Category: Audio Recordings

ANNA PAULOWNA

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged / / by

ANNA PAULOWNA

Dorsey likes that a town
is named for a woman
and the pretty doors on the houses

We stop at a garage for directions
I think this is okay in a town
named for a woman

The men with little English explain
that we have to go back, cross the tracks
go to the dike and turn right again
and the toilet is in the back shop

There are
Audis and Volkswagens up on hoists
the bathroom is clean, the tools are clean
the cars are clean, the floors are clean

If the dike breaks
and rolls across this town

Anna will be proud to know
there will be no oil slick on its surface
as it rolls across the fields

CRATER

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged , , , / / by

CRATER

Giant bowl below sea level
the whole world runs in over the edges

Tulips from Asia Minor by way of Austria
in the fifteenth century

Satisfactie van Amsterdam in 1566
“no one should be persecuted for his faith”

Jews pour in from Spain and Portugal
Huguenots from France, English Protestants
Germans from the Thirty Years War

Diamond cutters pour in from Belgium
Diamonds tumble in from everywhere

Ships are sent around the horn
trade brings back the world

This week in one small town
voices dialogue from five continents
energies seen and unseen come together
are stirred by large and small spoons

Everyone dips their cup into the cauldron
goes home with more

IN GREECE

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged , / / by

IN GREECE

In Greece
I remember and meet
myself everywhere
I am Socrates questioning
I am the athlete striving
the architect planning
the builder building, the potter shaping
the sculptor seeking, the warrior dying
and the poet pointing

In Greece
I am all men and all gods as well
and I remember
How many times in this life alone
I have pushed the rock endlessly uphill
Carried the world on my shoulders

Had my liver eaten by the savage bird
How many times
I have fallen in love with my own
reflection
Reached out for the sweet grapes and
sweet water
to find them moving always beyond my
grasp
Been forced to echo only what others
have said
Tied myself to the mast to resist the
siren’s call
Fought in a thousand wars
full out on the open field or sea
or hidden in the belly of a wooden horse

GREECE – INDEPENDENCE DAY 2000

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged , , / / by

GREECE – INDEPENDENCE DAY 2000

We stand in the sunlight of Athens
birthplace of democracy, philosophy
theatre and reason

Here man first learned true freedom

Created gods
in the image of his vices and his virtues
and learned to embrace and best them all

Stores in Athens close for the parade
people gather from miles around

For hours past the viewing stand
soldiers and sailors march in step

Overhead the jets and choppers
roar by in strict formation

Thirty deep and more
people push and flow and smile on cue

I search the marchers and the crowd
Looking for that one toga, one book
One independent mind
One ancient Greek

OLYMPIC GAMES

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / / by

OLYMPIC GAMES

In ancient Greece
the athlete was admired
statues raised in his honor

Olympic games every four years
the basis for the whole Greek calendar

Modern Olympics forget the Greek Ideal
of sound mind in sound body

Forget the many statues of the wise
Forget that Olympic games contained
display and competition
in poetry, in music, and in drama

In the modern Olympics every four years
a new sport is voted in
I vote to add the balance back