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Friday, May 28, 2010

Fast Day 156 May 28 2010 {A Wedding}



A Wedding

Enter Prince of Denmark with a flourish,
the procession of the splendid bride,
filling the monkish nave of gothic church
with fairest daughters of our countryside.

The groom comes forth fashioned without flaw,
reason and love tempered in him met;
necklace of steel and beads of awe:
he holds the jewels of ivory and jet.

God rejoins what He had put asunder
while Adam slept in sweetly scented spring;
agate rings of bone draw back together,
crimson-jacket birds of Solomon do sing.

Peony eruption ! Oh, those happy leaves !
The Love that giveth best also best Love receives !



-------
notes

Prince of Denmark   - a march
jet     -   a black jewel
peony   -   the theme flower of the wedding

form: shakesperian sonnet ( sort of )

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Welcome

I don't think I welcomed Dana Chabino to the page. Sometimes I can go on for years like that: totally unaware of what's going on about me.
Well, next week is old  # 156 , which will be 3 years  ( 52 x 3 ), and the week after is my daughter's wedding, so I think I'll try to do a prothalamion or wedding type poem. At this moment, I have no idea what it might be. Ideas for poems come right through the windshield at me driving 80 mph.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Fast Day 155 May 19 2010 {The Swimmer}




The Swimmer

I'm so near to heaven, that I'm too close to hell.
when you smile, baby, there's nothing I can choose;
forget the plans, and let my animal run loose:
swimming across the countryside,
starting at green iron pool fed by a well.

Subterranean stream under emerald pin-
cushion trees inlaid, swim its length to home!
drop social mores, naked as a poem!
The Bunkers, Gilmartins, and Clydes...
pools I've prayed at and pools where I've sinned.

I'm so close to heaven, I'm too near to hell!
cold gin with a twist within my reach -
Circe's scarlet warmth spread on the beach -
step down, babe religion - let it ride...
I palm the tawdry key of her motel.

-
notes:
Reading John Cheever's The Swimmer, and seeing the Burt Lancaster film based on it.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Fast Day 154 May 14 2010: Mothers' Day {Penelope Plane a Wedding}



Penelope Plans A Wedding


She steers the ship within her mind -
its neck taut like a goose flying -
around ev'ry shoal and brake
until it arrives home safely.

Like Penelope, she sits weaving,
planning a wedding in her dreams:
responses come flying back
like the feet of madmen !

Who will sing the honeyed hymn ?
There are countless birds on wing.
Who will lead us in the dance ?
There are flying fish upon the sea.


--------
notes
a bit early, as my daughter's wedding approaches, and I'm trying to get ahead through the second week of June.

The painting portrays a cottage and lilacs, but I think of it as Rose COttage from "The Jewel in the Crown" or "The Raj Quartet".

This is a paean to all mothers who have raised children...

pix:    http://cajeffrey.blogspot.com/2010/05/dundas-cottage-and-lilacs.html

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Fast Day 153 May 7 2010 {Interview with a Dining Room}

Desert Food


Interview with a Dining Room

Hunger strikes at the oddest times;
all of history! all the kings and princes!
Duke and Duchess of Graze-and-Nibble!
brace my palate, falstaffian cook!
direct my steps to a groaning board
filled with delights, coarse and refined -
from fishes' tongues a la Trimalchio
to a homely multigrain dark bread,
coarse and abrading as a pumice stone.

Give me food! Potatoes mashed and mixed
with twelve cloves of Xmas garlic
salt and peppered with shredded books
of the philosopher Baudrillard!
Ladle them onto my obscene tureen
of a dinner plate with the last copy
of William James, and let me eat!
Then you may conduct your interview
of the autocratic grand
Panjandrum of the Dining Room!

Sally Manjay of Saveur, magazine gastronome,
asks me questions designed to create
an epistalsis in my satiate brain,
and produce arpeggio thoughts.

Strange mixture: food and Phil -
she says. Never have I heard
a connoisseur speak of both before.
My plate is empty! I cry, and
she goes to get a clean one.
No! Wipe it clean and refill the same:
a palimpsest of antique delights -
build a pile of medaillons de veau
upon the trace of potato,
like a mediavalist rubbing out
Plato to accomodate Origen!

Drink! Give me drink!
Fill the flagon ten times o'er!
Lubricious drink, sight-gag drink!
Buster Keaton beverages overflow!
Wander to the licker house
where a madam lets you in
to survey the honky-tonk
velvet parlour and to sin
with bottles of a world's span -
their differing degrees of
transparency and undress!

Vegetable Sundance:
Ah, Bob le Flambeur...
When I view the film,
I drink absinthe and smoke;
and Ikiru brings sake swing-sets
and Pachinko in the snow.
Solaris is plain yogurt, Avatar is quince;
Casablanca is a dish of couscous
mixed with raisins, and Monsieur Hulot's
Holiday brings forth ramekins
of several delight.

The Arab poets as appetizers,
spicy and down to earth, a shitake
of metaphor and porcini of emotions!
The Chinese poets as dessert:
aery mousse set in a cookie matrix,
touched with lemons from afar!
What is cuisine, to you? she says.
Cuisine? I say. Cuisine?
Hunger is a wild-child, running
through Mauretanya,
he eats as he mates, impetuous
sudden rain storm scouring gravel arroyo;
cuisine is his devotion,
in-born and unspoken,
waters slow and wide where sediments build...
unobservable & unreal,
a wide alluvial fan.


---
notes

Sally Manjay   = Salle a manger    dining room.
Trimalchio  = ancient Roman gourmand
Buster Keaton = silent film comedian