Wednesday, December 31, 2008

WHAT I'VE DONE THIS YEAR

The crimson notebook,
thin silver spiral
of metal like tin
curling down its spine,
lays flat on the rectangular
breakfast table
where I sip morning coffee
and create poetry
each dawn from the tangles
and twists of my life
held in the gleaming arms
of these myriad days
and nights of mine.

Its red cover is rumpled
and cracked,
wrinkled color
of fire and blood,
sex and stop signs
encloses multiple pages
fat with poems
of a few scrawny lines
and of almost epic proportion
composed these past
many months
of disciplined
daily writing.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

SOUTHWARDS IN SONG

did I say the time we wrote a song together
in the old Chevy driving down to San Francisco?

dad actually grinning at the wheel and I the big boy
riding co-pilot with great maps spread across my happy lap,
the day unfolding like a fan of peacock feathers
through the bug stained windshield,
leaving Portland at 3 or 4 in the morning
because we all were too excited to sleep
and so let's pile in the car and head south
through the dark night and the many miles
into the magical beautiful arching city
and the Golden Gate---

Oh! the Golden Gate, you orange sun
emerging strong and sudden
from bluest sky
over infinite waters!

and our chorus of song belting out
‘California Here We Come’ crossing
the great bridge which seemed to represent
happiness or a kind of freedom not known at home--
and smiles, there were true smiles,
spontaneous,
amongst us then in the packed car.

yes we had these family vacation times
when the screaming and god-awful
tensions of sad desultory songs at home
dissipated for a blessed week
or two at a blessed time
and I looked at him soft
and breathed in my father's
face and being,
a good and safe man
for this while
who loved me and his life,
which was not always the case
back north in the grim rain
and day to day
of worry and wear.

This may tell why I shall always love
the city of steep hills on the bay
with its Chinatown, beatnik bookstores,
Italian coffeehouses and romantic cable cars
pulling us higher and higher
towards a slice of heaven
where ease and joy
and even singing at the table
over pasta and bread with real butter
in the comforting wooden booths
of North Beach prevail
without threat of punishment or shame.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Stare, Weigh

Knowing her
was a slow walk
up a tenement stairwell
in dim light,
patchouli sifting through still air,
beautiful, disturbing graffiti
encrusted everywhere.

Each step arduous, uncertain
if the stone stair will hold
my weight and worry.

Finally, at the top,
breathing hard,
I find her door
a wall
at which I stare
and stare,
bolted tight
from the unseen
inside.

ORANGE BO'

"..but in summer there is everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts." --Mary Oliver


Sucking the sweetest
juice, scintillating
sugary essence
from the cut
and quartered orange,
I heard these few
but tasty words:

‘be available to yourself’

and I say now
to you who hear
or read these lines---
an orange never was better
nor made me happier
than before this brief phrase
burst forth like the sun
from scented flesh
of a single fruit
whose amazing aroma
lays still and strong
on the calloused tips
of my buzzing
lazy fingers.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Farmer Couple

When the turkey farmers doff mud
soaked galoshes and tiredly push through
the injured screen door’s
strident squeaking,
a plethora of penumbras couldn’t darken
the old kitchen table laden thick
with lumpy green melons
and squishy gizzards
smelling quite bitter,
looking not
much better,
in the failing
dimming
Autumn light.

Old Mr. Hansen called to his missus,
“give me a drink from the frig real fast”.
She rose up quick on her creaky knees,
poured him a tall one from the top metal shelf.
His crooked smile met
the cold beer foam lace
while she re-tied her apron
and denied herself.

This ancient couple had built a life
of ignoring,
solely traversing stone
roads of silence,
working always and only
to tend their damn gobblers.

In this, their final chapter, had begun to falter.
The children they’d sired all moved to town.
Lonely times weighed big now,
cold heavy nights slowly pulled down.
She often dreamt of choking on salt water,
waking up gasping as if to drown.

He knew her not in her true honest ways.
Sixty years of marriage,
many seasons of history,
the birth of four children,
still neither seeing the other
in Autumns’ failing rays.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Breeze Pleases

the morning’s breeze moves these trees
in a mute symphony outside the window
of the soft-lit living room.

these lacey green leaves murmur
and sneeze
while the spirited wind
cavorts and teases
with her tantalizing
namedropping, her surreptitious
eavedropping and hip-hop
hip-hopping from oscillating
branches to awaken and please
brightly feathered bird life
tucked away in little niches
and nooks of concave
where the tenderest heart
can be quietly
at rest.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

BODY, I WANT TO HEAR YOU!

Body, I want to hear you
without judgement or flight
into the opiate paste of DISTRACTION
of which there are ten thousand
darting delusional paths,
I do certainly think.

Body, I do not know how
to quiet my spinning mind
for very long
and hence the old sad stories,
worn-out yet potent,
once real as paste,
salty, viscous and white,
smelling of school children's
curious stubby fingers,
stiffen my spirit and separate
me and these cracked suitcases
of thought from you
and your wisdom,
dear old flesh and bone
held together by time's odd habits,
and the basic persistence of biological fact.

Body, may I love you simply today
with an attentive gaze
and focused sense
of fellow feeling
like an easy wind wafting
through dreamy birches
in thick stands
of ivory bark trees
next to the moist
sandy shore
on a cool lake
of welcoming.

As you dear body
converse with me
from cellular depths
of saintly patience
in slanted nuance
or searing noise
of your mysterious needs
about all that is felt
with your beautiful knowing,
your ten fingers blazing
as rainbows of light,
stretched up and out
into a seascape of sky,
I begin to allow
the sweetness of sensing
from down in my marrow
to penetrate this frantic brain
becoming slowly permeable
in its square stubborn envelope.

As an April robin
alights on fresh green grass
to feed from the earth
in Spring's golden warmth,
I, with felt certain respect
and not just
a bit of surprise,
enjoy the delight
of sudden coming to rest
in comforting oneness
without even trying!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

A Moment

the sidling up,
an apparent sneak attack
actually,
targeted towards the bright red berry,
one tiny member of the crimson bunch
of little balls attached to the green
and prickly holly tree
situated like a shining sentinel
or rising emerald tower
at the top of our front yard
by one black cat
with the thickest fur
and taut true focus
was a moment
(for some reason or another--
perhaps time’s passage
and this another Christmas
me single as a lone stray creature)
meant to be appreciated,
to be felt in love’s
soft body
as unimportant
and yet still special,
and I guess you could say
in that way
I was there
and saw
one black cat
with the thickest fur
and taut true focus
do his part
one cold December
morning
in the ongoing
unfolding,
the sweet
sad
dewdrop
state
of all
things.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

TOASTING PRESENCE

The taste of rich morning coffee,
the soft feel of the bathrobe
cushioning my seat,
my beautiful vibrant paintings
throughout this small home
are emblems of my life
being lived out
in the open
today
right now,
true joys
and minor marvels,
sensuous,
replete.

Not always easy
to toast gratefully,
the moments of our days
with the complete
panoply
of yes and no
and the gray
in-between,
so breathe in deeply
wherever you sit--
taste slowly of your life--
the vague edges
and hidden center,
the underneath
and tongue savored,
the shine of what’s seen,
and know that
this rare gift
of intimacy’s threshold,
gleams here
for you
to mindfully enter,
become love,
thus renewed.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Thrushing the Thrasher

“It seemed good, the clotted darkness that came everyday.” John Ashberry

and what was, or shall we say--- is, so fucking good
about the coagulated black smudge on the teapot thrung
or flung on the peat moss of the Scotsman’s small forested
backyard smidgen of space, I queried the stumbled poet down
on his knees and luck, as we lumbered into the spout of far-fetched
forsaken verse and what is worse, thought we knew what was being said,
within reason, of course….

the pillars of ante-bellum mansions
were all tumbling
while the stomachs of writers
were rumbling
with undigested slivers of night..
cashews like caramel
colored crescents
scattered over the broccoli
and corn,
gave good crunch
and such substance
to Friday's tasteful,
simple meal.

Uncles and Aunts of a Certain Ilk

the apple was almost
avuncular
in its roly-poly
quite specific
roundness,
you, on the other
good hand,
reminded us
of family gatherings
at the spinster
aunt’s in Seattle,
perfumed, slender
and bookish.

the event’s effect
was to be social
without pretense,
and related in fact,
yet disconnected.

they’d gather before dinner
in the drawing room,
snifters of brandy
held aloft and so gingerly,
while cartographies
of worlds once believed in
defined talk of faculty appointments
and politics
as they wondered where
they’d perhaps wrongly chosen.

you’d listen as long as possible
to the drone of this polite-ish drivel,
until backyards and fences
couldn’t hold you---
now romping in the tousled outdoors
beckoned and begged
for your strong boyish vigor,
even rain
couldn’t restrain then
your gleaming.

No, not rain could restrain
then your gleaming.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

the pungent fragrant sage
after the storm
subsides.

my hands grip
the steering wheel
so cold,
all the self-control
your sweet memory
now provides.

Mumbled on the Subway

the boys in the band wore blue,
as me and her and you
twirled on the dance floor
and shouted for pasta and wine and what’s more,

and what is more, is more
is more

and I began to sputter right out like flypaper flutters in air,
you didn’t say a thing and drank your coke from a cup
which was visible but not hardly there.

the back became tenser than tense and the rabbits and roosters
sat on their backs on opposite sides of a fence.

where we had a map, we motored and napped,
all the way to Alcatraz Island, yet the city of Francis loomed
like a librarian about to swoon, in the distance of vision
we ended the derision and the girls in newspapers spooned.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

It’s dangerous to love, swooshing tires spout,
as they slide across streets rain wet
in daylight’s tangled traffic,
radio announcers broadcast multiple warnings
of caution against opening
one’s pink heart too fast or often,
although these words are garbled in code
heard only by few on the outskirted margins
of the listening multitude.

Even crimson apples gleaming and piled in pyramids
on supermarket aisles shine out,
as acres of fruit stridently shout:
“if your true core of feeling greets the world’s
wildness and woes and steps out of, or sheds,
its cushion of clothes, things unspoken,
unknown shall emerge without question
from the black shadows unseen.

Life and her fellows may buy you outright,
pack you up and tight in a brown grocery sack,
carry you off and away to god knows where-
perhaps a small cottage on a blue misted lake
or an art studio upstairs many months and more miles
from where you began.

And in a sweet daze, bewildered beguiled,
if lucky or blessed,
you may slowly hear music
played by a curly haired child,
and decide to allow what is now here to unfold,
as if there were free choice in love’s ancient story
re-told.

Upon Reading Issa and Gary Snyder

be-bop
hip-hop
dew-drop,

may po-
etry
itself
take refuge
in the dust…..

and still

rain song, plopping swooshing

plop plop plop swoosh swoosh
plop plop
swoosh swoosh
plop plop plop

morning skies empty out
completely
onto earth’s open hand,
wetness everywhere,
we wait,
count drops,
get soaked.

no umbrella can
fortify,
keep dry
in rain such as this
today
under which
we stand.

plop plop swoosh plop
plop plop plop
plop swoosh swoosh
plop swooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Peter J. Lautz December 17, 2008

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Slept Through Enlightenment

The meditation sit
was a worn-out fight
with afternoon fatigue,
in a few mere minutes
the bowed head persevered,
became my plight.

Nodding right off,
I slept,
I dozed,
chin hit chest
more than once.

My neck slipped from
its erect pier
in the sea of consciousness
and began to bob
like a marionette afloat
on a stream of thought
at a Buddhist retreat,
or unmoored satellite
lost in inner space.

Esconced in the moment
and place of here
within power of now
staring right at
your white and bright
computer screen,
you might read my attempt
to write this more or less
accurate account
of a slept-right-through
spiritual unawakening
in the torpid temple,
the clogged cathedral
of my fog-filled brain
and over-tired body
where was undertaken
a not too mindful,
yet well intended,
contemplative orchestration.

Family of Origins

one daughter is a dark wooden table half-hidden in trees, heft of her grain sheening moist with dew;
the other a solitary bird, lover of sky, not catalogued nor seen by ornithologists for years;
the son is a rainbow under snow covered cliffs where young women and men jump and fly,
burst with glee, fulfill dreams of daring.

Snowflakes drift and plop softly
like a half written poem
from infinite blue,
cover the table,
the bird feeder, binoculars
and intricate map
to the mountain pass
where children of all stripes
play music of feeling
and eat furtive sandwiches
cut in diagonal halves.

Their smiles don't lie.
They lay on silken mats,
wear raincoats from Paris,
wait for jolly prelates
and pranksters to sing
of innocence and rain
for weathered old pennies
or quarter glasses of blood-red wine.

The painter mourns his lost children
who may have been traded
for promised adventure
during those pestilent years
of long war and fear.

His art is black and cracked
by persistent thought,
a topography laden
with strokes of thick color
heavy as mineral,
stiff and chilled,
yet resilient,
like a type of steel
used to repopulate
French families
in villages flattened
during forlorn battles
wracked by flaming siege.

Three children stand now together
in an empty pool.
It's noon under sun
and they rest
in quiet.
Each is a flower
a force
come full circle,
a thin reed waiting
to birth its own sound
composed for a father
adorned in rags
not of his making.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sky Riders

A Foursome on horseback rode
in blistered torrid heat
along the path of dirt
bisecting a wooden town.

The tall sky was not a friend.

The riders wore broad black hats
shrouding heads of hair,
smiles were hidden there
underneath those grim
cold covers
like a far deep night
holding zero stars.

And the tall sky was not a friend.

As I stopped to greet them
near the smithy’s shop,
sky’s silence was cut
right through
by the helicopter’s blasting
buzz.

(A chainsaw sliced a wedding
in trees so green and moist,
where all guests had traveled far
from the Spanish town of Guernica.)

As we flashed like smelting iron
from unconscious reverie,
we SAW the path of dirt,
the hats so dark and glum,
strange riders on four horses
who now knew the sky’s intent.

Hoofs continued
their clop along
in sound surreal
and solitary :
terrible trails of dust and blood
with memory’s awful song
afloat in fiery wind.

No, the tall sky was not a friend.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

SIT

"....and the sun poured in like butterscotch....." Joni Mitchell





to watch and slow the torrent of thought
might dissolve the tyrant of ought.

entering the kingdom of now,
we sense sweet bliss of wow
wow wow
wow wow..
wow wow.

in this moment no need
for answers or questions
of how.

to sit open and still,
ever simple, never easy,
joy's road, a trek
taken
often alone --
not for the lazy
nor queasy.

Fruition

a pomegranate can be said
to be somewhat like a Christmas tree.

little seeds tucked tight
inside round red fruit
are gifts wrapped gaily,
stacked tall together
under a decorated fir,

each in their respective ways
represent life new so sweet,
a bright true dream,
arms outreached
beyond the enclosed self--
where tingling taste
and unwrapped surprise
may open all
to their hopeful
and cozy
child's heart
gleam.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Sunday in the Park

It’s early, yet the day’s in pieces.
Night came fast,
sucked light from the flowers
in the big park.
The green is gone for now.

These long sidewalks are straight
as Kansas in August,
seem to spell out
ancestors’ forgotten names
in Swedish and Croatian.

As the slivered moon emerges from its lair,
I can’t stop thinking of her
and her thick brown hair.
Even gas stations won’t take
this pocket of counterfeit coins
under acres of neon glare.

Parking the tired car
with its empty tank of fuel
on a silent side street,
I re-tie my shoe laces
and set out into the dark.

Rain descends
like holy water
from the black
infinite
sky.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

HOW HIBERNATION WORKS

First, there's the faintest
shimmer inside
translucent rays
of gauzy moonbeams,
as this sky-hearth
of pristine encircling
warmth
sashays us
home,
where delicious images
forged in fire
slumber
and simmer
in cratered kettles.

Then, like clockwork,
tumblers and jugglers
who know
their magic,
slip into sleep,
and in quiescent rest
become fat dark bears,
snuggling in thick drifts of snow,
while the awakened mute,
skin zinged bright
in freshest air,
yelp out loud
coherent thoughts
of beast and man,
archaic,
purposeful,
and kind.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

How Hibernation May Work

Shimmer within translucent rays
of gauzy moonbeams
as this sky-hearth
of pristine encircling
warmth
sashays us
towards home,
where images
forged in fire
slumber
and simmer
in cratered kettles.

Tumblers and jugglers sleep
like dark bears
fat, snuggling
in thick snow,
while the awakened
mute yelp
out loud
coherent
animal thoughts,
archaic, purposeful,
and kind.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

PREFACE TO PERHAPS

If I can't stop looking with fascination and bodily joy at my 2 new paintings, especially the larger one over the tv set with the black and white commingling aliens just touching lips to forehead in a gesture near tenderness, then perhaps all my obsessing about her and her art, her painting really which from the very beginning delighted and amazed me, and then the loss of her sharp and sudden like a steep unseen cliff where you step stupidly a stride beyond any semblance of a secure edge and freefall for good, forever, down to the scrabble and fragments of geology far far below, then perhaps this craziness is the wind thinning off a desert mirage or the distant ring of fading bells sounded by thirteen nomads riding white horses over shape-shifting dunes of sand and sedge, and then perhaps my absorption in painting last night or the morning before or whenever the fuck it was that I finally pushed past the deep cut of this depression and smeared color with camel hair across an already completed rectangle of canvas has given me something of a return to warm mud and leafsprigs of flowering azaleas and the fragrance of wet Douglas firs and Spring in Oregon, and if I'm real lucky, home.

Yes, the paint and the night in solitude, air saturated with the chemical smell of bitter turpentine helped me feel placed, complete and safe, like home even in the small funky apartment with dirty blinds and poetry books and birthday cards heralding both a new era and our mortality filling 2, no 3, shelves of this one slender packed bookcase. Home.