Monday, June 28, 2010

After reading in the paper that a young woman, under 18, in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to 80 lashes, I have not been able to write about sweet experiences. The lashes, on her legs? Back? Enough to make her flesh look like what we grill on the barbeque? I did not want this, my poetry blog, to bring up political, sociological, moral issues as such, but this -- in 2010 -- well, I'm working on an 80 line rant.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

The Sixth Sense

Good morning to all. This morning I shared with a young art student, a painter, thoughts about our senses, and how, while we have our five physical senses, sight sound taste touch and hearing, that are gateways to the outside world, that we also have a "sixth" sense. The "sixth" sense is meta-physical, internal, even philosophical. The sixth sense is what I reach for in a poem. The sixth sense is what I am writing about, in layers, in a poem. We have many "sixth" senses: A sense of joy, a sense of beauty, a sense of ugly, a sense of love, a sense of bravery, a sense of weakness, on and on. The sixth sense is what has made me sniff out the poem in the first place, what has made me write the poem. Like in my Haiku: Robin in the tree Reflected in the fountain. Black cat lunges. Splash! The sixth sense of "irony." How I can easily be fooled by my illusions, dive into them, and come up soaking wet. A sixth sense of foolishness. Etc etc. This morning, smelling the coffee percolating, a sense that as soon as I can sip a cup, all will be right with the world. So be it. Jim P.S. I have a few copies left of my latest book of poems, "SUNFIRE" and you can order a signed copy directly from me for $14 plus $2 postage. Send $16 to Jim Ciletti, 1215 N. Union Blvd. Colo Spgs CO 80909, or call Hooked on Books bookstore, 719-596-1621 and they can take your credit card info and mail the book to you.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Fish Oil

Dear Myles, Did you see the fish and birds, the turtle, in Time? Bejesus! Washed up on a black beach, this big fish -- face smeared with oil, eyes popping, mouth stuck open in a last breath, death-gasp? This bird's head and face dripping with oil, one eye glazed, tears of oil? That turtle, fossilized in a cement of oil? As if scorched by fire, the pelican is an icon of death. Do I have any idea what this is like? The final oxygen air bubbles raking though my feathery gills? My muscles twisting into cramping pain? I thrash and thump my tail on the black sand. I have to, want to, yes, die. I must die with this fish. Feel the oxygen deprivation and suffocation tighten around my throat. My eyes bulge out. Death forces itself into my body. Oh, the ache in my brain, a hot nail piercing behind my eyes. I gasp, shudder, twitch my gills. Thick oil skims through: clogging, choking oil. I thrash my head. My eyes sting. Oil chokes my throat. In weak, powerless spasms, my tail arches. Eyes glazed, I feel the waves wash me farther up the black shore. Even the hungry, shrieking gulls reject me. Dark, bubbly surf nudges me forward, forward, away from the great sea of my birth. I am dying. Exhausted. My tail flops down onto a funereal bedspread and coffin of black sand. Yes, I must die with this fish and with every oil soaked bird. Choke with every turtle. Stand, painted black with the pelican. Then, and only then will I change and demand real change from our leaders and money-power-brokers. Imagine: all those money-eyed brokers on the stock market floor, coated with oil; their dollar bills gasping for air; Our politicians in congress, mouths choking with oil, staring at one another, unable to blink their oil-glazed eyes. Tomorrow: I awaken in this gulf of ocean seas. I am the Great Mother. Rising up, I stand over all the waters and hold my swollen, pregnant belly. All the babies within me, all the sea turtles, algae, fish, shrimp, plankton, crab, the seahorses and seaweeds, even the wetlands, will be born lifeless, stillborn, black and blue with oil. So be it, Myles. Your friend James Ciletti

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Recent Poetry Events

Hello and Happy Father's Day to all. On Friday evening I had the honor of sharing poetry with the students and faculty of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation's closing banquet at Colorado College. And yesterday, Juneteenth, I delivered a brief, 10 minute rap of Black poetry by Black poets at the NAACP's Juneteenth celebration. I started with an African, Hottentot poem, The Ancestors, then to the Phillis Wheatley, the first African American poet to publish a book, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and closed with Lucille Clifton, who recently passed away -- www.poets.org and other web sites provide bios and poems of all of these poets. When growing up, so we could have no accent and be able to get jobs and go to school without being made fun of, our parents did not teach us Italian. I am keenly aware of the great loss of cultural heritage that occurs when one's language, and culture, are denied. Thus, one of my projects as Poet Laureate, is to begin with workshops and readings and "teach-ins" at appropriate community cultural events, community centers, and libraries. Yesterday's performance at Juneteenth will now make it possible to develop writing workshops for young Black poets, workshops for Black elders to record and write their memoirs, and to hold events to celebrate Black literature, at Hillside Center. As we nurture and develop literary talent in our various ethnic and cultural communities, I look forward to the day when the Pikes Peak Poet Laureate may be from our Black Poets, or Latinos, or Asians or other cultural resource in our communities. Cheers to all. Jim

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

e.e.cummings

At this time of year I enjoy the many light-hearted poems of e.e. cummings -- and then this morning I read the Molly and Me poem which ends with, ''it is always ourselves we find in the sea." After hearing the President speak last night, and knowing that as I hit this keyboard that more oil is gushing forth to pollute and destroy part of our precious earth, I find cumming's poem has a new meaning for me. A painful meaning now. Because this is not only about oil and our demands for it. I too expect the gas pump to work when I want a fill-up. But because our city planners and urban designers have created a sprawling mess of roads and now I have to drive miles for a loaf of bread, work, even survival. We are forced into a consumption of oil that we cannot escape. That entrapment is painful. And makes me angry. And what does this have to do with "poetry." Can my poetry ever begin to express this anger and pain? Can yours? Yes, in poem that rants and raves. Do I dare unleash that storm? Or, perhaps, I should sing an ode to the sea. Neruda, where are you when I need you.

Monday, June 14, 2010

June 14. In a lovely book , The Poetic Landscape, by Elizabeth Mowry, I found this quote by John Burroughs: "You cannot find what the poets find in the woods, until you take the poet's heart to the woods." -- in Harvest of a Quiet Eye.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

June 10: As I prepare to go to Fremont Correctional Facility, to give my writing workshop to men imprisoned there, I found a wonderful poem on www.poets.org, by the Sufi mystic, Rumi, and I share a morsel of it here and encourage you to go to poets.org, and type RUMI in the poet slot, and then click on the title of his poem. What was told, that by Jalalu'l-din Rumi Translated by Coleman Barks "What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest." Now, please, go discover this beautiful poem by Rumi.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

When journaling this morning, I heard someone ask, why morning pages? why journaling? and the words "the unexamined life is not worth living" came to mind, and Oscar Wilde's statement, "I never travel without my journal, one should always have something sensational to read." Sensational? Sensate? Embodied in the physical sense-filled world? Or does he mean, off-the-charts, wild, tingling -- well, journaling for me starts in the real, physical world at the moment I pick up my pen. If I were journaling at this moment I would capture three or four dominate sounds, the tickling wind chimes chiming, the cars zip-slishing up the street, the drone of an airplane, and the soft whisper of tree leaves in the blowing breathe of our cosmos. The sun is so bright this morning, the shadows of patio chairs appear to be carved and shaded with black pens. On and only, journaling is a journey through the senses first, and that usually leads to ideas percolating up to my imagination. Every day awareness-poetry attacks my body through the senses.

Monday, June 7, 2010

New Haiku

Robin in the tree Reflected in the fountain, Black cat lunges. Splash!

First Contact

Hello world and poetry lovers, I am now a blogger. Look out.