Monthly Archives: April 2017

April 20, 2017 Poem “Ali Baba: A Vinyl Memory”

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Ali Baba: A Vinyl Memory
for Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

I can still see that disk of ebony
incised with a spiral journey
ridden by one tiny diamond’s point
from its rim right to its very heart.

It was an old vinyl LP,
pressed when I was two or three,
and a perennial favorite.
Its highly-colored cardboard sleeve

showed Ali Baba, spying, in a tree
overhearing a magic password,
“Open Sesame,”
that caused the mountain-side to split

open so Ali Baba could steal
inside, after the thunderous thieves.
Most of all, I recall
how this deep cave was lit

by the light of jewels
hanging from trees,
a vision summoned
by a lone violin—

Scheherazade—unearthly beauty
pouring into a child’s ears
and glowing there, still,
after all these years.

Leslie Schultz

When I was very young, my mother would often play albums with stories on them in the afternoon. I still often think about four, in particular, wishing I could hear them again. Three of them were from this series: Tale Spinners for Children. A few days ago, I began thinking so strongly of the music from this one. The first four lines of this poem came. I waited until today for the rest of the poem to come clear and to share it here.

Image result for Tale Spinners Ali Baba

To hear an audio clip of the violin solo, just scroll down to the second one.

Which oft-heard (told, read, recorded) stories most impressed themselves upon you? I would love to hear if you’d care to share. (The other favorites in the recorded realm for me were “Beauty and the Beast” & “Aladdin and the Magic Lamp” in the Tale Spinners series, and a collection of folktales told by Beryl Berney called “All Join Hands Around the World.” I still think very often of the Japanese story she told of how there is a rabbit in the moon.)

Until tomorrow!  LESLIE

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April 19, 2017 Poem: “Portrait of a Street Musician”

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 Portrait of a Street Musician
(Paris, March 22, 2009)

I asked an expert,
later, what instrument
this musician played.

“I’ve never seen the like,”
he shrugged. “I think
it must be homemade.”

Jet-lagged, I stood
in grey Paris
among the fruit stands.

I was holding unfamiliar
coins and my camera
in my hands

when I heard a faint
strain, a light air,
a thin ribbon of sound

that I followed,
to this spot, where
it wound and unwound.

I cannot recall
the names of the notes,
their order,

just that I lifted
my lens, questioning
across the border

between us. He
nodded, clenched his jaw.
The camera whirred—

a tiny percussive sound,
like a twig snapped by
the weight of a bird—

and, as my young
daughter danced
over, how sun burned

on those coins we
offered; how he
smiled in return.

Leslie Schultz

The idea for this poem came when I was looking this morning at a catalog for the Milwaulkee Art Institute. I opened the volume at random and read, under a reproduction of his Fauve painting titled “The Wheat Field” (circa 1906), of a French painter, Maurice Vlaminck, who “was a self-taught artist who began painting purely for pleasure, while supporting himself financially by playing the violin.” That sentence made me remember this moment eight years ago–the grey light and the grey stone of the French market on a Sunday in Paris. All these years later, and I hope his playing brings him joy as well as coins. When I look at the craftsmanship of his unnameable stringed instrument, I think it must.

LESLIE

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April 18, 2017 Poem: “City Rain” (After “Spring Showers” by Alfred Stieglitz, Circa 1900)

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City Rain
after “Spring Showers,” circa 1900, by Alfred Stieglitz

These delicate mists
soften almost everything—
stones, concretes, bricks.

The old woman
in a black hat
bends
toward pavement;
the pavement shines
like the surface
of a lake, a lake ringed
by buildings
shimmering like hills.

Everything
seems to dissolve~
except this singular
sapling,
its slender trunk
rocketing
out from
a circle
of black iron,
firing
dark clouds,
explosions
of new buds,
fresh-inked on
this silver sky.

Leslie Schultz

It is raining here today, and I thought I would try a double imitation. Here is a poem inspired by a lovely New York image from more than a hundred years ago with, I think, the distinctive look of a Japanese brush painting. To see a digital image of one print of this evocative photographic capture by Alfred Stieglitz in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, click HERE.

Meanwhile, my more prosaic–and sun-drenched–black and white image, taken a couple of blocks from my house, is below.

Hoping your day holds joy in all weathers-–Leslie

Check out other participants at the NaPoWriMo Challenge 2017 home site!

Check out other participants at the NaPoWriMo Challenge 2017 home site!

 

April 17, 2017 Poem: “So Many Dangers Past”

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So Many Dangers Past

To list them would fill a whole book,
those dangers we no longer fear
in daily life. Where be dragons?
All those poor village idiots
unsettling newly pregnant girls
with the Evil Eye? Fevers brought
on wings fashioned from the night air?

The adders, the Basilisks, and
the grizzlies have vanished almost
completely from our waking thoughts.
The wolf at the door is now just
the open maw of poverty
costumed in kistchy metaphor,
like older kids on Halloween
who delight in startle and fright,
wave cardboard axes bedizened
with scarlet paint, glue, and glitter;
who scowl in their mothers’ lipsticks
until we hand over our caches
of candy or dimes.

These are the times
we inhabit: danger not dead
but gone diffuse, a fog we breath in—
pernicious, radioactive—
lodging not just under our skin
but poisoning joy, our sense of fun.
Generosity murdered. Nowhere to run.

Leslie Schultz

LESLIE

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