Simple Arithmetic, poem by Billy Collins

SIMPLE ARITHMETIC
by Billy Collins

I spend a little time every day
on a gray wooden dock
on the edge of a wide lake, thinly curtained by reeds.

And if there is nothing on my mind
but the motion of the wavelets
and the high shape-shifting of clouds,

I look out at the whole picture
and divide the scene into what was here
five hundred years ago and what was not.

Then I subtract all that was not here
and multiply everything that was by ten,
so when my calculations are complete,

all that remains is water and sky,
the dry sound of wind in the reeds,
and the sight of an unflappable heron on the shore.

All the houses are gone, and the boats
as well as the hedges and the walls,
the curving brick paths, and the distant siren.

The plane crossing the sky is no more
and the same goes for the swimming pools,
the furniture and the pastel umbrellas on the decks,

And the binoculars around my neck are also gone,
and so is the little painted dock itself–
according to my figuring–

and gone are my notebook and my pencil
and there I go, too,
erased by my own eraser and blown like shavings off the page.

Photo: ”Morning light on rock patterns, North Saskatchewan River, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada” From the postcard book: Sierra Club Nature in Close-Up. ©Ron Thomas,1988, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Find the 160-page book at Amazon here.

Shoes to Fill, or Don’t Make Me Laugh, poem by Gerald Locklin

SHOES TO FILL, OR DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH
Poem by Gerald Locklin

I saw today, in Coda: The Poets’ and Writers’ Newsletter,
A highly amusing item:

The State University of New York at Binghamton
Is advertising to fill the Chair
Formerly held by John Gardner.

Among the qualifications is that the candidate
Possess “similar achievements” to Gardner’s.

Maybe they haven’t heard in Binghamton
That Hemingway, Faulkner and Edmund Wilson
Are all also dead.

Photo: John Gardner (1933-1982), novelist, essayist, literary critic, university professor. Winner of the 1976 National Book Critics Circle Award for his novel October Light, Gardner was also the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Sunlight Dialogues and Grendel. After Gardner died in a motorcycle accident in 1982 at age 49, Harpur College of Binghampton University issued a classified ad for his replacement — as Gerald Locklin describes in his poem “Shoes to Fill, or Don’t Make Me Laugh.”

The Swan, poem by Mary Oliver

THE SWAN
Poem by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

Silver, poem by Winston Tong

SILVER
Poem by Winston Tong

Shining, sterling, sublime,
Incandescent, incisive, immortal
Laborious, luminous, lambent,
Valued, venerable, versatile,
Elemental, enduring, esteemed,
Regal, reflective, radiant
Silver.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Winston Tong is a celebrated actor, playwright, visual artist, puppeteer, singer, and songwriter. He is best known for his vocal work in Tuxedomoon and for winning a 1978 Obie Award in puppetry for Bound Feet. He appeared in the 1981 documentary Theater in Trance by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who shot the film in 1981 at the Theaters of the World Festival in Cologne, Germany. Tong’s career, including solo activity, was examined in detail in Isabelle Corbisier’s Tuxedomoon biography Music for Vagabonds—the Tuxedomoon Chronicles (2008).
###
Winston Tong‘s work is featured — along with writing from more than 60 other authors — in the Silver Birch Press release Silver: An Eclectic Anthology of Poetry & Prose (November 2012). The 240-page book is available in paperback or Kindle versions at Amazon.com.

Let Me Tell You What a Poem Brings, poem by Juan Felipe Herrera (California Poet Laureate)

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT A POEM BRINGS
by Juan Felipe Herrera, California Poet Laureate (2012-2014)

Before you go further, 

let me tell you what a poem brings, 

first, you must know the secret, there is no poem 

to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries, 

yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this, 

instead of going day by day against the razors, well, 

the judgments, all the tick-tock bronze, a leather jacket 

sizing you up, the fashion mall, for example, from
the outside you think you are being entertained,
when you enter, things change, you get caught by surprise, 

your mouth goes sour, you get thirsty, your legs grow cold 

standing still in the middle of a storm, a poem, of course,
is always open for business too, except, as you can see, 

it isn’t exactly business that pulls your spirit into 

the alarming waters, there you can bathe, you can play, 

you can even join in on the gossip—the mist, that is,
the mist becomes central to your existence. 

PHOTO: Juan Felipe Herrera, courtesy of Office of the Governor of California

The Oak Tree, haiku by Matsuo Basho

THE OAK TREE
by Matsuo Basho

The oak tree:
not interested
in cherry blossoms.

Photo: Ian Parry, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Pine tree tops, poem by Gary Snyder

PINE TREE TOPS
by Gary Snyder

In the blue night
frost haze, the sky glows
with the moon
pine tree tops
bend snow-blue, fade
into sky, frost, starlight.
The creak of boots.
Rabbit tracks, deer tracks,
what do we know.

PHOTO: Bekajama19, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A Plum Tree, haiku by Matsuo Basho

A PLUM TREE
by Matsuo Basho

Crow’s
abandoned nest,
a plum tree.

Photo: JanThePic, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Maple Trees, poem by Noin Hoshi

THE MAPLE TREES
by Noin Hoshi

Mount Mimuro sends its winds
Down upon the maple trees
To carry off the colored leaves
And work crimson patterns
Upon the stream of Tatsuta. 

Photo: Eshelton Wilder, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Reading with Gerald Locklin and others on Sat., 10/19/13, in Santa Monica, CA

GERALD LOCKLIN

PATRICIA CHERIN

MICHAEL C. FORD

ZACH  LOCKLIN

WENDY RAINEY

will read (and sign) their works

Saturday, October 19, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

Church in Ocean Park

235 Hill St.

Santa Monica, California, 90405

Admission by donation

but no one turned away for lack of funds.