Where (poem)

Happy world poetry day!

Where

This is where I wrote my poem,
this craggy, jagged sidewalk:
brown and gray with pebbled,
oil-soaked patches, and near the yellow-painted curb,
whose rotted cigarette stumps and
empty soda cans are
left for birds who sing and chirp
in the friendly treetops.

A stop sign presents red octagonality
near a woman. She walks and turns, looking
at house numbers, then finds her car and leaves.

Nonetheless, thin, silken wisps and bright sky above
hang gilded by the almost-spring sun,
this Sunday evening, shortly ’til seven.
Streetlamps lack their illumination.
Themselves ashen, they cast slender shadows.
Gangly green weeds sprung from recent rains
crack the blacktop’s edge, each an
image of the imperturbable.

An engine starts.
A bird answers.
A green car rounds the sigiled street corner.
As one arrives, someone else leaves.


Copyright © 2015, Christian T. Kaltwasser.

May (poem)

May

The meadow lies flat on its 

back between homes and roads. 

Green whiskers and fat little 

trees laze in the May sun. 

Not a bee's flower touches this 

tall grass in its sweet repose. 

(5/9/2009)

I wrote this short poem nine years ago today. Thought it might be worth re-sharing!

Anxious Bird

Anxious Bird

I walk among effulgent flowers
  of May reds and violets, and
  an anxious black bird
  flees my track on rushing wings.
This gush of rough sound across my ears
  joins the ticks of bicycle gears
  and whirrs of a distant mower,
  as songbirds pipe and whistle.
Atop an arbor, another eyes me,
  large and taciturn, his sable beak turning,
  his wings of flint folded,
  and then is gone.
Small blue flowers hug cool shade,
  remembering the skies and sounds of spring.


(May 23–24, 2017)

Where (poem)

Where

This is where I wrote my poem,
this craggy, jagged sidewalk:
brown and gray with pebbled,
oil-soaked patches, and near the yellow-painted curb,
whose rotted cigarette stumps and
empty soda cans are
left for birds who sing and chirp
in the friendly treetops.

A stop sign presents red octagonality
near a woman. She walks and turns, looking
at house numbers, then finds her car and leaves.

Nonetheless, thin, silken wisps and bright sky above
hang gilded by the almost-spring sun,
this Sunday evening, shortly ’til seven.
Streetlamps lack their illumination.
Themselves ashen, they cast slender shadows.
Gangly green weeds sprung from recent rains
crack the blacktop’s edge, each an
image of the imperturbable.

An engine starts.
A bird answers.
A green car rounds the sigiled street corner.
As one arrives, someone else leaves.


(3/9/2015, 3/18/2015)

Daffodils

This is not a poem and not a scholarly article. I realize I don't share a lot because I really want things to be perfect. So here's a picture I took today in my front yard. Is it perfect? Does it matter?

Daffodils like the nice weather we're having!

Process (a #TBT)

Process (a #TBT)

It is always recommended for artists of all stripes to carry some kind of notepad or sketch pad with them at all times, for jotting down ideas on the go.

This is a page from my notepad/scheduler from April, 2010. You can see my classes for that day, that it was a sunny day, a reminder to bring life savers to my voice lesson the next day, and that I planned to watch Casablanca off Netflix that evening. (Old-school DVD style!) I also wrote down a few stanzas of poetry as the lines came to me, because I was sitting on the bus thinking about what a nice day it was. Later that day I edited the four stanzas into a poem, and a while later set them to music as a song.

So you never know when, in between grocery trips and bus rides on a sunny day, you might have an idea that can go somewhere with a little more work.

Mosquito

Mosquito

As early evening’s open doors
and warm May air usher in
a roving hypodermic,

I spot him, gnawing my
left third finger
near the second joint,

wide with blood,
brown striped, bird-like,
he feeds, and flees too quick,

so with an angry clap
I mash him midair
and spot my palms with red.


(5/12/2014)

Haiku

Haiku

tulips torn by rain
Bashō waxes nostalgic
month of white flowers


(4/21/2014)

Listening to Beethoven

Listening to Beethoven

A young man presses the keys,
lightly steps a brass pedal,
and movement changes minutes to sunbeams
thrumming, moving, dancing lightly
like air over a cool mountain brook.
Carillon bells peal prayers of grotto monks.
Little bells ripple on a lake.
The smallest bells press tiny feet in soft grasses,
sweet blond hair flowing after.
Pulses race between flower petals
as soaring scents pollinate the breeze
returning with the stars and planets,
caressing like spring rain
tickling green moss.

The lifted door of the piano mirrors open faces
gathered to hear his play.


(2/11/13 & 3/5/13)

Spring haiku

Water fills the sky:
the most active element
dumping on our heads.

(3/30/12)

Springtime of Love (Song Demo)

I wrote this short song a couple of years ago and recently decided to record a demo version for you here.

Clocks

Clocks

On a day when all the clocks are wrong

and the soaking rain and rough wind gusts

will not be tamed,

our road is littered with tossed branches,

our travels push into choppy currents,

the roaring wind's music issues changes

as soft as the thunder's crack.

Then, as quickly, change is a bird song.

The trees present their pink hopes,

and sudden memory of love rushes in,

beautiful dreams.

(3/13 & 3/14/2011)

Winter Window

Winter Window

To absorb into the soft rain
and its abundances,
shaded by January sky, by
quiet tree limbs, one sees sentry
electric poles and signs of life
inside the souls of cars
parked off the street.

The percussive morning music
softly drones and the mind
flits: the fire, the warmth,
a warm thought, a draught of
memory, simple melody of
muddled, mossy colors.

Spring will have its way, in
time, but this moment, to
sit is not even to wait.


(1/18/2011)

April Rhapsody*

April Rhapsody

Can you feel the sun shining?

I feel it on my face,

So strong my eyes water.

I'd share it with you here.

Come closer. Let's feel its rays together.

I'd hide myself in the springtime grass,

Blades so sweet and long;

A bird walks close by me now.

I feel the sun on the flower tops.

I did everything in no-time today,

Flowers everywhere.

And sun and trees and grass.

Two poems before breakfast,

Another with my lunch.

The yawning sky greets

The sun's pillar of brightness;

Season-swept clouds paint the trees

And hills and house windows with laughing.

* From Greek "to stitch together song, to recite poetry"

(4/12/2010)

First Kiss

First Kiss

I'm looking back now,

'Cause I'm here, alone again.

The show was pretty good.

Our way home, we're at the stop,

Talking, still so shy.

Just a while to wait,

Going home, we will part.

I tried to see your eyes

On a May night, so cool but dry,

By stars and bare streetlights.

I sat and stopped, then

You took my hand (unasked),

And searching eyes found mine.

So I look back now,

'Cause I'm so alone again.

I still remember that night.

Our way home, at the bus stop,

We talked, then, both so shy.

(12/23/2009)

Fences

Fences

The sun abides today,

in glorious spring brightness:

out in my garden I browse

flowers among the bees.

I glance above me and find

tracks of jets cut the sky,

blue haze and wind-swept glow,

like Hyacinth's astral Lover.

It's said good fence, good neighbor,

but I've also heard how

a wall to keep others out

will keep oneself as well.

How much is my garden a garrison,

fenced and walled around?

And if I should look up,

what beyond this do I find?

(5/21/2009)

May

May

The meadow lies flat on its

back between homes and roads.

Green whiskers and fat little

trees laze in the May sun.

Not a bee's flower touches this

tall grass in its sweet repose.

(5/9/2009)

Spring Flowers

Here are a couple of recent shots from my garden:

Divertimento

Divertimento 

In a night full of stars, 

Feel the cooling breeze of spring 

On a street with no cars, 

Somewhere with you. 

Setting sun on an island 

Of solitary ocean's calm, 

Lie naked on a bed 

Somewhere with you. 

You feel so familiar, 

I've known you all my life. 

Restless dreaming music wakes me. 

Like an Italian monk's pen, 

With letters expressing: 

Life's flowing and art again 

Somewhere with you. 

(4/17/2009)

time of daffodils

E. E. Cummings wrote a poem I like in which he uses flowers to illustrate the dimensions of experience relating to time: time as change, remembrance, decision points, purpose in life, a sense of identity.

Right now I have patches of beautiful daffodils in front of my house. I planted their bulbs there several years ago, and today I get to enjoy them and share them with whoever may walk by.

"The goal of living is to grow." I reflect a lot on what I will do next. Where will I live after I leave this house behind? Do I want to take some of the flowers with me, or leave them? If I came back years later would I be sad to see them all pulled up and replaced with something else? Change can be really jarring, especially when it is something not in my control, not of my choosing. Do I really have control of anything, or is this notion just an illusion? People and relationships change. I change.

"The goal of living is to grow." And forgetting is as much a part of life as remembering. What will I forget about this place after I leave? Will I be able to forget some of the hurts that make me so timid to risk judgment and rejection?

When I leave here I probably would not have much reason to come back. But I would always be curious about what then happened to the things and people I leave behind.