Hay Bales - Ryan Donnelly
If it’s fair to say that I'm
a gardener, then I’d rather
be called that
than a poet
or a student.
The bales in the hayfield are mine.
Monoliths each, I rolled them
with a rake just this afternoon.
It’s dusk, and the first time
I’ve stood in a hayfield.
If it’s fair to say that I’m a liar
or an idiot,
then I’d rather be called a poet.
I won't admit I'm lost,
but this field is strange to me.
I take my place from the hay bales—
one, two, five from the tree-line
and eight from the path
where we started.
If I can’t find home,
I’ll be a pioneer.
A Play Inside the Play - Andrew Payton
I hitched into Berkeley
with a French girl
who introduced me to Donovan:
first there is a mountain
then there is no mountain
then there is.
A few hours later,
splay-gut & half-lit,
trading peaches for bourbon
with an Aussie on
coke & permanent holiday.
Hamlet said “fuck this play,”
took himself to the bridge.
Would’ve talked him down, too,
but I was bargaining
the whores in North Beach
just for the hell of it.
Once all the colors froze,
& the spectrum of sound collapsed into
a single instant.
My children will give their tongues for music.
Kerouac’s mouth tasted bitter in mine;
I could see his grime in my fingernails.
& then, I knew he had sold me a damned lie.
The Beach - Sid Gold
In the photograph
my parents are at the beach
sitting on a blanket. My mother,
gamely wearing the two-piece
of the era, is clearly pleased
to be out-of-doors and away
from the three rooms above
her in-laws. She leans back
into my father’s arms while my father,
Navy lean and athletic, displays
the half-smile of those who need
no one to tell them who they are.
It’s a nice day for a swim
and why not: The War is over and Evil,
at first incomprehensible,
turned out to be nothing
Our Boys couldn’t handle once
they put their backs to it.
The look in their eyes—confident,
a bit dreamy—tells you the 50’s
are about to happen and soon
there will be plenty for everyone,
for a place of their own and a car,
Sunday drives to Bear Mountain.
Their kids—not to many—
would get the bounty:
good schools, good teeth, good skin.
As a child I was shown
this snapshot every so often
and although its weighted meanings
eluded me, I knew enough
to handle it with care and smile
as the adults at my side
spoke wistfully of a world
I would never know.