One of the underlying techniques embraced by the Xyiwa poets was the unending sentence, dependent clauses galore. This one is hard to follow until you realize that it is structured as “John, a blah-blah, troubled, is lost”:
The Explorer of the Clause
by Jack Chelka
John, explorer of the weird
troubled by the accumulating
detritus of fear, greater in
reputation than courage, who
might easily step into
an abyss of unending tragedy, if
his fans goaded him into
indulging his foolish bravado by
leaping into supernatural danger, a
lurking phantom of dread, a figure
from the closet of his childhood,
this danger that he could
wrap around himself like
a cloak of honor, he, standing on
the magical cliff above the cheering crowd
who wait for his downfall, playing for time
that would run his future out of luck
with his last coin for the
slot machine of lemon cars driven
into rivers of lost hope, and who
distinguished as a novelist
fighting to publish the memoirs of a fool,
hoping bad jokes can be extremely bad,
campy comic and like a
very excellent counterfeit painting, one that
all collectors will insist is real to
save both their face and his, hoping a
cult following will astound the critics, but
not curse him when he ultimately
disappoints them with his frailties, those
quirks that twitch in the night of the dead authors,
is lost
John is lost and so am I, but this one is a little easier to follow:
Blubber
by Douglas Gilbert
The psychic woman
had showed her
rough seas ahead,
said beware the tides
and flowing kisses,
but that seemed like
shallow waters to her
She had a fifth
her thick handkerchief
mopping up her eyes
highly high on her trumpeted mope
slipped on her poor spilled
cocktail of his love kisses
lost crawling
across the stage
where she was to sing beige
before a sea of mahogony tables
over drunks and hecklers
sticky stinky beckoning
bass strings plucking her heart
blubbering
woe tale wagging about him
the bragging whale
who blew his spout
and left her high and dry.
Seeing her collapsing,
I could not bear her despair,
rose to say,
“I have always loved you,”
and we all stood,
hecklers and all,
to beg the last song
She knew me at last–
kissed me, the little one
Turning from beige to blue
caressing the mike,
she rasped in weeping harmonies
“Stand for me
the stood-up one;
harpoon my love and
sail me to the Port,
wine me down mellow,
me, a cello solo
singing this tale of prophecy:
the big ones get away, and
the little ones stay.”
———————————–
Jack worked as a chef once and had a steamy affair with a rambunctious waitress named Marie who wrote a few poems about him, and although they had many fights, she did tend to exaggerate. Here’s one of the milder ones:
I Dump the Chef for the Poet
by Marie Draper
My precious chef is a practical man
knows where to find fragrant garlic
can drive a chive dish to profit
buys me gifts and trinkets
but won’t let me buy him mouthwash
says smell is macho natural
won’t wear sissy cologne
I want less spice
more romance
but not a diamond ring;
mushrooming passion singing
brings a new excitement to
another, my passionate poor poet
complex, enigmatic
a soul layered
like an onion
In my buttercup, Poetry Man,
I shall sauté our bubbling love
and be soft
don’t make me cry
though I’m unfaithful to riches
Now, who will bring me
a hero
sandwich first
Marie could cook too. She made some special dishes on occasion. Pastele is a traditional Puerto Rican dish — Wrapped green banana stuffed meat pastry. It’s wrapped in parchment paper, and made with pork.
Having Pastele
by Marie Draper
When I write my poems on parchment
he is my spicy pork
boiling with passion
wrapped in words of love
filling my scroll
dipping in the lip
of a labia pastele seeker
————————————-
I seem to remember there were a lot of poems written by the Xyiwa poets about floods and storms, but unfortunately I think most of them were written during the purge ceremony: We had a pile of pens, markers, crayons, and paint brushes with buckets of paint scattered about with a giant stack of old computer fan-fold paper. Someone started a chant, “Write your ire — throw it in the fire.” All night we wrote hundreds of pages, most of it crap, and threw it into a bonfire. By not worrying it was supposed to eliminate writer’s block. The day after, we liked to imagine that everything we wrote was a masterpiece. But unfortunately(or fortunately), Paul Chelibi had bad aim and a few of his poems missed the fire, or at least that’s what I surmise from finding a charred scrap, or maybe it was from a different time and he meant to burn it and changed his mind. I suppose it might need more work, but it’s too late for that now. Well here’s the burnt draft I found:
Her Floods
by Paul Chelibi
Technology
you fair weather friend,
have you seen her?
500 year almanacs, and
planes by twilight
didn’t warn us
She and I had last cognacs
before floods scoured
Now lost I am
forgetting her for hours
awash in fragrant flowers
in harsh despair I pray will soften,
but since I see a glimpse too often
of glints in shadow sorrows seen,
I look for her still in rainbows
gone in soaking drowning rains
those floods awash in flagrant flows
of love remains awash and soaked
like boundless muddy sadness buried,
in all, forlorn to mourn a body missing,
not saved by dams man-made
nor comfort jammed assistance,
but madness of sadness remains to be found lost
on ships listing heavy in names of my loss
I also think this one escaped purge night:
Still Verse Born Dead
by Paul Chelibi
I showed you my
only poem child
who wanted to sing me
the gospel of my wails
to sail on windy travails
my hurricane of desire
He is too fragile for you
to adopt
You won’t
rock us to sleep
when calm seas
seem too boring
to let us dream
of tranquil verse
because
our cries to the sky
are more amusing
by doldrums
than albatross
Here’s a more recent one written by Doug, but he claims he wrote a much better one those many years ago that he threw in the fire on purge night, claims it was magnificent, but nevermind — we’re all stuck with minor work now:
A Wash Day
by Douglas Gilbert
Clear skies a sad beauty
blue light on the
heavy smashed awash
Flagging hopes asunder
only her scarf waves
a brick on its end
My eyes flutter full
overrunning my face
a thunder sob escaping me
though death escapes her not
beneath a fallen wall
Waves
she had for me
while I was away
Waves she got
while I could not
wave good-bye
Last wave
too high for tiptoes
dancing toes, dainty
toes in the water
I wave of me in light
it waves of blue in dark,
last waves cried tsunami
—————————————
The Xyiwa Poets had many “unanswered prayers” — none of them were ever published in a legitimate publication to my knowledge, and I don’t think any of them made it to Woodstock. I haven’t been in contact with any of them except for Doug who’s letting me use this blog space while he recovers from his brush with death and … well that’s another story. I think Paul Chelibi went to the Grand Canyon once, but probably that has nothing to do with this poem of his:
Climbing Music
by Paul Chelibi
I am my own donkey
carrying my mule-song
down this canyon road
narrow ledges slippery
More than once
I grasp a tree root
protruding from rock crevices
devastated to hear
answered cries are echos
off backpacks heavy with
futile supplies
too heavy to cross the river
too light to turn back
unanswered prayers
heard by vultures circling
seen by eagles leaving
scenes tumbling in
avalanched dreams
hoping to reveal a cave
a cave-in song, or
you
Marie Draper was a troubled person who prayed often and experimented with many different religious movements. She kept a journal or diary but was unfaithful to it. Sometimes she shared her journal entries with the group and certainly, everyone would agree that she had many “unanswered prayers”. She said,
“The restaurant where Jack works(where he thinks he is chief Chef, but is really just a lackey — I mean, he hasn’t been to Cordon Bleu school or whatever the hell those elite saucy snob cuisine colleges are called) has been in turmoil ever since one of Jack’s prize steers on his cattle ranch died. He’s not much of a rancher or cattleman and his dream of a new cut of prime famous branded beef has died. As they say, “he’s all hat and no catttle.” He was going after that dream of a perfect herd and great riches. The death of his best stud was the end of a dream. I told him that the Native Americans always said a prayer before eating an animal(so maybe he forgot that part): they thanked the spirit of the buffalo for sacrificing itself for their survival. Jack doesn’t want to put prime beef on the menu for eating anymore — I wouldn’t be surprised if he put a memorial sticker over the entry on the menu. He’s too sad. He just wants to bury it. I say, eat the meat because we have canine teeth for it and we’re not meant to be vegetarians. I’ve written a poem in honor of death and chicken bone soup for poor Yorick or Boris or whoever that famous allusion is, and I think I’m going to dump him, the arrogant chief Chef, because we fight too much. I guess I should have taken him with a grain of salt and thought of him as a poetic moment— wait, um, what ever happened to that discussion at the cave party? I thought we were going to amplify on that concept. Somebody started a flu poem and then did a second more poetic version…. well anyway, here’s the poem:
Marie on Death of a Chef Who Loves His Beef More Than Me
by Marie Draper
Don’t rip me no more
you’re tearing out my guts;
I’m tearing out yours
spewing entrails
in my trail
I’m stuffin’ it;
take your chitterlings and go
’cause I’m not mad enough
to eat your brains.
Sweet bread, I
once thought you
were sweet enough
to eat without your pancreas
Defeated I cry blood, but
your pain:
take it with you
because
it’s a pleasure
to vomit alone without you:
I can flush
Oh, writing hurts so much, well.. so this scattering:
Oh hell, what is this crap, “Poetic Moment”. I’m not sure what that means. Is it an incident and an emotion that’s trying to be expressed? I’m not sure what many of these poems are trying to say. Some seem to be hiding very dark events that are too painful to express. But I don’t think that vagueness in poetry is always a virtue(I almost accidently spelled that “vulture”, but I guess vagueness can’t be a vulture, because the carcass is the vagueness I guess— you can see I have trouble with metaphors). Am I wrong about this? My poetic moment is confusion:
I’m confused about
what words to use
to stew my angst
banking fear by the river
where I stir my pot
over the campy fire
with soft marshmallows
charring with emotion
Maybe I misunderstood something, but I thought one of the poems that someone blurted out during one of our drunken orgies was about rape. So I wrote a poem talking about revenge and/or forgiveness. So we come back to vagueness: I don’t know what I’m saying, if anything:
Cornered in Hell
he holds his breath
while praying for his birth
The Devil asks me
shall he be forgiven:
you decide
No, no, no,
I cry in remembered blood, but
a question occurs to me to ask
Have I ever been in Hell
on Earth or elsewhere, and
whose forgiveness did I require
I was tempted until I heard
my former tormentor shout,
I will get you even from Hell
My screaming anger
burst into flames
turning him into the ash
of a phoenix
Whose remorse
will God seek now
Not mine is a life that
is an end to suffering.
Pain will not let me forgive”
That’s the end of the entry that Marie donated to the group. Each of these is very different but I think they both represent “unanswered prayers”.
—————————–
Discovery! I found a box of old 45rpm records, and tucked between “Honky Tonk Women” by The Rolling Stones and “Knock On Wood” by Eddie Floyd, I found a gem of a poem by Marie Draper. Gee, I don’t think there’s a turntable anywhere in the cave to play any of these. Oh well, here’s the poem:
Minding A Mine
by Marie Draper
Loving a stone
is like being stoned
’cause
he comes alive
sometimes, love
revealed
coursing in gold veins,
sometimes he’s
in my mine
and I share my treasures
pleasures we are
in my mind, but
he is a rocking
a stone of mystery
sometimes
he is a gem,
could be
I love a stone
And I found this one at the bottom of the box. I had to wait to stop sneezing from all the dust before transcribing it.
Rushing Love
I call to the waterfall
who shushes my heart
fallen
Peeking through
a shining sky peaks
Waterfalls speak that
shining tizzy for bears who
love a glistening fish falling in
jumping bubbles of dinner calling,
but alone I watch for
the arrow of Cupid
within the rushing twirling fluid
and I pray to the guardian
of the calming sound
for a listening lover
found so fit
to christen me in
the love in a bubble
a splashing sound
found when
champagne glass
breaks for a ship
