The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Author: Joe Linker

  • On A Walk

    To light out      
                  Newfangled air
Lift and put 
                  One foot 
In front of 
                  The next one 
Side by side 
                  So don't trip 
First step
                  Last step
Don't put one
                  Foot in front 
Of the other 
                  A sure stumble 
Each stride
                  Start with a 
Capital letter
                  To point 
The trail 
                  Theatrically
Turn around 
                  Things places
Plants people
                  Be wary 
(Beware of X!) 
                  Of curs 
And coyotes
                  Of cars and
Bicycles
                  Notice 
Ornamental 
                  Trees bushes 
Chain link fences
                  Stone walls 
Birds thrifters
                  Ersatz robots
Carrying flowers 
                  Sandwich boards
Falling Debra's 
                  Dull drones
Gutters curbs
                  Profound potholes
And quicksand
                  Prone up 
Drift and blow
                  A lone tree 
Drops ripe pears 
                  The down home 
Tenebrous diner 
                  On the corner 
Pizza Margherita 
                  Sprinkled with 
Fresh basil 
                  But pass on 
Look into 
                  Flyblown book box 
At bus stop 
                  But don't 
Want any more 
                  books putting
Books in not 
                  Taking out
Empty bus 
                  Line 15 
Wobbles noisily 
                  Toward town 
Snatch a sprig 
                  Lavender 
Growing over 
                  Cracked sidewalk 
And work way 
                  Up long hill 
Stuff blue herb
                  In gory nose
Note how hill
                  Like a big water 
Freighter 
                  Grows steeper 
With each 
                  Voyage
Top of hill 
                  Sad old homes
Gargantuan 
                  Chestnut
Across from 
                  Rock cairns
Jazz band 
                  La Vie en rose
On veranda
                  Violets for your
Furs the very
                  Thought of you
Of drunk stuck
                  Coffee
Bitter
                  Boastful
Nutty
                  Smutty sun
Two late cups
                  Two guile blocks
Three slow steps
                  At waltz time
Holding hands

  • Googling Wake

    Yesterday, reading James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake again, and find a Joyce neologism, now normalized for the common roider, as follows: “googling.” Of course I’m not the first to find it, as googling quickly showered me.

    Neverthelees, I mention it here thinking an article I saw also yesterday, (while googling “googling,” tho from March 26, 2013, of all saint’s day, in Associated Press but picked up everywhere) gives it renewed interest, to wit, the story goes, as I found it in news environs and accordingly summarize:

    Apparently, Sweden has a council that every year publishes new words being used frequently by Swedes. And, in its December 2012 new words list, the council declared “ogooglebar” a Swedish word that had been ensconced in daily use. “Ogooglebar” being Swedish for anything that can’t be found by googling it, aka, looking it up. But, the company, Google, objected, wanting to limit the term “to google” (something) to actually using Google to google it. Something like that.

    In other words, if you used Bing, you’d have to say, “Bing it.” And Swedes could then say, “obingbar.” Or, maybe you could simply say, calling out to look something up, “Search Engine it.” And, if not found, then you could say, “Bingless,” or, “Unenginable.”

    In any case, the council decided to delete the word “ogooglebar” from their list rather than cower to a company’s attempts to control words on the street.

    The two “googling” findings in Finnegans Wake are as follows:

    One chap googling the holyboy’s thingabib and this lad wetting his widdle.

    His mouthfull of ecstasy (for Shing- Yung-Thing in Shina from Yoruyume across the Timor Sea), herepong (malad venture!) shot pinging up through the errorooth of his wisdom (who thought him a Fonar all, feastking of shellies by googling Lovvey, regally freytherem, eagelly plumed, and wasbut gumboil owrithy prods wretched some horsery megee plods coffin acid odarkery pluds dense floppens mugurdy) as thought it had been zawhen intwo.

    Finnegans Wake, James Joyce, 1922-1939, p. 620 (first entry above) and p. 231 (second entry), Viking Press, Thirteenth Printing, August, 1976.

  • Fragments and Garments

    My friend Bill mentioned
    Ashbery, something about
    collages and poems,
    but I thought he said,
    cabbages and poems,
    and googling such,
    I found only one
    reference, in turn
    which posts Ruth Stone’s
    poem titled “The Cabbage.”

    Sum of which reminded me
    of the excellent cabbage
    rolls Susan used to make.
    My friend Wormy used to
    stop by the studio apt
    on Imperial Sat eve in our
    long weekend warrior days,
    Susan’s rolls suffused with
    tomato sauce tasty stuffed
    with meat rice and sauce.

    Sara posted a few pics
    of “Ward Charcoal Ovens,”
    built sometime in the 1870s,
    which I at first misread
    as Word Charcoal Ovens.
    The ovens reduced pinyon
    pine and juniper to charcoal,
    in Nevada. The word charcoal
    oven will reduce words to
    fragments and garments.

    For So much depends upon
    a red dress draped lovely
    on a blue wall, near a statue
    of Mary and a copy of Green
    Lights and 99 Ways to Tell
    a Story and A Room of One’s
    Own, over at the industrious
    Josephine Corcoran’s wonderful
    poetry and writing blog-site,
    where I left a rare comment.

  • At the Mall

    At the mall I walk thru glass
    and almost fall trip boarding
    an escalator in the book
    store, my feet not quite
    aligned to alight gracefully.

    I pass a lady who looks lost
    and a mannequin just found
    her head squeezed dahlia
    pops at the top of a pair
    of stylized skinny jeans.

    I walk through sounds smelly
    perfumes, anonymous noise
    guy in uniform and money
    bag reading a mall directory
    two robots pass by glistening.

    Old guy sitting in food court
    selling postcard size drawings
    on his face a weathered frown
    lady in front of me at coffee cafe
    dabbing red stained tissue on arm.

    Janitor pushing cleaning cart
    picking up fallings the mall
    as clean as a movie screen
    playing Logan’s Run (1976)
    countryside bubble malls.

    I study a few of the other
    people at the mall and try
    to see us as others might
    see us in the mall season
    reasons even Mr. Mall forgets.

    I pause in a general sitting
    area and pull out my cell
    phone and work on a few
    comics then the cell rings
    and it’s time to meet back up.

  • Labor Day

    I’m giving up
    I’ve quit drinking beer
    and now no more
    ice cream, potato chips,
    or salt peanuts.

    And I’m tossing out my books
    dumping the personal
    paperback library
    hard they fall
    off the emptying shelves.

    And friends no more
    I’m ditching them all
    who gave up on me
    long ago anyway.

    And my host
    from Galilee
    He becomes harder
    to follow as the trail
    narrows and winds
    up thru the dry hills.

    Today’s the day
    Labor Day
    I throw it all away
    beginning with this
    espresso poem
    for as you can see
    hopefully I keep
    a little poetry.

  • Theory of Meaning

    What is mental may mislead us,
    the physical, on the other hand,
    for example, in a cloud you see
    an elephant, but that elephant
    is mental, not physical, while a
    physical animal in a living room
    could be mentally misconstrued
    as a ceiling cloud; the mental
    is also physical, and vice versa.

    We might call, in this discussion,
    what is physical, the denotative
    meaning, and what is mental,
    the connotative meaning. They
    are both meanings, both valid
    experience, and one plays off
    the other. Denotative meanings
    describe, while connotative
    meanings suggest. Further,

    we may easily and without
    argument agree on clouds,
    but to say a cloud is an
    elephant is a statement
    about which there may be
    some disagreement. Either
    way, rain begins to fall and
    the farmer is happy while
    the weekend golfer pissed.

    Let’s make sense together, you and me:
    Our needs are simple:
    water and food, shelter, one another.

    We think we are thinking beings
    but that’s not to say
    this rock and paper don’t exist.
    The rock quivers to its icy core
    when the voice speaks its thunder
    and the elephant walks
    through the room.

    All thought is substantive, bears
    out, vindicates the light of all
    we see and miss which absolves
    the darkness. The rock too thinks,
    thinks, “I am a rock; I have it easy.”
    Don’t worry about meaning. We
    play hide and seek, turn sounds
    into music, shelter in rocks,
    plant tomatoes under elephants.

    By meaning we mean passing
    a baton in a conversational relay.
    Ask the easy questions first:
    who, what, when, where, why,
    and how – the architect built
    on nothing, why then should
    nothing distract you?

    Meantime, last night I slept
    on my guitar, while the blinds
    blew in the breeze of the open
    window, and night birds flew
    in and out, around the room,
    each with its own song.

  • If Less is More

    If less is more,
    is nothing most?

    Life is a mystery
    bromides won’t solve.

    So it goes
    and comes back

    to haunt
    the empty house.

    Elegance is means
    of choice.

    Space is to be
    avoided.

    Address hides
    function.

    Think in
    visible.

    Do not
    decorate.

    A library
    with no books.

    Barefoot on the lino
    walking the woodcuts.

  • Field Notes 28 Aug 23

    Walked a mile last night with Eric, curlycue around the neighborhood streets late in the evening, the blue moon rising over the houses and over the firs up on the dark volcano, first cool evening in awhile, feeling the ocean air arrive like an old steamship foreshadowed by tugboats pushing and pulling against a tide. Earlier had sat out in the drive with the guitar, disturbing the universe, though no one seemed to mind, a few passersby walking dogs giving me a nod, the International Play Music on the Porch Day passing locally like any other day.

    The neighbor’s Brobdingnagian apple tree, high up above the border wall, half of which hangs out and over our grape pergola, too high to pick, seems to have come close to finishing its self-harvest drop, around a dozen or more bushels falling on our side of the wall this year, a bumper crop, peck after peck after peck we’ve picked up and bagged.

    Meanwhile, peaches are in season. Fresh peaches, juicy and tender, slightly fuzzy, plump, pink and red and yellow and orange. Nectarines are also peaches, but without the fuzz, smooth, and the pit of the peach is akin to an almond. This is what comes from looking things up, a new pastime. Of the numerous poets who have tried to get their hands around a peach, perhaps none have squeezed as close yet stayed afar as Andrew Marvel, in his poem titled simply “The Garden” (circa 1650), where he seems to prefer the actual peach to any metaphor that might point elsewhere for one’s fuzzy orbs:

    “What wond’rous life in this I lead!
    Ripe apples drop about my head;
    The luscious clusters of the vine
    Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
    The nectarine and curious peach
    Into my hands themselves do reach;
    Stumbling on melons as I pass,
    Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.”

    Andrew Marvel

    Why “curious”?

    “I grow old … I grow old …
    I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

    Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
    I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
    I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

    I do not think that they will sing to me.”

    from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T. S. Eliot, 1911

    One of these days, I’ll compose my own poem to the peach, maybe “Portrait of a Peach,” which is to say, one you cannot eat, dare or not. Lately, Susan’s been offering ripe peaches on a plate to nibble through the slow afternoon, so soft, so cool, so sweet, so refreshing. Love peaches, love to see two, side by side, each to each, within easy reach.

    Speaking of growing old and wearing trousers rolled, yesterday, lightly working outside, I came close to falling twice. The first time, I caught my pant cuff on a hook under the outdoor couch. I nearly fell into a cluster of flower pots. The second time, the foot whose turn it was to move forward on the porch somehow stuck in place, and the pot I was carrying was tossed so I could stop my fall with the arm that was holding it. The pot fell and broke in two, splattering the walk with potting soil. And somehow I found myself sitting on the porch step. Not quite a fall, then, a sit?

  • The Universe and Us

    The Universe is useless without
    us and these songs and poems
    the sober calm voice of a turtle
    the trills of the song sparrow 
    the sweeping tones of the blue 
    whale tunneling through the sea. 

    When are we going home, our 
    space suits covered with dark 
    matter and such truck one picks 
    up living on the road, sleeping 
    in train depot motels out along 
    the Milky Way walking, waiting. 

    The Universe is nothing outside 
    thumbs hitchhiking backwards  
    what we see when we look out 
    into the light switches on and off 
    and all along the potholed road
    ramshackled machines sit idle. 

  • River Town

    I live in a river town, know
    my way around, walk
    here and there and won’t
    be nobbled, neither bounder
    nor leaper, foot after foot
    forge forward, as need be.

    Someone offers me a lift,
    and forgetful I get in,
    but befogged where
    this drifter gets his
    directions, mindful then
    I alight and walk home.

    I’ve yet to learn to keep
    quiet, tho no longer tip
    the cup, and what books
    I wrote won’t remain,
    my purpose no longer
    easily to entertain.

    Moonlight spills on streets
    silent rivers of summer heat
    cool night but rivers don’t
    sleep and walkers walk
    to avoid being driven
    to despair with no air.

    This is not a myth I am
    with you all the way,
    each stream wiggles
    down to the big rivers,
    the sound of the water
    breezes thru dry brush.

  • Songs for “Play Music on the Porch Day”

    This coming Saturday, the 26th, something relatively new on calendars, called “Play Music on the Porch Day,” a neighbor a couple of weeks ago brought to our attention. As listeners to our “Live at 5” Instagram gigs know, we often can be found playing music on the porch, in the sit out zone in the drive, in the basement during heat waves, in the living room with the rain adding percussion to the set, in the kitchen while the coffee is brewing, offering music up to the passersby – “Live at 5” enjoys usually an audience of 5. Part of the attraction and pleasure of amateur music performance is the random, the mistakes, the discoveries, the forgiveness, loosening the ties and strictures, inviting improvisation, breaking the rules for the sound of it all, mixing stories with songs and guitars, mixing styles – like Struttin’ with Some Barbecue. Anyway, here are some recent songs I’ve been working on for the upcoming “Play Music on the Porch Day” gig:

    “Susanna, Oh Susanna”
    C Mornings when we wake up
    by the deep blue sea
    G7 Afternoons sleeping
    under a green palm tree
    E7 Evenings when you call me
    A7 come out wherever you are
    D7 On the radio playing
    G Patty and Ray

    C Susanna, Oh Susanna
    I can’t even say your name
    G7 All I have for you
    is more of the same
    E7 Hiding in the evening
    A7 when you call my name
    D7 On the radio playing
    G Patty and Ray

    “Coconut Oil”
    G Here’s an emotion
    B7 Let’s jump into an ocean
    E7 Of lotion
    A7 Of coconut oil, (D7) coconut oil, (G) coconut oil (D7)

    G I got a gal
    B7 Heart full of mushrooms
    E7 She drinks oceans
    A7 Of coconut oil, (D7) coconut oil, (G) coconut oil (D7)

    G She tells me don’t be dry
    B7 She likes me all wet
    E7 Night and day drenched
    A7 In coconut oil, (D7) coconut oil, (G) coconut oil (D7)

    “Two Riders Were Approaching” (G, C7, G, D7)
    Two riders were approaching
    On hogs and wearing leathers
    Stopped into a tavern
    For a cool glass of beer.

    Two pints for us, my friend
    The day is warm and grim
    The dust has found its corner
    The dogs want shade and water.

    We are the two riders
    Who were approaching
    Now for those beers
    Nighttime is drawing near.

    Yippii-yi-yo
    Yippie-ki-yay
    We’re gonna go
    Our own way.

    Yippi-yi-yo
    Yippie-Ki-yay
    We’re gonna go
    Our own way.

    And a few more pieces, instrumental and fragmented vocals, and of course the ever popular “Pretty Vacant and We Don’t Care” and “Bury My Heart in the Muddy Mississippi,” as well as covers of some train songs: “Mystery Train,” “This Train” (Bound for Glory), and “Freight Train.” Should be enough to fill a porch.

    So, wherever you might be come Saturday evening, put your ear to some porch and see what you hear.