Are Cloud Poems Possible?

Friday night I went with Finley to Mpls to watch some people we knew do a "presentation" at Patrick's Cabaret.

During the intermission, one of the troop told us that we should support this venue because artists performing there had no constraints.

Then our host went on to brag about how one of the previous performances was a dance troop, and rumors started to surface that at one point in this troops upcoming performance, one of the dancers was going to poop on stage.

Upon hearing this, I decided w/o hesitation, that perhaps I just wasn't cut out to be an artist then.

Shoot....if I were in prision, or a P.O.W. camp, I guess I kinda hope I wouldn't need to poop on their floors to make a point.

Anyways, the topic kinda creeped me out so I turned to Finley and stated.....

"Did you notice at the University Club's most recent reading, that 3 of the 7 presenters read about clouds?"

Finley thought about this for a second and stated.....

"Yep, you are correct, and a couple a people wrote about gravity as well."

I understood the "Gravity Poems", afterall....gravity is kinda interesting, and poets haven't been written about this topic thousands of times.

"You know I had a poem written about clouds in Rolling Stone way back in the day right?" Mike reminded me before continuing...

"They were short on copy, and my poem had just the right number of characters to fit and fill the page."

Then he went on to tell me how the poem was about flying on a jet, getting dinner, and after lifting that plastic lid off that covered his plate, he realized that he was being treated to cauliflower, and the cauliflower looked just like the clouds outside his window...yadda-yadda-yadda.

But then I went back to why would 3 of 7 readers choose an identical topic?

These people didn't discuss their body of work prior to the event, and clouds....has anybody ever done a good cloud poem?

Then I was reminded how recently a friend of mine (ours) Tim Nolan had actually placed a poem about clouds on his Facebook wall.

I did like a couple of the lines that Tim crafted, but I certainly wouldn't match that poems against his greatest works.

This comment opened the flood gate to Finley's sage wisdom...........

"I totally get what Nolan, or many of those writers were trying to do at the U-Club. sometimes a poet just wants to get back to the basics, to strip things down and start from scratch.

I give these people credit.

Nothing is harder than reaching a certain level of achievement, and then stepping backwards in the hope that you will eventually move forward again. There really aren't any gaurentees with stuff like that you know."

Finleys comments amused himself, and he began to chuckle while the emcee on the stage stopped talking about body functions so he could introduce 2 women who would dance, while another woman dragged herself across the stage with a walker.

Later Finley told me that I should write a poem about clouds.

I thought about it....for a second, and then I Googled the "C" word to find what past masters have done with this topic.


I wandered lonely as a cloud


I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.


William Wordsworth

END OF POEM.......

Really?

If the best Wordsworth can come up with is..............

"Tossing their heads in sprightly dance"?

Maybe I'll just stick with Monkeys, Nuns and Food.

Mike Finley's Launching Pad

If I havent mentioned it, I was raised by a single mother.

A mother who was a hippie.

Like most kids, like most generations...I rebelled.

I swung my pendulem back to the conservitive side.

Truth be told, I always enjoyed anarchy,but I wanted mine to be what I thought was healthy.

I remember when I was a kid, I didn't understand why people wouldn't go to war.

Not only did I think it was unpatriotic, but I think I thought each person had a moral compass in their heart that told them they were wrong for not fighting.

I have no idea where those thoughts came from.

Maybe I just liked opposing my elders.

And to tell you the truth, if I got called, I'm guessing I'd go.

But as I've gotten older, I realize I didn't know anybody who went to war. I was too young.

I never saw first hand the price that was paid.

But like many of you, a stubbornness persisted in my thinking as I got older.

The roots sunk deep and were planted...for life.

When your number was drawn...you had to fight, to the death.

Or so I thought.

Years later, I stumbled into the first written item I had ever viewed by Mike Finley.

I remember it as if it was yesterday. I was standing in my kitchen and I got an envelope in the mail from him.

Finley has always been interesting in the way he communicates with people.

If he doesn't know you...often times he'll smile and be brief, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to move into your mind on a full time basis LOL.

The following piece changed me as a man, or how I think more than anything else I have ever read.

Ever......


MEMORIAL DAY

Just the other side of the airport, on a bluff overlooking the Minnesota River, is Fort Snelling National Cemetery. It's a classic military cemetery, with thousands of identical markers laid out like poppies in Flanders fields.

The cemetery abuts the area where I walk my dog, so I walk through there frequently. Few people buried there were killed in battle. If you served in the armed forces, it's your right to be interred here, and your spouse's.

I always pause a moment, when I see on the marker a death date between 1965 and 1972. And think: there but for the grace of God is me.

It takes me back to my experiences with the draft. I'm a little hazy on it. It was 1969, the haziest year of them all.

I was a hippie wannabee, full of contempt for LBJ and General Hershey. I had a dozen plans for my life, and none of them involved rice paddies. I remember toying with the idea of filing as a conscientious objector, but it didn't work for me. They asked you whether you?d attack Ho Chi Minh with a tire iron if you came upon him raping your Aunt Sally, and I had to admit I wasn't too hot on that idea.

When the Selective Service form asked if I wanted to overthrow the United States Government by force or violence, I wrote, "force."

I was what you?d call a nominal draft resister. I attended a few rallies and read everything disrespectful I could get my hands on. I read in Paul Krassner's magazine The Realist that your draft board had to file everything you sent them.

So I sent them a six-pound bonito, a handsome ocean fish I purchased at the Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles. The idea was that the draft board would be helpless except to live with the stench of a decaying fish in their file cabinet. Instead — figure this — they drafted me.

I was in the U.S. Army, technically, for a couple of weeks, classified as AWOL. I wasn't even aware I'd been drafted; I was hiking around in Alaska at the time, away without leave, without a thought in my head, and only found out about my induction later.

Then I applied to the nearest college I could find — Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, also known as Pat Boone University — and hid there, cowering, under its ivied protection, until the lottery replaced the draft.

So I never went to Vietnam, and I never missed it. But the war was part of my life anyway. I took my childhood friend, Paul Plato, to his ship in San Pedro when he shipped out.

For a while I knew a couple of actual deserters in Los Angeles. They were a pair of goofy guys who claimed to have escaped from interment at The Presidio. I never believed their stories, but one night they were rousted from their beds and led off by MPs.

At my first high school reunion, I learned that our one fatality was Skeeter Barnes, a sweet kid from the wrong side of the tracks, who stepped on a land mine somewhere and was no more. We played Little League together when we were nine.

It is hard to say who was the coward and who was the hero. Poor Skeeter was no one's idea of a hero; he was just a poor dope who couldn?t work the system like I did. I thought I was an intellectual hero, full of higher ideals than flag and conscription, but I kept myself far from harm's way, didn?t I? One more thing I have in common with George W. Bush.

When I think of 56,000 of my generation tossed out there to die defending our Laugh-In way of life, I get blue. Thirty years later, it still hurts.

But there is one thing I would like to set straight. When the war ended, an urban legend popped up, claiming that our returning soldiers were routinely spat on by those who didn?t go, and called baby-killers. People who spread this awful story must have had an axe to grind: blame the defeat on the hippies and the liberals.

But I swear it never happened. Or if it happened on a couple of bizarre, sick occasions, they were anomalies. Vietnam vets suffered from a host of problems, from post-traumatic stress disorder and Agent Orange to unemployment in the stagflation of the 70s and early 80s. Many wondered where their reward was for the contribution they'd made. Where was their GI Bill?

What a terrible choice our country forced on a generation of boys: be good and die stupidly or be marked for life, or be smart and survive, but feel like a traitor to your own generation.

And I look at these graves at Fort Snelling, row on row on row on row, their gray faces from jet exhaust — and I want to salute.

THE END

Finley on the West Bank

Recently I stopped by Finley's house.

I kinda wanted to see his puppy.

When I got there, I noticed he had some poetry books pulled out for me to read.

The book on top of the pile had multiple pictures of the poet on it and I figured that it must be one of those "Life Work" collections, because 1/2 the pictures displayed this Charles Manson looking guy with long wild hair and a beard that was out of control.

In the other pictures the guy was bald, not completely, but he had one of those Friar Tuck hair horse shoes, and the beard was replaced by a manicured mustache.

Now he looked like Dr. Phil.

So I ask Finley if the book was just taking up space, or if there was anything particular I should read from it.

Mike said.....

"The guys name is Charles Potts, and back in the day he was a big thing. He came from California. I was holding a poetry event...remember this was years ago, back when I was going through some kind of a Chinese Alter Boy phase where every word that passed my lips had extreme purpose, but yeah....I'll bet I hung 6 or 7 note cards inviting people to attend. I tacked them to telephone poles. Potts saw one of the few people that showed up."

That was the end of the description.

I was forced to dig into the book to learn more.

But somehow Ol' Charlie Potts was going to have to wait.

Instead I just took a moment to picture Finley on the West Bank.

I wondered if this was the same time Bob Dylan was cutting his teeth in that neighborhood.

In a recent poll taken by beautiful people and V.I.P.'s. Mike Finley ranked as the Twins Cities #1 Rebel Poet.....and he's what....in his early 60's?

What was Finley really like when he was in his 20's?

Anyways....the book "The Portable Potts" was interesting. It has some unusual formatting that kept me off balance, but there was one poem in particular that struck a chord with me.

MOM AND DAD

I was raised in a desert by a father who
Believed I was somebody else's child
And a mothers conditional love

My mother had brains
And my father had guts
When I am good I'm using both

My mother was very sociable
Mt father did ten thousand things alone

My mother loved to spend money
My father wanted to invest
I've invested all our money
So there will be more to spend

My mother wanted to have a good time
My father wanted to survive
I survive by having a good time

I'm the predictable result of
The underlying structure of my life

THE END

I could talk about this poem for hours...call me!

Jack Pot Poems - Meet Christopher Title

On rare occasions, a guy gets lucky enough to stumble into a poem that what written about something they know about.

At this very moment, I am supposed to be on my way home from work, I can just envision my dogs sitting on the couch, smoking cigarettes with their legs crossed because they have to pee so bad.

But just when I was ready to shut down my computer for the day, I saw that Christopher Title had posted a poem on Facebook.

Mr. Title in many ways is the "Dark Horse" in the Twin Cities poetry community.

He knows all the players, but he doesn't spend much time trying to climb literary ladders, he doesn't need to, he has his own.

For a few years he has hosted a monthly reading series called The Barbaric Yawp.

This event takes place on Sunday nights in a coffee house in Saint Paul, and Finley swears that this space is the most conducive to such events.

The poets actually get to stand on a stage which is elevated.

When I have been fortunate to present there, the audience must think that there's the animated "Baker Poet" who loves to express himself by swinging his arms around...what they don't know is I'm secretly imagining that I'm some kind of dictator or misunderstood world leader LOL.

But all kidding aside, although the space is really nice, the people who attend each month are even nicer.

In poetry and prose circles, the fan base can be pretty unpredictable and flimsy, but the "YAWP Regulars" really love their leader.

I think I've mentioned Mr. Title in a previous post, in regard to the fact that he is all about Walt Whitman.

Every showcase is led off with Chris offering up several musings from his favorite poet.

Anyway....

So I see this newest poem that Title posted, and it is all about the Como Zoo in Saint Paul.

You can tell from Title's observations and comments that the miracle of these creatures brings him to a almost spiritual place.

But I don't think he q-u-i-t-e gets there until he ties these creatures glory into himself, his family, and the experience they just had.

I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but when my kids were growing up, we went to the site of this poem every other Saturday for years.

After reading this poem a couple of times, I actually kinda chuckled.

This is easily a topic I may have attempted, but now I know longer have to think about it, because I certainly don't have anything better to say about it than what Chris has already shared with us.


Field Trip
by Christopher Title


I think I saw God at the Como Zoo


in the Amur tiger’s greyhound-like hips

and in the ratty flank of Selam,

an old female orangutan from Sumatra.



I think I saw God in the enclosure

of the unconcerned big horn sheep,

among the rip rap dumped in the middle,

and there in the snow leopard’s tiny aquarium.



I think I saw God along with an upside down

table umbrella floating with the harbor seals

and near the single greater kudu hoofing

at the cracked dirt. This was not odd.



I think I saw God because I saw us

at the Como Zoo as we truly are,

an archipelago of stranded animals

without any other options, like sweat bees

living on puddles of melted popsicles.

Chained to the Process

Finleys Says.....

"A poet shouldn't be needy, they shouldn't always be taking. a poet should be a teacher."

I think he's got a point, I know he does.

So why is it that I don't follow this advice?

Why is it that I permit myself to honestly believe I have the ability to grab beautiful concepts from the air, in a random fashion and the outcome will come out striking?

I don't hate the fact that I end up in traps, but I do hate that I continue to fall into them, even when I am the guy who set them.

Sometimes it takes non poetic instances for me to expose my weakness.

Several days ago, 2 young bakers took a tour of my bakery.

While I showed them around, they bounced a million ideas off the walls as we circled the plant.

It was fun to be plugged into youth, into enthusiasm.

But to make a long story short, these young ladies didn't have a clue as to what they were talking about.

Their motives were pure, but their methods were wrong.

So after I gave them Ghandi like instruction, I finished my shift, went to the gym and ran on the "Dreadmill"

For 30 minutes I looked like George Jetson...just before he looses his balance and Astro has to come out and help him.

The treadmill (or lifting weights) is where I cast my "poetic seeds" into the ground. During my work outs I decide what I want to write, and how I am going to attack it.

Recently I have taken on a new project, and like most new projects, I am treating this one as it will be my Legacy work.

For months, I have been stammering and stubbing toes trying to just get a handle on how to get this idea off the ground.

If I want to write about red, I find myself surrounded by blue.

In some ways I feel I have moved further away from my objective.

I guess it would be easy to shrug my shoulders and blow the whole thing off.....but did I mention?

It's a legacy piece LOL.

But as I stood on that treadmill, it was like I had an epiphany from God.

I had stepped away from my process and didn't even realize it.

Whenever I have written poems that I have fallen in love with, I've always started off numerically.

How many paragraphs?

How many lines in each paragrach?

Am I going to stay within my 14-18 line comfort zone?

will this be a poem for reading, or reciiting?

As of late, I haven't asked myself those questions, and I guess I'm not saying it would be impossible to succeed following these self imposed rules.

In the bread world, I can take a loaf of sourdough and turn it into a Miso-Sushi Loaf, a Black Forest Rye, or a Wild Rice / Multi grain.

Every one of these masterpieces comes from the same recipe.

Nobody knows this, or even cares if they do because each loaf turns out so unique and has their own vibe.

Anyways, I just curious as to how you people deal with getting your work out of the garage and onto the street.

Feel free to share any thoughts.

Todd Boss

I think I was at Wilde's Roast in Saint Anthony, down along the river. I was meeting some poet friends who were kind enough to let me horn into their poetry discussion.

This was a couple weeks ago, and the weather was just bright enough where you felt compelled to sit on the patio, but it was kinda cold, so since I was the first to arrive, I chose the inside.

Inside is safe.

So everybody gets there, takes their seat, and somebody point's to a huge tapestry of Oscar Wilde and says......

Look, it's a Todd Boss tapestry.

The entire table laughed.

I'm guessing most of you won't get the humor here, so let me bring you up to speed.

Todd Boss is a successful poet in the Twin Cities.

He has had books published, been awarded grants, stuff like that.

He is also big into making short videos and layering poems over them.

Don't quote me, but I think it's called Poetry in Motion.

I don't know Todd personally, we have been attached by proximity several times, but that's about it.

So now that my table of friends is noting the physical similarities between Oscar Wilde and Todd Boss, a member of the group wonders if Todd might be intentionally trying to bite on Wilde's vibe.

After all.....nobody has sported that hair style since Prince Valiant - LOL.

But that's what makes poets interesting I think.

Who wants to hear observations from cogs within the machine?

The server brings our table drinks, and before the group decided to discuss their own affairs, Todd Boss stayed on the discussion platform.

I can't recall who threw this into the mix, but somebody stated that Todd once claimed the best way to become an author is to write 10 000 poems before becoming serious.

For the record now.....I am not saying Todd Boss said this, I'm just stating that somebody attached this wisdom to him.

I pondered this for a moment, and then I had to be the Pollack in the room.

I had to disagree.

I do believe repetition is good, but I have heard other poets swear by writing a poem every-single-day.

I think when you focus on numbers or deadlines, how can you throw fireballs?

Your content will become deluded.

On numerous occasions I've meant to ask Finley his thoughts on this, but each time I see him, this trivial matter usually gets upstaged by a Poodle puppy named Lucy, or conversations regarding his wifes Opera try outs.

Anyways...I'll throw it out to the cosmos, and who knows?

Maybe Finley can respond to whether a poet needs to write a certain amount of poems to become "Serious".

Hula Girls & Parking Lots

I am sorry to report, I don't even remember the venue, however I do remember Finley reading from his book entitled...."PRICK.....JEST POEMS."

Sometimes, often times Mike will start off a set (and I wonder if its intentional or not), but he'll start off a set with a quick-quick look.

The glance rushes by in an instant, but in that briefest of moments his stare assures you that you are going to learn some truth that he has been dying to reveal.

Finley gives such a look and begins.....

PARKING LOT

The attendant at the parking lot
Was angry this morning
His shovel was missing
And in the crack of the blacktop
Near the corner of 8th & LaSalle
Five weeds were sticking their heads up
Looking for trouble

The End


I remember that after I heard this, my first reaction was....

"Hmmm, cute poem. Poem about a parking lot huh?"

But then I started to think about it longer, and then I asked myself....

How is it that Finley can take moments or situations in life that are not epic, but when he describes them, they become so powerful.

I mean, I'm sure the actual experience was uneventful, but none the less....I wanted to be there.

A parking lot huh?

So then I sat in silence for awhile and tried to think of a moment I had in a parking lot that would rival Finley's in boredom, and if I could think of such a time, would I be able to troll it in front of him to the point that he might become curious?

In some ways I viewed this as a challenge, in other ways...a homework assignment.

The following is what I came up with.

LIQUOR STORE PARKING LOT

Hula Girl - Hula Girl
Dance beneath the raindrops
I'm pretty sure my windshield will keep you dry

Left/Right - Left/Right
Your hips gyrate with fluidity
As if your balance were determined on a spring

Tick - Tock - Tick - Tock
The clouds eclipse the moon
But its still engaging when you dance in the neon

Hula Girl - Hula Girl
I am fearful our tryst must end
My girlfriend is headed toward the car
And she has some Tanqueray

The End