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Friday, April 30, 2010

Day 30 of National/NJ Poetry Month: Looks like we made it...

Look how they stagger from their sleep,


As if the morning were a river

Against which they contend.


This is not sentiment

filled with the disdain

of human pity.

They turn in the mind

they turn

beyond the human order


One scratches his head and yawns.

Another rakes a hand

Through slick mats of thinning hair.

They blink and the street litter moves

its slow liturgical way.

A third falls back

bracing himself on an arm.


At river's edge, the deer stand poised.

One breaks the spell of his reflection

with a hoof, and, struggling,

begins to cross.


...Morning at Elizabeth Arch by Joe Weil, Elizabeth in What Remains
 
I wanted to finish up this month with a poem that I have returned to a number of times (well, not as many times as Leaves of Grass, but many times!) because it is New Jersey, and simple, and beautiful.  Joe is a friend and a voice that I listen to because he is like us most of the time, though his words can be somewhat more ethereal.
When I was a kid and had no money, I used to take the bus into the City and sit on the steps of St. Pat's Cathedral and just watch people go by.  I would attend the noon Mass, grab a slice and then go back home to Weehawken.  I just loved the people because they were so interesting and varied.  Joe Weil, like Robert Frost who had a "lover's quarrel with the world," loves people, too.  The love is there, even when it is a struggle.
I hope that whoever read these pieces for National Poetry Month enjoyed them and connected once in a while.  We have a lot to be proud of in New Jersey.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Day 29 of NJ/National Poetry Month: August in the Meadowlands...


How much meat moves


Into the city each night

The decks of its bridges tremble

In the liquefaction of sodium light

And the moon a chemical orange



Semitrailers strain their axles

Shivering as they take the long curve

Over warehouses and lofts

The wilderness of streets below

The mesh of it

With Joe on the front stoop smoking

And Louise on the phone with her mother



Out of the haze of industrial meadows

They arrive, numberless

Hauling tons of dead lamb

Bone and flesh and offal

Miles to the ports and channels

Of the city's shimmering membrane

A giant breathing cell

Exhaling its waste

From the stacks by the river

And feeding through the night

...Meat by August Kleinzhaler, Jersey City and Fort Lee
 
I chose this poem for the unusual use of the word liquefaction.  I've only heard it once before in the movie Julia with Lynn Redgrave, Jason Robards, and Jane Fonda.  Kleinzhaler is a real Jersey voice, though some contend that his gruff is a bluff.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Day 28 of NJ/National Poetry Month: Judith Viorst and Stuff to Worry About...



My pants could maybe fall down when I dive off the diving board.

My nose could maybe keep growing and never quit.

Miss Brearly could ask me to spell words like stomach and special.

(Stumick and speshul?)

I could play tag all day and always be "it."

Jay Spievack, who's fourteen feet tall, could want to fight me.

My mom and my dad--like Ted's--could want a divorce.

Miss Brearly could ask me a question about Afghanistan.

(Who's Afghanistan?)

Somebody maybe could make me ride a horse.

My mother could maybe decide that I needed more liver.

My dad could decide that I needed less TV.

Miss Brearly could say that I have to write script and stop printing.

(I'm better at printing.)

Chris could decide to stop being friends with me.



The world could maybe come to an end on next Tuesday.

The ceiling could maybe come crashing on my head.

I maybe could run out of things for me to worry about.

And then I'd have to do my homework instead.

...Fifteen, Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About by Judith Viorst, Newark

A great poem for kids, espcially during the NJASK! Sharpen those pencils and respond to those open-ended questions, guys. Judith Viorst knows what it's like to have a "terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day."

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Day 27: Anthony Buccino and a summer evening...



Three cats, one without a tail

chickens, ducks and Bassett

hounds sleeping happily

under a tree

across the wide yard

near where the bear

came one night picked corn

and sat in the twilight to eat

...Neon Blue Dragonflies by Anthony Buccino, Nutley
 
A lovely poem by Anthony Buccino, the transit-travel-poetry-New Jersey expert from Nutley and Belleville.  Beautiful images to carry us over these rainy days, jumping from idea tio idea, thought to thought, lazy Jersey day to lazy Jersey night.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Monday, April 26, 2010

Day 26 of NJ/National Poetry Month: Is the Rainbow Enough?


my father is a retired magician

which accounts for my irregular behavior

everythin comes outta magic hats

or bottles wit no bottoms & parakeets

are as easy to get as a couple a rabbits

or 3 fifty cent pieces/ 1958



my daddy retired from magic & took

up another trade cuz this friend of mine

from the 3rd grade asked to be made white

on the spot



what cd any self-respectin colored american magician

do wit such a outlandish request/ cept

put all them razzamatazz hocus pocus zippity-do-dah

thingamajigs away cuz

colored chirren believin in magic

waz becomin politically dangerous for the race

& waznt nobody gonna be made white

on the spot just

from a clap of my daddy's hands



& the reason i'm so peculiar's

cuz i been studyin up on my daddy's technique

& everythin i do is magic these days

& it's very colored

very now you see it/ now you

dont mess wit me

i come from a family of retired

sorcerers/ active houngans & pennyante fortune tellers

wit 41 million spirits critturs & celestial bodies

on our side

i'll listen to yr problems

help wit yr career yr lover yr wanderin spouse

make yr grandma's stay in heaven more gratifyin

ease yr mother thru menopause & show yr son

how to clean his room



YES YES YES 3 wishes is all you get

scarlet ribbons for yr hair

benwa balls via hong kong

a miniature of machu picchu



all things are possible

but aint no colored magician in her right mind

gonna make you white

i mean

this is blk magic

you lookin at

& i'm fixin you up good/ fixin you up good n colored

& you gonna be colored all yr life

& you gonna love it/ bein colored/ all yr life/ colored & love it

love it/ bein colored
 
...My Father is a Reitred Magician by Ntozake Shange, Trenton

This is one of my favorite poems.  Be careful of what you wish for.  Realize what your wishes say about you.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Day 25 NJ/National Poetry Month: What did you see on 9/11?



and all this while I have been playing with toys


a toy superhighway a toy automobile a house of blocks


and all this while far off in other lands

thousands and thousands, millions and millions


you know — you see the pictures

women carrying bony infants


men sobbing over graves

buildings sculpted by explosion —


earth wasted bare and rotten

and all this while I have been shopping, I have


been let us say free

and do they hate me for it


do they hate me

...the window, at the moment of flame by Alicia Suskin Ostriker, Princeton
 
Reflections on 9/11.  Pausing for a moment of thought.  Do they hate us?
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Day 24: Joyce Carol Oates and Necessary Violence...

The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli, 1781

"In training, the whip must be used sparingly. But it must be used."


—horse trainer's adage



At the practice track, when we owned a Standard-bred pacer.

How happy we were, new young owners of a Standard-bred pacer.

How happy to "own" an animal, and a Standard-bred pacer!

How dazed by the pounding hooves, the black bulbs of eyes

swinging past, shivering and whinnying like the dream horse

is Fuseli's "The Nightmare."


We were happy then, not-knowing our future.

We were innocent then, and tenderly-loving.

We were not cruel, by design. Any more than you.

(We are Americans and not of those crude folk

who eat horseflesh though we feed it to our pets, later.)

At the practice track north of Clinton, New Jersey.


...The Little Whip by Joyce Carol Oates, Princeton

Dr. Oates never ceases to amaze me with her ability to associate classical art and contemporary cruelty.  What did you feed the dog today?  A superior animal?
See you at Rutgers Day on the Great Lawn in front of Eagleton!

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Friday, April 23, 2010

Day 23: NJ/National Poetry Month with Gerald Stern's memories of a wild and merciful God...



In all these rotten shops, in all this broken furniture


and wrinkled ties and baseball trophies and coffee pots

I have never seen a post-war Philco

with the automatic eye

nor heard Ravel's "Bolero" the way I did

in 1945 in that tiny living room

on Beechwood Boulevard, nor danced as I did

then, my knives all flashing, my hair all streaming,

my mother red with laughter, my father cupping

his left hand under his armpit, doing the dance

of old Ukraine, the sound of his skin half drum,

half fart, the world at last a meadow,

the three of us whirling and singing, the three of us

screaming and falling, as if we were dying,

as if we could never stop--in 1945--

in Pittsburgh, beautiful filthy Pittsburgh, home

of the evil Mellons, 5,000 miles away

from the other dancing--in Poland and Germany--

oh God of mercy, oh wild God.

...The Dancing by Gerald Stern, Lambertville
 
That spinning dance, similar to the pleasure and pain of Roethke's and his papa's waltz.  Beautiful, filthy Pittsburgh, like "foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia" in the musical.  The whirling of all the simultaneous activity on this spinning sphere.
 
Happy Shakespeare's birthday.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Day 22 of NJ Poetry Month: Earth Day with Joyce Kilmer...


An iron hand has stilled the throats


That throbbed with loud and rhythmic glee

And dammed the flood of silver notes

That drenched the world in melody.

The blosmy apple boughs are yearning

For their wild choristers' returning,

But no swift wings flash through the tree.



Ye that were glad and fleet and strong,

Shall Silence take you in her net?

And shall Death quell that radiant song

Whose echo thrills the meadow yet?

Burst the frail web about you clinging

And charm Death's cruel heart with singing

Till with strange tears his eyes are wet.



The scented morning of the year

Is old and stale now ye are gone.

No friendly songs the children hear

Among the bushes on the lawn.

When babies wander out a-Maying

Will ye, their bards, afar be straying?

Unhymned by you, what is the dawn?



Nay, since ye loved ye cannot die.

Above the stars is set your nest.

Through Heaven's fields ye sing and fly

And in the trees of Heaven rest.

And little children in their dreaming

Shall see your soft black plumage gleaming

And smile, by your clear music blest.

...For a Blackbird and His Mate Who Died in Spring by Joyce Kilmer, New Brunswick

Beyond the trees with Joyce Kilmer for Earth Day.  Be outside today.  Eat some fresh veggies. Pet the dog.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Day 21 of NJ Poetry Month: C.K Williams and the axis of the brutal human world


Some dictator or other had gone into exile, and now reports were coming about his regime,


the usual crimes, torture, false imprisonment, cruelty and corruption, but then a detail:

that the way his henchmen had disposed of enemies was by hammering nails into their skulls.

Horror, then, what mind does after horror, after that first feeling that you’ll never catch your breath,

mind imagines—how not be annihilated by it?—the preliminary tap, feels it in the tendons of the hand,

feels the way you do with your nail when you’re fixing something, making something, shelves, a bed;

the first light tap to set the slant, and then the slightly harder tap, to em-bed the tip a little more ...





No, no more: this should be happening in myth, in stone, or paint, not in reality, not here;

it should be an emblem of itself, not itself, something that would mean, not really have to happen,

something to go out, expand in implication from that unmoved mass of matter in the breast;

as in the image of an anguished face, in grief for us, not us as us, us as in a myth, a moral tale,

a way to tell the truth that grief is limitless, a way to tell us we must always understand

it’s we who do such things, we who set the slant, embed the tip, lift the sledge and drive the nail,

drive the nail which is the axis upon which turns the brutal human world upon the world.

...The Nail by C.K. Williams, Newark
 
A study of commonplace cruelty, the juxtaposition of the commonplace and the horrible.  Don't underestimate the evil potential of people.
 
Keep reading and writing anyway,
 
Maureen

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Day 20 of NJ Poetry Month: Edwin Romond and the Boys of Summer...


He knows how cruel inclusion can be.


A chain of summer Sundays bound him

to baseball in the gritty sandlot heat,

far from the cool relief of Mozart.

He would plod behind his uncles whose bats

and balls and gloves were codes of manhood

foreign to the delicacy of his fingers

that loved the black and white of a keyboard.



At home he’d squint for pitch after pitch after

pitch, his swings wild and desperate music

for the burning chorus of Step into it already!


Whatza matter? Ya’ friada the ball? from men



whose grins nearly hid the fear he wouldn’t play

the game, their definition of blood wounded

by one who time after time bruised only air,

who prayed for rain in the punishing sun.


...Initiation by Edwin Romond, Woodbridge

Get off the internet and go vote for the school budget in your district.  Don't strike out.  It's our only chance at bat.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Monday, April 19, 2010

Day 19 of NJ Poetry Month:Madeline Tiger Wordworking


i

Poetry

begins in psychiatry

and ends


in carpentry; Christianity


was the


opposite


ii

The poet talks

hard, praying

backward to her-


self & finding

no Messiah

but ghosts, no


rock

but the work,

no truth


but in the word,

no power but in

form,


no Master

but the crafting,

no disciple


but the echo, and

only at her desk

a place to kneel

...Ars Poetica by Madeline Tiger, Montclair

"No truth but in the word."  Wise words from a wise woman to start the week.  Vote for your school budget.  Remember who taught you to read words.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Day 18: So, what am I supposed to do about it?


A man said to the universe:


“Sir, I exist!

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

“A sense of obligation.”
 
...A Man Said to the Universe by Stephen Crane, Asbury Park
 
This is the truest (does truuth have degrees?) poem I have ever read.  When I used to teach it, my students went nuts.  Tee hee!
 
Keep reading and writing,
Maureen

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Day 17: Frankenstein's Castle in Brigantine, NJ?


Because the ostracized experience the world


in ways peculiar to themselves, often seeing it

clearly yet with such anger and longing

that they sometimes enlarge what they see,

she at first saw Brigantine as a paradise for gulls.

She must be a horseshoe crab washed ashore.



How startling, though, no one knew about her past,

the scandal with Percy, the tragic early deaths,

yet sad that her Frankenstein had become

just a name, like Dracula or Satan, something

that stood for a kind of scariness, good for a laugh.

She found herself welcome everywhere.





People would tell her about Brigantine Castle,

turned into a house of horror. They thought

she'd be pleased that her monster roamed

its dark corridors, making children scream.

They lamented the day it was razed.

Thus Mary Shelley found herself accepted



by those who had no monster in them —

the most frightening people alive, she thought.

Didn't they know Frankenstein had abandoned

his creation, set him loose without guidance

or a name? Didn't they know what it feels like


to be lost, freaky, forever seeking who you are?



She was amazed now that people believed

you could shop for everything you might need.

She loved that in the dunes you could almost hide.

At the computer store she asked an expert

if there was such a thing as too much knowledge,

or going too far? He directed her to a website



where he thought the answers were.

Yet Mary Shelley realized that the pain she felt

all her life was gone. Could her children, dead so young,

be alive somewhere, too? She couldn't know

that only her famous mother had such a chance.

She was almost ready to praise this awful world.

...Mary Shelley in Brigantine by Stephen Dunn, Richard Stockton College, Pomona

The ostracized author creates an ostracized monster as recreated by the South shore voice of Stephen Dunn.  The Brigantine Castle was, like the Frankenstein monster, destroyed by fire.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Friday, April 16, 2010

Day 16: NJ Poetry Month: Live from the Algonquin Hotel


Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

...News Item by Dorothy Parker, West End

Well, thank goodness for that!  Leave us alone!  We're writing!

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Day 15: Pay up, Americans, or we will cut back on our poetry!



Over and over--refrain--of the Hospitals--still haven't written your


history--leave it abstract--a few images

run thru the mind--like the saxophone chorus of houses and years--

remembrance of electrical shocks.

By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your

nervousness--you were fat--your next move--

By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you--

once and for all--when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my

opinion of the cosmos, I was lost--

By my later burden--vow to illuminate mankind--this is release of

particulars--(mad as you)--(sanity a trick of agreement)--

But you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and

spied a mystical assassin from Newark,

So phoned the Doctor--'OK go way for a rest'--so I put on my coat

and walked you downstreet--On the way a grammarschool boy screamed,

unaccountably--'Where you goin Lady to Death'? I shuddered--

and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask

against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma--

And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of

the gang? You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on--to New

York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound--
 
...from Kaddish Part I  by Allen Ginsberg, Newark
 
A bit of Beat poetry for the worst day of the year.  Rebel!  Do something different with your taxes.  Pay them in pennies.  Write a check and attach a poem by Ginsberg or Ferlinghetti.  Write a check and send it in a birthday card to Uncle Sam.  Howl a bit.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Day 14: The middle of the month and the end of the line...

Snow-covered "Indian paintbrushes" near the Bay Head House


Bay Head Station. End


of the line for New Jersey

Transit. Only a thousand

three hundred residents

year round. Katherine

Hepburn lived here.

The bygone Lorraine movie house

is specialty shops now, but

All Saints Episcopal and

the Yacht Club endure

into the new millennium.

The salt-white clock tower


and cross of the Sacred Heart Church


shine over Route 35 blacktop.

Sea and wind sculpt

this beach of high dunes,

and tourists still come

to sun and praise.

The Northern Cross takes

its place in the August sky

just as it did when

the Lenni-Lenape looked up

from their longhouses

and all things

possessed a spirit.
 
...Last Stop by Frank Finale, Toms River
 
To the shore once more with Frank Finale.  I wonder what those Lenni-Lenape would think now.  Romanticizing the past is not really a good thing either.  (Especially, in general, for women)  Think about how many were accommodated in a long house and how many occupy a long house in Bay Head now.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Day 13: Red Lights on the Highway


I was eighteen. The Garden State Parkway.


The police car in the bushes of the meridian,

its red light bar like an eyelid suddenly

opening, six eyes flashing about wildly,

looking for me.



"It's an ambush," I thought.

Me, who had my whole empire

in control - even the hairs on my head

were soldiers standing in order, helping me conquer

what I thought I had to own.



I was eighteen. The gas pedal was like all

physical things, destined to fall downward.

And now I confess

I don't remember anything

about the ticket - its cost or the cop



whose hand wrote my birth name

in the tiny squares, incorporating

my identity into the system.

In years I'd know he was just

doing what he had to do - as was I.



"Here's your ticket," he said,

as if he were an usher

whose job was to rip things in half.

"What am I entering?" I thought.

So my empire began to fall on a shoulder



of the Garden State Parkway-

not usurped really, but undermined.

I was eighteen and falling

through society's turnstiles-

college, speed limits, combing my hair



into a daily unnoticeable-

a work of art whose strength

was that it didn't particularly stand out,

like driving well. I drove off,

pushing the accelerator pedal



to the exact angle of, say,

the Tower of Pisa.

How I wanted to topple it.

How it became the only thing in my world

that could ever rise back
 
...Emperor by B.J. Ward, Changewater
 
Changewater?  Well, that's a new one on me, too.  Changewater recently made the New York Times as the home of delicious rutabagas!  (Tomatoes and blueberries watch out!)
B.J Ward is a fine teacher of poetry and an even better teacher of teachers of poetry.  In this poem, he has sprung from a cage, not on Highway 9, but on the Darkway.  Topple a tower today.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Monday, April 12, 2010

Day 12: Are we able to talk about Vietnam yet?


A half hour after the shots


the calls came through loud and clear.

My RTO handed me the receiver.

Congratulations. I was blooded.


The 1st and 3rd platoon leaders

radioed their approval. No longer

was I green like the jungle

in which I was buried.


Congratulations. I was blooded.


My platoon had recorded its first kill.

North Vietnamese regular. Pith helmet,

uniform, rubber-tire sandals

adorning a lifeless body.


One bullet cleanly through his forehead.

Congratulations. I was blooded.

The enemy was dead,

ambushed from behind a tree.


Odd there was no blood visible

draining from the body. Existence fled

when the bullet hit its target

but the only thing that bled

all over the jungle floor

was my innocence.


Congratulations. I was blooded.

...Blooded by Charles H. Johnson, Hillsborough

Today's selection from Charles H. Johnson, a veteran poet and a poet of veterans.  Sometimes it feels like we're all in some sort of war, as there is more innocence every day bleeding all over the jungle floor.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Day 11: A Private Moment in a Public School...


She makes it through history before her water breaks


in science, is refused a pass, so she runs

to the girls' room with the teacher chasing,

calling for security.


Giving birth in a corridor, she can't be moved,

so they hold the bell to keep the hallway traffic

from grid-locking around her.

There are fights that want to break out

that will have to wait, and drills

and quizzes and experiments with fire,

and the rolling tongues of thirty odd languages.


The pressure of blood surges through arteries

as the load listens to gravity, drops

from the girl's belly.


She lies on the floor while a tribe of administrators

holds her hand, braces her head, catches the crown

of this new child that they must take in,

who has shown up crying, unregistered, and without ID.

...School by Peter Murphy, Atlantic City
 
This has always been a poem I could relate to, especially now that I am part of the "tribe."  Glad to see that the public schools can be looked at as a place where life begins, though.  Especially during these tough times.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Day 10: "Any Other Sad Man"


African blues


does not know me. Their steps, in sands

of their own

land. A country

in black & white, newspapers

blown down pavements

of the world. Does

not feel

what I am.



Strength



in the dream, an oblique

suckling of nerve, the wind

throws up sand, eyes

are something locked in

hate, of hate, of hate, to

walk abroad, they conduct

their deaths apart

from my own. Those

heads, I call

my "people."



(And who are they. People. To concern



myself, ugly man. Who

you, to concern

the white flat stomachs

of maidens, inside houses

dying. Black. Peeled moon

light on my fingers

move under

her clothes. Where

is her husband. Black

words throw up sand

to eyes, fingers of

their private dead. Whose

soul, eyes, in sand. My color

is not theirs. Lighter, white man

talk. They shy away. My own

dead souls, my, so called

people. Africa

is a foreign place. You are

as any other sad man here

american.

...Notes for a Speech by Amiri Baraka, Newark
 
Baraka's words recall music and anticiapte the next poem or lecture.  Check his website for the essays, too.  A brilliant speaker.
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Friday, April 9, 2010

Day 9: Creepy Friday in Secaucus


In a prominent bar in Secaucus one day

Rose a lady in skunk with a top-heavy sway

Raised a knobby red finger - all turned from their beer -

While with eyes bright as snowcrust she sang high and clear


Now who of you'd think from an eyeload of me

That I once was a lady as proud as can be?

Oh I'd never sit down by a tumble-down drunk

If it wasn't, my dears, for the high cost of junk.


All the gents used to swear that the white of my calf

Beat the down of a swan by a length and a half

In the kerchief of linen I caught to my nose

Ah, there never fell snot, but a little gold rose.


I had seven gold teeth and a toothpick of gold

My Virginia cheroot with a leaf it was rolled

And I'd light it each time with a thousand in cash

Why the bums used to fight if I flicked them an ash


Once the toast of the Biltmore, the belle of the Taft

I would drink bottle beer at the Drake, never draft

And dine at the Astor on Salisbury Steak

With a clean table cloth for each bite I would take


In a car like the roxy, I'd roll to the track

A steel-guitar trio, a bar in the back

And the wheels made no noise, they turned ever so fast

Still it took you ten minutes to see me go past


When the horses bowed down to me that I might choose

I bet on them all for I hated to lose

Now I'm saddled each night for my butter and eggs

And the broken threads race down the backs of my legs


Let you hold in mind girls that your beauty must pass

Like a lovely white clover that rusts with its grass

Keep your bottoms off bar stools and marry you young

Or be left - an old barrel with many a bung



For when time takes you out for a spin in his car

You'll be hard-pressed to stop him from going too far

And be left by the roadside, for all your good deeds,

With two toadstools for tits and a face full of weeds



All the house raised a cheer, but the man at the bar

Made a phone call and up pulled a red patrol car

And she blew us a kiss as they copped her away

From that prominent bar in Secaucus NJ

...In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day by X. J. Kennedy, Dover

This is an old favorite of mine.  Lots of friends in SEE- caw-kus.  None in Suh-CAW-kus.  In fancy-schmancy literature, they call this an ubi sunt motif.  Ah, where have all the flowers gone?

Keep reading and writng,

Maureen

Thursday, April 8, 2010

On the Eighth Day, God Created John Pizzarelli....

Travelling down the Turnpike


heading for the shore

A thought just then occurred to me

I never thought before

I've been a lot of places

Seen pictures of the rest

But of all the places I can think of

I like Jersey best.


Betting halls, shopping malls,

good old Rutgers U,

47 shoes stores line Route 22

The Meadowlands, the root beer stands

Main Street Hackensack;

I may leave for a week or two

But I'm always coming back.


The Pinelands and the Vinelands

Seaside Heights Margate

You can have Miami

I love the Garden State

I've been a lot of places

Seen pictures of the rest

But of all the places I can think of

I like Jersey best.


We have horses, Princeton courses,

Gas stations we have scores

Trenton, Hopewell, Lake Hopatcong,

Mantoloking Shores;

Some states have their rock stars,

But Springsteen beats them all --

And our beautiful arena has

Brendan Byrne carved on the wall.


Lots of dineries, oil refineries,

Our highways make you cough,

But Spring Lake Heights and Belmar


Are places to get off.

Drinking spots and used car lots

Make the place just grand,

If you want to pay a visit,

Newark Airport's where you land.


The Pinelands and the Vinelands

Seaside Heights Margate

You can have Miami

I love the Garden State

I've been a lot of places

Seen pictures of the rest

But of all the places I can think of

I like Jersey best.


Philly dogs like Chili dogs

They eat in Cherry Hill

Woodbridge they make Haagen Dazs

I can't get my fill

Saddle River ain't chopped liver

Nor is Lavallette

There are no Jersey strangers,

Just friends we haven't met.


The Jersey Nets went thataway, Piscataway

No more, had another winning season

And next year they'll win more;

Our Giants could go all the way

If they could win just one,

But the parties in the lots

Before the games are really fun.


The Pinelands and the Vinelands

Seaside Heights Margate

You can have Miami

I love the Garden State

I've been a lot of places

Seen pictures of the rest

But of all the places I can think of

I like Jersey best.


Our famous Parkway is the darkway

Home from Manasquan

You'd think for all those quarters

They'd turn the road lights on

And have no pity, Jersey City

Once again will shine,

With Holmdel, Cape May, Highland Park

I like our state just fine.


The Pinelands and the Vinelands

Seaside Heights, Margate

You can have Miami

I love the Garden State

I've seen a lot of places

Seen pictures of the rest

But of all the places

I can think of, I like Jersey Best!
 
...I Like Jersey Best by John Pizzarelli, Paterson
 
These are really funny lyrics to a signature song by John Pizzarelli, balladeer and Broadway star.  He was my mom's favorite, so that's another reason why he's here.  Gotta love a guy with pizza in his name and Piscataway in his song!
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Day 7: Don't Cry in Your Beer


Poet Drive, part of the legacy in Matawan


WHERE now these mingled ruins lie


A temple once to Bacchus rose,

Beneath whose roof, aspiring high,

Full many a guest forgot his woes.


No more this dome, by tempests torn,

Affords a social safe retreat;

But ravens here, with eye forlorn,

And clustering bats henceforth will meet.


The Priestess of this ruined shrine,

Unable to survive the stroke,

Presents no more the ruddy wine,--

Her glasses gone, her china broke.


The friendly Host, whose social hand

Accosted strangers at the door,

Has left at length his wonted stand,

And greets the weary guest no more.


Old creeping Time, that brings decay,

Might yet have spared these mouldering walls,

Alike beneath whose potent sway

A temple or a tavern falls.


Is this the place where mirth and joy,

Coy nymphs, and sprightly lads were found?

Indeed! no more the nymphs are coy,

No more the flowing bowls go round.


Is this the place where festive song

Deceived the wintry hours away?

No more the swains the tune prolong,

No more the maidens join the lay.


Is this the place where Nancy slept

In downy beds of blue and green?

Dame Nature here no vigils kept,

No cold unfeeling guards were seen.


’T is gone!--and Nancy tempts no more;

Deep, unrelenting silence reigns;

Of all that pleased, that charmed before,

The tottering chimney scarce remains.


Ye tyrant winds, whose ruffian blast

Through doors and windows blew too strong,

And all the roof to ruin cast,--

The roof that sheltered us so long,--


Your wrath appeased, I pray be kind

If Mopsus should the dome renew,

That we again may quaff his wine,

Again collect our jovial crew
 
.. On the Ruins of a Country Inn by Phillip Freneau, Matawan
 
Now you've got to love a guy who wrote a poem about his favorite bar after it burned down.  Ah, the memories of sticky beer mats, the crooked barstools, and the barrage of boisterous banter.  Such a tragedy, even for the "Poet of the Revolution."
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Day 6: Lemon Sorbet in Princeton


Comes to mind as another small

upheaval

amongst the rubble.

His eye matches exactly the bubble

in my spirit-level.

I set aside hammer and chisel

and take him on the trowel.



The entire population of Ireland

springs from a pair left to stand

overnight in a pond

in the gardens of Trinity College,

two bottle of wine left there to chill

after the Act of Union.



There is, surely, in this story

a moral. A moral for our times.

What if I put him to my head

and squeezed it out of him,

like the juice of freshly squeezed limes,

or a lemon sorbet?

...The Frog by Paul Muldoon, born in County Armagh, residing in County Mercer at the big university.

Although Paul Muldoon is a great poet, please do not squeeze any frogs after having read this poem, okay? (Look.   I'm not sure that I really understand this poem.  Help me out if you have any ideas.  sometimes poems are just for words and fun.  Is that it?)

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Monday, April 5, 2010

Day 5: Plums from Rutherford

munching a plum on

the street a paper bag

of them in her hand

They taste good to her

They taste good

to her. They taste

good to her

You can see it by

the way she gives herself

to the one half

sucked out in her hand

Comforted

a solace of ripe plums

seeming to fill the air

They taste good to her


...To a Poor Old Woman,  William Carlos Williams, Rutherford
 
 
I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

...This is Just to Say by Doc Williams, Rutherford

Before Stephanie Plum of Chambersburg, Trenton, there was William Carlos Williams of Rutherford, a doctor reminding us of what we all know about the curative powers of deliciousness.  Sometimes, you just need to have something wonderful for yourself.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Day 4: A Dream of Life...



Can't see nothin' in front of me


Can't see nothin' coming up behind



I make my way through this darkness

I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me

Lost track of how far I've gone

How far I've gone, how high I've climbed

On my back's a sixty pound stone

On my shoulder a half mile line


Come on up for the rising

Com on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight


Left the house this morning

Bells ringing filled the air

Wearin' the cross of my calling

On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here


Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight


Spirits above and behind me

Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright

May their precious blood forever bind me


Lord as I stand before your fiery light


I see you Mary in the garden

In the garden of a thousand sighs

There's holy pictures of our children

Dancin' in a sky filled with light

May I feel your arms around me

May I feel your blood mix with mine

A dream of life comes to me


Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line


Sky of blackness and sorrow ( a dream of life)

Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)

Sky of glory and sadness ( a dream of life)

Sky of mercy, sky of fear ( a dream of life)

Sky of memory and shadow ( a dream of life)

Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight

Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)

Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life ( a dream of life)


Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight

...The Rising by Bruce Springsteen, Freehold
Happy Easter.  C'mon rise up.  Our saddest days lead to our resurrections.  Think of how Jesus may have felt this morning.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Day 3: Born Again

With his head

On my shoulder, my newborn son

Has fallen asleep. In the dark,

I hold him there, resting

My cheek on his forehead - a violinist

Who has put down his bow

And stands quietly overwhelmed

By his own music.

...In the Dark by Joe Salerno


Poetry is the art of not succeeding;


the art of making a little ritual

out of your own bad luck, lighting a little fire

made of leaves, reciting a prayer

in the ordinary dark.

... Joe Salerno

Some short poems with some deep thoughts.  Just what we need before we resurrect ourselves tomorrow.  Have your food blessed today.  Buy your last package of Peeps for the year.  Hold a baby if you can, just so that you can feel how beautiful birth and rebirth are.  Happy Holy Saturday.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Friday, April 2, 2010

Day 2 with Uncle Walt ...

WHEN I heard the learn’d astronomer;


When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; 

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

....."When I Heard the Learn'd Astromomer" by Walt Whitman, Camden

Sometimes even the smartest people just don't get it.  We often lose the beauty of something by picking it apart until it becomes unrecognizable and its essence is lost.  On this Good Friday, let's not lose the message of suffering and sacrifice.  Like Whitman did, "rise and glide out" if you need to.

Keep reading and writing,

Maureen

Thursday, April 1, 2010

National/New Jersey Poetry Month ...



In the skull kept on the desk.

In the spider-pod in the dust.


Or nowhere. In milkmaids, in loaves,

Or nowhere. And if Socrates leaves



His house in the morning,


When he returns in the evening



He will find Socrates waiting


On the doorstep. Buddha the stick


You use to clear the path,

And Buddha the dog-doo you flick


Away with it, nowhere or in each

Several thing you touch:


The dollar bill, the button

That works the television.


Even in the joke, the three

Words American men say


After making love. Where’s

The remote? In the tears


In things, proximate, intimate.

In the wired stem with root


And leaf nowhere of this lamp:

Brass base, aura of illumination,


Enlightenment, shade of grief.

Odor of the lamp, brazen.


The mind waiting in the mind

As in the first thing to hand.


...First Things to Hand by Robert Pinsky, Long Branch
 
Here is the first of the "New Jersey Poems of the Day" for National Poetry Month.  I think it's about all things existing at the same time, with equal importance and equal lack of importance.  Perhaps it's about not being tempted to give anything too much significance.  A Tikkun review refers to "the smallest possible ciricumference around oneself."  All things that are close to us are "stem, leaf, and root," depending on our use of them.

Where are you reading this blog now?  What is "proximate, intimate" to your immediate circumference?  What do those objects mean to you?  Do they become something else when you touch them?  Are you changed by them or are they changed by you?
April Fool!  There's no real answer to those questions.  Just more questions...
 
Keep reading and writing,
 
Maureen