Marlene Hitt and Brenda Petrakos - Featured Village Poets on May 24, 2015

The Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga are delighted to announce that poets Marlene Hitt and Brenda Petrakos will co-feature at the upcoming Monthly Reading Series, Sunday, May 24, 2015, 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m., at Bolton Hall Museum 10110 Commerce Ave., Tujunga, CA 91042.  

Poets are welcome to sign-up for the open reading upon arrival.  Light refreshments will be served – a $3.00 donation is appreciated! 

MARLENE HITT

 Marlene Hitt is a Los Angeles poet, writer and retired educator with local history as an avocation. She has served  for many years as archivist, historian and docent at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga. She is a native Californian and a graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles. She studied casually at CSUN, UCLA, USC, Glendale College and Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. As a member of the Chupa Rosa Writers of Sunland for nearly 30 years, she has worked with this small group of poets from which has sprung readings at the local library, the Poet Laureate Program of Sunland-Tujunga, and the currently popular Village Poets.

Her poetry received several first prizes in annual competitions of the Woman's Club of San Fernanado Valley, and many awards from the John Steven McGroarty Chapter of the California Federations of Chaparral Poets. Her work appeared in Psychopoetica(U.K.), Chupa Rosa Diaries of the Chupa Rosa Writers, (2001-2003), Glendale College Eclipse  anthologies, two Moonrise Press anthologies Chopin with Cherries (2010)  Meditations on Divine Names(2012). Also, Sometimes in the Open, a collection of verse by California Poets Laureate. She published Sad With Cinnamon, Mint Leaves,and Bent Grass(all in 2001), as well as Riddle in the Rain with Dorothy Skiles, and a stack of chapbooks for friends and family. 

Her most recent book, Clocks and Water Drops appeared in May 2015 from Moonrise Press. Poet Jack Cooper commented: "Clocks and Water Drops is a book of treasured gifts packed in memories and reflections as tasty as homemade bread, fanciful as a rose petal salad and healing as warm camphor oil on a child's skin. Marlene Hitt's astute and thoughtful voice paints a world as gentle as lamb’s wool and precious as a girl’s first pony. Open this cedar chest of poems, don its knitted socks and prepare to chase the moon through love and time." Kathabela Wilson noted: "Marlene Hitt is a poet beyond measure... she holds each thing to her eye and finds inner correspondences. She finds in the mind - an empty glove, a "back alley" and wonders what words to write, as we all do, on a blank page, or "the bronze grave marker" she buys for herself. Each of her poems works on several levels, and almost always ends with a very interesting surprise or revelation. The significance of each detail is stunning and inspiring."

  

Ms. Hitt, elected Woman of Achievement for year 2001, served as Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga 1999-2001, at the turn of the century. She has published books on local history, including Sunland-Tujunga from Village to City (Arcadia, 2000,2005) based on columns written for The Foothill Leader, Glendale news Press, North Valley Reporter, Sentinel, and Voicof the Village newspapers since 1998. Over the years she has  taught in elementary school, preschool, worked in a pharmacy, chaired committees, tap-danced, and played English Handbells in the Pasadena Rose Parade.  She is currently in a ukulele class and has been elected to the Sunland-Tujunga Neighborhood Council. Any success she has had she dedicates to her support group: husband Lloyd, children and grandchildren, her biggest fans.

BC PETRAKOS

Brenda Petrakos is a storyteller, performance artist, award-winning playwright and Pushcart–nominated writer.  Her dynamic, tell-it-all approach has won over audiences in California, Chicago, New York, London, and Edinburgh, Berlin & Sweden.  Petrakos is a widely published poet whose work can be found in literary magazines and anthologies including Poetic Diversity, Falling Star, Voices Of New Women Writers (Duke University Press), Magna Poets, Houston Literary Review, Red Fez, Three Rooms Press, Oakland Review, and many more. She has three books published by Sybaritic Press: The Book of This, Country Fixins, and Stories from the Inside Edge, which has been adapted for both stage and screen. Stories from the Edge, an evening of Petrakos’ stories directed by E. Amato featured performances by Los Angeles poets and actors and the short film “Cop.” 

ln 2007, Petrakos took Stories from the Edge to the Festival Fringe Edinburgh, performing with John Burton, Jr. “Cop” also screened at Cinema Slam, Park City, Utah. Several stories from the collection are under option, including “Too Tall Diane,” “Violet’s Bed,” “Indiscretions,” and “The Curtain.” “STANLEY”, a feature screenplay she co-wrote with Joel Sachs is currently in development.  From 2007 – 2012, Petrakos was a host of the venerable Los Angeles reading The Rapp Saloon. With a background in stand-up and writing sketch comedy for Showtime, CBS and Fox, she volunteers her experience and time leading comedy improv workshops for at-risk youth.  She is a founding member of International Word Bank Productions and CFO of Baxter Daniels Ink Press.

Awards / Honors:

Pushcart Prize Nomination

Winner of the ACT New Writer Award


The Arvada New Work Festival

Best Original Play Award


2006 National Poetry Month Palabra Press Anthology

Selected Publications:

The Book of This – Sybaritic Press; Country Fixins – Sybaritic Press; Stories from the Edge – Sybaritic Press; How Dirty Girls Get Clean – Anthology; Magna Poets; Houston Literary Review; Red Fez; Three Rooms Press; Oakland Review; Bicycle Review; DADA Journal; Voices Of New Women Writers (Duke University Press); Poetic Diversity; 

Literary Angels (Diversity Press); Falling Star Literary Magazine; Joy In Mudville: Hollywood Anthology (Metropolis Hopper Books); Afterwords (Really Big Show Productions); Everything About You Is Beautiful (Really Big Show Productions); Little Joy Hollywood 2007 (Nilesgrille Inkhouse Press); The Cobalt Poetry Series
; Valley Contemporary Poets Anthology

Media: 

World Wide Radio Network
, The Jane Crown Show
, Kill Radio
, Edinburgh Fringe Radio, London Calling Spoken Word Works, The Greenfield Report, Literary Review Television, The Larry Winfield Show, Chicago Theatre Today, Denver Art In Review, bc petrakos


Performances: 

World Theatre Festival, Festival Fringe Edinburgh, Beyond Baroque, Sparring with Beatnik Ghosts, Las Vegas West Coast Physiologist Convention, The Rapp Saloon, Mary Wong – National Touring Company, Chicago’s Best
, Komic Kazi
, 

Second City, Comedy Store
, Improv, The Laugh Factory, Ice House
, Catch A Rising Star

Reviews:

“…the kind of writing one would expect from the spawn of William S. Burroughs and Virginia Woolf had the child been privy to frequent visits by favorite aunt, Nancy Spungen.”

                      ~Wenzel Jones/Hollywood Reporter

“… Petrakos clearly deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature. When I started reading Stories from the Inside Edge, I was blown away by their depth, their complexity, their exuberance and their pure genius. No one reflects and celebrates better or more poignantly, the highs and lows of life, love or loss in contemporary America. Her stories are emotional dynamite … with a psychological complexity that makes a reader feel that Dostoyevsky was a bit too shallow. Buy this book! Read this book! Keep this book close!

                     ~Dr. Edward J. Swanon

“The best of the selections … seem painfully, or beautifully, real. Nelson Algren wrote like this and I can think of absolutely no higher literary compliment or comparison to make.”

                      ~B. J. Merhol

Los Angeles Poet Society with Jessica Wilson at the McGroarty Arts Center on April 26, 2015

We are thrilled to announce that our Special Poetry Reading celebrating the Poetry Month will take place on April 26, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. at the McGroarty Arts Center in Tujunga (NOT our usual venue, the Bolton Hall Museum!). We will feature

LAPS at LitCrawl in North Hollywood, 2014

THE LOS ANGELES POET SOCIETY 

With Jessica Wilson, President and Juan Cardenas, Vice-President in the company of many guest poets and musicians.  As usual, the event will include Open Mike slots for poets and refreshments. Suggested donation $3 to George Harris's hat, for the support of the McGroarty Arts Center.

Where? The McGroarty Arts Center,7570 McGroarty Terrace, Tujunga, CA 91042, mcgroartyartscenter.org. Free parking on the premises or local streets.

When? On Sunday, April 26, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

LAPS at Beyond Baroque

Description:
Los Angeles Poet Society, (LAPS), is a not-for-profit community organization.  We work to create and bridge the creative community all over Los Angeles county and partner with literary LA. LAPS began in 2009 by East Los Angeles Poet, Jessica M. Wilson,  with a goal of uniting literary Los Angeles! It has created writing showcases to serve the many creative communities of Los Angeles county.  LAPS has currently served: Downtown Los Angeles, Venice Beach and Venice, CA,  North Hollywood and surrounding areas.

LAPS Mission
...is to create a bridge, fusing the communities of Los Angeles and Southern California Poets, poetry organizations, Writer groups, booksellers, publishers, literary enthusiasts and supporters into a unified social and literary network. LAPS' focal point is to publicize the events and achievements of its members. LAPS also organizes and promotes events, pulling from within its own community, to create and sustain Los Angeles’ literary anchor.

Website:  http://www.losangelespoetsociety.org/

LAPS at Catcher in the Rye

Brendan Constantine at Bolton Hall on March 22, 2015

Village Poets are delighted to invite all poets and poetry lovers to the Monthly Poetry Reading at Bolton Hall Museum featuring

BRENDAN CONSTANTINE

The Village Poets Monthly Reading will take place at the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga (10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042)  on Sunday, March 22, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. Two Open Mike segments will be available and refreshments will be provided provided.

ABOUT THE POET

Brendan Constantine's work has appeared in FIELD, Ploughshares, Zyzzyva, Ninth Letter, Poetry Daily, ArtLife, and Hotel Amerika among other journals. His first book, Letters To Guns (2009 Red Hen Press), is now taught extensively in schools across the nation. His most recent collections are Birthday Girl With Possum (2011 Write Bloody Publishing) and Calamity Joe (2012 Red Hen Press). 

He has received grants and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. A popular performer, Brendan has presented his work to audiences throughout the U.S. and Europe, also appearing on NPR's All Things Considered, KPFK's Inspiration House, numerous podcasts, and YouTube. 

He is currently poet in residence at the Windward School and adjunct professor at Antioch University. In addition, he regularly conducts workshops for hospitals, foster homes, & with the Alzheimer's Poetry Project. Visit: brendanconstantine.com.

The Dark Crowd

There are people our eyes can’t ride. My grandmother

had an expression for it in Greek: Our eyes fall off them.

Who don’t you see? What do they make plain instead?

Have you thanked them? It’s probably relative. That is,

not a question of beauty or character but rather, where

you’re standing & when & how long. Today I said

hello to someone who didn’t answer. No telling

which of us wasn’t there. Perhaps we all get a turn.

Does light have a memory? Does it get used to us

the longer we’re here? I ask on behalf of the woman

you don’t see in an elevator until she gets out

and the whole car shakes. I’m asking for the boy

who runs into you at the mall, for the look he gives

not just you, but his own feet. I’m asking for all of us

who’ve ever disappeared from a family picture, one

we still feel ourselves holding for.

This poem first appeared in the journal Fogged Clarity.

Difficult Listening Time

A flock of pink flamingos moved in

across the street, and set up plastic people

on the lawn.

                        They’ve faced them out

this way, hands molded to their chins,

looking more like us as night comes on.

Downtown, the waitresses are starving

in their aprons; the watchmen get fainter

by the hour.

                    It’s Difficult Listening Time,

object response time, time for ‘the tears

of things.’

                 There has to be a way to help

it along, a way to dry the rain as it falls

so we can keep these clothes.

                                                Let’s go

to the woods & hang a painting of this

room on every tree. We’ll go to sea

& on each sailboat fix a picture

of a hotel bed.

                        Or how about we stay

home & talk out every song between us

until we sound like heavy, stupid birds.

This poem first appeared in the journal Ploughshares. It can currently be found in the collection ‘Calamity Joe’ (2012 Red Hen Press)

Smiling Back

I remember when snowmen came right to our door

Some mornings it looked like a rally

You’d wake to a couple dozen, facing

the vague street, brooms & pitchforks raised high,

as if they expected some invading army

Back then you could still find emeralds

in pine cones; the grocer took them for cases of beer

His smile was like the spine of a leaf

I don’t recall smiling back, I may not have

had a mouth, yet

Now everyone does; we all sputter like damp coal

& carry shovels to bed for protection

from whatever follows us to sleep

  

This poem first appeared in the journal Redheaded Stepchild.

Brendan Constantine

Maja Trochimczyk Presents "Slicing the Bread" on February 22, 2015

The Village Poets Monthly Reading on Sunday, February 22, will have a new Featured Poet since B. D. Love will not be able to present his work. He will be replaced by Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, reading from her new poetry book, "Slicing the Bread," (Finishing Line Press, 2014).  The reading will start at 4:30 p.m. and will include two segments of Open Mike as well as refreshments.

When: Sunday, February 22nd, at 4:30 p.m.
What: Village Poets Monthly Reading.
Where: Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042.

MORE ABOUT THE BOOK

ISBN-10: 1622296877 ISBN-13: 978-1622296873. Available on Amazon, Finishing Line Press, etc.
Published by Finishing Line Press (December 2014)
https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2149 http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2014/07/finishing-line-press-to-publish-slicing.html

DESCRIPTION

This unique poetry collection revisits the dark days of World War II and the post-war occupation of Poland by the Soviet Union that “liberated” the country from one foreign oppression to replace it with another. The point of view is that of children, raised by survivors, scarred by war, wary of politics. Children experienced the hunger and cold, witnessed the killings, saw the darkening blood spilled on the snow and hands stretching from locked boxcar windows. Some heardthe voices of murdered Jews like “bees in the breeze,” others learned never to throw any food away, because “war is hunger.” The poems, each inspired by a single object giving rise to memories like Proust’s madeleine (a spoon, a coat, the smell of incense), are divided into three sections, starting with snapshots of World War II in the Polish Borderlands (Kresy) and in central Poland. Reflections onthe Germans’ brutalkillings of Jews and Poles are followed by insights into the way the long shadow of THE war darkened a childhood spent behind the Iron Curtain. For poet Georgia Jones Davis, this book, “brings the experience of war into shocking, immediate focus” through Trochimczyk’s use of “her weapon: Language at its most precise and lyrical, understated and piercingly visual.”

According to Pulitzer-Prize nominated poet John Guzlowski, Maja’s “poems about what the Poles suffered both during World War II and The Cold War afterwards are written with the clarity of truth and the fullness of poetry… Here are the stories of how the people she loved experienced hunger and suffering and terror so strong that it defined them and taught her, and teach us, the meaning of family.” A fellow Polish-American poet, Linda Nemec Foster praises the “unwavering honesty” and “stark imagery” of Trochimczyk’s poetry that “bear witness to the hate that destroys, to the truth that restores, and to the poetic vision that honors our common humanity.” The Tieferet Prize winner and Poets-Café host Lois P. Jones points out the “vivid and heartbreaking detail” of poems that “will move you to appreciate the simple privileges and necessities of life.” As Jones wisely observes “It is the duty of the poet to convey story, but it is the art of the poet who can transform our often cruel and brutal history and affect forever, the way we look and listen to the world.” Poet Sharon Chmielarz concurs: “You will remember the taste of this book.”




SAMPLE POEMS

Slicing the Bread

Her mother’s hunger. One huge pot of hot water

with some chopped weeds –komesa, lebioda–

she taught her to recognize their leaves,

just in case – plus a spoonful of flour

for flavor. Lunch for twenty people

crammed into a two-bedroom house.

The spring was the worst–flowers, birdsong,

and nothing to eat.  You had to wait

for the rye and potatoes to grow. The pantry

was empty. She was hungry. Always hungry.

She ate raw wheat sometimes. Too green,

The kernels she chewed –still milky –made her sick.

Thirty years after the war,

her mother stashed paper bags with sliced, dried bread

on top shelves in her Warsaw kitchen.

Twenty, thirty bags… enough food for a month.

Don’t ever throw any bread away, her mother said.

Remember, war is hunger.

Every week, her mother ate dziad soup –

fit for a beggar, made with crumbled wheat buns,

stale sourdough loaves, pieces of dark rye

soaked in hot tea with honey.

She liked it. She wanted to remember

its taste.

What to Carry

You never know when the war will come,

her mother said. You have to be ready.

Most things are unimportant.

You must take your gold, your family jewels.

Diamonds will buy you food. 

Gold will save your life. Forget silver, too heavy.

Take sturdy boots with two pairs of socks,

a warm, goose-down comforter on your back,

one picture, no books. Leave it all.

You will have to walk, sleep in a ditch, walk.

Pack lightly. What you carry, will protect you.

From starving, from freezing. That’s what matters.

Goose-down and gold. Hunger and snow.

She still has her goose-down coverlet,

useless in California. Her mother squished it

into a suitcase the first time she came to visit.

The down came from geese plucked decades ago

In Bielewicze, by her Grandma, Nina.

Diamonds? She sold her rings

to pay for the divorce, keep the house

with pomegranates and orange trees.

Her shoes are useless too –

a rainbow of high heels in the closet.

February 22 - Featured Poet B.D. Love for the Month of Love

Bolton Hall Museum, Photo by Teresa Mei Chuc

The Village Poets are pleased to invite poets and poetry lovers to the Monthly Reading at the Bolton Hall Museum on Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 4:30 p.m. Featured poet, B.D. Love, will be joined by those who wish to present their work at the Open Mike. Refreshments provided.

B.D. LOVE

B. D. Love grew up in rural Michigan, where he attended a typical rural Midwest high school.  That experience engendered a sublime love of poetry, through two wonderful teachers, and a severe distaste for authority, courtesy of a mindless Administration.  Old story.

Over the years since he has earned his M.A. in English/Creative Writing from Syracuse University, he has quite serious writing altogether, formed several punk inspired bands from Syacuse to Dallas to LA and once more Syracuse.  He returned to writing seriously after a freak accident shattered the elbow of his right arm, and he was told he’d never play guitar again.

Since resuming writing, he has published in a great many journals and literally magazines across the nation, and has shepherded six books to print, four full length fiction books, one full length poetry book, and two chapbooks.  He is currently “shopping' two new poetry books.   His most precious new project is a song cycle for which he as written lyrics, with the gorgeous, soaring melodies provided by the great Maura Kennedy, another Syracuse expatriate.  It’s called “Villanelle:  The Songs of Maura Kennedy and B.D. Love.”  Should appear this Spring.  Our holiday song, not really limited, is out on Amazon.com and iTunes and CD Baby.  There is a mutual photograph of us there.

This poem comes from my new book, “Hounds of Wonder:  Life in Dogs.”  It’s about rescue dogs and their special love.  And it is not sentimental.  This poem was featured in Nimrod International Journal, Lasting Matters…

Little Landers Declaration. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Declan IV

I hold a photograph of you sitting in a box

Half-full of trim from the ancient pepper tree

Whose leaves would choke the eaves and drives and vex

The neighbor lady, who pleaded for the penalty

Of downing — this for a being much of her time.

She’d pass, pure white, beneath the “dirty” limbs.

“There’s a fungus among us,” my mom would chime

By way of warning.  Indeed, there was.  Death has her hymns.

But here you are, roots in the mulch, your face

Courting the camera’s heart.  The shutter clicks

And off you go to sniff all crones and grace

All trees with piss before a smaller box

Arrives to collect the last of the dust to fall.

Some old limbs creaked that night.  I heard their call.

__________________________________

(C) by B.D. Love

First published in Nimrod

Photo by Teresa Mei Chuc

Photos from the January Reading by Teresa Mei Chuc and Ross Canton will soon be available on Picasa Web Album. Here's our group at the end of the reading:

Front: Toti O'Brien, Alice Pero, Teresa Mei Cuc, Ross Canton, Joe DeCenzo and Maja Trochimczyk

Teresa Mei Chuc and Ross Canton Feature on January 25, 2015

Rainy day in Big Tujunga Canyon. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

The Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga invite you to our first Monthly Reading Series of the New Year on Sunday, January 25, 2015, from 4:30-6:30 p.m., at Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave., Tujunga, CA 91042.  We are delighted to announce that poets Teresa Mei Chuc and Ross Canton will feature at this event! Poets are welcome to bring their poems and sign-up for the open MIC upon arrival.  Light refreshments will be served and a $3.00 donation is appreciated.  

TERESA MEI CHUC

Teresa Mei Chuc is the author of two poetry books, Red Thread (Fithian Press, 2012) and Keeper of the Winds (FootHills Publishing, 2014). She was born in Saigon, Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. under political asylum with her mother and brother shortly after the Vietnam War while her father remained in a Vietcong "reeducation" camp for nine years. Her poetry appears in journals such as EarthSpeak Magazine, The Good Men Project, Hawai’i Pacific Review, Hypothetical Review, Kyoto Journal, The Prose-Poem Project, The National Poetry Review, Rattle, Verse Daily and in anthologies such as New Poets of the American West (Many Voices Press, 2010), With Our Eyes Wide Open: Poems of the New American Century (West End Press, 2014), and Mo’ Joe (Beatlick Press, 2014). Teresa’s poetry is forthcoming in the anthology, Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Descendants of Vietnam Veterans and Refugees.

New poetry book, Keeper of the Winds: 

http://foothillspublishing.com/2014/id83.htm

First poetry book, Red Thread:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Thread-Teresa-Mei-Chuc/dp/1564745287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335324391&sr=1-1

A review/interview on CounterPunch:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/11/poetry-and-transformation/

Pencil

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have

forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."

- Vincent Van Gogh

A missile is shaped like a pencil -

its long, slender body and pointed

end creates history.

A girl walking down the street

a few steps ahead of her sister and friend,

two medics who were trying to help

injured people, the parked ambulance -

all were annihilated by the same weapon.

Above, drones - silent, unmanned planes.

A metal, predatory bird that shoots a missile

with precision, identifying the colors of a shirt,

the features on a face - the shape of a nose,

the color and length of a mustache.

In a room far away, in another country, a man

sits at a desk and looks at a screen; he strokes

his thick, dark mustache as he carefully

contemplates, then pushes a button.

There is a charred hole in the ground

where the girl once stood.

There are pencils that write and erase,

write and erase, so that there is nothing

to be read on the page. The page blank

as the desert sky, blank as the smooth shell of a drone.

There is a family drinking mint tea

in a living room.

The man holds a cup to his lips,

the glass touches his mustache.

A silent bird hovers above.

In a split second, everyone is dead,

the house is in rubbles - arms, legs,

splattered organs among broken concrete.

Soon, there will be no trace.

“Pencil” first appeared in Mo Chapbook (Silkworms Ink) and  The Good Men Project

http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/chb-pencil/

Another poem, "Mekong River":

http://www.kyotojournal.org/the-journal/fiction-poetry/mekong-river/

Chemtrails in Sunland-Tujunga, Fall 2014. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

ROSS CANTON

Ross Canton is a poet, playwright, filmmaker, novelist, and director. His work has been published widely in literary journals in the United States, England, and Australia.  He graduated from UC Santa Cruz where he studied under such luminaries as George Hitchcock, editor of Kayak, Gregory Bateson, and Norman O. Brown, and received his MFA in Poetry and Non-Fiction from Vermont College of the Fine Arts.       

His books of poetry include Involving Residence, No Thanks, Walking Water On Earth, The Art of Naming, and The Endurance: Journey To Worlds End, a lyric novel.  He is also the author of You Don’t Know Me, a novel, The Light Where Shadows End, a memoir, and a number of plays and stage adaptations. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Studio Theater West in Santa Monica, and the founder/originator of Movie/Poem, Inc. a multi-media platform for cross-genre poetic expression.  He lives in the Los Padres Mountains where he, his long time companion, and his four dogs often spend meditative afternoons contemplating the serenity of trees.


“A Noiseless Spider” (Revisited) 
                                                         (for Walt)                                            

Just a fuzzed blur of legs fleeing across the rim
of my eyes—but then the tiny, black body leaps off
and hangs mid-air, ten inches or so below my lenses—

too far from the ground to jump, nothing near enough
to send a line to unless I tip my head so he can repel
onto my chest and skitter across the elephant grass

sprouting from my Hawaiian shirt—and so he simply
dangles there, swinging and twisting like a window-
washer fallen from the scaffolding of a tall, tall

building, dangles--upside down, legs working hard
to secure a hold—no before nor after, no god to know
the gossamer’s meaning as he spews out another

thread to hold him, nothing but my hand pulling
the filament off my glasses and holding him between
two fingers, holding, then raising him up so I can

finally fix him in my sight as he swings back and
forth as if on a pendulum, holding, and then, care-
fully, carrying him outside where a slight breeze

catches and throws him above my head as I open the
door, throws and almost sets him free--till I lay him
down on a blade of grass where he lies still, feigning

death, before suddenly scuttling away, vanishing into
a crevice of dark, green, bodiless shadow--O my soul!



Waking To Absence

Nothing new, just another black
molly among black mollies
gone—each unnamed, common,
no red stripe nor gold splotch
to distinguish the gone one
from the three still doing laps
round the coral trees, and yet,
having awakened so—sun
still swimming in the shadows
beneath the hills, my mother
sleeping in a home somewhere,
her flesh no longer communing
with her mind—having awakened
to this space left when a body
is swallowed after death, I press
my finger against the glass and

mark the place where loss remains.
Years, a year, a day, this wakeful
moment, this pink rose sky
blossoming from nightshade as it
crowns from the ridgeline—her face
bloomed to ashes, his to bone, mine
to this O, O, and out there, there
where the horizon ends and our
image-laden world begins, so my
morning begins, in darkness
fading, in what is not, but out of
that absence I sow the stars, the
verdant grass, the fish in their
tank of simple knowing, out of
that longing I sing what’s left
of song

Calla Lily in Descanso Gardens, photo by Maja Trochimczyk