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Morton Marcus: Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, this is Mort Marcus and this is the new Poetry Show on KUSP FM 89 on your dial, serving Santa Cruz, Salinas, Big Sur, and the Monterey Bay. Today, the music in the background identifying

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Little Walter Jacobs and that introduces our guests for the day Bob Lundquist who has just had a book of poems out and may I say, it is long overdue, called "Before the Rain." And it's done by a local press, Moving Parts Press, that has

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done a lot of really nice books and I think this is maybe the most beautiful book they've done yet. Bob,welcome. Robert Lundquist: Thank you. Thank you, nice to be here. Morton Marcus: Nice to have you here. This has been a long time

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in the making and a long time coming. I should say that Bob and I, as friends go back a long, long way, and I have been looking at Bob's work for years with not only great interest but really great love. And the voice you hear as the interlocutor

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today is the voice of a fan. And what I'm going to ask Bob to do, did you bring any harmonicas, Bob? Robert Lundquist: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Okay, I'm going to have Bob sometime in the show

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play us some harmonica music, but first to introduce you to the Bob Lundquist, poet, I'm going to ask Bob to read two poems. How's that? Robert Lundquist: Good. What I'd like to do is start off with a

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couple of poems that are not in the book. I like to begin with new work simply because I don't always get a chance to read it, especially since music has taken up so much more of my life, readings have become less and less. But I would also like to

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say that to all the people that I love over at the administration at Kresge College, hi, and over at La Fonda Children's Center, hi. So, without further ado, I'm going to read two poems.

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The first poem is actually the newest thing I've written and it's called, "It Is Dark Now." IT IS DARK NOW And I'm sitting here, listening to the petals of the

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bougainvillea fall in the wind, watching the channels of my neighbor's TV turn into the sky. Before dusk, I drive with you along the coast. We are not speaking, the columns of water rising from the sea into the clouds precipitate. Even now,

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what I cannot explain, these absences together, each of us turn into the other to look away. AT THE END OF THE STREET The sunsets in the blue enamel of a new Honda Accord, dark

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branches of pepper trees, what I imagined to be a gold sky, the face of a woman walking by past the rows of apartments, cliffs and beaches. The sunsets, shy at first to her dark eyes and the wet lines of sand, where she kneels, head moving from side to

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side. The red ball trembling between the pilings of the pier, flattened by night approaching, the apartments shrink to the motels against the water, purple in a purple sky, the woman rises by, a shadow now, now in the yellow lights at the end of the

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street. Morton Marcus: Thank you, Bob. That, really, in many ways is very reminiscent of some early lyrics you did, lyrics about streets, nights, cars, that I remember and which are not in

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the book. And it brings me to what I try to do in the show all the time, which is bring away into a poet's work. I mean, why do I think that Bob Lundquist is such fine poet? Well, what I'd ask the listener to listen for is a real originality and what I

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mean by that is yes, an originality and image which we would expect out of each poet. But there is something about the word selection that Bob uses that only strikes one in a surprising way, it's unexpected. And secondly, there is a sound,

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the way vowels go together and the way consonants go together, which sends a music, which is again, very unique to Bob Lundquist's work. And with that in mind, can we start to read some of the poems, some of those old poems from the book, and I

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think the listener will see what I mean. Robert Lundquist: This is a poem called BREACH. There was no easy solution. Those who would have our death ate well our mourning. Something moved into the brush and a car

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followed. What should have we done all days, all day the shadows stayed close to the building. Clouds that held this heat to earth crept into cold water. Two boys walking along the tracks waited to enter the tunnel before holding hands. So

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far, no conclusion. Is it true we were born to a damaged people, or that night arrives one lamp less to each room? She rode that bus through the dark and became ill waking next to a man she had never met.

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Morton Marcus: The preface of this book is written by Bill Iverson, who as listeners will remember was here several weeks ago on the Kenneth Rexroth show, and I think is one of the really great poets of America only but a force in West Coast poetry.

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And I know that Bob, you've been interested in his work for a long time and he's been interested in yours and there is a wonderful poem to a poet. Part of the Chinese tradition is to write fellow poets poems, and even in America, you know,

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remembering William Carlos Williams getting on a bus or something like that. But you have a poem to Bill Iverson, which is in this book, and which has been around for 10 years now that I just think is just wonderful and it captures a lot

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of Iverson but captures a lot of you, so could you read this old poem. Robert Lundquist: TO THE POET WILLIAM IVERSON Bill, we smoke the same cigars, hard leaves wrapped by the

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Italians in Pennsylvania. In second to Hennessy, I have a passion for Jack Daniels. In moonlight, I have spread my fingers across the stone walls of Robinson Jeffers Fort. And again last night, while weeping in the sand of a friend's death,

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I heard the full bellies of seals slapping against the cold wave. I have watched this tide night in and night out entering the same beach. I have listened to the wings folding between the dark rocks above me and still this tongue, this thick muscle

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fastened to the roof of warning, this tongue, sheathed in the crack of a shark's eye, is silent. Of what used are lips that cannot accept the tongue's heat, flesh that warps from fear of the dream. Why do I fear these winged rats sleeping

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inside me, or the yellow eyes widening for the flight, the heart's blood freezes to the stump, the body's sap clotted. I'm sure death's itch chews the nettle's rash beneath my wrists as the crushed bone rots. And as the bone rots, the muscles

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flattened into whips, the blood tongue muted. With the tongue silent, the lips' flesh cracks, the knotted pulse breathes through my fists. Morton Marcus: I hope you don't mind if I do comment on what I

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was talking about before. There is such a wonderful sense of physicality and again, this unexpected sense of what images you'll see, what details you'll see, what language you'll use. And so, when I'm thinking of our lines like, "last night while

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weeping in the sand of a friend's death," which gets us on to the beach imagery, and then, "I heard the full bellies of seals slapping against the cold wave." And later on with this wonderful imagery that went on with the tongue, in which

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you've got this, this muscle that is just sort of clinging to the mouth, and makes us and puts us in a position as viewers, giving us a perspective, we've never even had with` these organs. And it just makes the whole poem sing in a new way to

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the imagination and to the senses. This is obviously what I would call upon the friendship, of camaraderie. And there's another poem of yours, which does this also, which is on the very next page. And you may want to explain who this friend was

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and what he represented, but it's called "To A Friend On The Death Of His Father." Robert Lundquist: Yeah, both of these poems are in a sense that- This poem, it's a landscape but it's an elegy. And the poem to

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Will Iverson is, in a sense, it has the mention of death in it. And what that is, to me was, that poem was written at a time that something that Iverson deals with and that's the terrifying reality. And I don't mean this in arrogance, not in-

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and this isn't a matter of virtue either. But there is this terrifying experience that one has that suddenly they realize they're a poet and it's really, it can be frightening because it's a very alone art, it's not one that is real popular today.

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And the type of things that you have to deal with on an unconscious level to be able to write, and again, this is not virtue. I don't know, I don't believe that I came to being a poet through choice and it takes tremendous support to be able to

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continue writing for years. As Joe Stroud said, your apprenticeship ends after 10 years. I know that I would- I don't know how well I would have been able to continue had I not had the support of you. I mean, you were my first mentor even

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though I was not a student of yours. Yes and when I saw you read at Chico and a year and a half later looked you up at Cabrillo College, and Iverson becoming my, in a sense, my second mentor on. And at that time, I was, I was having to

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deal with a lot of the things that happened in my adolescence and in my teens. And the first fella that I ever played music with was a young kid from the Barrio in San Gabriel where I grew up, and his name was Manuel Duarte and Manuel was the last

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of a long line of the Duarte family. His family is the Yorbas(?), the Picos, like Pico Rivera, Duarte, California and Manuel was the last that line. He was an incredible musician. He was a- he was one of the backyard players like- who now-

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today there are bands like Los Lobos, and those used to be the backyard party bands, and Manuel was a part of that. And he went on to start playing blues and I was his first harmonica player. But so, harmonica was my first love and then suddenly, I got

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struck to write poetry and didn't play harmonica for several years and just wrote. And Manuel and I go so deep and at one time, Manuel and I ran away to San Francisco when we were kids and ended up in the Raposa Hotel in North Beach. We

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were sort of trying to trace Kerouac's footsteps, etc. and I had never even written yet, but this was our passion and we used to play in the clubs up there. And years later, his father, this is interesting, who- He was conceived, Manuel was conceived

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when his father was 65. His father, when I knew him, was 70 and he was one of the first marshals of Los Angeles. And so there's this tremendous history, but what happened with the death of his father really was the end of a lineage because Manuel's

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first born was a male and he died, and the second child was a daughter and they could not go on to have have more children because of complications. So, it really was the end of the line for him and this was a tremendous, tremendous grieving

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process and this poem came out of it. It's called: TO A FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER Dear Manuel, there is a fresh wind blowing across the lake. The green water holds tight to the breasts of ducks. As they

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dive, the rings of their wakes drift out, gently scratching the scalps of kelp. I look down, the reflection of my face sticks in the mud. There are the wings of birds still beating. Manuel, the hands of the moon clapped five times since we were last

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together. We had fled from our parents homes. We stayed up all night listening to the last doors slam in the Riposa Hotel, our minds running through streams, poking the dreams of fish with sticks. Manuel, who are you now? With whose eyes do

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you see? Your father's, who knew winds that thread needles of cactus? Or your Uncle Nachos who sparred bears with only a knife in leather strapped wrists? No, none of these will do anymore. You're the last of your people, Manuel, there are no more

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Californians. The Picos, the Yorbas, the knuckles of winter passed over them long ago. You are alone now. It is like the first time you ever tried to swim. There is no kelp on the shore to wrap you in, there is only the stone cracking the ice

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on which you sleep. Morton Marcus: Wow, that's beautiful Bob. It is one of my favorite poems and so many of these and I'm seeing them in a book now for the first time, knowing that I can keep this out

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and come to these poems anytime I want to is really a pleasure. Again, just the originality, why I think Bob is so original. The water, the green water holds tight to the breasts of ducks, and then they dive, the rings of their wakes drift out, gently

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scratching the scalps of kelp, I mean, the world becomes a different place. And a world that is definitely in here is the world of nature and it is in most of these poems, because they were written around this area. It's the world of Central

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California. So, if I can impose on you again, and I don't know if you planned on this, how about a beautiful series of love poems, which are filled with a flora as well as the fauna of the area. Poems like, "Two Leaves Pressed Against Speech,"

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and then, "Now The Blossoms, First The Crows," and then if we can go down into the river here, and "If I Go To The River," and then, "On A Darkening Road"." How about those four poems, to give a sense of place, which is transformed by the poet

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musician, thank you. Robert Lundquist: TWO LEAVES PRESSED AGAINST SPEECH You come absent of tongue to me. Two leaves pressed against speech, you come absent of tongue to me to the fields of

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lettuce, in the orchards where the moths have lain their wings. Against the blossoms, you come to the ripening of figs into the clouds, dipped in milk to wrap the frost bent limbs of young trees, you come absent of tongue to me, as I am pouring thin

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glasses of steam for your sleep. There are long trains of sand crossing the sea and you're coming with the first boats raising their sails, white, blue and red. At dawn, the full wake of your mouth searching for the light of fish in darkness you

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come, two leaves pressed against speech. In the burnt grass, your fur no longer seen where brush colored birds feed on the cracked seeds of your passing. NOW THE BLOSSOMS, FIRST THE CROWS

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Blossoms and crows, a few bits of unripe fruit, a rifle opening inside the orchard. Now the blossoms, first the crows, the white boat burning in a ditch once used for water. After blossoms, the small green fruit and the pure milk poured into

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the field for profit, an illness. Now, the strange writing of pharmacies, a rifle opening inside the orchard, then blossoms. Enough proposals written for feed, now the small green fruit and before, before the branch, the wing or the

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flower, I have loved you all my life, the branch and the bud that has no closing. Now the blossoms, first the crows, a rifle opens. After blossoms, the small green fruit and the pure milk poured into the field for profit, in blossoms, in illness.

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There is something, a kind of suffering between the fields of the first crow, the pure milk and the white boat burning, I have loved you all my life. The small green fruit blossoms, my rifle, I have loved you, the branch and the bud, crows that

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has no closing between each season. Now the blossoms, first the crows. Morton Marcus: Well, if I just may say, that poem is so magical. It is, as I've always thought, a love poem, but a love

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poem to whom and to what? Would you answer that or you want to keep that a great mystery? Robert Lundquist: It's, you know, I mean, really- I don't really consider my poet of one- that wasn't written to any one

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woman, you know, it really is more of a desire at that time to be writing to someone. I mean, there, you know, there's such a thing called the muse, you know, and it does have for me a female nature and to me, it's in nature. But it's also in an

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urban context also, which invades my poems, if not an attitude, in imagery sometimes, because that's where I come from, and there's a certain political structure in it. Enough proposals written for feed, one of the things that was

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in my subconscious at the time that I was conscious of is there's a certain deprivation to the landscape. I was actually inspired, this poem, riding over by the Hollister areas where I first saw this boat burning in a ditch in the summer, and

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everything charred and fields going to waste. And the whole thing of that sort of deprivation and- in landscape. And so, there's a certain politics that comes into love, if you will, and that I think, really invaded me. I remember at

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the time, I even told this woman, 'this poem is written for you," which wasn't true. Morton Marcus: If she's listening, you're in deep trouble.

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Robert Lundquist: So, I make amends. But I always, you know, the poems is really a love poem because I'm a romantic, I'm really a sucker, you know, I really am. Morton Marcus: You just get that New York accent.

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Robert Lundquist: I got it from you. Morton Marcus: You know what's interesting about that poem is that it is so lyrical and so gentle and filled with nature's image, but the tension in it is derived from male

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destructiveness and it's almost a prayer to incorporate and have diffused this destructive, violent impulse in you, and that makes this poem so strange and so overpowering. Well, let's go on and do- Let's let's start on, "If I Go To The River," which

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again that the gentleness of this poem is really just lovely. This is a portrait that I think any Renaissance painter would have been proud of. Robert Lundquist: Great, great. Yeah, this is about the San

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Lorenzo river here. IF I GO TO THE RIVER river ducks will be towing their young, eucalyptus leaves bobbing in their wake. To get there I will follow the tracks to a

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ravine of cat tail to a trestle. A small path descends to the mouth of the river, opening seaward. A young girl with a broken shovel is digging for clams, speckled gulls folding wings beside her.

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ON A DARKENING ROAD This evening, the tide is low. Ducks walk through bunched beds of kelp looking for insects. In the mountains, they're clearing the orchards, apples rumble into boxes, a fine mist collects

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between the branches. On a darkening road, a man takes a corner too fast. He stumbles to his trunk to put out a flare, another car cannot see him. It is dusk, the sky is in blossom, small birds fly east.

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In the blues vein, and in some of the music that is- that is now popular, especially with with the band Los Lobos and The Rancheros, things like this. This is basically what is happening in my neighborhood and in there, I met a- one of the

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people in one of my poems, Manuel Duarte. And we proceeded to play for a number a number of years, playing mostly country blues, and then Manuel went off into Latin music and he left, moved to Texas and last time I heard, he was shoeing horses and

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playing in a Mariachi band. I went off to write poems and after several years of simply devoting myself to that, I started playing harmonica again with a fella here in town, whose name is Eugene Schrag(?) who has a band. Him and his brother

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Randy Schrag(?) called the Schrag(?) Brothers. And I started doing harmonica work for them and over the years, it has evolved. It's evolved, now I'm playing with them full time in town here, and a lot of, mostly out of town, actually, playing

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in the Monterey area and down south. Morton Marcus: Are there any places we can catch the band? Robert Lundquist: Yeah, you'll be able to catch us mostly at the Fog Bank Monterey right now. There is an EP of the Schrag(?)

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Brothers that will be out on the market that Fein at Fein Studios here produced and it should be out in about three weeks. And it's a six song EP, I do the harmonica work on it, but it really features the Schrag(?) Brothers. The Schrag(?)

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Brothers, it's a different type of harmonica work, it's a- in the blues and rhythm and blues you play mostly to a shuffle beat. And they are a direct, straight ahead rock and roll band and so the harmonic work work would be closer to somebody

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like Norton Buffalo or something like that. And it's been a delight to be able to move out of the blues and be able to play more in a rock and roll vein. And in the context of the years, though, they decided they wanted me to be able to play some of

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the stuff that I grew up with. And so now, sometimes I'll open for them, they'll back me, and I have my own band called Little Raymond and the Asher Dukes(?), in which I do a Texas in Chicago review.

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And that's currently what I'm doing, I've never sat here and just played by myself. If you don't mind, what I'll do, I've got an old harmonica here and I'd like to do a couple warm up things. And then I'll try and do a little tune by Kim Wilson of

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the Fabulous T-birds called, "Jumping Bad," and I'll do that in a few minutes. But with harmonica, it's an instrument now that, it's mostly regarded as of folk instrument and a lot of musicians don't regard harmonica players as musicians,

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but if anybody's ever heard of Toots Thielemans, or various other players, James Cotton, George Smith, Sonny Terry, and a lot of the young players around town here that are really terrific. It really is, as James Cotton called it, the

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Mississippi saxophone. And one of the reasons is because you get both the octave and the [unidentified] such as this- and there you get that type of large sound that was made popular most in Chicago with the big vibrato, with the things where you do the

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tremolo. And I base a lot of my playing on scale exercises and taking those scale exercises. I play a lot more melodically than some of the blues players. A lot is that I do play in a rock and roll vein. So, what I'd like to do is take a sip of Calistoga.

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Morton Marcus: Well, while you're doing that, I'll tell you folks, he plays basketball too, and he's got a hell of a jump shot. Robert Lundquist: Round ball, round ball and I remember that

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was great fun. And so, but Kim Wilson, from the Fabulous T-birds, is a master of phrasing and he comes from, he can get the country sound amazing and he makes the big Chicago sound like very few people. And he has a tune called, "Jumping Bad,"

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which is sort of a synthesis of the two, and it kind of, in a way, I identify with both roots. So, I will attempt to play it in- believe me, folks, this particular tune, if you hear him phrase it, you know why this is such a bitch. This is called,

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"Jumping Down." How can- is it audible? I hope you can hear this. Morton Marcus: I'm monitoring that somewhere. Yeah. Wow, you know it's very interesting what's coming

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through is not only the harmonica but is you're gasping for air at the same time. Robert Lundquist: O yeah, it's a bitch. Morton Marcus: And then that really adds the sense of voice

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and self as part of the instrument and making the music and it's very, very interesting, very interesting. Wow, it's great stuff. I think all these years you realize I have never heard you play the harmonica.

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Robert Lundquist: Well, I rushed it at the end. But anyway- Morton Marcus: We're on time, feel free. You want to do another one or you want to read poems? It's up to you. Robert Lundquist: Um, the only other tune is really, that I do

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is- it's really needs instrumental accompaniment in the instrumental vein. So, why don't I just read poems instead? Morton Marcus: Sounds terrific, okay. There are, as I said, many Robert Lundquist: In the prose poems, I'll read a poem called,

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poems here that I really like. You've already read one of the dialogue poems, and the "Poem o Conversation" is another one, r any other other dialogue poe s that you would like to read. A d also, there's the one- There s some prose poems in here, whi

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h I think are rather erotic b t amazing. And what interests e is, I have never forgotten the e poems. Some of them I, I' e actually heard only once r twice as you know, you've go e off from playing music a d things I haven't heard yo

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r readings, which have be n, unfortunately, all too few in the area. So, why don't you p ck out around two poems or th ee poems maybe, then I'm going to make some announcements. nd then for your last poem, I w nt you to read this new long p

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em you've written, which is cal ed "The Roo "The Room," and in this poem, in a way it does need some preface. I was working as a counselor in a home for kids who were a ward of the state over in Gilroy. Some of the kids were at 17

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years old. At 18, they had to leave the home and their dorms were right next to each other. And one night, I was laughing about how they must be going nuts sleeping so close to each other and because at 17 all you want to do is get in the

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backseat of a car. But anyway, and so, actually, to me, this poem has a sense of humor, though a lot of people don't see it. But with that preface, maybe, but it's also very serious and so without further ado, this is called:

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THE ROOM In a boy's room, a penis is caressed. The red veins stretch into the moist palm. He is dreaming of a woman whose lips are as full as his thumb. He is frightened of the wet leaves she

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has wrapped around him. In the room next door, a girl has touched the warmth inside her. With her fingers, she stroked the dark throat of her sex. She is dreaming of no man in particular. She touches the skin he has kissed on her neck. Night

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enters the boy's room but he has not noticed. Darkness crawls like a worm into the folds of this flesh, waiting for the wings to erupt inside him to do he has dressed walks from his sleep. A light breaks into the girls room, through the curtains

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it gives the shadows that will fold like hands upon a face. It has stolen the birds that would sing at her window. The tide that would feed her each morning, no longer waits on the shore where she wakes.

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Morton Marcus: There is so much compassion in your poems and another thing, your poems, what I like and what is one of my hang ups is your poems deal with people. And they're not talking about some Never-neverland, no matter that you are a romantic

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poet who is always trying to reach beyond the environment he lives in. The thing is you take it with you, you want everything to come with you. And that one beautiful line while the boys masturbating, says, "waiting for the wings to erupt inside him,

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the do he has dressed walks from his sleep," it becomes so much more, it becomes a continuance, it becomes what sexuality really is and in nobles, both the boy and the girl in this poem. Robert Lundquist: I hope so.

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Morton Marcus: Really, really just lovely. Okay, I don't want to talk too much here. How about: THE JOURNEY Robert Lundquist: Her eyes never close, still she sleeps and

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dreams of the pale young man who rides alone, on a train he rides, black drapes around him. I entered the water at dusk, a single star shining above me. From a green depth, I was able to see what had always proceeded me, each of us entering the

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other, the soft pads of our feet slowly turning the earth. Because I had given up breath, I was able to hear what had not yet reached the others. I understood distance. I saw trains passing over me in the night. Her eyes never close,

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still she sleeps and dreams of the pale young man holding a mirror, it is always her face and not his. If he touches his mouth, it is her lips that close like a warm animal around the tips of his fingers. If he breathes onto the glass, it is

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her odor that he smells. At times their eyes meet, but they never speak, there is something traveling inside them. At dusk, I entered the water without her, a single star shining above me. From this green depth, I saw what had always preceded me,

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each of us entered ourselves. From a distance, I heard what had not yet reached the others, the hum of the earth driving our feet to the destination, the rustle of curtains, her pale hands drew through the rooms in which I had always traveled, and

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the sounds of the trains she would ride passing over me in the night. Morton Marcus: Bob, every- I don't know whether you notice the pattern, but around every two years or three years, you

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embark on a long poem. And you're never satisfied to repeat over again what you've done before which is a real sign of growth. And the latest poem that he has written, the latest long poem that was written is called "The Rain," and ends this book,

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which he has been reading from which has just come out and it is called, "Before The Rain." It's by Bob Lundquist, it has been printed by Felicia Rice at Moving Parts Press, I urge everyone to get it. And before we end the show, and this is the

00:39:00.020 - 00:39:16.490

New Poetry Show, Mort Marcus this week and I'll be back with you next week with the Canadian poet Tom Wayman, who is in the county for a couple of weeks and I'll be talking with him. And before we turn over the airwaves to Leon Allen to cook up some

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real good records in the Jazz Kitchen, I'm going to have Bob read this long poem called, "The Rain," and that may be the longest sentence that has ever been tried on radio. But I am going to go out with Bob reading the long poem that ends this

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book, "The Rain," and I urge you, support your local poet go down and buy this very beautiful book, "Before The Rain," Bob Lundquist, our guest today. Robert Lundquist: Thanks, Mort. This particular poem does need

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preface and I'll do it as short as I can. This is actually a poem where I embarked on expansion of field in both line and depth of line, and language. It really takes a tremendous lot of risks and in some ways, it really does succeed. Iverson is

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critical of the poem because it gives us the type of psychic compression that was in the earlier work, but to me, I wanted to try and develop a new type of psychic compression. And what happened when I was writing this poem is, I was writing the

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poem, there was a poem that began to write itself beneath the poem. There were incidences that I kept associating with as the images unfolded, when I began to write about the storm that happened a few years ago. Now, I could have handled it in

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a narrative, but not being a real strong narrative poet, what I came to was a vehicle of taking writing a poem beneath the poem. These two poems work tangentially, and they reinforce both the psychology of the poem, and the philosophy and the

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themes of the poem. And so at times, what I'm going to do is I will read the poem, that's sort of on top of the one in one tone of voice, and I'll read the poem that's beneath it with another tone of voice. Just stay with it, this poem really doesn't

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need to be read, but um, I will attempt to read it. It's called: THE RAIN. And again, this poem, eventually ends up being a love poem. It is rain now, forever. Your face in the window, crying. At

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the edge part of the road drops into the sea, new cliffs, new sand. The roots wash out at night. In the shift we rise, rock plates one by one ground to paste to check the river, the bright bush strip. Second half in our hands of the road sticks

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missing, we pound in the dark waves over the railing in the sand between trees close to the pier in the ravine a light held by a friend, trees. The water breaking, jammed in the loops of surf over our conversation. We did not hear the mud fold over

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but after from beneath the wet earth, the house rising like a ship, we heard their cries and kneeled and cupped our hands to speak, to listen. Over 10 years ago now, as the sun rose, my brother are on deck dugout, standing watch my first home. In

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the rain the bush each room so bright and dying, sealed in mind, between smoke and flame once my brother to show them stopped short of standing. We knew there was one dead watching the reeds, if a reed floats the mother too close, too close of

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the woman. He, sitting on the front lawn shoots washing the stock, what could be saved beneath the water. Night and day, one time short text shift, I nailed the muddy loaves, my hands digging away, fall. What I thought we are still watching

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the river. Our sticks planted between flood watch and flood warning. As the first homes clear of furniture, I turn to my friend Tom and say it's not the river, it's the earth, the trees we have to worry. Home again, my brother and I stood on our

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parents roof, ropes tied around our waist and leaned the curved blades of our sods, but beneath each branch when the water the limbs is louder than your heart falling, you listen on dried grass suddenly, only to what you can touch the leaves and piles

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smoke. See? What? beneath the tree there was a breath. We could not stop the leaves from burning happened. We closed the roads leading in and turned our backs on the mountain. Thunder with light, the pier rocks back, my face beside you in the

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window. One boat hangs ready, oh God, to lose one's love in winter. Unknown: [music plays] Leon Allen: KUSP Santa Cruz came into supporting radio for the Monterey Bay and Salinas Valley. And I'm Leon coming on behind

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the Poetry Show with the Jazz Kitchen. I suppose we'll have a few more songs a la carte today. We'll start out with Dizzy, Dizzy Gillespie.