Author Archives: Jeff O.

About Jeff O.

Poet. Writer. Musician. Educator. Editor, Alaska Literary Events Calendar. Organic Gardener. Bicyclist.

POEM: Pacific Storms (Brenda Hillman)

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Baffled dread one day,
hope the next; hope
shifts; dread returns, then
that also lifts. Sometimes
in California, hearing sentences
like, “The storm gates
have opened,” or “Storms
have lined up out
into the Pacific,” you
experience a cheerful scraping
between depression & what’s
here; in Portuguese, saudades–
there’s no English equivalent.
Crows over coast live
oaks, laurel saplings covered
with lichen veils in
oat-grass fields. The moon
is in Gort, Celts
might say. Ivy dies,
clinging. You drive along
thinking of a friend
who has forgiven you;
vineyards very gold, that
gold of school pencils.

……………

Brenda Hillman (1951). Practical Water. Wesleyan University Press. Middletown, CT. 2009.

POEM: Waiting for Icarus (Muriel Rukeyser)

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He said he would be back and we’d drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said that he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don’t cry
I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember mother saying: Inventors are like poets, a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added: Women who love such are the worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.
…………………
Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980).

POEM: Sleeping with the Dictionary (Harryette Mullen)

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I beg to dicker with my silver-tongued companion, whose lips are read to read my shining gloss. A versatile partner, conversant and well-versed in the verbal art, the dictionary is not averse to the solitary habits of the curiously wide-awake reader. In the dark night’s insomnia, the book is a stimulating sedative, awakening my tired imagination to the hypnagogic trance of language. Retiring to the canopy of the bedroom, turning on the bedside light, taking the big dictionary to bed, clutching the unabridged bulk, heavy with the weight of all the meanings between these covers, smoothing the thin sheets, thick with accented syllables–all are exercises in the conscious regimen of dreamers, who toss words on their tongues while turning illuminated pages. To go through all these motions and procedures, groping in the dark for an alluring word, is the poet’s nocturnal mission. Aroused by myriad possibilities, we try out the most perverse positions in the practice of our nightly act, the penetration of the denotative body of the work. Any exit from the logic of language might be an entry in a symptomatic dictionary. The alphabetical order of this ample block of knowledge might render a dense lexicon of lucid hallucinations. Beside the bed, a pad lies open to record the meandering of migratory words. In the rapid eye movement of the poet’s night vision, this dictum can be decoded, like the secret acrostic of a lover’s name.

……………

Harryette Mullen. Sleeping with the Dictionary. University of California Press. 2002.

POEM: WHY I AM NOT A PAINTER (Frank O’Hara)

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I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
“Sit down and have a drink” he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
“Yes, it needed something there.”
“Oh.” I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
All that’s left is just
letters, “It was too much,” Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven’t mentioned
orange yet. It’s twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike’s painting, called SARDINES.

……………

Frank O’Hara, The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara. Ed. by Donald Allen. Vintage Books. 1974.

 

POEM: It Happens Like This (James Tate)

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I was outside St. Cecelia’s Rectory
smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me.
It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish
brown here and there. When I started to walk away,
it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered
what the laws were on this kind of thing. There’s
a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People
smiled at me and admired the goat. “It’s not my goat,”
I explained. “It’s the town’s goat. I’m just taking
my turn caring for it.” “I didn’t know we had a goat,”
one of them said. “I wonder when my turn is.” “Soon,”
I said. “Be patient. Your time is coming.” The goat
stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked
up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew
everything essential about me. We walked on. A police-
man on his beat looked us over. “That’s a mighty
fine goat you got there,” he said, stopping to admire.
“It’s the town’s goat,” I said. “His family goes back
three-hundred years with us,” I said, “from the beginning.”
The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped
and looked up at me. “Mind if I pat him?” he asked.
“Touching this goat will change your life,” I said.
“It’s your decision.” He thought real hard for a minute,
and then stood up and said, “What’s his name?” “He’s
called the Prince of Peace,” I said. “God! This town
is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there’s mystery
and wonder. And I’m just a child playing cops and robbers
forever. Please forgive me if I cry.” “We forgive you,
Officer,” I said. “And we understand why you, more than
anybody, should never touch the Prince.” The goat and
I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning
to wonder where we would spend the night.

- – - -

James Tate (1943 – )

POEM: Sonnet 43 (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

……………

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861). From a set of 44 sonnets to her husband to be, Robert Browning.

POEM: The Raven Speaks (James Tate)

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I cut some roses from my garden, then went back in and put them in a vase. I put the vase on the dining room table and sat there staring at them for a while. They were yellow verging on orange with a red border. It was as though they were in motion, some private sea with tiny waves swirling about. Several dolphins were leaping under a clear, blue sky. I saw a man on a raft in the distance, just a speck really, shouting something and waving a white flag, but then he was gone. I went back to work, trying to solve some problems. Three thousand units shipped there, six thousand over there, nine thousand there, and so on and so on. I saw that it would never be enough. Everybody needed their units. And the planet was shrinking. You could feel it getting smaller and smaller. I stood up and went back outside. The raven had its eye on me. And I was watching it. It wanted to speak. It had something to say. I took a few steps toward it. “Yew, yew,” it said. “Me, me?” I said. “What about me? I come in peace. I mean you no harm. But enough about me. I hear you are afraid of nothing. Tell me, is that true?” The bird just stared at me and said, “Yew, yew,” again, and this time I took it to be in a sort of accusatory manner. So I said, “All right, I confess, it’s me, I’m the one, I’m the source of all the problems. So what do you want me to do about it? If it wasn’t me, it would be somebody else.” And then the bird flew off, right in the middle of my speech. I was just warming up. That was just my opening volley. He’d made his point, though. It was me. That bird didn’t mince words. Perhaps he will return, and we can talk again. I walked around the yard, always with the roses in view. There’s no way to explain what they do, or why they do it. Well, breeding, of course, but that’s just some madman tinkering with the secrets of the universe. The roses, still, have minds of their own. They’re just humoring the madman. Dried roses have been found in Egyptian tombs thousands of years old. I think they know what they’re doing, and it’s beyond us to even think about. But they’re slowly revealing something, that’s all. Just shut up and don’t ask too many questions. A car pulled into my driveway. It was Dustin. “Sorry to bother you like this, pal, but they need more units in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, to be precise,” he said. “Ethiopia?” I said. “I didn’t know we did business there.” “Oh yeah, big business. We’re hot there. Can you do it right away. They need ten thousand units,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Sorry to ruin your day off, but in this business the clock never stops ticking, as they say. Hey, thanks, Skip. I got to run,” he said. And, with that, he backed out of the driveway and sped down the road, narrowly missing a neighbor’s dog. King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba want their units. The man on the raft is waving. He wants his units, too. So much pressure. The earth is trembling. The mystery brews in the soil, then pokes its way out and starts to open. We gasp, jump back, speechless, weak, fall to the ground, worshipping.

……………

James Tate. “The Raven Speaks.” Raritan 23.1 (2003) and Return to the City of White Donkeys.