Lovely Lynn Levin was there in her hippie-like top, black with colorful embroidered patches.
She's a person who brings out the best in everyone.
Linda Barrett did a great job driving in the dark and the puddles of rain. Mom Jane sat in the front seat and looked absy b'ful with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Linda read poems about people she knows and also some fantastic erotic poems. I think Lynn called them narrative poems. My daughter Sarah told me HD wrote narrative poems.
Or are they imagistic?
Lynn herself read an erotic poem and I told her it took a lotta guts to write that.
And to read it, too, she said.
Rem Murphy brought a bunch of folded poems. Wrote about poets he personally met. Allan Ginsburg was a cold fish.
Lynn suggested we take turns reading our poems.
First, a few pictures.
Rem once taught English comp at Temple University and Camden Community College. Behind him is Beatriz at our Saturday Beehive Writing Group.
Look what I found!
Lynn Levin's Sonnet Writing Class above at the library several years ago.
While driving to the reading tonight, Linda was listening to BP with the GM.
Bob's wife, Dr Sheila, kindly photographed us. I had no idea who he was but I said I love your daishiki. Then I told him about my son/law Ethan Iverson, who was still with The Bad Plus. He knew of them, of course.
Bob is still on WRTI-FM.
Sharon Moreland Sender, head librarian, was our gracious hostess. She loves poetry and read a short poem by Ezra Pound, who was born in Wyncote, PA.
This may be the poem:
ALBA
As cool as the pale wet leaves
of lily of the valley
she lay beside me in the dawn.
Praps my all time fave poem is a translation by Pound of The River Merchant's Wife.
The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter
BY EZRA POUND
After Li Po
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.
*
Why is this so great? Is it a yearning for love that may or may not come.
*
Sharon put out some cookies. I injected in my belly. I told her if I didn't have diabetes I could sit there all night and eat.
LILLIES OF THE VALLEY
Simplicity itself.
Like a lace curtain.
Or a candle glowing in the night.
Look deeper.
On the slender bendable
stalk, swing tiny beads
like pearls.
The story of their ancestors
shines through. Lavender
soft as a cat's ear comes
from within
And, oh that smell,
that aroma, heaven
clumb down to earth.
THE LAST MAPLE
When I moved in
thirty years ago
three maples with
stunningly green
leaves waved to me
every morning from
my kitchen.
Off to work I'd go
to Bristol Bensalem
Human Services, closed
down, they said,
for Medicare fraud,
but who really knows.
What I do know is how
I loved those trees.
Rough bark the squirrels
would shimmy up
and build their nests
on the top most branches.
Everthing has a lifespan.
One by one, they died
from the inside out.
Did they know?
Does a tree have awareness?
Of course they do!
My new roof, installed
by Bob's Home Improvement
is something I must ponder.
Chirp chirp chirp
go the baby sparrows
in the pink birdhouse
out front.
Welcome to the world
of the living.
DIABETES
Let's take a tour of the pancreas
Diabetes has been know since the reign of
Thutmose the First in ancient Egypt.
Overabundunt urine, unquenchable thirst
weight loss and finally death.
Put your hands on your belly, comme ca!
The pancreas, pink as a cat's tongue,
has dominion over insulin
which swallows up your food.
Not to worry, except if you're me!
A nifty invention that clicks like
the keys on Wanda's harpsichord
allows me to remain with the quick
and not the dead.
Listen to Wanda Landowska here.
In her Connecticut home. 1879 - 1959. Read about her here.
Holy cow! Gotta run upstairs and turn on the TV for International Jazz Day! PBS, of course.
Leftovers:
THE LAST MAPLE
When I moved in
thirty years ago
three maples with
stunningly green
leaves waved to me
every morning from
my kitchen.
Off to work I'd go
to Bristol Bensalem
Human Services, closed
down, they said,
for Medicare fraud,
but who really knows.
What I do know is how
I loved those trees.
Rough bark the squirrels
would shimmy up
and build their nests
on the top most branches.
Everything has a lifespan.
One by one, the trees died
from the inside out.
Did they know?
Does a tree have awareness?
Of course they do!
How about my new roof, installed
by Bob's Home Improvement?
That's something I must ponder.
Welcome to the new world!
Chirp chirp chirp go the baby sparrows
in the pink birdhouse out front.
Talk about diversity!
I love sharing my world
with feathers soft as my red couch.
*
the PBS Evening News.
The Rohinga are being ushered inside and outside Myanmar.
WHO AM I
My coffee-colored arms ache
from carrying my two-year-old girl
along miles of dusty road.
Our lungs are filled with dirt,
mud and slime. Rough men
abuse us. Their breath stinks
of onions and cocaine.
Once eons ago we lived at home.
All was good.
Allah was good. Now the sky
has fallen upon us, no one knows
our name, and we do not exist.
*
LILLIES OF THE VALLEY
Simplicity itself.
Like a lace curtain.
Or a candle glowing in the night.
Look deeper.
On the slender bendable
stalk, swing tiny beads
like pearls.
The story of their ancestors
shines through. Lavender
soft as a cat's ear comes
from within
And, oh that smell,
that aroma, heaven
clumb down to earth.
*
BREAKFAST
Fresh pears, a hunk of cheese, crackers
and a cup of good coffee.
I could be in Paris, sitting in an outdoor
cafe, leaning back in the warm sunshine
and watching the writers pass by.
James Baldwin, Jimmy to his friends,
Papa Hemingway before he checked out,
Gauguin, before syphilis ravaged his brain.
Next stop for me, the Garden of the Luxembourg,
to watch the picnickers and to savor a small glass
of dark Merlot.
*
ORANGE
Inside the orange carapace
resides sweetness unrivaled
once it swung on trees
in Florida, ripening
to send across the world.
Sweetness unrivaled.
*
FROM THE RED COUCH
Bill's pickup gleaming in the waning sunlight
Speed Limit 25 on my curb
Pink birdhouse filled with a sparrow's nest
Soon I'll have more grandchildren
Feathers soft
Feathers lovely
Who but the great Whomever
Could create a bird.
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