Monday Poem: No Santa Ana Birth Day
Ventura Pier: smoky sunset
My October 23 due date passed.
I knew this wasn’t a Libra baby
indecisive uncommitted as air
weighing the benefits of joining us
of making we two a family.
No this Scorpio took advantage of
our tidal wave of passion of love
of happiness of ecstasy of heat:
saying yes you can conquer all with love
saying be careful what you wish for
asking are you ready for this child? me?
Yes, we discovered we wanted you child,
child who hovers in my belly you
Scorpio baby making us wait. We
have no name yet for you, know little of
you. We call you Sam–your dad’s infant name.
He and I born in California heat–
he in October, me in January–
we wait in the midst of November
warmth, walk balmy evenings to the beach
feel for contractions, watch for dolphins–Oh!
There they are! Look! Feel! Touch! The air burns
San Diego, Simi, Piru, and more
hillsides scorch as Santa Ana winds fly
flames. The day’s haze not normal coastal fog
shielding the sun but ash. We close windows,
blinds, keep out the heat, smoke. Our home cave-like
dark, cool, primeval, hints of burning
chaparral, lemon trees, lumber, timber.
I don’t want to take deep breaths of labor
my throat, my lungs filing with smoke, ash
passing to you as we work together
to meet. I don’t want you welcomed here this
way Earth’s breath searing your new fresh lungs.
Orange red sun moves slowly south west drops
too early in the day, sign of fall and
winter comes. Day closes, cool. Ocean
dampens earth’s oven breath. We will go to
the sea, bring you, water baby, home.
c. Gwendolyn Alley
published ArtLife Limited Editions February 2004
revised November 17, 2008
We celebrated the boy’s 5th birthday yesterday; fortunately the smoke from this year’s fires didn’t dampen the fun around here. Photos and recipes for pirate cake will follow soon!
I found the image above here.
Here’s another poem inspired about other fall fires, as well as a copy of Joan Didion’s essay “The Santa Ana” from her essay collection, Slouching Toward Bethlehem.
There’s more poetry links over there under “book”–you might check out hello, gingaTao! or readwritepoem or the poetry train revisted to name a few…
CA names Carol Muske-Dukes new State Poet Laureate
Gov. Schwarzenegger selected USC Prof Carol Muske-Dukes the new State Poet Laureate, taking over the position from Al Young of Berkeley. She will receive a stipend of $10,000 over two years.
During his tenure as State Poet Laureate, Al Young (who was my thesis advisor at UC Santa Cruz), created an extensive website of poetry links, read all over the state and back, including Ventura College by my invitation. Al did one heckuva job promoting poetry and deserves our gratitude and congratulations.
Al’s will be a tough act to follow, for sure, but I’ve met Carol Muske-Dukes, and found her to be a warm and encouraging person. I am sure she will do a wonderful job as poet laureate and visit us here in Ventura too!
The video above features Carol Muske-Dukes with John Lithgow at a reading April 2008 at USC. Fast forward through the long intro of John Lithgow to about 2 minutes to hear about Carol M-D, then another minute or so to hear about her husband the actor David Dukes who died a few years ago, and to 4 minutes to get to the poetry. If you go to Carol M-D’s channel, you’ll find video of the whole evening.
Here’s a video from that night which features Carol M-D reading poems from her new book, Sparrow:
Text of a poem published on Slate.com
When He Fell
Posted Tuesday, April 23, 2002, at 5:20 PM ET
Hear Carol Muske-Dukes reading this poem here.
When he fell, strangers ran to him.
Strangers called for help, lifted
his body and carried it. Then strangers
cut him, emptied him. Their ideas
of death determined when I would
touch him again. Their ideas of death
closed door after door between us,
altered his face, altered his presence—
violated the contract, the marriage,
took away even his wounded heart.
When he was at last delivered to me,
I was no longer myself—just as he
was no longer within identity. They
had taken everything from us. Authority—
everywhere I turned. Just as he and I
once thought we were authorities over
our own lives, our work, our sense of
mortality, imagination—oh, and that
“sense of loss” that predicated everything—
you know, what we called our personal lives.
Workshop to Grow Green Communities 11/15
Workshop: Learn How to be an Advocate for Green, Sustainable, Communities
VCCool co-sponsors an all day CEQA workshop to put citizens at the planning table
Saturday, November 15
9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Bell Arts Factory
432 N. Ventura Avenue, Ventura
Register Today! Go to www.vccool.org
Would you like to see more gardens, smart growth, and real change in how we build? Do you want walk, bike, and bus – friendly communities? Don’t waste time on wishful thinking! Learn the how, who, when, and what of citizen advocacy Read more…
Art Predator Earns GingaTao Seal of Approval!
Well, golly gee whiz and thank you too to GingaTao aka Paul Squires!
It is a lovely badge; now to just figure out how to put it up on my blog for all to see for all time!
And I am in such grand company! Here are two of the other recipients so far:
Nic Harcourt to Leave KCRW
Well, I guess this Thanksgiving I should be grateful that Nic Harcourt devoted 10 years of his career to KCRW, the public radio station from Santa Monica City College. Read more…
Boy turns 5: gets new bed!
So after much debate, and rapid emailing, and round the world on-line searches, and hopeful starts and false turns, and two generous offers of twins (thanks Jan and Robin!), we found a full size bed on Craigslist, went to LA to see it, bought it, somehow got it all loaded onto David’s truck (thanks David!), then unloaded again and set up (thanks again to David and Auntie Laurie!)–and the boy who celebrates his birthday today still doesn’t know! Talk about a BIG surprise!
If you want it new ($800 plus tax and no mattress), it can be ordered here or just about anywhere–it seems standard in the typical catalogue most stores carry. It’s more challenging and time consuming to search for something used but by persevering, we were able to buy something very nice at a price we could better afford: $400 for the loft, desk, mattress, a matching dresser, and a matching lamp (all of it new would have probably cost closer to $1500).
It’s a lot easier on the earth as well to reuse, recycle, regift than to constantly be consuming new new new!
UPDATE–Birthday Boy Bedtime: He loves it!! He says: It’s soooo awesome! The smile on his face will warm me for years.
Know anybody who needs a really nice convertible crib? Make you a good deal! Comes highly recommended! It’ll last you up to 5 years!
Poem for Vietnam War Veterans I knew when I was a child
These Brothers They: A Memorial Poem
Today is the 90th anniversary of the end of World War 1. Nov. 11, 1918 was the last day of what they considered “The Great War.” My grandfather’s half brother Wilmer “Frenchy” Paquette fought in that war as did his brother Faye Paquette.
Each November 11 is Veteran’s Day in the United States; I understand yesterday November 10 is Remembrance Day in Canada.
It’s not simply a holiday, a day off from school, a day to go shopping at Veteran’s Day sales to shore up our flagging economies.
Veteran’s Day is always celebrated on November 11–to remember the last day of the “Great War,” and those who fought in it, and wars before and since. Like Independence Day, it is not and should not be one of our holidays that we insist on turning into a three day weekend.
When we finally get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, we should have a special day of remembrance, a day set aside to honor those who fought there, and to show respect for all veterans. I pray that day is soon.
I published the broadside above in ArtLife Limited Editions. I published the text and the story behind the poem here on Memorial Day 2008. I plan to record this poem and make a video for it too.
Susan Spano of the LA Times visited many of the cemeteries recently for this article. In it she writes,
I stopped at the German cemetery by the noisy Pontina on the way back to Rome. There I was alone with 27,443 enemy war dead who, resting eternally, no longer seemed like anyone’s enemy.
A plaque quoting Albert Schweitzer put the right coda on my journey. “The soldiers’ graves,” it read, “are the greatest preachers of peace.”
3:15 Experiment Poem: August 15, 2008
3:15am August 15, 2008
Thunder and lightening
wake me but it was
the rain that got me
out of bed to
roam the house
closing windows and
rolling my bike inside.
We don’t have weather
like this often—in fact
the last time it rained
and stormed like this
at night was the
night my son was born.
I sat in the living room
talking with my sister on the phone
trying to figure out what was
going on in my body
what it meant and
whether the baby was
going to be born
with a drum roll please.
Tonight I wake the boy
take him to the potty
reassure him
when the light flashes
and the thunder rolls– I
don’t like this, he says.
It’s okay, I murmur.
I pull the blankets over him
hand him Mimsy the Rabbit
kneel beside his bed
on the Sponge Bob pillow.
The night sky glows
with the almost full moon.
I can’t see any jagged
slashes of lightening
the storm is right above
us now and the light
fills the room. I
hold the boy’s hand
kiss his cheek give
his hand a squeeze
his eyes are closed
he doesn’t flinch at the
next flash and I ease away
back to bed
open the window
listen to the rain
remember other storms
the stories taking me
back to sleep
I wrote this poem last summer as part of the 3:15 Experiment–that’s where poets from around the world awaken to write at 3:15am local time then post the raw, unedited words at the 3:15 Experiment website.
I post this today for two reasons: it is Monday and I almost always post a poem on Mondays, and because my son turns 5 on Wednesday…
The photo was taken that night by Candice Cunningham, of 2020 Images; she specializes in unusual wedding photography and her website is worth checking out!
Finding a Bed for the Boy
The small boy turns 5 in a few days, and as he has mastered making it through the night without an accident, and as he is still sleeping in the convertible crib/bed he has slept in from when he was 9 months, and since he wants a big boy bed, specifically a loft bed:
I am looking for a bed for the no longer small boy and I want to surprise him with it on his Wednesday birthday.
I’ve had my eye out for a loft bed at freecycle but none have turned up recently so I have turned to the web to see what is out there–and what sizes they are to make sure it would fit!
Making one doesn’t seem impossible. It would be difficult to surprise him with one though!
Here are some free plans I found:
they have how to build just about anything from PVC pipe!
(Does this seem sturdy enough for a 50 pound boy and a parent or two??)
Here are some very thorough plans–the dad’s a contractor and so this one seems very sturdy.
Out of wood from Monster Guides (how to build ANYTHING–except the plans are vague and so it looks like what they are doing is selling more sophisticated plans…sneaky–don’t you hate that?)
There are plenty out there to buy of course. Doesn’t this look awesome??
There’s a full bed on top and a trundle bed on the bottom level! I am sure it is way out of our budget, and I can’t even get the link to work to the company but we can still drool… Here’s a link to a similar one but in a shaker style which runs $1200…
I would really love to have a full bed above and a twin below…
These are inexpensive and flexible–very customizible.
And homemade ones abound for all kinds of great ideas out of my realm I’m afraid…Lucky Andrew!
I think what I’m going to do next is check Craigslist, and then while the Big Monkey and small boy getting bigger are out on a bike ride, I’m going to hit the thrift stores and see if I can find something used!
More Salvage: Masia Carreras 2001!
I am so glad I have no moral compunction about scavenging and salvaging what I find valuable and what otherwise will get thrown out.
After all, I grew up going to garage sales and auctions with my family. For years, my dad worked as an auctioneer. When I was in college, I bought for him at garage sales, worked his auctions, and learned to refinish furniture too.
I find no shame in dumpster diving, having spent several of my formative years collecting beer cans from the neighborhood dumpsters. I still have a number of Navy middies I found at the dump when I was about 12; I imagine now they once belonged to someone recently returned from Viet Nam.
Like the recently deposed Sarah Palin, I regularly shop at thrift stores, especially on half-price Wednesdays at the Goodwill by the farmers market, and at Habitat for Humanity’s Restore.
So when it seemed that the room full of open wine left behind after the after party at the Wine Bloggers Conference was going to get poured down the drain, thrown out or who knew what, I packed up what I could manage and drove off with it, figuring I’d drink what I could as fast as I could, taste and write and taste some more, and share the wealth–which is exactly what I’ve been doing since I returned from the Wine Bloggers Conference last week.
I know now how little I know about wine. And how much less I knew a week ago before I went to the Wine Bloggers Conference and tasted more wine in one weekend than I had in the previous year.
I am not sure whether I tasted the Masia Carreras 2001 Saturday night at the after party or not, and I have no idea who brought it to the party. There was such a blur of wines I’d never heard of I have no idea. But as we were cleaning up after the party, someone urged me to take it so I did. Read more…
art predator 
