Selections From
I AM SONG
March 1988 to October 1988
BUBBLING DOWNWARD
Here's what happened.
I'm bubbling downward,
looking left, right,
water everywhere
watching the concrete pool wall
moving upward
as I
Roddy Butler
age 2 or 3
bubble downward,
sinking in
Mutti's pool.
OK. Drowning, but
too little to know it.
Watching the stubbled white wall
of the pool
go up and up and up and
wondering
"Why is the wall going up and up and up?"
When I was going down
down.... down...
until
KER-SPLASH!
Here comes Doris Waller
bubbling downward!
my God-Mother
plunges into pool water
in her regular clothes and all
to rescue
her sweet little God-son
who
reached over the concrete edge
to grab his favorite floatie toy
and tumbled into family history.
In two short strokes Dodo
scoops me and up
like a rocket
breaks the surface and
brings her startled
little aquanaut
safely back to air and light and
even his favorite floatie toy.
And only this moment
do I realize
I had experienced
my first plunge into
this idea of
SALVATION.
Doris and husband Eddy C. Waller, a character actor in Western movies.
CLOUDS DIARY
orchestrations of clouds
pouring out
sprinkling
drop-water down
splittering sidewalks
and dropletizing all cars
in all driveways,
everywhere.
thunderheads timpani
their triumphant anger-joy
lightings clash in cymbal fury
rainwater saturates the
thirsty ground
and sends us skittering
in all directions
with
umbrellas.
IF TODAY COULD BE YOU
If today could be You,
tomorrow would, too
and I'd ride the strong horses
of light.
If all that I do
If my poems be true
then with sorrow I'd dance
in the night.
If sorrow sings blue
then hue turns to cue
and weakness finds muscles
for might.
If in all that I do
My heart beats for You
Then my faith will break forth
into sight.
1988 Music Cassette - cover artwork
Hear music from this cassette at rodsounds on Sound Cloud.
Robert Calvin Sigmund Haines
Bob Haines,
scientist,
sips his coffee,
bends to the microscope,
closes one eye,
and stares with
the other,
straight down the tunnel to the slide.
[organisms move]
{sliding in translucent soup}
Yet, strangely,
there is a greater
connection.
"My God," he breathes,
his eye in a telescope,
his body microscopic...
he is gazing,
in awe,
at the Universe.
Santa Barbara, California | Summer 1988
BREAKFAST WITH BRADBURY
Bradbury,
at breakfast,
tips the bottle and sludges ketchup
around his omelette like a wreath.
He takes a bite,
and I watch. Then stop watching.
Guess I never imagined him doing anything like
eating eggs for breakfast.
Pretty j holds her croissant,
I work my pancakes and syrup,
in a most amazing, unexpected,
softly uncomfortable
breakfast with the Martian Chronicler himself,
Mr. Dandelion,
my letter-writing friend since 1973,
Ray Bradbury,
the morning after the Writer's Conference
in Santa Barbara, California.
Who knows what I said.
"Bla, bla, bla," probably.
Jeri said, "He loves your books."
Ray said, "You are my children."
He laughed and said,
"You make me feel good."
Awkward silence.
Suddenly, I had God-sent revelation:
I imitated Laurel and Hardy
doing the Soda routine, ending with
Stan's wonderful line:
"My half was on the bottom!"
Stan cried and tuffled his hair.
Ollie stared at the camera.
That's when the clouds broke and
the rain poured down and laughter
leveled everybody to God's children once again.
He penned a Martian and a prophecy in my wordbook.
There was a kiss and a hug and
away we went,
Ray in his tennis outfit,
Us in the Roderick's boat-sized car,
off to dream our dreams,
and breathe in, breathe out:
newly invested in destiny.
HI HAT
Two cymbals
snitching
in the open air,
snatching
gulps of
invisible oxygen
compressed
between
the golden
dishes.
My left foot:
up-down, up-down.
Twin-cyms reply.
Squashing,
Clicking,
Mashing,
Swishing,
Quickly Sticking,
tick-tiddling, and then:
ShaaaaaLuuk!
Hi Hat, Bye Hat,
closed for the evening.
Where would
this drummer be
without
a
high hat?
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