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PAUL EVERETT NELSON

Paul Everett Nelson, co-founder of the Northwest SPokenword LAB, is author of an epic poem re-enacting history of Auburn, Washington, entitled A Time Before Slaughter. He’s broadcast interviews of Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Anne Waldman, Wanda Coleman, Diane di Prima, Jerome Rothenberg, Eileen Myles and Victor Hernandez Cruz, facilitated over 200 poetry workshops w/ & w/o the SPLAB!-on-the-Road workshop troupe, is doing his graduate work through Lesley University in Cambridge, MA on Open Form in North American Poetry: A Path to Liberation, and writes at least one American Sentence every day.

Another Bird Song

May  sun  river  reflection     a perceived bright silver angle w/ which the

chickadee  sings  his  Thursday  A.M.  melody  going

on bird nerve & the primitive hunger of sound.

The notion of sound as gift    cottonwood down

downed in May on the ground under the dream head pillow so

Stuck in its insistence to follow its plan to mitigate this state we created. A

maple

tree   a perch for early brunch surely this

throat

bobbing  bird  has  a  tender

vibrato & a word for Thursday    but until Slaughter relents   it’s only nine cheerful notes.

Tuscan Sonnet Ring

I

Drunk on a New York accent he speaks

not stopping conversation somehow

I had only the pepperoncini

in David’s hands, there can be

for he is alive at five hundred

and the sky remains biblical

or cigarette scarred wind

in the tunnel near the Fortezza

though thunder etches the air

above the Tuscan night.

and yet not one Grappa ambulance

or thunder of scooters

when there is no rain

he is alive at five o’clock

no other sculpture after this

I forgot about, but the veins

gulping down the same dish

of Spring Herring chewing on pasta.

II

Too long for a sonnet

we must be content w/ sex

much sweeter than at home

may be the walking, or the wine

with every meal. Men kissing each other

and a macchiato for the American,

somehow out of step with his

generation and their war. Life

after empire in the land of Dante

we create our own inferno

of teeth-gnashing and affirmation

from without. John Spike

declaims a miracle in wax

and gold leaf what might have been

the sky centuries ago, but

the sky is biblical and Chicago

Blues is a basket w/ a giant horn

pointing to one lost angel.

III

The blues may invoke an angel

or the general onslaught of fear

we know none such here

but walking Fierenze streets

fearless cab drivers, scooterists

vias so narrow, Via Guelfa

operatic Ukrainians in Plaza Repubblica

singing Summertime as if forgotten

angels had borrowed her tongue

Summertime into the thick

Tuscan night air accordion music

between ribollita and seared beef

or more tortellini, lasagna

and a life cut out of marble

sling in hand, which David is this?

IV

David a lover or a giant slayer?

David a miracle in stone

and the benefits of a lifetime

of dialogue with light

re-experiencing borders

shaping the spawn of

imaginations ramblings

or lost in a still life

of the public function of the heart

made mute   made in wax and hues

of green   as in a rainforest

canopy reflection in Spring?

An anarchist Spring of no concern

to the cat or the still biblical sky

somehow captured in the hot

glass of another Tuscan memory

shimmering, no, trembling

like that last star on which

we wished for this never to end.

V

This never ends this backward

catapult into the jewels memory

makes from lovers holding hands

shopping for rabbit fur-lined gloves

eating ribollita or vino rojo

within an American song

of Il Duomo and the lost

sculptures of Michelangelo

who saw them there trapped

in marble just as you saw in wax

and black plasma the divine

spawn of your deepest desperation

food for us all. Charlie has your

medicine and if it tastes

as good as the tiramisu

we may never leave. We may

develop a taste for Grappa

and set our bed on fire

high on what Michael called

the drugs of our glands.

VI

Drunk w/ a New York accent he speaks

of Spring Herring chewing on pasta

not stopping conversation somehow

gulping down the same dish

I had only with the pepperoncini

I forgot about, but the veins

in David’s hands, there can be

no other sculpture after this

for he is alive at five hundred

he is alive at five o’clock

and the sky remains biblical

when there is no rain

or cigarette scarred wind

or thunder of scooters

in the tunnel near the Fortezza

and yet not one Grappa ambulance

though thunder etches the air

above the Tuscan night.

VII

An African in New York

adjusting to the Dutch housing

and the energy ripples

insinuating themselves

in glass, or wax, or prayer beads

murmuring their silent plea for peace

or another Tuscan vegetarian meal

how many Euros is that Millicent? 

Bill wonders aloud beard biblical

as the sky is again. You

almost expect a swimmer to jump

out at you comparing yourself

to Pollock or the coming of another

Tuscan dusk with a chance of rain

and a Grappa ambulance and an

improbable salad or potatoes

with fur these blatant Americans

and their espresso with milk

and their puny wars and torture

and green rainforest lake paintings

in wax and gold leaf miracles

which might have been the sky

or an Indian Paintbrush Memory

lost on this crowd.

VIII

Too long for a sonnet

much sweeter than at home

with every meal. Men kissing each other

somehow out of step with his

after empire in the land of Dante

of teeth-gnashing and affirmation

declaims a miracle in wax

the sky centuries ago, but

Blues is a basket w/ a giant horn

pointing to one lost angel.

the sky is biblical and Chicago

and gold leaf what might have been

from without. John Spike

we create our own inferno

generation and their war. Life

and a macchiato for the American,

may be the walking, or the wine

we must be content w/ sex

IX

The prizes are won

only in the imagination

where we add up the mechanical

Santas and laugh at the folly

of our ardent expectations

forgetting the biblical sky

and the miracle of veins

in marble and alive eyes

a train ride to the Tuscan countryside.

O memory, make me a dancer

to your deepest rhythms

of divinations and ancient

fields of the play of lovers

heating up each other’s skin

leaving a stain lovers

a thousand years hence can taste

sweeter than muscato asti

after the last meal

even if Roman gypsies may

steal all the lost tourist’s

money. Even if Fred laughs

drunk mouthful of pasta

gulped down with chainti

even if three rings sing

out the essence of an African

experience in New Amsterdam

while we become American

refugees of the blues.

copyright © Paul Everett Nelson