WINGING IT-a recent Jeff Hartzer poem

Winging It

When the dog bites and the bee stings,

When the toilets overflow and door hinges fall off,

When the seasons suddenly switch

And all around me is change,

I am winging it.

Winging it 

on tilted wings I learn to fly

knowing that the hardest part is coming down.

My soul is infinity turned upside down

with my flailing legs skyward, 

my fingers touch the  earth.

Winging it 

I cry out to the love of trees

seeking my own private nests

and shelter from the stormy wind

Those lightning flashed barbs of

those who scream at all of us.

Winging it 

I cry out alone

and seek shelter offering you my arms

outstretched into the brightness 

of lighted wings winging it.

I drink in the sky balancing the blood

with my heavenly songs of light

electric with love and only

a hundred miles to go

trying to work it all out.

Winging it 

through those ocean wave crests of memory

winging it with my mother's soul and father's loss of dignity

winging it through gale-forced winds

colorful tonradoes and high desert moons

Winging it 

past the obstacles of derision and fool hardy tears

Winging it over and under my own blossomings

with the holy sanctity of a life lived on my own.

Winging it 

through ancient Cumberland Plateau misty fogs

cloud green Seattle reaches, 

Atlantic Beach Sundays,

with so many lost years

Winging it 

when all I really want to do is sleep and dream. 

Winging it 

through these last long days on earth 

yours mine and ours.

When winging it 

is what we do to fly

to sing, to breathe. 

We laugh and love

and winging it

is not so hard,

so easy to be hard.

Winging it

I need to sing

whether or not it's a weekday

whether or not my grandmother is alive

whether or not silver platters come in clouds

Winging it

I am off true north to somewhere

hidden in dreams of day and night that surprise me

from time to time like

herons on railings in rain

porpoises in the night

or the dream I had about the Pope.

Winging it

I'm on my way to Paradise

where I always get what I need

where I am re-entering the landscape

where a growing confidence in myself

gives me the freedom to play

to let go, to flow without a script

to ad lib the music

to breathe deep the poetry

to sing my blessed song 

Jeff Hartzer
copyright 2013

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EYES-a recent poem by Jeff Hartzer

EYES

Your eyes:

circular visions of blue on blue.

Blue windows envisioning

flashing nights on the train.

Sadness in sheets of falling rain,

waterfalls of mirrored moons; 

and ocean vistas

stars on the water.

Your eyes

are alive in my dreams where

I see through my own eyes;

and I remain alive and well.

I am a camera lens, dreamscape clear.

And now,

your eyes are on fire 

With icey streams of clear water melting,

splashing those Atlantic Ocean 

shores of child hood. 

Where always your eyes 

bore pain, suffering, and a derision so pure 

I could barely breathe 

when they shone 

down on me from your ivory-faced madness.

Now, your eyes are cool iris blue 

spiraling through evening twilights

twinkling like morning stars on water;

Reflecting upwards,

your eyes

are on me 

and they burn with blue flame and wind and rain.

Your eyes speak truth

Your eyes are on me

And before you

my eyes fly fast

straight into night

straight into black;

straight into you.

They are striking sparks 

so blue

so blue;

blue blue windows:

your eyes.

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Halfway Up The Hill-an autumn poem video

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LITTER PICKERS

As a former D.O.E. Litterpicker Crew Supervisor in Washington State, as well as being a current resident of Planet Earth...I love the TRASH is CASH video (page bottom) that I first saw on LINKtv and now have found on You Tube. It is both a catchy and deeply moving tune/video. 

  BUT FIRST...Here's a poem I once wrote about Litter and Litter Pickers...Despite finding roadside guns (no, really) and porno, I never made any CASH from the TRASH. Although there were those VW Bug MOON HUBCAPS... In my history of odd jobs taken to sustain my creative life, being a Department of Ecology Litter Crew Supervisor ranks as a lifetime BEST JOB for WRITERS e-v-e-r...A creative writer's life is at every level a solo journey. You can work on your great or not so great American novel for two years only to have it sit oin a shlef in a notebook...Ah, but what great shelves you say... As a litterpicker (make that 'Supervisor', please) I was able on an hourly basis to SEE my accomplishments; get exercise; didn't talk all day (as opposed to my classroom teaching avocations); was able to listen to truly amazing stories (of Juveniles D's and Community Service offenders complete with accents/dialects, then went home and wrote my own stuff with voices still in my head (good to hear some new voices)...Yes, it was a Great job, however, Praise Geebus that I am not still trudging along I-5 in the rain...Here's that poem:

Litterpickers 
 Litterpickers go out at dawn  quietly they slip by your lawn  Thin men and women without sound  They walk slow bent low to the ground  passing over pheasant deerskin and rats  sleeping men under bridges  cobwebs and bats  They gather man's sign  the stink of man unkind  They fill bags the size of whales  They sing the song of nightingales  Litterpickers march like Trojans to war  and for them the work is hardly a chore  Clearing a path trod with oily shoe  on a journey sadly sought by few  Acid heartburn indigestion  the toll on the body is not in question  Onward and upward through sun and rain  our lives are made cleaner by their pain  Litterpickers bend and scrape  from trash there is no escape  Litterpickers watch as you drive by  You so eager to make those bottles fly  with windows open to spring  My god it's so easy  I can throw anything  Litterpickers have packrat minds all  They often save things short and tall  like faded greenbacks and fancy hubs  You'd be surprised by what lies in shrubs  Litterpickers creep toward the trees  as noonday sun brings them to their knees 
 Litterpickers litterpickers  three bags full  yes sir yes sir  it's all recyclable 
 Litterpickers litterpickers watch 'em dance  smiles on their faces  they watch out for ants 
 Litterpickers litterpickers  ike Buddhas on the road  chanting Hari Krishna Ramigate  don't step on a toad 
 Litterpickers litterpickers  lungs full of monoxide  it's a job that pick pick picks at your pride  Coca-Cola Fanta Sprite  styrofoam and Rainier Light  picking up cans all day  litterpickers dream of trash at night 
  © 1984,2012 Jeff Hartzer

NOW, that you've picked up some trash, here's that GREAT video from You Tube...Enjoy.

 




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Eclipsed by the Moon - a poem of the day

No telling what might happen

tomorrow

but tonight 

the moon eclipses the sun

over Albuquerque

and all is still in the afternoon 

with fans blowing breezes across porches 

and

the mind has a heart of it's own

where gusty winds and rattlesnakes

exist

No telling what might happen

tomorrow

but just now the smoked chicken is done

the tangerines ripen in the windows

of our dreams

and somewhere a man is about to kiss a man

and all the world's a stage with 

Facebook faltering and

all of us driving fast cars

typing letters into boxes
taking turns

too fast

No telling what might happen

tomorrow

but Robin Gibb and
the Bee Gees stopped "Staying Alive' 

and that guy who blew up Pan Am 103 

over Lockerbie, Scotland in '88

died a slow death too today

with the world turn turning around

with history moving through time
as protesters storm Chicago

and those kinder gentler

machine-gunned hands

back again

No telling what might happen

tomorrow 

but today a deadly earthquake crumbled 

crumbling buildings  in Italy...

ciao!  to those that live amidst caved in cathedrals 

castles and bell towers falling
and just now
our dogs sleep
cool floors to fur
and china cabinets
hold dreams of mothers
long gone

No telling what might happen

tomorrow 

but today Tropical Storm Alberto 

rippled the waves of Charleston 

weeks before storm season begins 

and across seven North American states 

wildfires burn and folks in Wichita ask

Why'd the tornado cross the road?

No telling what might happen

tomorrow 

but tonight we stand by pink cactus blossoms 

beside roads where once hands across America joined 

and tonight thousands don sunglasses 

and stare in silent wonder beside ancient 

volcanoes and petroglyphs 

just this side of Albuquerque 

near the Rio Grande 

where convergences 

were once harmonic 

No telling what might happen

tomorrow 

but tonight the moon eclipses the sun

over Albuquerque 

all of us glad to be alive

all of us having shared times past and present 

with  histories of planetary folk and cave men

Cowboys and Indians 

and laughing ladies 

behind orange sunglasses 

parked  next to us 

here 

at this barbed wire fence facing west

all of us cheer the end of this day 

all of us going home 

to view the mystery 

on plasma screens 

with higher definitions 

filmed by the experts 

no less blind than we.

©2012

Jeff Hartzer

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Halfway Up The Hill

October has passed but we are always halfway to somewhere...

HALFWAY UP THE HILL

A giant hawk screams warning
I whistle back
then the dog barks
then the Volkswagen
lies dead in the woods
right there
It happens that way
on Sundays
out walking with God
Then the Volkswagen
lies smashed and dead
papers scattered across the straw
windshields blasted away
And I sit
where it sits
Still as death
while my dog walks close
and sniffs and barks
And the sun warms my back
on an October Sunday
when leaves are crimson
more bright than the dead
My life is filled with symbols
and signs
like the dream of thumbs and fingers
Mimi says I need to be touched
Yes I say
Touch me
all you people
Touch me
and my heart will shatter open
like this broken windshield
so very still
so right with the world
And how in the hell did this
stolen heart of a Volkswagen
get up this hill halfway
to this place here
to be dumped lifeless
in the woods
And what's in it for me
where is the sign
what does it all mean
And where'd that hawk go?

Jeff Hartzer
copyright 1984,2011
[from: http://www.aquilaarts.com/flamingos.html]Tweet

24 And There's So Much More

Jeff Hartzer and Debra Landau
June 6th, 1987

24 years ago today at 201 Princeton Street S.E. in Albuquerque, New Mexico I married Debra Landau on our rooftop. I am not as thin as I was then, but Debra is easily as beautiful now as then. It was a gloriously sky blue sky day for an outdoor wedding; the next day it rained cats and bunnies. We had moved to New Mexico only two years previous from Tacoma, Washington. Everything we owned at the time fit either in or on top of our 1967 Mercedes Benz <*>.

None of my high school or college friends were present. Many of my friends whose weddings I attended are now in their second or third marriages. Debra's mom and my mother were there. Both matriarchs are now gone from this world. Joining us for the ceremony on the rooftop was Debra's very good pal, Annie, and my younger brother, Jonathan. Annie is living a different life now and one could easily say the same for my brother. Things happen; time passes.

That weekend I was a non-sugar eating vegetarian and Debra was enrolled in UNM's Theater Arts Program. We had a goofy mixed-breed dog named Joplin <**>, a Dalmatian named Tulsa <***>, and a cat named Taco. Those pet companions are now long gone, replaced by our present-day pet world made up of The Four Schippeteers, a million tropical fish, and a quad-zillion rabbits.

I had been a teacher at a local Waldorf School called Earthsong. They had wanted me to take 'Rudolf Steiner' classes that summer, even after I had told the Principal that our wedding date was set. "You can change the date," he said. "I quit," said I. So that man on the roof marrying the beautiful modern dancer was recently unemployed and broke.

Our legal wedding officiant was a woman who was a reverend with the Holy Catholic Church of Antioch. She signed our license. The amazing woman who led us in our vows and actually performed the ceremony was at the time the head tribal medicine woman for Isleta Pueblo, south of Albuquerque. Though we now see neither, the magic they worked that day on the roof of our rental home was, and is, the best kind of magic - still resonating in our life together.

Here's a poem I wrote about the early days of our life together in Albuquerque. The poem portrayed life in our small student ghetto apartment with Debra as full-time student and me as whatever I was back then. It is called, "To Love A Dancer":

To Love A Dancer

To Love A Dancer
is to take the world
and turn it upside down

To Love A Dancer
is to love your life in kitchens

To Love A Dancer
is to set yourself free
from country club days

To Love A Dancer
is to love that part of you
so abandoned long ago

To Love A Dancer is to gamble on
lightning, thunder
snow and rain

To Love A Dancer
is the very thing of all things
which I most fear
To take bare feet and wings
and begin to feel

To Love A Dancer
is to hang suspended
while the dancer dances the walls
between you

And high above
the eagle soars
dances on wind
hot fever
sun

Jeff Hartzer
© 1985,2011

I would never have met Debra had I not quit yet another job and drove very far west from my native North Florida in 1981. My 'new start' in Tacoma, Washington lasted four years. It was there I learned the ins and outs of being a Litter Picker Supervisor for the Department of Ecology and developed a yen for fresh blackberries and deep red cherries off the tree. But most importantly, I met Debra, who was working at Sixth Sense, a peace center to which I had been asked to give poetic and professional voice to their phone machine message. Together we moved to Albuquerque in August 1985, so that Debra could attend the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, which surely we thought would be an enchanted place to live out our high desert dreams. Most certainly, New Mexico is a place vastly different than either of our states of origin, yet, vaguely in between the Northwest and Southeast. In our nearly 26 years together in Albuquerque we have been both rich and poor, sick and healthy,'better' or 'worser', and try as they might, no man has cast us asunder.

Today, I am reminded of Neil Young's song, "Old Man", which has the lyrics, "24 and there's so much more..."<****>. The morning of my 24th birthday I played that record (remember records?) and right when Neil got to that line, the vinyl record skipped with 'so much more' playing over and over. Indeed, the world was a different place on June 6th, 1987 and hopefully, 24 years from now, the world as we know it will still be spinning with love and all good things. May rooftop weddings persevere while this old man and his Cinnamon Girl live on and together, dance.

---

<*>

This old car was both amazing and neurotic

<**>

Joplin

<***>

Tulsa

<****>Old Man

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

Old man look at my life
Twenty four and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two.

Love lost, such a cost,
Give me things that don't get lost.
Like a coin that won't get tossed
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Lullabies, look in your eyes,
Run around the same old town.
Doesn't mean that much to me
To mean that much to you.

I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.

Old man take a look at my life
I'm a lot like you
I need someone to love me the whole day through
Ah, one look in my eyes
and you can tell that's true.

Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.
Old man look at my life,
I'm a lot like you were.

---

We've had many 'interesting' cars over the years. Perhaps none was quite as unique as this one... a 1971 "Mail Jeep". With the wide-open side doors, it was 'air-conditioned'. Our dogs loved it. And yes, for a brief stint as an early married man, I was a USPS Mail Carrier.

Dancer Deb at the wheel
which was on the right side of the vehicle

---

In Honor of 6/6/87-6/6/2011: A Random Jeff/Deb Gallery

Jeff Hartzer and Debra Landau
creating the AirDance ArtSpace

Jeff Hartzer and Debra Landau
flying with Paul Kantner

Jeff Hartzer and Debra Landau
with, yes, Olivia de Havilland
Paris, 2000

GO LOBOS!
GO ISOTOPES!

Jeff Hartzer and Debra Landau
Carlsbad Caverns, N.M.

---

At the Jemez Dam: Springtime

At the Jemez Dam: Springtime

clouds cross mountains
clouds span rivers
touching surfaces
darkening deeps
yet
they touch nothing
is my fear not like the shadows of clouds?
is fear not a passing thing?
no threat within itself
the fish still swim
the deer still run

© Jeff Hartzer
1987, 2011