Tabernacle of Bees

Have you been a true believer at one time but not so sure anymore? Think the idea of hell is pretty revolting? Ever wondered that religions contradict each other? About all the wars committed in the name of religion?  Ever read up on the sordid back-histories of various religious movements, reformations, new age fuzzies or even the papacy? Do you enjoy poetry?  Tabernacle of Bees might be of interest.

 I originally announced this book in October of 2009. But  conflicting edits proposed by a writing group I belong to, followed by several computer deaths and some other odds and ends, frooze me into a state of indecision about how to proceed. However, recent developments have cause me to act. So finally two years later, in November of 2011, I'd like to annouce TABERNACLE OF BEES, a small book of poems which represent a journey from dogma to doubt and beyond, is now available from Puzzled Dragon Press. It's a short book, just 14 poems, but offers a lot to ponder.

POEM with artwork - after Jay Defeo's The Rose

Cosmic Super Nova, Mountain, Flower, Nirvana

on Jay Defeo's the Rose 

 

On top: The Rose, Bottom:
my response to it

At the start was a vague idea

 about climbing mountains, the forms,

 the form   of mountains

It became   a mountain of paint

a canvas 11 feet high,
8 feet wide, 11 inches deep

A mountain eight years long.

There were brushes for painting it up, 

slathering on the peaks

Knives for carving down the crevasses

making symmetric straits and canyons of implosion

hacking away material

to get down into the mythical center

of this inverse starburst..

Cleaning the brushes

sharpening the knives

day after day, month after month

year on year, the daily wrestling

the readiness to cascade to the center 

of toil her commitment leading deep, 

and growing deeper though glistening white

Like the expansion and contraction 

of a universe And those opposing planetary forces

the building up and the wearing away, 

 the building up the carving down into 

 the building up despite the erosion of sharpened steel 

 in her own two hands she shaped it with 2300 pounds of oil paint.

And when it was done it lurked behind a wall

like a dormant volcano 

or a lover you no longer want as a roommate

and she refused to paint for years

Later she painted smaller-sized botanicals, 

little but weighty abstracts as if the literal enormity 

had gone out of her.

Eventually the mountain went down the fire escape 

They took out the window took out the wall 

to get it out of the Filmore Street studio

to let it unfold in public view 

let it flower, this endless road

this journey of making

the name came late,

The Rose, 

a concentric flower

petals, arrayed around a center
of daily sweat followed by stillness

its silvery shimmering a monument 

of whites of lights and highs accented 

by shadowed abyss, this human reaching 

for meaning reaching and collapsing

 into the event horizon of art

c MM Walker  2011
written for a Free Poets Collective reading  celebrating the Women Beat-ear poets, writers and artists, held at Broad Street Books in Middletown

Update: It's on display at the Whitney currently http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/JayDeFeo

Dan DeRosa - good memories linger

Tonight at Weds. Night Poetry we will be remembering a local poet, and a former WNPS host Dan DeRosa - funny warm young man. I kidded him once that he had a dangerous smile which if trained on the polar ice caps would melt them right away.  That was after he had smiled at someone sad at Molten Java and they lit up like a Broadway marque. His smile told people it was okay to be themselves. He was everyone's friend or brother. Had an uncompromising positive attitude and great compassion towards the autistic and everyone else too.


When he graduated from Western CT State University in 2009,there was a graduation party (see photo at the right) and then at the end of the summer WNPS held a good-bye party for him, as he was off to grad school in Florida. For his going away present - he got to be the poetry feature for the evening. During the open mike portion we roasted him with poems and stories.

For my part, I wrote him a song, "Dangerous Dan" I had it up on Youtube at that time but later took it down because I was a bit horse the day I taped it and hoped to make a better version. I never did naturally. So here is the original verison once again from YouTube. The lyrics are posted below also. Dan died suddenly of cardiac related problems at only 33 years of age. He was a man who embraced life, took it on his own terms, who cared for everyone around him. May we all live even half as well.

 Dangerous Dan 

Dangerous Dan is going away to Florida
Dangerous Dan is leaving this cold state behind
He's going where the water's rising
he'll do well and that's not surprising
Dangerous Dan is a man still in search of his life.

Dangerous Dan is driving the road to his future
and being a poet, he's mapping it out verse by Verse
Life's a poetry slam of four score ten
Practice, edit, the do it again
Blend it into something inspiring no matter the score

Dangerous Dan has a smile like a bright summer day
His smile tells the world You can be who you are
He'll poem on some other page,
Dangerous Dan is turning the page and we'll see
what he will be

Dangerous Dan is going away to Florida
The King of Haiku will soon be expanding the form
We'll miss his wit and that dangerous mouth
 Think of us when you're in the south
Let wisdom guide all your rhyme
You can come back anytime.

POEM: Discovering Home (from Inverse Origami)

Discovering Home      

--- a poem from Inverse Origami

 I used to live in the front entry
       with the hall table and a mirror
       reflecting latched glass doors
       leading inward, heavily curtained
       I dreamt in shadows, vague confusing rooms,
       a twisting maze opening into light
One day, unexpectedly
I came out from behind the doors
       introduced my self to me
       stepped in as
       the doors opened
to living space, a country
       of dangerous mountains,
       temperate forests, prairie grasslands
       rippling; full oceans
       frothing to universal currents.
I am one
       with this geography
       it matters to me and I to it
       here I embody magic
       lead turns to gold daily in my hands
       in the hands of those around me.
now the entry is for guests
        the curtains are drawn back,
        the door, ajar,
        so visitors can wander
        see the sights
leave delicious word-maps
       to their own countries.

c) 1998, MM Walker

This is a poem from my 1998 Chapbook "Inverse Origami - the art of unfolding" Most human beings have capacities far beyond what they see of themselves everyday. Sometimes it takes a while to discover all the various people you contain - and who you might be, could be, will be. And to honor even those aspects you choose to hide..... The photo is a digitally finesed picture taken in a dark room where lights hung behind heavy curtains. Only after fiddling with the settings was I able to see the unknown woman sitting there in the dark. I hadn't realized there was anyone in the picture.  It seemed a match for the poem.

Musical Marriage Proposal Seen At Molten

When you visit small locally owned venues, you just never know what might happen. I joined a friend for dinner last night at Molten Java, and we gabbed long enough so that a pair of musicians appeared and started setting up some interesting equipment.


Anna and Mike who may at times may call themselves, The Kitchen Sink Boogie or The Connecticut Vanilla Beans,  play a mean blues blend.  The instruments and voices have a nice back and forth conversational quality.  Sometimes one sang, sometimes the other - often doing music by blues greats, with an occasional harmonies, and some original songs thrown into the mix. Anna plays a Kirk Resonator with a flashy, silvery plate over the guitar's opening. Mike bends an all-electric with a whammy bar, a well-used slide and nice amp effects.

Then came the second surprise. About halfway through the evening, Mike began to sing an original song to Anna, and suddenly the lyrics said (more or less)  "I love you Anna B. I love you Anna B. I'm asking you to marry me....."  Then Mike stopped and presented Anna with a jewelry store bag and inside it was a box with an engagement ring...... Looked like a yes to me - a happy ending or rather a new beginning.

Gift-mas has arrived at the Danbury Mall

Oh come on! It's not even Thanksgiving yet!  Halloween is barely over and Santa is red-clad and ready for sales! He's already frightening shy children at the mall, and taking wish lists as the stores hope for some business after a quite few years of bleak. This child looked a bit reluctant to even look at Santa. These photos were taken yesterday, November 10th. This is surely the earliest sighting I can recall.  The mall however, despite seasonal decor, was pretty empty, and this was the only visitor for Santa, there was no line. Maybe he was a test run.....

Pale Blue Dot: Carl Sagan Day

I'm posting the video below for Carl Sagan Day,( a day late but posting it nonetheless) It's courtesy of MadArtLab.com and http://youtube.com/RogerCreations where I ran across it.  In it you can hear Carl Sagan's own voice on of his most famous statements about the earth. The photo to the right is a Voyager photo on which the statement s based - where the tiny speck inside the circle is the earth, and us, and all we have ever known.