Alexander Meets Diogenes

gone to the dogs all right
and cynical a cur as any he knew
this purebred jackanapes blocking his sun
light would soon find his ass jumping
through hoops clearly over a barrel.

Hammering out a Definition of "Queer Voice"

--for Kenny Goldsmith

Don't throw a fit, egghead
If the hammer doesn’t fit,

Take everything down
And fit it all on the head

Of a roiling pinhead.


(My thanks to Joseph Hutchison for providing the initial impetus here.)

Poem

This scythe that cuts
Its swath through space

Of unremitting air, see it
Does not stop its wishing

To hesitate there.

Dénouement

to where road leads to
cemetery’s edging

marble moon littered full
circled threshing floor.

Autumn of a Lepidopterist

On edge

Of buckling, weathered
Red-tiled roof,

Orange-brown and black
Veined monarch trembling,

Like a leaf.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Me? So naive

I remember it hurt me
so like I was

so stupid, heard it out-
smarted

you, too?

Tiny Tortoise vs Silver Knight

Tiny Tortoise was found on its back close to death near the formidable walls of Ancient Messene last Sunday afternoon. I had stopped for "nature call" (#1) and while doing so, I spied what looked like a curious-looking, green-and-white checkered pebble to my left. Upon picking it up, I saw that it was a miniscule tortoise that seemed lifeless but I just couldn't tell. Remembering something I had read in one of Kazantzakis' books, I decided to find out. Quickly cupping it in my hands, I started to warm it with my breath; soon its little legs were moving and its head slowly emerging from its shell. I put it in the trunk of the car and took it to Meligalas, where it is now free to roam our spacious, weed-infested garden to eat whatever its little heart desires. Knowing that I might never see Tiny again, I first put him/her next to Silver Knight (all of 10cm tall) and took this picture to remind me how brave this spunky little critter really is.

On Getting One's Bearings Back

Bearing north near
The river, hard

Not to be hit
Hard by the joy

On hearing the waters
Rush by,

Heading south.

Evocative

relieve years of previous notions of light thought

lost but still motioning under rippling surface.

Getting over Being under the Weather

Housebound no longer
After break in bad weather,

Plant yourself under a branch
Heavy with rain, wait

Till songbird comes to
Lighten it, leaving you

Feeling fresh all over again.

On the Road in Hellas, Icons Come and Go Fast!

Marking the spot of a motoring accident, road icons continue to be found in ever-increasing numbers all over the highways and roads of Greece, but most of them at dangerous points where either the driving conditions and/or the recklessness of drivers have been responsible; if the victim is fortunate enough to survive, he/she thanks their lucky stars, i.e. God, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, by promptly planting one at the scene to commemorate the occasion. If the accident is fatal, relatives of the deceased take on the responsibility of the upkeep, also making sure to light the icon’s candle as often as they can. Not very often it seems, as the great majority of these sobering, seemingly inexhaustible little reminders of man’s motoring carelessness during his brief sojourn on Earth are falling apart from neglect—notice the missing fourth leg of this one.

NB: Photograph taken about ten years ago. Sadly, this crippled road icon is no longer standing, having long since fallen by the wayside—a victim of someone’s carelessness or of the passage of time. Sic transit gloria mundi? Of course, but in Greece you can be sure there’s always another one up around the bend.

NBB: I still come across people who ask me why I have never put a road icon up on the Mavrozoumena Bridge!

Vintage Year

--for Eleni

Intoxicated, we were

Drinking the sun dry
My love years before

The barrels were full,
The wine mature—

Not one drop left of the light,
To be sure.

Hellenic Hits: Volume 2

Recently received: Hellenic Hits, Volume Two: Classic Greek Love Songs 1920s-1940s, from The Zambaras Family Record Collection (cd included) $20.






If I remember correctly, Eleni and I first met the musician Tom (Diz) Carroll in Tacoma, Washington in the summer of 1993; at that time he had just finished a stint as an elementary school music teacher in the University Place School District and was also an acquaintance of my brother Chris’s wife Kalitsa, who was working as a cook in the school’s cafeteria. He was and still is an avid fan and proponent of traditional music from the Balkans, especially of demotic and rebetika songs from Greece, so when we first met, we had a lot in common to talk about. My brother was the custodian of our family’s collection of vintage 78 rpm records which were stored in the attic of his house; unfortunately, quite a few of these rare discs (recorded in the US circa 1905-1940) never lived long enough to be preserved on celluloid, having been discovered and turned into flying saucers by my nephew in his high-spirited youth. The ones that had survived the blitzkrieg were lovingly recorded on twelve 90-minute tapes by Diz and given to Eleni and me as a present. After returning to Greece, we started a correspondence with Diz and since then, he has tried to visit us every two years—usually around Easter—which is The Time to visit Greece! After having re-mastered all the tapes onto 12 CDs and giving us two copies of each, he suggested we collaborate with him and produce a series of songbooks based on our family’s collection; the first volume, Hellenic Hits: Songs of Exile, came out in 2007. More information on these songbooks and on Diz’s group, The Makedonians, can be found here—ohpa, manges!

Writhing in Agony

Not comatose yet—

Still struggling over
A comma, period.

Starlings

--for William Michaelian, again

Startling but not
Really alien, as in

Earthlings reaching,
Lifting them-

Selves up and out
Of the blue.

(This came up after reading William Michaelian's poem here.)

Asylum

The light goes without leaving

An inkling of where it has been,
Or where it is going,
Or of the darkling

Nest within.

Turning Point

Pinpointing the knife
Turning point-blank over

An unfulfilled bed

Full of wishful thinking, thinking
The ceiling’s all ready

Gone red.

On the Brink

He finds himself thinking:

One goes forward only when
Reversal brings him back again.

It's All Greek to Me, or My First and Only PoBiz Business Card

After having returned to Greece in 1973, one of the first things I did was get in touch with Kimon Friar, the foremost translator of modern Greek poetry into English. Madrona had previously published a number of his translations in issue number 6, and I also had a letter of introduction to him from his old friend, Leonie Adams, who'd taught one of my poetry classes at the University of Washington. At that time, I entertained ideas of perhaps devoting much of my creative energy and time to translating Greek poets into English and I needed some guidance on how to go about meeting these poets. I remember Kimon's kindness and interest during this first meeting in his flat at the foot of Lycabettus and his willingness to put me in touch with those poets he thought should be translated; I also remember his suggestion that I get a business card--I think he said something to the effect that everyone who is anybody over here has one! Though I never did much translation, I came upon a small printer's shop tucked away in a narrow street in the Exarchia district on one of my many walks through downtown Athens and promptly ordered two hundred business cards; this is one of the twenty or so left; this was also the printer who eventually produced 300 letterpress copies of Sentences in 1976.

Testament

The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne,
the snail leaves

a never re-
versing

trail of silver
over the earth’s

repository.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Worm digging

Your way in
To the mind’s eye
In earnest—

No hemming,
No hawing,
Till death—

Do us asunder.

Exiles

The man had been posted, for the usual obscure reasons,
to a small fishing village in the remote south. The prefect,
stepping out of a closet full of women's shoes, greeted him
with the customary formalities. We are all in this together,
the prefect said, as he removed the man's genitals and
tossed them gently to the others who had gathered below
in the square, and were howling.

(First published in Sentences, 1976, this overtly "political" piece was written during the brutal seven-year reign of the Greek junta (1967-1974). It was 1973 and I was in the tiny fishing village of Kotronas in the Mani, that once so inaccessible and desolate region made famous by Sir Patrick Leigh-Fermor's book of the same name, asking myself why I had returned to Greece after twenty-five years of living in the US.)

Gone

disappeared—

the derelict walked right on up
the wind-

swept street round
the corner down

to where (he remembered)

the old man’s shoe-
shine stand

ran down.

Goldfinch

caught
red-

handed
branching

yellow
bird-

like
twig

light's
song.

(First published in an untitled slightly different version in Shearsman #1, 1981.)

Guesthouse

After the sun's checked out,
Go into the empty room

At twilight watch the light
That's left drain out

The windows open
To the sea before you

Sink into the darkness
When the cicadas have

Wound down completely,
Do not look back.

Salamander

The "Milk and Honey House" in Meligalas has about five salamanders that can usually be seen popping their beady-eyed heads out of the stonework around early evening or so; they spend most of their nocturnal time motionless, glued to the ceiling waiting for moths or flies to come within range of their lightning-smart tongues and bam! no more stupidity till the next one's struck dumb. Somewhat like me when I found out some little red Salamander had one of my poems stuck on its tongue; thank you, anonymous little critter, and may you catch many more before the dawn comes.

How to Win Friends and Influence People in PoBiz

The Golden Rule:

Pity the poor, precious
Ordinary reader, poet--

Easy on the effluent;
Don't suck him in.

Déjà vu

My god every time
He reached for the sky

To be saved, he was plumb
Gone over the edge before

He knew what hit him.

Reaper

Hell, we all know you

Cut a mean, wide swath but
Before you get carried away

With all that useless fodder,
Don't tell anybody anything

That can be used against you
Till your dying day.

The Poet as Archaeologist

This man smiles at the coming of autumn,
The silence of cicadas makes him laugh;
even the wind-scatter of leaves pleases him.

Tired of digging in, he is digging out
from under the ruins of his measured words,
while his ancestors, having escaped him,

turn round and smile at the distance between.

(from Sentences, 1976)

D=O=G=G=E=R=E=L

bending

meaning over
backwards

mongrels vow
to screw

the purebred language
bitches

bow

a posteriori

wow.

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Hieroglyphic

[stone]
=======
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
[ ] [ ] [ ]
=======
[deaf]

Unrequited

Yours for the asking,
But don't

Ask me how that is.

Definitely Not Lemmings #14

My thanks to Samantha Rose for following this blog; she has a blog with a catchy name here and likes words and Magritte, among other things. Check it out.

Spellbound

Light's here to capture,
And therein's the bind:

Delight is to enrapture,
As spell is to blind.

God on How to Get Rid of Warts and Other Disgusting Stigmata

Toady one, do not prattle--

Go wash your hands clean
In this, my blessed hollow

Oak tree trunk filled with holy
Heavenly piddle and pray you

Do not return to tattle.

Irksome

Lonesome old cow I hap-

Hazardly tethered loosely
To this tree, twisting

The rope taut all night in-
To a noose instead of snoozing

Contentedly like Elsie,
How could you

Be the death of me.

Early Morning, Elderly Biker Hits Trail

Descending river

Bank road, brushing
Scent of dew-

Moistened wild fennel
Flowering before

Sun ascends.

Friday, DNL the 13th

No, it's definitely not Friday the 13th but it is Definitely Not Lemmings #13; thank you Mairi.

It Figures

So before you
Become just another

Statistic,

Carry your self over
To the next column

Waiting

To be tallied,
Mark off the cipher

No longer there.

Luck of the Draw, Boot Camp, Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, 1965

You never knew Jean Genet had a twin brother, did you? Well, here he is, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a genuine Madras shirt underneath a handmade Milk and Honey sweater knitted in 1964. I forget what brand of cigarettes he was smoking at that time (Luckies?) but I do remember reading somewhere in Genet's memoirs how cool his brother said his head felt. That was before Vietnam toasted a lot of his buddies, while he was lucky enough to sweat out most of his two-year hitch playing the role of Kool Kompany Klerk in Sandia Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Intricate Evasions of As

Momentarily, as

In the absence
Of something, say

It was just one

Of those things
That appeared simply

To fill the silence,
Then went on

Its way.

Time for Another Danse Russe?

Hey, whatchamacallit,
don't you see

it's about time

this thingamajig was
moving in on you better

watch out now watch it,
what you call it calls

the tune.

(A rewrite of a poem that first appeared in Sentences (1976) under the title "William Carlos Williams".)

Chasing the Elusive Muse

Before you promise

To keep your word
To catch her,

You have to let her go.

Jack Sprat Robinson, Sleight-of-Hand Man

See?

He's got wife with can
Of sardines up un-

Canny ass,
Eats her whole

Before you can
Say Jack,

Where'd she go?

The Lure

wind-buffeted

solitary white

chapel's calling


seas bluff.

Disillusionment

whatever it was
he was dreaming
it was not

what it was
meant to be.

On the Lunatic Fringe

No inner sanctum
At the moonlit inn.

Legacy

light inherits
dark remains.

(from The Intricate Evasions of As)

Definitely Not Lemmings #12

My thanks to Katie Murray aka don't be emily for becoming DNL #12; here's the link to her Promethean-inspired blog.