Talking Water

Photograph by Walter Chappell (1925-2000)

                                                         (hear Talking Rain)   

God has the dewdrops to bake and ache
as burning sun meets cool wind
to suck juices out of the dirt
monument to sky, monument to the missing moisture
to irrigate is life to the trees and the lost garden.

Why must we be pleased with this, oh world of balance
where are you where is meaning in this, to kiss
a hot rock, be comforted by a cool night?

Flow with slower juices in the channels of earth
and accept with bitterness lessened by prayers
or at least good breathing & conservation.

Spirits of the high mountain communicated with high summer
to bring on the rain to bring on the rain again,
bring back the possibility of a garden, spirits of a tomato world
blessed. Oh jalapenos of the spirit world, see us through
Creator creating from the image of life, balance and rain again.

May I create equal steps in walking, and my heart and mind
on equal plane and bring someone what they need while waiting
for the beautiful storm, the rainbow that’s etched in my memory.

As a headdress of glowing water, and thunderclouds of miracles
brought down to Earth, splashing our dry furrows, oh drinking water
with a mountain face and a sky of love, a dancing spirit of the springs
on our knees before you, thundering as I remember, welcome
your presence in total submission and surrender, and dependence on your dance.

Rain water trance. Transformation. Fruit trees are looking up
from our home here, awaiting your pleasure, everything in the water.

Reflection of the sky in the spring, clouding up thundering down
your sound of rain surprises. Helping others brings you closer.

Cover up the sound of the crickets with your falling rain.

larry goodell / plactias, new mexico
from Dry Water, poems of 2003
©larry goodell 2011

Center, a poem written in 1967

                   Center


the sea
(body of water, salt flats, briny water I walked out to
naked)
of singing to you

water of  voice
wanting you in it in here floating
desire
along
   the profile

the lake is my entry vision kind
heart
pumping
to touch

I follow you along the edge      forever
yr lines enough to be with   a few minutes of that
come home with
where the limbs of the body meet
water
water
liquid
diet
death of this looking looking over you

to where the piñons stop me
snow over the ground
the wind after two days    died away
here
all I pour    floats in the center of the page
pressed   wood pulp

the liquid is hope   I wont give up give up
you cd look from the center once
to the center skin against skin
of my soul

God is fulfilling
age over a tripod crapper
come to the sage

looking back over the years of     dry spots
the grave

& the wind with rain/snow comes     to you
I sing    to you
only
I enter
smoke in the wind over the house
& music in the air

that you will enter   of yr own tributary  & all
with me
tho over   & over & over & over again
you havent
where do I miss

  still
the center of me flows

waiting  .



larry goodell / placitas, new mexico /15Dec1967

photograph is from early in 2014 at las huertas creek in the sandias . . . 

Chorale, a poem written in 1967

hear the poem read          

                   

 

                                Come out in the daylight hours

                                let the union that is the voice on the tapes speak

                                mingle with the sunlight float out the room with

                       the incense

                       the unreadable label       it is my limitation I offer

                                          come out in the daylight hours

                                    let us love with our silence in the air

                              record the voices

                              spread them thru us      waking time

                              the day

                          is ours     to make or break

                                    I live up here where you can see the steps of this

                                    country

                              up to the largest volcanic crater      extinct

                          alive in extinction        listening to the tapes

                          whatever enters the mind        or blows it

                          exhaustion of the voices of the earth

                          renews

                                          come out

                                    meet we meet

                              when the sun comes down from zenith

                              tilt the world

                              mingle our landscapes

                         the beauties float up like muses encountered

                         the smoke into our lungs

                         out floats out over the voice

                         what gift there is        this tape

                    night is for sleeping      messages and miasma

                    trivia & concord in the folds       interruption & hard drinking

                              day breaks

                           for friendship

                        & the working       out the orders of the voice

                 
                  va ya ba ya  the rocks say

                  we listen to      va ya ba-a-a-a-a ya

                  when the pleasing lights    fall leaves fall       strike

                  the fires outside our galaxy     or wherever the X falls

                  to speak to us

            -tongue     the daylight hours        our fall is golden

              this state shines thru       come out       sun casts & tilts the walls

              we follow        speech ba-a-a ya  our humans given

              from outside       revelation revolution-

                        to learn        come twining from the spirals

                  not to learn

                  to love        sage      inhale what cant be read

                  cottonwood for the sacred fire

            & drums

                                                  make it blow it up       make it

                                            it is fall leaves fall

                                    the tender reach       that catches

                              catch me in friendship        over & over

                              the renewing     is the stalk of my soul

                        come out in the daylight hours

                        this is the only sentiment that breaks the machine:

                  the voice of those who love the most        it reaches

                                                                                                                                       /16Oct67

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico

a poem from 1967 when we were recording poetry on tape and sharing it, so you hear "tapes" mentioned. hey, the message is the same: let's get together and celebrate poetry! written in the fall on the north shoulder of the Sandias just overlooking the village of Placitas, at the Hertfords' where I was caretaker  . . . and I did a mimeo broadside of this but I don't seem to have more than one copy . . .  I notice in my notebook from then that the next day I "listened to Spicer's lecture on dictated Poetry" which like all my tapes were 7 inch reel to reel, many of which I dubbed from Creeley or recorded myself.

me in those 60's

I linked to my new recording of this on Facebook and Bill Pearlman responded: "That effortless hopefulness is in the air in this. What a rare point in time, still a celebration not to be missed."

Thanks, Bill! and thanks David Chorlton for this: "Sounds fresh today, with verbal energy on tape!"