Hello Wayne

(self portrait from the Thunderbird Bar years)

poems from a few years having to do with old friend Wayne Jones (1939-2020)

by Larry Goodell

Evie and Wayne: Dawn and Evening Twenty-Five Years Marriage /7Apr1990

East creates west.
West keeps dropping off into the ocean.
West floats back to the East and becomes East.
East decides to go West.
East meets West.
West courts East.
East
Decides
To stay.
The arroyo is so nice after the rain, the tall cottonwoods
the rain splats, the mud.
And the West, howling at the sunset, so affectionate.
East meets West and all the other directions
come for dinner
over and over
the sun throws over the upside-down landscape of
the clinging stars the outlines of real people from real directions
revolving, staying, complaining, living, straying, teaching, groping with problems
groping with the changing anatomy of the Earth, the Earth coming up to meet them                                 again
and provide them home, married, to work, the East becomes the West
the West becomes diversity of the rhythms of change, the same damn thing
changed, transfigured, transmogrified into daily marriage to joy
marriage to change, over and over the age
over and over the age silvers the light in the arroyo, aurora it’s simply
dawn and evening
evening and dawn.

 

November 15, 2009
for Steve Spalding and for Wayne Jones birthday celebration in Placitas
reaching beyond 70

You have reached the vantage point where you can see all humanity.
George Bush is now in Rectum Alley. Chinch-mouth Cheney is in
daughter-pushing land, chipping off the old block.
There’s a little hope in the vista we can build upon —
as the multi-conglomerate maggots continue to gnaw away at our souls.
But we can triumph by spitting democracy right back in their capitalist faces.
Yes, an eternal note: all of us are created equal
and thus speech ascends into freedom.
Love pulverizes all with more love, like water dissolving,
air breathing, blood warming, plants digesting,
animals coming near to be fed. Life, the back bone of life.
The creative dance of seeing through the haze to a distant galaxy
              that before Hubble we thought was only part of us —
                                 Welcome Andromeda!
How we’ve expanded into ourselves!
In our lifetime our borders have been stretched out and back so much
that we can find humility. Not even a cog on a wheel, but a bump on the cog.
Not even a bump but a bit of a bump. Not even a bit but
a nano particle: human consciousness shrinks to where it’s at,
and the world seems bigger. Seeing things clearly in every birth of a day.
                             /from Foxhole Prayers in GROUNDED, duende press 2020

 

Have We Been Here?
                      We Have Been Here
/for Wayne Jones, at 80

Have we been here
we have been here
you and me and
many others
some came and left.
                    Some came with spangles on
left with mud on their boots.
Many came and left.
Remember the Vietnam War
remember the Vietnam Vets
as you are
                  who came here
                  lived here
left
remember marching down Central
young people, we were younger
some pregnant women
                marching
the business people looking at us
                as we walked
and when we danced danced
                in the bar
                to loud and louder bands
some quieter or just a country fiddler
or Ginsberg in a crowd
dancing, chanting, people doing
                uncommon things
the matching and uncoupling of people
the handmade day to day activities
embroidering blue work shirts
long dresses, belly dancing, marriages
love, remember love?
drumming, ignorant chanting
lighting stars on the forehead
out of mind ritual guided drugs

shouting in canyons, marriages
               by the creek or next to red rock canyons
                            rock groups from Taos Santa Fe
Albuquerque, thr0ngs for New Years
arts fairs, locally designed booths
              a casita almost a hermitage
renting houses or squatting
turning a place into a magnet for others
much to surprise and confusion and some
             elder dislike of residents –
so many could build unique dwellings –
             didn’t yours have a sloping floor?
a commune, hell, just living together
not me but I observed –
doing farming, what’s new from California,
             New York, beads leather
             diets changing
             sweats, food stamps
                       Tarot, I Ching, peyote
poetry readings, photography, art even
            on basement walls, volleyball, most of all
            the music, live music groups
fire station concerts        4th of July
                      local real dancers
dancing, we got hitched up
had our own spring-fed swimming pool –
we did all kinds of things, handmade stuff
            up from the ground –
and everything turned over into the commerce
           of growth and we weathered, stayed
or some of us,
many were here anyway,
we were all new and yet long time here
as time robs of youth, the spirit stays
stays on year after year

festival after festival, dance after dance
plan after plan, job to job, place
                            to place within a place, this place
                of little places, we come and we go
in a village, and some died many died
and we’re living now families of families
changing growing up generations generating
and children from tiny to teen to adult
as different unwanted unneeded wars
come and go and we’re stuck here
with the gangster wealthy gone mad
as we weather another political storm
with still our integral spirit
singing the song of the Earth the Fathering Sun
the urgency of the local informed by
                               the local
it presses on to celebration do you hear
that music which is this music
the heart beat of memory in this circle of
                love and cooperation to get things done
the theater we had is the theater
                                    we are.
Have we been here we have been here
           you and me and many others
some came and left
many came and left, many stayed
           and here we are
we have been here and
           here we are.                                   /2019 11 26 from COMMONS, duende press 2020

                                            “If music be the food of love, play on;
                                             give me excess of it . . .”
                                                                   – William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night

Note: the header for this blog is from a photograph by Wayne. Many photographs by Wayne are in this album on Facebook of Thunderbird Bar pictures and comments. 

love to all, continuing, and to Wayne’s family and loved ones and friends . . . from Larry

In a Small Town in New Mexico

Unknown singers, parsers of the present laying down words not to befuddle, but to clarify. We heard you, there, young, read by a friend in a small town where everyone gathered was interested. The words, phrases, cadences came like water from a spring brook, read by our old friend as you were there among us. The caught up surprises, the reading new meanings, concordances, a weaving for sure that must have fell from your mouth. Perhaps you were too young and unsure to read it out but our friend let it flow, just the conveyor of your words, as the transcendent levels spread out one after another, as something of nature one can experience in the fullest. When he finished, there was applause from all and congratulations even though a small town, with everyone present just who they are. That your father was such a well known poet we all knew, as something we studied, never quite being lifted off the ground, in fact, dulled as if read in a class by assignment.

I told you you’ve given us fresh thought, the power of youth inspired by your gift of natural flow and layers of freshness like deep breathing as clear as any new dawn to come. I left the group as we all felt he had regained us and pulled into new territories away from our stagnation.

Oh I hope he doesn’t touch a word, oh please don’t tamper with, ruin what is inspired. Thank you, I’m thinking here, roused from my dream, very early morning December 13th, 2020.

Meredith Rice – A Child’s Alphabet – 1969

Meredith Rice was a painter and visionary, a friend since at least 1967. She lived from 1945 to 2012. See some of her work at 3 Dimensional Poetry. The painting there from her series during her struggles through cancer is illuminating. This beautiful hand written, drawn, assembled booklet, A Child’s Alphabet, Meredith did for the birth of our son Joel who was born in November of 1969. She sent the booklet through the mail to us General Delivery.

Presenting all I can in memory of Meredith Rice. An enlightening talent to us, to so many, as the pursuit to prevent cancer from taking more lives continues. Larry Goodell, Placitas, New Mexico larrynewmex@gmail.com Thank you, Meredith.

Watercolor – Multi-American Series – November 2019

original, 2 sheets

variation using computer

variation using computer

Watercolor after a long time. I stopped these and painted sticks long before the show at Very Special Arts on North Fourth Street – where I did readings and showed some of the sticks (painted property markers) along with Jane Sprague works, Jim Burbank works, and Lenore Goodell works . . . an accumulative surprise. I may do more watercolors. 2 sheets side by side.

larry goodell / 7november2019 / placitas, new mexico / usa

Dutchman in New Mexico

Sue Ann Carpenter writes about her acting in Amiri Baraka’s The Dutchman in New Mexico:  “did this at old town studio in 1970 – directed by geno silva classmate of mine at unm  – it was a cool play – great dialogue – we were on stage about one hour just the two of us one act – then we were picked up to take it to don juan playhouse in pojoaque & los alamos.

“nick abdalla sculpture and friend from Albuquerque took photos..

“ron givens was an actor in Albuquerque  – he was excellent – I think the closed in performance in the small old town theatre was more effective – geno directed it where the audience was in the play – the whole theater was set up like a subway train with visual effects and sounds – ron and i were on the front seat facing the audience – only chairs were the setting – it was very effective – it ran a few weeks

“when nat simmons came to do it in los Alamos it was set outside in the amphitheatre – the play lost a lot of the ambiance – it was good but better inside – i was flattered when steve asked ron and me to perform a portion of it for his class – he was such a great addition to the unm staff anyway.  .   . ” Sue Ann Carpenter

“Dutchman is a play written by African-American playwright Amiri Baraka, then known as Leroi Jones. Dutchman was first presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York City, on March 1964.” (Wikipedia)

Sue Ann Carpenter lives in Roswell, New Mexico. Thank you for this.
/larry goodell / placitas, new mexico

 

 

In Good Hands – Election Poem 2018

(Hear this poem read here.)

It’ll get out of hand if you hand it over to a cruel hand.
They’re waiting in the shadows to dust your future with disaster.
And then you cough and come down with lung rot.
Or simply die untended with cancer or simply die unattended with cancer.
Healthcare is a right and not a privilege of the privileged
who have no interest in your rights and would assume you have none.
For isn’t it a club as they try to get to the club of the club of the clubs
and more of them make it while the earth of everyone what we used to call the masses
are their debris for their wealth must be strangled out of something
mainly you and me, the cocksie Koch’s are cockless about what’s going on
their think tanks can be run by only so many people – they forget the bees
yes the busy bees of persistence, dedication perseverance passion
insistence millions of little bees the whole alphabet of resistance
for what is right, common sense, commonality, non-party insistence on the good
the eruption of care, yes care for others, not do as thou wilt
but do unto others what you would have them do unto you
or have you forgotten, you stupid you, with all your brains narrowed into conniving
you forget the bees, we bees work together and we butterflies, you forget the butterflies
we’re in flocks and we can move great distances as well as be beautiful at home
you forget the wolves, hey we’re growing in numbers
and we’re good predators for preserving the balance of nature
and you idiot buffoons in your gold-plated pantaloons
forget all the migrating birds, we move openly and mysteriously
great distances following the patterns of nature
have you heard of the patterns of nature, have you even heard of Nature
I didn’t say despoiling I didn’t say poisoning, corrupting, dominating
destroying raping exhausting, misusing, fraking and generally fucking everything up
I said patterns of Nature, Nature undominated but cooperated with
as the Earth itself presents solutions – Nature, Mother Nature, Father Sun
the Moon Magician and the Universe of Stars Galaxies of Higher Powers
cockeyed cockamania corporations of calculated accumulation
massive power of the few, you few are few – watch out for the ants
the ants working everywhere millions and millions, ants here
ants there, ants everywhere crawling up your legs to bite
your you know what and you can’t stop us we’re at the
polls we’re in the voting polls, we’re better known as the populace –
we’re everything you’ve ever not wanted to happen
and sooner or later your manipulating the vote gets overwhelmed with
the rush and flood and tsunami of the popular, who really won the last election?
We more than exist – we sing, we create, we make scientific discoveries
we do business with everybody we’re every color of the rainbow and then some
we’re into the commons and we demand that the billions going into the military be accounted for, heard of public accounting?
Not for greed & war, but for good
and the millions going into our common needs be encouraged in schools, government, roads bridges internet education – and fun
till the commons is again common, and common sense prevails
teachers scientists artists respected
living wage workers’ unions listened to, co-ops building, private business flourishing, green and all color industries prospering
sane laws kicking out assault weapons, national buy back of guns
cutting violence and boosting mental care, law-abiding hunters
and fishers and conservationists valued, women’s voices heard and
believed and the addictions to hate & drugs turning into addictions
of compassionate love, we bees we butterflies we birds we wolves
we ants, we native plants, we cooperative humans flowering,
we sunflowers along every road in America, backyards and fields,
not only are we along the roads, we’re in the roads, driving and walking colorful attending, we the engaged populace standing up everywhere
turning away lies and celebrating truth
open minds bound to free speech, and separation of church & state,
every woman and man born equal under law & love
peace of mind and health of mind & body joining hands
joining hands with civility, a new name in our honor – we might as well sing let
freedom ring.

Larry Goodell / Placitas, New Mexico / October 29, 2018

Marc Maron on the Living Batch

A flyer Pancho Elliston sent me – unknown source (so far).

Many articles about the Batch! .    .    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .(Yes I did work there in and out.)

Robert Creeley Handouts UNM 1962

Of course these aren’t all the pages we talked about in Robert Creeley’s English 121 course but they are among the few I still have. I’d heard him read from For Love directly to Bobbie Creeley in the Adobe Theater in Old Town, Albuquerque, but became acquainted with him in this class. Hank Chapin (who published Bluegrass & first published me) and Bill Dodd (who I published in a duende) were in this class. Then I went to the Vancouver Poetry Conference thanks to Bob’s urging, and immediately after started duende, moving to Placitas from Albuquerque about the same time the Creeleys did (1963), a wonderful coincidence.

It was that Wollensak (and I do believe wire) recorder he brought to class from which we heard his interviews with Duncan, Dorn, Olson, McClure, Zukofsky, Levertov? and, by way of the visiting Jonathan Williams, Basil Bunting . . . I think some of the tapes he had came from his interview program on KHFM  “The Single Ear,” the Albuquerque classical station, where they were aired. But then in his home in the Village we listened to all the way from Kurt Schwitters to an interview with Ezra Pound to Frank Zappa. I have cassette dubs of a few of these still at home since I haven’t yet arranged to send my media stuff to Yale.

Addendum:

Bob Creeley saved my life. The WCW-Olson-Creeley-etc. voices broke through my word glut, and as embarrassing as it is, here’s a bit of how he helped . . .

Gratefully,
larry goodell / placitas, new mexico

New Mexico and Beyond – New Poetry

 

Thank You Meredith Rice

https://larrygoodell.blogspot.com/2017/03/thank-you-meredith-rice.html