The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Category: Poetry

  • Big Dogs in Tall Grass

    On the beach at Refugio we walked under palms through sea grass
    Small waves rolling off the point from curlers coiled and we’re
    Young and unafraid holding our long boards against our hips and in
    Summer surfers with yellow and green bangs and those days only a few dogs
    Peopled the campground under the fat wide palms big
    Umbrellas shading the old watermen drinking cool beers out of tall

    Cans telling stories of how in their days the waves were really tall
    Paddling out beyond the kelp beds and diving through the ocean grass
    Holding their breaths under water scraping off the rocks big
    Abalone shells for eating on the beach around the evening fire we’re
    Stoking in a giant hole near the high tide mark with dogs
    Down the beach running after gulls swooping low and in

    The water the dogs paddle into the shallows after the gulls in
    The shore pound the old stories go out with the tide before the big tall
    Pensheet dogs with designer stories of virtual waves but these dogs
    Don’t see the sun also rising setting fire to the grass
    We don’t need your tall tales we are a big dog generation we’re
    Never going to passeth away we’re just that big

    The pensheet dogs they said were high class the dogs were really big
    Went to the finest schools in the prairie grass land in
    With the in crowds in with the big dog push the big dogs were
    All witty wealthy healthy hardly weathered at all and tall
    And ran through the tallest grass
    But didn’t notice on their tail trailing the three headed dog

    Bidding them sign a yellow dog
    Contract     and sign it they did the big
    Dog generation in the tall grass
    Trying to avoid passing away in
    Dog dress posed in ties tall
    And dog weary of putting on the dog were

    Bone tired and dogged they were
    Now in the dog days of their runs as big dogs
    Woofing at their virtual waves barking tall
    In the overhead grass under a big
    Ocean prairie sky panting and drooling in
    The tall dry smoky grass.

    Who listens to this doggerel we’re wishing still big
    And long swells to the lucky dogs under running laughter in
    The whirling wind through the tall sea grass!

  • Didi and Gogo Feted with Lifetime Achievement Award

    Didi and Gogo Feted with Lifetime Achievement Award

    A country road. A tree. Against the tree a bicycle. Quick! Gogo!
    What the hey? I was sleeping! Why can’t you let me sleep, Didi?
    The need for your heinie’s beauty sleep notwithstanding,
    Surely you’ve not forgotten we are to be feted, you hopeless hobo.
    I could use a new pair of shoes, though I shall dance no doubt solo.
    What about Godot?

    Just this once, we won’t wait for Godot.
    Both on the wind and off, eh, Gogo?
    I’m bound to remind you I can go this solo.
    Oh, please, love, don’t leave us waiting all alone, Didi.
    I want to practice my standing.
    I don’t want to fall on the stage like some common hobo.

    Where’s your bicycle, Gogo, the one you acquired from that hobo
    With the funny hat and tight shoes? Claimed he saw Godot
    In Hermosa in the 70’s at the Biltmore, notwithstanding
    That grand hotel already razed. Those were the days we were on the go.
    Yes, yes, enough said, but was it Godot’s? And did he
    Not leave us in the end after so many promises solo?

    Yes, before your onions and bunions soliloquy.
    Oh! The feet and breath of this at once great and humble hobo.
    How do we get in, do you suppose, Didi?
    I had just found a new pair of shoes in which to address Godot.
    New Year’s Eve 1969, we saw Johnny Rivers at the Whiskey a Go Go!
    Oh, you poor thing, remembrances of time past notwithstanding.

    The elements, the rain and snow, a bit of sun notwithstanding.
    Remember the night of the marauders? We prayed for our soul.
    Yes, the soul we’ve shared and with which we now go,
    Not heaven nor hell, to each his own, a worked over pair of hoboes
    Who worked hard waiting faithfully for their Godot,
    Who never ever came, our hour upon the stage, did he?

    For perhaps we missed him, looked away, did he,
    Our good intentions notwithstanding,
    Pass by this place, this road, this tree, our Godot,
    And seeing us distracted with an onion or a bunion pass, solo,
    Ignoring his ignominious hoboes?
    Let’s go, let’s go, it’s time, let’s leave this place, let’s go!

    Didi! No matter what happens, don’t leave me solo,
    A lonely hobo, a bicycle with no kickstand,
    Waiting to go, wanting to go, unable to go, nowhere to go.

  • Solstice Sestina: Whiteout on the Whiteboard in Winter

    Whiteout on the Whiteboard in Winter

    The shadowless man in the center of winter
    drew nine snowmen leaving no shadow
    on the boardroom wall size whiteboard
    and sketched one goal as cold as snow
    nine snowmen into one who would wander.
    The snowmen started to wonder

    who in the whiteboard world would wonder
    such opportunity in win win winter.
    The shadowless man began to wander
    here on the whiteboard without shadow
    as quiet as a field of snow
    empty save the snowmen on the whiteboard.

    Whiteout conditions on the whiteboard
    showed a winterland of snowy wonder
    how in the wonderland of snow
    in a whirling passage of winter
    with zero shadow
    one will wield wander.

    The shadowless man wandered
    solo across the clear whiteboard
    concealing all shadow
    not even a digress to address the wonder
    soulful worship of winter
    leaving no metric in the snow.

    Around and around in the field of snow
    the shadowless man wandered
    silent on the stage of winter
    in a whiteout on a whiteboard
    with no edges no wonder
    across the field fell no shadow.

    Lost with no mere mirror shadow
    the shadowless man fell in the snow
    wandering he fell wondering
    why worry about wandering
    in fields of whiteboards
    in the silence of winter

    no shadow with which to wander
    in the snow of the whiteboard
    wondering where the nine 8’s went in winter.

  • The Glass Guitar Ceiling: Rolling Stone’s “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”

    The women’s glass ceiling, that invisible, clandestine barrier that separates any upper economic echelon of men from their connected but not equal women counterparts, apparently extends to guitar playing, as evidenced by the latest Rolling Stone list, “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” (Issue 1145: Dec. 8, 2011). There are only two female guitarists on the list, Joni Mitchell (# 75), and Bonnie Raitt (# 89). Joni Mitchell was # 72 in the 2003 RS draft, Joan Jett # 87 (Jett didn’t make the 2011 cut). Lists, of course, are made for argument, so why aren’t there more women guitarists on the list?

    But it should come as no surprise to find that one woman’s floor is not another man’s ceiling, for the disparity in nearly every correlation shows women living on floors far below men in the economic castle. The gender income gap has narrowed in recent years, according to US Census data (see chart), but the disparity that still exists can no longer be attributed to causes like the so-called pipeline factor (that women MBA’s, e.g., relatively new cohorts, need more time to assimilate into the system):

    Source: DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60-239, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2011.

    A recent study in Catalyst dispels the pipeline and other myths that would explain male-female, gender-income disparity. Worse, the Catalyst study shows that playing louder, faster, or more power chords isn’t likely to increase the struggling female guitarist’s chances to enter the ranks of the top 100. According to the Catalyst study, women fall behind men in job advancement regardless of what promotional strategies the woman employs. In other words, these are women who know how to play the game, but playing the same chords as the men play doesn’t seem to garner the same audience. A 2010 Catalyst census shows that 92% of Fortune 500 company top earners are men, and only 14% of women are executive officers. So what’s a poor girl to do? To make matters worse yet, the Atlantic on-line just posted that “68% of the sons of the top 1% work at their Dad’s company.” The Atlantic post links to a recent study, “The Intergenerational Transmission of Employers,” and a blog post by Miles Corak, one of the study’s authors. Says Corak, of the elite nepotism, one with harmful potential, in the conclusion to his blog post: “If the rich leverage economic power to gain political power they can also skew broader public policy choices—from the tax system to the education system—to the benefit of their offspring. This will surely start eroding the belief that labour markets are fair, and that anyone can aspire to the top.”

    So what women guitarists in particular did we feel were unfairly excluded by the RS list? Here are some suggestions: Emily Remler, Mary Osborne, Ana Popovic, Elizabeth Cotten, Sharon Isbin, Memphis Minnie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ida Presti.

    And the ladies were not the only slighted guitarists omitted from the RS list. We would be remiss if we did not augment the argument with some of our favorite male guitarist no-shows: Gabor Szabo, Bill Frisell, John Williams, Leo Brouwer, Herb Ellis, David Rawlings, Leo Kottke.

    No doubt you have your own greatest list: “God bless the child that’s got his own.”

    Related: Women Under the Glass Ceiling: Parity and Power in the Pipeline

  • A Literary Thanksgiving Feast

    "Hard Times for These Times," Charles Dickens (1854). Drawing: "Mr. Harthouse Dining at the Bounderbys'."

    On a big platter in the middle of the full table sits the fat novel, its dust jacket a cracking bronze, peeling at the edges, its pages sliced and curling, its story stuffed with, well, stuffing: characters mixed with plot in a warm, moist setting, everyone talking at once, voices waxing, then waning, then waxing again, still louder.

    A bowl of essays is passed around the table; there’s plenty for everyone. There’s a new dish, something called “creative non-fiction.” I try some, but find it’s not so new, after all, for isn’t all writing creative? And anyway why would we want to read writing that is not creative?

    “Pass the poems, please,” someone at the other end of the table says. Poems are like olives. Some have pits, putting your teeth at risk; others are pitted, hollow. Some poems are saltier than others, and may be filled with white almonds or cherry red pimento peppers. If you squeeze a poem you get cooking oil.  And like olive oil, the oil from poems might be extra-virgin, refined, or not potable.

    A gravy bowl of APA-style sauce spills across the tablecloth and an argument ensues as to who is at fault, an argument of causation. “Why is that nasty stuff even on the table?” someone asks. A short scene flashes into a drama that quickly subsides with a denouement of dessert: The Emperor of Ice Cream appears with chocolate covered couplets.

    But that’s not all, for then Sestina rolls in a six-layered, short story torte. It’s a literary feast, and in these hard times, we are thankful, at least, for literature.

    Addendum: My sister Barb’s comment reminded me that I neglected to include beverages in the literary feast post, and I suggested she pick up a six pack of Ballads and maybe a couple of bottles of Memoir. Limericks might be served for pre-meal cocktails, unfermented satire for those who like less bite, but large jugs of stream of consciousness should be kept full and within reach, for readers will surely be thirsty.

    Update, Nov. 24: Thanks to Berfrois for joining us at the table!

  • Ere Words Were

    Woe were we when once we wooed
    wowed with words we would vow
    to wed where naught
    taught to tie the knot
    a language log in front of us saw
    how it was on a woeful wordful sea.

    To whoo in the waves of a spelling sea
    to whit her way through a sea wrack wood
    while I too hooed to walk saw
    you to a vowel moon owling
    out of a wood worded knot
    a sentence fraught with naught.

    Yet we should not
    set sail on too prim a prescriptive sea
    wear not too tight the knot we tied for the knot
    does not mean our days of wooing
    must turn to stone washed vowels
    that we might say how we saved how we sawed.

    Woe the night full of guttural saws
    silver dreams of wordscaped naught
    woah the mirror that burns not its own vow
    merely reflects what it hears
    in a dark forest a bearingless wood
    of articulated knot.

    Woe to valor that ties a knot
    for one side up the other not this seesaw
    giddyup and stop of hooah and woah
    she loves me she loves me naught
    how it was on the woo worn sea
    ere we enjoined the corseted vowels.

    Whoa the abode that constantly vows
    to daily renew a woeful knot
    or be chastised to sea
    for what we were for what we saw
    for what we heard and what we could not
    before we verbally wooed.

    Now down to the sea words borne of vows
    set sail to keel whit to hoo but not
    with a saw set wode with naught.

  • Prufrock’s Cat

    In the failing fog the Prufrocked cat froms and froes,
    lurking catatonically,
    catcher of mice and men,
    leaving not a trace of trance or dance
    with which we were once familiar,
    catabolic feline with contractible claws.

    A hiss as from a match declares this driven cat with drawn claws.
    This hideous hipstress wears no frown.
    Nevermind, nevermore, familiar
    tuna must suffice; in fact,
    I’m opening the can as fast as I can.
    Fiend, your mane is mean!

    Man knows not your true menace,
    the deceitful pale rose of your delicate claws
    clinking ice to a theremin dance,
    an idle locomotive meowing to and fro,
    the moves of this domestic cat’s
    imagery eerily familiar.

    In what lonely lair was sired this queen of liars?
    Did He who made thee amid mice make men?
    How came you back from the cataclysm?
    Did I hear you in the catacombs caterwauling?
    Yet now you come in dress frolicsome,
    singing, “Do you wanna dance….”

    Though the salty leap gives rise to a contra dance,
    the caryatid looks familiar,
    a choreography of calligraphy, dancing to and fro,
    a sweating menagerie.
    Mind those mendacious claws.
    This mendicant needs no frilly silly cat

    messmate out to act
    some tunahall cancan.
    I too should have been a pair of claws,
    a crawling cat on the lam,
    whose unreadable bedlam mien
    strikes mayhem then saunters off to and fro.

    One more clause regarding this catachresis:
    Whether to or fro on this floor dancing,
    Prufrock’s cat is the cat of a family man.

  • Sestina Ends Current Hiatus

    Pop Luck Soup

    Lettuce dew the cabbage head chop.
    Sea hear, old gourd face. The squash is still on the sill.
    Radical zucchinis. Carrots pointing and poking.
    Turnip, have you no heart? Don’t be rutabaga.
    Radish reaction. Thistle never do; wilt thou look?
    Please, asparagus more of this.

    Peas, take off your jackets, mix with us.
    Ouch, salt, potato eyes cry, chopped.
    Corn fits in hand like a tool. Look,
    unknotted legs mush the silly
    knuckle-balling tomato out of a rut
    with a nice little poke.

    Habanero the jalapeno poke,
    ice cream koan this,
    rooting around in a bag
    of bluegrass chop.
    Mush run it again through the still
    to get the right look.

    Should put this aside now and let it cool,
    this pig in a poke,
    or something of that ilk.
    I’m not sure what this is,
    and we’re still chopping,
    scrounging at the bottom of the bag.

    A soup should be like a gab,
    like a parade, the curbs full of onlookers,
    the marching bands chopping
    through the lines of folks pushing and pulling and poking,
    heads popping up like thistledowns.
    Sure, and fools with painted faces acting dilly,

    playing out the King’s idylls.
    The clowns are the Court of Garbage,
    composting that and this,
    giving us all for free a new look,
    for in the eye they poke,
    and to the nose they chop.

    So long lives this spicy green silliness,
    bitter chops of arguing arugula,
    this face wears the soupy look of poker.