Leaving Letting Go

A selection from the collection of forty-nine poems.

I Laugh in Yellow

I laugh in yellow

In green I dream

In blue I brood

In red I scream

Vines

Written to accompany a show of 91 Vine drawings.

Vines intertwine

Encircle and bind

Spiraling bower

Deep root to flower

Timelines unwind

Winding through time

Trumpet and briar

Blooming in fire

Room

Studying seven centuries of Western painting, I find many images of women in submissive posture. This poem accompanied a greyscale collage that was exhibited widely in a group show City Room Garden.

 A woman dips her head and curves her spine

when she sets the table, says grace, pours milk

(men pour wine); 

sews, irons, puts up linen,

bathes children, serves older women;

reclines naked, serpentine,

an odalisque of hairless line;

mourns, marries, or is Mary,

chosen to be the mother of God;

picks nits, gleans sod.

Only the young are straight,

a dancer, a pianist, a princess. 

I collage Giotto, Lippi, Fra Angelico,

van Eyck, Velasquez, Vermeer,

de Hooch, Chardin, Ingres,

Corot, Cassatt, Matisse.

The women surround an iconic room,

Leonardo da Vinci’s baby in a womb. 

The bent backs and curving spines

lend a pleasing repetition to my design,

a theme and variation, an underlying order,

a unity of purpose, a charming trefoil border.

Marcia Ball on Texas Avenue

I was caught in traffic on Texas Avenue on my way north to Discount Carpet in downtown Bryan.  I stopped in a parking lot and wrote this down.  When I got to Bryan, I read it to the owner of the carpet store, and he called his men to him to take a break and listen to me as I read the poem to everyone.  We sat in a simple circle as the light flooded in from the high old windows.

Texas Avenue Sucks.

Too many high-assed cars nosing smug vans.

Not enough trucks.

With any luck

I’ll get to Bryan before dark.

I pass a four car pileup,

a state trooper in shades. 

Maybe I should chuck

it all and move to Snook.

It still goes both ways

in Aggieland, U.S.A.,

but now it’s just an L.A. street,

More crowded than a mosh

pit, Pico with no carwash.

Finally I catch a rhythm,

Marcia Ball is singing

     “you’ll find another fool,”

her Mama’s cookin’ with a

     sweet dark roux.

We caught her at the Cantina,

bringing us good, good news,

red nails flying on the piano keys;

     and legs

as long as Texas Avenue.

                                           The Goddesses Speak

                                           Advice about Bastards

          Persephone, the Daughter, says:  Disobey the Bastards

                    Aphrodite, the Lover, says:  Don't Sleep with the Bastards

                              Hera, the Wife, says:  Divorce the Bastards

                    Demeter, the Mother, says:  Don't let the Bastards get you Down

Hestia, the Keeper of the Hearth, says:  Ignore the Bastards

                      Athena, the Thinker, says:  Outwit the Bastards

                      Artemis, the Hunter, says:  Outrun the Bastards

     Hecate, the Wise Old Woman, says:  Outlive the Bastards

Berkeley TV

Remembering 1968-1969

When I was living in Berkeley,

my mother sent me a TV.

My hair was long then,

a Sassoon cut grown out.

I wore ten dollar dresses

covered with flowers

(so short one made a pillow)

past the succulents at my front door,

on the bus to the city

suspended between bay and fog,

to lie on the floor at the Art Institute,

lace at my throat, shells on my forehead

above innocent eyes;

to hear Janis at Winterland.

I wore jeans to lay sod at People’s Park,

and the night we were gassed by a phalanx of Martians,

and on marches down Telegraph

when hippie girls slid flowers into rifles

of National Guard boys,

both nineteen, fraternizers.

I smile when I remember the Indian vest I wore over bare breasts.

The little mirrors caught the light of Crazy Joseph’s candles.

I never turned on the TV.

No Fat Cat

An angry poem I once wrote about male dominance. 

I think it continues to captures the zeitgeist.

No fat cat,

     Ass pat,

ace in the hole, cat in the hat,

Hail Mary pass, broken field run,

bowl bid –

Number One!

No top dog,

     Top gun,

alley-oop! home run,

jackpot, gusher, killing, coup,

clout, rout –

Ballyhoo!

No hot shot,

     Hot hand,

goin' to the promised land!

inside tip, fix in,

kickback, stock split –

Big Win!

No favorite son,

      Son of a gun,

golden boy, place in the sun,

good-ol' boy, one of the guys,

Emmy!  Oscar! –

Nobel prize!

No friends in high places,

     Old school ties,

hard ball, soft money, little white lies,

first round draft, lucky call,

shoot out, shut out –

Game Ball!

 Fishing

 January 29, 2010 – May 27, 2017

My fingers glow

Subsurface scattering

Two hands up

Holding back the light

The blinding white light of the MSW doc

A doc, a pool of light

Am I fishing for

a metaphor?