every soul, a canvas.

for ed

A wall phone, black as magnification and yellow as the sea, still rings on my kitchen wall.

There is a kink in the cord as if it belongs there.

In years past, I handed the handle of it, smelling like garlic and cigarettes ,

to someone loved, mid conversation,

like a ship who's frantic captain can't turn the damn thing around in time,

so Crane, bless him, is lost to the waves.

To the shark with one eye. To the white buildings

of blood serum and homosexuality.

Oh lord, there are rooms then there are rooms.

Some you enter uninhabited. Then there are others where the

witches who've flown in from the forest, dive in feet first. I told

my own child of the times when a laugh wasn't a thing you peck out

nor a hurt you give over to innuendo; like those birds who

caught the young socialites of Bodega Bay in a phone booth

in a kind of deep, spiritual pecking until, my sister said,

her eyes came out. I had hid my own with the same forearm

the mosquitos would drain of blood and where later in life

I would rub my sideburns in a sort of oil fury,

fully aware that the sun makes silver out of sweat. That same year

I wrote my grandmother letters which she would reply

in a heavenly phonon. What she didn't know was that

she was writing poems on me

like I, in my grey innocence,

write poems on you.

Reviews

[CD Campbell]

I could read this over and over, but eventually as in now eventually, I have to write a review. There is a certain shallowness when we read a work, ponder a few seconds, then charge on to the keyboard to spill out our first thoughts like buzzing drones. I hesitate at this moment to do that. This is one of those poems that leave you with nothing but a "huh?" moment. Not a "huh?", like the screwed up face of some business b***h who can't figure out how to make money off of this, but the "huh?" of being stunned, a getting hit in the gut kind of moment. I can't explain that anymore. This is a poem that takes control and you just have to let it. CD

[boblakin]

We all start off as a blank canvas; or do we? I still can't decide whether to go with learned response or Kant's categorical imperative. :)

You are one damn good writer. Boblakin

[h d e rushin]

I love that blank canvas analogy boblakin. I remember Georgia O'keefe who always loved to paint flowers but had to be persuaded to paint art. Are we any different? Try, as we might, to get it
right with out little masculine securities. Words are the men of this world. They take prisoners and kick open garage doors. I guess we are all just trying to line up, in stanza's and likenesses, the men in our lives.....Wonderful thoughts my friend......and thank you....dana

[M. Shepherd]

I must admit, I'm always a little puzzled at first and often have to use resources (the good ol internet) to decode (I, like a heathen, a product of my ignorant and irreverent generation, have never seen The Birds, but, it's on ma damn list) and some ideas simply remain gloriously cryptic to me (what is black about magnification? Yellow about the sea? but for those buttery sunsets - but I wonder if I tend towards overanalysis and perhaps Pina Bausch would have plenty to say about art or poetry or in her case, dance, directly denoting anything obvious or cerebral, that it pulls more subconscious and visceral levers), but what I do discover, upon unpacking your bedazzling knapsacks of crystalline riches of language, is tapestries of memories and abstruse ideas, gold nuggets of wisdom and reflection wrapped in silk handkerchiefs of imagery and metaphor. A treasure trove you've built here.

[h d e rushin]

thank you my dear Marcie for that beautiful insight......I love you so much....dana

[Olivia]

the craftsmanship of this poem is very impressive, you seem to capture every feeling and thought with perfection, when i first read the title i thought will this be pretentious? and of course it wasn't, gritty and powerful

[h d e rushin]

thank you so much dear Olivia.......I've missed you dearly.....dana

[Lyn Anderson]

This wonderful snippet of life and memory and thoughts and emotion your style is a unique jumble of complex yet simple things -- nice to read you as always.

[h d e rushin]

thank you so much KL for those kind comments....I told myself that I would be so different this year...as If difference is a thing you hope for. I guess it's kind of like Trump saying he's going to be "so Presidential" when he's elected. We wade through the bad in order to wait out the good...lol

love you....dana

[Lyn Anderson]

yes, great analogy -- and the garlic and cigarettes -- how is it that phone cords held those weird combinations?

[Ed Hart]

in the chariot race, it takes a consummate courage to release the reins

[h d e rushin]

indeed it does dear brother......Great analogy....and thank you.....dana

[W.k.kortas]

It is snippets of other poetry, the haunting anecdotes, the snapshots burned into the brain--this whole thing a canvas its ownself, the blurbs of paint not seeming as they should form a connection until the finished product reveals itself, and then oh my what a fine, fine thing it is.

[h d e rushin]

thank you for those fine comments my dear friend.........dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

x. spoke so eloquently of this poem, i could not top his words...

you write on all of us and about all of us, as if we are your canvass...and the paintings are our understanding of life, mixed with the oils of perception that you deliver from your palette.

this is so ginsberg, blake and langston hughes blended together on one canvass..

and those, like your grandmother, who don't consciously write poems...make us poems...

j.

[h d e rushin]

Ginsberg, blake and hughes....those are some heavy shoes to fill dear brother...thanks as always for those kind remarks....dana

[m.s.early]

Every word, every phrase, every reference that escapes me is stunning. There are so many intimate backstories and they are graceful in their obscurity.

You have your finger on the pulse of something that I have never been able to understand, and naked rawness, as rare as frozen uncooked meat and just as hard. There is wicked calibration between you and the heart beat of your universe.

Sometimes when I read your work it gives me a concussion. it leaves me sitting dizzy with my mouth gaping open.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear x. I cant come to the café often like I use to. but when I do come it is always a joy to hear from you again.....dana