Pol(s)ka

The unwritten Warsaw
ballet remains unwritten
until return.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2013)

A contribution to Haiku Heights and ballet.

Notes
I'd promised myself that I would write one poem a day during my recent trip to Warsaw, Poland, and failed miserably. My diary contains entries from just two days out of four, and these are just notes on what happened or what I saw, nothing that could be called a poem. Of course, there are many valid excuses: lack of time alone, tiredness after lengthy excursions in Warsaw and other places in Poland, etc. You can't always write what you want, to quote the Rolling Stones.
However, I liked Poland so much that I'm ready to return any time, so that there is a chance that the Warsaw ballet will be written some day after all...

Feeding the birds at EUR lake

For S.

Last Saturday the women
of the Gugnani clan
and I as their chauffeur
went to EUR lake
to feed dry bread
and chocolate-coated
rice crispies to the birds –
droves of ducks, geese,
pigeons and seagulls.
I was reminded of my
mother and how, even
during her last days
at home, her first priority
in the morning was
to feed the birds, come
sunshine, ice or snow.
I remembered how
she'd walk out
on that terrace in
slippers and gown,
oblivious of everything
except the birds
and the seeds
she had for them.
I cried for her,
perhaps the first time
since she died in 2009.

– Leonard "Loaded with Memories" Blumfeld

Dinner for eight

Guests invited*

1. Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194-1250), to ask him what the mysterious Castel del Monte was all about, question him about his irreverent religious beliefs and many other things.
2. Saint Francis of Assisi, who lived at about the same time (1181-1226). I assume he did not appreciate Frederick very much (and vice-versa perhaps), but it might be fun having these two facing each other at the table.
3. Plato (428 BC-347 BC), to ask him what he really knew about Atlantis.
4. Sylvia Plath (1932-1963), just to have her back for a while.
5. Frank O’Hara (1926-1966). He, Sylvia, Plato and I could talk poetry, for example. I would imagine Frank to be the cheerful soul of the evening.
6. Kamala Das (1934-2009), to have somebody outspoken from another continent.
7. Léo Ferré (1916-1993), another one unlikely to bite his tongue.
8. I myself, meek and mild, trying to balance the mixture of egos big and small around the dinner table.

I might do the cooking myself – a 5-course south Indian meal, for example, to have these older folks taste something different. I’d serve the best of drinks – Italian table water, red and white wines from Germany, Italy and France, and Calva as a digestif. Should make for an interesting and amusing evening.

– Len “He Loves His Food” Blumfeld

* upon instigation by Sunday Scribblings (task description: Do you ever play the game where you decide who you would invite to your fantasy dinner party?

The rules are:
- you can invite anyone, living or dead
- you have a table that seats eight, but as you are one, you can invite seven people
- you have to explain why you'd invite them

And for bonus points:
- what would you serve them for dinner?)

Novels ...

Oh to go back to the days when I'd read novels!
I'd be propped up in bed in the morning to read novels,
reclining on my grandma's sofa to read novels,
pretend to be working in my work chair but reading novels

– Leonard Blumfeld

Written in response to Totally Optional Prompts.


Fact & fiction
All true ... and gone, unfortunately. I would devour books, including lengthy ones like War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina, historical novels by Mika Waltari and tons of mysteries by the likes of Edgar Wallace, Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Or anything by James M. Cain – good and bad. And I'd always wait for and get the latest by Anne Tyler once If Morning Ever Comes had me hooked.
And now? I barely manage a few every year. Get started on some that I put aside after a few pages.
Too much work. I've gotten older and choosier, read a lot more non-fiction. And sometimes when I'm not working I'd rather be creative than immerse myself in somebody else's work.
That is the plain truth.

The Stainsby Girls

In 1990, I bought Chris Rea's album "Shamrock Diaries," which contains some of the best songs he ever wrote. I particularly loved "Stainsby Girls" and was planning on writing a novella based on the theme suggested - that of two wild, unconventional sisters, who, as Chris Rea says, could not only steal a heart, but break it in two.

I'd even decided on my names for the sisters – Charlotte and Vivian. Charlotte, I was definitely sure, was the proper name for my Rolling Stones loving heroine. She would be the one to break my hero's heart in two.

Alas, I never even wrote a single line of the novella. But the idea has lingered in my head for over 15 years and is revived each time I listen to the song. Which still happens now and then...

The lyrics follow below the video. Watch out for Chris' slide guitar solo!



Stainsby Girls

Some girls used to kiss and run
Never knew what they had done
Some girls always wasted time
Keep you hanging on the line
Some loved horses and always stayed at home
But the Stainsby girls loved the Rolling Stones

Now some had games that you had to play
Making rules along the way
Strange attractions newly found
Pride and passion kicked around
Some girls stole your heart
Like most girls do
But a Stainsby girl could break it in two

And I fell in love, I fell in love
I fell in love with a Stainsby girl

Deepest water Stainsby blue
Running straight, running true
Names and faces fade away
Memories here to stay

And I fell in love, I fell in love
I fell in love with a Stainsby girl

– Chris Rea (from Shamrock Diaries, 1985)

Gacela of the three dark pigeons

Three dark pigeons were sitting on the ground in a triangle.

“I am chest,” said the first one.
“I am beak,” said the second.
“And I am eye,” said the third.

The first one was another,
the second one could not speak,
and the third one was none.

Three dark pigeons were sitting on the ground in a triangle.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Unavoidable note
This is what you get when you walk over to Penny Market for a frustration snack and notice three pigeons seated in the parking lot. Brings up memories of García Lorca's Gacela de las palomas oscuras, and your mind starts playing around...

To squeeze tears out of a rock

Can it be done?

Or is it a mission impossible?

(I'm trying to come up with a poem for Poetry Thursday – currently vacationing and without topic suggestion – and feel quite rocky and unpoetific.)

Doesn't necessarily have to be tears, either.

An immodest proposition

Shouldn't you, like, show some involvement in the real world? Like occasionally at least?

This could have been said by my friend Karraine, a confirmed Californian, even though it's me saying it now while muzing – once again – about the purpose of writing in general or my writing in particular. You see, I'm one of those occasionally self-destructive, morbid, tormented souls* who go back to point zero at times to question the very ground they stand on, aka the validity of it all.

Like, shouldn't we all be working and earning something instead of doing useless stuff like writing?

What do you mean by writing anyway? Are you like some published guy? Like Dan Brown?

– Len B.
... in a somewhat grey Sunday morning mood on an overcast Sunday.

*This again could have been a quote from Karraine.

Rebuttal
But I did situate myself in some reality recently, by watching last night's soccer match between VfB Stuttgart and 1. FC Nuremberg. To see (Jeronimo Baretto) Cacau cry on the bench about his team losing, perhaps as a consequence of his red card removal from the match.

In a trough

If this is all you have to complain about, you're doing great.
– Playdough, ca. 333 BC

I'm in a writing trough right now.

Might change any minute. Hopefully will.

Triggered by:

1. Too many calls from an ageing parent who has excelled in laying guilt trips on people for most of her 86 (soon to be 87) years.
2. Overload & exhaustion, including from having been exceedingly "creative".
3. Back pain.
4. General Unlust*.

Now would be a good time to write something Bukowskiesque. He always managed to milk the most blabla situations for something marketable.

*A wonderful German word for which there is no exact match in English. Perhaps "disinclination" would not be so bad.

Seeing your fair face pleases my heart

I

see
your fair
face in trans-
lucent memory –
we are four thousand miles apart

A fibonacci inspired by raag bhimpalasi (early afternoon)

– Lou Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

Interview with Lou
Raag Times: What does the very recent western poetic form of fibonacci have to do with Indian ragas?
Lou B.: Nothing originally. I established a link of sorts by taking the time of day, going to a nifty website called The Raga Guide, looking for an appropriate raag, listening to one and then writing. The fibonacci titled "Seeing your fair face pleases my heart" and written in the early afternoon was inspired by listening to a raag bhimpalasi sung by Shruti Sadolikar. The title is a direct quote from The Raga Guide that I liked very much and could associate with my own personal experience very well.
Raag Times: Thank you, Lou.

You ain't no real Saint Francis

said the blackbird
I talked to
this morning,
dropped a turd
and flew on
to the next branch.

– Len Blumfeld

Note
All true! I did not make this up.

If you can't quote it, wryte it yourself

By the way:
Another poetic form was born from this dyp in the poetyc fountayn – the y-based minimalist quatrain (YBMQ). It is a dystant western relative of its eastern haykoo cousyn.

Cavils

Cavil – lovely word. Nothing you're supposed to do, but so easy to give in to. So here are my cavils for this morning:

1. The weather, even though not downright depressing, could definitely be better.
2. My head could be better. The well-known tension from too much computer work is coming on.
3. The world situation could be immensely better. Good people could be in power (unlike Junior Bush, Kim Jong-il, Pootin and a few other shining stars I could think of).
4. I could receive more e-mails from people I haven't written to. Still, they could be thinking of me and drop a line.
5. Ultimate success has failed me.
6. My fiancée could write or call. It's been too long.
7. I could be doing things I like to do.
8. Why do I have to do what I do? I mostly hate it.
9. Particularly right now.
10. Money, the most prevalent current incarnation of the constrictions of this material world, is the root of much evil.
11. If it weren't for a lack of money, I could publish so many books, stage so many plays with my love in them, and nobody would have to read respectively see them except if they absolutely wanted to!
    

Etc.

Gripes! Yikes! Enough!

N.B.

"There's nothing to say."
"Oh?"
"Yes, I'm typing letters, but there's nothing to say."
"Not even to blog?"
"Not even that. Even though that's close."
"You're making it sound like the end of something. Something so –"
"Final?"
"Yes. But then again –"
"But then again?"
"You just gushed a fib!"
"Well, yes, I guess I did."
"So?"
"That doesn't count. That's like professional. You know."
"I don't. But I suppose it's better than scooters during a vacation in fall."
"Where the hell did that come from?"
"Blogger."
"Oy cee."
"Toodleloo!"

He acted like God come down to earth

Having the great writer at my house was not all that enjoyable. We talked more about his aches and pains, sensitive bowels and eyes than about the wonderful novels and poems he’d written or future plans of his. That is, he talked. In the afternoon he wanted to go for a walk and headed back home five minutes later as a light rain came down. He asked for homeopathic ulcer medication and a light vegetarian meal, of which he devoured three servings. He also scarfed down most of the chicken korma I’d fixed for myself. I had originally planned to show him some of my own poems (in all humility), but abstained from it because my head was aching from all his talk. Two more days I’ll have this man around, I thought in desperation.

– Surendra Sparsh

(Sparked by a real experience with one who knew himself to be a great artist.)