September 1st

ah, that the poet shapes the landscape

first, in case you missed it, here is the Heyday Books advance PR blurb for No Place for Puritan.

http://www.heydaybooks.com/upcoming/no-place-for-a-puritan-the-lit.html

so the poet
engages it, dances it, gathers it, lies back on it and shapes storylines...narrative arcs on sand dunes, rain where dry lake beds mock the lonely lover, and a straight lined highway engulfs the poet in its square arms, what of my recursive path? Circles for me. I missed a deadline for the poets and writers California writers exchange, I assumed materials could be sent via email, like most everyplace else, but alas, when I went to meet the Aug 31 deadline at around 10 pm last night...it was a surprising snail mail deadline. I can console myself with the usual....there are probably 10,000 people applying for it and therefore your chances were slim...but...damn.

So here, in its lieu, in lieu of much missed lovers and daughter and dog and poetic stream of consciousness - it is late summer, fires scour the mountains and eat houses and a few people - what about the couple who tried to ride it out in their backyard hot tub? Reminds me of friends I hiked into Deep Creek with a few years back, who refused to hotfoot it out of there when I saw a major fire break out, downwind from us....they refused to leave and very nearly died while the fire burned over them later (I pretty much RAN up the steep hill to my car!) and they huddled low in the creek, wet towels over choking faces) - I can't wait to go to Burning Man, in fact my friend Van, one of the Deep Creek Fire survivors, is an avid attendee.

Now, to embrace the joie de vivre, here is a lovely poem by Bukowski that I found while leafing through piles of teaching materials, in preparation for my 12:30 pm Eng 1A class today (that is a little more than an hour away, and I've got to yet leave the house), and no apologies for being a poet and a bit off the worn path, as Morrison said, "out here we is stoned, immaculate" and tomorrow I have a very coveted appointment to meet with the renowned Juan Felipe Herrera (what a forever generous person and true poetry hero!) for a poetry get together and I know this will shot-arm me into my poetic and prosaic pulse, my fireline escape route from the flames, and in fact, my redemption and power. I've given up on comma splices, as you may have noticed, have seen so many students using them inadvertently over the years that it's become my latest poetry technique.

Made a Mistake
charles bukowski
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties (ruth: worn-so-much-by-me gray dickies t-shirt that it's shredded with holes)
and showed them to her (him) and
asked, "are these yours?"
and she (he) looked and said,
"no those belong to a dog."
She (I) left after that and I haven't seen her (him)
since. I keep (not) going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes are still there.
I take the Maltese cross (Indian dreamcatcher)
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to the doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship (beat up car missing a rim on drivers wheel) she (he) drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man (um, still young, not yet siliconed or liposuctioned or botoxed and proud of it 40 something woman)
wondering where the good luck (the hikes and poetry glitter) went.

sorry Bukowski, but I sense that you would understand.

off to teach - the wizard - ceiling fans are my best friends today - it occurs to me I haven't been on the earth nearly enough so it's time to go sit beneath the big trees in the mountains, the ones that were spared the slaughter of last century logging due to their remoteness, and have claimed and maintained their spacious identity, the big tree in fact where I've seen huge mountain lion tracks in the snow whilst I've cross country skied, in the Mt. San Jacinto wilderness. Yes, that's where I must go, soon.