Recently Published Poetry (Feedback???) Kansas Calling Midnight python asphalt stretching road plain nighttime dark, reflectionless, onwardless, visionless… laid out drunken boxer, memory: static AM Rochester jazz radio... memory: my long dead father... memory: escaping from Amerika to find America... last chance to breathe free, to head further west dig the vastness… memory: 3:00 AM long zooming trucks to Denver, memory: distant suggested mountains this coming dawn emerging from my consciousness, memory: static teenage dreams from Paterson bed– blueberries, Motown 45s, sunflowers, just scattered… now four windows down ’65 Ford wagon tearing ass 85 mph saluting this miserable monotone wind defining Kansas, the Kansas that was... memory: runaway Kansas midnight, memory: runaway Kansas train, memory: runaway America’s sons Lake Worth, FL 2012 © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 Waiting and Fasting I pour another shot of bourbon engine idles like it should. She is coming tonight armed with her band of angels. I have no defenses, replaced by muted trumpet, alto saxophone, piano of Flamenco Sketches. She holds a dripping brush to my door dressed in yellow Nefertiti for April. I am first born. So I wait. I fast. Dusk. Night. She never came. Bisbee, AZ October, 1980 © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 Acadia Drifting weak-kneed wanderer requests the color green, Acadia drifting breezy wet air– Acadia drifting embellishing this perfect horny Canadian Cajun house, where antiqued trees slump beside another important porch where scrub oak archways ruminate over precious literary conversations where watery gullible moats shape the scene... Acadia drifting takin a stroll rainy New Orleans Rue Bourbon Artillery Park rippin off parachute umbrellas posin as homegrown lovers on the street orderin white Chartreuse wine toastin to eternal hard nipples each other’s next orgasm... steps leading downward, unrecognizable, rush of pastel French impressionist shutter dream full of rice and perfume... let’s hang out on Royal St laughin at hustlers expressin ideas about the origin of drought forgettin our half-filled glasses writin letters to some hot Carmen... steps leading anywhere, unpredictable, sellin Colombian scarlet mahogany long dresses at the French Market beggin her: “quit this job, come teach us bogyman religion, export yr pet wisdom predict yr apocalyptic memories…” ...we seem to have forgotten our Spirits while wearing these purple historic masks, our long strutting peacock feathers... because when we fight anger spoils the brew premature Da Da aging way before our time New Orleans 1993 © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 America The Phoenix down, flattened-out cold, right cross to the chin, body punched senseless… nothing left… still, occasional tears drip, spill onto bleak boarded-up outlaw schoolhouses red brick sidewalks… soon another swollen red eye blinks, reblinks, some mashed Salvation Army Nikes fl ex nearby, solitary unclenched hand reaches, rereaches, grunts, grasps another sister’s fingers… then somebody finds a hammer, then there are thousands, red and blue states pound and paint, then a building, rebuilding, songs’ voices on the fl y, dreams are dreamed once again a new city recities, tougher, more soulful, modest angelic eagle with an athletic attitude– America, the Phoenix, carry on… Delray Beach Spring/Summer, 2010 © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 As Strangers Often Do unshaven benches green willow trees rich with water buttered homefry picket fences... me and my sounds, no one else around buds might be sprouting damp April ground pouting no birds shouting this mind realizing within then without... that plant over there reminds me of Italy the place Byron wrote about, rocks congregating on candy cane hills cracks lingering in the earth... then firecracker somewhere interrupts my solitude... I again climb aboard a bird fl y a bit further much wealthier for this... steel gray sky no blue another modest sun peeps through my left horizon... how fantastic! how many shades of green? how many breaths can exhale? unshaven benches, no one around then three others roam by, sit, point, waiting, while a billion blades of grass wave filling this square clear away the stagnant air now our eyes meet hiding like brothers in arms, so we remain and stare, breathing silently, separated, as strangers often do 1968 Bear Mountain, N.Y. © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 Because I’ve never been there (for Tehmina) because I’ve never been there I connect with your struggle fast with you pilgrimage to Mecca because I’ve never been there I offer you my hand buy you books and multicolor pulseras part the curtains in your room air out the dirge your fear of darkness, plant malachite hummingbirds in your hair this time reverence comes easy my kindness revitalizes I can recall music never heard before now sounding familiar across those ancient deserts our people used to share because I’ve never been there I absorb distant voices your memories offer songs slipping through me like water cleansing my path to selflessness, forging your path to freedom, yes I can feel your struggle every time you breathe because I’ve never been there because I’ve never been there I pay no attention to these rumors of holy war further restrictions of the mind insults mistrust steel garments to obstruct the light... because I’ve never been there I wish to build a structure, pastel visions open to the air, and because you’ve been there that heroic garden might beckon to you again, to a place where rebirth begins to a place we may have shared though neither of us can remember 6/92 Tucson © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 Green Louisa ripe ritual vernacular wetlands explode four directions no irrigation necessary Spanish moss hangs off our arms bouquet dresses on St. Valentine’s Day let’s park for a while make certain this fuse stays burning subterranean Louisiana gas stacks let’s try on some satisfaction get lucky on pay day remind each other to collect our wages green gets pretty heavy here how can green get heavy? drip and solidify cowgirl mixture eternal on top layers eternal exactitude yes green Louisa, let’s be humid together let’s convince ourselves anyone’s welcome to ride with us, long after this ultimate journey begins or ends 1990 New Orleans © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 Visions and we drove all night moving together down Sonoran highways sitars and tablas AfroBrazilian congas Milton Nascimento’s holy voice and I danced with you without asking permission you were just there hands felt so light collapsing inside your long brown fi ngers framing your moist dark eyes and we drove all night dancing for the first time, the moon the wind a sleepy desert the lone witnesses, me following you leading moving together down Sonoran highways both of us illuminated by this night Tucson, 1992 © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 After Losing Time Back … (a story not very well tied out could be the least i could do for my selfless desire to pass-slide these moments of starting and stopping this ride called life) (once the gulf between bumpy rock skies passes, there can be no further exposure to the Bright Wind of Song… everylastthing will gradually pass us by, clearly, in a whisper) oblong eternities will hop aboard calmly sit through the expanding stillness these growers of knowledge visiting the fruits, wisdom branches of some glory tree… so it is with this perfect Cloud Ocean of anywhere– no illusion, situated outside all visions, prediction unique and changing called by any name other than what it really is… natural progression, candles melting the darkness away where once there were Plutonic shadows...soon there will be another circus viewed from empty decisions reasoned around the corner– slowed by holding still the excitement of landing plainly, yet appearing there living, genuine, the same many-sided displays attracting lookers such as we and the inventors, unconscious dreamers, will decide we’ve had enough of practical puzzles, pack it up one day after toasting the oncoming vastness of new possibilities... for this is the only humble decision remaining before we all swap skins, change positions, without more straight ties to signify up or down 6/16/73 St. Louis © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013 Born in Paterson, N.J., Robert was inspired by members of Paterson’s literary tradition, notably Louis and Allen Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams. In St. Louis, he organized poetry readings, produced and hosted a community issues news hour and a biweekly bebop jazz radio program. His interest and admiration for the Beat Generation flourished. He helped found the Bisbee Poets Collective and played a leading role in the success of the Bisbee Poetry Festival. In 1980, he collaborated with Lawrence Ferlinghetti on his Bisbee publication, “Mule Mountain Dreams.” During the ’80s and ’90s, he participated in dozens of poetry readings around the country. He continues to write, paint, and play tabla, and works with high school students as faculty advisor of the Park Vista Writers Workshop. The body of Robert’s writing and painting can be accessed at albionmoonlight.net; he can be reached at rffeldman@gmail. © 2013 Unstrung • Summer 2013
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 15:45:54 +0000
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