Read the Passing Clouds

Dog on rooftop, Sacramento
Photo by Katy Brown, Davis
Watch for more of the dog on the roof
and other wonderful photos and prompts
coming Sept. 10 in Katy's new blank journal, Musings2!

A PORTRAIT OF MY ROOF
—James Galvin

My steel roof mirrors clouds
Like a book the sky left off reading.

The story of clouds passing keeps passing,
As stories will, even with the book turned over,

Even closed, shelved, forgotten;
Inside I leave off working

And turn my notebook spine up to wonder
What kind of story is boring the sky.

I don't have to go far for the answer.
I don't have to go anywhere.

Shall I take up serpents for interest?
I have taken up serpents.

Shall I refuse happiness?
For interest?

No, I shall claim the obvious,
That hearts are no exclusive province.

I shall go outside and lie down in the grass.
I shall read the passing clouds,

Chaotic, senseless, wise,
Unlike anything one finds in reflection.

___________________

I misspoke:

I was under the impression that Sacramento Poetry Center was not meeting this Monday because of Labor Day; t'ain't true; t'ain't true at all!

•••Monday (9/1), 7:30 PM: Sacramento Poetry Center features An Evening of Comedy and Poetry with Carol Louise Moon, Michael Rose, Brad Buchanan, and Tim Kahl. HQ for the Arts, 1719 25th St., Sacramento. The night will feature a discussion of the relationship of comedy and poetry, including examples of comedic poems, improv, and a brief lecture on the cross-fertilization of both. Carol Louise Moon has been published in Brevities, Rattlesnake Review, Poetry Now, Updrafts and Poets Forum Magazine. She has a littlesnake broadside (Mindfully Moon) from Rattlesnake Press (as do Brad Buchanan and Tim Kahl). She is also the author of a new chapbook/comic book entitled Some Roman Alpha Letters Make Good Friends.

Michael Rowe is a member and organizer of the improv group at The Geary Theater at 22nd and L Streets in Sacramento.

Brad Buchanan teaches Modern British and American Literature and Creative Writing at California State University, Sacramento. His work has appeared in the U.S. in American Poets and Poetry, The Comstock Review, Confrontation, The Connecticut Poetry Review, Illuminations, Northeast, The Notre Dame Review, Peregrine, The Portland Review, RE: AL, The Seattle Review, The South Dakota Review, and Whetstone. His first book, The Miracle Shirker, was published by Poets Corner Press in 2005, and he has recently started his own literary press, Roan Press, which has published Swimming The Mirror, a book of poems dedicated to his daughter, Nora. He sometimes pawns himself off as an amateur gerontologist just to make people happy, and he also refers to himself as a relapsing rhymester.

Tim Kahl’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, American Letters & Commentary, Berkeley Poetry Review, Fourteen Hills, George Washington Review, Illuminations, Indiana Review, Limestone, Nimrod, Ninth Letter, Notre Dame Review, South Dakota Quarterly, The Journal, Parthenon West Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Texas Review, and many other journals in the U.S. He has translated Austrian avant-gardist, Friederike Mayröcker; Brazilian poets, Lêdo Ivo and Marly de Oliveira; and the poems of the Portuguese language’s only Nobel Laureate, José Saramago. He also appears as Victor Schnickelfritz at the poetry and poetics blog, The Great American Pinup (http://greatamericanpinup.blogspot.com/). His first collection, Possessing Yourself, is forthcoming from Word Tech Press in 2009. He is also the editor for Bald Trickster Press, which is dedicated to works of poetry in translation into English.

On September 8, SPC will feature poet Terry O' Neal.

__________________

ART CLASS
—James Galvin

Let us begin with a simple line,
Drawn as a child would draw it,
To indicate the horizon,

More real than the real horizon,
Which is less than line,
Which is visible abstraction, a ratio.

The line ravishes the page with implications
Of white earth, white sky!

The horizon moves as we move,
Making us feel central.
But the horizon is an empty shell—

Strange radius whose center is peripheral.
As the horizon draws us on, withdrawing,
The line draws us in,

Requiring further lines,
Engendering curves, verticals, diagonals,
Urging shades, shapes, figures...

What should we place, in all good faith,
On the horizon? A stone?
An empty chair? A submarine?

Take your time. Take it easy.
The horizon will not stop abstracting us.

___________________

LISTEN HARD

Enough and you can hear
The small breakages occurring.
That's what all sounds are:
Small sounds, small things breaking;
Big sounds, big things breaking.

Think of a drop of water
Flung from the grindstone.
It's always day, it's always night.
No such thing as tomorrow.

There's a match going out.
There's paying for privilege.
There's harm's way,

It's all the same day.
Sunlight drools on the grass.
An air of faded intimacy.

Listen to the sound of the pages turning.
Listen to the sound of the book when it closes.


—James Galvin

___________________

POSTCARD
—James Galvin

Days are cubes of light
That equal each other
Whether anything happens in them or not,
No matter what anyone did or didn't do,
They are equal.

The emptiest are lovely,
Though one is drawn to the bright-edged shards
Of days that cracked
From disappointment and longing.

Some days I go looking for oceans.
If I find one I search the beach
For the teeth I left
In a glass of water
In a motel room in Nebraska.

I'm losing the ability to tremble.
I find appearances helpful.
Some days I go looking for the sky.

__________________

RUBBER ANGEL
—James Galvin

The world is not
Your philosophical problem.

Generous with rigor,
Bright blue regardless of heat,

It flourishes in distance:

The flowers we preserved,
The owl-pocked forests
We defended with spikes.

Just try
Not living your life.
I dare you.

__________________

Today's LittleNip:

This one carries the question mark as a burden, that one as a gift he is glad to have been given.

—Stephen Dobyns

__________________

—Medusa