riverbabble 26, Winter 2015

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riverbabble 26 --------s Winter 2015

Artichoke by Christopher Novak

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riverbabble 26

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Poetry
Liz Dolan:
         Trapped
         When a Lovely Flame Dies   

William Doreski:
         Fire Fox
         Moonlight, Fox Skull, and Mountains

Richard Fein:
          Neither Whiff of Cat nor Sight of Wicked Witch
          The Ethics of Fallen Apples

Rafael Jesús González:
           Advertencia al Hombre / Warning to Man
           Luna plena en verano de sequía / Full Moon in a Dry Summer

Tobey Kaplan:
          At Feather River
          Hotel Calcutta

Janell Moon:
          Water Meant for the Body's Care When the Drowned Days Weigh Her Down
          Red Girl

Christopher Mulrooney:
          provincials
          look at the money

Sheryl L. Nelms:
          Chicken Canning Time in West Texas
          Coyote Hunting in Kansas

Robert Pesich:
          Chinese lanterns in a shadowbox
          Picking fruit along the road

dn simmers:
          When They Ceased
          Almost

Virginia Barrett:   Falcon

Amy Neill Bebergal:   The Battle of Balls Bluff

Gary Beck:    I.D. Tags

Pamela Brenman:    The Stone Speaks

Suzanne Bruce:    January Pruning

jd daniels:   No Longer Endangered?

Stuart Dodds:   To the Almighty

KJ Hannah Greenberg:   First Showing

Kirk Lumpkin:    Recycling Center in El Cerrito

Justice Morríghan:   Sleeping With the New Resistance

JB Mulligan:   ballade

Anita S. Pulier:   One Poet Too Many

Armando Rendón:   Ode to Billie

Amy Ballard Rich:   Broken Ice

Tom Sheehan:   Evening of the Falcon

B.L.P. Simmons:   Falcon

John Swain:   Spearfish Canyon

David Welper:   Poem

Anne Whitehouse:   Bookends

Fiction

Aryan Kaganof:   The Necrologist

Larry Lefkowitz:   Six Gun Dalton

Garrett Murphy:   The Stongstress of Saturday Afternoon at the Movies

Garrett Rowlan:   Hoop Schemes

James Shaffer:   The Silent Sentinel

Tom Sheehan:   The Falcon and a Peach Can

Flash Fiction

Tony Press:
           Beneath a December Moon
           Natural Healing

David Spicer:
           Poetry Wall
           Bonfire

Lester L. Weil:
           Almost Adam and Eve
           "It Don't Matter"   In the vernacular, a dismissive phrase

Sharon Coleman:  Post-War Circus

Robert Masterson:   Cookie in the Picture

Tom Sheehan:   Once Upon a Timely Moment

Alice Whittenburg:   What the Dogs Knew

Photography

Christopher Novak:  Artichoke



Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but I've come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow, at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the deep.

                                                                    JAMES JOYCE, Ulysses, p.510. 16, 428-434.

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March for Real Climate Leadership Feb. 7

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------Climate Change, Is it a Poem?


The Arctic ice melts,
the oceans rise,
droughts more intense & prolonged,
hurricanes & floods more terrible
in five-hundred years everywhere
& some blind by misfortune
or through stubbornness will say,
“What changes? There is no change.”
& others say, “We are not responsible.
It is God's fault.”
The leaders bought with the same coin
do little here, less there
& the Earth remains wounded
healing as it can
demolishing perverse humanity.




-------------------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2015

"March for Real Climate Leadership"

Saturday, February 7

11:30 AM

Frank Ogawa Plaza
14th & Broadway

Oakland, California

-----Cambio climático ¿poema es?


Se derrite el hielo del Ártico,
suben los mares,
sequías más intensas y prologadas,
huracanes e inundaciones más terribles
en quinientos años dondequiera
y algunos ciegos por desgracia
o por terca voluntad dicen —
¿Cuáles cambios? No hay cambio alguno.
Y otros dicen — No somos responsables.
Es cosa de Dios.
Los líderes comprados con la misma moneda
hacen poco aquí, menos allá
y sigue herida la Tierra
sanándose como pueda
arrasando con la perversa humanidad.

--------------------------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2015

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Aquarius

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-----------Acuario

 

A Acuario,
---el airoso,
------fijo en su servicio,
lo vigila Urano desde lejos;
Saturno le pesa como plomo
y su luz como granate ardiente
destella en el cántaro de amatista
que carga Acuario,
----sus tobillos, sus pantorrillas
----bañados en el aire fijo
----de sus ideales luminosos.


 
---------© Rafael Jesús González 2015




-------------Aquarius


 
Aquarius,
---the graceful,
------at ease in his service,
is watched by Uranus from afar;
Saturn weighs on him like lead
& its light like a burning garnet
bounces sparks on the amethyst jar
that Aquarius carries,
----his ankles, his calves
----bathed in the fixed air
----of his luminous ideals.

 
----------© Rafael Jesús González 2015
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Valentine's Day 4th Annual Reading, Wed. Feb. 4

Martin Luther King Jr. (1/15/29 - 4/4/68)

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Martin Luther King Jr.
by Yousul Karsh

----------After the Lecture

---------------------------for Martin Luther King Jr.
A woman said I was not polite
to the opposition,
that I was harsh
and did not encourage
discourse.

Perhaps if I were Christ,
I could say, “Forgive them
----for they know not what they do.”
Or the queen, and apologize
for stubbing my executioner’s toes.

But only if I knew
the executioners
----were mine only.

What courtesy have I the right to give
to them who break the bones,
----the souls of my brothers,
------------------my sisters;
deny bread, books
----to the hungry,
----the children;
--------medicine, healing
--------to the sick;
roofs to the homeless;

who spoil the oceans,
----lay waste the forests
--------and the deserts,
violate the land?

Affability on the lips
of outrage
is a sin and blasphemy
----I’ll not be guilty of.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2015






--------Después del Discurso

------------------------a Martin Luther King Jr.

Una mujer me dijo que no fui cortés
con la oposición,
que fui duro
y que no animé
discusión.

Tal vez si fuera Cristo,
pudiera decir — Perdónalos
----que no saben lo que hacen. —
O la reina, y disculparme
por haber pisarle el pie a mi verdugo.

Pero solamente si supiera
que los verdugos
fueran solamente míos.

¿Qué cortesía tengo el derecho a darles
a los que quiebran los huesos
----y las almas de mis hermanos,
--------------------mis hermanas;
les niegan el pan, los libros
----a los hambrientos,
----a los niños;
--------la medicina, el sanar
--------a los enfermos;
techos a los desamparados;

que estropean los mares,
----que destruyen los bosques
--------y los desiertos,
violan la tierra?

Afabilidad en los labios
de la furia justa
es pecado y blasfemia
----de la cual no seré culpable.



-----------© Rafael Jesús González 2015

Martin Luther King Jr.
by Tony Spina

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Friends of the San Francisco Library reading Thurs. Jan. 22

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invite you to a reading featuring

Rafael Jesús González

and
 

Sarah Menefee

Thursday, January 22, 2015

6:30 P.M.

at

*Readers Bookstore

Fort Mason, Building C

2 Marina Blvd. 

San Francisco, California

free to the public

(415) 771-1076,  www.friendssfpl.org 

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Epiphany — 12th Day

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------------------ Magos
 
 
Pensar que yo, Baltasar de Caldea,
------tenedor de las cosas sacras,
------dejé los observatorios,
------cargado de incienso,
------para llegar allí.
Aun hasta al punto de encuentro fue largo;
para Melchor de Nubia cargado de oro,
para Gaspar de Tarso cargado de mirra,
fue aun más largo.
-----Y de allí a Judea
-----y más allá condujo el lucero —
-----------a la morada de animales,
-----------lugar natal del infante mendigo.
Si era dios,
---como todo dios,
---------ha de haber llegado a mal fin.
¿Qué significaban los agüeros?
-----Tal vez sería el viaje mismo,
---------oír de los leones de Nubia,
---------de los ríos de Tarso;
y sobre todo,
-----sí, tal vez sobre todo,
---------- el ofrendar.



-----------------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2015

Adoration of the Magi, Andrea Mantegna 1495-1505

-------------------Magi


To think that I, Balthazar of Chaldea,
----keeper of the sacred things,
----left the observatories,
----laden with frankincense,
----to come there.
Even to the point of meeting it was long;
for Melchior of Nubia laden with gold,
for Gaspar of Tarshish laden with myrrh,
it was longer.
---And from there to Judea
---and the star led on —
--------to the abode of animals,
--------birthplace of the infant beggar.
If he was a god,
-----like all gods,
-----he must have come to a bad end.
What meant the auguries?
----Perhaps it was the trip itself,
-------to hear of the lions of Nubia,
-------of the rivers of Tarshish;
and above all,
----yes, perhaps above all,
-----------the gifting.



-----------------© Rafael Jesús González 2015
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(Dear Winter: Poems for the Solstice;
Marie Harris, Ed.; Northwood Press, Thomaston, Maine 1984;
Author’s © copyrights)

Book of Hours, France, ca. 1410-1415
(The Cleveland Museum of Art)

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