clarahsu – Page 14

Old Friends

“You have grey hair,” said Don Eli, looking up from his dinner plate at Sacred Grounds. We’ve known each other for ten years. True enough, our hair color has both changed to a much lighter shade since we first met. There was a time when we saw each other every Wednesday, until Don decided to hang out on Haight Street reciting poetry for money. There must have been a gap of six, seven years before he popped back into Sacred Grounds again. His observation was a reminder of how time has passed.

“I’m proud of my grey hair,” I said. “This is an achievement, not without effort.”

Don agreed.

Listening to Ezra Pound

The Seafarer intoned in an ancient tongue, accompanied by a drum. Sparsely played, the drum conjured up fog and a vast space, or maybe the echoes of wind and waves. A baritone voice spun out the verses with an elastic tension that never let down. The syllables were musical notes of different values, creating rhythms. The Seafarer—the poem was the music. Spellbinding, it demanded attention. Listen!

Recorded in 1939, the reading was amazingly clear. Pound came alive to illustrate the power of poetry and speech. Thanks to the internet, we are privileged to have this and other great recordings at the tip of our fingers, to be inspired, to learn from, to enjoy.

The Darnedest Thing

At the Revolution Cafe a young woman walked up to me at the bar and said, “My best friend just killed herself.” I gasped and expressed my sympathy, and asked if she was all right.

“I’ve always wanted to say that,” she turned away from me and ordered a drink.

“You what??”

“Sorry,” was all she said.

I was left dumbfounded while she chatted away with the bartender. She could have played the game longer and I would have been a very cooperative victim. But what she had wanted was a double shock, which I supplied, and that was enough for her.

I sat and pondered on this strangest episode and could not come up with a satisfactory answer. The cafe was filled with people now. Noisy, rowdy, liquor flowing profusely. She ordered another drink.

Two Seafarers

Jack Foley gave me two versions of The Seafarer, an Anglo-Saxon poem translated by Edwin Morgan and Ezra Pound. Morgan’s version was an easy read, as his was written in modern vernacular. Pound’s character came off as the voice of the ancient. His words were succinct and crafted, and carried a sense of drama throughout.

The same seafarer was a lamenting old man in one and a stately persona in another. Except for a few images, these pieces gave me two distinct impressions of the character.

In school we are taught to write “properly”, but what does it take to write powerfully, to achieve a distinct style and voice?

Puzzling Poetry

poetry puzzle — Poetry Cloud by Aaron Geiger

There was one summer, when my children were being tutored in Berkeley, that I worked on a lot of jigsaw puzzles in the waiting room. The challenge was entirely visual. After a while I figured out a system of approach, and the pieces fell into place quite easily.

Consider the invention of writing was initially regarded as secret codes possessed by the privileged few, poetry is like a puzzle too. Metaphors, puns, visual clues, stresses and form are some of the tools to create multiple imageries and meanings. It is theater. It is a secret letter. It is an open invitation to play.

To find the key: observe.

Speaking of Change

Sitting in the bus, listening to the lively conversation of several people speaking in Vietnamese; if I close my eyes I can imagine myself in another country. Their particular intonation differs from all other languages, but I occasionally discern “Judah”, “Goodbye”, etc. seamlessly mixed into their flow of communication.

The Cantonese that I spoke when I was a child was also mixed with many English words. They were incorporated into the sentence structure and became a part of the every day language to a point that I didn’t even think of them as English. After an absence of nearly twenty years, I went back to Hong Kong to find that the Cantonese I knew had evolved. People recognized as soon as I opened my mouth that I didn’t belong there.

In Thunder and Lightning

Lightning kept flashing outside the windows. Sydney counted each time, “one, two three…” until thunder rolled down a strike. It was Finne night but the only thunder word we came across was two pages ago, and it had nothing to do with thunder.

At home Petey our orange cat who has been suffering from congestive heart failure was giving out what seemed like his last cries—heart-wrenching, sad goodbyes that he was uttering to us. We wrapped him in a blanket and put him near the heater, but he was determined to go outside, in the storm, to find refuge in a little igloo.

I found Petey dead next to the igloo a little after 11pm. His eyes were bright and big, as if he was still alive. The rain-soaked ground had made his feet wet and the night air cooled his body. I carried him inside and put him in a box.

In thunder and lightning Petey goes. All we are left with is memory.

Revolutions Per Minute

Marsha Campbell’s book of poetry, Revolutions Per Minute and Dedicated to the One I Love is making its debut on Amazon.com. “From a life born of tears, tumult, strife and trouble, (Marsha) has distilled the essential beauty of her existence. Revolutions Per Minute and its sequel, Dedicated to the One I Love, include perhaps her finest work.” —Quote from Beatitude Press.

One of the best in the San Francisco Poet community, Marsha has yet to find out what it means by having her work “on line” and “print on demand.” It is such a revolutionary idea, as her title suggests, she is again in the midst of change.

To order her book, go to: amazon.com

The Sun Stands Still

When the sun stands still, all is illuminated. In the Old Testament, the sun stood still for Joshua who battled against the five kings of the Amorites. It was a warring sun, merciless in its vigil until all the enemies were slaughtered.

But the sun also stands still for love. In John Donne’s poem, A Lecture Upon the Shadow, “love is a growing, or full constant light.”

Perhaps it is not the sun that stands still for us, but our fierce intent that stops the sun from moving and makes time go into a vacuum until all is accomplished. The moment the intent wavers, shadows lengthen, “And his first minute, after noon, is night.”