UCB COPY- “POEMS” -since works here are still in transit or compare 2014 ‘realignment.’
‘
LOVE POEMS I, II and VI
I.
There are the stars
the moon
the wind and the pine tree.
The wind blows one pine needle rubs the next
the stars and the moon transport their light
through momentary years of pure and empty space
to each other
to me
I shall become the wind and the pine trees.
II.
I would probably never leave this cycle of whirling endeavors
by choice
even if I could float with stars
or fly with the wind in gusts of scattered ashes.
Sometimes, though, if tired, having lost the vision of what I should be, or if the hoop-wavers with their rings of daily demands leave me tripping in sawdust of dreaded indentures, and only prayers for the inflicted spark to die pass over my string of worn beads,
then it’s the thought of you that keeps me here, looking to the dawn
that will find us together again.
VI.
What I despised before
if now connected with you
I prize.
What shall I do, when by chance you meet your love’s life?
Where is my love to rest?
Will I wander shores where my green tree is left to blanche?
Stephen Frost 1972
San Francisquito Canyon, California
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***
.
.
BEGIN
a spider floats down
across a window
Up
d
o
w
n a cross
It comes into sight then disappears.
With a chorus of scraping chairs , we rise…
Cotyledon
Got to stay fit though,
work helps, running too.
The dog runs behind me,
dog is older now and limps but
there is a tail arched joy for him in these runs
sniffing, smelling, leaving smells to be sniffed…
Crows fly low
circling occasionally down the river bed dry this time of year
in the morning doesn’t feel dry.
BEGIN
Cottonwoods root in the sand and gravel that cover a flow of water.
It’s getting lighter,
crazy loud crows,
don’t know enough to be quiet just before the dawn.
The Mockingbirds must sing all night.
Maybe they’re Nightingales.
The sun is coming up.
Wonder what I look like running along here…
I can see my shadow behind me along the road.
Part 1
Slide the yellow grass hill down
to the city wrap mist around the soul
shroud the consideration of ought and should
until morning
push the thigh shoving sigh up…
what of who or when?
Dark road chestnut horse stud
big in the standing stall
cold dream
Oleander buds pop red for spring.
Such a strange blue light
the wall of the room seems to be a barrier of space
gray blue solid yet not so
so old
What place is this?
What strange mountain light?
What whistling visage of passing flight?
A mild avenue of ghostly light,
holding each form as an animal in a womb,
sparkling as from last night’s rain.
What image could not pass the tourist by in this mysterious light.
The aqueous movement of clouds
The piling high of clouds
Enter
Because I climb a cage of stairs
Because I climb
Because I climb and strive to strive…
as wave as whipping large of sea weed.
So large in the push of the wind,
held between spheres of mysterious intent.
A man fingered his nose
his eye
his other eye e
xamined his finger after each
pinched his pants to his scrotum
watched the rainfall from the high floor of the unfinished high-rise
The lake
reeds and water forming an order in my thought
shimmering light surface
quiet forever the reed forever the light
Hills vibrate incessantly with the excitement of light
Quiet distant mountain
The Fall
Alice
the other Fall is from Love
(re-build the church hold the chalice plant one frozen block on top of the last watch it fall in the wind)
In my stuttering affluence of emotion I acknowledge all I lack and happily admit that having just left you miss you and want you back.
That I loved and was not loved is enough
The tower of Babel was breached
For an instant there was a shouting of joy that filled our lonely cells
Down the narrow marble hall and into the church
with that quiet sigh, nearly inaudible, that tells so much.
Hills vibrate
In the migraine of my thought
I can leave you walking on young green fields
leave all that is less than sparkling
and find again the hard rail up…
dreams stranger than…. terrifying …lies in the field, once plowed but such…
In that passing moment I see our mother weeping in bed
the years of her loneliness, the hoped for joy gone sour
the close-hearted pressures of those close
the shy green grass joy turned gray
All this came tearing back to me so that I could only sob uncontrollably.
After the diffusion of night the hills vibrate incessantly with the excitement of light
Winter winds beat down last spring’s grass
matt it to turf
light and air surround the new sprouts.
(In the wood, upon a bracken-covered slope,
a boy tripping clutching that which rips….The water is dark another friend is lost must search again the broken ark.)
The sun for a sightful instant pierces from behind an ancient bell tower mind,
sanctity
Church
closed within a skull
Behold the glistening within the forest
and the boy climbing the hill lost among the rocks
Behold the rocks and the chase.
The forest stinks of rotten wood supporting all manner of vegetation
I am naked and singing I am alone but not
within is the glistening that narrow beam that eyeful beam seen by few
I am clean in the light I am– but so quickly sold?
ready to barter with God or philosophy for a fresh clean loin
We have seen the fair flesh
We have been the fair flesh young,
succulent
I desire
Part
Still is the glistening light.
a summer, a spring
(all bastards are washed clean in this torrential downpour as the streets of the dirty city)
A man steps to the urinal
thrusts forward his hips
follows an ancient ritual of excretion
empty rooms
I have climbed the temple stairs…
I have laid on cool white sheets
listened, watched, felt,
the processes of my brown body
could almost feel the fat stretch the skin.
My gaze dragged over his loin- Stephanie is in my thoughts
Desire is nothing… fits his pants well
a cycle ages
I shall live above the rotting wood having seen the glistening within
and knowing the forest…
winter, spring
Oh! those blistered hills that sever every connection beyond the desert,
each mound a festering sore
each runs into each
Distance holds the quiet mountain
in empty mission cells
the shouts of children echo against the walls
Oleander buds pop red for spring.
Gulls squabble in spiral order above the garbage dump far from the sea.
In that moment of confession
beneath the arbor with my friend my tutor
the terror of my past was released
held before me.
excitement of friction
Jet airstrip
Oh! How that South American Indian woman talked
about the market and the exchange rate
perhaps
How they laughed
she patted his hand and his knee
Constant thrap, thrap, thrap
of the river pump,
watering the fields
The afternoon is quiet along the river
but for distant children playing and birds calling to one another
_____________ Fog desert
Point of contact
Constant thrap thrap
sand water alike in the wind
The desert
Barren solitude clean
I left the rest walked on the Peruvian desert
beyond the power poles and further
I turned for an instant the road was gone
The high fog
hid the sun
I was alone without direction
(Don’t go. I’m almost old. you like me.. the others know me, know all I’ve done-
Stay.)
The dry river, gravel
Torn in gullies to the ocean
The desert falls to the ocean
The cliff crumbles to rocks and sand
The sea beats against the cliff.
PART LAST
Dream: There is an edifice
a church with stone stairs and pillars
St. Francis’ day- A statue of the saint in the image of Pius XII Sitting with Egyptian rigidity in an ancient hall- celebration of the saint’s day the celebrants stand on the outside stairs and inside the church, delirious with adoration- A crowd surging backwards from the church portal- Christ in the image of a statue appears from the door stiff wooden huge with a painted face old varnished paint- the image falters -the face amazed passes close to mine-
denying the celebrants.
.
A moth beats its wings against the window pane.
A hummingbird sits on a branch
looking from behind a leaf.
Gnats swarm in mobile circles beneath a tree.
There bursts the cotyledon
a red bud bursts
ready with pistil and stamen
a barn owl slow, steady, dark shadow after sunset,
a mouse scurries through the wild oat fields
All is ready
once twice
again
we rise
with a chorus of scraping chairs
we rise.
Steve Frost 1973
San Francisquito Canyon,California
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***
.
.
Et Cum Spiritu Tuo
Sea cliffs no longer reach above the pounding, crashing day
but are nearly covered by the tidal lay.
Earthy substance is saturated and crumbling.
One green-leafed branch is wrapped to a mainstem in the wind, branched from a tree otherwise bare or sporting bright dead leaves.
Ants pull cold pebbles over their holes.
I stand in a dry field, a morning breeze slightly rustles dormant weeds, from every side comes the click of mysterious insects reviving on dead plants. Tumbled weed fields contain muted salmon, pale green and yellow weeds.
Color is held in mild suspension. The cherries have fallen.
We wait. Canterbury is crowded this year.
In a dark room, old women wait.
I wave to a friend. She and all the rest wave back– with crooked hands, bulging knuckles.
Young boys run down the street shouting: “I have come, I have cum,” like some noisy prophets calling us to God.
The roots have pushed the river mud aside leaving a trench for desperate souls who seek a path.
Indolent tarantula is drugged dragged forth and back by orange and black wasps. They fight life battles over the corpse.
Bloody green blades push their way through rocky hymens even while winter winds still blow.
“It’s cold in this place, cold! I know the spring is coming but I hate the cold”
We are left bleeding in the womb
in this passage to light, again,
we are left bleeding.
A solitary hawk stationed in the air against the wind maintains a position
color and sound
A wall stands topping even treetops holds a hill contains a courtyard
palace grounds olive trees surround the wall
a circus is filmed in the court red and yellow clowns to entertain sane director, ringmasters crew
The exit is blocked I cannot drive my car away from the grounds.
The clowns are chasing me…
Quiet
The circus wall that holds is not so high as think the prisoners afraid to fall.
Dominus Vobiscum–
I run along the wall teetering
run the wall afraid to … so far to the soft grass Fall–
hills covered with yellow grass waves of warm summer air lift from grass among the trees lift.
It’s when the demands of dull daily patterns leave me “an old man in a dry month” that I rebuke this bright passage between two dark holes and can only envision the final fall. But other times, I remember the cover-tossing joy holding you or talking to you then, I laugh in the morning light hardly able to wait for the next bright dance to come
hardly able to wait for my next chance to fold myself in your arms
Et cum spiritu tuo
Steve Frost
San Francisquito, California 1972
_____________________________________
***
Pieced Excursion (from L. A.)
Sunday
bright stars are dimming
largest, closest, last to survive
black space becomes gray blueironblue gray gray pink
hazy at the horizon the earth
is red
dark vapor clouds divide the dome
cloud shadows desert scrub mesas
just a few miles away
horses cows, burros graze sleep along the road
A bus load of people traveling too fast southward occasionally a carcass.
mostly sleeping a few awake
mostly sleeping rocky soil and light spiny scrubs and cool light.
Wednesday
highest lake legend of floating islands and a naked people on islands
we stayed along the shore marveled at the reed boats
the land seeming barren nurtured a mysterious civilization
ancient divisions of stone walls mud walls houses same color as the earth
llamas alpacas red or blue yarn bobbing from eartips
cold cold wind and dust across altiplano to hills to mountains to the depths of La Paz.
Arequipa was nice with its volcano
up the mountain the sunset from the guard station top of the first hill and the next hill higher up
and the dust from the car in front and the cold. We slept at first.
I in heavy poncho and the others beneath a down sleeping bag. Then it was too cold.
They got sick from the altitude
I don’t think that a plant grew in those hills beautiful, cold shadows and light rock, sand, and gravel. the moon was full,
was full
There was a smoky station at midnight
lit by a fire in one corner of the room and the lamps in the kitchen beyond the other wall
of the room dark people passing,
crowding in this only building for miles. We sat at the table and didn’t talk much, didn’t understand Spanish. Didn’t matter, everybody ate the same thing.
There was no bathroom here, everyone just walked far enough into the dark; no fear of getting lost, cafe only light except the moon…
After much urination, back into bus wait to get altitude sick.
didn’t On to Puno, Lake Titicaca,
out of the cold bus to find warm hotel all closed 4:00 in the morning back into bus warmer than Puno…
Dream:
The lake, a mountain lake, swimming at night. At night the moon’s light reflects on the surface white one hundred, broken pieces, white. I am trying to reach dry smooth rocks at the end of the lake. across the reflection of the moon darts a shining streak strikes a form reflects the light I cannot reach the rocks in time, in time…
Thursday: Had met an Italian in Guatemala City kept meeting him throughout central America until we teamed up in Bogota all the way to Lima hours on buses Ecuador Peru at night spanishfrenchitalianenglish silent had to wait a day for bus in small border town Peru
Harry Lucia went somewhere
Luchano and I explored the town
he was taking photographs I making these notes
mostly dry town in first of huge Peruvian deserts. It had a river and a bridge though we walked along
river wall wide beaches on town side and grass and mud women washing clothes themselves kids snapclick crossed bridge hiked along bank I took off clothes except white shorts went swimming around bridge pilings coming back I sank in the mud to my knees could lean horizontally backwards and not fall snapclick
“We almost breathed together- Did you think that? Is it impossible now? The girl that said no doesn’t exist anymore she stopped breathing long ago during the summer suffocated in the smoke
fire within Sweet Alma breath softly for we live not… loud or long
Ask for everything be prepared to get nothing
At times I felt that I was dying but its not going to be that easy Johnny, the stethoscope [1. Thank you Tennessee…]
Quiet the river,
and quiet we were
Peruvian river quiet river pump feeding dry fields,
birds calling one another
Quiet here, quiet.
The hills are dark against the distant fog banks of the coast. Tiny lights appear in the sky. I imagine that I hear the noise of the city far to the south. I lived there once. Now I have forgotten many of the tempting things that I wanted so badly while I was there.
Friday back in L.A.
now going to Italy no, first to Paris see Kate and Paule and the Louvre then to Italy see Luchano Lives in Umbria not far from Assisi learning Italian why not
none to support need a job spent day typing curriculum vitaes save money see Jenny on Friday, she came to my last reading going dutch to the movies
draw artist paint print need a partner to share studio just the right people deal as a group push one another selves painting prints draw
God the drawings are coming too fast
landscapes, fantastic allusionary landscapes get studio with Alice and Norma do something… almost finished that letter in Italian clumsy
wonder what Jenny will be like Fat chin I m getting eat less work harder draw
sit too much
Enough!
Quiet!
Sunset hills clouds color light momentary very exciting, fantastic
Quiet. “Be in the world, not of… Yes, hold We’re holding
NO
No
Hours, hours, hours, days of enforced bused boredom brought observation brought thought piecing piecingpeace
quiet
cease,
ceasing
desist, old corruptions, flesh, greed, blinding temptations.
Begin
Begin
Canyons wait Sycamores and cottonwoods wait
God
Guidance
Blessing
God…
GOD!
.
.
.
Stephen Frost
San Francisquito Canyon, CA, 1973
_____________________________________________________________
***
PROGRESS REPORT
A day settles down
cage birds fluff their feathers under cover
one star in sight
just outside the fading light.
I have studied my Italian
eaten my diet dinner
called the people I should
written that letter of inquiry
drawn all I would read the same.
I am waiting
and writing to disguise the fact that I am waiting
and writing possibly to terminate the waiting
and waiting to see if this writing turns into anything.
(pause, deep breath)
There is a girl I know, who, while I was in South America, I would think about at night on those long bus rides. Harry was across the aisle with Lucia. Luciano had gone off to Brazil with that beautiful, red-headed, French, girl’s gym teacher. I would conjure up images of an unconnected line
lose my conscious self in the bus like a forgotten sweater
and wander in the cold-night landscape outside where it was almost light, pick-up meandering phantoms and hold them between components of gray-matter. She was an elusive papillion.
I was tripping over rocks with net in hand.
She was the only sparkling prod in my lost lobal lumps that was able to initiate a welling up from deep electricated passages, tripping running fumbling from the tongue, unexpectedly to fall on the dinner table, the word
marriage
connubial joy, and responsibility
She was the one who excited me to the point of not being boring or bored with the state of males and females chasing, checking, tasting one another. She works on a help line with people who need it She is conversant in French and English. She mimes and acts well
is generally sympathetic.
I have fallen off curbs looking at her.
She is the only one who fits into the above mentioned categories and is in love with another man,
considering me such a very good friend.
Well, we all need friends. And what do I care I am waiting to have my resumes received and filed and while waiting for the master’s program information from those possibly green-leaved colleges to arrive, I’m waiting to make enough money to rent a studio and for the Ester Robles Gallery to get over her flu so that I may ask her to look at my drawings.
It is a serious possibility that I should, while I am waiting, forget all this, my family, my friends, and become a brother at the monastery. Apparently one doesn’t need to know Latin anymore, and I hear that those Benedictines respect the Arts.
In the mean time I’ve started another drawing,
have plans for a large painting,
and am in air-sucking delight with this year’s yellow-gray-black cottonwoods and the almost white- yellow of last years wild oats engulfing the southside hill sage and yucca plants.
I am waiting for spring not that winter isn’t nice
I like the cold wind rain, smogless freezing days.
Steve Frost
San Francisquito Canyon, California, 1973
Stephen Frost © 2010