Editor’s note: Every month GT features the work of a local poet. This month: Philip Wagner, who was born in Santa Cruz County, served in the Peace Corps, edited the underground newspaper, ACT, in Paris, founded Resisters Inside the Army, made 10 documentaries and has published psychology and political articles. He lectures on myth, psychology and art.

CATCH AND RELEASE

This history begins with steelhead running the San Lorenzo River

and boys loving to camp, poach fish and smoke cigarettes.

This history begins when I draw the short straw

and am elected by fate to steal cigarettes.

And I do enter the corner grocery,

my head the height of the checkout counter,

around which I slip my hand

into a half full carton of Lucky Strikes.

What I love—

the smell of tobacco, the color of the big red bull’s eye,

the feel of the slick cellophane wrapper.

I linger an instant with the small pleasure that takes hold of me

and am spotted by the store manager. For forever

we stand, just the two of us

bound together in a clip of yet unwritten history:

a small rise in the curve of time—a momentary vantage point

where we watch present time carried off into possible futures of

court appearances, labeling, soft time, hard time, beatings, women crying, probation,

hardening, probation, Marine Corps, tattoos, alcohol, more theft

 – the lengthening rap sheet, a young man’s written history.

It was my first experience like that—with a time fragment

that contains eternity and my next ten years at its mercy.

A moment roaring with images: those heavy stones

and we, tied to them, hold on

to enter the future with the store manger’s next decision

to either pick up the telephone, recite the historical facts,

set the hook, pull me out, leave the barbed scar,

make my history incontrovertible,

or

wait, allow us to make a contract:

For two seconds, he could hold me with his eyes

In exchange, I might look down at the floor

and slowly replace the pack of cigarettes.

Together we could outwit the perched avalanche of cruelty

history is so famous for,

and, together, we did.

EVERYDAY RESURRECTIONS

I sit in the front yard on the shoreline of the bird bath and drink coffee on my mini-beach of 4, five-gallon buckets of sand hauled in and dumped willy nilly around my yellow-green parasol and blue beach chair. With an old hose, I refill the bird bath with water, sending a rush of brown leaves and fallen acacia blossoms in a wave, like a first kiss, across the dark flat surface to splinter the reflection of my body standing on its head. The reflection melts in a dazzle of sunlight, and for several moments is lost, then returns with a few flowers stranded on the shoreline around my head. With one deep purple eye on me, a blue jay floating next to my head sings in my ear and is sole witness to the miracle of yet another of my death and resurrections.

	1. 06-22-2007 09:37
	Kalifornia! Hi Phil!  Very nice! Thumbs down on the photo, though. You look a lot better in real life, honest Is the second poem new? I like it a lot!  Take care,  Angelika http://frankonia-de.blogspot.com/ Registered

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