February 2009
VOL XVII, Issue 2, Number 190
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
INTRODUCTION
C. P. Cavafis
The City
CONTENTS
Michael Estabrook
Patti's earliest memories
Mom
Dad
Tommy
Lemon Cookies
Secret Lives
TWO OR THREE LONELY LEAVES -
My Wife in our Hotel Room
Every Single Day
Felino Soriano
The Afterward
Foursome
A Forgotten Noon
Thematic Slip
We'll See
Choosing to Believe
Examination
Deborah Cher
Can I Steal Your Fractured Heart?
A Long White Recorder
The Salmon's Journey
Esmeralda
Michael Lee Johnson
Gingerbread Lady
Harvest Time
Charley Plays a Tune
Nikki Purrs
Rod Stroked Survival with a Deadly Hammer
Mother, Edith, at 98
Joseph R. Trombatore
O Sole Mio
The Road Trip
Crash Test Dummy
Tin Can
POST SCRIPTUM
David Sparenberg
A HISTORY OF PROTEST IN MY LIFE
at 1 and 60
C. P. Cavafis
The City
~~~~~~~~
You say: I'll explore other lands,
And conquer other seas foretold,
To find a city that confides
A better life for me to hold.
Yet all my struggling here compounds
The destiny that I have found:
My heart (so like a watchman's lamp)
Surrounds itself with this grave's damp.
How long, I ask, with subdued pride
Must my old ghost herein reside?
I look around, as far as I can see,
Surveying life's offensive misery:
The structure of my time' relay
Is darkness, mildew, and decay,
Where I have wasted many years
Walking into empty tears.
But don't believe it: you'll not go
To other lands, or seas you know.
The city pulls you to your knees,
And you will struggle in the same
Streets that gather life's disease.
Greeting neighbours by their name
And waking each and every morn
In the same tenements you were born.
Instead of leaving you'll return
Without a shred of hope to burn,
To build that boat you've striven for
To carry you away once more.
You are interned, is there no hope?
You always did your best to cope -
And through a window, closed too soon
The world is mastered from your room.
Translation: 23/05/86 K. J. Gerken
Michael Estabrook
I have a new mission in my life:
My apprenticeship as a poet over the past 20 years has prepared me for my latest
project - The Patti Poems, poems (and some prose) about my wife. This project will
be my magnum opus, what I will spend the rest of my life on. It is all I
care about, all that is important to me. It (and she) has become a bit of an
obsession. And, oh woe is me, it definitely has a mind of its own, pulling me all
over the place, so far becoming a collection of 21 books. But well, so often
we do these things simply because we must. Patti is my climb up Mount Everest.
I must try my best to capture the pure, ethereal beauty of this most incredible
woman, not only the most beautiful woman I have ever known, but the most beautiful
person I have ever known. I'm not certain, quite honestly, if I am up to the task,
that I have the talent and poetic apparatus to be successful, but well, what choice
do I have really? Where is Dante when I need him? He has sent me off through
Purgatory and into Paradise all by myself.
Patti's earliest memories
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mom
~~~
A cinder block garbage house behind
the apartments where people keep their
garbage cans. A damp place with spiders
in dusty webs in corners. But we
still loved to play the run-
around-the-garbage-house game
(ashes ashes we all fall down)
running round and round then dashing inside,
hiding behind the dented smelly cans,
(eyes on the spiders)
being found, screaming, running out and
around and around the house again.
(Mom smiling the whole while,
hanging clothes on the clothesline.)
Dad
~~~
up on the hot dash of
Daddy's big Dodge,
my tiny feet dangling.
I wished he would go,
drive away with me up here
on top of the world,
all smiling, my dimples glinting.
But I know he'll never go because
it's too dangerous, he says,
too dangerous, says he to me.
Tommy
~~~~~
Tommy, the kid next-door,
already in school, brought out his
class project for all the rest of us to see:
a painted piece of cardboard -
a mirror dusted with powder
for a frozen lake and cotton for snow
with a tiny figurine ice skater poised
delicately there in the center.
I can't wait to go to school
and make something like that.
Lemon Cookies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After her meeting she had 3
or 4 of these delicious lemon cookies
with the powdery white sugar on top
like snow in the Himalayas
leftover so she wrapped them up
lovingly in Saran Wrap
and placed them carefully, as if she
were putting a fragile relic,
the tibia of St. Jerome perhaps,
back in its box, into the drawer
next to the refrigerator on top
of the other snacks, desserts,
and baked goods. I don't like these
lemon cookies, they're too tart for me,
but my wife loves them. "Almost
as good as my Nana used to make,"
she says smiling, brushing
a precious crumb from
the corner of her pretty lips. So
I was saddened later that evening when
after her bath she strode determinedly
to the snacks, desserts, and baked goods
drawer, yanked out her precious packet
of lemon cookies and flung
them into the trash can, cinching
the belt of her bathrobe tighter,
her jaw set firm.
Secret Lives
~~~~~~~~~~~~
She calls me at work,
8 in the morning, early for her, her voice
sleepy still, soft and sexy, sounding
like Lauren Bacall or Eva Gardner
must've of sounded way back when.
"Oh, it's you, I dialed the wrong number."
You always feel a little let down
when someone says that to you.
"Well who were you calling
so early in the morning
when you are normally sleeping?"
Slow response, she's not fully awake yet.
"Just some work thing,
see you later." And she hangs up
leaving me wondering
about what other life she might be leading,
secret lives get exposed all the damn time.
TWO OR THREE LONELY LEAVES -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cling to their branches, reticent
to release and fall to the ground. Below, leaves
are being blown by cold winds across the lawn
and I'm thinking again about being home with you.
This good evening when the sun is done,
gone down beyond the dome of the Earth,
we'll be together, just the two of us,
in our family room, watching a movie -
The Razor's Edge, an old one from 1946,
I am eager to see it again.
I am also looking forward to brushing your hair
or rubbing your pretty feet (whichever you want most)
allowing me to watch the warm smile sweeping peacefully
across your face like waves rippling
across a warm lake during summer.
It is all quite simply more than I deserve,
in this the only life we have.
If there is another life, a next life after this one, and afterlife,
and there is a God of some sort ruling there,
He (or She) will be very happy with me
for having taken such good care of one of his or hers
most precious and perfect creations all these years,
or at least for trying the best I could, like those lonely,
tenacious leaves clinging resolutely to life against
the relentless tug of the winds of time.
My Wife in our Hotel Room
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I look up from
my writer's notebook:
"8-7-07 - Metropolitan Museum
of Art - walked around
the modern art galleries again:
Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol,
Willem de Konig, not sure
I understand it all that well,
but it's amazing, simply amazing,
a fresh new way of seeing
(and interpreting) the world."
"Does your hair always
feel different
when you wash it in
a place like this?" asks my wife
standing naked and beautiful
as a field of yellow flowers
on the other side of our hotel room.
I respond, "Yes, I think so."
"Must be the water," she says,
as she turns and drops her towel.
Every Single Day
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I want to be with you
every single day of my life,
want to see you, kiss you, touch you,
hear your voice calling out to me,
soothing my soul, day in and day out.
Seeing you every day
makes each day worthwhile,
makes every day count and shine
on the landscape of my life.
Your presence pulls me through it all.
When you are not in my day
I find myself morose, anxious, depressed,
irascible, unfulfilled and incomplete.
So please never leave me, please
continue to be mine every single day of my life
or else it cannot be considered a life at all.
Felino Soriano
The Afterward
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Animals welcome and clash; bathe,
tilt within wounds, realize. The earth
of things, the connection of basic
intuition, the animal stride, its contoured
visibility through stealth interaction with
maze movement. Accolades, unaware
until the finding.
Foursome
~~~~~~~~
Silence and I admired
the lovers' intertwined fingers,
a smoldering display of
branches bearing fruit. They a walking motive,
a conceptual blur to the blinded passersby
dedicated to emotional content,
capturing a cinematic moment within
popular culture.
The lovers far away:
hummingbirds changing directions,
silence explained love predicts an existence
of manmade mazes.
A Forgotten Noon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We landscape thoughts of
mischievous and
peaceful embodiment,
copasetic layers toward memories
calling atop mind waves,
the intelligence of backtalk
found before time's now,
coherent beautified shapes, motions.
Surrogate day, the light among
many fading whispers.
Thematic Slip
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If truth is the projected mindset, the delicate
avenues and patterns which can too
weave into many facets of subjective deliberate
factual subsequent,
_the tongue plays villain
counterpart, necessity to contemporary
once antiquated revolving tragedy,
syncopated alertness though invisible,
the intangible thoughts crawl
counteractive deconstructing language
simultaneous within the mind's surmountable
blemish.
We'll See
~~~~~~~~~
The human admires vistas and
cliches. Which though is more
valuable to the psyche
vis-a-vis
implanting image-languages across
its gullible tongue? Spoken later
it goes to memory, tomorrow
will understand the hanging on fire
orange, its vernacular of gas and flame
too far to linguistically ascertain by Braille
or verbal connotation.
Choosing to Believe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The swelling of reality stings the eyes,
poured from multiplied palms
of hurried fata morganas,
atop the constant changing of
neurotic methodologies:
privileges
born as intertwined innate
shadows
adhered to the sculpted
senses of rising moments
of becoming or descending.
Examination
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Why"
was part of the anomalous
inventory,
attached to the speaking
in solitude
solitary spatial identity
individual,
whom spoke a foreign causational
tongue,
dislocated from aspectual grievances
of societal normalcy,
for his philosophy of independent
opaqueness
questioned that of the fashionable fallacies
of regular proprietary,
manmade thought.
Others did not partake
in the skill of listening,
rode on the horizonal horse
of distant gratitude,
splaying forth simulated reality,
believing the unanswered
resolves
the intellectual highness of unrelated
happenstance.
Deborah Cher
Can I Steal Your Fractured Heart?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No time to pack at twilight
Slip away quietly at dawn
Steal a moment to smell the mulberry that suckled you
With a squandered alphabet
The home is waiting breathlessy,
She is the beautiful prisoner
Quickening your heartbeat
Her siren song detonates your core
The toys grow old and dusty
Gnawed by time
The beds grow cold and musty
And the bare rooms tremble
By the lemon tree, the pool is green,
Life grows there, changing colours
Beneath the captured tears,
Pushing through to the surface
Come for me
Come inside from the deafening wind
Brave, ardent husband to an abiding dream
Can I steal your fractured heart?
A Long White Recorder
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your hands
Softly folded at a feast
Gentle Prince of hearts
Saturated with unbroken feeling
Your mother
Disguised as a boy
On the segregated slopes
Where your six pointed stars are buried
At the magical palace in Tehran,
Your smooth bronze fingers
Play out the sweet yearning
Of a long white recorder
The Salmon's Journey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I
Salmon tear upward
Flesh against water
From Ithaca
The sea, the great bowl
Draws them all away
Crimson Sockeye and majestic King
Plain little Humpie, sleek Silver and toothy Dog
All hear the call
Up the waterfall they fly, defying gravity;
A million miracles reach the summit
II
In slow, dying ripples
Bits of fathers flake away
To feed the fragile fry
Born to meet Poseidon
Esmeralda
~~~~~~~~~
I
Esmeralda sits on her rocking chair
Listening to short wave
I brought a comb for her long grey hair
We talk about her day
She was a gypsy
She was a dancer
The archdeacon was jealous
The hunchback loved her
She sits: a giant
Her words are falling
Pieces of a star
She sits: some kind of moon
Bright and far as a waning lantern
Her words ring like church-bells
On a Sunday afternoon
II
She was a gypsy
Played flamenco
She was a dancer
Had a lover
Didn't nations go to war to save her?
She liked to dance and have a good time
But she was only beautiful, and kind.
And there was no Paris.
"Mother, when she died, what hurt most?"
"Hearts."
"Why didn't you say something? How could you stand there watching?
And father, it was your fault too. You let them."
They killed Esmerelda
Threw her dripping heart to the ground
It shattered like an urn of blood
The executioner stared ahead
Bells wept
Michael Lee Johnson
Gingerbread Lady
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gingerbread lady,
no sugar or cinnamon spice;
years ago arthritis and senility took their toll.
Crippled mind moves in then out, like an old sexual adventure
blurred in an imagination of fingertip thoughts.
Who in hell remembers the characters?
There was George, her lover, near the bridge at the Chicago River:
she missed his funeral; her friends were there.
She always made feather-light of people dwelling on death,
but black and white she remembers well.
The past is the present; the present is forgotten.
Who remembers Gingerbread Lady?
Sometimes lazy-time tea with a twist of lime,
sometimes drunken-time screwdriver twist with clarity.
She walks in scandals; sometimes she walks in soft night shoes.
Her live-in maid smirks as Gingerbread Lady gums her food,
false teeth forgotten in a custom-imprinted cup
with water, vinegar, and ginger.
The maid died. Gingerbread Lady looks for a new maid.
Years ago, arthritis and senility took their toll.
Yesterday, a new maid walked into the nursing home.
Ginger forgot to rise out of bed;
no sugar, or cinnamon toast.
-2008-
Harvest Time
~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Version 5 Final)
A Metis Indian lady, drunk,
hands blanketed over as in prayer,
over a large brown fruit basket
naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard
inside-approaches the Edmonton,
Alberta adoption agency.
There are only spirit gods
inside her empty purse.
Inside, an infant,
restrained from life,
with a fruity wine sap apple
wedged like a teaspoon
of autumn sun
inside its mouth.
A shallow pool of tears starts
to mount in native blue eyes.
Snuffling, the mother offers
a slim smile, turns away.
She slithers voyeuristically
through near slum streets,
and alleyways,
looking for drinking buddies
to share a hefty pint
of applejack wine.
-2007-
Charley Plays a Tune
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Version 2)
Crippled with arthritis
and Alzheimer's,
in a dark rented room,
Charley plays
melancholic melodies
on a dust filled
harmonica he
found abandoned
on a playground of sand
years ago by a handful of children
playing on monkey bars.
He now goes to the bathroom on occasion,
relieving himself takes forever; he feeds the cat when
he doesn't forget where the food is stashed at.
He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market
and the skeleton bones of the fish show through.
He lies on his back riddled with pain,
pine cones fill his pillows and mattress;
praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads
Charley blows tunes out his
celestial instrument
notes float through the open window
touch the nose of summer clouds.
Charley overtakes himself with grief
and is ecstatically alone.
Charley plays a solo tune.
-2007
Nikki Purrs
~~~~~~~~~~~
Soft nursing
5 solid minutes
of purr
paw peddling
like a kayak competitor
against ripples of my
60 year old river rib cage-
I feel like a nursing mother
but I'm male and I have no nipples.
Sometimes I feel afloat.
Nikki is a little black skunk,
kitten, suckles me for milk,
or affection?
But she is 8 years old a cat.
I'm her substitute mother,
afloat in a flower bed of love,
and I give back affection
freely unlike a money exchange.
Done, I go to the kitchen, get out
Fancy Feast, gourmet salmon, shrimp,
a new work day begins.
-2007-
Rod Stroked Survival with a Deadly Hammer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or a pull of a lever,
that one of the bunch in her pocket was a winner or the slots were a redeemer;
but life itself was not real that was strictly for the mentally insane at the Elgin
Mental Institution.
She gambled her savings away on a riverboat
stuck in mud on a riverbank, the Grand Victoria, in Elgin, Illinois.
Her bare feet were always propped up on wooden chair;
a cigarette dropped from her lips like morning fog.
She always dreamed of traveling, not nightmares.
But she couldn't overcome, overcome,
the terrorist ordeal of the German siege of Leningrad.
She was a foreigner now; she is a foreigner for good.
Her first husband died after spending a lifetime in prison
with stinging nettles in his toes and feet; the second
husband died of hunger when there were no more rats
to feed on, after many fights in prison for the last remains.
What does a poet know of suffering?
Rebecca has rod stroked survival with a deadly mallet.
She gambles nickels, dimes, quarters, tokens tossed away,
living a penniless life for grandchildren who hardly know her name.
Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or the pull of a lever.
-2007-
Mother, Edith, at 98
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edith, in this nursing home
blinded with macular degeneration,
I come to you with your blurry
eyes, crystal sharp mind,
your countenance of grace-
as yesterday's winds
I have chosen to consume you
and take you away.
"Oh, where did Jesus disappear
to", she murmured,
over and over again,
in a low voice
dripping words
like a leaking faucet:
"Oh, there He is my
Angel of the coming."
-2007-
Joseph R. Trombatore
O Sole Mio
~~~~~~~~~~
The mice are quiet tonight. Their dreams of cheese, like zeppelins, hover
almost within reach. Flammable, on the verge of something quite magnificent;
news worthy; possibly a Pulitzer. You can sense the high-pitched expectation,
the hairs on your neck are standing. Cold-cut calculating as an Italian
seamstress bargaining with the butcher; she knows what hunger is - having
tasted the rust of needles, licked clean the stockings of tourists, played slap
bass for coin at the bus terminal. One should never have hair as big as a headache.
But in winter, when it rains, sheep get wet. When it rains, brakes squeal, cats
are prone to seizures, kidney failure; lizards just blink, because they know. We
are all waiting for our cue; cigarette burnsfor the projectionist to start the next
reel. One day, remind me to tell you about my Grandma from Catania; how she
came to find part of a rodent in her bottle of pop. Or the time I saw my very first
Fellini - peacocks in a forest of priests; long fingernails, tapping on broken glass.
The Road Trip
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Never mind the razor & the roses. There will be plenty of things to
play with, once we open our trunks; swimming & turtle hull. The ice
machine seems to recognize you; has a list posted with everyone's
bedroom nickname.. A paper umbrella hangs on the side of your glass;
a slice of pineapple begins to brown. What a mess the landscape
breathes - so much road kill in Texas. The Heron would love to expose
the side Audubon never captured; flipping crawfish at interlopers driving
by; listening for the crunch beneath a tire's track. Flamingos guard their
diet to maintain that glorious pink glow. Quite quiet & altogether on the
snowshoe; lurch & skip town. Beach blanket & a Barbie; white rabbit
ice cream; Barn Owl singing a baritone ballad. This is not the time, nor
place, for anything that's familiar.
Crash Test Dummy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No need for a shower tonight; your keyboard is stained black from
so many, after hour reports. That hypnotic sound of typing all night,
coffee cup rings; running water traffic jam; all that travel time has
got you bad. You're in a rut. The endless skid marks of seat belt
burns, like a fresh tattoo. The tunnel vision from all those brick walls;
billboards no one slows down to let you read. The sudden stops &
beyond - the dance of windshield & whiplash. You're like an old
Tiny Tears doll on Antiques Roadshow without its original box; not
worth as much in its present condition. There's another brick wall
right around the next corner pal. This time pull over, raise the hood
& just wait. You'll see. O you'll see.
Tin Can
~~~~~~~
Flat cake pan cake, usually green or red; never see the blue ones.
Tires try their best to make diamonds on the pavement; I give them
E for effort. Crows carry these off to their nests; make the Hen
proud of Poppa. He brings jewels from other kingdoms; saves up
just in case of a random ransom note; a distant cousin's bar bill; an
elevator made of pull tabs. Never really sure which floor to ask for,
just push buttons until the alarm goes off. Buttons & batons; that's
what life is all about; on & off switches, with a party, here & there..
A slap, a burp, a laugh, a tear. A fragment in need of revision.
A HISTORY OF PROTEST IN MY LIFE
at 1 and 60
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I did not do enough,
although it was in my heart.
I wanted to enjoy
the warmth of life
more than to put out
the fires of war.
I protested
but I did not sacrifice.
I marched
while the innocent and guilty alike
were burned by death from the sky.
Maybe if that child in
Vietnam
had not died of napalm,
the children of Iraq would
not now be
dying in my name?
Being an American,
I chose the ease of
what we call freedom.
I said, "No,"
but I did not make myself heard in
the power of compassionate
denouncement. I said "Yes,"
but not always to otherness
and not with the strength and
reverence of beatitude.
When I die
war will not have
left the lovely Earth and
should I come back in
the perfume of a flower, likely
the petals will be
stained with freshly fallen blood.
What child's cheek
may yet come to paint with
pain the soft white of the lily? What
lust may yet harvest
the agony of thorns,
while crushing the ecstasy of roses?
I did not do enough,
although I had set out
to make a monument of
War No More.
There is my failure.
The teeming world of
tears that so easily tips
into fear and madness
does not need
these words alone. Rather,
a communion
where none are absent. Where
there can be anger as
an emotional bubble but
not enemies and
not crimes of hate.
It is said that
freedom is not free;
but it is
death that is made wholesale.
The axiom is propaganda. Peace
requires the greater vulnerability.
I have done some:
having spoken
when others remained silent; having
stepped up on occasion,
while others withdrew. But I have
not done enough. I know this,
so do you.
That yet another generation must
plant the seeds of healing I
have dreamed of and they,
labor for the season
I have not known.
Yet have I read, in
visions of prophecy,
that a tree will in twilight later grow
at the center of the circle of life; the
weapons of fratricide be
beaten down, the vineyards filled
with the royalty of angels. Robins
singing and butterflies,
not boy-men crying
for their mothers' mercy.
Rather,
to dance in that round in
footprints of a loving God! To stand in prayer
blessed beneath that
earthly bough.
When?
David Sparenberg
3 Feb. 2009
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2009 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
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