Here are several more pictures that Cassandra shared with me. I believe these are from the early 1980’s. Click on a photo to see a higher-resolution version.
More Photos from Cassandra
Yesterday I Bought Brown Envelope
This is a letter from Fred to Patrick and Lois, dated 19 Sep 1971. Much of it relates to writing and manuscripts that are in the works. As usual, click on the image for a possibly larger version.
Continue reading “Yesterday I Bought Brown Envelope”Full of Beans
Fizzle Bodner came knees and elbows through the canes down to the creek where we were poling our half-drums up and down the tributaries of the Amazon. We aimed our rifles and shot him down.
“Huh! I ain’t goin’ to fall in this mud. Anyway, you ought to come up to Miz Blake’s. She’s got a lottery.”
We poled the tubs over to the planks we called a dock.
Continue reading “Full of Beans”Portent
_
by now
I have learned
that all things portend
but then
when we fought each other down
by day and made it up
by night
i did not know
the sloop sailed
hard by the ochre cliffs
the waves slapping like wet sheets
on the stony shore
a gull shrieked
riding our spill
from the falcon’s nest
a feathered missile hurtled
air to air
spur and talon demolished
the gliding wings
now
it is an omen.
Deya, 1980’s
More Pictures of Patrick
Here’s a collection of images from over the years in no particular order.
I Sail for Naples
Here’s a letter from Fred to Patrick, probably 1963. Perhaps the date could be made more exact if we knew when Ann B was born since she is referenced here.
The letter includes a poetry critique, some personal observations, and mentions several friends including Bob and Edmund.
Completely unrelated. I just transcribed the recording about how Patrick learned Spanish.
As usual, click on an image to see a larger version.
Continue reading “I Sail for Naples”A Quiet Evening at Home
I have just stoked up the wood burning Jotul,
and just in case we are inspired to song,
put on the heater in the music room.
By my wing-back
is the copy of Great Jones Street
cover curling from the damp
bookmark in place.
I have just cooked turkey in mustard
with old-fashioned mashed potatoes,
loose leaves of lettuce on a serving plate.
We eat the leaves the way you might eat bread
alternating with the main dishes
to refresh your taste buds.
Normally I don't cook,
but S was obsessively ripping up plants
by the roots,
with a pitchfork,
clearing the way for timber men
who come next week
and fell the huge dead almond.
As usual, once the plants are out of the earth,
S is in anguish
until there roots are once more snugly tamped
into soil in some new nook of the garden.
We have the only jetset irises on the island.
Their lag is six months,
but I suspect a new variety
is in the making, an iris genetically evolved
to thrive
on displacement.
Actually, given the world we live in,
where homelessness is not only from war and acts
of God,
where even our village of two hundred fifty souls
has a man living in the treehouse
built by kids, who offered it
when they noticed he was sleeping under a porch
by the parking lot – living in such a world
I started to say, it's no wonder
that all nature
is becoming extremely transient.
Not only do species die,
billions of new creatures are born,
most of them viruses
threatening the human race.
It's the world fighting back.
All the animal minds are calling on their brothers,
the primordial forces of the earth,
the volcanoes, the very geological plates,
the winds, the sea,
and, in the heat of Africa, another microbe
was just sent on its trajectory
toward the total destruction of venal man.
Now it's time for a couple of tokes of female dope,
if there is any.
Searching this cupboard and that close,
she comes up with a jar
of just the right thin,
except the flowers from 1991 have mildewed
to a damp mass of funky green
fuzzed up at the edges with white mold.
Another jar says female, no year,
but turns out to be okay.
Now comes the hard part.
What to do the euphoria?
Read a little?
Look a Schubert?
Put a few words down?
Deya c. 2000
Paper de Música
This is a bookmark. The front had a love poem in Spanish by Argentinian poet Mechi Alvarellos, followed by Patrick’s translation.
On the back was a note that read: “JP — I thought you should be the one to throw these away. I have many letters from 1960’s on — you want them?”
As you can tell from the collection of stuff I’m sharing on this web site, the answer was yes.
A Storm in Izmir
The sky behind the bluff catches fire and burns
Down the clouds, spreads to the peaks
Above the bay; the wind changes and turns
The waves into dolphins racing to break
The headland toward the open sea.
The squall breaks over us, not from sky or hill,
But out of black crashing ocean spilled
Over sprits and masts of the fishing fleet,
Water grapples mooring posts and clambers
Paylines, spuming into the streets.
The dwindling wick of sun is pinched,
Fury reels keening on the pitchblende wind that roils
Among the palms, fronds flicking verdant fire,
Savage swords in the caverned dark.
Izmir, 1963
Think of It Like This
Think of it like this:
We stand in line, waiting our turn
with Destiny,
always more or less aware
that even Mr Nobody
enjoys a flash, before checking out:
That life was mine.
Some lift off
like Fred Astaire
doing a Peter Max rainbow;
a few burn like meteors,
never reaching the earth;
Mozart fiddled
in billions of brains.
Meanwhile we advance;
fate a sculptor who chips a little here,
a little there,
until gradually we appear
or should I say I appear
in case you don't agree with we,
from the void.
But to get down to now:
inside the translucent door
voices of thirsty men and women
ride the arpeggios of the harp
like so many hives of bees
on the wind,
flap their chins
like donkeys,
braying bravely in the face of it all
while the guitarist's fingers fly
loose like a wing
playing songs all know by heart:
I am, I am
You are, you are
He is, they are,
I was, you will,
he did, she will never,
I know, you know, we know,
forgive,
forget...
To the swirl of egos in the room
we add our two:
the guitarist does not know
all the chords.
All quit their jabber, though swiftly
our inert mood is grasped
the hives buzz again.
What fools they think we are
to sit and stare,
our laughter the last resort of silence,
while we contemplate the truth:
all alone, we orbit - the moon shining,
the sun waiting below the earth,
the sea sighing,
the wind crying to come in
and we sing:
I love, we love,
and then of course
they love.
Harp and guitar, the wood sings:
O how we yearn
for the instant order
of song.
Málaga 1991