Ulysses by Umberto Saba, Translated by Stephen Sartarelli

O sad Ulysses in decline, seer

of terrible omens, does

no sweetness in your soul foment

Desire

for a 

pale dreamer of shipwrecks

who loves you?

and then it snows

I don't know how to answer 
wind chases long dead leaves
like a bored dog running after 
everything, when someone asks, 
how are things? I don't expect
false promise scattered 
like a murder just trying to survive
is there more hope in the city?
rude black pepper sneezed airborne. 
sometimes it almost screams 
everything is going to be fine 
and then it isn't, 
I think 
and then it snows. 

 and

Review of Certain Women by Kelly Reichardt

Oh that longing. Damn do I know that longing. I love the walk home from the cheap movie theater ($4 a ticket). The streets are remarkably dark and there's an old cemetery along the way which is, in its own right, an oasis of darkness. Every time I cut through I start out thinking, ah, it's no big deal, so what? and then half through I'm like, what the hell was I thinking? I've watched creatures slay things here, calmly. I really like the director of the movie "Certain Women," Kelly Reichardt. Such glum tone poems of loss & alienation! I've never seen the vampire movies so my impression of her is probably different, but I like how Kristen Stewart can articulate so much without saying much. And I'm fascinated by her eyes. She looks so exhausted & weary all the time, I just want to sit down beside her and ask how she's doing. The woman who cared for horses was a K.D. Lang song, so lunar. I like how the movie frequently paused with the landscape, so beautifully harsh. And no music, until the end. Interesting how intimate the dream can be without music insisting on something, until it needs to. I've been worried I'll get kicked out for complaining, which has reminded me how much I love to live alone.

Acquainted with the Night By Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night. 

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. 

I have outwalked the furthest city light. 

I have looked down the saddest city lane. 

I have passed by the watchman on his beat 

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. 

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet 

When far away an interrupted cry 

Came over houses from another street, 

But not to call me back or say good-bye; 

And further still at an unearthly height, 

One luminary clock against the sky 

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Night People by David Ignatow

See them with their backs
to the sun, studying their shadows
long and dark, and none thinks
to turn around. It will be night
and they will begin to move 
among themselves silently,
touching each other for signposts. 
No one will speak 
and no arm be raised
in a gesture, as they vanish. 

november post-mortem

petite doggie sits on a pile of belongings in the passenger seat of a dirty snowball, staring stoically ahead. starving artist I used to be a cafe regular with saunters past in a heavy raincoat the color of rescue. lone crow glides down from the leaf-thinned elm tree each battered leaf a yellow flag, waiting to be lowered and received. the murder feasts, pecks enthusiastically at the circle's mustache of broken bread. she must pretend, she must pretend not to see what she sees until she's clocked by the last punch of the day of the week, until then kiss the distant rings. verdant sea churns about the proud pine twins, squirrel bounds through the plush lawn, its tail an ash-gray exclamation mark. glum sky yawns, asks,

hey man, where can you score some sun around here?

Coyote does Halloween

I remember in my early teens, that uncertain age when you might be too old to trick or treat on Halloween, which feels both shamelessly opportunistic & a little embarrassing, except that the candy is there for the taking! My best friend, who had a little scar at the corner of his mouth which made him look sinister, even as a boy, and I got the bright idea to knock on the door of a family of Vietnamese refugees in my apartment building, just to see what they would do. I know and I feel awful now remembering it. So we knocked on the first floor door and announced, Trick or Treat! I would be surprised if we were the first to knock on their door but you never know. They answered with big smiles and offered us packages of ramen. We protested but they insisted we take the ramen, smiling & bowing the whole time, so sweet & sincere, unlike us. We turned and trundled off, feeling exactly like the little shits we were, and yet amazed that these desperate people, living twenty to a two bedroom apartment, would be willing to so joyfully give whatever they had. It was a truly humbling moment that I had not thought of until this evening. Happy Halloween, whatever that means to you.

first autumn sunday

drizzle caught

in a spider's

net. berries

dangle beneath

belly soft sky.

shine struggles

in its missed place.

Poem for the fallen (Dedicated to Fallon Smart)

sitting at a cafe's sidewalk table

sunday afternoon, black irish tea

and a chocolate chip cookie, late

summer sun palms the right side of

my face, my cheek.

traffic crawls past the median's

memorial for the fallen

girl who tried to cross

the too wide and impatient

street, anthology of

Italian women poets

lays open on my lap

as a tawny young butterfly

alights

upon its sunkissed page.

http://bikeportland.org/2016/08/26/a-life-lost-too-soon-photos-from-the-fallon-smart-memorial-ride-190481

I get high

I get high 

from 

the chemistry I have 

with 

the curvaceous 

cannabis clerk 

David Eagleman quote (and flowers)

"Each creature perceives only what it has evolved to perceive." 

-David Eagleman

the sweetest hello

early august overcast reminds me of but does not spell rain. alone with whoever may enter, how long since the sky caught & released something besides shine? berries appear like a box of clothes, abandoned on a corner, waiting to be picked. spontaneous sweetness awaits you. i pull the clouds over my head & drowsily tumble down the steps, hooded. i am asked for a story which i don't have & feel around in the pockets of memory for enough shattered calcium fragments, floating there in the slick, to shell something soft & personal to give them. but can you really trust met flesh, as if no one has ever lied to your face, your heart, or your belly? what will the unborn know of you that the crows don't? stray morning kitten, tiger in training, friends me on the sidewalk beside the raspberry bush. collarless & sweet but does not cross to other side with me, where i find a crow, crouching on the pavement, its wings tucked in, head lifted, beak open as if it meant to say something it could not say to the barking wire above. i look up at the crow that's been barking nonstop, like a knocked down boxer's trainer in the corner, yelling at him to get back up. i turn to leave, not wanting to interrupt whatever has to happen, when i notice the other crow, watching in silence several feet down the wire. i nod to the one who knows & continue toward whatever awaits me. as i enter the circle, a beautiful woman from work who worries me, walking around with her head down, as if crouching inside herself, rounds the curve on her bicycle & startles me with the sweetest hello.

You Exist; It Ignores Me by Andrea Zanzotto

You exist; the season
ignores me, leaves me all shivers;
endless strawberries in the woods and apples 
in the countless rains

Pure summer consumed 
by strong winds
lit by love

and quite another flowering 
that means nothing, weighs nothing,
and this impromptu afternoon
so I may take leave of you

With you green now 
with fogs and light-shafts
you save me, I see again 
among blinding riches.



translated by Ruth Feldman & Brian Swann 

in sola civitas rosacea