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HELEN'S APARTMENT
1
Several hundred dollars a month gets you a studio
apartment (that's not a dump if you're lucky).
The windows open onto a view of the buildings
across the street, and the icings of greenery
between tiers, stacked five high up the hillside,
all those windows opening back onto a view of you.
Everybody sees everybody head to toe clothed or unclothed.
It is expansive, expensive, spacious and intimate.
If you get tired of being inside, go up on the roof.
Or just hang out in the stairwell under the skylight.
2
A lifetime commitment and marriage settlement materializes
furniture. Futon. Credenza. Weights. Rocker.
Trunk. Bookcase. Lampshade. Love Seat.
A pile of pillows climbing up from the carpet.
The first thing I noticed feeling the space
inhabited by things receding and giving back their own.
Art too creates space, gives something back.
So much bad art masquerading pricelessness!
But here we have the ascension of the amateur,
awkwardness of artlessness expressing connection
to yourself, friends and family, and the culmination
of the highest of art forms, the relief map,
where we experience vertigo at the continental divide,
see down into the creek curling on the valley floor
under the needlepoint of forests, explore the floating world
of California between art and the genuine article of non-art.
A piece of blue cloth stitched to a burlap bag.
Blocks of colors daubed into a choo-choo and tracks.
The Bay Area public transportation systems. In the watercolor
the street corner figure walks away back turned.
Matchbox cars on the table substitute for those emptied streets.
A tin whistle. A big sky license plate. A photo of Eric.
Spain? Greece? Backpack slung, two kids hang off him on the cobbles,
a scarved woman hugging three stout, round loaves of bread.
His passport stamped with entries and departures filling the pages.
Five surviving sons. In baby pictures they exude confidence
the world is theirs, a face I couldn't fake.
No television. The plants and pottery are on the fire escape.
A Map of the Human Heart
3
Definitions. Dialectic. Atavism. Paroxysm. Didactic.
Kayaanisqatsi. Dolton. Moiety. I=E/R
(Amps = Volts divided by Ohms)
Onomatopoeia. Figurative. Metaphor. Hyperbole.
Simile. Alliteration. The 12 Basic Yoga Postures.
The Emma Goldman Archive.
Waves and Beaches by Willard Bascam
A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets
A River Runs Through It
Basic River Canoeing
Dover Thrift Editionslways $1.00 Guaranteed.)
Gray's Anatomy. Oh! Pascal! !Claro que si!
The Mac is not a Typewriter
"To the memory of William Strunk, Jr.,
whose writings and philosophy taught me
to "make definite assertions.""
4
I see you dropping the hitch onto the stern line,
climbing the swim ladder up out of the kayak
once again
with a face illuminated by a smile casting shadows
across the harbor town terrain,
as I emerge through the companionway hatch
removing slats and blinking in the dawn light,
both of us reaching the cockpit awning in a synchronicity
of disquieting simplicity.
--David Joseph
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HELEN'S APARTMENT
1
Several hundred dollars a month gets you a studio
apartment (that's not a dump if you're lucky).
The windows open onto a view of the buildings
across the street, and the icings of greenery
between tiers, stacked five high up the hillside,
all those windows opening back onto a view of you.
Everybody sees everybody head to toe clothed or unclothed.
It is expansive, expensive, spacious and intimate.
If you get tired of being inside, go up on the roof.
Or just hang out in the stairwell under the skylight.
2
A lifetime commitment and marriage settlement materializes
furniture. Futon. Credenza. Weights. Rocker.
Trunk. Bookcase. Lampshade. Love Seat.
A pile of pillows climbing up from the carpet.
The first thing I noticed feeling the space
inhabited by things receding and giving back their own.
Art too creates space, gives something back.
So much bad art masquerading pricelessness!
But here we have the ascension of the amateur,
awkwardness of artlessness expressing connection
to yourself, friends and family, and the culmination
of the highest of art forms, the relief map,
where we experience vertigo at the continental divide,
see down into the creek curling on the valley floor
under the needlepoint of forests, explore the floating world
of California between art and the genuine article of non-art.
A piece of blue cloth stitched to a burlap bag.
Blocks of colors daubed into a choo-choo and tracks.
The Bay Area public transportation systems. In the watercolor
the street corner figure walks away back turned.
Matchbox cars on the table substitute for those emptied streets.
A tin whistle. A big sky license plate. A photo of Eric.
Spain? Greece? Backpack slung, two kids hang off him on the cobbles,
a scarved woman hugging three stout, round loaves of bread.
His passport stamped with entries and departures filling the pages.
Five surviving sons. In baby pictures they exude confidence
the world is theirs, a face I couldn't fake.
No television. The plants and pottery are on the fire escape.
A Map of the Human Heart
3
Definitions. Dialectic. Atavism. Paroxysm. Didactic.
Kayaanisqatsi. Dolton. Moiety. I=E/R
(Amps = Volts divided by Ohms)
Onomatopoeia. Figurative. Metaphor. Hyperbole.
Simile. Alliteration. The 12 Basic Yoga Postures.
The Emma Goldman Archive.
Waves and Beaches by Willard Bascam
A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets
A River Runs Through It
Basic River Canoeing
Dover Thrift Editions (Always $1.00 Guaranteed.)
Gray's Anatomy. Oh! Pascal! !Claro que si!
The Mac is not a Typewriter
"To the memory of William Strunk, Jr.,
whose writings and philosophy taught me
to "make definite assertions.""
4
I see you dropping the hitch onto the stern line,
climbing the swim ladder up out of the kayak
once again
with a face illuminated by a smile casting shadows
across the harbor town terrain,
as I emerge through the companionway hatch
removing slats and blinking in the dawn light,
both of us reaching the cockpit awning in a synchronicity
of disquieting simplicity.
--David Joseph
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