Poems to the Culture List

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ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:54:00 +0000

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advisory on language

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:15:00 +0000

if you say too much

you're a crashing bore

if you're laconic

she accuses you of being

 cryptic

thus I tremble 

on the razor's edge

between logorrhea

and silence

if I open my wounds

bawl my desires

in short, make a

bloody fool of myself

then in the morning

with that cruel 

interrogator's smile

she snaps shut her notebook

and departs

owl collection

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:54:00 +0000

the sun slants west
layer of dust and feathers
on collection room floor

count again --
thirty-seven specimens
bent wings, bedraggled

an obvious pattern
prime number
no duplicates here

owls dancing
in the marketplace
wide-eyed and frenzied

the internets are slow this morning

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:39:00 +0000

the internets are slow this morning

and I'm in a bluesy mood

is it just my imagination

or have I finally lost my mind?

uploading, downloading

pack it all into the tubes

multitask the rubes from

Kentucky, the nudes from

Middle Earth, wherever, the

Gujaratis are getting restless

Sarah Palin's hamster is

doing new tricks on the youtubes

tweak them mothers,

tweak em, baby, zoom

I'm in another room

I'm in Lower Merion, kaboom

watching inappropriate behavior

in some kid's bedroom

the global village is such a drag

extrusion of my nervous system

see -- my nerves are on the outside

my feelings, MY feelings are flayed

displayed, for the universe to

fathom, it's deep,

the post office

is in trouble again, no surprise

sometimes I blame Andy Warhol

cause Sarah Palin's writing a book again

is it just my imagination

or have I finally lost my mind

whatevs, such a downer

I yield the balance of my time

magic markers

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:10:00 +0000

at the little shop in Kobe
I buy colored markers
the fat Uni Posca's
the slim Mitsubishi Propus 2's

I take them home
and color mandalas
in a thick book
staying within the lines

landline phone

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:21:00 +0000

my life is a landline telephone tethered
to the ground
magnet for nuisance calls

on the bus they all dab madly
with their thumbs on colorful wireless gadgets
with all these appliances -- music, games,
video, text, tweets, hair dryers, refrigerators
and the endless jabber jabber jabber

each morning at 9:40 precisely I get the call
from Mumbai
some young chap with a thick Gujarati accent --
"Hello, sir, my name is Villiam Jones..."
he wants to sell me protection for my credit card

then at 4:24 pm the automated girl calls
inflection always the same (must be a tape) --
"I'm calling because there's a chance that I can
save you a lot of money"

I gave up talking on the phone in the late sixties
when all the phones were tapped
you never knew who was listening --
might be the Russians, might be the CIA,
might be the SIS, or even your mother

but I keep paying the phone bill in the hopes
somebody will call
who's worth talking to
it's like playing the lottery for 30 bucks a month
always a chance for a miracle

when poets grow old

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:00:00 +0000

when poets grow old they go

to teach English in the universities

thus Ginsberg wound up at

Brooklyn College, and Snyder

at UC Davis, like gentle lions

in the protected game preserves

they were forged in the fires

of the fifties and sixties

the heroic Journey to the East,

assaulting the politicians of

the deadbrained armies, the soulless

and lacklove Molochs of Amerika

Snyder a shaman of the mountains

and Ginsberg a shaman of the cities

Ginsberg sending out cosmopolitan greetings

and roars to the end; I saw him a year

before his death, chanting “Don’t smoke

the official dope” – wry, cynical, untamed

Snyder making love to the earth

he discovered oil as long ago as the fifties

and named the addiction; in sixty-seven

at the Houseboat Summit with Leary

and Watts, they plotted a new civilization,

just around the corner, the new dawn

and fought for it in the streets; well,

we all know what happened to that

fabled Age of Aquarius we thought

would save us, and the world – the devil

principalities and wicked governments

shot that down, discouraged our children

I studied Russian Novel with Nick Lindsay

at Goshen College, wrote a paper on

“The Impotent Hero” – how prophetic

Nick’s old man Vachel had killed himself

so Nick fathered thirteen children, delivered

them all by hand, with DuBose’s help of course

Nick remained a carpenter on Edisto Island,

banging out the Gullah rhythms, poetry in

his calloused hands and tormented hammers

so poets forge their own destinies – Rimbaud

went off to sell guns and trade slaves, Thomas

drank himself to death

poetry is not a trade for the faint-hearted who

wear green Nehru jackets when they’re in

fashion and flit about reading crap at the

colleges – we’ve all seen them come and go

some poets write one poem in their life

and that’s it – most die weeping in the alleys

oracle bones

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:00:00 +0000

bones crack and the turtle sings
sun tomorrow, snow to melt slowly
the king will be victorious, no disaster
springtime and harvest, sowing and reaping

on Saturday morning I go shopping
bare trees blossom dirty plastic bags
sixteen pigeons on the roof's edge
the trolleys and El are running again

and the snow is melting slowly
our kitchen sink is stopped up
no hot water, the toilet is leaking
how long, oh Lord, how long

poring over the crime report last night
on google maps, looking at sex offenders
the neighborhood's plastered with rapists
the houses are abandoned

in America the rich are becoming richer
the poor inevitably poorer, same story
the kings are victorious, no disaster
and the peasants are starving as always

snow melts slowly, no flooding expected
dirty mounds stick up like Devil's Mountain
robins pick at the plastic foliage
this year's nests will be poisoned

my bones are old and my bags heavy
for the first time I hire a driver
the hack's friendly, an entertainer
he's from down south, can't believe this weather

I lug my groceries up the stairs
the steps are always getting steeper
but the view from the third floor is worth it
in my windows the orchids are blooming

root canal

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:23:00 +0000

ice sliding from the roof

crashes down

on Broad Street slush

sucks at your boots

Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber

brings in crowds at the Merriam

I never cared much for

Broadway musicals, still less

for the soft rock on the radio

as I sit in the endodontist's chair

pondering the X-rays of my molars

blown up on the flat screen

as though reviewing a misspent life

while I wait

the dentist and her assistant

converse in code:

"2-3-6-10-3-3" "ok"

"18-18-22-18-22"

my dentist has brown eyes and

peers down at me anxiously

like my mother

beethoven's fifth, kimmel center

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:27:00 +0000

released from the dungeon

you walk on the sky

in a vast, soaring glass

terrarium

your daily solitary walk

in brick exercise yard

suddenly blossoms

with possibilities

those horns, those horns

blast, and lift you up

arising united with fellow humans

into the velvety contours

of the viol's body

monsoon

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:45:00 +0000

is this fecundity
or something worse?

a horrorshow
or a ripening?

this ominous outburst,
this sadness in the clouds

prolific, neuronal
luxuriant, intertwining

abrupt, yet not unexpected
the dissolution after the dawn

stupa

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:33:00 +0000

narcolepsy
this drowsiness
laid on thick by winter's
monochromatic brush

take the night train
the catatonic express
nod off
with a head full of snow

there are stupas
at my doorstep
shard upon shard
stone upon stone

bardo

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:53:00 +0000

your face frozen in the window
I bring food offerings
to hieratic cats, their old souls
behind ancient eyes

your body entranced in the sacral bed
anointed and unguentine
once we were entwined
under the pyramids, under the sphinx

soul's boat rocking
in dark gelatinous waters
florid multiplex demons
stand at attention

this is not dying; yet it is
this is not a journey; yet it is
your face frozen in the waters
under the pyramids, under the sphinx

old bike, new year

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:17:00 +0000

familiar fragility of the New Year
old balance issues, repressions, reaction
formations, delusions, “the whole boatload
of sensitive bullshit” concatenate to
overwhelm you, shove you back into
the usual dark corners, the isolation wards
of bygone kalpas

but the simple sun and its colors, free air
in predictable orbits and the fresh chill
revive your sluggish mind and ganglia
the old ones, groaning, chant again
in the bare broken branches as you swing down
Baltimore Avenue, calling out the season

you nurse your ancient bicycle, lug it
up the stairs of the Firehouse as though
shouldering an aged parent up the slopes of
Obasuteyama – friendly anarchist takes possession,
promising it fresh life and a new incarnation

free bikes, free people, free streets
old anarchist vistas open before you
in the cold -- frigidity of decaying eons, meat
possessions, dread hierarchies, slave chain gangs
of the mind and body, cosmic evil –- amid sad
detritus, victory chants of new beginnings,
as you swing down Baltimore Avenue

hidden acres

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:55:00 +0000

stone house in Canadian snow
rock solid womb, down the road
from Stratford hospital, where I
first emerged into the big chill,
anxious faces of novice parents,
and the old ones murmuring
in German, in Algonquian,
creased faces of the elders
welcoming the papoose, bundled
up in gentleness, into the little room

calendar fragment

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:42:00 +0000

counting the clock strokes
he enters in his ledger
"black toad at midnight"
present past forever

dermatologist

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:51:00 +0000

space aged hospital, glass and steel
three-story atrium sprouts gleaming columns
all atilt, facade more a whirling laboratory
in orbit than a rational, balanced Greek temple

light glances wild all multi-planed, starry
blind you wander among cubicles till nurse
leads you into crazy labyrinth, where young
doctor in collarless sweater, looking for

all the world a Captain Kirk from decades
ago, rolls his wheeled deck chair to and fro
his zapper freezes four spots on your scalp
to protect from solar radiation, he says

solar radiation! who knew trudging
in the increasing dirty dark toward winter
midst twisted stone and ivied brick corridors
of old city that sun would be a threat?

laundromat

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:02:00 +0000

in my laundromat folks don't talk much,
although yesterday a young woman asked
where I bought my extra-strength detergent,
the eco-friendly kind

washing machines line the narrow storefront
on the left, the driers on the right, folding
tables in between, and an irregular line of six
old plastic chairs

in my laundromat the AM radio plays
tunes of the sixties and seventies,
Motown and classic rock, my kind
of music

occasionally somebody sings along
but for the most part it's quiet, just
the swish and hum of the machines,
conducive to meditation

when it's crowded, we shepherd our laundry
carts through the crowded aisles, slowly,
careful not to bump into each other, quick
to apologize

that's my favorite part -- the slow and
stately dance, to Motown and classic
rock, weaving among the tables and
the bodies of the other washers

raw November

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:37:00 +0000

strange in this raw November to see
pretty women wielding transparent
plastic umbrellas, laughing as though
this were some spring rain, and thrusting
forth an inordinate amount of cleavage,
inordinate considering the season

on the Friday bus ride to City Line
the sun gleams on whited sepulchres,
bone-bleached steeples in the cemetery
thrusting through denuded trees, and the
turbaned swami, a regular on this route,
explains "The Evolution of God" in an outrageous
accent, babu English, to an entranced
old woman, always the same

old books, previous mistresses

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:46:00 +0000

old books, previous mistresses
take down a volume from the shelf
sink into that familiar embrace

a novel from the seventies --
Provos, bombings in London
radical chic -- how antiquated it seems

in the flyleaf the inscription
"Merry Christmas Joyful 1978"
"Love" from an old girlfriend

thirty years have passed, and that love
or youthful infatuation, whatever it was
leaving no visible scars

autumn homecoming

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:25:00 +0000

under the bridge the commuter train
glides toward the western suburbs
in yellow oval windows, a binary message
head, head, not head, then countless blur

as I stride over the bridge, north
homing too, but on foot, and unaccustomed
this pink dusk, crescent moon just rising
and the glitter of downtown striving

the bridge rises and takes me up
launches my body into unaccustomed space
over Philadelphia, over Vancouver too
in earlier autumn across the continent

by FEDEX -- these books left Tokyo
yesterday and arrived here this morning
by what magic? ancient history and
global transmission, it pulses

and I pulse with it, strange to be out
at this time of evening. the junkman
takes down his table of third-hand relics
from the sidewalk, how carefully

work has ceased on the old cars
across the street, hoods lifted
batteries strewn across the pavement
blotted by yellow gingko leaves, still wet

reverie 2

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:14:00 +0000

here it is -- old age

to your surprise, you've finally learned
to appreciate Brahms

to your surprise, you're still sitting
in the cheap seats

what happened to that notorious midlife crisis?
it too seems to have passed you by
last wild illicit chance for ecstasy

leaving not a trace in the dead brown leaves
as you shuffle along, en route
to senility

in the Sun Yat Sen Garden

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 20:43:00 +0000

pine, bamboo and fat orange carp
lazing in the old pond

twisted stones, moss-tufted, pocked,
superannuated, dance deformed like
Daoist saints in flight

Chinese pavilion with hipped roofs
arches tangle into the air like tentacles
beside glass highrises, like Shanghai

but this being Vancouver, a sudden vision
a sign -- "Everything is going to be alright"
in block capitals on downtown Eastside
brick abandoned warehouse

in the Silk Road Gift Shop
a pushy Chinese lady wants to sell me
flying horses -- "special jade from Himalayas!"
"half-off for Thanksgiving!"

in the Nitobe Garden

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:40:00 +0000

moon off the full this morning

last night it was haloed and grand

in the Nitobe Garden

momiji aflame, moss on rocks

the stillness sinks into you and the stones

where divinities have passed

gravel under your tread

step step and step again

crows from a distance, singing

neither harsh nor insistent

no demons in the tall cypress

no wind. pine boughs droop over

the water. needles frozen in time

even the alder leaves, tinged,

"turning", are utterly still

beach #3

ross.bender@gmail.com (rosso) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:38:00 +0000

volcanoes biding their time

cry of a disturbed heron

white stone