JOHN SCOTT MANSFIELD [1943-2023]

John Mansfield and Art Goodtimes after taping a KOTO-FM
radio interview at the media room in the Norwood Public School, 2019.
[Photo by Cara Pallone]

Whitewater ... Coming back to San Miguel County where he'd made his home. Didn't feel good. Something wrong. Pulled over in time. Not crashing. Hands on the wheel. Expired. Samaritans lifted him out of the car. Laid him by the road. Tried CPR. Nothing ... Couple months before he'd found his Mesa Rose coffee club buddy, Charlie, face-down on the ice where alone he'd slipped, carrying firewood. Six hours. Neck broken. Unable to reach the phone. His lifeline since his wife had died. Hypothermic. Frost-bit. Hospitalized. Transferred. Nothing left. He died.  ... My last email to John asking about Charlie's memorial. Celebration of Life. The wake of his passing from our lives ... Now John too. Gone ... His wry smiling zen eye on the day's promenade. "Hello," we call to each other, lost in our meanders, shuffling by. Waving. All of itki, passing. Pastiche of time & place. Interwoven fabric. Needle & thread. Rapids around the bend & then calm. And the slow deep pull of memory's currents.

 

May Day

 

May Day morning at Wrenheim in Naturita Canyon

May Day

“Let the millionaire go naked, stark naked!”

                     —César Vallejo

May the multi-billionaires bankrolling proxy cock rockets for the 1% to escape stop.

May they instead fund food desert grocery stores, wellness checks, dental exams, universal health care, apprenticeships, journalists, trade school, college, trains, buses, marching bands, drumlines, symphonies, poetry readings, and neighborhood puppet shows, two free cold drinks per attendee.

May solar panel and wind turbine farms replace golf courses and parking lots.

May megachurches, shopping malls, and munitions factories shelter the shelterless.

May corporations and the rich pay their taxes like any entry-level janitor.

May minimum income let no one hunger.

May guns become curios.  

May not one more child be shot.

May all go garmented as wanted.

May no one struggle between lights or groceries, groceries or medicine, medicine or rent.

May throwing money at problems solve them.

Unlimited music streaming services, tiny homes, and spicy vegan snacks for everyone!

My brain’s a pessimist, my heart a Marxist, stomach an anarchist, feet the downtrodden.

My soul’s on the side of kids throwing rocks at cops.

May only their helmets and shields be thumped.

May anyone ill be healed.

May the North Atlantic garbage patch—marine debris and microplastics hundreds of miles across—be engineered to serve as refuge paradise for everyone whose islands rising waters overwhelm.

May personal solar-powered cooling suits be distributed to the populace, embroidered with one of three slogans in Esperanto: “Hot and bothered,” “Just chilling,” and “Sorry!”

May hands exert themselves for common purpose.

May the sleep of the people be bountiful.

May the dreams of those sleeping in work clothes contain no labor.

May we wake with the happy idea of infinite wishes.

Sheep Mountain

The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward

 

Colorado Times-Recorder

Denver media progressive Jason Salzman is putting out an in-depth on-line newspaper with Colorado news and op-ed.  Here's one poem of mine that just appeared as opinion. For the published version, go HERE

Day After

April Fool's

almost missed 

the subtleties of circle fractures

in the poled skin of the snow

As Gerrit Lansing once told us

The Heavenly Tree Grows Downward

"All life long/the dew falls from heaven

... trees climb up from underground waters"

Holding palm up on the unburnt trunk

of a Thunder Trails yellowleg pine

in morning tai chi -- chanting

 needles, rootlets, hyphae

News alive again

with Mar-a-lago shenanigans

blowing ill-will like a militia howl 

before a Rocky Mountain storm

Not surprised really, Irate, saddened. Right

& left, vicious or vicarious, some furious

li bingeing on outlaw fantasies. We

Americans love our bully pulpits. Our puppets

Ziggie's Open Mike Zoom Series

 Julie Cummings is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Ziggies Poetry Open Mic Featuring Art Goodtimes
Time: Apr 6, 2023 05:45 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting HERE


Meeting ID: 830 9558 4158

BARDIC TRAILS APRIL 13023

 

Talking Gourds Broadside by Daiva Chesonis

Diana Whitney

Fischer Prize Finalist 2022

 Happy National Poetry Month!

If you missed registering to join us for tonight's Bardic Trails at 7 pm Mountain Time, find the zoom link below  

After Diana reads, host Joanna Spindler will lead a Q&A session

followed by our Passing of the Gourd for those wanting to read a poem

 Bardic Trails is held on the first Tuesday of every month as a collaboration of the Telluride Institute's Talking Gourds poetry program and the Wilkinson Public Library

Topic: Bardic Trails

Time: Apr 4, 2023 07:00 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada)

JOIN ZOOM HERE

Meeting ID: 820 8592 7190 

Diana Whitney writes across the genres with a focus on feminism, sexuality, and motherhood. She is editor of the bestselling anthology YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE EVERYTHING: POEMS FOR GIRLS BECOMING THEMSELVES, a Best Book of 2021 and winner of the 2022 Claudia Lewis Award. As the longtime poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Diana featured women poets and LGBTQ voices in her column. Her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Glamour, Tinderbox, and many more. Her poetry debut, WANTING IT, became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award. She is finishing a new collection, GIRL TROUBLE, supported by a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council. Find out more HERE

Tuning into KTMH 89.9 Light Praise Radio

 

Christian Democracy

Capt. B can see heshe was raised on the Christian 

story. Found Ramadan a whole lot like Lenten 

fasts pre-easter. Before the palm leaf & alleluias 

Ask herhim, "So who's God?" & heshe'll say

A great big bearded Old Man who knows it-key all

Infallible as il Papa, the Pope, according to the

Bible of the Vatican (never vacant) Holy Roman

Empire Church where all too often itki was  

the clergy (even some of the Redhats) who're 

first in communion & last out of confession

Capt. B can't see red for blue, or even green

unadulterated. To herhim  itki's the Radical

mess of the Middle where itki's best

to bend a knee

Vernal Equinox

 

Morning Crustbusting

My snowshoes don't sink

Aren't lead weights dragging my glide

down into the subsurface melt zone

No  deep step break trail

plod of tracks into sinkholes

of afternoon sun slush

Poles flash like outriggers as I sail

across a night freeze snowpack

tacking to the storm's light flakes

Pausing for just a moment to  swig

a canteen & lay a hand blessing

on my favorite pine