Compared To Other Places - Lucille Hamilton

I guess, compared to other places,

California is big.

You can find small places 

near San Francisco though - 

where neighbors are important,

and the air brings you the smell of salt

from an ocean that is bordered by Africa

and China 

and even Europe, farther away.

The ground is unsteady and unreliable,

so it's a crap shoot, choosing to live here.

Every couple of years, someone will say,

"We're due for the Big One,"

living as we do near the long San Andreas fault.

They've been saying this for years -

so someday they will be right.

Some men I know lived as soldiers

through an atomic war -

I was in high school at the time.

We are always living among survivors.

I think there's a reason for choosing

to live in small places, where it means

you can understand better what life's experiences

are all about and why we make the choices we do.

                                ***

One Should Dream - Russ Bedord

What is in sleep? What is in dreams?

What is inside, looking for schemes,

Wanting possibilities, wanting things just so—

Vowed I would find out, vowed that I would know.

Took my personality and hung it over a chair,

It lay there, silent, passive, like it really didn’t care.

Hoped to have a dream I hadn’t dreamed before:

In them, I’d be the hero—have the answer, know the score.

But my psyche descended into a dark and threatening place:

Searched there for an answer, found mostly empty space.

Somewhere a light is shining in the black,

pointing out prosperity, instead of mostly lack.

Fulfilling my heroic dream, I searched high, searched low,

Stumbled on unseen objects, pursued that lonely glow.

Looked everywhere but behind, and certainly not within,

‘fraid that what I would find there would be like “original sin.”

On waking I looked around. Personality was still there.

It slipped on so easily, like it really didn’t care.

Welcome, it seemed to say. You thought you were gone for good,

But I knew that you’d come back, Because, you know, you should.

                                                 ***

Humpty, Reflection - Joan Brady

It has been said...

You can bring back the dead...

if you dream their life backwards.

I told Humpty that.

Last seen, he was whole again...

dancing on top of a wall.

                ***

Remembering Chet Baker - John Field

‘52 was the year Chet’s junkie friends                                       

Helped him forge a permanent relationship                             

Between his habit and his horn,                             

Filling empty spoons with his expensive muse 

Whenever he felt out of sorts.

Neither awake nor asleep 

When he walked on stage 

Cool as a dead movie star, 

He drove the ladies wild 

With his wide and moony smile, 

Pretty-boy voice 

And lacquered helmet of slicked-back hair.

First thing he’d do 

Was coax Little Girl Blue

Out of her cage—then paint the lyrics

Of her broken heart in dark and somber 

Shades of gray, bruised colors he borrowed 

From his long disease.

Sometimes a girl in the front row 

Would give him a Let’s Get Lost look 

Which helped him forget about  

The needles in the alleys 

And the fresh-dug graves

Long enough to consummate 

Their telepathic love affair 

With his microphone 

By wringing a little honey 

Out of Sweet Lorraine,

Something no other trumpet player 

Could do, not even Miles.

In the 60’s his career skipped a beat 

Like somebody’s bad heart

When a dealer he’d forgotten to pay

Kicked his picket teeth in.

Month after month after that 

There were notes he couldn’t quite reach 

Because his dentures 

Messed with his embouchure,

     

---Followed by nights                  

When the lights went out in his veins      

Because the last vestige of his afternoon fix      

Had dissolved into too much of nothing

In his blood, a problem he solved

By borrowing short term loans 

From death

And sticking them in his arm.

Then safe in the certainty of oblivion

For an hour or two

He’d blow candlelight    

Out of the shimmering flame in his horn.

Shroud Mood Indigo in an eerie neon glow.

Refract the aura of Green Dolphin street.

And croon My Funny Valentine

As if it were the stuff of dreams

Instead of just a song. 

Unless it was one of those gigs

When his tone was so full of troubles

It sounded like a commercial for suicide.

Friends who saw Chet 

A week before he died                        

Said his face looked uninhabited,                                          

Like something its owner had left behind 

After he moved away.

They believe he accidently

Fell out of his hotel window,

Only this time there wasn’t

A featherbed of dope to land on.

Critics insist that he took his own life

Because reality finally outed 

His inner nobody

And when he held his messy rendezvous

With a sidewalk in Amsterdam

There was no one left inside him 

Death could kill. 

                            ***

The Rain Falls Softly - Beverly Koepplin

The rain falls softly

through the dusk and into the dark

so that I cannot see it,

only hear it, washing the night.

Will I dream tonight,

gentle, water colored dreams

that coddle my soul

so I awake smiling into a June morning?

I think not – there is a frisson

Of something, fine and strong

As a thread of steel,

Running through the rain,

Wrapping around and cutting into my soul.

The silk of the midnight rain

wraps a tiger’s tooth.

All of the gentle falling down rain

does not hide the sharp thing

that will rend my life and bring death 

too near to me this soft summer night.

                           ***

The Haunted Birdhouse - Robyn Makaruk

On a visit to a country store that advertised ‘real & genuine antique artifacts’ I came upon an unusual bird house.  It was made from a variety of wood scraps, none very identifiable, but it had a certain character.  Shaped like a 2-story miniature Victorian with dainty gingerbread trim, it looked more like a doll house. The name “Stroud” and a date of 1923 were carved on the bottom. I’d been looking for another bird house to accompany my chickadee nesting box, and hoped to attract the nearby bluebirds that were coming into nesting season.  The box could be ideally located in my back yard, close to the open fields but sheltered and protected from predators so I made the purchase. 

 I hung it on a tree about 10 feet from the chickadee box on a windy morning, and this strange sound started coming from it.  The sides of the house had a few cracks in the wood, and the nest hole seemed normal, but the direction of the wind focused on this new bird house almost like a mini tornado.  There was this strange, almost agonizing groaning coming from it.  The chickadee box did not move an inch nor was it affected by the wind.  I didn’t think much about this and waited until the wind died down in the evening when everything seemed to return to normal.

The next day I checked on the 2 houses, and things seemed to be normal.  The house finches, goldfinches, towhees, sparrows, titmice, scrub jays came to the nearby feeders and flew over to the wall fountain for water.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until late in the afternoon when a wind came up and again these gruesome sounds started coming from the newly purchased bird house. The wind directed its force only to the new bird house, not the chickadee box, nor any of the feeders. Even the wind chimes did not move nor ring.  This new box swung, swayed, moaned and groaned all by itself.  I took it down from its place, and set it on the ground.

The next morning I checked the feeders, chickadee box and then the new house that had been set on the ground. All was calm, until once more, later in the day, a wind came up and unbelievably, directed itself right at the new bird house on the ground.  The same sounds emanated from it and the force blew it over to expose the name and date on the bottom. Then the noises changed to gentle, whining and whimpering sounds. 

When I explained all of this activity to my partner, he dowsed it.  His arm holding the dowsing rod started to shake and the rod swung violently in a crosswise movement indicating this bird house had very bad energy or ‘mojo’.  This was repeated at another time during the day with the same conclusion.  His recommendation was that no amount of 'cleansing' would heal the bad energy in this birdhouse and it should be destroyed.

   

On researching the origin of the word Stroud, it appeared that this bird house may have been made by Robert Stroud, The Birdman of Leavenworth, who was also known as The Birdman of Alcatraz. It was during his incarceration at Leavenworth, Kansas that he did indeed raise birds (mainly canaries) and became a noted ornithologist.  However, this man was a psychopath, a very dangerous criminal who was incarcerated from 1909 until 1959, and then sent to a medical center for federal prisoners in Springfield, Missouri until he died in 1963.  My bird house was most likely made by Robert Stroud when he was in Leavenworth, and there was no way that I would be raising dear little bluebird families in this house haunted by the ghost of Robert Stroud.

I burned the birdhouse in a fire pit and in the process that strange wind returned fanning the flames in the pit issuing gentle sighing sounds that sounded like a release. In a short time all there was left was a small  pile of purple ashes which I scooped into a paper bag. On the next stormy day, I drove to the coast and cast the bag into Pacific on the outgoing tide.

                                          ***

Play It  Again Sam - John Field

It doesn’t get any better than this:  

Peter Lorre with terrible things to do

Out cold on the floor,  

Bogart hovering over him rubbing his fist,  

And I wonder if he was always as tough as this

Even when he was a little kid.

After the dust-up Bogie attires himself

In his confidential-looking 

White tuxedo---as usual

A cigarette dangling from his lips

As he sidles up to the piano bar

And proceeds to unbutton

Lauren Bacall’s polka dot blouse

With his fixed and heavy-lidded unblinking 

Dark as twice-dipped teabag eyes

Deep as war---and she feels this happening

One button at a time

Because she’s nineteen, has fresh ideas 

And can be quite amusing at times.

Example number one, she asks him 

If he knows how to whistle. 

Then spends the next hour

Waiting impatiently for him

To come sniffing around like a dog

Beside himself with something pungent in the air,

And when he finally knocks on her door

Example number two: she melts in his arms

Like a pat of butter on a hot potato.

O how pure our minds were

In the first half of the 20 ^th century,

Thanks to the censors. Cameraman, pan away 

From your impossible target on the bed,

Skin rubbing against skin in seismic rhythm 

And jump-cut instead to the moral pornography

Of a volcano blowing its lid---or better still

An express train roaring into a tunnel

While fireworks explode overhead.

You know me, Jack---how my mind works,

Its impenetrable innocence.

When a middle age man and a teenage girl

Eat off the same plate---here’s my advice:

Add lots of butter and serve piping hot.

                          ***

A Stitch in Time - Beverly Koepplin

If time was a blanket I could wrap around my life

that blanket would be many-textured and multi-colored

from all of the different threads that have been woven together –

the fine pink ones from my crocheted baby blanket,

the coarse orange ones from the serape throw on my hippie bed,

the soft grey fox hairs of the satin-lined comforter

from the time I found sophistication fit me, too,

There too would be the dull brown linen threads from my marriage bed

and the sturdy rust cotton ones from my grandmother’s quilt

followed by the plush cream embroidery yarns of my cover now

and the angel hair of the lavender fine wool spread at my feet.

If time was a blanket I could wrap around my life,

drawing the fabric from behind me and pulling it from in front of me

so it would come together before me and hold me tight,

then I could read the stories in the years that stretch out around me.

I would remember the days from my childhood, safe and kind,

and the harsh times of growing older but no wiser,

the nights of escape I spent with you though dreams tugged me elsewhere,

the years when alone and lost I grew and finally found my way,

and the hours I have spent walking this fine earth and finding this rich life,

then I would know that you were just a stitch in time, 

one little stitch in the whole cloth of my life, 

lost among all the other threads and not worth ripping out.

                                     ***

Silly - Lucille Hamilton

Silly is a great word, 

when you're new in life and have been given

a drink that bubbles up your nose, 

when you hold the drink too close.

Silly works well with new things in general,

but take it up a decade or two,

and let's say you tell your best friend

that you're in love with George.

“George!” she yells, 

over the clatter of coffee cups

at the cafe.

“George” she repeats, “You can't be.  

You can't honestly be thinking of George.  

Don't be silly.”

This is when the word can knock you sideways.

                             ***

Every New Years Eve

When mom called us in after five o’clock to take a bath and have supper, we were not allowed to go outside again. Once we’d eaten, the dark world was closed to us while we we stayed indoors and read or listened to the radio.  The eve of the Chinese New Year was the exception as an auspicious future was secured by a blazing fireworks display.  

 

Popping fire crackers were the one danger our mom taught us to face fearlessly. Yelping at cockroaches, troubled every time we sneezed, nervous about the next war or famine, she fretted over each lurking peril, but stood unruffled amidst the smoke and explosions. For these terrible sounds blocked all hovering evil spirits allowing good luck to circulate freely.  The sound of fire crackers was no more frightening to us than hearing corn pop.

Around 11:00 pm my brother Terry and I sorted packages of fire crackers and gathered our punks, long smoldering sticks that do not require a visible flame. In the front and back yard Daddy was setting up great ladders from which  strings of ten thousand firecrackers hung like monstrous centipedes ready to be lit exactly at midnight. Everyone else in the neighborhood was poised to do the same thing. 

But one New Year’s Eve, the year when I had turned twelve, I took extra time to change from my jeans and t-shirt into a pair of green slacks and one of my mother's blouses. I took my hair down and tried parting it to the side, but my bangs were too long and so I had to pin everything up again. By the time I went outside, Terry had set up the ramps made of old tin gutters so he could launch the rockets.

"When are you friends coming?" I asked him

"They'll be here."

"What if they aren't?"

"They'll show."

Daddy owned a grocery store and the firecrackers he couldn't sell he'd bring home. We were considered the richest family on the block in terms of fireworks and the kids would come from all over the neighborhood to pop our plentiful stockpile.

 

Boy might come too. His name was really John but he liked Boy better. I always felt funny saying boy to call someone but I hardly ever spoke to him anyway and I don't think I'd ever said his name to his face.

The New Year's signal came on the radio. My mom waved to daddy that it was time to start. He lit the fuse and the string of fire crackers started sharply crackling, climbing up the ladder like an angry dragon. We all raced to the backyard to ignite the second string. The noise was deafening as the whole island joined in this celebration of sound. You didn't hear the sharp, fast popping of a small package going off but one continuous reverberation of thunder. Once this finale subsided, the real fun started as we began to light anything we could get our hands on. After a while we were busy with the ones we liked best. Daddy went for the legally forbidden cherry bombs. Many a hand had been blown off with these lethal mini bombs but Daddy was the expert. He even knew how to hold regular fire crackers in his hand, pinching them tightly, so they could go off without hurting himself. 

Terry loved to experiment with the rockets, seeing how many he could light at one time. Mom would be up on the balcony holding the long roman candles and sparklers, and I loved the novelties best of all---the spinning helicopters, spouting volcanoes, and crazy zigzags. Smoke settled thickly on our front lawn and a caldron of sulfurous fumes filled our senses. Hisses, whirls, and eruptions accompanied the flashing kaleidoscope of colors shooting up in a dazzling array.

"Hey--rugged.!"

 "Mukai!"

"No wait for us, eh blala."

I had a hard time lighting one of my fuses. 

"Jean, go and get the boys some punks," my mom called. I ran into the house and started handing out the brown smoking sticks. I recognized Raymond, Alan, Marcos, Sidney, and Humbert standing around, but most of all I felt the shadowed form of Boy's presence. He was new in the neighborhood and very tall. Terry said he was Hawaiian and part Portuguese. Although he was a little dark, we thought of him as white. His soft hazel eyes would turn brown or green depending on the light of the sun. He was much quieter than the other boys and wasn't always goofing around and breaking into the local pidgin slang that we all spoke. I wondered if he'd grow up looking like Mr. Mathieson, our swimming teacher in school. I wished I could be a boy so I could talk to him like Terry.

I began to feel anxious that the night was going by too quickly. The shadows in the dark seemed to dance with excitement and promise. My body felt clumsy and I was uncertain as to what I should be doing. My helicopters lay unlit as I stood motionless. All the boys were rummaging into the pile of assorted fireworks, selecting their favorites and joining in the fun. Boy picked up a pack and started to light one. 

"Hey Boy," Terry called.

"Yeah."

"Whatcha doing?" 

"What?" 

"Don't light ’em on the ground—hold them in your hand then throw." Terry went over to show him how.

Everyone had grabbed a bunch of cherry bombs now and pretended to throw them at one another. They'd fake and then throw them across the street. But I wasn't paying any attention. Boy was standing apart by himself on the driveway. His never went off. He threw them before they had a chance to light. His long stiff fingers were trembling. I felt a funny pain for him. I wanted to tell him there was nothing to be afraid of and then I got confused. Maybe he wasn't afraid of anything but just wasn't used to firecrackers. He was standing right there, but the distance felt too great for me to say anything to him. I hoped the others boys wouldn't notice. Finally everyone started hovering around Terry and his rockets, and it wasn't long before my mom and dad were telling us it was time to come inside.

It was late at night when I finally got into bed, but I wasn't tired.  I lay awake for a long time hearing the occasional pop of firecrackers continuing through the night while I wondered about Boy and what he was really like.

                                ***