Your blueberry eyes elicit
A craving so strong
That my mouth opens
In surprise; it longs
For dessert in the desert
The way the bluebird homes
After hunting the wide day
For words which wiggle with life
With which to feed the sentences
Of that aching brood.
--Don Hagelberg
This poem and the others mentioned below were read on Radio Station KGO broadcasting from San Francisco as well as from a closed broadcast station online through Portland OR.
[From "Finnish-American Poetry by Rauhala, Vartnaw, Hagelberg"] [Berkeley CA; UFKB&S; 2010] p 41; copyright 2010 by Don Hagelberg]
I have re-printed three other poems on this site, if you are interested, from the volume mentioned above.
Those three poems were:
"Brandied by Sweets,"
"In This Finn Hall of Lights,"
and
"Steam-Cleaned."

I lived in the M and M Hotel
On Fifth and Howard Streets when I got
Into the city waiting for the court
To grind its beef with me
Down into an edible sentence
For me to eat in the Federal Penitentiary.
I didn’t know the bar below the hotel;
I bought mine from the grocery store
At four for a dollar and
When I was read the verdict
Served a sober 1964-1965 as
Refuse, saying “No” to Vietnam
And the killing of Jack Kennedy.
I got out and drank a lout,
Sobering up to the aches in the holes
Alcohol ate in my soul and stomach.
There had to be something to live for?
While I sobered up I befriended
A bartender from the M and M Hotel’s
Ground floor bar. His history was that he
Served customers, mostly reporters from
The old Metro Newspapers, who were
Tired of typing, wanting to talk, while
Others simply lined the edges, crumpled, alone.
This bartender tendered bar and drank
Only later to pass out on the floor before
The others passed out the swinging doors.
And so the want-to-be poet and
The drop–out engineer sobered up each other
Until a woman drove-by in a side car
Version of a motorcycle and hit me, the poet, so
I fell into the body of her machine.
She died when I was eleven months sober and
Her tribute was a posthumous book of her poetry.
While I wrote the instructions on how
The volume was to look and feel, I could not read
The text until thirty years after her death. Now
I’m able to write again: a little now-and-then ode, when
Bee-thought don’t attack the strange honey as the enemy’s.

Skip-thrown on top
Of the Ocean of Literature,
That I can imagine,
I become the medium through which I move and so
I turn into a clot of spit
A mouthful of bacteria
A wet collection of the germs
Of all the girls whom I have kissed.

Witness this! Witness this!
I press my lips to the tips
Of my finger pads and impress
My infectious love of nouns and verbs
With a purposeful caress to the middle of
The skull which protects the active fat-solution
Of your chemical intellect, hidden behind
Your blessed forehead.

I worship this! I worship this!
The unfolding list of poems
Your hard-steel chisel
Has flaked off the surface
Of my once stoned heart.
It has quarried a vulgar gem.

This tool which you have used,
Hammered in relentless beats,
Resurrects both blood and heat
Of the core feldspar and quartz fleshed care.

The middle aged in their middle spread, sit on the
Topmost bench while the pregnant with the aged
Sit on the middle bench. Toddlers and the ultra-old
Sit on the bottom below. Each bench streams in steam
Rising from the dipper's water-drops on the hot rocks.
Hottest of the hot on top and barely exuding
On the bottom, while the middle bench waves between
Sweat to merely warm-to-the-touch. Steam hisses from
The fire-box's bed, a fore sweat of the heat to come.
This sauna remains the only way for "clean" to be had;
Cheaply, weekly and deeply. Spiritual dirt drops dead,
While soap, rag and rinse finish the bath.
In the ante-room we dress in our old social roles,
Ready to re-enact our trades and professions,
The filth of practice, compelling us to in-come, again.

In Memory of Eero Pulli,
Author and Kaleva Hall Manager

Forty years ago the galvanized sheet metal
Housing of one of the banks of general lights,
Suspended above the stage, hung by frayed,
Cotton ropes worn then for thirty years, this at
The Finnish Hall in almost Ocean View, Berkeley.
I saw the ropes and thought if someone was caught
Underneath them when they finally broke,
Then that victim would headache if not bleed to death.
I neither asked the Manager of the Hall nor
The Board of Trustees if I could have permission to exchange
The worn rope of words with a phrase of steel chain
Made of tight verbal links with which to hold
The Source of light. I had exchanged one end when
The Manager barked, “What do you think you’re doing?”
I told him and he scolded me in a silent stare.
Element, burnt-out, I stepped down the ladder
In flat sounds which ring through the backstage.
Climbing up the ladder with the second phrase
Of chain, I begged the Manager not to inform on me.
The chain remains today, now known to support light.

Grace Unto You And Peace,

Thank you for extending the information which you so gently did.

I appreciate your effort.

There seems to be more searching for me to do.

Thank you for gently pointing me on that route.

Agape, kiitos, shalom, xie xie, salaam, ja namaste,

Don as "Tauno"

Grace Unto You And Peace,

Thank you for pointing me in a general direction.

I appreciate it.

Agape, kiitos, shalom, xie xie salaam ja namaste,

Don as "Tauno"

Grace Unto You And Peace,
General Population,

I am a male seeking a female.

But there is a difference...yes yes I know that there is a difference between a male and a female.

But the difference I am looking for is Poetry!

Woman between the age of 52 and 69, do you do poetry?

And by poetry I mean images which stay in the memory, not necessarily rhyme.

Rhyme is nice, and so are greeting cards. But Poetry is composed of strong images, not necessarily shocking images, but strong images which stay in the reader or listeners mind and become the cliches of tomorrow.

So if you are a woman, between the ages of 52 and 69, and make poetry not necessarily rhyme, Contact this board?

This is a representative classified for Woman who Do Poetry.

There should be a companion classified for Music, Fine Art Painting, Ceramics, etcetera etcetera, etcetera,,,YES!

Agape, kiitos, shalom, xie xie, salaam ja namaste,

Don as "Tauno"