,
while tuxedoed chickadees waltz
to their own Yule carols among
a tinsel
of winter gold leaves,
spinning from branch to branch and
dancing in the wind.
    

    

   ==