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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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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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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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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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The basic metric unit I've been thinking in poetically's the pæon, tetrasyllable with one stress on the third: and subtly varying the beat count and the emphasis, occasional cæsura, I find it stretches out the thoughts that I come up with and allows me to continue, to connect ideas that I'd not been aware of at the start. This basic pattern of stresses which I've been working with (and which I felt a shock of recognition at seeing confirmed in Pelele's piece the other day) is opening up new ways of hearing my thoughts. Two poems that I wrote yesterday venture a little further afield rhythmically; today's theme is dreams and transitions.
Fuzzy Punctuation
The dreams which I was just inside
come back to me, they give my day
unasked-for structure, so the friendly
stranger walking by on Broadway
smiling beatifically
is in some sense a page from last night's dream-book
(though he doesn't know it)
and he'll stay with me: be
smiling through my day's transactions,
follow to my office, he'll be
watchful as I give my notice,
end another chapter
of my life-book, and his visage
in my dreams and in my waking dream,
illuminates this bland transition,
lifts me up -- his dark brown moustache
serves as fuzzy punctutation,
marking off this minor epoch,
leading on, betokening
the job search that's to come.
Mentor
You can't escape your dreams, the old man said,
and I was not sure what to counter with,
I smiled shyly, hemmed and hawed
and joked, I don't imagine I'll be needing them
where I'm bound, I was going for a reference
to film noir, but it came out more sincere than I intended,
piss-poor irony, the old man said Don't worry,
I remember what you're going through,
I'm sure that you'll pull through until tomorrow. --
Then what? Felt a chill, to hear him use that ugly word,
the one that I'd been dreading,
but he laughed, and clapped me on the back, and winked,
and said that I'd be fine.
posted morning of June 12th, 2011: 1 response
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Saturday, June 11th, 2011
Here are a couple of poems I have written recently. Experimenting with story-telling and with prosody.
Horizon
The best-laid tracks converge, they meet
way out there by the setting sun
confounding engineering dreams perspective in the desert
where the train runs off the vanished rails and crashes, yes,
it's tragic, sad-sack Sam the goldrush pioneer will never see his lover
who was riding west to meet him, look how Jesse and his outlaws
are confused, the hold-up won't play out, they may just ride their horses over the edge behind the train or else perhaps they'll turn back just in time, they'll skirt impending doom and spend their days retelling stories of the one that got away.
Crystal Armies
Fit the image to the meter
We can print it when you're done
When the armies that you're dreaming
Wander sleepy off the page and
Wave their effervescent banners
To the rhythm of your drum.
Marching softly, scarcely there,
You have to strain to make them out
Their dusty footprints on the pages
Almost like a printer's error
When they finally encamp
Inside your thawed out cerebellum
They'll build ghostly fires and sing
About the journeys of their fathers
And you'll scratch your forehead wondering
(In your clarity of vision)
Where the simple, crystal image
Of your verbal armies went.
I'd like to thank Pelele of Muchacha Recostada, who has posted what I believe to be a great poem, Mutilaciones (from 2009) -- my working definition of a great poem is one the reading of which alters how you read and write poetry -- I believe that "Mutilaciones," with its frantic, driving meter and its clarity of vision, will have a permanent effect on my reading of poetry and on my poetic output. "Crystal Armies" is written strongly under the influence of Pelele's piece. I'm working on a translation of "Mutilaciones"* which will be my first time (even dreaming of) translating a metered poem -- I do not think I am going to be able to keep the rhyme, but the meter is coming through very naturally.
 * Update: translation is here.
posted morning of June 11th, 2011: Respond
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Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
Below the fold, something that might become a first paragraph of a longer piece. I'm sort of wondering if it's worth pursuing; if you have any reaction to the piece I would be interested to know what it is. I'll post a comment a bit later concerning where I'm thinking about going with it; my hope is that its rhythm will grab the reader (or a particular few readers) and make him/her/them want to come along wherever I am going with it.
↷read the rest...
posted evening of May 11th, 2011: 3 responses
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by J Osner
Sinking into the warm black pillow of night. I’m dreaming
Masks, new faces, costumes I will wear
Internally, so I won’t know myself,
My face, my clean white tablet lies
There on the pillow looking up at me.
So paint! Draw crazy patterns on your cheeks;
Sculpt horns and wild protuberances, scars
Where your clean virgin skin is lying smooth.
Add blemishes and warts around your mouth,
Sprout tufts of wiry hair beside your nose --
just let yourself go,
make a May Day parade
of masks:
We’ll set them up
For all to see
We’ll let you know
Which ones will work,
Which ones will trick you out obscenely sinister unrecognized and sneaking stealthy sliding past
the doorways of your ego lurking dark around the alleys of your childhood memories;
And when I've gone to sleep I’ll see
My costumed armies waiting
And the desolation staging
Where they play.
posted morning of May 11th, 2011: Respond
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Thursday, October 28th, 2010
Versos sin sentido por Jeremy Osner
Esas palabras se dicen a mà mismo
Como los ecos que vibranse entre las nubes
Pero también debéis escuchar, escuchad
al voz de vuestra Diosa propia.
Cuando vos sentÃs familiar me decid.
Vamos mañana tal vez al paisaje de nuestras ilusiones
o a una ruina postapocalÃptica similar, nos
desaparezcase la iglesia, la iglesia de los padres, la iglesia de ayer.
from Criminalby José Cárdenas Peña
If only it were just the scream
the water's scream,
the rolling stone
abandoned, with no place to lay its head
against the storm.
If only it were just
the wound, corrosive wound,
the nameless passage,
flow of dead time:
the soft procession of the hours,
sentinels of fear.
If only it were the handful of herb
the herb which mates with blood
winnowed through memory
now it can say:
it is over,
the statue, the labyrinth,
angel's shadow, world which never is.
But behind this silent
anguished nostalgia,
behind you yourself
o wounded shadow who calls me,
swells the violence
the destruction over cliffs
over conquered ragged armies, ashes, dust.
And still I know the damage,
in this moment of my hapless lineage;
this ghost or god who from my birthplace
from my rubble rises up
this dove of the final flood,
and around me your words
your tongues of fire
baptismal conch
pouring out on your mirror of drunkenness
handful of naked salt
of biblical questions:
the mud, the signal, seed of man
your voice, your name, your sorrow;
the shape of just one tear
wept out for the dead
for fallen moorish idols
blood which teaches me to feel,
who cannot catch it, fend it off
as the sky fends off his luminous abyss,
the sea her piscene stigmata.
...
posted evening of October 28th, 2010: Respond
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Monday, April 26th, 2010
Pablo Antonio Cuadra's poem "El barco negro" (in Poets of Nicaragua) inspired me to buy the book  Songs of Cifar and the Sweet Sea, which is Grace Schulman's selections and translations from Cuadra's Cantos de Cifar, because I was so dissatisfied with White's translation. A really powerful poem, but the translation is nothing at all... Well: the book arrived in the mail today; I'm looking at it and enjoying Schulman's translations by and large. But her selections not so much: she did not include "The black boat." Rats... Ok, so here is my first attempt at a translation of a poem.*
El barco negro
Cifar, entre su sueño oyó los gritos
y el ululante caracol en la neblina
del alba. Miró el barco
—inmóvil—
fijo entre las olas.
—Si oyes
en la oscura
mitad de la noche
—en aguas altas—
gritos que preguntan
por el puerto:
dobla el timón
y huye
Recortado en la espuma
el casco oscuro y carcomido,
(—¡Marinero!, gritaban—)
las jarcias rotas
meciéndose y las velas
negras y podridas
(—¡Marinero!—)
Puesto de pie, Cifar, abrazó el mástil
—Si la luna
ilumina los rostros
cenizos y barbudos
si te dicen
—Marinero ¿dónde vamos?
Si te imploran:
—¡Marinero enséñanos
el puerto!
¡dobla el timón
y huye!
Hace tiempo zarparon
Hace siglos navegan en el sueño
Son tus propias preguntas
perdidas en el tiempo.
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The Black Boat
Cifar, inside his dream he heard the cries,
the ululating conch out in the mist
of dawn. He saw the boat
—immobile—
fixed among the waves.
—If you hear
from the darkness,
the middle of the night
—on high seas—
cries, cries that beg you
for the port:
turn your tiller back
and flee
Outlined in the raging surf
the boat's hull dark and eaten away,
(crying, —O Seafarer!—)
the broken rigging
swaying and the sails
black and rotting
(—O Seafarer!—)
He held his ground, Cifar, he clung to the mast
—If the moon
lights up their faces
ashy, bearded, jinxed
if they ask you
—Seafarer, where you going?
If they implore you:
—Seafarer, show us the way
to the port!—
turn your tiller back
and flee!
They set sail long ago
They're sailing for ages, in the dream
The questions are your own
forgotten in the ages.
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...A different selection of Cuadra's "Cifar" poems (an objectively better selection since it includes "El barco negro") is on offer at Pelele's blog, Muchacha Recostada. Also the whole book is online at turtleislands.net.
 * Wait no, that's wrong. So, the next attempt in an extremely infrequent series of poetry translations by Jeremy.
posted evening of April 26th, 2010: 4 responses
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