*
Inside spring inside
Imperial and against
All evidence
The heaviest sauce
Jim Bodeen
29 March 2020
THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE
THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE
Cold this morning at 28 degrees.
I. Psalm 84 / Salmo 84
¡Cuán hermosas son tus
moradas,
Señor Todopoderoso!
The absence of a roof
brings sunlight closer to us
on the asphalt
repopulated communities
remove their uniforms
Anhelo con el alma los
atrios del Señor
casi agonizo por estar
en ellos.
My soul yearns, even
faints,
for the courts of the
Lord.
It is said, ellos se dicen, que
tu no dejan nosotros huérfanos,
that we will always be yours.
II.A. HAPPY ARE THEY
WHO DWELL IN YOUR HOUSE
B. Barry Lopez: I can't teach you hunger, and I can't teach
you discipline
Post Card for Barry Lopez
All those nights in the coldest places
furthest one away
that sleeping bag
not more crucial than the notebook
shaped by desire and hunger
I've looked for fathers in my life
and know some of what that's about
Dad visits me from time to time in dreams
I looked up so many words
the overlook of your horizon courier
photographs blowing from your motorcycle
and the eschatological moment
of commitment
Generosity of saying
others can do this and I can do this
this too is real food my tent
kernel on the shelf where you remember
these framed stamps of Walt Whitman
The geologist telling you
how a stone and a rock
are different and your love
of telling it on yourself
even as you tell it on others
It didn’t occur to me
that taking life so
seriously
might cause a loss of
perspective
It's so breathtaking
for a boy from rural
North Dakota approaching
others I can see them bracing
Thanks so much Oh!
and our time here the same time
you born three days after my wife
the ways we share 1968
III. A. Even the
sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest
for herself
B. Muriel
Rukeyser: The word in the work makes me.
The Painted Yellow Rectangle can be seen by all.
The one who sees, and the one who hears.
Each has responsibility. Step inside the Free Speech Zone
where the poem stands against the algorithm.
IV. A. DICHOSO EL QUE TIENE EN TI SU FORTALEZA,
que sólo piensa en
recorrer tus sendas
B. Jody
Aliesan: I would rather be wrong than
false.
Didn't they know what they were doing
when they tucked ICE in this strip mall behind a McDonald's.
Put these young people with some Spanish
from somewhere to take monthly attendance
on those picked up by uniformed agents.
M's been here four times now.
Once a month. Costs he and his wife
200 bucks a trip. Almost late yesterday.
Called me saying, Our car couldn't make it
up the hill, Tuvimos comprar otro carro
por dos cientos dolares y bateria nuevo
por llegar. White guy in black t-shirt
all tatted up checks M in. Por que tiene
tantos números de telefono? One tat
running up his right arm of the American flag
the other one REDEEMED BY HEAVEN
in bold black seraph type, wrist to elbow,
beard out of the 19th Century.
A whistler, he whistles,
Whistle while you
work.
Words on walls: Removal, Intensive Appearance.
Always questions, and always a question,
Offices filled with shelves from Home Depot
and cleaning supplies. Looks like a laundry room.
No tengo fecha ni día, M says, troubled.
Don't ask them where they got the money.
The name of the church group
helping them, Lights of Larson.
Go figure.
V. A. Cuando pasa por el valle de las Lágrimas
lo connvierte en
región de manantiales
B. Rudolf
Bultmann
Calling Certainty the great sin
of the 20th Century, and those empty pews
in Germany. They're empty here, too,
in the ones you stood with.
VI. A. Hear my prayer,
O Lord God Almighty,
Listen to me, O God of
Jacob
B. Fyodor
Dostoevsky
They woke him at 4 am.
Christ over truth and more perfect.
Access and indifference to the camps.
Even if, Christ over truth, because of
perfect clarity, the beauty of it.
After they took the blindfolds off
you, the next in line,
like in a Bob Dylan song, redeemed,
American song with children
singing the refrigerator song.
VII. A. Prefiero
cuidar la entrada de la casa de mi Dios
Que habitar entre los
impíos
He knew the language of the barrio.
Neither priest nor pastor trusted him.
VIII. A. Better is one
day in your courts
Than a thousand
elsewhere
B. Justo González:
¿Por qué cree usted que Pablo coloca
estas palabras
en medio de una epístola sobre el gozo?
Poets scattered.
They opted for paying attention.
Not ones of the lesser lights.
Not at all.
They paid dearly.
Before anything else,
heaven is sky.
And everything incomplete on the ground,
recovered, composted.
Composed?
No, not that.
C. Jon Sobrino
Yo no sé
de dónde,
pero no está
en el emperio.
VIII.A. Gary Snyder
Listening to an earlier reading on YouTube,
a younger Snyder talking with Lew Welch,
one of ours who disappeared,
Welch relating what rocks said about trees.
What's that?
They were just passing through.
Jim Bodeen
14 February--25 March 2020
Storypath/Cuentocamino: : MAKING MASKS, DRINKING TEA
Storypath/Cuentocamino: : MAKING MASKS, DRINKING TEA: MAKING MASKS, DRINKING TEA 25 March 2020 Karen sewing masks in her studio, on her way to 32, breaking for tea in...
MAKING MASKS, DRINKING TEA
MAKING MASKS, DRINKING TEA
25 March
2020
Karen sewing masks
in her studio
on her way to 32
breaking for tea
in front porch room
watching, tasting
GABA oolong
take on colors of golden
apricot filling our mouths
into a pungent
mid-summer orchard
but for weather
Karen wraps
a blanket
around her legs
I've saved chocolate
covered strawberries
dried and wrapped
from Mayu
sent from Yokohama
We sit flavor-privileged
looking at each other
quarantined and knowing
the disease is the medicine
Jim Bodeen
Grandpa's Oolong
GRANDPA'S OOLONG
Bubbles just below the boil.
That's what we're looking for in spring water
before pouring it over the leaves.
I'm always jealous of Karen's laughter.
Jim Bodeen
25 March 2020
Do you want to read my poem, Karen?
DO YOU WANT TO HEAR MY POEM, KAREN?
While others
stock up
on toilet paper
I go
on a spree
of my own
buying
Saltine crackers
Jim Bodeen
21 March 2020
Black Pine Gateway
*
Young Black Pine first prune
Gateway to ancestor stones
Older than Mother Tree
Jim Bodeen
21 March 2020
SIMMERING POT
*
Bai Hao oolong leaves
Season Yixing purple pot
Quiet dark kitchen
Jim Bodeen
21 March 2020
Who Came to Lunch
REMINISCING WITH MY CENTENARIAN AUNT
OVER THE TELEPHONE DURING QUARANTINE
And Dale's first wife,
one of his wives anyway,
came into the restaurant
during lunch hour
with his ashes
and put them down
by the cash register
and said,
Here's your brother.
Jim Bodeen
17 March 2020
What the Mountain Did
MESSAGE IN THE WIND
The mountain closes itself down
and without words, lets us know,
Stay away, Keep your distance,
I return to Dostoevsky
crossing the Urals
home from Siberia
What is tearful now
objective uncertain ones
diminishes, doesn't ask
Jim Bodeen
17 March 2020
DON PABLO EN PRESO
EPÍSTOLAS PARA PABLO
Don Pablo está en la prisión.
Paul's in prison. Paul?
His only subject is joy. Gozo.
Gracias y paz y gozo.
Don't listen to the dogs, he says,
Don't listen to the dogs.
Los pinches perros.
Porque él lo he perdido todo.
¿De qué se jacta usted, Jactancioso?
Me? Are you talking to me?
¿Eres serguidor?
What says the poem about the knife cutting the bread?
Even the knife must be thanked.
Dentro la canción no hay fronteras.
Temor y temblor.
Every knee should bow.
He did? He emptied himself?
He wanted another milkshake.
Blues for Pablo.
Miles, Miles, Miles.
Don Pablo en prisión
da da da da daa
da da
da da da da da
da da da da da
Chanoyu? Cada rodillo.
Not much choreography from me, no.
Get the pour right
so we drink the same tea
In Philippians? Fear and trembling
Padecimiento. The suffering.
Get the suffering right.
If you don't do that
What--Todo.
Everything--Everything's on the table
There won't be any getting up off the tatami
Drop him a line, escuche la canción otra vez,
Cante, cante, send him a card in the mail.
Jim Bodeen
14 March 2020
BICYCLING WITH MILES
PUSHING GRAVITY
for Vance
Listening to Miles absorbing it all
and those voices, drinking Japanese tea
with roasted brown rice
text and notebook open to Huang Po
whoa, man, slow it down
that's why the notebook's open
those stars reflecting light
off my handlebars
as I circle the houses
in our tiny development
Jim
29 February 2020
The offering of Direct Perception
THE OFFERING OF DIRECT PERCEPTION
for Lars
Clausen
Buttering my toast after Karen
leaves for the quilt show
epiphany scales emerge in the jam
Three people with perfect scores
sing through time
Buddha, Jesus, and my friend
forgets the third (it is Krishna)
but the fourth, Huang Po,
closest to the three
but even closer to me
no cause but dearer in fragmented
foolishness, spilled soup
on my clean shirt
there will be no argument
about what took place,
but this fabric! this fabric!
Jim Bodeen
29 February 2020
Spirit of Function
*
Spirit of function
Monkey shoulder tree hanging
Throwing a baseball
Jim Bodeen
4 March 2020
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
