California Poets
1164 Solano Ave., #140
Albany, CA 94706
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Vince Storti, Berkeley
The Strand
Here: what unhinges
a necklace’s clasp, the
ornamental value a bauble
carried over the years, something
for another day, something
another might toss away.
The stone of it, now chipped
the strange appeal of it
somewhat tarnished
almost out of style
though once traded
for glass, and
lightly worn
sometimes shining
in the sunshine, and
(and almost forgotten in the rush)
out the door, toward peril.
I caught sight of it only for an instant:
a lyrical moment, a gesture, a fragment
of time not easily tossed away.
And yet, the memory of it
Something like a great quest
the quiet stones of it spaced
on a fragile string, and
catching the light
even as it was
broken.
Copyright 2015 by Vince Storti, Berkeley
(on reading from Merrill’s, Nights and Days:
“The Thousand and Second Night” pp 12-14.
Berkeley Memories
We have memories
like distant mirrors, reflections
that follow us for years.
The things we ate
the beverages we drank
the hours spent around
candle-lit tables.
Memories of restaurants, clubs
houses recalling various visits; poems
read and recalled and read again.
I recollect an afternoon at Bateau Ivre.
Like a tourist, I say to the barista
in the café that I had a sandwich
here, a long time ago.
It was great, I say
it was huge.
She asked me what the sandwich was
and I said I couldn’t remember.
A few minutes later, heading toward
the street, I called out:
she heard me over her shoulder—
It was a BLT—I said
it was a club sandwich, I added.
She turned with a smile and replied—
“Yes!”
with a face that said
she took the memory of it and stored it
just before I headed out the door.
Copyright 2015 by Vince Storti, Berkeley
The Memorial Salon
1.
Here—
a salon of sorts
at a church in Berkeley
gathers a crowd of
bravely gay and sad faces.
And, looking around
I see Berkeley has changed—
it’s gotten slightly older.
2.
On the street, after the gathering
I pass new shops just opened and
not so many homeless with a feeling
that I want to live here again, though
not the same way I did when I was young.
3.
After the reading, the memory of that dinner
lingering: the chats and how everyone was
charming, saying the nicest things (with meaning)
and no one mentioning the football games being played
and no one mentioning his death.
Copyright 2015 by Vince Storti, Berkeley
Judith Yamamoto,
San Francisco
Judith Yamamoto was recently one of three poets to represent District 5 in San Francisco's city-wide celebration of poetry sponsored by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco Public Library, and Friends' Poet in Residence Jack Hirschman.
Northern California Vineyard at Year’s End
Rows of branches circle the hillsides,
their few leaves splitting winter’s light.
Sorrow hangs as small bees
hang at the edges of yellow.
We could sit here all afternoon,
sidestepping madness, the wind rising in the east
and coming a long way over the wetlands.
From this vineyard of yellow leaves,
the parts separating from their values,
we can see the same shadows, angular
on city sidewalks.
The same slow winds
drag over pavement, stop at walls.
At ten in the morning, someone lies on a sidewalk,
covered in the threads of weavers
asleep in a hillside village. Only the soles of these shoes
are visible, toes turned inward from the street,
losing whatever coherence once haunted the old legends.
We pass by, not knowing who it is, man or woman.
We pass by, and later,
in wayward corridors, likenesses tap at the glass.
They hang at the edges of being, wanting to know
who among us
has lost his soul.
Copyright 2015 by Judith Yamamoto, San Francisco
This Year, in Asia Minor
This year, in Asia Minor, in an inland sea,
the water rises.
A woman goes on taking what she can carry,
flight beginning on a night
without moonlight. Rain, uncertain, and the distortion
of that last tree.
The Black Sea fills.
Luck hangs on the fall of a veil, a woman turned away
or allowed to go on,
a child hidden. The hour irregular,
unsteady in the low call of darkness.
At those checkpoints where we wait,
there is always a risk,
our disguises falling into disbelief.
The passage to the Aegean Sea opens.
A woman walks now in the shadows
of the oldest stone beasts.
A U.S. destroyer deploys from Norfolk.
We cannot separate all of these parts;
we cannot make them come together.
We no longer know
who we were.
Copyright 2015 by Judith Yamamoto, San Francisco
Tonight, Candles
Tonight, candles spark the hill. Below marigolds
overtaken by the long loop of descent
the graves hold all that is left, a guitar
strummed into solitude, a drunken song.
If we stop here, empty-handed
a man will beg us to sit. He will begin a long story
that we will hardly understand. We must consider
his mother, so young, hair down to her waist. Ah!
It is a night of wind
that blows, he says, from the highest heaven.
In the trees, he says,
they are weeping – can you hear them?
Or is it the man, weeping? We must consider this mother,
every morning,
slicing the bread, setting the bowls on the little table.
And this man, listening
to the weeping of the trees.
Copyright 2015 by Judith Yamamoto, San Francisco
Judith Yamamoto is the author of At My Table.
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California Poets
1164 Solano Ave., #140
Albany, CA 94706
info