Inspired by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer's poem-a-day practice, I've made a New Year's resolution, as we Americans are wont to do. For 50+ years I've been writing poems, hundreds and hundreds of them, and tossing them into piles. My archives are voluminous. Having written a history column in Telluride for 10+ years (Mining the Gold), I know how important saved papers can be. Losing years worth of journals (and most everything else) in a Placerville fire in the early '80's didn't help.
So, in the years-long process of moving out of Cloud Acre in Norwood, I've stumbled on a bin of old poems going back to the mid-Sixties when I returned from my VISTA year on the Crow Reservation in Lodgegrass, Montana, to Herb Caen's Baghdad-by-the-Bay -- just in time for the Summer of Love.
I plan on reviewing at least one a day. Revising. Reshaping. Recreating as I love to do. Poetry is my meditation. My free play time. I'm starting from the top of loose-leaf congeries two feet deep with only occasional dates. Here's the first one I've found where I didn't want to change much of anything.
MONA
riding a motorcycle
isn't the only way to
see San Francisco
unless you're circling the block
to pick up a young lady
who says yes
& smiles like a farm in
Santa Cruz where the apples
aren't waxed
delight twists the throttle
hugging our way
through traffic
when we stop she climbs
the stairs to do her dishes
the sky a soapy gray
gliding back down Market St.
her telephone number
whistles in my wallet
like kids running to school
in the rain
without their umbrellas
This is wonderful Art. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteit made me chuckle, thinking back to the Sixties
Delete“Her telephone number whistles in my pocket” What a great line! Evokes so much.
ReplyDeleteAmazing the wild metaphors of youth
DeleteArthur, I love your magic , dancing in your blue orbs!
ReplyDeletepoetry is a kind of magic where we dance with the hard facts, blue orbs and black eyes.
DeleteBest place for a gal's phone number!
ReplyDelete