The Phosphorescent Ocean

Stop it. 
You were only six:
Cold light, electron traps,
all that biology at work
to make the ocean phosphorescent,
and you splashing through it,
throwing sand, kicking, anything
to make the water leap like blue-green
fire. No, you could not have known
how many millions died for a vision.
Yes, yes, I know:
Those sweet dynoflagellates,
countless in a cup of water,
all burning like microscopic meteors
through that predawn, their invisible blood
permeating your white boating shoes,
their bodies on your hands, your hair,
beginning to fade into morning
when it was on to Catalina,
trailing a shimmering wake
that gathered and struck the horizon
like a god arrow to Pylos,
but you could not have known:
You were only six.
Stop it.


(SKJ, 1985; Photograph by Steve Ketzer, Sr., 1955)

Bali Hai Ku

BALI, INDONESIA

February, 2001

Selamat datang!
(We are guests
of  loud geckos
on cabana walls.)

                                    Balancing fruit baskets
                                    on their heads,
                                    they flow to the temple
                                    through crowded market.

Balinese girls,

as pretty and

graceful as a breeze,

shading their faces.

Hindu cows

their silent bells

so holy

Monkeys on temple steps:

Hindu gargoyles,

Hindu thieves.

Fish grilled

over burning

coconut husks

at sunset,

then Venus.

                              Quick feet across sand
                               into Indian Ocean:
                              Ah, De-Bintang!

                                                         Snaky trail in sand,
                                                         at its end,
                                                         a small hermit crab.



(Son and Father Renga, 2001)

On Viewing McNamara's "Morning Light" at the Arkansas Arts Center

I will wait

for a brittle winter's day,
powerlines
with clear ice
porcelainized,
lapels turned up,
hats pulled down,

scarfs snapping with the wind,
and then,
upon seeing
the first flake of snow fall,

I will visit her again.

I will disrobe,

crawl into the painting,
and lay myself at her feet.


(SKJ, 1985 or so)

The Second Amendment

(First two photographs by Steve Ketzer, Sr., 1952, 1960;
second two by Steve Ketzer, Jr., 1983; third by Charles Bradley, 1968)

Experience

                                                                 Every breath my lungs inhale

                                                                 strips away one link of mail.

                                                                 The green and innocence of youth

                                                                 burned in factories of truth,

                                                                 and the metal that remained

                                                                 was forged into a fragile chain

                                                                 that holds a single, golden rood,

                                                                 or the stone of solitude.

(Poet's Partyline, Hot Springs, AR.; 1982 or so;
Photograph by Steve Ketzer, Jr.,1980;
Second photograph by Eric Ketzer, 1982)

Haiketzer

Today I saw bees
scratching dandelion heads
under April's sun.



(The News, Hot Springs, AR.; April 26, 1979)

Headaches

The small kid worked in a bowling alley as a pin setter, scampering around behind the lanes, sending back balls, raking away fallen pins, setting up new racks.  He got in a fight with another kid, who, apparently losing, whopped him over the head with a bowling pin.  His skull was soft where the pin struck.  Later, in high school, he boxed in the Golden Gloves...he was always fighting, with or without gloves.  In 1942, he was one of Darby's Rangers and no doubt gave and received blows while with that outfit.  In his 50s and 60s, he suffered terrible headaches and wondered why, as did his VA doctors.  I could have told them: He was my father.

(First Photograph by Stephen Ketzer, Grandfather Heretic, circa 1932;
Second Photograph, circa 1942, photographer unknown.)

Fathers & Sons

I sent him my old jungle fatigues,

      now, again, in fashion, and he

            wrote back talking of living hells;

                  twelve years old and talking of

                        living hells. I explained that,

being Air Force, there wasn't so

      much of Hell, just drugs, booze,

            boredom and bad pizza, and that,

                  if he wanted to know more about war,

                        he'd have to ask his grandfather.

(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, May 17, 1987;
Photograph by "The Choker," 1970, Phan Rang, Vietnam.)

Kluane Mun Haiku

KLUANE LAKE, YUKON 

June 17, 1997

Reading Basho--

look at the banana,

but don't peel it.

                    Like my son,
                    I read three poems
                    and start writing--
                    sorry, Basho.

Fireweed

skirts the highway

to Destruction Bay.

Fox crosses highway,

trots through fireweed--

Farewell, stranger.

All night
in the camper,
sound of wind and lake waves.

Lighting a cigarette

from a campfire twig,

loving life that much.

Chewing my lip,
I gaze at mountains
in the lake.

                        Below snow streaked mountains,
                        two loons on Kluane Lake--
                        sound of wings.

                                                   Okay, you nosy gnats,
                                                   while Dingo swims,
                                                   I dream.

Ground squirrels
sit at their holes,
lecture my dogs.

Quite by mistake,

a gnat

pressed between pages.

Awakening to sound of rain,
we rolled,
pulled covers over our heads.

Neither robin, squirrel

nor insect--

only the rain speaks today.

Even the gnats are inside

staying dry--

I wonder where?

Closing the book,

this rain,

will it ever end?

Standing in the rain,
looking at my breath--
June in the Yukon.

Steam rises from urine;

I apologize

to fern, moss and prickley rose.

Two robins speak
from spruce top:
No more rain today.

CHILKOOT LAKE, HAINES, ALASKA
(a few days later)

Bear approaches,

I raise my arms, "Whoa!"

It turns away.

Campfire smoke
through forest sun rays--
a fish jumps.

The great eagle

carries off

a tiny duckling.

sound of waterfalls
a fish jumps
sound of waterfalls

The cub tips my canoe

with a loud "Splash!"

life jackets float away.

Air horn in one pocket,
pepper spray in the other,
I read about renga by the campfire...
Did you hear that?

35/40

I don't know the girl on the left, but the one on the right was my aunt.  Some 35 years after this photograph was taken and 40 years since then, I can still hear her yell at me for combing my hair in her kitchen; she also yelled at me for jabbing food with a sharp knife and putting it in my mouth. She made the best lasagna.  The boy was my uncle, a master mechanic, who rescued me frequently and sometimes my friends. He showed me how to set the internal timing on an aircraft engine magneto.  He showed me again and again.  His patience never failed: I finally got it.


(Photograph by Stephen Ketzer, aka, Grandfather Heretic, circa 1936)

O, Sweet Nothingness!

Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me,
Encase the shadows in a mind that stews
Where there is nothing but nihility.

Pluck up a storm, a bold cacophony;
It really doesn't matter if you do
Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me.

Sing songs of imperceptibility;
I'll dream a dream of hollowness for you
Where there is nothing but nihility.

Come, play your silver strings and set us free
To shoot beyond the stars, and, if you choose,
Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me.

Beyond the circled form of space you see,
We'll pass black holes hitchhiking to the ruse
Where there is nothing but nihility.

Give just one word, a sign, of constancy
In truth, and I won't call your bluff when you
Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me
Where there is nothing but nihility.


(The Sentinel-Record, Hot Springs, AR, 1983 or so)

Dogwood

Now is the time of the dogwood.
This wait is finished.
There was no bursting forth,
no overnight glory;
no one can walk away this time
claiming they watched unaware.

Each blossom grew in a shadow,
brittle and green at first, but
larger, lighter, whiter by the day.
The coming was always next week.
Those red bud bled a prophecy
as each flower followed the moon,
and butterflies danced in the morning,
so certain the coming was soon.

And at last the dogwood shimmered
in that very same straight light of noon,
and even the forest shadows
came leaping up out of their tombs.


(Kaleidoscope, Sentinel-Record, Hot Springs, 1983 or so)

These Keys Must Strike Too Hard

Beneath this poem, on this paper,

I can see the imprint

of a letter to my son

(I always use two sheets).

Actually, I sat down thinking

I might transpose the words

of famous philosophers

and come up with something funny:

"I am; therefore, I think."

"Finished, is it?"

And, yes, it wasn't working.

When I got to Augustine's,

"I had my back to the light,

and my face to the things enlightened,"

I saw no transposition,

at least,

none I cared to make.

It was too beautiful, too true

for destruction.

Sometimes that happens.

Then I saw the letter,

periods strewn chaotic like stars,

commas like meteors, colons,

semicolons...I see them now, ellipsis,

all and all there embossed:

These keys must strike too hard.

And, O, those complicated compound sentences

I thought correct though challenging,

I threw them at him,

hoping he would throw them back,

but he hasn't yet;

he seldom writes:

These keys must strike too hard.

(The Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, March 30, 1986; photograph by Steve Ketzer, Jr.)

Vagrant Thoughts

Somewhere in the scratched,
crosshatched network
of lines and intersections
as vacant as Modigliani eyes,
between city days at the pool
and the quiet improbabilities of we,
beyond this instant
and that first snap of memory,
behind those eyes and stars
falling like salts toward a wound,
vagrant thoughts,
ideas without things,
come ragged out of trash can alleyways
with no apparent purpose,
direction or destination,
and quite without means they come
to pass briefly beneath a streetlight.

Yes, if I could only stop one there,
take it in and bathe it,
wash its clothes and feed it
and in the morning greet it...
but, you know,
I'd hate to lose a friend like you.

(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, January 18, 1987;
Photographs by Steve Ketzer, Jr., 1986)

Alone on Mount Mariah

Infinite resignation grew into a faith,
the philosopher might have said,
that Isaac would not be required on that height,
a simple matter of, "I and the lad will go yonder
and worship, and come again to you,"
but he did not say when;
he did not say in what form.

And with the faith of Abraham, we prepared
the sacrifice that God would not allow:
good dry wood for the fire,
strong rope to bind him there,
one body becoming ten souls,
by noon, the soul of man. He
laid Isaac on the altar, upon the wood,
and with Hell screaming,
withdrew the knife from its sheath,

as Earth trembled.
Abraham's eyes turned to heaven,
but no angel called his name;
there was no sacrificial lamb
caught in a thicket to replace.
The knife billowing with flame
became a cloud of smoke.
Abraham closed his eyes and groaned,
his arm unstoppable, the knife point down,
and Isaac rode a fiery chariot
above that holy ground.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, February 9, 1986)

Automobiles

No, it wasn't brainwashing.  Since the first Fords, Americans loved automobiles because they love individual freedom, the ability to go where you want to go, when you want to go, on your schedule, not one dictated by a public transportation authority with some Mussolini beating his chest about how, for a brief moment, it runs on time. And as for trains, our men got their fill riding 40 & 8s, anyway.  But, say it was brainwashing; then I would suggest the washer is currently at work in India and China.


(Photograph by Steve Ketzer, Sr.)