June Poetry – Fourteen Lines

An Oldster In A Boater

I feel my job as an artist is to disturb the peace. And to disturb it intellectually, linguistically, politically and literally.
Gerald Stern

Still Burning

By Gerald Stern

Me trying to understand say whence

say whither, say what, say me with a pencil walking,

say reading the dictionary, say learning medieval

Latin, reading Spengler, reading Whitehead,

William James I loved him, swimming breaststroke

and thinking for an hour, how did I get here?

Or thinking in line, say the 69 streetcar

or 68 or 67 Swissvale,

that would take me elsewhere, me with a textbook

reading the pre-Socratics, so badly written,

whoever the author was, me on the floor of

the lighted stacks sitting cross-legged,

walking afterwards through the park or sometimes

running across the bridges and up the hills,

sitting down in our tiny dining room,

burning in a certain way, still burning.

Someone commented the other day, “do you think summer will ever feel as free again?” The comment was in relation to how our lives have changed due to the pandemic and what were formerly foundations of our summertime experiences, like outdoor music festivals, BBQ contests, baseball games, the State Fair, have shifted from sheer enjoyment to something more akin to risks to be managed. I miss the silliness that is people watching out in the world and how the lives of strangers momentarily collide. Too often today the dance that is the choreography of my day is now a solo rather than an easy summertime waltz with others.

Traffic Sonnet

by Edwin Denby

Cool June day, up the avenue
An oldster in a boater steps
Jaunty, at the cross-street, light green
Steps out, truck turns in on him, he stops
Truck halts, the driver don’t crowd him
Midwest highschool kids of his own
He’s spotted the gait, gives pop time
Lets them honk, soberly waves him on
Old man couldn’t move; a PR
Touched the arm, smiled, walked him across
He took up a stride like before
Traffic regained momentum lost
Irish like the President’s dad
We watched him swallowed by the crowd

Not One Would Mind

Look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far, it never will be far.
Sara Teasdale

The Look

By Sara Teasdale

Strephon kissed me in the spring,

Robin in the fall,

But Colin only looked at me

And never kissed at all.

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,

Robin’s lost in play,

But the kiss in Colin’s eyes

Haunts me night and day.

There Will Come Soft Rains

by Sara Teasdale

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Lothario Goes To Seed

St. Paul Jazz Festival – June 24 – 25, 2022

Don Juan Canto 11 (An Excerpt)

By Lord Byron

XXXIII

Some rumour also of some strange adventures
. . Had gone before him, and his wars and loves;
And as romantic heads are pretty painters,
. . And, above all, an Englishwoman’s roves
Into the excursive, breaking the indentures
. . Of sober reason, wheresoe’er it moves,
He found himself extremely in the fashion,
Which serves our thinking people for a passion.

XXXIV

I don’t mean that they are passionless, but quite
. . The contrary; but then ’tis in the head;
Yet as the consequences are as bright
. . As if they acted with the heart instead,
What after all can signify the site
Of ladies’ lucubrations? So they lead
. . In safety to the place for which you start,
What matters if the road be head or heart?

Lothario Swings at Jazz Fest

by T. A. Fry

A night in June unwavering
Clear soulful music rise!
Consorts slowly savoring
The softness of tan thighs

An encore for an instant
Beer scents a shameless sigh
The night is slowly distant
As the sax’s hunger cries

The shimmering summer solstice
Casts spells in lover’s eyes
Placing trust on notice
Where reticence resides

Lust glides on twilight’s kisses
Quivering quietly with folly’s need
Loneliness swings and misses
As Lothario goes to seed

There Is A Girl You Like

Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.
Mark Strand

Courtship

by Mark Strand

There is a girl you like so you tell her
your penis is big, but that you cannot get yourself
to use it. Its demands are ridiculous, you say,
even self-defeating, but to be honored, somehow,
briefly, inconspicuously in the dark.

When she closes her eyes in horror,
you take it all back. You tell her you’re almost
a girl yourself and can understand why she is shocked.
When she is about to walk away, you tell her
you have no penis, that you don’t

know what got into you. You get on your knees.
She suddenly bends down to kiss your shoulder and you know
you’re on the right track. You tell her you want
to bear children and that is why you seem confused.
You wrinkle your brow and curse the day you were born.

She tries to calm you, but you lose control.
You reach for her panties and beg forgiveness as you do.
She squirms and you howl like a wolf. Your craving
seems monumental. You know you will have her.
Taken by storm, she is the girl you will marry.

Keeping Things Whole

by Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole

Impossible Grandeur

It’s time to make love, douse the glim; The fireflies twinkle and dim; The stars lean together Like birds of a feather, And the loin lies down with the limb.
Conrad Aiken

The Old Age of Nostalgia

by Mark Strand

Those hours given over to basking in
the glow of an imagined future, of being
carried away in streams of promise
by a love or a passion so strong that one
felt altered forever and convinced that
the smallest particle of the surrounding
world was charged with a purpose of
impossible grandeur; ah yes, and one
would look up into the trees and be
thrilled by the wind-loosened river of
pale and gold foliage cascading down and
by the high melodious singing of countless
birds; those moments, so many and
so long ago, still come back, but briefly,
like fireflies in the perfumed heat of a
summer night.

The spectacle of the June firefly light show in our yard is at its stunning zenith. 2022 is a spectacular crop after a dry year last year, the full wetlands that surround our house and tall grasses have brought forth a breath taking wonder. I have always been amazed by the magic of fireflies. They are the fireworks of the insect world. They attract their mates by the power of their greenish glow and signal to the world that life is amazing.

When my kids were young I would take them fire fly hunting with a repurposed sweep net and a canning jar. My rule is that they could keep them on their night stand for one night, with some delicious grass to eat, but in the morning they had to let them go, that magic too powerful to keep in a jar to die.

When was the last time you chased a fire fly down or sat and watched them shimmer in the dark night, suffering a few bites of mosquitoes for the pleasure of their company?

So You Say

by Mark Strand

It is all in the mind, you say, and has
nothing to do with happiness. The coming of cold,
the coming of heat, the mind has all the time in the world.
You take my arm and say something will happen,
something unusual for which we were always prepared,
like the sun arriving after a day in Asia,
like the moon departing after a night with us.

As, Bearing Gifts, I Come

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes.
Sara Teasdale

Alarm Clock

by Joyce Kilmer

When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And barnyard voices shrilling “It is day!”
Take by his grace a new and alien charm.

But in the city, like a wounded thing
That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where sickly arc-lights sing,
And wanly mock his young and shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervor ring
In many a high and dreary sleeping place.

Madness

(For Sara Teasdale)

by Joyce Kilmer

The lonely farm, the crowded street,
The palace and the slum,
Give welcome to my silent feet
As, bearing gifts, I come.

Last night a beggar crouched alone,
A ragged helpless thing;
I set him on a moonbeam throne —
Today he is a king.

Last night a king in orb and crown
Held court with splendid cheer;
Today he tears his purple gown
And moans and shrieks in fear.

Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,
Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
Nor love’s artillery of tears
Can keep mine own from me.

Serene, unchanging, ever fair,
I smile with secret mirth
And in a net of mine own hair
I swing the captive earth.

The Moon Is Queen of Everything

If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they would immediately go out.
William Blake

Bed in Summer

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

Moonchild

by Lucille Clifton

whatever slid into my mother’s room that
late june night, tapping her great belly,
summoned me out roundheaded and unsmiling.
is this the moon, my father used to grin.
cradling me? it was the moon
but nobody knew it then.

the moon understands dark places.
the moon has secrets of her own.
she holds what light she can.

we girls were ten years old and giggling
in our hand-me-downs. we wanted breasts,
pretended that we had them, tissued
our undershirts. jay johnson is teaching
me to french kiss, ella bragged, who
is teaching you? how do you say; my father?

the moon is queen of everything.
she rules the oceans, rivers, rain.
when I am asked whose tears these are
I always blame the moon.

Then It Was Over

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest. In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Wild Iris

by Louise Gluck

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Hear me out:
that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over:
that which you fear, being
a soul and unable

to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Iris have a way of waiting until the first week of June in Minnesota before they make a splash in our gardens. The timing of their flowers coincide with peonies filling the air with their unique fragrance, while iris fill our eyes with unparalleled splendor. There is nothing really like the blue/purple color of iris with their yellow beardish highlights. Iris have six petals, not unusual in the flower world, but the way they present themselves is unique at least for Minnesota gardens, a visual treat we wait for anxiously each summer. Sadly this year, we have been hit with an unprecedented early heat wave with temperatures in the high 90’s for 7 days in a row just as the iris started blooming. The iris and peonies are both showing the stress effects of the high temperatures, dropping petals much too quickly. There will be no slow languor of color this year in our iris beds, just a quick visit and then the promise of next year in their foliage the rest of the season.

The origins of the English word iris – with meanings for both the flower and the colored portion of our eyes are the same; Greek for rainbow. Apparently, flattery will get you everywhere, even in the ancient world, with a whispered compliment in your lover’s ear about the beauty of their eyes reminding you of flowers and rainbows the perfect way to set the mood.

I was pleased to find multiple poems in which one form or the other of iris are used as inspiration to paint a verbal picture. I was recently in California at a house with an incredible array of gardens and landscaping. There was a very old pond that was in need of a bit of attention, but still had vestiges of a former gardener’s deft touch. There was a wild iris overhanging its reflecting surface, long and gangly and brilliant green, with a single yellow flower that was utter perfection. As I stared at it silently and took in the broader view of the entire pond, I realized there was a golden hued frog, with only its head and a bit of its back showing above the water line, directly below the embankment on which the iris stood prominently. As I crouched down to get a better look at this fine froggy friend, it jumped and dove beneath the duck weed and lily pads and disappeared. That encounter was a great reminder of how brief beauty can enter and exit our eye in a flash, and the need to let it live on in our memory and in our art to inspire us to keep looking for it to return when we least expect it.

The Sadness Of The Moon

by Charles Baudelaire

THE Moon more indolently dreams to-night
Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,
Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,
Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,
Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;
And watches the white visions past her flown,
Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,
Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,
Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow,
Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,
And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart