Fleshy Blue Boat is a collection of light poems, written in the early 70s.
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November 30, 2008
November 26, 2008
Fierce Tranquility
Fierce Tranquility was written in 1989, after four years of sobriety, when the underlying reality came to the surface. Fierce Tranquility was first called Pick Up the Baby, with the subtitle, Catastrophic Healing, describing the specific and general conditions of the time. Fierce Tranquility was not written about the healing process but from within the moment of healing itself.
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November 23, 2008
Death
Death, a book of poems written in 2000, defines the reality of everything that exists, outside the only moment of being itself, the only moment that is not confined to the graveyard of the past and the future. Death also brings what we fear into the reality we live so that it is exposed as nothing to be feared.
Divide the painting of death into two sides, and see the two faces of death.
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November 13, 2008
Regina
Regina is an attempt to answer the question, “What does it mean to call someone the love of one’s life?” Decades after a much-desired relationship has faded from the scene, questions remain and questions arise. What is the positive side to remorse and regret? What else goes on in the depth of desire and the contemplation of loss, in matters of the heart?
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November 11, 2008
The Exquisite Poet
In 1975, I was part of an anthology of San Francisco poets, Five on the Western Edge, published by Momo’s Press (Hilton Obenziner, Stephen Vincent, myself, Larry Felson, and Beau Beausoliel). Hilton had previously published a volume of poetry, The Day of the Exquisite Poet is Kaput. I loved the audacity of that title, but I took slight offense at the pronouncement, without trusting myself to challenge the implication. I didn’t have the equivalent audacity to claim that I was an exquisite poet; I didn’t think I was and, at the time, I didn’t know what it might be to be an exquisite poet. Recently, I told Hilton how I felt about his proclamation, and he pointed out that he’d said the day of the exquisite poet was kaput, he hadn’t said that the exquisite poet was kaput. Now by definition, the exquisite poet may be very beautiful and delicate, perfect and delightful, sensitive and capable of detecting subtle differences, and felt with a sharp intensity; superb, fine, lovely, and wonderful. No poet can claim these definitions for himself, but I can claim to recognize these sensibilities in the poetic expression of being itself. The Exquisite Poet is Alive and Well and Living Among Us, implies that us includes me, and that I can easily and happily claim to be true.
The story of Ag and Eg is the background for these poems. The Exquisite Poet is oddly the most personal of my poems, making it something of a manifesto, not different from other poems but more personal, in a way.
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Ag and Eg in the Garden of Heaven
The Exquisite Poet, Prose Form
The Exquisite Poet, Poem Form
November 2, 2008
101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books
Walking in the Barnes and Noble in the Kahala Mall, in Honolulu, I passed the self-help row. It seemed to go on for miles. I thought, “Somebody ought to write 101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books.” Then I thought, “You’re a writer. Why don’t you do it?” So I did. This book, if what I’m saying is true, should work, even if you read it and do absolutely nothing it suggests.
The drawings included here have been sold as a coloring book called Have a Seat!
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101 Ways to Avoid Reading Self-Help Books
101 Ways with illustrations:
Philip Blanc in San Francisco
Philip Blanc in San Francisco was published by Panjandrum Press in 1972. These light surrealist excursions, as someone once described them elicited this response from my mother, “Stephen, were you on drugs when you wrote this?” I said I was not, that I wrote them in the library at San Francisco State on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. The drawings came later.
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November 1, 2008
Walking in Ellensburg
Walking in Ellensburg is a continuation of the sort of poem begun in San Francisco Snapshots, thirty years before. The quiet of a small town in summer opens the spirit to the kind of frameless being that children enjoy, different from the life of the city, then or now. As I walked the streets of Ellensburg, Washington, in the summer of 2008, I saw things I had not seen from my car, my bicycle, or even walking with a purpose.
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The Zen of Housepainting
I started painting, many years ago, when I needed money to finance my fledgling life as an artist. A friend, Dirk Kortz, who had been painting for fifteen years, took me on out of friendship, kindness, and desperation. Since I was a poet, and Dirk was a writer, painter and filmmaker, we got along great. We both enjoyed the work, we liked to do a good job, and we shared the dream that someday we would lay the brush down and never touch a roller again. Painting has become a wonderful meditation and metaphor for life. It wasn’t enough to be a poet. I had to go out and learn a useful skill. When I die, I don’t want to be buried or cremated. I want to be smashed against the wall like a bug and painted over. Two coats, please. Top of the line.
After painting houses for several years, it was time to put together some wit and wisdom from the profession. The Zen of Housepainting was published by City Miner Magazine, in Berkeley, California, in 1980.
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