comments on “I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling” version 2

I used to avoid melodramatic language. Didn’t I? Well, I’ve always used it. But I tend to edit it down cuz people find it objectionable. I think I’m camping anyway. Exaggerating, dressing emotion in gaudy excess. I think that’s one of the things that poetry does – excess. Non-poets turn to poetry in extremis. When the heart hurts, when they feel an agonizing grief, a flaring rage, a deep calm. Ordinary, daily emotion isn’t what poetry is for. It’s also for an excess of language strategies – sound, pun, structure, destruction. Excess doesn’t mean not serious. But serious doesn’t mean fun-hating.

Used to be the dedicated poet soaked in agonies and spewed ecstasies, too. But fashions changed. Restraint. A cool intellectualism. These became the acceptable poetry. All that panting and moaning and running through the streets – even if only safe on the page and bound – ugh – the sophisticated reader recoiled. And I’m not saying I don’t share the reaction. Poems of centuries past that wordily roved about the poet’s oh-so-important sentiment remain anachronistic.

But I like passions. If my poetry is sometimes more WWF than street brawl, okay. I like capes and shouting. A poem is not a fist in the face. Not really. It’s display, not attack. Not that the two aren’t frequently confused.

When I showed the poem to Kent he said it was familiar. Yeah. I knew when I was writing it I was revisiting a dream that’s found it’s way into many an earlier poem. There’s a terrain that I wander through that a reader used to my work could begin to anticipate. It’s not that we refrain from repeating ourselves; it’s that we’re trying out variations.

I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling, version 2

The house, from foundations of cloud,
replenished smoke tapestries
with the burning of fear.
In the hall my heart stopped.
The wind dragged past to the bath.
And I had to tear loose some of that fear,
some little of it
that had caught in the hinge,
that had brought things to a halt.
And to one of the tongues of flame
that searched the walls for the words
that had been eaten already, I was sure,
eaten and digested,
that was smudge now across a watery way between
white monuments,
to one of the fatter
I pressed it.
Wasn’t I going to fall anyway?
I explored my skills in falling,
tested the latch and release of the heart.
The wind dragged off in the other direction
toward one of the dark rooms
far back.
With cold fingers I tore from my fear what would come.
Put it in your ears, I told myself.
Keep them burning.

poem I bought a book with

“I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling” is the poem I bought a book with. Today was Small Press Distribution’s annual open house and in a nook of one of the office cubicles they’d set out yellow writing tablets. If you brought a poem or story you could fill out a voucher form, then hand over your writing and choose from several shelves of books. If you hadn’t had the foresight to bring anything you could sit down and write something on one of the yellow pads. I liked that. So I sat down, cast my gaze about the walls at posters, at the bookshelves, nothing grabbed me. I turned to the page and wrote down a phrase that has visited me now & again for decades – “I fell into a kingdom of falling.”

They say they will publish a selection of the poems. The young woman who stapled my poem to the voucher asked if she could read the poem. I said yes; once she’d read it she didn’t say anything. If she’d loved it I suppose she would have said something, but who knows.

I saw one familiar poet waiting for the scheduled reading to begin, Dale Jensen. He showed me a couple books he’d plucked from the boxes of books being offered for a dollar per. After the reading (which was good; I really have to sit down with that Andrew Joron book I bought years ago) I applied myself to the task of spending $10. There were about fifteen full boxes – poetry, novels, essays, literary magazines. Did I succeed? I did. I will list them all at DIR.

A big storm is coming in. It rained a bit on the car on the drive over to SPD, and maybe it rained while I was safely inside the warehouse poring diligently over the dollar books. Having bought them I was asked repeatedly if I was sure I didn’t need a bag. No, I said. Somebody took a picture of me holding them against my chest.

I Fell into a Kingdom of Falling

The house, its foundation of cloud,
replenished smoke tapestries
with the burning of fear.
My heart stopped in the hall
as the wind dragged past to the bath
and I tore loose some of the fear,
some little of it
that had caught in the hinge,
and pressed it to one of the tongues of flame
that searched the walls for the words
that had been eaten already, I was sure,
eaten and digested,
now smudge across a watery way between
white monuments.
I was going to fall anyway.
I explored my falling skills,
tested the opening and closing of the heart,
the wind dragging past my mouth
toward one of the dark rooms
at the back of the house.
I tore at my fear with cold fingers.
I should put them in my ears, which
are burning.

Finding Fowl

Here I am at the Info Desk again. I helped a woman (mother?) find the 3rd & 4th novels of the Artemis Fowl series - the books don't feature a number on the cover, and our online catalog doesn't tell you. There are tricks - like sorting search results by publication date - #3 in a series is never published before #2, right?

I haven't had many live people asking for help. And most of the phone calls make me feel like a receptionist - "Let me transfer you to her office."

A preteen girl wanted the Dear America series. A friend had recommended them. I found the series in the catalog, then set her up at a catalog terminal so she could scroll down the list until she found one she liked. She found two. Neither was on the shelf. One was checked out. The other? Who knows. While we were looking for the Dear America books the girl started spinning a rack of paperbacks and said she was okay with not finding the Dear America books as she was finding other things of interest.

I don't do the children's paperbacks. I will help with the processing of them - entering the titles into the system, slapping on a barcode, whatever. But I don't choose any. So if there's great stuff there I can't take the credit.

Info Desk Blogging

Quiet night. I'm usually not on Info Desk the last two hours of a Thursday. I guess I got plunked here cuz the head of the branch is taking part in a public meeting to gather input on the renovation of the branch. I just got a phone call: "Are there many people at the meeting?" Being as I can't see the meeting room from the Info Desk I tried encouraging the caller to come and have his say. "We welcome the input," I said. But the caller wasn't right nearby. It would take him fifteen minutes to get here. He didn't want to come unless nobody else was here. So I put him on hold and went to see. "Looks like there are five people at the meeting," I told him as I got back on the line. "Oh dear," he said, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

Tonight is also our day of the month to host Lawyers in the Library, a volunteer service of the Alameda County Bar Association. There's only one lawyer. So it's Lawyer in the Library. Rather than Lawyers ... donchano.

The Lawyer night brings more anxiety than usual into the library. I don't hear any of the stories that lead people to need lawyers, but worried faces come up to the desk wondering if the lawyer is in, how long does the lawyer see each person, what's the order people are seen, and so on.

One of the slightly weird things about our Lawyer night is this: "In-person sign-ups only; sign-ups begin at 5pm. Names pulled by lottery at 6pm." You are not seen in the order in which you show up. You are seen in a random order. This seems to change somewhat according to who is at the Info Desk. Some Info Deskers give people a place in line. This changeability is kind of annoying. The Berkeley Information Network page (linked above) has the rules; I read the rules to anybody who asks and whenever they tell me someone else told them something different I tell the questioner all I know is what's written. If the policy has been changed the written version needs to be changed so we all can give out the same information. Blah blah blah. I try to say it nicely.

I try to say everything nicely. Nobody likes attitude. Frankly, attitude just makes the job harder. Of course, part of the job is enforcing rules and that's not always happy-making.

Ooh. Is cold out. The door opens and chill air pours in. Just think, at home now we have central heating! It's cheering me up.

pre-Thanksgiving thoughts

The renovation project drags on. It’s stressful. Working on our fourth* month. I’m sure other people have had it worse. Do you ever actually feel better when you hear how much worse other people have it? Better, in a relative way, maybe. It doesn’t make you feel good, right? It just puts your misery into perspective. At least I’m not in prison or wandering homeless in the desert. My hands are cold – but I could be starving!

Really, I don’t get the could-be-worse strategy for bucking oneself up.

Last night in bed I was counting my blessings. Most of them came with a yeah-but (“Praise be for two orange kitties. … Yeah, but it would be better if they didn’t pee in the house, and if that big fluffy one didn’t act like we were just this side of enemies and run away from our affections.”); I tried to quiet the yeah-buts and came up with a pretty good list.

We don’t have concrete plans for Thanksgiving. … uh … Cooking in the new kitchen?

----

* actually, we're working on our fifth month!

a haiku sequence written at sunset Nov 8, 2009

too chilly to sit
on the porch, have to pee
write about that



white apartments sunset pink
cherry tree porchlight yellow



two old toilets under a tarp
chimney now a pile of bricks
grass green again



cat circling me
hunting a chin scratch



the mop propped outside
gets wet with each rain
but not clean



all right, daylight
leave the page
to my imagination

Info Desk Blogging

Don't have the approval to clear the weeding shelves yet. So. Not doing that.

And I did a heckuva lot of paperbacks last month so I want to wait till people adjust to the new stuff before processing any more. And I kinda don't want to kill off any older paperbacks right now.

On lunches & breaks I choose a book from among the deleted paperbacks (yes, I hang onto those that look interesting). Last week I finished The Boys and Their Baby by Larry Wolff. I started The Good Conscience by Carlos Fuentes at lunch today. I ate a veggie sandwich at Nabolom Bakery and in two chapters worked my way through two generations of a Mexican family.

Weather is nice. The front door is propped open.

Browsing paperbacks that have been checked out today so far:

Karen Joy Fowler - The Jane Austen Book Club
Emily Griffin - Baby Proof
Anne River Siddons - Sweetwater Creek
Anna Quindlen - Black and Blue
Robert B. Parker - High Profile
PD James - Shroud for a Nightingale
Adrienne Brodeur - Man Camp
Jane Smiley - Ten Days in the Hills
Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You
Anne Tyler - Digging to America
Velma Wallis - Two Old Women: an Alaska legend

Info Desk Blogging

I've completed the weeding project. That doesn't mean it's finished, tied with a bow, put away, all done. After all, we're still getting in new books and the new books have to go on the old shelves. Even though I've removed many books from the old shelves, the new books will fill them up and more weeding will need to be done. Plus there are small collections that I haven't worked on yet - the Chinese books, the oversized books.

A couple years ago I took on the weeding when I was annoyed by the book trucks in the meeting room that had been set aside for overflow, that is, all those books there was no room for in the stacks. I was sitting here at the Info Desk, you know, looking over at the crowded Fiction thinking, "I bet no one checks that one out, or that one." There was a period not long ago when I had made enough room on the shelves to clear the books trucks. That was satisfying. Unfortunately the most popular collection, the Mysteries, is full again. The DVDs are crowded, too. And the area set aside for them was small to start with. I haven't attempted to weed those. I suspect the best way to weed them would be for condition - do they play? But we don't have a DVD player here.

Actually I'm waiting on my boss to approve for deletion that last batch of weeding. Once she gives the OK that'll be the work of a couple hours.

morning jackhammer

Let’s see. A jackhammer is beating away at the concrete that was just laid last week? That would be under the house. I think that’s what’s happening. I haven’t actually gone to look. Or asked. I just get to hear it. That was a hammer wielded by hand, that was. Thunk thunk thunk. Felt that one through the floor boards.

Living in a construction project. Fun? Or not fun?

Ambient temperature outside: 59 degrees fahrenheit
Inside: 61 degrees
I got the first number from Weather Underground. The second was the last number I saw on the thermometer upstairs. The one on the downstairs thermostat is less precise but looks about the same.

There are still holes in the roof. These will be filled by skylights. Sometime. Not by tomorrow, though. Tomorrow a big storm is supposed to be coming in. Supposedly the holes will be covered enough to keep the rain out.

The project is a kitchen remodel. It keeps being other things. The jackhammering is related to the structural deficiencies our contractor discovered upon tearing out walls that were holding the kitchen in. He wants to make sure the house rides out the next big quake. Which is overdue, he insists. Earthquakes are not library books, I almost say.

Angry

Angry that we have to fight and fight and fight.

Watching the fight to keep Maine’s new marriage law with a feeling of dread.

Just as important is the fight in Washington state to keep marriage-in-all-but-name.

Angry that we have to spend lots of money to run these expensive campaigns so we can live out our boring, normal lives.

Angry that we lose these fights over and over.

Nobody wins anything when we lose. Nobody’s life is easier. No one is protected from anything. Nothing is served except pain.

Walk?

I feel like going for a walk. I wonder if I am going to go for a walk. It's getting late-ish, toward dinner time. I feel somewhat less like going for a walk than I did a couple hours ago, time I've spent reading, mostly, also eating the cold, sweet watermelon Kent cut. Drifting around the house.

Part of what's stayed me from a stroll is lack of destination, but all the routes have been traveled, too. If Black Oak Books hadn't closed, I said to myself earlier, I would probably walk over there, a mere two blocks, and while away an hour picking up books and trying to talk myself out of buying them. But today is Labor Day; even if Black Oak were still there wouldn't it have shut for the holday?

Kent & I ate lunch at Bel Forno, a North Berkeley cafe, then took advantage of $10-off coupons to buy some stuff at CVS Pharmacy (formerly Long's). Kent got new earbuds for his iPod. I got toilet paper.

That was our walking for the day. Which didn't seem quite enough. But if I were to step out the door now, where would I go? Half Price Books is open as is, I believe, Comic Relief - and Half Price is even offering 20% off on everything - but we poked around there yesterday and I managed not to buy anything.

I could walk up to the Rose Garden. The sun's getting low so maybe I'd be in time for sunset. (Timeanddate.com says sunset is at 7:29, so I can dally and still make it.) Views of the bay and the Golden Gate are good from there.

I've seen 'em so I know. Plus a walk up that way would be good exercise.

If I walk north I end up at Solano Ave. Which is of interest. But I was there just last week. And what would be open?

If I walk west, what? The Ohlone Greenway? It's okay, a long stretch of urban park. Kids on monkey bars, dogs in the fenced-in off-leash zone, homeless people.

Sometimes I like looking at houses or imagining myself living in different neighborhoods. I could do that in any direction.

It would be fun to have a friend (or three) that's also a neighbor who doesn't mind an occasional visitor dropping by. You know, for a chat, a cup of tea, a game of checkers. Whatever. But I don't have any quite like that these days.

I guess I'm a little bored. Not frustratingly so. I've banned myself for the rest of the day from the political blogs because I was just leaving angry comments that weren't doing me a lick of good, really.

Walk. Or no. Having written about it I'm sleepy. Perhaps I'll take a nap.

Info Desk Blogging

It's quiet here at the Claremont Branch. I can hear over at the circulation desk an older woman is being told she returned a DVD case without the DVD inside. "I found that at home. I was wondering about it. If you really want it, I can get it back today," she says.

Thursday nights we stay open until 8pm. And when the light lasts people linger. During winter by 8 it's been dark for two or three hours. Few people hang around.

A warm day. The front door is propped open.

A man just asked me what our wifi security protocols are. We have security protocols? The Wireless FAQ page on the BPL website says, "Your information is not protected while using wireless." So I guess there aren't any.

Another man asks me if he can talk to me about a missing book. It seems he got a notice saying a book he checked out had not yet been returned. "But I know I returned it," he says. "I know because I opened the door to the drop box and looked in to make sure it had fallen all the way in."

I took the library card, scanned it under the laser frog scanner. The patron's library account popped up. He had exactly zero books checked out currently and had no fines. "No need to worry any more," I said.

I've been working away at the weeding project, book by book reviewing the collection for damage and for books that just don't go out the door. The section I've been going through just lately used to be very tight and has been weeded in the recent past. So mostly I'm carrying books from the shelf to the Info Desk then, a few minutes later, carrying them back. Still, a few things have been put aside: Chinatown, USA: a history and guide (1965), a 17 year old collection of George Will columns, superceded editions (a Suze Orman book, a Nolo book on 401(k)s, a J.K. Lasser Income Tax guide).

poem

The mouth opens black
under an inaccessible sky.
You look at the mouth,
black and open like that,
no way into it.
You're considering the ways
you might get away from it.
There’s left
and right
and back the way you came.
You could walk under it, too,
duck right under its big black gape,
those two broad teeth poised to bite,
one tooth to each stiff jaw.
You could stop,
and with an open palm,
whack that mouth -
whang!
Then on into the unfenced field,
leave the road stopped before the mouth
that’s going to bite, looks like,
going to bite a piece off and swallow it.
You’d be brave,
marching down the throat of that future,
past where any road’s allowed.





photo by Art Durkee
found on blog post by Jim Murdoch
in which he talks about writing poems in response to artwork

Winkie report?

Winkie good. Compliments to David Maxine for putting together a solid program. Um. Nice drive down with John Bell who was visiting from Boston; I picked him up in Oakland and we chatted (or I chattered?) all the way down. I asked him once on the way down & once on the way back what sort of music he liked – I’d intended to bring a batch of the playlist CDs I’d burned, but had forgotten them at home, the music preference question being not just idle curiosity but checking to see whether he would hate what I was going to slip into the car’s CD player – except, of course, I didn’t have the CDs with me. Still, John said he liked “American Standards.”

American Standard?

Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, Eloise McGraw. Um. No? I didn’t put on the radio because I was talking, plus I was driving, so why distract from the moment?

I liked John. Smart guy. Personable. Didn’t interrupt me.

Anything else about Winkies? The old regulars. They are getting older. I guess that was a surprise. We youngsters of the 70s & 80s? Middle aged. Anybody coming up behind us? Um. Anthony? The 15 year old local? I liked him. Bouncy. He was puzzled by the lack of attention to the MGM movie. “That’s what I really like,” he said. “I haven’t read the books.”

Meanwhile David Maxine was saying we really need to get people to join the club who are into the Oz books. The books!

There is only one MGM Wizard of Oz. There are 14 sequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. And many sequels by subsequent authors. I run out of things to say about the MGM movie rather quickly.

But I don’t know. I got one thing at the auction, an early edition of The Giant Horse of Oz. The other night Kent asked me if it was a book I really liked. After he noted that I wasn’t answering that question I furrowed my little brow and said, “I’ve never thought of it that way. I’m going to have all 40 books in the Oz series, and, yes, there are some I like better than others … but the issue of whether to buy something has little to do with whether that particular book is a favorite. Some editions of the books have more illustrations. I’d like the ones with all the illustrations.”