KIDNAPPED

Robyn Makaruk   May 2015

There are wordsmiths I know

That I’d like to kidnap.

I’d put them in separate rooms

Each with a bay window

A nice, comfy chair,

Table, writing materials

I’d play them their kind of music

Feed them sweetmeats

Serve them fine wine

Then steal their arsenal of

Metaphors,

Turn of phrase, meter,

All of those wondrous words

Reduced to the essence

Of meaning and emotion.

But when I really think about it

Kidnapping would not be the way to go

As each week all that I’ve just described

Is given me in the spirit of generosity

And sharing of these marvelous gifts

With no expectations of anything more

Than acceptance.

                   ****

DOWNHILL SKIER

by John Field

From a mile away
He looks like a black crumb
Defacing a white tablecloth.
Above him a wreath of blood-red clouds, 

Perhaps an omen, because this is not
Your average mountain. Below him
A vertical drop so steep
It falls away to depths invisible.
This is the setting our crazy gambler
Is willing to barter
The rest of his life for:
The chance to win or lose everything
In a minute or two.
Wild to be wreckage forever
If it comes to that
Because safety is in excellent health 

Anyplace else but here,
He’s popping sweat
As he surrenders his fate to gravity
And in a kind of mystical
And thundering ecstasy
Blasts the breath right out of the air
As he plunges straight down
His immaculate heaven of secret snow 

Stranger than death and soft as wool,
His romantic and shining grace
A silk-tight blur against the slope
As he swerves in and out
Of the huge gray presence
Of tremendous boulders
Which specialize in manufacturing ghosts, 

But fails to notice the snow-capped crown 

Of a giant’s tooth,
And just like that his skis get tangled up
In the vice-like grip of its rotten stump. 

Years later each time his friends drop by 

To say hello on limping summer afternoons 

And winter nights of ice and snow
They know dismemberment,
Like sex, is intimate, and never stare
At the tucked-in cuff of his missing foot.

           LISTEN NOT WITH YOUR MIND

                                                             Noris Binet   2015

Listen 

not with your mind

or  with what you know 

or don't know

listen to  the sound that got lost

when you were a child 

and learned to speak a language.

Listen 

not with what you know 

or don't know

listen with the innocence

of those who don't know

yet how to speak.

For them all sounds

are melodies 

evoking the unborn, 

the un-manifest,  the verbiage

of one who does not know

how to speak. 

Then you will understand 

my words

even when they don't seem to mean 

anything at all.

Yet  they will resonate

through you 

like arrows in flight

leaving a trail  behind them.

Your  mind won't ever 

understand

but it will remember 

how it felt

when the arrow of my words 

cut through,  leaving

behind  only 

one word,

listen 

Listen

not with your mind

or with what you know

or don't know. 

                                *****

LONGING FOR PERMANENCE

by Michael James,  April 2015

Through a small hole in a fence a child saw an iridescent blue butterfly land on one of those equally brilliant red ground cover flowers with yellow hearts. He moved for comfort and when again he stared at the flower through the hole, the visitor had vanished. Only its magnificence remained living in his mind: its big wings mirroring the sky when open; when closed, a self-effacing grey. For a moment it had been his to admire but now was only a memory to cherish.

As a boy, riding my bike down a long hill through the Ashdown Forest, I imagined I heard a huge musical chord swelling to a crescendo behind me, rushing to follow me helter-skelter down the hill, filling the woods with its magnificent harmony. As the chord reached me, it rose a fifth as if in greeting, then passing by, dropped again and faded into silence.

At a student party in the Berkeley hills, in my rampant youth, I danced to Caribbean music with another’s partner. We were wine-loose and free of limb, and we gave ourselves to the music and to each other with the controlled abandon of two dancers performing as one. And when the music ended we clapped for another piece which started us again on the extravagant monopoly of the floor. But I never got her number and forgot her name.

As a hearty youth working for the  US Forest Service in a summer job, I climbed Mount Shasta, alone as  it happened. There was a hut at 8,000 ft in which I slept for the night. But at three am, I was awakened by a party of climbers tromping around the little hut preparing for the ascent. They left; I slept. Later I passed them dithering about on the steep climb up to Red Rocks. They never did make it past the Rocks, on top of which I fell asleep after lunch and a half bottle of rose. When I awakened there were two climbers standing over me asking whether I was all right. The three of us slogged on to the summit in time to enjoy the magnificent view for an hour: the westering sun glinting on a sliver of ocean, unbroken forest as far as we could see, dark blue sky like looking down into the deep ocean by Molikini off Maui. On the way down, after we had made it to the bottom of Red Rocks, we wrapped our heavy jackets around our backsides, and took off sliding down a 3,000 ft glissade, feet in the air to prevent us tumbling or spinning, yelling at the top of our lungs like children on a roller coaster. 

 

The boy and his butterfly and the bicycle and the dancer and the climber, are all gone like the snows of yesteryear, les neiges d’antan, the only permanence being the ubiquity of change. Matter is an illusion, say both physicist and mystic: all is the energy of constant change. So we long for what we cannot have, at least not this side of the grave, the Faustian moment bargained for by Mephistopheles: “Stay awhile; thou art so fair!”

Faust was no spring chicken when he tired of change. We octogenarians came to the same state two decades ago, possibly when the increased pace of aging brought about unwelcome changes in our bodies. And now we face similar deterioration in our brains.

We stop sleeping through the night; we mislay car keys and wallets; miss appointments; miss being whole. But hale or not, we’d value change would bring us rain.

   Come now Aprille with your shoures sote

And perce old Marche to the rote.

Now bathe every veyne in swich licour

Whose vertu then engendre will the flour.

Come Zephirus eek with your swete breeth

Inspire flours in every holt and heeth

And leve smale fowles maken melodye

That slepen al the night with open ye.

Come now, April, with your sweet showers

And pierce old March to the root.

Now bathe every vein in such sap

Whose virtue will engender then the flowers.

Come West Wind also with your sweet breath;

Breathe into flowers in every grove and heath,

And cause small birds to sing

That sleep all night with an open eye.

PRIVACY IS BECOMING A LOST ART

by Lucille Hamilton

Privacy is Becoming a Lost Art

Some people have their various ideas

As to what the moon's up to

When she goes behind a cloud.

Frankly, I think it's none of their damn business.

***

SUNDAY

by Joan Shepherd

Sunday comes with a wish for an adventure

Let the yard and house chores be

Let’s get in the car and go explore

A different beach or town or a road 

That goes somewhere I don’t know

Find someplace serving hot biscuits

With sausage and eggs

Those choices are at home

And I am a good cook.

Maybe that’s why I need a change

Taste someone else’s cooking

Learn something new

It’s Sunday! Let’s go explore

He has to go to the city in the afternoon

But that’s OK; we’ll work it in

He has some ideas, places to go

How about Nick’s Cove. it’s always good

But we’ve been there several times, 

Yes, but just getting there is an adventure

Huge over-fertilized rocks

In fields with contented cows

And groups of poppies 

Sniff the air by eucalyptus trees 

Damp with morning fog

The climax of the drive is the ocean 

Maybe calm or maybe angry with crashing waves

Washing your eyes, the better to see

I know a place you’ve never been

The Pelican Inn, perfect! Drive along the ocean

Then through the windy road off Stinson Beach

And we’re almost to San Francisco.

And then again, 

What about that place you love by the Presidio

You know, onion soup or clam chowder. 

That’s Liverpool Lil’s, actually your favorite 

I’ll be hungry and want more than soup

But I’m getting into the spirit

Remember that place on Van Ness…

What’s it called?... Tommy’s Joint!

I haven’t been there in…

I count the decades on my fingers. 

Forty years!  

You could do your business after. 

By now, we are actually on the road

Which seems to be heading straight to SF 

Not the ocean and Nicks Cove

Nor cows in fields with big rocks and flowers

“I have to meet this guy when he awakes 

From working nights, sometime after 12

The car is parked on Ashberry, just off Haight

Old Hippie stomping grounds

Parked by a wooden fence, Wait

Without even trying, 

Feel a smile on my face

And feel the effects of someone else’s marijuana 

Two women giggle behind the fence

Their exhales drift in the car window 

To give me a little high.

I look about me –  tourists looking for hippies

Natives on the street are dressed 

For comfort and damp air

I would look strange if I got out of the car

Shoes without socks, shivering without a coat

A tourist, they would think, who doesn’t realize 

The chill of the bay even with the sun shining. 

He returns, business over, an exchange of money 

And a used huge printer in the back of the car. 

Again! 

So where are we going? 

We near one of the places

And debate if it is open

But we have passed it without a decision.

The car is driving itself, merging lanes

Up and down steep hills and suddenly

We are on the bridge. 

I venture a suggestion from my empty stomach

Tiburon?  We move along.

San Rafael? Pass exits too quickly

Remember that drive to Nicosia?

I always want to go back there. 

Too late; we are passing the dredging 

At the empty boat docks 

When we turn into Lakeville,

 I know where we are going. 

The Greek Place, Papas Tavern

Now has new ownership

No big surprise seeing the empty parking lot 

Not only closed, it looks like it never opened.  

The place is deserted.

We stop at a beer joint on the corner 

Lakeville Highway and Stagecoach Gulch,

Across the field with sheep and jumping lambs

And across Lakeville, the barn 

That has finally collapsed.

Traffic whizzes by on Lakeville 

While others wait on Stagecoach Gulch 

For their chance to turn without getting hit

Galvanized tubs filled with plants waving with breeze 

Accompanying bursts of laughter from the bar.

They don’t even sell a potato chip

Let alone a hamburger with fries

We’ve got lots of food at home.

Let’s buy some cold dark beer and fix dinner. 

Well, it was a Sunday adventure, of sorts.

                            ***

POETRY:

by Janet Wentworth

brown spots

are these my mother’s hands

or really mine

as a child

I noticed little

dots

on my mother’s skin

mother died long ago

skier/tennis player/swimmer

arthritis did her in

it’s my turn

young/bronzed

summer skin

once glistening

like California gold

now

a calico coat

blended brown/white

it happens

under the sun

***

CATS

I HAVE A FRIEND

WHO HAS

TWO CATS

THEY RARELY PROWL

I PREFER

A GOOD GROWL

THEIR HAIR IS SOFT 

AND IT IS COZY

WHEN THEY PURR

THEY ARE NOT 

SO NOSEY

AS A DOG

AND KEEP THEIR

FACES VERY CLEAN

ALTHOUGH SOMETIMES

THEY CAN SCRATCH

AND BE MEAN

THEY CAN ALWAYS

BE LEFT ALONE

IN YOUR HOUSE

AND

YOU NEVER HAVE

TO WORRY

ABOUT A MOUSE

SO IT IS NOT 

THAT I DON’T LIKE CATS

I JUST LIKE DOGS

A LITTLE BETTER

****

THE FIRST KISS

by JOHN FIELD

2015

Imagine the bare naked thrill
Of turning over a rock
And watching little white things 

Writhe against each other in the dirt. 

How did I get so snarled?

When I was fifteen I didn’t know
How to do things with words
That knew what to say when I talked to a girl, 

My thoughts either too shy or too weird 

When I transferred them
From my mind to my mouth.

Night after night in a festival of heat
Between the sheets
I sighed and cried and cursed and prayed
That one day soon I’d discover
Love’s true anatomy with Gretchen Glover.
Once I asked my older brother
What he and his girlfriend did
In the back seat of his Chevy.
His reply was a look which implied
That the drip in my personality
Was unfixable. So much for that.
Each time I measured myself against him
I got down on the ground and looked up at his knees.

Heart-jailed, I self-absorbed into myself 

Like a worm in an apple, aware of the fact 

That if I kept my feelings locked up 

Without the possibility of parole

I’d end up babbling baby-talk.

At school my teachers
Needed documentary evidence
To prove I was alive.
Hour after hour I watched time’s
Tired clocks tick-tock my classes away 

Until they weren’t anymore
And then took long solitary walks
Just to get lost
Instead of going anywhere.

Everything changed the afternoon
Gretchen shined her angelic smile
In my direction,
Detached my shadow’s anchor from my shoes 

And beamed me into the stratosphere.

The next day I took my brand new life
Out of its jewel box
And bought a pair of neon-green corduroy slacks 

Loud enough to shatter glass.

Too shy—alas!—to fan my tail feathers
In front of her (afraid the older boys would laugh) 

I strutted around like a show-off cock
Inside the castle walls of my previous life,
Perfect except for the fact that she wasn’t there.

Worse still, I felt like a virginal medical student 

Attending his first anatomy class
The night Gretchen and I
Watched Robert Mitchum chase Jane Russell 

Halfway across Mexico in “My Kind of a Woman.”

What could my sweetie possibly mean 

When she whispered in my ear,

 “Mitchum’s got sleepy bedroom eyes 

And so do you.” How did she know

I hadn’t slept a wink in a week
Worrying myself sick about our first date?

Seconds later she wasn’t Daddy’s little girl 

When she gave me a tongue-tasting 

Breath-sucking shuddering something 

Akin to bliss. Maybe even LOVE?

Not so. Twelve hours later
My jukebox dreams ran out of nickels 

When she fired her shotgun grin 

Straight through me
And brought down the captain
Of the football team.