Marseille - New and Selected Poems, by Rosemary Manno

This is a free sample with poems from Marseille - New and Selected Poems, by Rosemary Manno (Barncott Press 2019).

More details: www.barncottpress.com

Marseille New and Selected Poems

ROSEMARY MANNO

BARNCOTT PRESS


Marseille © Rosemary Manno, 2019.

Cover watercolors by Roger Strobel, 2017.

All Rights Reserved.

ISBN-13:978-1548730161.

ISBN-10: 1548730165.

Acknowledgements to Deep Forest Press, Magenta Press, Beatitude, Oxygen, North Coast Review and the Revolutionary Poets Brigade.

Special thanks to Agneta Falk, Bruno Gullì, Jack Hirschman, Nicole Savage, Theodore Schroetter, Tisa Walden and Bobby Yarra.

Published by Barncott Press, London, 2019. www.barncottpress.com

for Blessed Gazelle 

... a mixed crowd calls to mind
 that another world begins here.

Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1952 

Preface Marseille includes poems from approximately 1983 to 2017. A very few were in early chapbooks and journals. All the rest appear for the first time. I tried to select what would transcend time so that older poems are next to newer ones as though they’re from the same epoch in a single flow. Odes and elegies by nature are beyond this current.

What I love, that which gives pleasure, a name loaded with meaning that inspires association, pain, beauty, sense of place, the world I live in, to make a memory, to talk more about something in the patience of a poem, to escape and return, life that’s everywhere and nowhere, a place that lets you forget yourself, to remember others, these are some of the polestars.

It felt like this the first time in Marseille, 1969, so I named the collection after her, remembering the weightlessness of my first ancient place, in time and out of time, the journey, the eternal moment.

R.M. July 2018, San Francisco

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Life ... on the brink of a disaster that doesn’t happen.

Werner Herzog, La Soufriére

I’ll escape under fire the urgency of hunger the cruelty of winter time the flight from Egypt the deepest love a toss of destiny might be mine O guardian angel a talisman could protect as well I cross two deserts to die near Lampedusa so close to shore the coast guard another mirage to live and die on the same ride Don’t look back it’s deep inside to remember is life polestar of my old routine I never wanted to leave This odyssey to survive in a peaceful danger somewhere cold and foreign to arrive at a border of razor wire then a Calais jungle surrounded by angry Normans

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There are no barriers only time and good luck I’ll charge my phone I’ll charge in a human wave a new political class I’ll charge the hatred this fluke of survival before you I vow to stay alive The moon slowly rises stars emerge in witness let death wait longer the odyssey never ends

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Elegy Fly drowns in a glass of water flush a dead moth down the toilet our fates have been sealed in a story I hear the dead who surrendered before they were buried alive in the desert a cougar is killed in a Palo Alto front yard a wild turkey explodes on a power line in Morgan Hill mourning dove in the courtyard mournful coo of existence a dog pees on a patch of moss

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Burn Truth shines without a theory the day I go to the laundromat nothing else happens Return to nowhere lost horizon of a pipe dream if I find an exit from this wheel I’ll share it with the world have a cigarette dance in flames the dawn of humanity history as karma bioregional wisdom in a land of executioners I am the sun of my own life let me burn

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Memory Lane Memory lane’s a cul-de-sac full of secrets it lives alone without solitude insults the dead an obsessive pit a tawdry ghost memory lane’s a ghoul a putrid swamp it stinks of exclusivity it never forgets memory lane holds a grudge a cry baby a trap a coward it has nothing to do with the past goes nowhere then back pretends to be safe but memory lane is violent memory lane’s a con a finite place full of stale lies a dead fire a bad bottle of wine memory lane can’t get out of bed or turn the page a tragic ruse a pathetic retreat memory lane’s a fake without imagination is blind to the avant garde memory lane’s counter-revolutionary

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doesn’t get it a poseur a false refuge it’s linear ahistorical memory lane’s a bad address memory lane goes to war but never returns memory lane’s a thief a place to be buried alive nostalgia gone wrong memory lane the way it never was

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Spring Again Stun-gunner in the watchtower mice and comrades linger in the sun I speak to the dead the unborn picture hovers a menace at dawn graffiti from a dream marquee across my screen spray paint on brick wall reads this instant gone forever old wound on the prow of a battered slope melts in the light let the siege command like a hummingbird let the stars do their work

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Last Weekend of Summer Vacation Birds fly east over Angel Island struggling plants come alive life sentence in the natural world colors in the fog stranded on a footbridge the long time of being alive I hear the horizon in Zanzibar the democracy of starshine the choir grows stronger shadows dissolve waters rise old dreams on fire strangers comrades the legend of Moses a shoreline looms games end before liberation 4 billion years I’m as old as the moon rock ‘n roll the image recedes space begins the void of birth I cease to exist

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Mal The streets are packed with strangers I shun neighbors on rooftops cheer the show to shun your fellow is a sick feeling military maneuvers overhead I try to feel alive beneath the scream of death I make a cake and forget the second egg the dog hides under the bed

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All One Heaven is pleasing to the poor because of the prospect of equality.

- Lichtenberg

Natural disasters disease and treachery the times we’re like everyone else the republic of death the great equalizer gone but not forgotten el dia de los muertos All Saints day All Souls day all one as sinners Yom Kippur redemption song the times we are one the same ideas same colors all one as undesirables

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Heat Wave - in memoriam

Mr. Chan suggests I go for a gelato after school as if a gelato could deepen my joy We drink banana licuados for dinner then walk to the water with Blanca The park is packed so is the moldy corner some complain about the weather nothing can defeat my pleasure Later we lie in bed uncovered the mosquitoes never come we fall asleep like the first night of summer swollen with heat The dream ends around 4 AM cool air swirls ‘round our nakedness we listen to the fog horn dirge and slowly pull up the covers

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January Limbo Dramatic sky at my feet fierce beauty between storms one hour of a new thing climb the highest street to Russian Hill you grew up a few blocks away Asphalt melts in my winter dreams a blind man sings in the zócalo I find you in the karma of my top drawer Weathered men pick their feet seagulls play by the fountain toothless women smile in the sun no one complains Angry drivers stuck in a tunnel an empty commuter train rolls into town Chinatown bus stop by the swirling gutters old woman bursts out laughing old man leaves the shelter stands in pouring rain

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Bob Dylan Wins the Nobel Prize After words awaken in prayer turquoise transistor radio upon my pillow plays your songs poetry on the air I buy your albums Blonde on Blonde was stolen later on You knew how to hold your girlfriend in your arms down cold New York City village street romantic boyfriend when you became poet of my age You went electric that summer in Newport square folkies called you traitor all my bells were ringing life became more dangerous more romantic you would have had to have been there How does it feel the impotent danger of being misunderstood self-love in the wild canyons of youth the meaning of authentic to understand our nausea Freedom was your lament treatment of time old teachings new dreams higher and higher you took us away in your words bard of song

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how many Europeans learned English with you and Leonard Cohen you smashed the gates of white popular culture torpor first poet of my age when I was blooming endless days and nights I listen to you all over the world first poet before Rimbaud how it felt back then to have had you as my sensai, muse beacon of being alive in a dirty world categorical world you transcended you nourished our nausea Who among us could condemn your path your karma journey of odious fame that Albert Grossman put on the tracks how many bottles of wine how many joints in musical time with your verse everyone’s a poet plays guitar they write their own lyrics like you All that dirty endorsement money can never besmirch the joyful ride Bobby played Joker Man over and over on horrible highway 99 truck after truck passed us by on the way to Fresno higher and higher we sailed it’s a miracle we’re alive

!21

I never loved you with swollen heart as I do Fidel but you’re always the first and ofttimes the only one I listen to You wrote love poems before Robert Creeley ever mattered sometimes I have to turn you off Planet Waves, the Bootleg Tapes I don’t need your prose or any other projects from the arsenal of your fat talent you exposed the lies you spoke of oppressive forces you sang to the chimes of freedom Jimi Hendrix made you better took you higher your meditation on time, romantic love and loss I’ll always see you there as you said Standing on the water casting your bread

!22

Ode to a Barking Dog - for Jeffrey

Barking dog of the courtyard loathed by neighbors who don’t know each other you bring us together your resistance your protest your true nature man’s best friend hates to be alone you shatter isolation of courtyard strangers you are the common enemy O barking dog of the courtyard you bring us together against our desire to stay strangers I’ve seen people emulate you like a barking dog who hates to be alone

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All Souls Day Out the window full of sky heraldic band of light shows how deep the layers are correspondence with myself a vegan will proselytize all the dead friends once at the moldy corner twice at the crosswalk of nowhere a false epiphany pre-Christian Jewish persecution the terminal disease of life feel better next time it happens left out in the cold to understand something new the big fat lies affirmation of the error freedom to be poor on the installment plan the start of something new then it won’t matter waiting to begin strictly human silent violence a new grandiosity a destiny of fresh words human induced natural disasters who art thou now same as always take one of Moon’s suicide pills for a transatlantic flight flexible contingencies

!24

luxurious relationship with a wall toothpicks and paper clips the warm chairs of Paris bang head against soft wall of new dreams prayers to bury white noise old wisdom trembles inside misunderstood tears of pleasure looking for something new that doesn’t exist let the foghorn blow a tug boat calls out in lavender sky over cemetery the rich loam of death beauty without ego without shame vanishing species my lament I never knew you before you left O celebration of end to forever remember your time among us

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About the Author

Photo by Roger Strobel

Rosemary Manno is originally from Buffalo, New York.

She’s lived in New York, Algiers, Geneva and Paris. These days she resides in San Francisco where she reads her poetry and sometimes works as a substitute teacher at the neighborhood high school, Galileo.

Also a visual artist she lives with artist musician Roger Strobel and their dog Blanca.

Some of her chapbooks are Purple Jesus, rue Cels and Fire Angel, among others. She also translated Haitian poet Paul Laraque’s French poems, Camourade.

Her recent work includes a collection to Fidel, Poema para Fidel and a new manuscript entitled El Sol.

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Poems Index After a Chemistry Class 22.

Against Valentine’s Day 34.

Alive 91.

All One 37.

All Souls Day 114.

Almost Alone 71.

Angry Haiku 117.

Anxious Vision 78.

Beyond Other 93.

Beyond the Sea 75.

Birth of a Novel at San Blas 32.

Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize 110.

Box Store Recreation 40.

Burn 19.

Chinatown 62.

Delanesia 98.

During a Painting 50.

Elegy 13.

Far from You 18.

Fire Angel 66.

For Blanca at Christmas 80.

For Csaba 27.

For Mark 56.

For Mel 36 .

For Moon and the Gold Chain 68.

For Randy 104.

For Roy Mario Montini 10.

Genesis 109.

Goa 38.

Guard Dogs 87.

Heat Wave 45.

Here Lie the Bones 102.

I Am the Fly 11.

January Limbo 77.

La Magdalena 70.

Last Weekend of Summer Vacation 21.

Letter to my Israeli Comrades 24.

Life 16.

Lost Dog 90.

Lucifer and the Unvanquished Angel 82.

Mal 23.

Marseille 33.

Memory Lane 54.

Mild Depression 73.

Nostalgia 99.

No One But You 64.

O Sky 116.

Ode to Medias Aguas 88.

Ode to Michelangelo Park 86.

Ode to Old Shoes 42.

Ode to Pain 103.

Ode to a Barking Dog 15.

Ode to a Tomato 8.

Ode to My Bed 84.

Ode to the Waves 65.

Odyssey 96.

Old Friend 106.

One Last Year 48.

One Night 46.

One Summer 100.

One Sunday 72.

One Week 113.

One is Gone 69.

Pietรก 58.

Prayer to the Empty Paper 28.

Process of a Luddite 95.

Pyrean Springs 107.

Roads to Freedom 67.

Seascape 47.

Semana Santa 60.

Shame 81.

Spring Again 20.

Summer Again 105.

Sunday Morning 74.

Sunset 53.

The Fires of Lahore 41.

The Lily 101.

The Outsider 85.

The Poet 30.

The Sun Porch 92.

Theology 26.

To an AIPAC Fundraiser 14.

To the Finland Station 51.

Tomorrow 119.

Trenton Alley 61.

Triptych 118.

Turquoise 29.

Two Women 79.

Vigil 76.

WWII Calabria 52.

Washington Square 63.

What If 35.

What the Beatniks Saw in North Beach 94.

Winter 12.

Zihautanejo 108.

This is a free sample with poems from Marseille - New and Selected Poems, by Rosemary Manno (Barncott Press 2019).

More details: www.barncottpress.com