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Sunday, June 12th, 2011
New businesses are opening in Vailsburg, Newark's western spur,
The sign on Sweeney's closed-down Liquors says a Subway's coming soon.
Improvement? Well perhaps, but anyways not detriment, besides
It’s good to see the signs of any economic life.
We’re riding bikes through Vailsburg, a group of us from west of here,
To see Marie and Ryan’s shop in Lincoln Park in Newark --
We’re waiting for some slower riders, an older man in slacks and straw hat
Chats with us about riding, about the 5-borough tour, he rides it yearly,
About his bike, a Trek (my model!), it's
“An old-school Trek,†he says, we chuckle.
Now the light turns green, we’re off, we ride due east, South Orange Ave.
We go
til it hits Springfield, downtown Newark and we’re nearly there,
We cut a little south on University and find their place
A few blocks down the way, on Crawford over by the school.
Marie and Ryan greet us and we look around -- Folk Engineered’s
Their company, builds custom bikes, with steel frame for classic look
And high performance, also something new, this year we see,
They’re putting out their first stock model bike, looks great, looks sweet.
Marsupial they’re calling it (still built to order), sleek clean lines --
It looks like an old Schwinn at half the weight.
They show us around the shop and walk us through the steps
Of building a steel frame, the measuring, the milling,
Ryan brazes lugs in for a water-bottle holder and we
Ooh and aah to see his reconditioned old machine tools
And the stately, austere frame that’s standing ready in a vise.
A lovely couple, they infect the whole group with their brio
And they serve us tasty crudités and cookies, fresh-baked,
Ryan’s cool iced-tea, we eat and chat and then we’re ready to head home.
On the way back I break from the group to get home a bit faster,
Sky is clouding up, the rain will come down soon, I think as I look up.
I always feel a little twinge as I ride by South Eleventh Street,
Where Brother’s BBQ was, my old favorite, it’s been closed for years.
I get back to South Orange, sweat is pouring off me,
Coast my way down Montrose in the cloudy twilight, here I am, back home.
So I’ll write up this whole journey as a verse and post it on my blog --
A verse? I’ve never done this -- but it fits to some rough meter,
So let’s get it out there, click on "Publish," see what people think.
Click through for more photos of the shop.
posted evening of June 12th, 2011: 3 responses
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Monday, June 13th, 2011
This is my translation of Pelele's poem "Mutilaciones," which touched me so strongly when I read it last week.
Hacking it Apart
by Eduardo Valverde
The cripple in the morning
is the flight, the flight to nowhere,
is the light, the graveyard's light
that's shining, shining in my windows,
it's the bus, the line of buses
stinking sweetly on the roadway,
it's the cat up on the rooftop
where it's watching over the bells.
Half-blindness in the morning
is the frigid bite of dawn,
and forgetfulness's knockers
have no prince, have just a frog,
with the freezing rain foreseen
inside the blossom of my eyes,
inside the corpses of my
promised lands, still warm.
Half-lameness in the morning
is the spirit of the road,
and I've got my eyes wide open,
got my shrunken spirit's cough;
the sun, the half-lit sun, oh
how it's burning in their motors,
it's the end of every heartbreak,
they're in mourning for their games.
The birds get off scot-free,
my reading glasses going blind,
with whole decades slowly
dawning on this Monday.
A tantalizing thought I had on the train home this evening: with fairly minor rewrites, this poem could be set to the tune of David Rawling's "I Hear Them All".
posted evening of June 13th, 2011: 4 responses
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Tuesday, June 14th, 2011
At People's Park in Berkeley Howard rants,
he preaches apathy, he begs for change
to buy the food he cooks and gives away.
He sits in lotus, undetected, immanent,
composing rhymes, he sits beneath
the gray sun rising over San Francisco Bay.
The students whom he greets with vulgar
epithets adore him, old man Howard with the
tattooed forehead and the scar across his cheek;
they read him poetry and give him money and they
hark to his pronouncements, he's their oracle,
he's growing leaner week to week.
One Friday he's not there, he must have caught
the bus to Portland, or to Stockton, someone
thinks he heard he has a cousin there;
some relative, a place to crash, a place to
spend the winter without freezing -- who knows
when the East Bay will again see Howard's glare.
The wise old man's gone missing, and the kids will
have to find another object for their primitive
religion, for their idle lark.
Cast your glance across the lawn here,
north to Haste where palm trees grow;
where the homeless men panhandle,
up in People's Park.
posted evening of June 14th, 2011: 2 responses
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Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
The past few days I rode my bike up Walker in West Orange,
There's a hill there up the east side of South Mountain, behind Northfield,
That I've always dreamt of climbing, never done it yet but soon I will,
It's steep, it curves in switchbacks, steep as Lombard Street in Frisco
(which I've never pedaled up, God knows, but maybe if I lived there --)
There's the slope up to Wyoming, which I've ridden many times --
It's a hard slope, tires me out, but I know that I can do it --
Then you ride across Wyoming and it gets a good deal steeper,
That's the hill that always kills me, I can only make it halfway up.
Last night I rode up Luddington, a tiny street, one-way,
Where the slope's a bit more gradual, you're riding transverse up the hill;
I made it up to Lowell Street, as far up as I've ever gone,
But there you have to turn and pedal straight up or straight down.
I took the downhill route -- my legs were just about maxed out,
And there was still another couple hundred feed of climb to go --
So I flew on down the mountain, rushing air around me cooled me down;
I'll take another try tonight and see how far I go.
Riding up a hill's a simple calculus, no need for subtle
Reckoning: your lowest gear, you push, you pump, keep pedaling,
Your cadence slowing down until your legs are scarcely moving,
Maybe you can push yourself along another couple meters;
Then you'll stop, you'll turn around, you'll glide downhill -- exhilarating!
And you get back to the bottom, and you wonder, should you take
Another pass? But no: you head home, drink a beer, you'll try again...
Tomorrow -- Ah, and when you reach the crest, what sense of mastery --
So move on to a steeper mountain, start it all again.
posted evening of June 15th, 2011: 1 response
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Saturday, June 18th, 2011
I've been writing a lot of poetry lately (last week or two or three) -- if you've been reading the blog you have probably noticed... I thought I would just post a brief outline of the process I've been following. (Because: a key part of this process has been analysis, trying to understand what I am doing/seeking in writing the poetry, and how I am going about it. My instinct is that this kind of analysis should be stifling to creativity, but that has not been my experience, in this moment, not at all. The more I ask "why" and "how", the more it seems to work...)
Today I was riding my bike, for exercise and to do some errands. (Made it a little farther up Walker Street!) I was over by Vose and South Orange Ave. when a woman walked by and I overheard her saying to her friend, "Oh, I thought that was my car there by the corner -- we need to walk a little farther." This struck me as funny, and turning it over in my head I heard the first line of a silly poem. Riding along I started repeating this line in a sort of sing-song and it started fleshing itself out with more lines and a structure.... And that's basically how it usually happens, flowing out of a single line or couplet that I "hear" -- The composition works best when I am walking or riding bike, the rhythmic movement gives a background for the rise and fall of syllables (hmm: typing seems to do it too, a bit) that serves best as background for the composition process. A side effect of this is that when I'm reading the poem later on, it is easy to fall into that sing-song; the poem sounds better if I avoid this.
So once I've got a rough idea of the poem in mind, I write it out longhand, usually without division into lines -- the homemade notebook I got from Woody and Lisa has been serving me very well. Let it set a few hours or a few days and then I type it up with line divisions, often I will post it on the blog, usually it is nearly complete by that time -- each point of copying the poem, head to paper, paper to screen, screen to blog, involves revisions. And often I will see a couple of light edits that still need to be made after it has gone up on the blog.
Anyways: I am off to have some coffee and write out that poem. I'll post it later on as an update to this entry, assuming it comes together like I'm thinking it will.
 Update: Yes -- This one came together very quickly and easily. Little substance but some fun imagery.
Parking Lot
Forgetting where you’re parked, a pleasant exercise, I recommend it,
silly mindless feeling, walk around the parking lot with
bags of groceries, or books, or cat food, hardware that you bought to build
your latest home improvement project,
5# nails are clanking in the bag and in your mind
you see
a silver Nissan, license plate
you’ve seen so many times
the image crystal clear imagined,
in the back seat is the laundry that you mean to drop off yesterday
but didn’t, thought I parked it over here, indeed a car
that looks just like mine from a distance -- but it’s not,
and here’s the owner,
now he’s taking out his keys and starting off, I’m back to square one
and I dig back through my memory, I opened up the door
and as I looked over my shoulder saw a note forbidding tresspassing:
it warned illegal parkers would be ticketed, behind that
was a yellow sign; that yellow’s over this way now, so clearly
I was looking that way, must have been right here -- let’s see...
I turn and orient myself, I’m looking at my car.
↻...done
posted morning of June 18th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, June 19th, 2011
Someone must know Brooklyn, all of Brooklyn, that’s what I was thinking
Riding past the sidestreets that line Red Hook, names I’ve never heard
Like Visitation Pl. and Wolcott, Coffey St., evocative,
Some modern-day Walt Whitman must have walked down all these paths, must know
The neighborhoods from Red Hook out to Sunset Park and Sheepshead Bay,
Canarsie, know the subway stops in Midwood, where to grab a bite
In East New York -- for all the time I lived here, my familiar steps
Are clustered in a narrow strip around Flatbush, long thin fingers running
South down Seventh Avenue and west along Atlantic, when
I think of Brooklyn what I see’s a small part of the borough, pictures
Culled from my meanderings through Park Slope (mostly),
Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill. Today, we rode
Our bikes out to Ikea, it was great to see the borough through
New eyes, see corners foreign to my memories, my expectations,
Corners where a million dreams have played out, dreams of glory,
Where the docks begin, where underneath the pavement are the cobblestones
(They’re coming through in places, makes for shaky riding) -- stones
With memories of wartime and of labor struggles old and new, of
Love affairs between the street lamps, lovers whom I’ll never know,
I’ll never know the neighborhoods I’ve never been to, riding
Down the street here, through the crazy sunlight, colors catch my eye. The sun
Shines on a fading shipper’s sign, a sign down by the waterfront,
Old industry is everywhere, these piers, these cranes, these factories,
These crumbling bricks were witness to the unnarrated histories --
A million rises, unmourned falls (a bright red arrow points the way
To Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies, we ride down there and walk the pier,
Trade looks and salutations with the rows of solemn fishermen) --
This new Red Hook’s delectable, a feast of light, we’re riding back now,
Savoring the wind that blows at angles off the waterfront
And thinking thoughts of driving back to Jersey and the week to come.
We hit Atlantic, now I’m back, the Brooklyn that I know and love,
Stop by Damascus Bakery and buy some bread for lunches
For the week, and every place I set my foot rings through familiar;
What new Whitman will I find to map this borough’s soul for me?
 Eileen, Ellen and Rick
air-fishing on Valentino Pier.
Lady Liberty looks on.
posted evening of June 19th, 2011: 4 responses
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Monday, June 20th, 2011
A parking lot I walk by every morning on my way to work prompted this poem, composed on the way to work this morning and revised on the way home this evening.
CrumpledSympathetic gleaming crumpled chassis by the body shop,
I pass her every morning when I'm walking to the train: a shame --
been there two months, I guess she's totalled, looks brand-new...
except for at the front end where her frame is mashed together...
shiny hood is bent in half; bright jet-black paint job powerless
to cover up the damage that's been done.
This parking lot image also had a role to play in shaping my response to Dave Bonta's prompt at today's Morning Porch.
Update -- another use of the parking lot image.
posted evening of June 20th, 2011: Respond
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Thursday, June 30th, 2011
A new poem from Pelele had the happy effect of reminding me of one of my very favorite poems, Kenneth Koch's "Lunch" -- and the funny thing is, I was noticing similarities to "Lunch"  even before I looked up to the top of the poem and noticed Pelele's title...
Breakfastby Eduardo Valverde
Last night I dreamed of you -- or of your father:
a tall man under his hat.
The place I found myself reminded me,
its silence, of a bird -- a bird that’s sleeping,
an engine, maybe, lying in the junkheap.
He came along, his face drawn long, like kids
when they play at grown-up
or like a bankrupt god
who tallies up his mornings carefully
and finds that all that glitters is not gold;
he carried a green bottle in his hands
and the analgesic pain that comes of touching earthly things.
He spoke enthusiastically of the sea's paternal womb,
of land unmapped, unconquered, which begins off in the darkness --
in every single letter of the word, “desperation†--
He spoke of a taste like olives, of the flavor in her breasts,
in hers who never aged but who had brought forth many daughters
each with olive nipples;
of the unease that he feels before the window in a photo
in which a bowl of fruit is standing lonesome on the floor
of the hallway in a vacant house --
or I should say, before the light that’s coming through the window,
an angel hewn of green basalt;
a solid angel, weak Annunciation.
He poured me out a cup and took the bottle by its neck.
Could not remember you; but he said,
with joy in his eyes, he said My kids were like the rattle
of the hills when trains are rolling by;
like a pack of dogs, dogs baying in the distance
to push your weary heart along the journey.
It must have been getting dark, I guess -- a solitary lamp
was turning back to ash his eyes and moustache
And me, I was anxious, I needed to pee;
I felt my dress was falling into shadow --
its weight returning --
raised my hands to my cheeks and found I was not dying
nor was I really back among the living.
 Two images in particular seem like they could have come from Koch's pen, the woman "who never aged but who had brought forth many daughters/ each with olive nipples", and the man boasting, "My kids were like the rattle/ of the hills when trains are rolling by" -- also the general flow of the text and of voice reminds me of Koch. (I have probably intensified this similarity in my translation; but I believe it is present in the original as well.) The "analgesic pain that comes of touching earthly things" is going to stay with me for a long time.
posted evening of June 30th, 2011: 2 responses
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Monday, July 4th, 2011
Woke up with a song ringing in my ears and a poem drifting through my head.
My shadow has no memory of
that frantic, panicked, pell-mell flight --
No pain or expectations, craving,
dying to escape his bondage.
Look, he's crouching, vibrates with
desire that only shadows feel;
He's poised to spring, to pounce, as if
the shadow of some predator,
Some dusky, fleeting contrast on
the sidewalk of my consciousness,
Some ragged blank impression on
the sand dunes of my memory --
We move, the spell is broken, sliding
frictionless along the garden
Seeking our reflection in
the pools of last night's rainfall,
In the golden machinations of the sunlight from the east.
posted morning of July 4th, 2011: Respond
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Sunday, July 10th, 2011
Still thinking about Cuadra, about the teacher and his teachings,
I met up with local cyclists for our Sunday morning ride.
We rode today through glorious weather up to Thomas Edison’s
Old factory in West Orange, to see the rusty old machinery,
The evidence that a genius once called our small hamlet home.
But I didn’t take the tour, still felt like riding, so I split off
From the group and rode up Eagle Rock into the reservation.
It’s a long, slow climb, fantastic when
You get up to the top and see
The valley spread before you,
Tops of trees like ocean waves and
White rooftops like breakers stretching out
Through Hudson County, in the distance see the
Skyline of Manhattan silhouetted in the yellow haze.
Until 2001 that skyline peaked at two glass towers --
Here the county’s built a shrine to the thousands dead who fell that day;
I walked along the path and looked across into the past, remembered
That September morning a decade past, and all the time gone by since then.
This is a different Eagle Rock, no maestro sat here telling riddles;
It’s got its own long history, its meanings and its influence.
I rode back down to meet the group, the wind was blowing past me hard,
It blew away deep memories that had bubbled to the surface,
Cleared away my thoughts of ages past,
My darkening meditations
And the sunshine of this summer morning
Calmed that frothing turbulence --
Rode back home with the group, and now a quiet afternoon.
posted afternoon of July 10th, 2011: Respond
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At Shady Characters, Keith Houston opens his 