MY EARLIEST PUBLISHED POETRY: from ESSENCE OF DRAGON WINGS

In August of 1978, I had three poems published in a poetry zine put out by a handful of SDSU poetry department students and teachers. My friend Mary Jacob was involved and Stan Sewitch another friend of Mary and mine did some illustrations if I recollect. The following three poems show my earliest stabs at thinking I could try this. I'd had a great poetry course recently with the marvelous central California poet, Gary Soto. It would be years before I found what he called "my emerging voice" but his encouragement as well as that of Carolyn Forche who was also teaching at State helped me at least be comfortable enough to show them around a bit.


What I like about them now, even in their struggle to be "poetic", I was able to grab three distinct moments from my life and write about them with separate structural ideas while still trying to reflect the way I heard myself speaking. Baby steps.



THEY LOOK LIKE TWINS IN THE DARK

Lit by burning wax thru ferns and plate glass
Skin against warm skin
Lava on rock
Hips moving against each other.
The record sings, "Open your eyes, you can fly!"

They listen with armies of moths
Fluttering under their skin.
The dreams, like flames thru dry ice,
Surround them in candlelight about the walls.

Someone watches from the window
As the moon slips behind a cloud.

-- for Dusty, Ocean Beach, February, 1977
first published in Essence Of Dragon's Wings, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1978

THE WORM

There's a religious fanatic
On Channel 10
And three drunks doing somersaults
In the living room;
One without his upper plate
And the other two munching down
Week-old chow mein.

And I'm in here
Halfway between drunken despair
And Forks, Washington.
Lying in bed
I try to find a comfortable spot
To leave both my feelings and my hangover.
No lightning between my toes.
No passionate clinches in dark hallways.
No laughter from behind the bathroom door.

Damned exotic fruit drinks:
Every time somebody turns on the blender the TV zaps out.
I never remember drinking the worm
But it always crawls up my throat
In the middle of breakfast.

-- Ocean Beach, December 1976
first published in Essence Of Dragon's Wings, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1978

UNHEALTHY

A year ago today
you told me to get my
tooth fixed
one day later
we had lunch
in front of a swing band
I haven't seen you since.



-- for Papa, San Diego, November 1977
first published in Essence Of Dragon's Wings, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1978

Spigot

I.

stranger;
nemesis to himself
foisting drill-press limitation
hard-edged
guilt by disassociation
fire line discombobulation
on one's own psyche.

not particularly healthy
non-controllable, weirdly osmotic
chemical reaction to heart's conundrums;
not conducive to positive growth potential.
lose the diagnosis
...race for the cure.

II.

there has not been a day
without tears
(waterfall;
glacial trickle > ocean roar
record setting, soaking pearls
of rejected anger, mists of acceptance
beauty's reflected appreciation
longing’s widening, leaking fissure)
raining for 49 humid days
dark, ebony nights.
after 15 years of drought,
thirsting for tear's acknowledgment
of some dab of emotion left floating inside,
the partched earth
rock solid
impenetrable
like my stupidity
my rigorous, inflexible blinders
the spidery flawed face of the self-loathing mirror
turned shamefully to the wall.
Barely a smidgen of moisture crept through.
But what did seeped into the cracked weaknesses
of my hardened self-hatred
created rivulets of hope
positive flow


(beneath the surface,
waterways tinged of reminiscence
just navigable
in the eerie inner darkness,
the memory of passionate language of thought
floating
downstream
toward that light)

III.

my face
flushes briefly with the warmth...
stopping breath
time
memory
flow
only to slip further away
always, unexplainably out of her grasp
always mysteriously in reach
waiting
always for that warm glimmer
upon my saddened brow.

always
the light
she silently calls out
whispering my given name
singing the word "beautiful"
softly on my every breath.

always
a darker reality
than the soul can bear.

IV.

time cradles light like a fragile child
sneering menacingly at the baby's face
calling its hand.
full of love, sustenance and compassion
the light's radiant smile
briefly tickles time's chin
only to dim
in it's powerful stare.

-- 6/23/96


SPIGOT was also published in an early version in the poetry zine, A Hindu, A Buddhist & A Lion Tamer #2 (Folcroft, PA 1996). That early version also made an appearance in the poetry zine, The Children of the Light, Vol. 1 published in Hockessin, DE in Summer 1997. The earlier version can be found here in a blog listing called MORE EARLY PUBLISHED WORK from March 23, 2010.

Rails

Rails
against the sun
steel glimmer fading fast
Rails
whose time has come
whose time was in the past
Rails
who changed the nation's face
shrinking large from vast
Rails
whose labored beds built from blood & sweat
men from harsher worlds worked harder still and yet
Rails
transport the myth, the gold, the crop, the seed
the legend of the West, the locomotive steed
Rails
lull me to sleep,
the click commits the clack
Rails
infect my dreams
where, never coming back
Rails
rode the hips of hills
the stockyards. Neal and Jack.
Rails
glisten in the blazing sun
whistle in the rain
Rails
away from here we run
Rails
...freedom on the train.

- 7/1/96 4:10-4:12 PM on the Express train to NYC from Wilmington

RAILS was also published in the poetry zine, A Hindu, A Buddhist & A Lion Tamer #2 (Folcroft, PA 1996)