Category Archives: poetry

and with that

Posted on by

Quotes for a Friday evening:

And with that a sob broke from her, and she turned her back to him again, her shoulders shaking in the exquisite evening dress by Trigère.

– Danielle Steele

I’ve had an unhappy life, thank God.

– Russell Baker

…She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.

– Kay Ryan, from Turtle

The Writer’s Almanac

Weather or Not

Posted on by

A couple of days ago, I got a phone call. It was my Dad. He said, “Look outside. Believe it or not, it’s raining.”

So I did, and it was. Which is pretty cool, because we go for several months every year with no measurable rain at all. The Santa Barbara area is basically an arid coastal plain; in other words, a desert. This pretty little spattering didn’t really break the rule, because it wasn’t measurable. And it seems like every summer we get one bleak spattering, one wimpy thunderstorm, barely damp above the level of dry lightning. But it was nice – a brief reminder that God is in His Heaven, etc.

* * *

The wise old man was walking along the road in the rain, carrying his umbrella closed at his side.

His neighbor walked up to him and said, “Hey, wise old man, it’s raining.”

“I know,” he said.

“You’re getting wet.”

“Indeed.”

“Why don’t you open that umbrella?”

“Oh, my umbrella?” He held it out and looked at it, and showed it to his neighbor, as if the man hadn’t already seen it. “This umbrella?” said the wise old man. “Oh, it’s been broken for many years.”

“Then … oh dear … then why in the world are you carrying it around?” asked the neighbor.

“Because I didn’t think it was going to rain.”

* * *

This life is like that. I am a Fool, but in a good way. (A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. — Shakespeare.) Which reminds me of another one:

A student approached the Master and asked, “Master, what is the path to enlightenment?”

“Humility,” the Master answered.

“And how long is the path?” asked the student.

“How would I know?”


* * *

And weather or not it is clear to you, here is an old poem for today (I’m channeling Garrison Keillor) by your humble poet, from my chapbook Finding Oakland, published by White Plume Press.

Solstice

I thought I heard
the Summer die.
It was a small sound
and hollow.

He sat here with me
under this sky made of steam
with a tired smile
and his hat on the floor.

We only said Good morning
and that was always early
But there was one day
of rain,
one shower at midnight.

I hope he will forgive me
his sad sad death.

(c) 1992 by Kyle Kimberlin

virtual patience

Posted on by

I was just sitting here thinking that I maybe ought to got into the kitchen and put on a little pot of decaf coffee, and about the surpassingly profound, though perhaps not self-evident truism that half of all people are below average. Half, I suppose, are above. And as the guy perched precariously right smack in the middle, it falls to me to remind those of you over on that side that some folks talk slow and always seem about a block and a half from the end of the sentence, while others sort stacks of useless paragraphs like cord wood. Either way, it’ll be necessary to encounter them with patience.

So here are a few lines of poetry.

Even before she reached the empty house,
She beat her wings ever so lightly, rose,
Followed a bee where apples blew like snow;
And then, forgetting what she wanted there,
Too full of blossom and green light to care,
She hurried to the ground, and slipped below.

from “My Grandmother’s Ghost” by James Wright

electric blues

Posted on by

  • These are called Lectric Flowers. Not Electric flowers, Lectric. My Dad planted them from seeds sent from Arkansas by my cousin — seeds which belonged to my great grandmother. Not quite grain from the bowels of a pyramid, but nothin’ to sneeze at either.

    Pretty, aren’t they? I’ve never seen them before. And they grow pretty tall; the tallest in this picture is around 5 feet. Here are more photos of them, along with some sweatpeas and stuff.

  • We had ourselves a power failure in Carp today. Four hours it was out. I had no particular plans for using my electricity during that time, but still hate it when there’s no juice. And it was worse than usual. Both of the supermarkets were closed, and the big drug store. Starbucks closed and never did reopen, which I thought showed a lack of fortitude. I guess you might say they didn’t have the beans.

    The best thing about a power failure – except that sometimes you get a chance to read a book – is that feeling you get when it comes back on. “Hot damn, my toys are workin’ again! Sweet.”

  • Since metaphor hopes to be a clean well-lighted, literary place, these lines of Whitman:

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?

Happy Fathers Day

Posted on by

Here’s Dad …

THE FISHERMAN

is walking to the sea
at dawn in the purple
of a storm that passed on.
He turns to move on rocks
down to the water
at the base of the pier.

Seals sleep like dogs
in the wet sand, dreaming of men.
But a man will sleep in a moment
dreaming of waves that rise up
like lions digging graves
for the dead.


In the shadow of these cliffs
the day stays dark and cold
with a westerly breeze
on the back of his neck
and his net too small for stars.


So I am sleeping peacefully
dreaming of mountains and snow
while he fights his line
for the rise and fall
of silent seas and angry boats.

His life is a small fire
built to cook fish.


© a long time ago
by Kyle Kimberlin


beware the ides

Posted on by

The Ides of March have come round again and it’s windy in my little town, as it should be.

I’ve been trying to concoct some generalized meaning for us to take from the otherwise unportending day of almost spring. But all that’s coming to mind, in a literary vein, is a memory of high school. I believe our English class put on scenes of Julius Caesar, with white bedsheets for togas.

I wish I had pictures of that. No doubt we were cute as hell.

The lines of that play which have stuck most clearly in my mind are these I encountered in College:

CASSIUS.
Then, if we lose this battle,
You are contented to be led in triumph
Thorough the streets of Rome?

BRUTUS.
No, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,
That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome;
He bears too great a mind. But this same day
Must end that work the Ides of March begun;
And whether we shall meet again I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
For ever, and for ever, farewell, Cassius!
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why, then this parting was well made.

Those last two lines especially have stayed with me. About 15 years ago, I quoted or paraphrased them to a friend of mine. That was the last time I saw my friend in this world; he died on St. Patrick’s Day 1994, at 30 years of age. He has been missed.

Of course, there was no cause and effect involved. I’m just sayin’ be careful quoting Shakespeare.

Anyway, it is almost Spring, so here’s some poetry from e.e. cummings. And if we do meet … oh never mind.

In Just —

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and
the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

e.e. cummings