Sesshu Foster's Blog, page 6

Sesshu Foster reading at CSU San Marcos 11-5

The Community and World Literary Series Presents:

Sesshu Foster

Thursday, November 5, 7 p.m.

Markstein Hall 104

California State University, San Marcos

Sesshu Foster has taught composition and literature in East L.A. for 30 years. He’s also taught writing at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts, Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work has been published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. Winner of two American Book Awards, his most recent books are the novel Atomik Aztex and the hybrid World Ball Notebook.

The Community and World Literary Series

Literature and Writing Studies

California State University, San Marcos

333 S. Twin Oaks Valley Rd.

San Marcos, CA 92096-0001

Campus Maps and Directions: http://www.csusm.edu/resources/images/maps/

For more information, call 760-750-8077 or check out our blog:

http://cwls.blogspot.com/

photo by Arturo Romo-Santillano

Piece of Cardboard Postcard

based on lines by Julia Stein

goodbye missus rain

goodbye horned toad

goodbye mister bluefin tuna

goodbye all you polar bears

goodbye hammerhead shark

goodbye miss Pacific Ocean

goodbye coral reefs

goodbye one two three

goodbye good luck

goodbye aquifirs

goodbye sardines

goodbye ocean horizon

goodbye honey bees

goodbye ancient nahua maiz

goodbye miss Joshua tree

goodbye Sacramento River delta smelt

goodbye hello missus dolphin of the Colorado River delta

goodbye hello to the high hills

goodbye hello to the old night

goodbye hello miss axolotl

goodbye hello to missus cold universe

goodbye hello to mister frijolitos

goodbye hello to missus ancient forest

goodbye hello to mister of the little frogs

Early 40s Fresh & Easy Postcard

Okay, 40s? Early 40s maybe with an emaciated look like extruded wax, first thing is long string hair like a grease curtain in front of his face, and behind that the grin, oily skin too as if he doesn’t wash but who knows maybe he’s naturally dark and shiny, like his black sunglasses and his black hair strings, wearing sunglasses inside like he has emerged from the bright side of a long day, with his grin maybe grinning at something he has just finished saying to himself or he is about to say to you, if you let him, or who? Just to himself? He has the aspect standing in one spot with the sunglasses and the grin of staring and thinking to himself, marveling at weirdness of the inside world, who knows really what it’s about, I’m not sure that he isn’t a messenger from a different world of some kind, and minutes later I see him walk by with a bag of ice from the big ice box pressed against his side, like his ribs hurt, with the same grin.

From Discarded Chapters, Final Sentences

7. The assassin appeared out of the dark and fired the shotgun through the kitchen door, striking him from below, in the back, under his shoulder.

8. Birds flying off into the sunset like red numbers.

9. His name when he was born had been Doroteo Arango.

11. Ah.

12. The embankment was so steep it was almost impossible to climb. But at the top, the desert stretched to the horizon.

13. I went down to the river, which always has a little water in it.

14. The mosquitoes finally drove them inside.

15. All the papers were piled into cardboard boxes.

16. Carlos bought an RV, moved into it and rented out his house to a woman and her son. He never returned to live in it.

17. It was red on the side you could see, but no one ever checked.

19. The lights shone on the lawn. Sometime after midnight, the house went dark.

20. Rolling north in the wet night, we crossed the Columbia on the high bridge with our headlights sweeping across the rainy dark.

From Discarded Chapters, Final Sentences Recorded

7. The assassin appeared out of the dark and fired the shotgun through the kitchen door, striking him from below, in the back, under his shoulder.

8. Birds flying off into the sunset like red numbers.

9. The man’s name, when he was born, had been Doroteo Arango.

11. Ah.

12. The embankment was so steep it was almost impossible to climb. But at the top, the desert stretched to the horizon.

13. I went down to the river, which always has a little water in it.

14. The mosquitoes finally drove them inside.

15. All the papers were piled into cardboard boxes.

16. Carlos bought an RV, moved into it and rented out his house to a woman and her son. He never returned to live in it.

17. It was red on the side you could see, but no one ever checked.

19. The lights shone on the lawn. Sometime after midnight, the house went dark.

20. Rolling north in the wet night, we crossed the Columbia on the high bridge with our headlights sweeping across the rainy dark.

“Camus: I Want to Know,” by Bob Kaufman

Camus, I want to know, does the cold knife of wind plunge

noiselessly into the soul, finally

Camus, I want to know, does the seated death wing as sud-

den, swifter than leaden Fascist bullets …

Camus, sand-faced rebel from Olympus, brain lit, shining

cleanly, on far historical peaks …

Camus, I want to know, does the jagged fender resemble

Franco, standing spiked at Madrid’s Goyaesque

wound

Camus, I want to know, the dull aesthetics, rubbery thump of

exploding wheels, the tick-pock of dust on steel

Camus, I want to know, does it clackety clack like that destiny

Train, shrieking to the Finland station

Camus, I want to know, does the sorrowful cry of unwilling

companions console the dying air …

Camus, I want to know, does the cry of protested death sing

like binding vow of lovers’ nod

Camus, I want to know, does the bitter taste of jagged glass

sweeten the ripped tongue, dried

Camus, I want to know, does the sour taste of

promise flee the dying mouth and eyes and lip

Camus, I want to know, does the liberated blood bubble

to the soil, microscopic Red Seas

Camus, I want to know, does the cyclop headlight illuminate

nerve-lined pits of final desires

Camus, I want to know, does the secret hoard of unanswered

queries scream for ultimate solutions

Camus, I want to know, does the eye of time blink in antic-

pation of recaptured seasons enriched

Camus, I want to know, does the sliver of quartz sensoulize

the clash of flesh on chrome and bone

Camus, I want to know, does the piercing spear of death

imitate denied desire, internal crucifixion

Camus, I want to know, does the spiritual juice flee as slowly,

as the Saharablood of prophets’ sons

Camus, I want to know, does it mirror the Arab virgin, her

sex impaled on some soldier’s wine bottle

Camus, I shall follow you over itching floors of black deserts,

across roofs of burning palms …

Camus, I shall crawl on sandpaper knees on oasis bottoms of

secret Bedouin wells, cursing …

Camus, I shall reach the hot sky, my brown mouth filled with

fragile telephones, sans rings…

Camus, I shall mumble long-cherished gibberish through

layers of protesting heat demanding …

Camus, I shall scream but one awesome question, does death exist?

Camus, I want to know. . .

Fuck Macho Bullshit Forever Postcard

Something goes on and on and does not die

like wind in a jar, it looks dead, open it again and

it’s out, it’s wind again— spit on the street

it’s all in the air in a few, breathe in, breathe out

same air as dinosaur farts, mammoths bleating

cries of little children never found or found too late,

there must be a line through all this, somewhere a line

that when you cross it, sun on one side, shadow

on the other, Israeli and Palestinian, it’s not a seed,

it’s a husk, not a bug, just a shell, the impression

of the thing that once was, bones that used to be

and a bit of fiber, mat of hair or mud, not even that,

a smell, leftover stench of it, evokes some thing

passing memory, pinkness of electrons floating in

the brain, thought ruffled like hair, mussed and—

Dull Dreams Postcard

electrical problem perhaps, a beeping, something out of order, won’t turn on, so I have a flashlight and I’m peering under the house, into the crawlspace with its musty damp order blowing a chill in my face, there’s the gas meter— “excuse me,” who’s this? some big old white haired guy in work clothes wants to get by, i’m crouched in the way, so I rise up— I don’t recall the sequence of events, the rationale or the transit, except that on a grass land, or on a vast slope of grass exposed to the blowing sky, the wind out of the sky, a woman is curled up in fetal position, in shock, middle-aged white woman eyes closed, wearing nothing more than a thin night shirt or pajamas, suffering some kind of psychological collapse, her skin is blanched, pinkish, her face slack, large nose and eyes closed but she’s slightly wincing, registering the buffeting wind that whips her short hair, she looks like an ordinary exhausted middle-aged woman and nobody is around, she might slip away in hypothermia under the endless wind, the endless sky—oh hell, i think, as i lie down in the cool grass beside her, put my arm around her, try to lend her some body heat…

Enola Gay Emergency Landing List Postcard (via Rob Ray)

Check list for emergency landing

1. Check that green plugs are installed.

2. Install catwalk.

3. Remove rear plate.

4. Remove armor plate. ——————————–Disconnect firing line.

5. Insert breech wrench.

6. Unscrew breech plug, (about 16 turns, remove, place on pad

7. Remove charge, 4 sections, place in powder can and secure.

8. Replace breech plug in breech, if there is time.

Enola Gay Emergency Landing List Postcard

Check list for emergency landing

1. Check that green plugs are installed.

2. Install catwalk.

3. Remove rear plate.

4. Remove armor plate. ——————————–Disconnect firing line.

5. Insert breech wrench.

6. Unscrew breech plug, (about 16 turns, remove, place on pad

7. Remove charge, 4 sections, place in powder can and secure.

8. Replace breech plug in breech, if there is time.