CALL TO POETS

ADVICE FOR A DAUGHTER

Do not gnaw chicken bones before
a lover, I tell her, as we crunch
the cartilage of a hapless hen.

Could put him off, give rise
to thoughts you might have
taste for more than skin.

My lover is so meticulous
he uses knife and fork,
misses deep pleasures.

I have to sneak to the kitchen,
chew both our drumsticks clean
before I scrape the plates.

The best is what some call
the parson's nose, others term
the pope's, the rabbi's.

My mother said: What scuttles
through the fence the last
is surely the most succulent.

So while our chicken stews apart
you and I retrieve the bubbling bones,
gnaw and, juices trickling down our chins,

weigh the risks of loss:
either a fastidious lover
or the choice parts of a bird.
--Elisavietta Ritchie

["Advice For A Daughter": New York Quarterly, 1995; Hungry As We Are: XXth Anniversary Anthology, edited by Ann Darr, Washington Writers' Publishing House, 1995; and in Elegy For The Other Woman, Signal Books, copyright 1996 Elisavietta Ritchie]

CALL TO POETS
Original poetry with strong imagery; poems of cultural flux and interactions; personal translation of favorite works from the world's verse---these can be submitted at alyguy@hotmail.com. As can commentary on poem eating. So folks, send it on in.

ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE RAY FREED TIA BALLANTINE

Elisavietta Ritchie is a poet warm and prolific who lives currently in Maryland. Through Tia Ballantine's listserv of daily poetry I became aquainted with her work. Through a correspondence I got a whole bunch of stuff from her including a biblio/bio which I found factual but uninformative of Elisavietta the poet whose messages and poems I so enjoyed and resonated with. So with some cajoling she's given us a small autobiographical introduction and you shall find it below along with her selection of poems for eating. Enjoy the meal.

Alan Young

Heidegger at the Breakfast Table

The way he goes at the bread!
A knife that might have slaughtered pigs
hacks slabs of pallid cheese.

A peasant’s shirt to show off his roots,
thick boots he should have left
on the stoop. Mud enough outside.

He insisted we visit his mountain
rather than himself descend
to our accessible plain.

Now he won’t let us eat in peace.
He demands we think about thinking –
we think about breakfast.

He questions our human existence
as if we didn’t know we’re alive,
just out of breath being at his altitude.

We’re well aware of the limits to life
so why waste time on insoluble problems?
That’s what alienates us from dumb conundrums.

Better he lead us back through the woods,
point out a safe trail down that avalanched slope,
instruct how to circumvent wolves.

Yet…First, let’s pick just a few of those huge

          raspberries ripe on his briars…

                    Something is better than nothing at all.

         --Elisavietta Ritchie

[published in Blue Unicorn, 2002; semi-finalist for Emily Dickinson Award Anthology Universities West Press, Glenn Reed, editor, 2002]

RECIPE: ONE ARTICHOKE

Hold me
tightly or
I'll roll free.

Slice through my spines.
Though I cry, show no mercy:
remember sea urchins.

Heat me an hour
among lemons, bayleaves,
peppercorns, salt.

Pry with care.
When at last
I spread a bit

peel me leaf by leaf,
bathe me
with hot butter,

scrape my softness off
with greedy teeth.
Discard thistles.

Beneath your knife
my heart waits. But
eat me slowly.

--Elisavietta Ritchie

[first published in New York Quarterly; reprinted in Light; Raking The Snow, Washington Writers Publishing House, copyright 1982 Elisavietta Ritchie; and in Elegy For The Other Woman: selected and new terribly female poems, Signal Books, copyright 1996 Elisavietta Ritchie.]

Ray Freed is a Kailua-Kona resident raised in Hawaii and the world and writing, writing. His poems have appeared in publications in the US, Canada, and Britain; his most recent book is titled ‘All Horses Are Flowers’. In Spring 1990, he was Poet-In-Residence at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He recommends the Mexican food at Los Unicos in Kailua. The first is a poem of Kona occasioned by a visit to a friend’s Kealakekua Bay house way back in the 1970’s.

Aloha,

Alan Young

Hualalai

Fading sun slants a line
across verdant Hualalai,
greens made brighter
by that last gasp of light,
and the lava land Keahole
slips away like a dark sea wave.

Who knows what trickery startled
the owl Pueo off the road
to perch on the street lamp
as we drove down the darkened drive

or what trickeries coax the gecko to cling
to the ceiling above us now,
mouthing a song like far-off laughter.
He makes it out of air.

          --Ray Freed

In The Morning

Waves of cloud lap
the shore of sky.
The peacocks of finance
roaring, rub sleep
from their eyes
and polish their beaks.
Always, always, like
innumerable rats of war
they are telling me too much.
Penniless lovers lie
among bruised tangled sheets,
waves of sunlight spilling
in the window over them.
These are my days,
these are my people.

--Ray Freed

Pastoral

I spend the morning
in the salt smell of the sea
on the sand at Banyan’s
watching sets come in,
hearing trades work the palms
under a hot sun lighting
a cloudless sky laced
with volcanic haze,
then amble across Alii Drive
to the Banyan Mart
for a cool guava juice,
fifth in line behind two kids
buying ice cream pops,
a blond teen breeder bursting her halter,
a man with two bags of poi.
A couple comes in
mainland city dressed,
gold earrings and fuschia nails,
brown suit, florsheims, forehead
sweat dripping onto a yellow tie,
he looks at me
no shirt no shoes
tanned and unshaven,
we’re both about 60.
I’ve known him
all his life.

--Ray Freed

Cacafuego

The mountains here
press against blue sky
like breasts
against cashmere.

The moon above
Chichicastenango
sings like a siren, raising
small hairs on my arm.

White crabs freeze on the sand,
transfixed in the flashlight's beam.
Peace travels slowly underwater,
avoiding the eels of commerce.

Where are those lost days
when bearded boys & lank haired girls
learned of the Buddha's compassion
via Kerouac, and the prophet

of the D train told us Hattie never
did nothin to William Zanzinger?
Last call. A gratuity of 15%
will be added to your bill.

          --Ray Freed

Crazy Bout You

I’m crazy for you honey baby
you walked up the stairs to my heart
and broke down the door.

Those creamy lips
could make butter
in a blizzard.

You’ve got me on a leash,
I’m on all fours for you.

Put your load on me,
I’m your burro,
I’d carry ice from the Pole
to keep you cool.

You’re low tide at full moon
with the reef showing,
just the way I like it.

In your pretty head there’s room
for one thought at a time,
just the way I like it.

How did your mama let you get so tall
those legs, they don’t stop,
just the way I like it.

Where were you
when the rooster
crowed for day?

I come over the hill
with a forty dollar bill
and it’s Ray, Ray
where you been so long.

          --Ray Freed

Click on links below to view video of poetry readings by Ray Freed:
http://www.dailymotion.com/indigokona/1
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ray+freed&search=Search

Tia Ballantine is an artist and poet, a teacher with her doctoral degree from UH Manoa and who operates an educational listserv of poems. As she related to me..."Cwuhm-l, a free listserv supported by the University of Hawai`i, delivers one poem a day — both contemporary and classical — to subscribers’ email boxes plus occasional announcements of readings. As this is not a discussion list, subscribers do not have to worry about junk mail or unwanted messages. Those interested in subscribing can send an email to Tia Ballantine, who acts as the sole editor, at tiaballantine@earthlink.net, and she will immediately activate the subscription. Every new subscriber receives an informational email that describes how s/he can do such things as temporarily suspend service, etc." I have been a subscriber for some years now and find it a fascinating source of good work.

Aloha,

Alan Young

THE SECRET LIFE OF BIRDS

Usually full moon nights are bitter cold.
Not this night. My radio sings warm: Stan Getz –
“Flamingo,” and I keep the blankets rolled.

Years ago (how many?) I heard Stan Getz
play live at sunset. I bathed my baby
in a cast-iron sink, my shirt soaking wet,

windows wide open to river breezes,
and that sweet tenor sax, Getz on his terrace –
“The Girl from Ipanema Goes Walking.”

My baby with soap bubbles on his face
arms raised and fingers stretched to slanted dusk –
the wind heavy with earth, light attached like lace.

That afternoon we’d walked the aqueduct
picking handfuls of mint and chamomile
buckets of blackberries, a single rosebud,

then the evening concert, impromptu wild
serenades, Getz completely unaware
of wet breasts or water on stone tiles.

I sang (I’m sure he never heard). Night came –
we danced, my son and I, on moon swept seas
of sound, ripe with salt, breath, and blood red rain.

Now, far to the south, air is densely sweet
and I’m quite alone, folding bath towels
sorting socks, marveling at this sudden heat.

Today, I nailed bent dowels to windows
for curtains, then walked to where flamingos
wade in shallows, algae green and foul –

Brambles in drag decorated for show –
they’re the llamas of the bird world, aloof
in masquerade, dreaming life as roses.

They approach with quiet dignity, proof
of ‘superiority,’ but when one moves
his feathered head against my neck, I bloom.

--Tia Ballantine

AFTER THE WORLD ENDS

The wild lily that refused
to bloom these eleven years
finally opens.

Morning arrives in pieces.
Noon appears quite green.
It is difficult to breathe.

The wind sounds wild, a heart
beat as erratic as stone
chipped words.

There are imagined days, fog
and saxophones. Slender fingers.
Cotton on skin.

--Tia Ballantine, 2007