The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: Sestina

  • On Letting My Hair Grow

    letting-my-hair-grow

    I’m letting my hair grow.
    It’s starting to snow.
    Nothing to be done,
    Estragon fond.
    “Now I’m a donor,” I told Susan,
    “on the recent license renewal.”
    “They’ll take your anatomical
    hair,” she said, the young one
    at the Department of Motor
    Vehicles: “On your license,
    be a donor?” she asked me.
    “Sure, and why not.”
    “It’s not like you’re going
    to be needing it,” she laughed.

    I don’t need it now,
    I thought to myself,
    she in Santa Claus costume
    red and white furry thick
    and outside snow falling
    and her hair black maroon
    hanging tussled out
    the Santa red cap rimmed
    white and the big white
    ball at the end bouncing
    about as she whirled around
    to grab the form
    for me to be
    an anatomical donor.

    My papers in order –
    DD214, Birth Cert.,
    proof of address – but,
    “We don’t need them
    this time,” she said.
    “You’re in the system.
    You showed us all that
    last time. You only
    have to prove it once.”
    (On this I did not
    correct her.)
    “But let me see
    that discharge sheet.
    Why don’t you have
    VETERAN
    on your license?”
    She read down my DD214,
    taking her time.
    I was number 106,
    the DMV not crowded,
    middle of day middle of
    week middle of month.
    Not any, any, any.
    Middle, middle, middle.
    “There it is,” she said.
    “Other than dishonorable,”
    she happily smiled,
    as if given a gift,
    or handing me one,
    the white ball again
    twirling as she turned
    and grabbed hold
    another rubber stamp.
    I was 18, number 16,
    that first drawing,
    I might have told her.
    I looked good a few
    of the squad said
    of my shaved head
    coming from the barber
    at Fort Bliss, zero week.
    I went in full curled
    long and wild just out
    of the surf at El Porto.

    “OK,” she said. “Take
    this to the photographer,
    end of the counter.
    Merry Christmas!”
    And I said it back
    to her. It’s best
    when at the DMV
    to remain calm
    and try to relax
    and let your hair grow.

    “Number 107? 107?”

  • Coconut Oil – A Novel Book Launch

    Salty and Penina, the war torn, young couple from “Penina’s Letters,” return to Refugio in “Coconut Oil,” a sequel.

    They come home to Refugio (the fictional beach town located north of El Porto and south of Grand on Santa Monica Bay) in an attempt to retire a bit early. So forty or so years have passed since the close of “Penina’s Letters.”

    Salty is again our first person narrator. But “Coconut Oil” continues an experimental narrative form, and Sal hands the mic off to several other characters as we are brought up to date on Refugio.

    The themes of “Coconut Oil” include aging, housing and homelessness, gentrification, and how we occupy ourselves over time. The form is experimental in a way a common reader might enjoy.

    The paperback version of “Coconut Oil” is available now, and the electronic version should be up next week.

    The back cover photo for “Coconut Oil” was taken from the northbound Coast Starlight train as it passed by the point at Refugio Beach, California, a campground about 26 miles north of Santa Barbara. The photo was taken sometime in the late 70’s.

    Refugio from Coast Starlight
    Refugio from Coast Starlight Special

     

  • Bukowski and the Three Flies

    From his father’s crap he falls
    into the bar and plops his basket
    down on a stool and asks
    for a tall Falstaff.
    Three flies fasten to him,
    ogling the brew.

    One runs her fingers through his thick brew
    and pules until he falls
    into her arms and she pulls him
    off his stout cask
    and steals a sip of his Falstaff.
    Another asks,

    touching his face masked,
    with slender pink nails running the rim of his brew,
    tracing the scars on his face,
    when did he first fall
    spoiled and askew.
    The third takes off his shoes and hums a hymn,

    tenderly rubbing his feet, humming,
    his feet half-soled with beach tar, trash
    cans, hums for three hours until Buk is as sober as
    an oaken church pew,
    and the bar flies all fall
    to the bottom of a glass stuck with Falstaff.

    Bukowski from the floor asks for a pint of Falstaff,
    singing a rum tum hymn,
    swatting the air for the flies just fallen.
    The stout sober poet stands ajar and asks
    for just one last brew.
    He rises and drifts like a hot air balloon falls,

    and bewildered asks
    for a full glass of Falstaff,
    a newly fresh falling brew.
    Buk’s humming the fly’s hymn,
    up again, like an upright cask,
    but his hoops break apart and the large man falls,

    misses the last call, and the bartender hoses and flushes him
    and the fallen Falstaff and the flies from the bar, a huge task,
    washes out the flies and brew, and into the gutter they barrel.

  • Lady Gaga Sitting Cross-legged on Her Gomden

    Dancers with Band The Touch Yous 2Largess the monstress Lady Gaga sunscalds her saga
    Lady who? Lady Gaga, aka radio caca
    from Saginaw hitchhiked qua-qua
    down to Lollapalooza maga
    a funny thing happening on the way to pay paga
    and on her gomden she sings her hagiography

    Her saintly lady hagiography
    with still a lot more to saga
    heorte abut America her maga and her paga
    and how baba gets her yagas out no caca
    on her gomden a tabloid tatoo-bio gone maga
    Lady Gaga’s letters to a lil monster qua-qua

    Poker faced on her gomden qua-qua
    the androginous Germanotta hag
    monster tattooed maga
    eats her own saga
    to satisfy our taste for caca
    Lady Gaga please phone yr paga

    Speechless she calls her paga
    the sharp-toothed Gaga in her qua-qua
    on the road in her caca
    wrapped in a graphic rhapsody
    from ragas to riches sagacity
    of rarely heard magnitude

    The herd of monsters their magnitude
    staggers the Grand Duchess of Paganini
    oh, the fame, the fama, the bottle rocket saga
    the dressing up of the pointed qua-quas
    the beatific dress covers the hag’s gomden
    stained and glossed in caca

    Eyeless in Caca did Lady Gaga
    usurp the sagitta of Madonna-non-maga
    her songs to mill on a stone-grind
    her etymologically reclined paga
    singing la-qua-qua, la-qua-qua-qua-la
    sacrosanct slanginess saga

    Cacophonically paganan
    maga dances the qua-qua
    and the gnome sings under the saga

  • Heart’s Apron Sestina

    Heart's ApronOozing down the sinuous sleeve the heart’s blood
    tempts the jackdaws to table to dine
    each bird a caddy for another’s purse
    whose ears exceed hearing and have eyes to eat
    who renounce not their heart’s guards
    but pronounce things with ease and clarity

    if left to their own corrections
    sop with erasure the heart’s brood
    I ago did watch one eye that pursed guard
    too hungry to alone dine
    for the ears on the word’s feast
    a three egg amulet protects the purse

    but there’s nothing in the purse
    the notion needs correction
    so we can sit down empty and eat
    something other than this soul’s doubloon
    good grief alone better to dine
    than suffer the guarded guards gardening

    the ones who taught the heart’s guards
    deluge ago to spend with lavish the purse
    so that today’s diners
    might eat correctly
    in a sacrifice bloodless
    at an ordinary eatery

    so with consciences clean let’s eat
    bring us the menus guards
    and napkins for these touchy emotions
    unbuckle the rope that holds the purse
    let it all hang out but with good manners
    for our purposeful dinner

    ago then we did dine
    on hearts on sleeves we did eat
    though correctly
    under the apron of the guards
    who held our purses
    and allowed aloud no drooling

    but this rectitudinal dining in and out
    fills with bile and drool of toasts and teas
    drop your guard forget the purse let’s flee

  • Waltzing with a Loon to the Tune of a Whippoorwill

    Moondance 1Henry’s loon waltzed into the room laughing
    laughing laughing at the phony moon
    rising over the pond-like screen
    laughing at Henry, at me, and at you too
    who scorned the whippoorwilled
    who loon-waltzed our way across the fall season

    who tweeted twitted twisted and tallyhoed on
    but what stilled the waters the antithesis of laughter
    came the calm call of the whippoorwill
    calling up to the ballooning moon
    to Henry, Huck, Hank, and all of us who
    waltzing across a lightbox screen

    click click click the path of the reen
    and fail to see the turn of the season
    while flashes YouTube and you too
    laughing laughing laughing
    at the simple simple single moon
    who waltzes with the whippoorwill

    to the epizeuxises of the whippoorwill
    the yoke on me preening for the screening
    in a full no half no quarter no moon
    in the turning turning turning of the seasons
    as the lone loon laughs
    at Henry, Huck, Hank, me, and you too

    yes at you too you too you too
    whistles the only whippoorwill
    as the moon falls fades the laugh
    and across the pond fills the screen
    white going going gone the season
    of the wry loon waltzing with the moon

    with the dry improbably wry moon
    then on the far shore you too
    out of rhyme out of sync out of season
    running running running for the whippoorwill
    and across the pond comes a single scream
    that echoes epizootically laughing

    out of season the waltzing singing loon
    laughing woo hoo! woo hoo! woo hoo!
    the poor loon waltz in a pale fall screen

  • The Twitterers (after Walter De La Mare’s “The Listeners”)

    The Twitterers (after Walter De La Mare’s “The Listeners“)

    “Is there anybody following?” twitted the Twitterer,
    Twitting on the backlit laptop;
    And his cat in the silence watched the empty light of the screen
    Of the laptop’s infinite face.
    And an ad popped up out of a modal window,
    About the Twitterer’s eyes:

    He twitted again, blinking his eyes;
    “Is there anyone following?” asked the Twitterer.
    But no one twitted back inside his white window;
    No comment from the rotting laptop
    Popped out of the blank light to interface,
    Where he sat, eyes pulled to the screen.

    But only a virtual host of phantom followers behind the screen,
    Dwelling eyes dwelling within the one lonely eye,
    Sat following in silence on the blank laptop face
    To that twit from the world of men twittering:
    Sat following in the light of the laptop,
    That glows with unsleep through the window,

    Disturbing the web in a twittering window,
    By the twittering Twitterer’s twittering screen.
    And he saw his strangeness in his laptop,
    And their weirdness, through their eyes
    Moving in white and blue background twitter,
    Even the cat transfixed by the cursor blinking in the face;

    He suddenly twittered again, his face
    Lifting from the laptop’s window.
    To his cat he twittered:
    “I stayed as long as reasonable at my screen.”
    Never once did the followers bare their eyes,
    Every twitter he twitted from his laptop

    Fell into the echo deep in the heart of the laptop
    To the one man whose twittering face
    Saw a blank set of eyes,
    And heard the cat scratching at the window,
    And felt the whistle filling with white light the blank screen
    When the cat twitted off leaving the Twitterer

    Sitting at his laptop staring at a blank window,
    His face at one with the blank screen,
    His eyes ever alert for the next twitter.

  • Sestina’s Angel

    Sestina falls prey to the sound silence of the Angel
    sitting in her lap playing with a ball of wireless
    a wireless webbed feline bureaucracy
    where pleas receive no reply
    and the sole sound is a silent catty wind
    and long days pass with nothing said of the terrible

    Rilke ranted something about beauty being terrible
    while in Sestina’s lap sat the lapping catting Angel
    who cannot hear in the stringless whine
    no place for the bird to come to rest on any wire
    wireless carriages of desire race to a place where all replies
    are lost in the terrible beauty of the host’s hidden bureaucracy

    At Sestina’s night bureau sits a bird clicking crazily
    a loon poet on the bum singing terribly
    rolling out with rigor a robust reply
    to the Angel
    who threatens to wire
    up the wireless wind

    To tone down this tuneless wordwind
    while sleeps the will-less bureaucracy
    wireless
    and terrible
    but for now the Angel
    sends no reply

    Any ranting request certainly receives no reply
    as Rilke races the ramparts terribly winded
    and shaking her head the windless wireless Angel
    disappears into the flow chart of blissful bureaucracy
    to that place so terrible
    wireworms crawl the tripwires of the hardwired

    Waving to the boldest bidder of weird wire
    waiting for the beauty of the instantaneous reply
    that memo from the waiting Angel so terrible
    dark wings unfold and the winds unwind
    the galaxies of celestial bureaucracy
    bang and bend in time to the tune of the supreme Angel

    The terrible embrace of the wireless
    Angel orders no reply
    For wellness dwindles so deep in such a bureaucracy

     

    See more Sestinas.

  • Sestina’s Radio

    My left speaker falsifies me,
    crackles, hisses, clichéd toad.
    I turn my right speaker to you.
    Surf wax fills the air,
    wave tubes squeezed tight.
    An unreal bird sings,

    pierces my ear with a ring,
    and to my radio welds me,
    night’s station holding tight,
    while in the surf singing toads
    fill the ringing air
    with songs of greyouts.

    I try to explain these sounds to you:
    above my left ear a toad sings,
    caught in my curly bird hair,
    a secret word brings to me,
    from KJOB, sings this DJ Toad:
    “Silence is noise for you tonight.”

    My ears grow frightened,
    and I look for sounds to you,
    the coming of the toads,
    the interventions of Sestina’s sting,
    for alone she sings to me.
    My ear receives whispers of air,

    a clogged blogging air,
    seashelled, wax watertight.
    The toads begin to mew
    in the alleys of my ears joyously,
    a clear and concise ring,
    the singing of the toads,

    about nothing much to do.
    No sound fills the air.
    Nothing outside this radio sings,
    its channel fixed tight
    to sing only to you,
    asymmetrically.

    Only in my left ear sings this toad,
    for me a secret aria,
    while fades like light your voice.

    See more Sestinas.

  • Peccadilloes; or, The School of No Sestina

    Peccadilloes; or, The School of No Sestina

    In the School of No, every word
    sounds a peccadillo,
    every class closes a cage,
    every cage captures a rule,
    every rule regards no
    with gusto.

    No bites yes with gusto
    behind a fence of words.
    No, no, no
    peccadilloes;
    that’s the rule
    in the land of cages.

    Explained John Cage,
    what cage you’re in, escape with gusto.
    Well, that was anyway John Cage’s rule.
    Silence was for the rule his word,
    though he broke records of silence with every chance peccadillo
    he got in the School of No.

    No No knows
    a Yes one day came selling out of a cage
    peccadilloes,
    from a food cart stuffed with gusto,
    apples falling and rotting for a code was worded:
    no Nos can know – the candy apple red rule –

    a committee of Nos ruled.
    So life is slow in the School of No,
    for a world wrapped in rules needs no words,
    and all the world’s a cage
    where the only gusto
    blows in from the occasional peccadillo

    by some picaroon poet acting alone,
    against tide and rule,
    all hopped up on some street grade gusto,
    but soon runs into a posse of nos,
    and is put back in the cage
    without a word.

    So with a bit of tempered gusto we suggest this peccadillo:
    every word should break a rule
    to escape a School of No cage.

  • 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!