“Demons” for April 4, 2019

Demons
 
Some loomed like towering infernos,
I (young reader) imagined, 
all up rush of rages,
tornadic destroyers, impartial
whirlwinds of wroth.
 
Others shimmered like illustrations
in expensive library books,
slicing themselves out
of their pages, scimitars raised
for particular victims.
 
Others still—home-grown
from Black Forest spores—hunkered
small and slimy in garden pots, waiting
to latch on: diminutive, unfocused
globs of ill will.
 
Now, I know the worst,
glimpse those who slink
in the tangled dendritic forest
of my brain, who rush
from the angry underbrush,
 
those unbidden thoughts
that have sometimes caught
me by the throat,
then kept developing,
like polaroids of ugly faces,
 
stray impressions that rode me,
causing me to snarl,
to singe my own hair,
before they would disappear--
shaken off (but not quite.)
 
Leslie Schultz

The concept of the “demon” is one I first discovered as an avid young reader of fairy tales, those of old Europe–Perrault and the Brothers Grimm–and of the Islamic Golden Age. Scheherazade seemed to me the greatest hero of all, stepping into the flaming circle of a despot’s unreasoning anger, spinning a safety net for herself and all other women through the filaments of story itself. I felt terrorized by the landscape of her world, but she showed me the core truth that art saves lives, rights corruption, soothes the spirit.

These days, for me, battling demons is less panoramic and technicolor, less Hollywood or Bollywood or Kaiju.

I woke up this morning, after a peaceful sleep, thinking about how anger can ride us sometimes even when we think we are in the driver’s seat. Last week, I was startled to see this vehicle parked on a Northfield street–sort of humorous, sort of frightening. That’s the way we can all sometimes park our anger and resentment out in public under the guise of a joke or a jab or a verbal poke, isn’t it?

Behind the steering wheel of this Herman Munster-mobile appeared to be burst chains draped across the seat. Maybe it’s that easy. When we feel an angry thought, maybe we could just signal it, pull over to an appropriate curb, turn off the engine, and…walk away?

LESLIE     

P.S. For contrast, here is another Scheherazade-inspired poem that came during 2017’s NaPoWriMo activity, called “A Vinyl Memory.”

“Compass” for April 3, 2019

Compass
 
My cherished friend (a sonic artist,
a mother, a teacher) and I were
streaming north, last month,
toward a favorite museum to celebrate
the creativity of all that is northern,
Scandinavian, both in the old world
and here, in Minnesota.
 
We were flying out
of our tiny town, laughing
because the back of winter
seemed to be finally broken, the ice
and injuries that had kept us
cooped up far too long
had migrated at last.
 
Ahead, (though we didn’t suspect)
we’d encounter—I kid you not—
a gigantic solar egg—gleaming,
golden—perched on a nest
of iron-brown sticks, magic and witchy,
with a ladder inviting us
to peer inside the padlocked
 
glass door forbidding entry.
Here, saunic heat could hatch
for humans lighted on cedar wood
if they could just catch the right
moment at sunset. But then and there,
in late morning’s blue thaw,
we watched in awe as a pair
 
of sandhill cranes elegantly soared
across our highway, light
and strong, clearly aligned
with the Minnesota River.
Their long necks reached, outstretched,
toward their future, their making
of eggs born to be broken, from the inside.
 
They seemed to know that the fire of life
would soon be poking fierce, new sooty
beaks into this burnt-out season, would
demand to be fed, demand to sing
and try the air. They seemed sure
that parental care could renew the year,
help each unfold our inborn direction.
 
Leslie Schultz

Like the first two poems for this April, “Compass” recounts a true story. (I am not sure whether a theme is arising or not. If so, it is an unconscious one. )

This poem, which turned out to have a fairy tale quality, is based on an excursion to the American Swedish Institute with Bonnie Jean Flom. We love the human scale of this place, its mix of old and new, in its architecture and exhibitions.

We also like its stimulating exhibitions, and the rare dining experience of the award-winning in-house restaurant, Fika. We are both photographers, with Scandinavian roots, and, on this trip, we were keen to see the work of eco-Photo Shop artist and former farmer Erik Johansson, called “Imagine” (which is up until April 28, 2019.)

“Demand and Supply”

En route to seeing “Imagine,” however, we glanced into the inner courtyard of the museum and were amazed by….what? A space pod? A Christmas pear? No, an out-sized solar egg sculpture called “Reflect” by artistic duo Bigert and Bergstrom that turned out to be also a functioning sauna, visiting Minneapolis until April 28, 2019.

Photo by Bonnie Jean Flom

Then it was back inside to savor first the masterful surreal photography, then enjoy a lunch worthy of portraiture and with flavors redolent of northern forests.

(Note the pine-flavored home-made soda, the bright surprise of the egg in the center of mushrooms and rye bread, and the golden glow of the shared pear cake dessert.)

Does time with a friend get any better than this? Well, maybe.

At the end of this enchanted day, that began with cranes flying high, there was more enchantment. We crossed to Saint Paul to visit the Goldstein Gallery on the University of Minnesota campus to see the collection of ceramics by our mutual friend, Ruth Crane.

Despite the handmade porcelains that I use every day in my kitchen, this exhibition made me understand ceramics in a whole new way. It is open until May 19, 2019.

Just before leaving the campus, Bonnie Jean and I took this double selfie!

Guess what? I have booked a Solar Egg sauna later this month. I hope I am not too relaxed to drive back home!

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

“Butane” for April 2, 2019

Butane
 
That was the name
of my special horse,
the electronic one,
part of the game
my daughter and I played,
when homework was done,
played over and over
here in this room.
 
She was horse-mad, 
horse-knowing, then;
saved her money
for riding lessons;
pondered the breeds
and drew them for hours,
over and over.
 
I don’t remember
much about the aim—
just that our stable
held fine mares
who ran like the wind,
whose names all rhymed
with rain, and we would
call them
across the finish line,
over and over,
a joyous refrain.
 
Sometimes I would urge
something against
the rules: “Run,
Butane! Go beyond!
Break free, right through
the fence! Right off the screen!”
 
And off she went,
off-grid, out of view,
off on her private
adventures. My coltish
girl would collapse
against me with laughter.
 
I would stroke her
long, red mane,
and we would talk
about life and the game
and happily ever after.
 
Leslie Schultz
(photo by Karla Schultz)

Until this morning, I had forgotten all about mighty Butane, the only horse ever entrusted to my care. As I lit a beeswax candle with a butane lighter, though, her name came back in a flash. Though only a temporary set of pixels, (aren’t we all?) Butane was a champion.

These photos of Julia from not so long ago seem from another age–the young poet riding herd over her words, near her first Sidewalk poem; the experienced rider at the end of year show; the piano student pausing to admire a tree outside her teacher’s house. Okay, I will admit to a little nostaglia as Julia rides expertly the last laps of her college career, soon to be breaking free into her own as-yet-unscripted adventures.

Meanwhile, Tim and I are enjoying our rarer times together with Julia more than ever, and are lining this empty nest with the richness of memory and with the glitter of the new, just-beyond-the-horizon insights and adventures. LESLIE

“Alert” for April 1, 2019

 Alert
  
Here in this winter-wet desert,
this high plateau time,
source of the growing year,
with sand emerging
everywhere under
ghosts of gone ice sheets,
I walk out,
scarf flying
like a prayer flag,
to find what is new
and newly returned.
 
In my ears,
breezes and birdsound.
In my nose,
raw earth thawing.
In the corner
of my eye,
caught on the edge
of the concrete street,
a tiny silver airplane,
a charm.
 
I pick it up,
turn over its fleet
and mysterious edges
in the thin sunlight,
and pocket it
like a true story.
 
Walking back uphill,
toward my house,
I begin to hum,
then find something else
in my mouth—
voiced vowels
and edges of words
linked together
the way flowing ink
joins Devanagari script—
my own song,
a new one,
winging me home again.
 
Leslie Schultz

Welcome to a new National Poetry Month!

Are any of you also embarked on this writing-one-new-poem-each-day journey? If so, let me know–I salute you! If not, thank you for taking a look at my own discoveries over the next thirty days. LESLIE

News Flash! I Have Two Poems (“The Spyder” and “A Song of Penelope”) in the Summer 2018 Issue of MEZZO CAMMIN

Mezzo Cammin: An Online Journal of Formalist Poetry By Women, has just published its summer 2018 edition. I am so pleased that two of my own new poems are included in it. Both were inspired by the work of other poets.

“The Spyder” is an homage to William Blake‘s magnificent poem, “The Tyger,” and uses the same metrical and rhyme schemes, among other borrowings, to highlight an inversion of scale in the imagery.

“A Song of Penelope” was inspired by my recent reading of Emily Wilson’s magnificent new translation of Homer’s epic,The Odyssey. Wilson, a professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania, is (in my opinion) an able poet herself, more than equal to rendering the 12,110 lines of Homer’s Greek into an equal number of modern English lines that sing and gallop. Her one-hundred-plus pages of Translator’s Notes alone is worth the price of admission. My own villanelle (just the prescribed nineteen lines!) sprang from contemplating the inner-journey of Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, imagining that she is equally as complicated as Odysseus, and equally adept at weaving song, story, and mythic reality as is her wide-ranging husband.

This issue of Mezzo Cammin includes new work by nineteen poets, each poem thoughtful and skillful. (I was especially wowed by the clarity of voice in “At Meadowbreeze Manor” by Barbara Lydecker Crane.)

My own poems appear HERE.

(My new author photo was taken by my friend, Mattie Lufkin, at the Minneapolis Institute for Art early this year, when we toured with our friend, Allison Schmitt, the MIA exhibit “Power and Beauty in China’s Last Dynasty.”)

Wishing you a pleasant summer of reading and dreaming!

(This image was taken last summer near Grand Marais, Minnesota; the one above, of bloodroot blossoms, was taken in my garden.)