Early January. I’m done with winter. Weary of reading; Of writing, disheartened. No poems today. A somnolent novel lies open on The nightstand. Half-read, And misunderstood. Death and dread, Both half-baked and shivering, Find their way inside, Kick off their boots and, Brew Cuban coffee, and Hang their wool socks on the stove. Cold water has Swept down from the Maritimes. Gasbag politicians, Have unspooled the mooring line. It’s snapping now in the Ocean wind, that blows Now from the north, And other times from the east. A cruel tide drives into the sand. It pushes like a fisherman On a halibut laden handcart. Then–when the continent has Shifted, sufficiently, it rushes Back toward Africa, where it All started. “Pull us from the dive Captain” We cry to our pilot. But there is a blood red demon In the cockpit. Expect no mercy. Give it your best, but in the end There is only one way out. We’re going straight in! “Swim parallel to the shore” Shouts a bare headed priest; A snippet of his clerical collar Barely visible behind a Red mackinaw jacket. We’re survivors, not saviors, You shout back to him.
A blind woman in a Pea-green duck coat Walks the beach with A tiny dog in her arms, And stands knee deep In the water. She points To the east as a squadron of Brown pelicans, climb out Of the mist by the lighthouse. Thirteen of them, she says, I hear 26 wings aloft.
Then she says: It was here, right here, where He was taken from us in 1960. My sainted brother Byron! I smell the current.
Pearls of wisdom will not save him, Now, from the angry. No sleight Of hand, or smooth practiced Mannerisms will defer their wrath. Ice pellets strike the mahogany podium. A polar vortex surrounds the chambers. A volume of deceit has been unearthed. Misdeeds lurk like frightened mice As they await the starved calico cat. “Your suit” says an accuser, “Is five times too large for your rotten soul.” “A rotten stolen soul,” says another. “Corruption In Chief should be his title,” Bellows a disgruntled tax payer. “And the poor children, now without a Park!” Yet, the potholes on the east side of Town are filled. Pilfered funds tap lightly on the chamber Door. The mayor is in the hotseat.
“One or two per day of his, is about all I can stomach.” Says White Chocolate Mocha lady in Icewear sweats.
“His words are like wall plaster; outdated — dry — & toxic.” Says Expresso Octogenarian, guy in a sand-colored cardigan.
“Like reading doom squared; unworthy of the serious reader.” Says the Seasonal Latte Sipper, in green turtleneck and red hi-tops.
“His lines remind me of malnourished children, weak – and searching for acceptance.” Says the Decaf Goatee, with an unlit clove cigarette loosely held between thumb & forefinger.
“His words are stacked like cord wood, in search of a fire. Pure chimney fodder.” Says Java Bean Frappuccino with, an air of extreme condescension.
“His net worth must be in pennies, if he survives on book sales.” Says Caramel Macchiato, in a fine Brooks Brothers Suit.
They removed his hole-in-one ball from display, even before the salad fork had been pried from the wall. Now, only stained upholstery and warped wall board mark the spot–where Walker and Beem came to blows. The waitress waits patiently to provide her statement. A nine iron rests upon the mahogany bar, bent: Exhibit A. Elaine—her face, the color of her bright tennis skirt, refuses treatment. “I must have slipped,” she says. “Dear Dickie wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Then, with a gasp, “Good God, the shards of glass!” The poor valet, quakes in his white shorts and red vest. The exit still vivid. Black streaks of rubber, scorched — into painted concrete, evidence of retreat in haste. Richard has been banned from the club.
In August one year, we were drinking wine, in a State Park in Kansas watching the afternoon walk away toward the Missouri River and Saint Joe. We were listening to Johnny Cash on my cellular phone. You – in your Miami Beach T-shirt, and me – in my ‘Virginia is for Lovers’ sweatshirt. We tied one on — in the neatly trimmed grass of a picnic area — named for a long departed native American, a guy who had roamed the plains and hunted there and produced offspring there and had no idea that there would be a recreation area and a campground named after him one day.
And later we lay on our backs, with the sound of a flat-lands waterfall gurgling somewhere in the distance and the sound of a honey bee
hovering
pulling nectar from a flower that you could not identify. You said that you could consult your Kansas State University botany book for a read on the plant, but I remind you that you left that book at the Rodeway Inn in Salina three days ago.
We drink more of Kansas and talk about bees. I tell her about the natives who came over from Asia and how they walked across the ice bridge. And how they trekked across the continent with travois sleds pulled by dogs.
Twilight – we find ourselves on our backs watching a jet streak by overhead.
It’s late in the day and we know it is bound for Philly, or New York,
or Boston.
Eastbound at night I tell her. Westbound in the morning she says.
I am listening to my inner poem today, The one that is deep in the core of my aging body where I keep the cleansers and the cleaners and the emotional vacuum cleaner that I use to suck the cobwebs off the ceiling and to blow the ants from their nests near the potato bin.
Sometime before noon I find myself calling out to the inner poem for some inspiration. Sing to me you Old Inner Poem. Whisper a sonnet in my ear. Come close and explain the nuances of your latest villanelle. Don’t become caught up with the details and the meanderings of the old poets – you are on your own now – you need none of them. Inspiration comes from the clouds and the damned moon – REALLY can anyone bear another poem about the moon?? Can we beat another one out of the Clouds? Give me a Picasso or a Rembrandt today – with a hint of Jackson Pollack. That’s the kind of poem I need from you.
Don’t make me come down there and look for you Old Fool Inner Poem: If I must do that, you’ll be sorry for the experience. But there is silence down there and soon I know Inner Poem will need to be prodded and maybe coaxed with a good glass of port wine.
There is no ‘flannel season’ where I live. Around these parts it stays in the 85-degree range until – Christmas, or thereabouts, so it is sometimes difficult for me to remember just where we are in the seasonal cycle.
October 2023 – can’t be. As you get older, the months seem to travel quickly, but this one really crept up on me. So, I intend to enjoy every day of October 2023, because the next time we see an October pop up, it will be in 2024 and we (in the US) know what that means. By next year, at this time, we will be in the death throes of US Presidential election, number 60. And what an all-consuming contest it is bound to be, divisive, ugly, and devoid of civility. But that is to come, and this is the here and now.
So, I intend to enjoy every day of these sweet October days below the frost line. We haven’t leaves to turn color, but we have rockets lighting our skies every few days as we reach out for the moon, Mars and beyond. Rocket launches have become so commonplace here on the Space Coast that we often forget they are scheduled until we see the plume of smoke in the sky and feel the sonic boom rocking the house. Just another day here.
So, what poetic offering do I have to celebrate October of 2023? I didn’t think I had one, but I do, so here it is. It was written several years ago as I sat on a Florida beach:
OH OCTOBER
Oh October, you have tracked me down like a contract process server, with envelope in hand, rushing toward me as I sit helpless, on Ft. Lauderdale beach, toes in granite sand, Ray Bans angled into fading afternoon sun. You hand me the price that I’ll pay: No shady drive leaf peeping bright New England autumn cider sipping pumpkin picking pre-ski crisp air from Ontario blowing across the Lakes orange and yellow tinged afternoons. With brandy and conversation before the first fire. Just remanent heat here beach-side last hurricane of the season, six hundred miles offshore.
I am busy with morning when I hear the news: Two billion new galaxies have been discovered.
They’re thirteen billion light years away. Thirteen billion. I try to calculate it. In my head I take a hundred years and take that times ten, and that’s a thousand. Then nine hundred of those and… it’s far too much. I’m thinking of centuries as I spread peach marmalade on my toast.
I think of the number of years between the pyramids and the Hoover Dam.
I think of the years between Nero and Woodrow Wilson. I’m unable to wrap my arms around it, so I give up…
ii
There is a bird outside my window. It is a nuthatch. I know that because my grandmother pointed one out to me half a century ago. Fifty years ago.
A nuthatch, a piece of toast, and two billion new galaxies. My wife comes into the kitchen – she’s looking for the coffee creamer and she hasn’t slept well. She says it’s because of blue light and how she shouldn’t peer into a computer screen before bed.
I tell her about the two billion new galaxies and the endless planets that might be circling stars and there might be nuthatches and peach marmalade elsewhere in the universe. And somewhere, perhaps another grandmother is pointing out birds.
In writing this blog today, I was reminded of a story about the author James Joyce. According to the story, a close friend of Joyce’s called on him one afternoon as Joyce was in the throes of writing his opus magnum tome, “Ulysses”. The friend found Joyce despondent and depressed. When the friend asked Joyce what was wrong, Joyce replied, “the work, that’s what’s wrong. It’s always the work.”
After some probing, the friend discovered that Joyce was depressed because he thought writing the book was taking far too long.
“How many words have you written today?” asked the friend.
After thinking for a moment Joyce replied, “Five, I think. Yes, I’ve written five words.”
“Well,” said the friend trying to be supportive, “that’s something isn’t it. Five words are better than none.”
“I suppose,” said Joyce, “but I just don’t know what order to put them in.”
It is a great thought. Words in their raw form are just expressions that are meaningless until assembled into the correct order. All that separates “War and Peace”, or Joyce’s “Ulysses” from any novel in a publisher’s slush pile is simply the arrangement of the words. Just hand someone a dictionary and say, “now go write a best seller – here are all the words”. I could go on and on with this, but I won’t.
What I want to talk about today is ‘blackout poetry’, because blackout poetry is all about word arrangement. And no, blackout poetry is not poetry written after having a few too many at your local watering hole. Not at all. Blackout poetry is poetry that is created when a poet takes an existing piece of text and covers, or ‘blacks out’ most of the source text, leaving a smattering of words exposed on the page to form a poem.
The blackout poet can use any piece of existing text that they want. It could be an article in a magazine, a page from a paperback novel or even a classic like “Ulysses”. Most poets look for a theme for their blackout poem. Usually, they start by looking for a word or two near the beginning of the page, and then they try to find other words throughout the page that enhance the imagery that they are trying to project.
If you are interested in writing your own ‘blackout poem’ here is what you need to do:
Decide on your source text — This must be a physical piece of paper. If you use a page from a book, you will probably need to cut the page from the book, so be aware that the book will be permanently damaged. Or you can do as I did when I wrote my blackout poem – simply download a page from the internet. There are lots of blackout poetry free sites that allow you to download pages.
Read the page carefully two or three times– Look for words or short phrases that seem to call out to you or seem to fit well with other words on the page. When you see these words, circle them lightly using a pencil. Look for words that seem to build on each other to enhance your theme.
Create your markup – When you are satisfied with the words you have selected for your poem, read them until you are satisfied with them. The length of the poem should be about 15 words, give or take a few words. When you have finished your poem, use a black marker or dark crayon to obscure all the text except the words to your poem.
Share your poem – You will need to take a picture of your poem or scan it into your computer. This is unique to blackout poetry. You must take a photo or scan of your poem for it to qualify as a blackout poem.
Of course, I will include here my first effort at blackout poetry. I used as my source file, a page from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby.”
NOTE: As the readability of this blog sometimes differs between browsers, and renders differently in mobile applications, I will cheat a bit and include the words that I selected on my source page here:
Ed's end of the planet books 