CLOUDBURST - RED CELL

I was thinking about the energy pattern of a cloudburst. I still don't understand the phenomena. Steve Lewandowski said it is caused by extreme temperature differences. I guess that is part of it, I am not convinced and besides it is the moving currents that are my focus. Cloudburst is found in breaking through as energy pattern. One in Rushville, New York had Stephen and I driving around looking at ditches -- twenty-five year event, hundred year-event, thousand year-event (forget-about-it). Next day in a cloudburst for over one-hundred miles driving east. I couldn't outdrive the storm. It brought visibility down to almost zero and my speed to 20 MPH. Then it would clear all the way to sunlight. I'd speed up to 70 MPH but I couldn't outrun this storm as you can with some rain.

cloudburst right with me all the way.

back in cloudburst fury. Our paths converged.

in one spot a deluge washes over gone and clear

cloudburst moves, huge weather patterns move

cloudburst a rip in the water-filled clouds

carried across continents, bigger than countries

I was caught in a cloudburst while driving from west to east along the New York State Thurway this September. It brought visibility down to almost zero and my speed to 20 MPH. Then it would clear all the way to sunlight. I'd speed up to 70MPH but i couldn't outrun the storm for some reason. The perspective of observation seem to be from the point-of-view of the rained-upon. I am interested in what I imagine as a tear in the cloudsky, all the water of a lake brought up and then "burst" and let go.

Robert Frost goes:

For when all that was rotted rich

Shall be in the end scoured poor,

When my garden has gone down ditch,

Robert Frost knowing the damage, 15-20 years of soil-building can wash away in a few minutes. Understanding cloudburst I start to realize is about being ready for even the cloudburst that comes once every thousand-years. I woke-up, wide-awake in the middle of the night a few days ago. I remembered that I did write a cloudburst poem a few years ago or at least one on the rushing intense weather coming on.The local weather news has the habit of emitting buzz noice whenever a strong run of lightening runs down the Mohawk Valley to Albany. Here's the poem.

RED CELL

A red cell on the weather map,

moving towards Albany

with incredible speed.

Racing into town to cause trouble

like the over-sized kid

with the angry look on his face

hurrying to reach the playground

and moving in the direction of your own child.

The lightning shook the house.

Hit so close, my son tells me,

everything flashed white.

We could smell burning

coming from the computer.

This is not good,

turned the computer off.

No tree seems to be down in the back.

I open a sliding-door,

to peer through sheets of rain,

looking for a smoking remnant.


June 27, 2007
Delmar, N.Y.            

BIG NIGHT: FEATURING POET HOA NGUYEN IN BUFFALO

Dear Hoa,

So nice to meet you face-to-face in Buffalo last Saturday. You got to go snowshoeing at a preserve and saw great grackle you said and I arriving early got to walk around downtown with wet snow above, below and running off my hat. I won't pretend I'm noble and gave money to all the panhandlers, just two out of three. For one it was "busfare" and for another "to call home" but the third guy wanted money for a cup of coffee, that's a no...I could of used a cup myself about then, so screw him... I kept walking reading the names of streets. I saw Jefferson Street so I thought it was going to be a President thing but turned out not. As I like to say, I wasn't lost just off the path and I got all swung around somewhere and back to the 468 Washington Street place about a hour later. The trip to hear you read made too much sense in a solid extension of impulse and urge. You live in Austin, Texas and I doubt you will be this close again before our panel in Vancouver. Of our two vehicles, I took the one with 4-wheel drive and living as long as I have in New York State the Thurway becomes a familar road. Wasn't bad, there were bands of storms but nothing that sat down to wait for you, just kind of blowing in and blowing through. Bring Jack Kerouac into it (lunacy, wild foolishness and extravagant folly are the fountain for creative art) so of course I would drive three hundred miles to hear a poem (BALLERINA IN A MUSIC BOX).

Don't get me wrong, not to throw all of my poems out the car window as I drive down Main Street, good sense and my wife's concern meant I had a motel room in Batavia for Saturday night. I got to meet Kenneth Warren and John Roche was there so only Michael Boughn was not in the room. I was not there to make waves. I was explicitly not there to make waves. Calm deep still pool, that's me. Seriously, great crowd & on a stormy night had to be over a hundred people. This is not like a critical review or news report so please, to the other performers "I enjoyed it all" and to say anything is to slight the scope of everyone's efforts. Thanks Just Buffalo and Buffalo Poets Theater and the band Gut Flora. When Hoa Nguyen started to read there came over me a sweet contentment. The first poem out was one of hers I remember best. The NFL football playoffs are on T.V. and she is there in the room pretending they are all celebrating her Aquarious birthday. It is just congruent, weirdly so, as so many poets would detach & maybe add their social commentary but Hoa emerses. Here is the action, the tension and ultimately in the totality of her work the vector towards decency and the good. She brings her poetic consciousness and not judgements, awareness shapes, picking out bits (but I can't say "no joke or no lie" right Hoa?) and then we get it, all the commentary fuzz on the furniture "I disappear - I disappear."

When you mentioned tonic, Spring tonic, I wanted to yell out sassafras root! which the traditional Spring tonic of the St. Lawrence River Valley farmers was kept in a glass jar just inside the door to the cellar and I can remember this one old woman saying her father made her drink four or five swallows every day starting in late March to shake off lethargy. The recipe was secret and could contain a number of ingredients (the mints, ginger, willow bark, etc.) but they all had sassafras root from what I can tell. (Rootdrinker) Any of my good poet friends, I would of yelled out, but I couldn't with you, we are barely introduced. There is something to look forward to or maybe not? I enjoyed when you said "That is the herbal lesson portion" and again you had another lesson for the audience. Handing out lessons as part of a poetry reading that is an opening concept for me. Like hearing Ed Sanders be funny and thinking there is a use for humor and I can be funny and not be irrelevant. Poet as teacher and we haven't even gotten into the authority of Charles Olson. If you can, send me a copy of your essay that The University of Iowa is publishing in their anthology Poets on Teaching. I say the three hats of poet, editor, publisher are the same hat. You must know about that. Your thread involving grackles interests me and that you hated them at first and then came to love them. UGLY POEM of line "raucous perches" does get ugly, such uglies are the seasonings of reality. There is alot more to talk about when we meet again. We poets have a corner of our own in Smitty's Tavern in Voorheesville. I had Kiss a Bomb Tattoo, your book from Austin's Effing Press, with me on Sunday and it got passed around. Sorry if that hurts book sales and none of the pages were upside down either.

It was cool to talk with you, John and Ken at one time. Maybe using the power of the allmighty staple we can put together a poetry bundle to send around. Hope all is well.

Best, Alan

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