The Great Wyoming Drought 2012

I wasn’t going to post for a few more weeks, but I’ve been thinking about what I’ve said before, that my writing inspiration often comes from listening to how people talk and the things they are talking about – listening in to conversation.  Except this poem I wrote, The Great Wyoming Drought 2012, didn’t come from listening in to private conversation around my local neighbourhood, it came from listening to a talk-back radio show about the terrible drought happening in Wyoming, America, and the struggle people are going through trying to survive.  I was taken by the slow, resigned country drawl of this one guy who described his property like the moon.  Ironically, the death of Neil Armstrong had occurred only a few days earlier, so he and the moon were also a topic on the radio.  So I want to put this out there as a gesture that maybe we don’t know it, but there are people in the far flung world who care and are concerned for the plight of others.  I don’t know how the Wyoming drought played out, but I do pray that nature was kind.

Also, with the poem, I loosely set the rhythm to Verdelle Smith’s 1966 song, Tar and Cement (which, I believe was the English version of an Italian song by Adriano Celentano, Ill ragazzo della via Gluck).  I not only recite in the shower – I now sing.

 

2012.   Listening to the radio  -  a  rancher describes the plight of cattle in what is now the worst drought in America’s mid west since the conditions of the 1930’s described by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath.  As like Steinbeck’s characters, the man talks in a simple, inevitable way - landscape, the decision to move, trying to hang on to animals that are a part of his family.  And at this time the world hears the news that Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the moon, has died.

The Great Wyoming Drought 2012

 

I’ve got a meadow,

East of the house.

I’ve never been,

Up to the moon.

Armstrong’s the one,

To know about that.

Now he’s not with us,

It must be the moon.

 

And Wyoming’s blown away in dust by now,

There are the meadows,

Nature un-kind,

Where are the people,

Across county lines.

 

Got to keep moving,

Dakota or sell.

Cows are my life.

It’s all that I’ve done.

Don’t know whether,

There’s anything else.

My wife she says maybe,

There’s cows on the moon.

 

And Wyoming’s blown away in dust by now,

Where are the meadows,

Made into moon,

There are the people,

Broken and doomed.

 

Last year any place,

Had cattle out there.

Couldn’t run ten,

To keep them alive.

Wouldn’t say that my cows,

Miss Wyoming right now.

Not as if they had stayed,

On the face of the moon.

 

And Wyoming’s blown away in dust by now,

There are the meadows,

Nature un-kind,

Where are the people,

Crossed county lines.

                                                                                                      J. O. White

William Carlos Williams - snap shot imagery

I was talking about this dude I see on my way from work who lives on Maitland Road and how when I catch a glimpse of him I’m reminded of the style of some of William Carlos Williams snapshot poems where he captures in perfect word the circumstances and scenes of everyday life.  Possible content for a poem is all around us, and like a photographer, I’ve got to be alert to the perfect shot – the frozen image and the emotion.  But, unlike the photographer, I’ve only got words in which I can preserve and present the scene.  To me, this is the difficulty but also the beauty of poetry over other art forms.  The beauty is that each individual, without necessary study, without natural talent has the skill to try immediately to express their emotion through the written word.  Try that with music or oil painting or bronze sculpture!  This is not to say that our hero poets aren’t talented in a worthy art.  It is to say there can be a lot more bad poets out there than there might be bad sculptors.  We might not have to do classes to start, but we do have to study to get better.  I find William Carlos Williams a good poet to hold influence over me when I realise I’m not that spiritual sage, nor a prophet with gifted sight into the meaning of life, or a learned academic steeped in clever phrase, or a man well travelled among the whole of the world’s most interesting and quaint cultures.  Williams writes poetry at the edge of my imagination.  Being at the edge, I sometimes have to come back and read it, and read it – but I do understand, and I feel so clearly what he has observed through his eyes and in his emotion.  That’s how it is with one of Williams’ poems I’ve selected for this post, view of a lake.  I read this and I’m twelve or thirteen years old again, me and ‘chook’ Richards with our bikes abandoned, jumping off the side of the hospital bridge into high tide water with cars rattling over loose wooden planks.

 

view of a lake

(William Carlos Williams 1883 - 1963)

 

from a

highway below a face

of rock

 

too recently blasted

to be overgrown

with grass or fern:

 

Where a

waste of cinders

slopes down to

 

the railroad and

the lake

stand three children

 

beside the weed-grown

chassis

of a wrecked car

 

immobile in a line

facing the water

To the left a boy

 

in falling off

blue overalls

Next to him a girl

 

in a grimy frock

And another boy

They are intent

 

watching something

below ----?

A section sign:  50

 

on an iron post

planted

by a narrow concrete

 

service hut

(to which runs

a sheaf of wires)

 

in the universal

cinders beaten

into crossing paths

 

to form the front yard

of a frame house

at the right

 

that looks

to have been flayed

Opposite

 

remains a sycamore

in leaf

Intently fixed

 

the three

with straight backs

ignore

 

the stalled traffic

all eyes

toward the water

Following from my poem, On Maitland Road, I look for the dude who stands in the doorway of his rental, still on Maitland Road.  In a quick glimpse I try to sum up what I see, what I feel and what I think – then I develop it; yeah, that’s something like how I saw it …………

2012.  I take the same route home from work every day, for three years.  And there’s a ‘dude’ lives in a rental on Maitland Road.  I’ve told you about him before.  Thanks Dude.

 

still on Maitland Road

 

I turn right

into Maitland Road

and,

I’m looking for the Dude

sits in his doorway

that opens

straight on the traffic,

and, bang!

there he is,

and he’s working

on a sixteen, twenty inch

pedestal fan,

right there on the footpath,

business men

sucking in their lunch guts

trying to snig by,

not to get tangled up

in the grease

and

crap off the fan,

women detouring strollers

out on the street,

inquisitive toddlers

frozen

in mid lick

of their ice-creams,

eyes and mouths open

to a never before happening,

brains over-loaded

with explanation,

heads oscillating

on slow speed,

from the Dude

back to the mum,

and the Dude’s

got the fan bent over

in an under-arm hold

like you would put

on a Latin dance partner,

and you can see

by the way he’s working

the six inch shifter, and

the multi-grips,

that the Dude senses

a hot summer coming on.

                                    J. O. White

 

Gathered on a Heading.




Gathered on a Heading

Another year sucked quietly from the blood (Kenneth Slessor, Captain Dobbin).  I don’t know who’s out there, but I hope we all had a jolly good Christmas and it was a joyful start to the new-year, and your resolution is to make 2013 the best year yet in which to progress your poetry.  The end of 2012 was a milestone for me in my writing – I had set myself a goal to have enough material written to home publish – no, I don’t mean ‘self publish’, I mean A4 pages double-sided copy on the B&W photocopier at work, stapled with Rexel 24 staples and bound with black duct tape.  The added incentive I set myself in order to complete this task was to give a copy to all the people I know who might expect to receive a Christmas gift from me.  Being who I am, that didn’t extend to a whole lot of people beyond my immediate family, so the place I work wasn’t deprived of too much of my time and that old photocopier hardly worked up a sweat.

Sometimes as an amateur poet I feel I write purely because I must write (Bukowski – so you want to be a writer).  But what is the point of writing stuff that nobody will ever read, even as an amateur hobbyist?  Ask yourself that question and it opens up a whole lot more issues – who is my audience, or who do I want my audience to be?  what do they want from me?  how do I assemble and present what I’ve got?  Oh yeah, the person who has no need for an audience, now that person is a pure artist.

So every now and then I feel I’ve got to gather up what I’ve done and present it in some published form.  That’s why I’m going with a theme in the titles – my first collection I called, Gathered in my Wake.  I had all this stuff I had written over many years in the Navy and from reflecting on life.  The work was done retrospective to my putting it together in a book – the writing was back there in my wake.  My second collection of verse and poetry is titled, ‘Gathered on a Heading’.  Having written enough for one publication wasn’t the end of it.  I was still writing.  But what do you call a sequel to ‘looking behind’?  ‘Looking ahead, a heading is pretty obvious.  That does leave me pondering if I haven’t perhaps painted myself into a corner when I think, well I’m still writing and one day I’m sure I’ll have enough work for a third volume.

In my two publications I’ve kept the naval, maritime theme in the title.  This sometimes concerns me that it’s too narrow a descriptive of what I write about.  Though I do assemble my poems under sub publication headings, Local & Domestic Headings for family and personal stuff; On the Way to Making a Living for things about work; Ships at Sea & Wanderings for going back to my time in the Navy, and Spiritual Headings for personal reflection.

I must admit, I felt pleased within myself when I wrapped individual copies of Gathered on a Heading in Christmas wrapper and imagined the recipients enjoying the flow and challenge of my words.  Feedback?  Nothing really…..  except from my mum who unsolicited, said, “I thought this one was better than the first one”.  Hey, I’m taking that as a clear sign of ‘getting better’, either that or I’ve cleaned up my language.

My poem for this post is selected to start the year light-hearted, Got Boat Shoes.  It appears early in Gathered on a Heading and it's influence comes from an old copy of Bab Ballads that I've got in my book collection. I do enjoy the very ‘British’ voice and the limerick style of humour.
 

2012.  I really do try to take fashion advice, but it don’t never seem to work out.

 

Got Boat Shoes 

She said I should buy a nice pair,

of those boat shoes they wear,

down at the yacht club (I don’t yacht),

neither does Paul (but he tries to be trendy),

actually,

I really could see myself posed,

in a new pair of those, so I did (Sebago’s),

but it requires they be worn

in a naked feet form (without socks),

and the skin on my ankles got torn,

she said, other men,

don’t seem to find, it a prob-a-lem.

 

I returned to old joggers (Adidas soft leather),

used mainly in walking the hound,

much better,

than boat shoes all round,

but they got stolen, somehow,

she said now,

what will you do,

for a new walking shoe,

joggers are not, in-expens-a-tive.

 

But of course, do not frown,

I’m still walking the hound (dog doesn’t care),

if I happen to wear,

Adidas, or Sebago shoes,

she sniffs and she licks at the fashionable gems,

.... and the mud on the trail, soft-en-ers them.

                                                         J. O. White

Bukowski - being a prolific writer.

Charles Bukowski may come across as the ‘laureate of American low-life’ (Time magazine); drunken, crass; open disdain for most everybody in the literary world, ignorant, un-educated; but there are two things about his work that I aspire to – one, he was a “prolific” writer.  Something inspired him to write and nothing got in the way of that; every day, every night, write, laying down lines on paper.  OK, in the pure poetic art world a lot of it may be dismissed as no craft.  But being productive is a measure of a writer’s worth – there, I’ve introduced a third indicator to quality work, there’s the content of the poetry; the crafting of the poetry, and now, the productivity of the poet.  Bukowski was productive and I’m aware of that quality when I push myself along – how many poems will I complete this month, this year? what am I working on? when is my writing time and how will I insist on it (or how can I work it in with all the other stuff I’ve got going on?).  Most of us work at ordinary jobs and we have family commitments that by necessity take priority over anything as selfish as writing poetry – “what good’s that gonna do for us”, I hear her say, “you’d be far better off spending your time helping me with the washing or you could fix that balcony rail like I’ve been asking you to do a million times, do I have to do it myself or get someone in, is that what you want …………..”  OK, OK, the writing can wait!  Another quality of the writer is to know that you have forsaken your art for the greater good of the family unit (no you haven’t; you’re just basically afraid!).  Hank didn’t seem to let that shit get in his way.  Another aid to productivity is to not spend too much time going back over your work.  Don’t try to polish it, what is written, is written, and move on.  Bukowski seemed to work this way.  It’s sort of a belief that the work comes from pure inspiration, from a ‘muse’ who inspires the words to be written and it’s only when the morning comes that I will look and see what it really was that I wrote.  Fair enough.

The second thing about Bukowski that inspires me is, despite his lack of education and formal training in the art, he appears to have read widely and was familiar with the work of recognized poets (some whom he admired) – Hemingway, e.e. cummings, Esra Pound, Nietzsche, Celine, D.H. Lawrence, A. Huxley, Hamsun, J.D. Salinger.  In his poetry, Hank often pays tribute to the names of great writers – almost like an academic snob educated name-dropping, like he does with his self-taught knowledge of classical music.  OK, putting aside the lack of humility (though he would not have become so published if he’d been humble), it shows the importance for a non established writer to read and read and read the work of those who have already been recognized.  In this, Bukowski was quite educated.

 

hand-outs

Charles Bukowski (1921 – 1994)

 

sometimes I am hit

for change

3 or 4 times

in twenty minutes

and nine times out of

ten I’ll

give.

the time or two

that I don’t

I have an instinctive

reaction

not to

and I

don’t

but mostly I

dig and

give

but each time

I can’t help but

remember

the many times

hollow-eyed

my skin tight to the

ribs my mind airy and

mad

I never asked

anybody

for anything

and it wasn’t

pride

it was simply because

I didn’t respect

them

didn’t regard them

as worthy human

beings.

they were the

enemy

and they still are

as I dig

in

and

give.

 

‘hand-outs’ is fairly typical of Bukowski – autobiographical; mundane content, considered line breaks that pick up a conversational flow that helps in reading.  I include this poem from Bukowski (The Last Night of the Earth Poems, Ecco) because I wrote a poem with similar content – not inspired by ‘hand-outs’ but the crafting is certainly with Bukowski in mind:

2005.  I remember saying once that Melbourne was my conscience. 

 

Melbourne

 

I lit five candles,

one for each of us,

and stood them in the sand tray

at the feet of the statue of Mary

in St Augustines,

down the Spencer Street Station end of Little Collins.

 

Outside in the afternoon sun,

I knew from the act

that I was now good

for being hit upon

by any bum

drunk

wino

druggy

dead beat

addict

derro, or

street dweller

enterprising enough

to give it a go,

the word must have got out

because up ahead

I could see the beggars

pushing off building pedestals

and going into their routine,

brushing down

baggy brown clothing,

drawing last minute inspiration

from cigarette butts

and then flicking the distractions

away to the foot-path.

 

I let one go,

maybe two,

prepared to be generous

to a red haired young bloke

reminded me something of Matthew,

he worked his spiel,

and I obliged

with a number of suggestions

that could hook him up

with welfare agencies,

and he beat me with reasons

why they didn’t always work,

and all the time

I’m pulling my wallet

from out of my back pocket

knowing that the talk

about agencies

and the advice

and concern to identify the problem

is all bullshit,

for me

and for him.

 

I’m so imbued

I’m going for a note

but only a five,

too cautious

to push the charity, dependency, generosity

boundary

too far,

the wallet becomes like a lure

as I hold it out

opening it’s slit mouth a tiny fraction,

and the bum

hovers his fingers above mine

willing to settle

the transaction

here and now,

though he knows there’s

gotta be

throw away lines

of deep appreciation

and thank you sirs.

 

We’re both

at opposite ends

of the note,

I mumble something stupid, like

don’t spend this on grog,

when the bum reels back

as if burnt with brimstone,

reefs both sleeves

back from fore-arms

turned outwards for inspection, and

equally stupid,

protests that he’s clean.

 

.......... we both leave it at that.

                                                                                                           J. O. White

 

Charles Bukowski - genius or 'low life'?

I’m going to spend some more time with Charles Bukowski and then I’m going to get off him.  I’m going to get off him because I’m unsure of Bukowski the person, whether he was a character I would choose to admire or not.  Nor am I sure if he is the type of poet I want to aspire to.  Like, I’ve read the biography, Charles Bukowski (by Barry Miles, Virgin Books), and I think I understand the shaping of his world view because of his up-bringing and what life dealt him, but that doesn’t quite excuse the level of contempt and disdain for other people that he appears to hold and that comes through sometimes in his writing.  This view of mine was reinforced only recently when I looked at some you-tube clips of Bukowski interviews and readings.  There’s one where he and Linda (fiancée, then), are sitting on a couch, engaged in reality recorded conversation; Hank’s drinking and doing the typical movements of a smoker lighting up and talking around a thin, rolled cigarette.  He’s OK, calm, talking about how he believes he’s often taken advantage of because he reckons he’s too nice a guy, etc.  Linda hears what he says and supports his ego, “…… why do you let these people do this to you?”  There’s some to and fro conversation and Hank goes down a line of wanting to get rid of Linda because she’s been out late some nights, blah, blah, and she in turn tries to defend herself, when, out of nowhere, Bukowski turns extremely nasty – he lashes out with his feet to seriously kick Linda and he swears at her, threatens and calls her vile names – an ugly scene.  The change in mood is so sudden it’s like eruption from a tormented chimpanzee.  Why does he behave this way?  It’s too easy to look at the clip and just wipe the guy off as a prick!  But that would be wrong.  I think the key is in the fact that Linda and Hank went on and got married and she was his mate to the end.  Bukowski must have loved this woman (emotionally) more than he had felt about a lot of others.  I’m not a psychologist but I believe people can hate, or appear to hate, only because they do not know how to love (from a frustration of not knowing how to love) and having been given extreme low self esteem in their childhood development.  I think this is the case with Bukowski.  He was not nurtured and shown how to love within his family, so as an adult, his frustrated reaction in a situation where he feels love, is to turn it completely around and perform self hurt and denial – ‘fuck you!’ means, ‘you’re too good a person for a bastard like me (ergo: I love you)’.

I feel one has to be careful of this bitterness and contempt Bukowski shows for his fellow human being when one tries to copy his writing style.  It may be your natural propensity to pay out on society, but what contribution does it make to art, to get around belly-aching personal prejudices?  Sometimes I’ve got to do the reality check and ask myself, ‘am I writing something of substance here, or is this just belly-ache grumbling in notes from my personal diary?’  I include Bukowski’s poem, ‘a killer gets ready’, because I believe it passes the reality check.  Hank does seem to hold a bitter contempt for the man in uniform – a personal dislike.  But I think he says something more than, “there was this marine on the train and didn’t he think he was something!”  To me, this is an anti-war poem.  The world can always have war because the vanities of any number of young men are available to make it so bloody easy.

a killer gets ready

Charles Bukowski (1921 – 1994)

 

He was a good one

say 18, 19,

a marine

and everytime

a woman came down the train aisle

he seemed to stand up

so I couldn’t see

her

and the woman smiled at him

 

but I didn’t smile

at him

 

he kept looking at himself in the

train window

and standing up and taking off his

coat and then standing up

and putting it back

on

 

he polished his belt buckle with a

delighted vigor

 

and his neck was red and

his face was red and is eyes were a

pretty blue

 

but I didn’t like

him

 

and everytime I went to the can

he was either in one of the cans

or he was in front of one of the mirrors

combing his hair or

shaving

 

and he was always walking up and down the

aisles

or drinking water

I watched his Adam’s apple juggle the water

down

 

he was always in my

eyes

 

but we never spoke

and I remembered all the other trains

all the other buses

all the other wars

 

he got off at Pasadena

vainer than any woman

he got off at Pasadena

proud and dead

 

the rest of the trainride –

8 or 10 miles –

was perfect.

 

Something else I note in Bukowski’s, ‘a killer gets ready’ – is how Hank was a good observer of people; he studies this marine quite closely without engaging or giving himself away, and he matches what he observes to how he feels about it.  Bukowski’s ‘laureate of low-life’ (Time magazine) and autobiographical style has influenced me to write my own protests against what I’ve observed as thick-headed male behaviour.  This one I called, ‘Oil Men’:

 

2008. The Arab world may be alcohol free and the Moslem belief may keep women covered up, but drinking and womanising is OK for the arrogant western white man working in the middle east - the scene inside a Dubai ex-pat night club bar.

 

Oil Men

They were all big buggers,

solid blocks of beef,

with bulging biceps and barrel chests

that threatened to bust open stitching

on their Well Cat polo shirts

and stone-washed denims.

 

Moving like a pack of bull-dogs

they oafed straight into the bar

brandishing beer flushed faces

and dangerous egos.

 

It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,

but they’ve got to a state

where they’re all men,

standing in a circle with their legs planted,

like they’re pissing into a urinal,

holding onto themselves firmly

with hands thrust into the left pocket,

or feeding it into some whore’s mouth

while there’s loud back-slapping cheers,

and glasses get dropped

and break on the parquetry dance floor.

 

These ones don’t look as though there’s family,

or compassion,

 

the slim, oriental good time girls

…….hide back in the shadows.

                                                     J.O. White