FOUR POEMAS AND A BIO BY TIM BELLOWS
. . . . .
SUB TEACHING - GRADE SCHOOL,
APRIL, 2000
*
"The name California was first used by Spanish explorers and probably
came from a Spanish novel that featured a fictional island named
California."
*
I'm feeling fictional
amid the sweetness of crayons,
the fiber smell
of erasers, the blueredgreen smears
of tart markers on whiteboards.
Couldn't I just
color here too, sit
at a tiny, rattling table and
scribble down my made-up ponds of violet
under made-up skies in
yellow and orange while the children
read stories cast
in happy half-inch letters
or smirk and jab each other's arms and ribs
then parade on toes
across the slick linoleum classroom?
Then there'd be recess and I could play tag,
holler and run with them all -- easy -
as they hold their hands out and
jabber between the benevolent,
spiky California schoolyard trees.
After all, this
is a tropical state,
apparently named
after a fictional island
in some centuries-old novel.
Perfect.
Not quite possible. Like
kidtalk, like my
marker-on-whiteboard thoughts -
and so many felt erasers
nearby, lying in the plastic trays.
. . .
DANCING IN THIN AIR
The pilot
says there's turbulence,
says, "Please, folks,
buckle up snug."
But I
have to go
so bad
I skipole grip
down the seats,
lurchstep back
along padded rows of
poor, bentsideways sleepers,
knocking some
clear out of their dreams.
"Whoops, sorry,"
I think to them.
The stewardess, strapped
in her little flip-down seat,
looks a pleasant frown
in my direction:
After all,
I could be hurt,
turn into
lawsuits against the airline:
"I have to inform you
we take no responsibility
for you when seatbelt signs
are lit." "Yes," I'm thinking,
"we could be struck
by a bump of air;
I could be knocked
clear out of the safedepositbox
tailwing kitchen
and gasp
into the sky,
still dancing my
knock-kneed anticipation
of an unoccupied lavatory.
I could
disappear in a friendly cloud."
- 6.26.00
. . .
THOUGHTS, RIVULETS OF CONTEMPLATION
I walk across the brick city, think of nothing but
green curves of black willows, black-capped vireos.
. . .
I picture a garage drawer left open. Such relief in this,
stopping thought.
. . .
I spar and jab at my mistakes made
in that life in the Euphrates and they
turn into dark armies coming at me in forced marches.
. . .
Sitting cross-legged, I would parry and dance with music,
her tasty blades of light.
. . .
Spring flood season - waves on the blue river
ripple in among sunken trees.
. . .
The mystery deepens; spherical mirrors
come forward in the old arcade. Iím here on assignment,
likely to break them all.
. . .
Notebook on the musty card table in the garage.
I found a new phrase. a tucked-in picture that helped me
breathe.
. . .
Poetry warehoused in the night. These years of it.
My wife distressed,
doing the day thinking
for me.
. . .
Slow-riding the flood of water, I can touch branch tips, the
tops of trees.
I look down to see an unconscious that may be mine -
muddy landscape fifty yards down.
. . . . .
MEDITATION 14:
TOO MUCH CAYENNE,
cinnamon and ginger
mixed and
sprinkled on dinner
make your nose run.
too many dousings of soysauce
and your tongue's feeling
burned all day. and
how the "too much" of things
goes on: sound in
musty, blaring bars --
years of their great
night, their hole caved through
your time -- and your ears
might well ring forever. ah, years
of gin-driven dance; and later,
thirteen-mile races on asphalt
and maybe the legs
go loose, creaky. so
i can only say, keep up
some smiling study:
read on the bed,
doze if sleep needs
to catch up with you. eat
apples with nothing
sprinkled on; do a little
habanera to no apparent music
with your love to the tv with its
glare and sharp trumpets. it's right
to make both your bodies
happy on the sketchy path
over sandy-brown dirt as you
lose and find your way
up the high tower of
baked earth we come to.
we survey the desert from high
in the steady trek. so go; steady on -
oh, throw in the occasional
rickety jig! -- toward the exit, tall
as these mountain slabs, this
sky close to evening, this
hot-pepper glow, this
star turning the most pale
ultramarine.
. . .
A FEW WORDS FOR A BIO:
I'm a poet, teacher, and writer/with comrades like wild places, work
places, good dreams, and fierce-beautiful images. Some notes in brief:
~ Taught research and creative writing for over thirteen years at
colleges like Sierra and the University of Nevada-Reno.
~ Earned a graduate degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop; published in
over 130 journals and magazines. A partial list: Midwest Quarterly,
Modern Haiku, Northern Contours, Natural Bridge Magazine, Terrain,
Panhandler, The Lucid Stone, Burning Cloud Review, and Wisconsin Review.
~ Recently saw publication of my poems in A Racing Up the Sky, a
collection of two poetry sequences/and a generous helping of Kerby
Smith's resonant photographs of California's Yosemite area. (from
Eclectic Press: information/orders at 1-800-431-1579.)
~ Earned a nomination for the 23rd Annual Pushcart Prize with "Huts Under
Smooth Hills," influenced by A Drifting Boat, a collection of poems from
the ancient Chinese.
~ Have continued to publish poems widely. A recent one in Skylark became
another nominee for the Pushcart Prize. (In or out of stanzas, I like to
trek the wilds of California and attempt to reflect an agile mind and a
heart's good listening/and some talking back. I suspect Yeats might
approve with "The only business of the head in the world is to bow a
ceaseless obeisance to the heart.")
(For dedicated writers, I offer tips on how to revise creative work. They
can try me here: shabda@juno.com)
. . . . .