California Drought
Dear Fred,
As always, thanks for Frog Hospital.
Your prose poem is superb!
***
On Sunday I leave for Mexico. http://exploreoaxaca.blogspot.com/
Back in Barbaria May 10th.
Stephen Colbert: Best Pax Posts
Stewart, Colbert, Oliver Probe The Spectacular Idiocy Of Climate Change Deniers
Last hour, I was visited by two Mexican migrant workers.
They are concerned that agriculture is drying up in California, leaving less work for braceros.
McFarland USA
Americans Refuse To Do Hard, Dirty Work... At Any Wage
My visitors are also grateful Pope Francis is championing their cause.
They are even interested in his imminent encyclical on global warming and how it ravages the poor disproportionately
Pope Francis' Climate Stand Deepens Conservatives' Distrust.
Encyclical Due In June
Now that the drought is affecting the lawns of white Californians, it will be interesting to see how they react to the realization that "God is not taking out the garbage for them."
Pax tecum
Alan
On Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 6:36 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:
FROG HOSPITAL, April 23, 2014
Fishtown Remembered
By Fred Owens
The last time I saw Tim McNulty was about ten years ago. He's the poet from Port Townsend...... We had dinner together at the El Jinete in Anacortes and we were both broke -- what I mean by broke is that I wanted to pay for his dinner, and he wanted to pay for my dinner, but neither one of us had enough money, so we split the check -- it was so sad. We just sat there staring at the check, unable to make the manly gesture of picking it up. Then we slowly took out our wallets and with embarrassment agreed on a shared total plus tips for the service. So sad, the wages of poetry.
I haven't seen him since, although we are in email contact....
Fishtown is a story begun by poets and finished by lawyers, founded in stillness, ending in drama.....Fishtown Collection
I have insisted all along that the end of Fishtown -- the end of anything worthwhile -- is as important as the beginning.
The beginning of Fishtown was poetry of clarity and stillness. The ending of Fishtown was a lawsuit, a civil trial, a raucous demonstration, a dramatic conflict, and a final crushing destruction of old bones and boards, and the eviction and exile of humble folks....The beginning was the seed of the final destruction.. The escape from drama came round and became itself the drama. It will always be a mystery.
A librarian at Western Washington University is making a collection of Fishtown writings. You can view it here.
Telling a Story about Africa
I will be telling a story about Africa in coming weeks, but you will find it on the Frog Hospital blog. I use the blog for this story, because I will use lots of photo and the blog can handle this. It will also be posted on Facebook -- my page is called Fred Owens.
As such, you will not get another newsletter for a while, but you are encouraged to read the blog. It should be fun, with almost daily postings.
Waiting for the BusIn an effort to improve race relations I traveled to Africa in 1997 and married her, the woman sitting next to me on the log. We were waiting for the bus. The sun was hot.
Ordinarily, being a gentleman, I would offer her the shade, but since she was used to the sun and I was not, she gave me the shade.
We were waiting for the bus. It's a common sight in Africa to see people sitting by the roadside waiting. She is looking down the road, but patiently, or maybe she knows something that I don't know.
I'm looking down the road too, but with a different expression, like, what am I doing here?
But we're in Africa, and she's African, so of course she looks more at ease.
We were not waiting for the bus. We were at this spot by the Zambezi River, just above Victoria Falls. We came to this spot to view the world's largest baobab tree. We came there to look at a tree. We had a rental car parked somewhere nearby.
I was a tree tourist. Some people come to Africa to see lions and elephants, I came to see the trees.
I was not planning to get married, but who plans that kind of thing.
This was in Zimbabwe. I remember this Forest Gump moment I had when I first arrived in Zimbabwe. I stepped off the first-class bus and began looking around. "Everybody is black! Everybody!"
No kidding. It's not like America where some people are black, and there is a black neighborhood in some part of town.
In Zimbabwe, everybody is black, as far as the eye can see. You can walk and ride for miles -- all black people. I'd be walking down the street in the city, thousands of black people and I'm the only white guy. Nobody ever bothered me. I wonder even if they noticed me. I couldn't tell. I could never tell anything from their faces.
Go back to the photo of me and my wife sitting on a log, waiting for the bus. Can you read her face? I never could.
Falling and Loving, a prose poem Falling and loving are two different things.
Falling down is good. With practice you get better.
What does a woman mean when she says no?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has inflamed my imagination.
We are making love. I crush your bones until there is nothing left but tulip petals in a pool of urine. Then your belly begins to swell like a fat tomato. A child is born that you can call your own. You can give it a name. I have my own pet names, Lunetta, for a girl, or Bradshaw Gumption for a boy, but I no longer need the power of naming.
Two years pass. Lunetta is a toddler. We are in France. I am very successful. We begin to quarrel. You say I love my work too much. I am distant, but I still think I can control you.
Ten more years pass. You are coming into your power now. You have become a true stallion of a woman, thicker, but still graceful in movement. And then we become equals and then we finally become friends.
Or, we live on a farm in southern Ohio with horses and cows.
Or, I become gravely ill, but even so you tire of me and leave me for Leonard, an artist in stained glass.
Frog Hospital Subscriptions. Your payment of $25 or more supports the enterprise. We serve no cause. We preach no doctrine. If you send a check, you will be remembered in our nightly prayers and the good health of you and your family will be foremost in our waking hours --- well, to some extent anyway. Please help.
Make it easy, just punch the PayPal button on the Frog Hospital blog.
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Fred Owens
1105
Veronica Springs RD
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
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