Poetics and Ruminations

Buesanelle of the Day: Summer Beach Scene

SUMMER BEACH SCENE

A Longfellow tailgater bluesanelle.

 

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls  

Along the shoreline. The curlew calls

While poison ivy spreads up the walls.

 

With her long bill she probes the mud

Searching for creatures of the mud

As twilight darkens. The curlew calls,

 

Emitting her shrill and triple screech

That skims the surf along the beach.

The poison ivy spreads up the walls,

 

Tempting late bathers to come and feel

Its shiny triple leaves, to feel

The clinging poison. The curlew calls

 

But pays no heed to vegetation,

To tourists spending a vacation

As ivy spreads along the walls

 

And tempts them all to come and touch,

But neither tourist nor curlew touch

The poison ivy climbing the walls

As twilight darkens and the curlew calls.

 

© 2013 by Lewis Turco, all rights reserved.

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Regarding the Trayvon Martin – George Zimmerman affair

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the 2012 Florida Statutes

 

Title XLVI CRIMES

Chapter 776 JUSTIFIABLE USE OF FORCE

 

76.013 Home protection; use of deadly force; presumption of fear of death or great bodily harm.—

(1) A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:

(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used was in the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or if that person had removed or was attempting to remove another against that person’s will from the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle; and

(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred.

 

Q: Was Trayvon Martin illegally entering a home? A: No.

 

(2) The presumption set forth in subsection (1) does not apply if:

(a) The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner, lessee, or titleholder, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person; or

(b) The person or persons sought to be removed is a child or grandchild, or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of, the person against whom the defensive force is used; or

(c) The person who uses defensive force is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further an unlawful activity; or

(d) The person against whom the defensive force is used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who enters or attempts to enter a dwelling, residence, or vehicle in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person entering or attempting to enter was a law enforcement officer.

 

Q: Does any of the above apply to Trayvon Martin? A: No.

 

(3) A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

(4) A person who unlawfully and by force enters or attempts to enter a person’s dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle is presumed to be doing so with the intent to commit an unlawful act involving force or violence.

 

Q: Did Trayvon Martin have the right to be where he was, and does this law apply to him as well as to George Zimmerman? A: Yes.

 

(5) As used in this section, the term:

(a) “Dwelling” means a building or conveyance of any kind, including any attached porch, whether the building or conveyance is temporary or permanent, mobile or immobile, which has a roof over it, including a tent, and is designed to be occupied by people lodging therein at night.

(b) “Residence” means a dwelling in which a person resides either temporarily or permanently or is visiting as an invited guest.

(c) “Vehicle” means a conveyance of any kind, whether or not motorized, which is designed to transport people or property.

History.—s. 1, ch. 2005-27.

 

Q: Does any of section five apply to Trayvon Martin? A: No.

 

The Neighborhood Watch Rules of Sanford, Florida, have  been removed from the City's web site; however, according to Florida and National Neighborhood Watch rules,

 

1. Members of a Watch do not have the right to carry firearms.

 

Q. Was George Zimmerman in violation of this rule? A. Yes.

 

2. Members of a watch are not to approach a suspect in person but to report such suspect.

 

Q. Did George Zimmerman report Trayvon Martin as a suspect to the 911 headquarters? A. Yes.

 

Q. Was he told not to follow Trayvon Martin? A. Yes; he was told, “We do not need you to do that [to follow Trayvon Martin].

 

Q. Did he follow Trayvon Martin in violation of his instructions? A. Yes.

 

Q. Did he approach Trayvon Martin? A. Yes.

 

Q. Did he initiate the confrontation with Trayvon Martin? A. Yes.

 

Q. Did Trayvon Martin know who George Zimmerman was? A. No.

 

Q. Did Trayvon Martin have the right to defend himself against George Zimmerman according to Florida law? A. Yes.

 

Q. Was Trayvon Martin armed? A. No.

 

Q. Was George Zimmerman, given the situation, the law, and the rules, justified in shooting Trayvon Martin?  A. No.

 

 

 

Millpond: A Poemoir

           On March 31^st of 1959 W. F. Loehwing, Dean of the Graduate College of the University of Iowa, wrote to me at Storrs, Connecticut, where I was teaching as a graduate assistant at UConn, my Alma Mater, to tell me that I had been awarded a Graduate Fellowship in the Writers’ Workshop for the academic year 1959-60. I was happy to accept the offer, but a few days later, on April 4^th, Paul Engle wrote to offer me a teaching assistantship instead of the Fellowship.  He also asked me to submit poems for consideration in an Iowa publication that would turn out to be the Random House anthology Midland: Twenty-Five Years of Fiction and Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

          A few days later I wrote back saying I'd rather not teach as I wanted to get my degree as quickly as possible. Paul replied, telling me about the differences between the English M. A. and the M. F. A., which took longer.  I decided on the M. A., as I still had a year to go on the G. I. Bill and would be able to transfer my six UConn graduate English credits to Iowa, thus in effect finishing my class work at Iowa in a year.       

          Although it was against the rules, apparently, to give a graduate fellow an assistantship as well, when I arrived at Iowa Paul made me his Editorial Assistant; as such, I would assist him with Midland and other projects, including another anthology, the Hallmark Poetry for Pleasure, which was to be published by Doubleday.

          On April 8th Elizabeth Ames wrote to inform me that I was invited to reside at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N. Y., from 6 July to September 6th.  I wrote to tell her I would be able to attend only until August 6^th because I had decided to enter Iowa. This is a photograph of the group who assembled at Yaddo during August of 1959:

 

Front Row, Sitting, L --> R: Ilse Lind, Gerald Weales, Lewis Turco, Hope Hale Davis, Douglas Allanbrook, Ilse Getz, Buffie Johnson, Manoucher Yektai.

Back Row, L --> R: Harold Lewis, Gordon Binkerd, Reuel Denney, Howard Rogovin, Hyde Solomon, Helen Puner, John Day, Lee Hoiby, Robert Gorham Davis, Gerald Sykes, Roger Crossgrove, Ramon Guthrie, Robert Phelps.

          Although my stay at Yaddo was truncated because I had to report to the Iowa Workshop and move there from Storrs with my wife before the term began, I had an extremely productive residence. It was there during the summer of 1959 that I began writing poems in unrhymed quantitative syllabic prosody rather than in traditional accentual-syllabics:

(Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem "Millpond"): 

MILLPOND

Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1959

 

                       This is the place where peace grows

like a green frond set among waters aerial

                       with dragonflies.  Where, at noon,

                the trees section the broad falling

leaf of light, and space color upon the millpond,

                yet do not move because motion

                       might be lost upon silence.

 

                       This is the place where a stone,

given its occasional career, could disturb

                       little with an arc and fall,

                for the pond would swallow all voice

and shrug circling ripples into its banks until

                moss had absorbed this small wet gift,

                       showing a fancy darker.

 

                       This is the place where one may

abet his heart's romance, deceiving his eyes by

                       unconsciously confusing

                slow change with no change.  But even

here, dream makes way for declensions of wind and sun.

                The alders will grow, moss will dry.

                       Wings will pulsate, then plummet.

 

                       This is the place where peace rests

like ferns beyond lilies.  The trick is to wear it

                       as a mantle, but to know

                cloaks for cloaks, shelters for shelters.

Beneath this revery of surfaces, fish wait

                for the dragonfly's mistake.  The

                       trick is to lose, but to own.

         “Millpond” appeared the following year in The Minnesota Review, and in 1981 it was published as a broadside by Buffalo Prints and Paper (Frank C. Eckmair) in a Limited edition of under 20 copies. The poem was paired with "Dark Light," an intaglio by George O'Connell, in  

 

with a subsequent tour of the State, first to New York City, the Pratt Manhattan Center Gallery, December 18, 1982-January 15, 1983. The exhibit was reprised in Albany at the SUNY Central Offices, 14 October 1994. A copy of the poem in calligraphy by Jean Garvey, was grouped with four prints by George O'Connell and placed on permanent exhibition in 1982 as The Jeffrey Sisson Memorial Exhibit at the Aurelia Osburn Fox Memorial Hospital in Oneonta, New York.

“Millpond” has been collected in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007:

 

 

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Bluesanelle of the Day: Elegy for Edgar Guest

Edgar A. Guest

 

ELEGY FOR EDGAR GUEST

By Lewis Turco

 

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,

A real big heap o’ livin’ to make a house a home --

It takes a real neat hairbrush and at least a coarse-tooth comb.

 

It takes a lotta bullshit to be a dork like me,

A dork who makes a livin’ writin’ pomes a lot like me,

An’ put ‘em in a paper for dimbulbs to read daily

 

Who wouldn’t know a noun or verb from a bowl o’ chicken soup,

Who wouldn’t know an adjective from a bowl o' chicken soup

But who like some simple rhymes mixed in with their daily poop.

 

You gotta be a genius to write a load o’ crap –

Yessir, a flamin’ genius to pen a pile o’ crap,

Then sell it to an editor who doesn’t know it’s pap.

 

Well fellas, that’s Yours Truly, the genius Edgar Guest

Who’s famous as a flatworm whose name is Edgar Guest.

I made a livin’ writin’ worst and never tryin’ best,

 

And now I’m dead and gone, but you still read the stuff I wrote.

The things I said about a home and that other stuff I wrote:

It takes a real neat hairbrush and at least a coarse-tooth comb

Plus a great big heap o’ horseshit to make a house a home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bluesanelle of the Day: An Essay on Thinking

Rene Descartes

AN ESSAY ON THINKING

Or, Putting Descartes before the Hearse.

 

By Lewis Turco

 

"I think; therefore, I am," I think.

I think I think I am, I think,

But I can wink out in a blink --

 

In fact, I think I have done so,

But if I have, how do I know

I think? Therefore, I am, I think,

 

Unable now to think I think

Because I am not now, I think,

For I have winked out in a blink.

 

I wish I had a mirror now

To see if I can wink somehow,

For that might prove that I can think

 

If I could see how I might wink

Myself awake in just a blink

To prove myself alive, I think.

 

I thought; therefore, I was, I guess,

Before I got into this mess

Of thinking to myself, I think,

Before I winked out in a blink.

 

Copyright © Lewis Turco 2013, all rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

The Attic

Image by Thom. Seawell

 

THE ATTIC

Things, the work of dust and summer flies, upstairs over the other rooms, lying where they were created under the covers of trunks. The mathoms, original art of shadows drowsing in boxes: dresses and shirts worn by the seasons at their balls and weddings; the toys mice play with; mirrors reflecting upon solitude; cords and scissors.

Downstairs  the Inhabitant moves slowing among orderly rooms; his wife is a comfort, his child little trouble, and the cat is kindly for the most part.

In the attic it is quiet; rain touches the roof and falls slowly from the eaves.

If the Inhabitant intrudes at odd times he does not notice the machine amid the clutter.  It stands in a corner behind a rack of clothes in shades of brown and yellow, a red flower printing itself now and again on some fabric fading into the slanted beams.

He is mildly surprised by the numbers of mathoms. At times it is hard to remember: a photo in a gilt frame, a ribbon, someone's scroll.

They are worth an hour's musing in semi-darkness, the hum of a wasp on the ceiling, street sounds muffled. The machine is never discovered: the only mechanism to intrude — lightly, nearly beneath any threshold — is a mower in the hands of a distant neighbor.

When the door of the mathom shop is closed and the Inhabitant leaves the print of his footsteps for a moment on the wooden stair, things pause. There is no movement, not even of time. The mathoms listen until, downstairs, carpets and rugs swallow the noises of living, until the furniture absorbs motion.

 Then the machine clicks on: the clock dial begins to turn; dust feeds the cogs. It is making things, making them slowly, out of the debris of afternoons and the streetlamp suicides of evening moths. 

It takes forever, but the mathoms accumulate, sift into the corners like drifts, send up an aroma as of the slowest burning — the scent of must. Under the mathom shop the Inhabitant senses — at most, perhaps — a vague weightlessness overhead and, now and then, the cat acts strangely.

                                                            By Lewis Turco

From The Inhabitant, Poems by Lewis Turco, Prints by Thom. Seawell, Northampton: Despa Press, 1970. Paper. O-P. All poems are collected in Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007.