CALL TO POETS

DECEPTIONS

head’s flung out limp,

eyes hazed…

And I was sitting by his Lucite world all day

and did not know.

How can I add him to the orange rinds,

coffee grounds, the compost bin?

I seal him in a match box,

hope he quickly shrivels up

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.

VACANA POETRY THREE ARAB POETS 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

Measuring Cups,

Measuring Spoons

They gave her new sets

gleaming aluminum

inside plastic sarcophagi

too tough to cut by knife

Don’t they know

she scoops everything out

the hollow of the palm

is fine and at hand

hand where lines are etched

across the mounts

of passion travel war

imprint her shadow secrets

known only to dough

kneaded by hand

and nothing measured

or weighed

Next a set of knives

six of tempered steel

Could they know she was known

at school for flipping blades

When she throws a party now

she can pass a knife to every guest

test who flips the best

who drips the most

At last the perfect gift

a box of unbagged tea

They must have known

she likes it loose and hot

Elisavietta Ritchie

Measuring Cups

You gave me a set

A birthday gift

Gleaming aluminum

Don’t you recall

I never measure but

Scoop gollops in

The hollow of my palm

Suffices and is at hand

Fine lines etched

Across the mounts

Of passion life and war

Reveal my shadow secrets

New omens shared

Only with the bread

A perfect cake may lie

And so might I

Elisavietta Ritchie

HI Art readers,

A haiku from Issa, the early 19th century Japanese poet:

short summer night--
in the field turtles
cavort
-Issa, 1825

sent to Elisavietta Richie in Maryland some weeks ago resulted in a small correspondence

..."Dear Alan,
Glad you and Issa like turtles. Do you think Issa sat there watching them cavort. or is he just imagining? Maybe small sea turtles, as it is easier for them to cavort in the water.
I'll take the liberty of attaching a batch of my turtle poems."

She did so and, dear readers, enjoy them as much as I hope you did her previous poems in our e-zine.
Celebrate the return of warmer days and the long days of light, read and eat poetry.

               Aloha,

                     Alan Young


			TURTLE WORK We would eat the sun, feast on earthworms huge as Laocoon's snakes, dream of turning into birds. But we bear the world on gleaming backs, and at one threat of frost we must claw deep in dirt to keep the earth alive, asleep. A Sheath of Dreams And Other Games, Proteus Press, copyright 1976 Elisavietta Ritchie.

TURTLES

Eternal

as turtles,

so we

are forced

to court

slowly

sharing

fallen persimmons

and swollen berries

with care

to probe

deep beneath shells

where the skin

above the heart

and other vital parts

is not

so impregnable

and to bear

our impenetrable

love

everywhere.

[Wetlands; Tightening The Circle Over Eel Country, Acropolis Books,


			DECEPTIONS When my little turtle died he did not scream. He stretched his arms upon a rock, dropped his head beneath his sea left his hindfeet dangling out. He liked to lie in sunlight but when I came near he would retract within his simulated masks of death— When a decent interval had passed and I was fooled, he’d re-emerge to blink at me and reassure, and eat my lettuce leaf. Tonight I held a plum tomato by his mouth. He ignored this bloodred moon, ignored my probing fingertip. From his double mask of life limbs droop, head’s flung out limp, eyes hazed… And I was sitting by his Lucite world all day and did not know. How can I add him to the orange rinds, coffee grounds, the compost bin? I seal him in a match box, hope he quickly shrivels up inside his ochre, gold and emerald plates. I think he’d like the role of amulet, fool those who might not think he’s real…. [Tightening The Circle Over Eel Country, Acropolis Books, copyright 1974 Elisavietta Ritchie (collection won the Great Lakes Colleges Association's "New Writer's Prize for Best First Book of Poetry 1975-76").]


			SHELL GAME, or TURTLE-JACKING Beyond the open-slatted pens of peeling crabs sit bins of terrapins pointed snouts headnecks speckled or veined black on grey pale chins shells with ochre beige and black stratigraphy like undersea maps Some hundred terrapins feed on eels Nets dry against the sky to catch the leftover moon Crates wait by rusty scales On the other side of the wire I pop the lock lift out the terrapins one by one and three live eels They slither and clunk over the splintery planks over the edge of the dock drop into the port’s black brine glistening rainbows of gas Awakened gulls betray I dive behind We silently swim toward channel lights fixed green flashing white Only our noses show We plot our course past pilings piers barnacled rocks We turtle-paddle gathering speed with the ebbing tide over clay graves of wrecked fleets heap beneath the sea over the shoals out out into the bay gulp the fresh salt waves Beyond the farthest buoy the regatta of turtles stretching periscopes toward the red sun we cross the sea to a marshy islet not on any chart here herons, egrets, cranes will keep watch Even the eels are singing Elisavietta Ritchie [Tightening The Circle Over Eel Country, Acropolis Books, copyright 1974 Elisavietta Ritchie (collection won the Great Lakes Colleges Association's "New Writer's Prize for Best First Book of Poetry 1975-76").]


			VISITATIONS, PROCREATIONS A real big mother of a snapper impervious to poison ivy, briars, lumbers up the river bank. Shell slate black, crenellated at the stern, snake neck, scaly limbs, hook claws, horny beak to sever fingers or a foot. A dozen rabbits race about, skitter, bound, zigzag, scatter among tiger lily clumps. Still, I bet on her. She heads straight across the yard, an armored carrier programmed on a course set fifty years ago when she was young, this lawn a forest. She pauses on the grass. Confused? Was there a house across her path before? I offer her my pear core, sprint aside. She studies me: with loathing, mere disdain, slow-stirred memory of a duel beneath primordial cycads, or am I the perfect meal? She’s hellbent not on making war or lunch but to unload her oblong leather eggs in some cache underground. Now where… I edge behind, lift her gingerly – not only dangerous, she stinks -- carry her to an abandoned flower bed. She takes off, a millstone on the march, around the yard’s perimeter at such a pace, distracted by the rabbits, I lose track. She grunts through the herb bed, crushes dill, churns the earth between oregano and rosemary. When I check again, she’s covered up whatever spot she finally chose, slid down the bank and disappeared. How did that repellant hulk entice a mate so tolerant of her appearance, scent? Was he drawn by long affection or, with pure chelonian lust, snatched the first female to swim past for lengthy coupling or quick fix? Love in the muck in the dark or light of the moon on waves, to prolong her dynasty engendered before dinosaurs were born. Like roaches, snappers may outlive us. Unsure of their gestation span, I’ll watch the spot, escort phalanxes of hatchlings to the shore, ward off ospreys, foxes, gulls … But this very night, raccoons search among the herbs, leave shards like broken ping-pong balls. Elisavietta Ritchie [published in Potomac Review 1999; reprinted in Fresh Water: Poems from Rivers, Lakes, and Streams, editor Jennifer Bosveld, Pudding House Press, 2002.]


			MOON PURSUIT 3 October 1971 To get a jump on the moon I swam out where it would rise this night most close to Earth. I treaded water on top of that place, felt boiling beneath my pale churning legs. A turtle emerged, sifting foam. I lunged, grabbed his shell-- He tried to bite— I braided my hair, reined him in, but he swam the horizon with me weaving seines with the wake of his plunge. “Please! Let’s return! The moon will soon rise!” Out there, the sea swelled. The moon crowned, huge, tearing waves. We thrashed across crests. The apricot slid up the sky. “Quick! It will turn into ice!” He stretched his neck long, spread his beach— He caught the moon right in his jaws, chomped them shut, dripping blood. We swam home in the dark. [Tightening The Circle Over Eel Country, Acropolis Books, copyright 1974 Elisavietta Ritchie (collection won the Great Lakes Colleges Association's "New Writer's Prize for Best First Book of Poetry 1975-76").]

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.]

THREE ARAB POETS ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE RAY FREED TIA BALLANTINE

Ray Freed
February 1, 1939 - January 16, 2010

HI Art readers,
The following poems are from Ray's last publication SILVER FISH. Enjoy them. Remember his voice. To get a copy of SILVER FISH it's $12.00 shipping included from Street Press, P.O. Box 772, Sound Beach, NY 11789-0772.

Once on 66 Once on 66 hitching St. Louis to L.A. I imagined trucks as bloodcells of the Republic speeding through arteries and veins. Outside Gary a winter night semis flew by so fast thye didn't touch the asphalt leaving a wash of wind to tumble my duffle off into the snow. Thumbing one Spring up Cumberland Gap a trucker stopped, rode me 200 miles into the stockyards where I walked stunned among thousands of penned hogs, each howling like a napalmed child and I knew they smelled their death in the mornig air. I asked a watchman there about it. Bitch in heat boy. One sow in heat they all go crazy.		Hymn The heart of my love rests on the plains of cellophane in the aisle of forgotten stuff. She has prepared a meal for me, with her two hands placing the foil in the micro, a simple act of love and care as if she tilled soil under hot sun, nurtured each shoot and in time harvested this bounty for me alone. My love's neck is like the swan's her breast like fresh white snow her breath clear and sweet as the bank loan officer's or the clerk's at the Nifty Quicky Superette. After lunch we go to the Mall, me and my love and the plastic, me and my farmer girl, provider, queen of high frequencies.

Riches Night nears, light recedes from the black shore lava, the sultry dancing bay waves. I'm in the ocean of love again under pressure and joyous blue. You drop me because I have no property, house or money. Poets learn to expect this. But when I ask as a farewell that you recall a line, any line, from one of my poems and you cannot, good riddance.		Mariner Bloated cold and blue the body you sailed for fifty two years lays beached on the carpet. Two med techs strip your swim trunks and without ceremony lift you onto a gurney roll you out the door and down the steps to their waiting van, Charon's skiff. A firm breeze, a good day to put out to sea.

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

THREE ARAB POETS ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE RAY FREED TIA BALLANTINE

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

VACANA POETRY THREE ARAB POETS ELISAVIETTA RITCHIE RAY FREED TIA BALLANTINE

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]