moonlight quatrain

haloed crescent radiates over Venus;
earthshine discovers the old moon, embraced—

then cumulus clouds blend, drawing the curtain:
everyone I love in some other place


Jack Hayes
© 2017


1/2/17

State of the Blog 2017

Mitsumata on N. Fremont St 1/2/17

Hello friends. I decided to step aside from the torrent of poetry for a day & address you directly about where Robert Frost’s Banjo is at these days.

If you’ve been following the blog regularly, you’ve noticed a couple of things over the past few months. First, I’ve been blessed with a remarkable degree of poetic inspiration, & in the close to 40 years I’ve been seriously engaged in writing poetry, have never enjoyed such an output. I’m deeply grateful for this, but it’s strained what the blog can take—even posting two or three poems at a time, the posts now, with the exception of the occasional recent composition, such as yesterday or the last two Saturdays, are still poems from a month ago. Because the poems in essence form a journal & are very caught up in the moment, it’s making much less sense to continue the complete sequence here, & going forward I’ll only post poems that have been composed much closer to the date they appear—say within a couple of weeks at most.

This means the blog won’t have a complete record of the work, nor will there be a blog dedicated to the poems from this manuscript as there have been for The Spring Ghazals & The Days of Wine & Roses.  I also didn’t create blogs for the poetry contained in the Union Pacific chapbook & the full-length collection Ullambana in Portland. This decision is in part simply because I’d like to sell some books, but also because of the work involved in maintaining so many blogs. Possibly in the future I’ll create such dedicated blogs—we’ll see. But not now. For those who are interested, the poems that have been appearing on the blog since early October will be published within the next few months, probably by early to mid March. News of this, with relevant links, will certainly appear right here!

The Sunday Music feature has returned, & I’d really like to keep that going; & occasionally I even post photos of the week! Ideally, I’d like to get Robert Frost’s Banjo back to something more resembling “A miscellany like Grandma’s attic in Taunton, MA or Mission Street's Thrift Town in San Francisco or a Council, ID yard sale in cloudy mid April or a celestial roadmap no one folded—you take your pick”—but for now my poetry is simply too pressing to allow for the research & writing that would entail.

We—that is my translation partner, Sheila Graham-Smith & I—really want to get back to the Chinese translations too, but again, the original poetry has taken precedence for the time being. I was sad we had to drop Du Fu’s “Autumn Meditations” halfway through, but the reality is we only have so much time for writing & editing. There are draft versions of “Meditations” five through eight, as well as a few other Du Fu translations we’ll complete when we can—& eventually forge ahead with many more from the Chinese classics!

Thanks for your continued support, & a very happy 2017 to you all.

thursday octet after Vallejo

I’ll die in Portland some Thursday when cold rain’s
metal filings cascade through security

light’s golden shafts & memory turns to black
asphalt without cars, when the freightyard’s whistle

extends to infinite whole rest—come morning’s
usual light you’ll ask which cloud is mine, or

not: I’ll die in Portland some Thursday, perhaps
not this Thursday as silver overcast swells



Jack Hayes
© 2016


1/29/16

Note: The poem is obviously based on César Vallejo’s famous “Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca”, though from a rather different perspective.

Those who are interested can find English translations of Vallejo’s poem at the following links: Thomas Merton; Robert Bly & John Knoepfle; Clayton Eshelman; Ed Dorn & Gordon Brotherston; & Andres Rojas. At the link to Rojas’ blog you’ll also find Donald Justice’s “Variations on a Theme by Vallejo”.

Two More December Octets

saturday inventory octet #1

second cup of coffee, the microwave’s hum;

on the counter, a full bag of mandarins—

small jar of Tiger Balm, camphor & menthol

rubbed on a balky back; a cough that won’t shake

despite weeks of slippery elm tea; pale sun

east behind unsettled clouds, double strikethrough

of power lines—white hoodie, black jacket tossed

across an arm chair, waiting for what comes next

◦           ◦            ◦

multnomah st octet #2

from Holladay Park’s high maples, crows’ rhythmic

conversation accents a MAX train’s eastbound

clatter—a walk through air permeated with

chilled infinitesimal water, breathing out

through pursed lips—sun’s semi-circular halo

burned on nimbus overcast; on the pavement

crabapples gone black: deep in a puddle one

hornbeam emerges under a floating leaf

Jack Hayes

© 2016

12/3/16

Two More Octets

killingsworth st octet #2


stroller hitched to a bike flies green & pink gauze
banners outside the music school—blue red green

neon balloons light up a florist’s windows;
carpets piled askew in a halal market

by the one shopping cart—the pho restaurant’s
lucky bamboo thrives in a water pitcher—

blue mattress collapsing against a streetlamp:
oak leaves rot on pavement; no oaks in sight


◦    ◦    ◦


b-loop streetcar octet #1
(Burnside to 2nd)

red shopping cart stocked with two empty beer cans,
a candy bar wrapper, birch leaves just as brown—

next stop nobody exits; a gust lifts leaves
counter to the blue wheelchair sign’s white arrow

aimed north—a small tweed suitcase forsaken in
gas station lights glowing primary colors—

impassive white brick building tinged stoplight red;
doors glide open, the white-bearded image shifts


Jack Hayes
© 2016


12/2/16-12/5/16

Two Octets from Failing St

failing st octet #1


alizarin camellias, their delicate
gold thread anthers, bloom then drop to sloping mud—

Oregon-grape staked to an iron pipe in
ragged grass by the street; evergreen glimmer

despite this overcast—ferns at the base of
a privacy fence blacken & rust—yellow

recycling tub amidst chestnut leaves’ decay
sits empty & mirrored within the puddle


◦    ◦    ◦


failing st octet #2


a gap between raindrops at first; catalpa
heart leaves have mostly fallen, leaving more space—

no one on the park’s basketball courts behind
heaped Chinese abelia; lights glowing tall

at 3:00 pm—upended blue wheelbarrow
seen through fence slats; aluminum ladder rests

tilted, not quite hidden behind trimmed privet:
raindrops fall closer & closer together



Jack Hayes
© 2016


12/2/16

"Frozen Angels"

 
We have some very special music for your January listening pleasure. For each of the five Sundays this month, a video from Zoë Keating’s performance at MacWorld in 2011.

Those of you who know me &/or have followed the blog for some time are aware that I hold Zoë Keating’s artistry in very high esteem. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Zoë Keating’s work, a few words, however inadequate, as a brief introduction.

Zoë Keating is a cellist who uses looping software to create richly layered soundscapes with her compositions. This is simple in the telling, but the results are some of the best contemporary music I know. Keating has been described as a “one-woman orchestra”, but recently she has been a bit critical of that term—which makes sense. Her sound is much more about polyphony than symphony in the strict sense of the word. Originally Keating envisioned her compositions as being played by a consort of 16 cellos, but when this proved impractical, she used her technological expertise to perform them as a soloist.

“Frozen Angels” is from her 2005 album One Cello x 16: Natoma. Please do yourselves a favor: visit her website & buy her music. Keating is an independent artist who manages not only to compose & perform all this amazing music, but also to produce & promote it on her own. She deserves a wide audience & wide support. Also: if you ever have a chance to hear her perform live, do not miss it.

Enjoy!



Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:
Zoë Keating performs with Rasputina; Concert at La Sala Rossa, Montreal, Quebec, 26 October 2005.
Photo by Wiki user Simon Law, who generously makes it available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.