POETRY by Donald Illich

Photo by Dawn Allynn via stock.xchng

The Turtle

At dinner we make our guests pray to the turtle,
our household’s sacred spirit and valued pet.
Holding nerveless hands, we focus our eyes
on the shell holding up our children’s globe,
which spins each continent around, stopping
on North America, our one and only love.
Sometimes visitors object, saying their god
can outrun our tortoise any day of the week.
Immediately we set up a race between the two,
and when his or her deity refuses to show up,
we don’t bother waiting another three hours
for our lord’s scaly head to break the ribbon.
Instead, we eat, and the planet’s held in balance,
our master asleep inside its mottled home,
tired from racing, not feeling like upsetting
invitees searching their Bibles for answers
to their savior’s disappearance from the world.
Our mashed potatoes may drop on the table,
gravy may spill on angry fiancées or friends,
but oceans remain painted blue, yellow earth
stays bumpy with scattered mountain ranges,
and the unknowing being below everything
remains quiet. We don’t know if it hears us.
It never faces us, it gives no explanations.


Invisible Things

You couldn’t have chosen a worse career:
juggling germs in your bony fingers,
giving audience members microscopes
so they can see what you’re doing &
make donations at the end of the performance.
The organisms are used to mucus and hands,
joyfully contaminating whatever they touch,
but you can’t leave well enough alone.
They have to be part of your one-man show
for amputees whose stumps won’t heal,
people recovering at home from pink slips,
singles who’ve lost partners to whirlpools
in falls and rivers on their honeymoons.
No one ever asked you to entertain others,
that’s what TV and the movies are for,
preventing each one of us from thinking,
which has never made anyone happy
in the entire history of recorded time.
There you are, flipping twirling bacteria
in the air toward your other arm,
throwing a cold virus over your shoulders
past a flu bug traveling in vectors toward
the spinning illnesses on the opposite side.
None of the terminally ill patients smile.
Whether its brain tumors or just life
that’ll destroy them in the end, all of them
are pushing want ads in your face,
circling the antibody secretarial work
that might free you from making us sick
with the invisible things we’re forced
to live with, what we can’t be freed from.

from stock.xchng

Dungeon

The puppets knew I could never leave the room.
TV’s spies watched me from inside the screen.

They had Hula-Hoop eyes that wiggled over
my body, spinning like electric snakes.

Outside the window the tree’s black branches
sang death jingles I stored inside my dreams.

Below me the carpet’s patterns answered
my fears with dizzy fabric, whip-lashed floor.

They said there was one door out of this place.
I looked in the sofa but all I found was change,

rusted coins that melted in my shaking hands.
Then the coffee table, but its magazines

fanned out from my touch, their pages flew away.
The fingers removed themselves from plush dolls,

walked on dropped toys to my detaching head.
They opened up the gate inside me. My mouth

spoke all the words everyone had wanted me
to say that my tongue couldn’t form on its own.

I talked about the sales at the mall today,
decorations for the torture room, chains

for the office, clothes to hang myself in,
a captive dressed sharp for the dungeon.


The Sports Page

Underneath the box scores I hide my face.
My children know me only as Red Sox 7,
Yankees 2, and my wife called me the Packer
when I scored a touchdown with her last night.
The Sports Page understands who I am:
a headline trumpeting the last business deal
I won in negotiation playoffs; cheating
in stocks the league will fine me for; an affair
with an office cheerleader booting me
to free agency, signing bonus melting
like my marriage. One day the Hall of Fame
will hang my jersey behind glass, my life’s
statistics included in record books
obsessive family members will diagram,
wondering if they can better my salary,
add wealth to the team. Right now, though, my son
wants to play catch, but he’s not professional,
his resume is sorely lacking. My daughter
uses non-performance drugs, picks up
minor leaguers I’d never let play for me.
When I slide into bed my beloved lay
in base, waiting to tag me out for lying.
I’m unable to run home to the truth,
even when the coach waves me on, “you’re safe.”


Torpedoes

We stored the torpedoes in the basement,
between the recumbent exercise bike
and the column of crappy board games,
leaning over like a Monopoly-version
of the Tower of Pisa. We needed to build
a submarine, but only had a Big Wheel
and rotting boards, no fissionable material
to throw in the reactor, no pipes or glass
for the periscope. Watching TV only helped
so much. The heroes quickly assembled
their machines in a montage right before
the commercials. They always won, but what
about us? Our list of targets grew each
school day: Mr. Fatrack the geometry teacher
who surprise quizzed us like it was his
birthday and swam like a walrus in our
neighborhood pool; Mrs. Nannigurl the
Home-Ec instructor who caught us baking
unknown substances in the oatmeal cookies,
Jeff the sleazebag who pelted us with condoms
and promised us we’d never get laid –
each person had his or her face etched on
the side of a bomb, a red X bleeding through
their eyes, ruining school picture smiles.
We glared through a window at our neighbor,
walking his dog, waving a fin in the watery air
at us, a clown fish greeting the sharks.
The day before we’d sent for a kit advertised
in a comic book. In six simple steps we’d
sink the hopes of thousands. Mom would ask
what we were doing downstairs, banging
and sawing, sizzling with our blow torches.
Nothing, we’d say. Can you make some
sandwiches and your world famous lemonade?


Donald Illich has published poems in The Iowa Review, Fourteen Hills, and New Zoo Poetry Review. He has poems forthcoming in several journals, including Passages North, Nimrod, LIT, The Sulphur River Literary Review, Plainsongs, CrossConnectMagazine, Xavier Review, and Cold Mountain Review. He lives in Rockville, Maryland.

AURAL FIXATION: Gary Stewart's Not-So-Easy People

"Stewart may portray a 'flat, natural born good timin’ man,' but he also remembers 'Rachel,' whose body and spirit are starving for someone to love her, not use her."

By Kenneth Pobo

Gary Stewart, perhaps the best honky tonker in country-music history, died in 2003. He didn’t always get the big chart records. Only three reached the country Top 10, including his chart topper with the immortal title, “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles).”

Chart positions don’t tell the real story. Stewart was an original. Few singers in any genre could sound as desperate as he could, his voice slipping from quaver to growl in a few notes. He has a macho-outlaw stride in songs like “Little Junior,” but it fades away in the heartache of songs like “Quits” and “A Cactus and a Rose.”

It is aggravating that so few country albums have come out on CD. Even the most popular pre-Garth singers are often poorly represented on disc. I wonder if the corporations that have the rights to this music even know what they own. Fortunately, much of Gary Stewart’s work is available on CD, though not all of it—for instance his brief stint on Red Ash Records when he put out two cookin’ singles in 1984. Try trolling eBay or GEMM, or find a local record convention and keep your eyes open.

Not much of a honky tonker, I prefer a chilled martini to beer and would rather be in the garden than in a juke joint. Yet as a gay man, I'm delighted by Stewart’s portraits of rednecks, roadhouses, and roily romances. He often evokes compassion for those who feel their only outlet is getting smashed and hearing loud music. He may portray a “flat, natural born good timin’ man,” but he also remembers “Rachel” (on his fantastic 1977 Your Place or Mine album) whose body and spirit are starving for someone to love her, not use her.

Drinking is the one thread that holds his music together. It’s easy to get tipsy just listening to Stewart’s many songs pouring booze into the listener’s glass. Honky tonk has taken some heat for its often alcohol-drenched lyrics, the rap being that the songs glamorize drinking. In Stewart’s case, though, boozing doesn’t seem at all glamorous. It is more the last option when one feels utterly trapped, when solutions don’t exist.

Tang Dynasty poet Li Po often portrays a happy sot, the alcohol freeing him from what is bitter and unsettling in daily life. He would never have written a poem like Stewart’s “She’s Got A Drinking Problem,” in which the woman’s problem is himself. His alcoholism traps his woman as it traps him. In “I Get Drunk,” Stewart pokes fun at his fallin’-down-drunk males. The alcohol makes them feel empowered when they’re not. The song’s protagonist thinks he can sing, but he can’t.

One of Stewart’s best songs, “Single Again,” tells the story of a man whose marriage has gone kaput. He’s got divorce lawyers on his back and has returned to the bars which “ain’t changed much/just a new face or two/when you’re out of touch.” He goes from bar to bar. Married life may have been a trial but single life offers nothing more—or, as Stewart sings in another song, life becomes “An Empty Glass.”

He had a long marriage which evidently was happy, yet he highlights the pain of divorce and separation in many songs—most notably in “Ten Years Of This,” where the married couple have been together a decade but it adds up to “a million nights alone.” The man wonders if his wife’s discontent stems from getting married too young, resenting him for the opportunities she lost by marrying him when she did. He asks, “Whose mistake is it? What do we blame it on?”

In “Quits,” written by Danny “Good Time Charley’s Got The Blues” O'Keefe, the man claims that “It isn’t marriage anymore,” and it doesn’t matter if one calls it “divorce,” “independence,” or “separation,” the relationship is cooked. The joy-of-the-juke-joint persona sounds broken, as if he could call it quits not just to the marriage but to life itself.

In Stewart’s songs, lovers are often poison for each other, defeated not just by drinking and carousing, but by an inability to get outside of themselves enough to be vulnerable to another person. He sings of a “stone wall around your heart,” and that he “dared not drink backslider’s wine” but will most likely backslide again and again. Jealousy, too, only strengthens the poison as in “Williamson County,” where the man and woman are having a charming picnic by the river, but then she speaks another man’s name and “now the same hands that catered to her/are clutching at her throat.” He puts her under the river, but, in a scene reminiscent of Poe, the dead woman vows to haunt him. Love becomes death in a few seconds.

In “I Got A Bad Attitude,” Stewart growls, “Honey, I am a dangerous man.” That persona carries a razor in his pocket and has steel-toed shoes. He doesn’t “love nobody,” and, naturally, he’s been “drinkin’ all night.” “Attitude” never appeared on an album, only on a 45. Flip it over and Stewart is in a much mellower mood, claiming that “Life’s a Game” and if you lose, try again. It’s hard to want to try again if you know your opponent has a razor in his pocket.

Legend suggests that Li Po, drunk on a boat, died trying to catch the moon’s reflection on the water. Stewart ended his own life by suicide three weeks after his wife died of pneumonia. Hearing Stewart’s version of “You’re The Reason I’m Living” is poignant in the light of his horrible grief over Mary Lou’s death. His son, Gary Junior, had committed suicide in the 1980s.

One of his most cheerful songs, “Easy People,” celebrates redneck life, downin’ some brews, enjoying the hot women. The easy people seem to have it made. But don’t go to the river on a picnic with them. Easy becomes desperate pretty quick.


Kenneth Pobo teaches creative writing and English at Widener University in Pennsylvania. He is also a poet and, starting next month, will be host of the “Obscure Oldies” radio program at WDNR.com each Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. EDT.

TUNE HEAD: Short Takes

Patricia Barber
Mythologies
Blue Note

What jazz album this year could be more innovative, daring, and gripping than singer-pianist-composer Barber’s exploration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses? This thrilling ninth album from a spectacularly ambitious artist features 11 stylistically varied mind melds with Ovid’s characters—the result of Barber’s three years’ work supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship. Mythologies appeals in equal measure to mind, heart, and ear. Barber pulls American songbook, hip-hop, gospel, and various other popular idioms together with classically inspired song-cycle approaches, dives into her deep poetic imagination, and surfaces with a beautiful but also intellectually powerful work, here advanced superbly by Barber, guitarist Neal Alger, bassist Michael Arnopol, and drummer Eric Montzka, joined by some fabulous vocalists. There’s not a weak track on the album, but “Narcissus,” a crafty, sparkling love song, will quickly pull you into its sensuous still and deep waters, and “Phaethon” miraculously melds its insouciant syncopations with choir calls and youth-rapped shout-outs to endangered species. Say what? Yeah, take a listen. Mythologies is novel enough that the only way to start to fathom it is to start to fathom it. A dozen listens later, it will only grow more impressive.

Ann Hampton Callaway
Blues in the Night
Telarc

A feisty album of standards and originals, with the power-packed backing of Sherrie Maricle and the Diva Jazz Orchestra. Broadway veteran Callaway has a wonderfully hearty voice, tapered by intelligence and a deep musicality, and these thick, soaring arrangements serve her delightfully. You’ll get a chuckle out of her own “The I’m-Too-White-to-Sing-the-Blues Blues,” but she gets down to sentimental business on tunes like “Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most” and the artfully arranged Porter standard “It’s All Right With Me.” Her duet with her talented sister Liz Callaway on the combined “Stormy Weather/When the Sun Comes Out” is also a treat.

Doc Powell
Doc Powell
Heads Up

Guitarist Powell is in a mellow mood, like straight-to-smooth-jazz-radio-don’t-operate-heavy-machinery-while-listening-to-this mellow. He takes some acoustic departures on tracks like the finale reprise of Carole King’s “It’s Too Late,” and those, particularly, let him display his artfully polished phrasing and sweet ringing tone. But these Muzak-worthy arrangements relegate this, at best, to chain-restaurant background music. He deserves better but, as his own arranger, has no one to blame but himself.



Eliane Elias
Around the City
RCA Victor

This smashing Brazilian singer, pianist, and composer blends eclectic covers with cowritten originals in this revitalizing blend of Latin, jazz, rock, and varied world beats. Her Sade-smooth take on Santana’s “Oye Como Va,” the dance-club jam on Bob Marley’s “Jammin,’” and slow-dance sway on Beck’s “Tropicalia” are enjoyable. But she really hits her stride in the urban-bustling opener, “Running,” the strutting slice-of-life title track, “Around the City,” and her ballad “Segredos (Secrets).” I also loved the wishful “We’re So Good,” the flamenco-spiced “Slide Show,” and the longing “Another Day,” with its refreshing combination of pathos, a vital undercurrent of percussion, and impressionistically chorded keyboard.

Sound in Action
Gate
Atavistic

This free-spirited and talented trio—Sun Ra veteran Robert Barry and Tim Daisy on drums, and Ken Vandermark on reeds—pay homage to Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Herbie Nichols, but also include five original tunes. They wail and thrash with gusto through numbers like Vandermark’s “Horizontal Fall” and “Red Cross.” Their ensemble nuance emanates best, though, in the quieter pieces, like Dolphy’s “The Prophet” and Vandermark’s “Medium Cool.” Their bop chops are in full display in Coltrane’s “One Down, One Up,” and Vandermark’s shares his lean, swinging, sing-songy clarinet in Nichols’s “House Party Starting.”

Stanton Moore
III
Telarc

Jazz-funk drummer Moore, with Robert Walter on Hammond organ, Will Bernard on guitar, and a couple guest artists serve up a spicy buffet of varied hot licks and cool grooves. The good news is that the trio play like one fine-tuned New Orleans organism, especially on shifty up-tempo numbers like “Big ’Uns Get the Ball Rolling.” The bad news is the sound gets a little monotonous after a while. My favorite track is the soulful “Water From an Ancient Well,” which provides some memorable counterpoint between Bernard’s guitar, and the duo of Skerik on sax and Mark Mullins on trombone, followed by sweeping amen solos by all three.

Charlie Hunter Trio
Copperopolis
Ropeadope

Similarly, some fine Orleans funky bobbin’ and weavin’ here, but with a more electric, psychedelic edge, especially in the title track. My favorites are the knowing electric piano-padded “Frontman,” the skulking cat-in-the-alley “Blue Sock,” and the trio’s syncopatico (if you will) version of Monk’s “Think of One.”

Jeff Lang
Prepare Me Well
Telarc

This Australian guitarist-singer-songwriter blends blues, root music, folk, and rock in this, his first American release, which includes re-releases of some of his Australian titles. His literally plucky virtuosity is evident starting on the second cut, the frantic “The Road Is Not Your Only Friend,” and his twangy Ry Cooder personality kicks in on the third, “London.” “Too Easy to Kill” goes into an amplified acoustic rock slide on a hard-hitting contemplation of violence. “Mr. God” is a trippy take on the creator as iffy job applicant. And another standout is the bitter love-gone-bad “Prepare Me Well.”

Mike Stern
Who Let the Cats Out?
Heads Up

The versatile guitarist is joined by a great, large, rotating crew for this spirited ride through Stern’s heartfelt, sometimes impish compositions. The sound is effervescent, punctuated by some inspired bubbly vocalizations by Cameroonian bassist and singer Richard Bona, as on “Language.” The prayerful, quiet nylon-string “We’re With You” pays tribute to one seriously ill colleague and to another mourning his wife. The overall vibe remains quite Metheny-like, but in my book that’s high praise. These are deliciously concocted West Coast jazz delicacies, served with passion.

Jamie Saft Trio
Trouble
Tzadik

After the Kabbalah-like parsing of Bob Dylan’s lyrics over the years, it’s high time that someone pay tribute to the beauty of his music alone. Pianist/organist Jamie Saft, bassist Greg Cohen, and drummer Ben Perowsky take that tack in this latest addition to the Radical Jewish Culture series. But oy vey! Though most of the group’s arrangements are unobjectionable enough, there is—as the corporate types say—no value added. You suspect that they’re rockin’ in their heads as they play along with the Dylan tracks deeply ingrained there, but the pleasure’s all theirs. And guest vocals by Mike Patton on “Ballad of a Thin Man” are downright cringe inducing in their stylistic self-indulgence. That is to say it ain’t only Mr. Jones who doesn’t have a clue. Antony, singing a too-precious soft-shoe-style “Living the Blues,” doesn’t fare much better. Trouble’s the word all right.

Maria Muldaur
Heart of Mine: Maria Muldaur Sings Love Songs of Bob Dylan
Telarc

Uh oh, again, you might think. But backed by excellent instrumentalists in sensibly humble arrangements, Muldaur takes what could have become a tacky vanity project and fashions a tribute in the best sense of the word. The originals lurk in mind, but her versions are thoughtful and deeply felt mental overlays. Her “Heart of Mine” is especially moving, bringing out its seductive vulnerability, seasoned with a slightly husky world-weariness and Cranston Clements’s elegant Spanish-inflected guitar solo. “Make You Feel My Love” also brings out the sheer, sweet ardor of Dylan’s tune. “I’d go hungry, I’d go blind for you, I’d go crawling down the avenue…. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to make you feel my love…go to the ends of the earth for you, to make you feel my love.” If you sometimes forget that beneath his many masks, some of them so sagely bitter, there’s also just a wonderfully tender balladeer in Dylan, this album will gently remind you.

Liquid Soul
One Two Punch
Telarc

The eight-piece collective piloted by saxophonist/composer Mars Williams packs a punch, indeed, in this latest acid-jazz burn, with tight horns topping grooves that segue from soul to funk to hip-hop, synth and studio doodads sometimes dressing up the package in a light otherworldly electronica. Dig, particularly, the wah-wahed, batty-based, percussive hyperfunk in “Sex God” and “Stop.” Great party tracks. Or well suited for iPod therapy as you gear up for work, unleashing your inner cyborg groove thang on the subway. Just try not to knock anyone down if you’re still shakin’ it in the elevator.

-A.C.K.

CONSUMING PASSIONS: The Top 5 Red and Top 5 White Wines for Fall Dinner Parties

Photo by Michal Szydlowski via Stock.xchng

Hey, if fashion designers can roll out not just their fall but their upcoming spring collections in summer, then Rokovoko isn't too compulsive considering wine purchases for those dinner parties that are already inking up our fall calendars, right? We sought help from an expert at one of D.C.'s biggest and best-known retailers of fine wine and spirits.

By Phillip Bernstein
Wine Consultant for Calvert Woodley

Top 5 dinner-party whites:

1. 2004 Longuicher Maximiner Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett Schmitt-Wagner (Germany, Mosel). $17.99. German Riesling is by far the best-kept secret in wine. If you think they are all sweet, flabby wines, think again. Top-flight German Riesling such as this is racy, just sweet enough to be interesting, and a killer companion to Asian foods as well as anything spicy. It has the added benefit of low alcohol content, making your guests feel that much better.

2. 2004 Venica Sauvignon Blanc (Italy, Collio). $19.99. While people look to France's Loire valley and New Zealand for dry, crisp Sauvignon blancs, they often overlook Northeast Italy. If a wine of this quality came from a place like, say, Sancerre it would cost twice as much. Perfect with light seafood preparations and vegetarian cuisine.

3. 2004 Jean-Baptiste Adam Pinot Gris (France, Alsace). $15.99. Alsace Pinot Gris is the wine for salmon. Varieties range from dry to sweet, and to find out where on the spectrum a particular one is, you've just got to drink it. This one is toward the drier side, and has a lush, mouth-coating texture that complements salmon and other full-flavored dishes.

Photo via stock.xchng

4. 2004 Stadt Krems Riesling "Gillenparz" (Austria, Kremstal). $28.99. Another Riesling! OK, OK, trust me. This really is perhaps the world's greatest grape. Austrian examples tend to be drier then their German counterparts and this one is probably my favorite wine (red or white) under $30 right now. A rather full-bodied white, it would be great with crab cakes or any other seafood preparation. It would also go well with turkey.

5. 2004 Louis Latour Puligny-Montrachet Sous la Puits (France, Burgundy). $44.99. White Burgundy is the king of white wines. One-hundred percent chardonnay, this is an expensive wine that pairs well with expensive foods. Think lobster, cream sauces, and anything else you don't normally eat for dinner. If you've never drunk white burgundy with lobster, you haven't experienced one of life's great pleasures!

***

Photo by Robson Oliveira via stock.xchng

Reds:

1. 2005 Fondreche O'sud (France, Cotes de Ventoux). $11.99. This wine comes from the Southern Rhone valley of France. Similar to a Cotes du Rhone, it is a blend of Grenache and Syrah and an absolute steal for the price. Fresh and unoaked, it would be a perfect cookout wine.

2. 2005 Sherwood Pinot Noir (New Zealand, Marlbourgh). $15.99. Decent Pinot Noir under $25 is becoming very difficult to find. This one from New Zealand is a rare exception. Serve with almost anything, especially poultry or pork.

Photo from Sherwood Estates

3. 2004 Paitin Dolcetto D'Alba (Italy, Piedmont). $18.99. Dolcetto comes from Italy's Piedmont region, home to the more famous Barolo and Barbaresco. It's another underrated wine that people don't pay enough attention to, the kind of wine you can sit back and enjoy while your friends chase over-oaked, over-priced California Cabernets that don't go with any foods at all. Best with pasta or anything else Italian.

4. 2004/5 Torbreck "Woodcutters" Shiraz (South Australia). $21.99. While I obviously prefer "old world" wines for their food friendliness and better price-to-quality ratio, I am a sucker for a good Aussie shiraz. Torbreck makes awesome wines, and this is their introductory cuvee. Always an amazing value, it is bold yet still nicely balanced. Best with ribs, burgers and steak.

5. 2003 Chateau Pontet-Canet (France, Bordeaux). $79.99. It would be impossible to leave the noble Bordeaux off this list. This wine is way too young, but 2003 was a hot vintage and it is showing pretty well in its youth. Pontet-Canet has gotten rather expensive, but makes wines on the level of many of its much more expensive neighbors. Use of a decanter a few hours ahead of time will help to soften out this big cabernet-based wine. Bordeaux is the wine for lamb and roast meats.

WEAR WOLF: Click on Couture

Live in Cleveland Park and need to make a quick dash over to Rodeo Drive? Not a problem, thanks to Rodeo Drive Resale, a Sherman Oaks, California, couture consignment shop with a snazzy and user-friendly Web site. RDR gets shipments of new and pre-owned high-end designer items several times daily from film studios, celebrities, and others. You'll be dazzled by the styles (and often the prices) of the dresses, like this new Sue Wong green sequin design ($283.50, $94.50 off the original price).

But there are also tops, coats, skirts, jeans, sets, and suits, like this Yves Saint Lauren in gray ($269).

And don't forget RDR's accessories, cosmetics, shoes, watches, and jewelry. This new, multi-strand custom necklace of brown stones and Austrian crystal, for instance, sells for $69.99.

__________________________________________

If you're stuck for a gift idea for your wife or girlfriend, another California boutique online, Think Her!, might have some ideas for you. Clothing includes intimates; tanks and tees; and robes, slippers, and pajamas, like this fun P.J. Salvage animal-print set ($57).

In addition to a wide array of accessories, Think Her! has great gift packages, and a "Choose Her Style" page to help you narrow down your selections. The Kitchen Lover ($74), for example, includes ginger and Sicilian lemon chef soap, kitchen spray, and candle; stainless steel basket; hand repairing cream in a terra cotta container; and purifying liquid hand soap in a glass bottle.

You can shop by price or designer, and know that $1 of each gift package or 10 percent of signature merchandise will go to breast-cancer research.

-Sasha Triella

WEAR WOLF: Classic Fall Looks for Men

Dries Van Noten offers elegant, broad-shouldered, boxy suits and coats.

________

Kenneth Cole emphasizes classic wearability--browns and grays for indoor, outdoor, every day.

________

Valentino, of course, always leaves a little room for swagger. His runway show's luxury airport lounge motif is definitely more British Air first class than Priceline flexible booking.

-Sasha Triella

Photos from the designers

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ESSAY: A Mental Marathon

Photo by Mike Rosowski

By Dena Evans

I’d had some serious exposure to running in my life. In an alternative middle-school PE program, I walked 55 miles in 22 hours, and ran 29 miles in short stretches over the course of one day. I was no stranger to the endurance athlete’s crippling quad flames. In the high school and college years that followed, those formative experiences dissolved into a comfort zone of middle distance running, bracketed by revolving seasons of soccer and basketball, and finally into the coaching profession, where I spent my days telling other people how far and how fast they should go. Running a marathon was the last thing I felt like doing. One day, however, the marathon finally found itself shuffled to the top of the deck. I decided it was time to saddle up and find out what all the fuss was about.

My decision came about as much out of curiosity as out of the need for a goal and diversion when I quit my job as women’s cross-country coach at Stanford. My coaching experience also suggested that preparing for anything too fast and short would require me to make a commitment to training I was not logistically or mentally prepared to make.

It was that coaching side of my brain that led me to the second annual Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco. It was close, which was key, and it was relatively flat, also key as I knew the distance itself would be challenge enough. It was far enough ahead when I signed up in July that I could plan a sufficient number of weekly long runs. I asked my husband if he could commit to taking over parenting duties while I did those long runs, and, with his OK, I found myself doing the first that very Saturday. That 70 minutes at sunrise in Las Vegas, while there with him for a business event, was my longest run in a year and a half, since becoming pregnant with my second daughter.

The only part of training I hadn’t figured out yet was, um, why on earth I was doing it. I’m a fairly athletic person who likes running, but I do it mostly out of habit because it was the last organized sport I participated in at school and in my coaching work. I tend to get in ruts where I eat the same thing over and over, wear my hair the same way for years and years, and buy the same type of shoe over and over. Was running a rut?

I wondered if athletes who like running are drawn to marathons, or whether, in training for and running a marathon, marathoners become de facto runners along the way. As a person who ran, and who spent several years of my life with not just runners, but good ones, did I just get sucked into the notion that if you ran long enough a marathon was your eventual destiny? Where was the line between participation and competition? And could I ever be happy with a decision to simply participate when my life so far had been about how to muster good competitive results regardless of whether or not I felt like it? After spending years giving advice on how to run, could I take some myself, even from those whom I’d coached? If I really tried and failed, would I lose their respect?

Weeks turned into months, one identical pair of trainers into another, 70 minutes into 2 hours 25 minutes, and I readied for race day. A desire to canvass and explore more trails for a group of professional runners planning to winter in the area took me on some new runs west of Highway 280. To kill a couple hours in New York City on the day of a friend’s wedding, I ran 1 hour 52 minutes in Central Park, buying Gatorade from the vendor with sweaty dollars tucked in my shorts and practicing fluid intake in the 80-degree heat. Stroller runs with one or both daughters allowed me precious time for decompression. And I satisfied my weird goal of running to my house from the San Francisco Airport out of curiosity about the distance (along the San Francisco Bay Trail, 18.4 miles, according to my handy Garmin GPS device).

As the race approached, I flip-flopped between thinking competitively and telling people I just wanted to finish. I processed advice from athlete friends and even from Runner’s World, my reading of which was completely emblematic of my uncertain status—finisher or competitor? I took a free subscription from a few accrued airline miles. Universally scorned by the hardcore competitive crowd as a watered down rag for the masses, it encourages blasphemy such as walking during a race or running a marathon on a 3-day-a-week training plan, and each month it offers a new list of 10 ways to lose weight. The horror! It is, however, fun to read if you know the people featured or want to catch up on what John Q. Runner is up to these days.

The October issue featured a big article on Deena Kastor, once a summer camp roommate and now the American record holder in the event I was about to do for the first time. The November issue had Olympian Jen Rhines on the cover. I’d raced against her at the Penn Relays, and now she was a two-time Olympian! I tried not to focus on such disparities. You cross paths with someone in the days of untapped potential; then you think back and realize either how mediocre you were, or how poorly you have stewarded your opportunities. Passing thoughts, yes, but definitely obstacles to finding one’s focus. The coach of both of these athletes, Terrence Mahon, was the person for whom I was scouting running routes as he had recently taken the reigns of an elite team that trained in Mammoth Lakes.

“Hey Terrence, I saw the spread on Deena. Are you ready to become savior or anti-Christ?” I was ribbing him over the nonsensical bashing or glory he’d receive in the running community depending how Deena did in her upcoming race.

“Did you see the picture of her doing the speed ladder?” he said. “That’s what I was talking about in the stuff I sent the other day.”

He had e-mailed me the plyometrics and strength work he planned for the young team members.

And later…

“Hey guess what finally came in the mailbox today? Your wife on the cover of Runner’s World. Where did they find that corn field?”

“It was actually New Jersey.”

“Hey, tell Jen that as a first-time marathoner, I am following all of her advice, so I hope she was serious.”

She had given a few bullet points to help us newbies.

So, which was it? Was I part of the “cool crowd,” too much in the know to actually read Runner’s World, having discussions with coaches of top athletes about training, helping our nation’s best runners ascend to glory? Or was I just another goofball on the side of the road, huffing and puffing my way to the finish line?

I decided that I was going to have to make a goal time and stick to it. I did take Jen’s magazine advice and studied the elevation changes so that I would know which part of the race promised to be faster-paced. I packed bars into my waistband, and carbo-loaded conscientiously during the two days before race day. I navigated the occupational hazard of motherhood, fighting back a cold four or five days out, and after we put the girls to bed, I drove to San Francisco to bunk with my sister-in-law for the early start the next morning.

After little sleep and an unwelcome case of G-I distress, I found myself at once out of practice with the byproducts of nervous energy and coldly intellectual about how it was not to affect my outcome. Coach and athlete in one brain. Too crowded.

"Along the way, signs assured us that we were 'one step closer' to this or that, whether it be 'moving out from the shadows' or a foot massage. This was not your father’s marathon."

After an emergency stop at a coffee-shop bathroom on the way to the start, I leapt from the car in running attire and found my way to the start, consciously taking no warm-up. I had grabbed the 6:30-9 minute pace bracelet at the expo two days prior, and got a spot just a few rows behind the empty box where the elite start had occurred. Some 15,000 women (and a handful of men, described somewhat clumsily as the “men who support them”) we listened to Carol Lewis, erstwhile long jumper and longtime TV track analyst, handle emcee duties. It was odd to be listening to her here in the middle of San Francisco’s Union Square in the dark. Next came the inspirational comments of the biggest individual fund raiser for the race’s designated charity, leukemia and lymphoma research, and a cameo from Joan Benoit Samuelson, who seems to appear at a big race each week. (That day, she would run 1:29 for the half—her idea of an easy run, I assume).

The countdown. Voices increase. Seconds decrease. Then I start my watch as I cross the mat at the banner.


II.

Everything about the Nike Women’s Marathon—the title, the designs of the marathon-sponsored clothing, the website—was aimed at attracting more women to the brand while convincing them that they were improving themselves along the way. Along the course, one could take advantage of a jacket check at 2.5 miles for those who wanted to stay cozy at the starting line, an oxygen bar with several different flavors at about 10k, two Ghiradelli chocolate stations (OK, at mile 23.5, the last thing I am doing is wrestling with a fully wrapped, neat square of chocolate, no matter how good it is, and believe me I am a chocolate person). We were offered Luna Bars, Clif bar Shots, and even a “pedi-care” at mile 14 if you just wanted to take a load off and get your barking dogs massaged (those poor masseuses!). Before the race, we’d received e-mails with the inspirational stories of other runners, and along the way, signs assured us that we were “one step closer” to this or that, whether it be “moving out from the shadows” or a foot massage. This was not your father’s marathon.

The participants were of many different stripes as well—the elite start featured a pretty modest roster of 3-to-3:30 types along with a slightly more competitive half-marathon field. On the other end of the spectrum, the Team in Training contingent began its quest for the most part at 5:30 a.m. I started conservatively, but I don’t think anyone who started with me passed me after the initial downhill rush of the first mile. As I made steady progress along the San Francisco waterfront and into the Presidio and hilliest portions of the course, I had the opportunity to pass both my fellow 7-a.m. starters, the Team in Training walkers, and, eventually, even some of the elite-start marathoners once we diverged from the half-marathon route.

Again, I found myself considering the question of my true running identity. Every few yards, one of the Team in Training folk would shout, "Go team!" and receive a chanted reply. The desire to just finish, no matter the time, the desire to honor a loved one with an effort commemorative of their fight against disease, to wear purple shirts festooned with puff paint and safety pinned with pictures, Gatorade bottles strapped to their waists—that, I realized was not my club. Team in Training is an unbelievable organization that has raised multiple millions. But it has also received grief from the non-Runner’s World world for taking up spots and supposedly diluting the quality of these big races. The organization’s fliers encourage runners to “make it more meaningful next time,” as if an athlete couldn’t do that without a fund-raising group.

I was primarily struck by the unwavering sincerity with which each purple shirt greeted the events of the day. One purple shirt actually high-fived me. Another thanked me as I ran by (and I assume thanked many others ahead of and behind me) for being a mentor to them! I realized, faced with this Oprah’s book club of the running world, that however much I admired their charitable work and spirit, I carried a reserve of runner’s snobbery from my semi-successful days in the this and other sports. I would never shed my competitive instincts.

Along about nine miles, I passed two former track teammates from Stanford cheering from the side, and was momentarily buoyed much in the way anyone is when they hear their name called out among the masses. A mile or so later, I realized they were supporting two other former teammates, both of which were far better distance runners than myself, and who greeted me cheerfully as I came up. I saw a former fellow Farm Teamer jogging on the side in her own neighborhood, and at least three women I had coached ran the half, including the winner. Like myself, each has had to find a way to negotiate the gradual descent into age-mandated competitive decline, but here they were doing it in style, with several flavors of Oxygen at their disposal.

I was encouraged to be passing my former teammates, and picked up some steam during the next few downhill stretches. Shortly thereafter, I came up behind a woman I had known for years as a soccer enthusiast (and good player in her own right), as well as in her current vocation as a personal trainer around Stanford. As I greeted her along the way, she asked me why I had not started with the elites. This, I think, kind of summed up my no-man’s land situation in the running pantheon. She just assumed, because I had been kind of fast in a track event of some kind, and since I had some sort of loose affiliation with others who really had run fairly fast, that I would be among the elite group here. “No,” I assured her, “I didn’t even know they had an elite start until a couple of days ago. It’s my first one anyway—I don’t even know if I can finish!” She knew I was joking and scoffed at the notion of dropping out. Still, only 40 percent of me wanted to compete. The other 60 was still in participation land. As such, my attitude mirrored that of the race itself.

For example, in one of those quirks of road racing, the half marathon route broke from the marathon route at about 12 miles, only to regroup with the marathon route when it looped around at about mile 15. Finally, both races finished under the same banner. My family was utterly confused as to when I would appear, as people were walking yet seemingly ahead of me. My husband (given approximate splits by his dutiful wife) was trying to look out for me, yet was standing there with my daughters wondering why mommy was running so slow, or did they miss my finish? When the routes converged at mile 15, supposedly one side of the street was for halfers and the other for marathoners, but nobody knew that. I found myself weaving through walking spectators and walking participants, then squeezing through a suddenly narrow passage near the mile marker, just barely avoiding collision.

Though there were only 13 marathon finishers ahead of me, weaving among halfers moving at a 3:15 half-marathon pace, I felt a little let down. What was a fairly exciting moment for me in the presence of several hundred spectators was somehow completed in absolute obscurity. The walking half-marathoners received far more applause for their effort for traveling half as far and half as fast. In retrospect, of course, that was completely in keeping with the spirit of the event.
Finally across the finishing mat, the girl power continued. Tuxedo-clad, attractive young men handed out finishers’ necklaces from Tiffany & Co., a huge booth beckoned us to come take a picture with our buds, music pulsated, someone handed out bananas and free Jamba Juice cards, and the ubiquitous metallic blankets crinkled by. Carol Lewis, in her ski hat and sunglasses on the still-overcast day by the beach in San Francisco, acknowledged the band, a group of men losing street cred by the minute, dressed in cute fleece hoodies and Nike Shox trainers, singing U2 covers to a crowd of women reclining in comfy beanbag chairs. Finishers’ shirts were DriFIT V-necks in bright blue with a picture of a ponytailed female bounding off on a run and a female symbol where the “o” should be in Marathoner on the back.

I’d set a goal of 3:30 and finished in 3:15. I ran the second half faster than the first, and was fairly consistent throughout in my level of output. Although my longest training run was 18.5 miles, my biggest casualty was a self-destructing right big toenail that I was worried about primarily as a source of compensation, potentially leading to a stress fracture in my left leg. Again, my brain was too small for both coach and athlete. I was encouraged by the outcome, albeit ravaged by the soreness in the days afterward. I thoroughly enjoyed myself out there and as the miles melted away, it felt unbelievable to be trying hard and getting something for it instead of guiding a toddler only to have her disobey again and again, or coach an athlete only to have no control over her ultimate execution of my instruction.

The only one of the inspirational signs that got me was one right around the chocolate station. It told me that I was “one step closer…to becoming a marathoner.” OK. That actually spurred me on. A marathoner. Something I had never been, and something I would always be, should I finish.

Over the last little hill and down the two miles into the finish, I think the scales changed in the ratio between competitor and participant. By the time I had navigated the half marathoners, clutched my finisher’s necklace, and greeted two current collegiate athletes who used to call me their coach but had spent this day encouraging me, I was barely able to lift my legs yet, unafraid of the elements, waved off the foil blanket.

They hugged me and told me, "Good job!" I said thanks for the cheers and that it was a lot of fun. Then, suddenly, before the thought had even fully formed in my mind, before I was completely conscious of what a marathoner does at that point and from that point on, before I realized I was acting on a thought that hadn’t occurred to me in the 30 years, 4 months, 23 days I had been alive, something happened. After the Carol Lewis yelling, Team in Training walking, high school cheerleader braying, chocolate bar waving, Tiffany’s necklace earning circus I had just experienced, I bent at the waist, resting my hands on my knees. And turning to one of them, I blurted, “Hey, do think I qualified for Boston?”


Dena Evans is the former women's cross-country coach at Stanford University, where, as an undergraduate, she was on the track and soccer teams.

ESSAY: Once Again, Is Wal-Mart Good for the Working Class?

An economist argues that the recent campaigns launched against the chain are not just exercises in soft-hearted conscience soothing, but have solid economic and political rationales.

By L. Josh Bivens

A recent edition of Slate magazine featured a debate on “Is Wal-Mart Good for the Working Class”? The affirmative position was argued by Jason Furman, a chief economic advisor to John Kerry's presidential campaign. Barbara Ehrenreich took the opposing view, shaped in part by her experiences working undercover at the company as part of her research on how Americans stuck in low-wage labor markets make ends meet; research that culminated in a best-selling book, Nickel and Dimed.

It was a little strange reading the Slate contest. I’m firmly on Ehrenreich’s side, but I’m a professional economist so have much sympathy for how Furman argues. The former acknowledges early in the debate that there’s a culture clash, noting that pitting an economist against a non-economist regarding the merits of Wal-Mart is unlikely to be satisfying. Slate may have feared the esoterica that would have resulted from pitting two economists against each other, or may have just thought that no economist could be found to argue the negative side. Furman implicitly supports this latter interpretation at one point, saying:

"I don't find my views on Wal-Mart quite as counterintuitive as you seem to. Most economists who call themselves liberal, progressive, or Democratic probably feel the same way I do."

Furman’s right. Most economists who call themselves liberal, progressive, or Democratic would be with him (as, of course, would all of those who call themselves conservative, libertarian, or Republican, but that's no puzzle). Lest that close people’s minds regarding the hard-headedness of the brief against Wal-Mart, I thought I’d offer a sketch of why the recent campaigns launched against it (both public pressure and state and local legislation that would mandate improved pay and benefits for its workers) are not just exercises in soft-hearted conscience soothing that will result in more harm than good.

Most of those economists who call themselves liberal, progressive, or Democratic generally argue that the market should be allowed to churn out what it will, even if the results are a highly inequitable distribution of rewards. After the fact, they then would have a decent, compassionate government lean against this inequality through progressive taxes and transfer payments. This is eminently defensible, and if I could design an economy from the ground up, I’d rely on this approach almost as much as they, as I share with them a deep respect for the efficiency-enhancing quality of (most) markets.

Given the above, this crowd adopts a stance toward the Wal-Mart debate consisting of, well, telling its critics to back off and to rely on expanded government largess to help its workers claw their way to a better living. The benefits of Wal-Mart’s expansion (lower prices leading to consumer savings) are too valuable to be jeopardized by soft-headed special interest pleading.

This just won’t do, for three reasons. First, as a card-carrying economist, I have a hard time recommending the abandonment of one of the tools used by those concerned trying to aid the lot of the low-wage work force. After all, one of the great insights of the discipline is about the benefits of diversification, and the need for multiple instruments seems especially obvious right now given that the present government seems determined to reverse all inequality-fighting aspects of economic policy. Last month saw an attempt to repeal the estate tax (that falls only on the richest 0.5 percent of inheritances) while also voting down an increase in the minimum wage (that now has been beaten down by inflation to its lowest purchasing power in 51 years). Asking workers to sit tight and wait for more enlightened national leadership is requiring far too much patience on their part.

Second, I think we all need to think more seriously about how exactly we’re supposed to force our representatives to enact equity-supporting policies. The primary, and most effective, constituency for these policies is, unsurprisingly, organized labor. It’s hardly a secret that much of the funding for the anti-Wal-Mart groups comes from unions. (Nor is it a secret, for those who care to visit the homepage of the organization where I work, that a good, if minority, chunk of our funding also comes from unions. While people often assume that we adopt pro-union positions because we receive funds from labor, I think it puzzling that the reverse causality is never assumed.)

Another non-secret is the rapid decline in union membership that has occurred over the past two decades (the share of workers represented by a union has fallen from 23 percent in 1979 to under 13 percent today). Behind this decline is the fact that sectors traditionally most amenable to unionization (for structural reasons, not beneficence on the part of corporations) are declining in importance (manufacturing) while new jobs are being created in those sectors (retail) with little to no union history. The union-funded campaign against Wal-Mart is driven by the recognition that broad new sectors of the U.S. economy have to be organized for the labor movement to remain effective in coming decades. This retail organizing just cannot be done without engaging Wal-Mart, the largest single private employer in the U.S. economy. As long as Wal-Mart is allowed to remain union free and a relatively cheap employer, this will hamper new organizing drives at other retailers, and will put pressure on already organized sectors as Wal-Mart expands (consider, for instance, the California grocers strike of 2004).

So, wishing for, and arguing for, a decent government that leans against inequality is one thing. And, arguing that reliance on this government intervention alone provides the most effective and efficient outcome is defensible. But undercutting the efforts of the largest and most effective voice for exactly this kind of government in labor's most important campaign to retain a firm toe hold in American politics is something else entirely. The government programs countering inequality that are valued by progressive economists didn't just happen. They were fought for by a coalition whose vanguard was organized labor. Even if forcing Wal-Mart into paying better was inefficient in an economic sense (I don't really think it is—see more below), the long-run political benefits of having a strong labor movement are large enough that I just can't see value in hamstringing labor's attempt to retain and newly organize the retail sector.

Lastly, and, here's the type of esoterica that Slate probably feared in finding an anti-Wal-Mart economist, I disagree with the premise that enforcing wage and benefit mandates on Wal-Mart will inexorably reduce market efficiencies. That premise is rooted in the belief that labor markets are like markets for groceries—lots of sellers, lots of buyers, and enough competition among both employers and workers that neither side has any market power over the other. In labor markets like this, a price floor (say, a binding minimum wage or mandated compensation offer like that contained in recent Wal-Mart-directed legislation) leads to unemployment, as employers desire fewer workers at the higher wages while workers want to offer more labor at the higher wage.

It's fair to say that this is the predominant view of labor markets in the profession. However, a sizable (and growing, I think) minority think that low-wage labor markets like those inhabited by Wal-Mart actually behave more like a monopsony than a competitive market. Monopsony labor markets, strictly speaking, are those with only a single employer (think Old West company towns). Such employers have substantial market power over potential workers and set wages far below what economists would deem efficient. Wal-Mart obviously isn't a strict monopsonist, but, a host of real-world frictions that keep low-wage labor markets from operating competitively (commuting costs, information problems, and differing preferences about non-pecuniary job characteristics) give employers like Wal-Mart a degree of market power over potential workers.

There's a quick and dirty test to see if this vision of labor markets seems more convincing than the competitive one: What do you think would happen if Wal-Mart cut their wages by one cent per hour? Competitive labor market theory predicts that the company would instantly lose every single employee. Remember, employers allegedly have no say in what the market wage is, and paying under the competitively determined wage will lead to wholesale quits of their workforce. Monopsony theory says that they'd lose some workers, but not all, or even close to all.

Defenders of Wal-Mart love to argue that the public's voting with its feet proves that the corporation offer good jobs, and they frequently offer up stories like, "When Wal-Mart opened in X, 500 applicants came forward for 50 jobs." How does this not argue for their ability to wield some degree of monopsony power?

I don't expect to change colleagues' minds in this debate—my view wasn't decided by reading an op-edish piece, but, by thinking long and hard about these issues; presumably theirs were as well. But, it is important to explain to a wider audience that the anti-Wal-Mart campaign is not soft-headed. Too many people defer to what they assume is the unanimous sense of economists in debates like this, and, people need to realize that there's dissent within the profession both about the technical economics and the political reasoning that lies behind which policy interventions can be reasonably supported. It's also time that lefties realized that the discipline of economics isn't inherently hostile to them. The profession may be, but, the subject itself provides sustenance for all manner of political beliefs.

L. Josh Bivens is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

PHOTOS of Vietnam and Thailand by Frances Borchardt

Vietnam

Thailand

Frances Borchardt lives in Churchton, Maryland. She can be contacted at francesborchardt@comcast.net.

POETRY by Christopher Mulrooney and D. Garcia Wahl

by Christopher Mulrooney

photo by Dawn Allynn

the practiced maquilleur


in all senses many of
Derrida’s tropes may seem to lack finality
but there is one
deconstruction itself
which proves the rule

however academic
there is the type of person who just will insist
on having his
constructions placed upon
the work in view

as when you attend one night
a downtown art walk in the ruined city streets
oblivious
reconstruction destroys
by inch and ell

the tepid works on white walls
are not in Tom Wolfe’s meaning quite literary
only they will
construct the world as a
magazine does

and so in midnite’s passing
a blond horse which is you with his mane in dreadlocks
enters your dream
deconstruction is when
this nightmare ends

leaving the Marxist critic
to make his inquiries into costs and causes
mythologic
construction will entail
upon the mob

this I could have writ as prose
but who can tell the difference nowadays at all
Ferlinghetti
unconstruction for larks
Marianne Moore

Auden repented a line
something about the new styles of architecture
look kindly on
construction for its sake
the poet said

as when politicians lie
and say a thing is when the world has seen it’s not
this they call spin
deconstruction’s useful
in such cases

Christopher Mulrooney has written poems and translations in The Hollins Critic, Knock, Zoland Poetry and Eclipse, criticism in Elimae, The Film Journal and Parameter, and a volume of verse, notebook and sheaves (AmErica House, 2002).

by D. Garcia-Wahl

Baptism

'Tis only by humble cherish
that I make my way to your fount
The writhing of my essence in the hands that I clasp
make into this hollow of mine, a performance of grace.
The words of my confession, the trial of my days
lent to your forgiveness.
For you,
I shed myself of my flesh,
of my calling, of my sins
before your waters darkened by candlelight
to seek redemption
to ignite a purity
to deepen my bow
and fall to the within you.

Voices Welled

Emparadis’d in your reaching spirit, delicate
there is a sky that does not pass above you,
a second that is not made a moment without you,
and a beauty etched to carols of the heart.
For there is something naked in your voice.
Innocent not - sometimes a weakness
when the heartened flesh trembles pale
brightened by a moon of continuum Spring
who’s breath does birth the belief of ecstasy
kept to union in nestled bodies
weeping for immortality.
For in each whisper, a catharsis.
An echo for to surround
with the sigh of your quiver.
All senses toward you.
And always
you
moving alone within invited crowds.
Always you
stopping breaths
forever
and dressing desire.
Always you
haunting the hours of man
with an image of beauty
that justifies their loneliness.
And always you,
only you,
hearing my voice
falling silent
in hesitation
of your soliloquy
in fear of its touching

Filmatic

for Jerry Tomlinson

“Well, I've wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I'm
happy to state, I finally won out over it.”
-Elwood P. Dowd
“Harvey”

Life (?)…
an archipelago of breaths
Reels –
movement
(or years)
purposed and propelled by memory
The theatric boast of life the eyes parade
a silent camera, ever behind, focusing.
In patchwork scenes childhood, middle years, old age,
death – then birth -
edited
played out
critiqued

Nothing known at the fade in
will be felt in the fade out

Leaving nothing to predictability,
except pardon,
the film is christened - ages
in sensitivity and texture
The stir of the heart
scripts the direction of purity,
cleaving to what we cast off,
never playing tomorrow as the strains
of another day

What of the actor?
His lines are his to forget
-his audience to recall

Manikarnika Ghat

The Ganges moans unlike any ocean can
But, come tumult, the voices are similar
Death is this sound of dying
Dead, all is the reap of prayer
A shade made of life
owing veneration
to what waves can bring to memory
In the renunciation of the river
wisdom is given repose and
passions are washed away to become sediment
The water, itself, is but a mask of the senses cleansed

A diseased breeze feeds
the sinless fires
in turn sooting the air with ancestry
making way for the eternal river
-which is Heaven

Chanting at the steps
Doms of outcast wearied
Bodies burned of their stories

Somnolent verse

'neath bare your feet the grasses sing
as springtime yields the world its heart
In timely tongue my language will pattern
a supple course of desire
There’s a prayer I’ve chanted made up of your motions
in a day that needs you closer to tomorrow
So, until I can approach you
having you see me as naked
without seeing me as weak
I will not call again upon your rest
Sleep
Sleep
for a moment in the hold of God

Oh, sad intangible one,
to die impossible by your side

Song

Singing something
to walk through the walls marketing the world
Singing to imbue a horizon
Singing a prayer of spirit
It is within our flesh that God comes to ponder
showing the makings of illusion
For it is not the ribs enclosed in flesh
that give definition to man
It is by the singing we are defined
Judgment comes by how the songs of midnight
meet the songs of daybreak

Sculpting an innocence
is easier in the blindness of the womb
than in the world
with its mint of the unfamiliar

D. Garcia Wahl is the author of the poetry volume All That Comes of Madden'd Days and the novel Ashes of Mid Autumn.

Photos from stock.xchng