POETRY READINGS I'VE ATTENDED IN NEW YORK CITY

i.

I saw Robert Bly,
telling a member of the audience,
who couldn’t hear him, even though,
he was very close to the microphone,
Robert said, “I am not going to speak
any louder than this!
And I am sorry if you cannot hear!
Maybe you should lean forward more,
or use a cotton swab!”

ii.

When I saw
the ever-so-popular, Billy Collins,
the theme was to read from other poets.
So he started to read Emily Dickinson.
When he finished the first poem and before
starting the next, he laughed to himself,
took off his glasses and announced,
“I’m Sorry! My ego is too big.
I have to read one of mine!”
The audience cheered longer than his poem.

iii.

I was sitting with Gerald Stern,
where he was waiting
to go up and read after a young poet,
who was getting deep
into the murkiness of his words.
I asked Gerry if he needed anything,
water or soda. He motioned
to come closer to him and he softly said,
“Yeah! Get me a gun so I can shoot this guy!
He’s terrible! Bad poetry! Awful!”

iv.

I was listening to Joy Harjo read,
Which was darn near close to perfection.
She ended her reading by singing “acappella”
A pretty song with one word, “love.”

v.

I saw Stanley Kunitz
when he was ninety-seven,
three years before he died.
And without any introduction,
he slowly walked up the staircase,
leading to the stage and without
help of a cane, walked soft and easy
to the podium.
He was greeted with
such ear-deafening applause,
that I never heard any poet,
before or after, receive.
He tapped the microphone gently and said,
“Hi, I’m Stanley Kunitz!”
And at that moment, he lived forever.

QUESTIONING WHO AND WHAT I AM

There may be something wrong with me —
maybe f**ked-up. You see,

I am an American, white, man,
who makes a living playing and singing
African/American Blues.

I am an American, white, man,
who reads American Indian history
and literature.

I am an American, white, man,
who reads Spanish, Chicano, and Latino
poems and stories.

I am a Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man.
who loves Gypsy music
and their life.

I am a Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man,
who wishes to live with Aborigines in Australia,
and all peoples of Oceania —
live with reclusive African tribes – live along the
Arctic Circle with Laplanders, Siberians, and Inuits.

I am a Protestant, Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man,
who feels the pain of the Holocaust, reads the “Torah” and the
“Holy Bible” along with the “Anam Cara” and the “Bhagavad-Gita”,
while all the while wishing the return of The Goddess.

I am a Protestant, Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man,
wanting to live with Afghani, Iraqi, and Syrian families
and trying with them to memorize the “Qur’an” as did Sayyid al Huffaz.

I am a Protestant, Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man,
who loved Pope John II, loves the Dalai Lama, adored the joyous
Desmond Tutu, feels the wisdom of the ancient Taoists —
the wisdom of Siddartha Guatama, reads ancient Chinese River
and Mountain poetry, reads ancient Japanese Haiku and Haibun,
feels all Southeast Asian, Sanskrit, and Tamil literature,
reads the ecstatic poems of the Hindus and Sufis, loves Rumi,
Hafiz, Kabir, and Ghalib, reads Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Norse
mythology, understands Theosophy, mystic insight, and anthroposophy,
understands the Kabbalah, the Maharishis, and the Sufi Dervishes,
Myrza Husayn-Ali and Baha’i, Gurdjieff, and Steiner, along with
Unitarianism, Emerson and Thoreau, and the Trancendentalists,
understands the Mali Dogon and the Pawnee looking skyward,
understands Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, and understands 
Yoruba, Candomble, Santeria, and the Native American Church.

I am a Protestant, Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man,
who curses my European ancestors
for wanting empires.

I am a Protestant, Scot-Irish, British, American, white, man,
who curses “Man”
for introducing prejudice and racist thought.

Now that I have told you I am this man,
maybe there is nothing wrong with me,
maybe I am not f**ked-up – maybe mankind is more complicated –
maybe I am a man, a woman — or still a child.

A DAY AT HOME DURING MANY MONTHS
OF THE CORONAVIRUS

From my hillside home
I breathe with the river below.
Every breath is caught
on rocks
grazed by water and fish.

The hill lifts the trees and plants
closer to the stars
I watch them grow before my eyes.

Bones spotlessly cleaned of fur
of an unknown mammal,
are scattered around my yard
by things of the woods
that come out at night.

My ears are exposed to a driving wind
that is not visiting
the road to my house.

My mind often wants to understand
the silence that stands around
waiting to speak.

BURNING LEAVES, 1962

My father and I
would take the cremation of leaves
that were in small metal buckets
over to the dead garden
and spread their ashes
over the sand-colored grass and vines.

My father would say the quickest of eulogies,
“This will make the coming Spring and Summer green.”

Fifty-eight years later it is Autumn again
and I now live in a new era
of speedy leaf blowers with trailers
quickly carting leaves away,
not leaving much time to rake up a past —
my childhood Autumn — a season of rituals:

The meticulous raking of ankle-deep leaves
that the north wind shook off the branches
of our trees and hedges.
We stored them in tall reed baskets
like Egyptian urns, then watched over them
like sentry guards.
We waited for windless days
to haul them to the top of the driveway
and shape them into mounds.
Then I would watch my father
sprinkle lighter fluid like the “holy water”
of an old gentle priest.
Then he would strike the long wooden match
that made red flames dance
in a Dervish frenzy.
We would then stand guard again over the mound
until it becomes a pile of white ash.

During every Autumn my eyes would tear
from the smoke of burning leaves.
The inside walls of my nose
stung like iodine on a wound.

But it didn’t stop
the overwhelming joy I had —
A young boy helping his father.