Sunday, September 26, 2010

. . . a thousand words

I was feeling kind of lazy about my lack of posts this month and started looking at some friends' blogs and realized how much lazier they are.  Most of them are still learning to read, let alone write.  So thank you, lazy yet creative friends, for reminding me that photos are worth . . .

Padang Padang

Mex

style

not Rincon, NZ (3 guys out)

Scorpion Bay, Baja

SF

I drove around with this hat in the back of my car for probably a year or so
when I first moved out to California.   Now I'm a Nike shareholder.
I often wonder how badly a younger version of myself would kick my ass these days.

Lombok

Tahiti 
on the road, outside Reno

OBX

Gunung Kewi, Bali

HAKMAN

(Two stamps for me, two stamps for Sutherland)



Silhouetted, he floats on gold fire,
Gliding, smoothly, liquid across glass.
A Communion the church could never house.

Poseidon sweeps his trident:
Agua pura, siren song of the sea;
tempting foam fingers bring him back to her

(loving mother and jealous mistress)
crash clean over him, tumbling in her bosom,
washing the world and his worries away.

Living now in this moment:
footprints disappear with high surf.
All that is, or ever was, is this ride.

Showers diamonds with a flick of foot,
and a fan of flame in his wake.
Now close to flying, close to dieing

she stands up and over, engulfing him.
Lost now to the world, she won’t give him back.
Now he is home, but far still as heaven.



         “Hakman,” is an imitation poem based off of Robert Hayden’s “Soledad.” The title of my poem is the last name of one of the greatest surfers of the late sixties to mid-seventies. Jeff Hakman, known as “Mr. Sunset,” stated in a 1994 interview that “the best memories of my surfing career” were from riding Honolua Bay with his good friend Jock Sutherland while they were both high on LSD. That said, it is important to remember when reading my poem, the unique vision of a surfer on acid should be kept in mind and I felt it was an adequate adaptation from Hayden’s drug-riddled lover of jazz.  

Thursday, September 2, 2010

latest piece of poesy . . .


I find that my connection with my Muse is often strongest in foreign lands, and having spent nine months out of the last two years in Bali, I have been fortunate to amass a few pieces that speak of the land and the people there.  This last one though is more of an introverted look inside the mind of someone struggling with the frustrations that accompany the creative process and the role of technology on an age old tradition.

------------------


the pool has over-flowed
and outside the brick walls
the roads have turned to mud
and the road-side streams that serve as
both bath, toilet, and fishing hole
have breached their banks

the cows stand still
ropes through noses
lazily wagging a tail
always chewing stupidly
like a redneck baseball player in the outfield

the thunder has subsided
but the grey sky hangs heavy
as a wet towel
over my head

i've never written a poem on a computer
before now
i've always enjoyed the feel of the pen
on the paper
taken pride in my cursive handwritting
so constitutional
so outdated
so unnecessary

but sitting here
at this machine
fingers moving without looking
tapping keys to signal letters
are my thoughts any more removed
than those transcribed with ink?
Or merely distracted by headlines,
facebook, and the axxxess at the touch of a button

these are not in the pages of my journal
the hard brown one with the magnetic cover
I use only for poems
like a private hymnal
it's so easy to forget, looking
at all that creamy whiteness

between the

lines

to forget the times and
focus on the eternities, as emerson imbued

and now, checking how this all started
having to scroll up instead of merely glance
what moment was lost
what sweet whisper passed unheard
smothered by the pitter patter of rain
the incessant chewing of the cows
the sweet stink of a rising river of shit