winter wood

her gown of white lace,

unruffled by shivering --

bold, boreal bride

- arem

icons

The Deer and the Antelope,
on Iconic Speech

White bread.

Apple pie.

Hot dog. “He was a real hot dog.” Well, surely he wasn’t a . . . hot . . . dog . . . and even if you figure out that it’s a suggestive sandwich with a sausage, that can’t be the real meaning either, can it? Rest assured, though, that a hot dog is not a cool cat.

Home run, pinch hit, touchdown, etc. etc. etc.

If I say ‘the deer’, it means the deer, if I say, ‘the antelope’, it means the antelope. But if I say ‘the deer and the antelope’, I’ve suddenly taken you onto the vast plains of the American West. Thundering herds of buffalo. (And forget that bison crap, we all know they’re buffalo). Under the starry sky above, Bill Cody sits by a lonely campfire.

If I say ‘cable car’, you can almost taste the sourdough bread, or at least the Rice-a-Roni. Tony Bennett is just around the corner. Fog rolls in. If I say clang, clang, clang; Rosemary Clooney, or somebody, is having her heartstrings zinged.

If I say ‘spotted owl’, a war breaks out between tough, grizzly types in hob-nailed boots and a group of elderly flower-children.

I say ‘flower-child’, and we’re right back in San Francisco, ca. 1968.

1968, and it’s Chicago and Mayor Daley is bustin’ heads. Milwaukee means beer. Detroit means cars; big ones, chrome-plated, and what’s good for G.M. is good for the country, and I’m back to Apple Pie. And Chevrolet.

Woodstock.

Watergate.

Chappaquiddick.

Three Mile Island and the Exxon Valdez.

Titanic.

Twin Towers.

Hiroshima. . . . Holocaust. . . .‘Nam.

“Yer yeller!” “He’s a red, but he’s singin’ the blues, ‘cause he’s still kinda green.”

Green beret.

Ever wonder what people said before “redneck”? How did we know what to think about a state before it became red or blue?

Osama. Lenin and Marx. Lennon and McCartney. Johnny Cash and Johnny Carson and Johnny B.Good and Michael Moore.

Bush and born again and abortion and beat and hip and hep.

AIDS.

Marilyn and Madonna and Martha and Madonna & Child and Oprah. Venus on the Half-Shell and the Sistine Chapel and the Eiffel Tower and the Tower of Pisa. Katrina. Tsunami. The Golden Gate.

I suppose every society has these shorthand references which convey volumes of information, whether it’s the plum blossom of haiku, the cartoon of Nixon’s “V”, or the sight of an SUV – still, I wonder what future generations will make of it all when they try to read some mouldering documents found in the ruins of our time. I’m assuming that someone, somewhere will be able to read. I’m assuming ruin.

- Ralph Murre

Save on Airfare!

Travels

There are these places I’ve never been
but know like the back of my mind
These Isla Negra’s
These Nebraska’s
These Walden’s
I can commute so freely
drink the wine of their vineyards
so cheaply
be engaged
by the spirits of the ocean’s roar
so fully
I need not shop
for airline tickets
to taste their salt
nor ride a bus
to touch the sandstone
of their schools
to wade in the cool mud with muskrats
to hear the cries of the gulls

- Ralph Murre

Walden. Okay.
Nebraska. Maybe.
Isla Negra. Hmm, I don't know about that.
The water spins the other way down there. Even the stars are different.
- that from a friend in response. Point is, with a Neruda or a Kooser or a Thoreau singing the song of a place, should I think that my senses will glean something more? Or, should I open my eyes, look about me, and write the song of where I am? I don't know. I look down to an earlier post (the sacred and the sold-out) , and I see that I'll have to sing the song of where I am without TELLING where I am.

Blameless?

I keep hoping that some of my old rants will become passe, but the wheels turn exceeding slow. Here's one from about a year ago :

Blame Less

It’s just too damned easy to blame George W. Bush for the war, too damned easy to blame him for all of our problems. What is he but the figurehead under the bowsprit of our capitalism, under the headsail of our greed?

It’s money that steers our ship and oil that floats it. The sea of oil is going dry and money doesn’t know where to turn. We have a hard time thinking how to save the sea, so we think in terms of carving a new figurehead.

It is not George W. Bush, or his pals in OPEC, forcing us to drive where we could walk, forcing me to ride my motorcycle where I could ride my bicycle; it is not Ford Motor Company forcing you to take your Expedition where you could take your Focus.

Will there be enough fuel left for the ambulance to haul my exercise-hating butt to the hospital?

Should I drive 40 miles to work out at the Y?

Easy, too, to lay blame for the difficulties on states whose people voted a couple per cent differently than our own; “What could those idiots be thinking?”. They must be fools, right, those people who believe in something other than men, something other than politicians? Why, some of them even suggest that there may be a (G)od. Simply inferior beings, those folks from other-colored states.

Easy to see there are no problems here in our blue-nosed, blue-blooded, blue-stockinged regions – well, none we can’t solve with money.

Sail on, Banker! Steady as she goes! Only the blameless aboard our stout vessel. Let us fly a blue flag from the main topmast, for guiltless are we, we men of the open sea! Look smart there, Sailor! Wipe that oil from your boot!

The lookout tells of dangerous shoals ahead – shall we listen, instead, to that sharply-chiseled face at the prow, the gilded wood we’ve elected?

Buffy Ste. Marie (about 40 years ago) said, “ Blame the Indians/ Blame the Fates/ Blame the Jews or your Sister Kate/ Teach your children who to hate/ and the big wheel goes around, ‘round.”

Sail on, oh Ship of State! We’re just the crew; here to take orders and eat our ration.

No one to blame here.

- Ralph Murre

tall

Spires


Topped
with crosses
or crescents
or crows
or crowned
with beacons
that blink
in the night;
they are the same.
We build
towers and totems
to find our way back
to ancestors
and faith
and safe harbor.
Like initials carved
in old beech trees,
they tell
where we’ve been,
who we’ve loved,
and where hearts
have found homes.
We take a walkabout
or a moonwalk;
paddle down streams
and sail across oceans,
testing our symbolism -
the lighthouse shining
after storms at sea,
the good mother welcoming
the child who’s been away,
the sturdy oak
sheltering the weeping willow.
The tower of strength,
never casting the shadow of a doubt.


- Ralph Murre

Silver Lining

Yes, I know -- global warming is a VERY BAD THING -- but I will confess to having thoroughly enjoyed a 25-mile motorcycle ride today. In Wisconsin. In January.
Did me more good than a pocketful of anti-depressants.

Angel Head 2.5

I'm proud to announce that some of my work has found on-line publication at ANGEL HEAD, a recently-begun, but rather classy, poetry ezine. It's editor is the Englishman, Bruce Hodder, formerly of the print journal "Blue Frederick" and capable writer of the blog "Suffolk Punch".
Suffolk Punch, it turns out, is the name of a breed of workhorse; an apt comparison to Hodder. As far as I can tell, he works a full-time job, blogs much of the day and night, writes a bunch of good poetry, and knocks out the odd novel in his spare time.
I know the sun's up about six hours earlier in England, but I still don't see that I should get so little done, by comparison.
Anyway -- go now to visit http://bkerouac.tripod.com/angelheadfebruary2006
and http://bluefredpress.blogspot.com

let there be light

pewter sky and sea

january's heirloom gifts

lie shattered by light

- arem

haiku basics

these are the first five

of seventeen syllables

and these are the last

- arem

memory

thin pants remembered

city job so long ago

icy bus stop bench

-arem

Running Things

Running Things

Another year
Another chance to get it right
To do the things I shoulda done
Tear down that fence I built
Quit the party
Let running things run

Another wave rolls up the beach
Tumbles stones
Polishes what survives
Shorebirds – hungry – rush
Consume the dazzled on the sands
End the safe, crustacean lives

Another day
Another chance to see the light
To see the clouded, rising sun
Copper flame in pewter bowl
Embrace the certain, coming toll
Or be a running thing, and run

- Ralph Murre

naught six

A time for resolution and I, a man of little resolve, look to the right-hand column of this blog and see the quote with which it began. My vow is to try, to make an attempt, to live by Whitman's words. Now where the hell did I put my hat?

The Ledger

photo by nancy vaughn

I suppose it's traditional to take stock, as the old year wears down; to do a bit of accounting, see how the books balance. It's never really been a tradition of mine, but I'll indulge myself so that this entry isn't just a black, blank page.

On the debit side, I seem to have lost my way in the gainful employment area, having done a pitiful job in attracting new architectural clients, and a less-than-stellar job of serving those I have. The offsetting credit: an upturn in my writing quantity and, arguably, quality. Not a lot of groceries purchased with the proceeds of the writing, but I need to lose weight, anyway.

Some good friends were lost, to death and attrition, and nothing will make up for that. I did, however, make some new friends, whom I've come to value quite dearly.

Another grandchild appeared; my fourth, and I got to spend a bit of Christmas with the whole lot. This outweighs any possible shortcomings in all categories.

We have squeeked by the shortest day of my 61st year without the screen going entirely dark, and there were a few moments when it didn't look like that was likely, so, perhaps we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne. I'm running out of red ink, so will try to record a few positive developments in the coming year.

I can do no better than to wish you peace.

More Greetings

ABCDEFGHIJK - MNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

For Better or Worse

On a recent archeological dig in one of the literary areas of our attic, I came across a number of old hard-bound friends, and decided to see how they'd handled their interment. Not all faired well.

Next time you feel certain that the world is just now going to hell, remind yourself of the things we used to read.

Case in point: I re-read Joyce Cary's The Horse's Mouth, which I still consider to be one of the great classics of beat writing, although it predates the beat "movement". Cary's hero, Gulley Jimson, is a grimy modern artist-outlaw-ne'er-do-well-Robin Hood-thief-philosopher-jailbird and, as such, is pretty easy to love. He also beats women. Yeah, just kinda matter-of-fact like; he beats women. One dies. Did this book model the misogyny that was an integral part of the beat movement? I can't remember being so repulsed by that aspect of the book (published in 1944, the year of my birth) when I first read it, in the early 60's. Maybe the world's changed, maybe I have.

I looked at a few other old books from my collection -- an anthology, Poetry Out of Wisconsin, another book which is mostly quite good, and edited by August Derleth, contains a few pieces that refer to African-Americans in such hateful terms that you can't imagine they could have been printed in Poetry Out of Alabama !

Even Mary Mapes Dodge's Hans Brinker has some pretty hideous references to the Jewish communities in the Netherlands. Of course, disrespect of Native Americans was so widespread that I'm hard-pressed to single out an example.

So, just when I think things couldn't be worse, I look back and see that they were. At least the sound of most modern writing makes me think that things have, indeed, gotten better. I hope that our attitudes have changed, as well as our words.

Season's Greetings

Truck

Brown trucks and white, with red and blue;
trucks of indeterminate hue carrying, cross-continental,
and to Tupelo and Wichita,
mountains, monumental, of stuff: mundane,
sentimental stuff bearing the urgent message,
I have not forgotten -
that you’re hungry, that you love, that you ordered,
that I owe, that I love, that our love bordered on a need,
not greed, so I am sending, from a catalog from Texas,
some smoked meats to Vermont, sweets,
from San Francisco to Duluth, floor mats, taupe,
for a Lexus, vermouth from someplace to someplace else,
hoping, against hope, that your order is filled,
your stomach is filled, your wishes fulfilled,
you’ll love me still, for a while, and hoping, too,
for something in return; things not returned, spurned,
things not carried by truck: a good thought, luck,
oh-you-shouldn’t-have but, really, you must send hope
on wings of a dream, or a joke, a smile
on wisps of blue smoke; make it worthwhile.
I have not forgotten - too much;
not forgotten you . . . your style.

- Ralph Murre

William Proxmire

So long, Bill Proxmire -- you served us well. Give our best to Gaylord Nelson, if you should meet up in some sky-bound senate. The state and the nation will look long and hard to find more of your sort, and if a few exist, I fear we won't elect them.

'til death do us

a female cardinal
her soft brown dress
blending with fallen leaves
lies beneath my window

a male cardinal
balanced on balsam
resplendent in crimson contrast
is ill-dressed for grief

The Sacred and the Sold-Out

A friend has gently chastised me for citing the sites of the sights photographed for this blog, or even hinting at the locales. She says that if I love these places, I will tell no one. This will sound pretty extreme to some, but she is right on the money. If you have lived in a beautiful place only to see it overrun -- even if the overrunners are wonderful people -- you will understand her concern. A few clues have been removed from the blog.

This business of vanishing wilderness and vanishing countryside is a fence that I've tried to straddle for a long time, with limited success. As a rural architect, my living has been earned by designing all the sorts of buildings which are gobbling up acreage and shorelines and encouraging people to visit once-wonderful places so that they can return to the city with a Chinese-made trinket and a pocket full of real estate brochures. I can rationalize, to myself and my ecologically aware friends, that if I hadn't done it, someone else would; and they might have been architectural boors.

I haven't done any commercial projects in a while, but have concentrated on home design, which seemed, somehow, less damaging. Still, the homes are marching over hill and dale, through the woods and up the beach. Everybody needs a piece of the pie, and then their appetites for pie increase, and they need bigger pieces, and more of them, and it occurs to them that they could make a tidy profit selling pie. (is anybody getting hungry here?)

Wouldn't it be just dandy if I could wrap this entry up with some clever solution -- some way to quench the thirst of the advantaged -- without wrecking the economy, either the nation's or my own? That would be nice, but I'll need to think about it. Meanwhile, I'll do my best to keep the secrets of the sacred places of solitude.

Like Water . . . for what?

Are we just water lapping at the feet of cliffs of granite, or mounting full-furied attacks, our energies spent in dazzling spray, rainbow-hued flower children dashed against a five-sided fortress? When will mothers stop giving their sons, and when will the old men sleep? When will the cliffs erode, and when can we dance on the beach?