July 2016
Robbi Nester
rknester@gmail.com
rknester@gmail.com
To all appearances, I inherited my poetic ability from my maternal great-uncle, the WWI British poet, Isaac Rosenberg. Rosenberg was a painter as well as a poet. While I didn't inherit his chops in visual art, I have always been drawn to ekphrastic poetry, writing about works of art, generally visual, but sometimes including other media as well. Following this inclination, I have completed a manuscript of ekphrastic collaborations with mostly visual artists, Together, which is now seeking a home. It contains about 76 pages, about 35 of which consist of mostly color plates. If you have any ideas about publishers who might be interested and who have the graphic know-how such a project entails, please let me know.
"The Chronicle" by Ruth Bavetta
Backstory
After the painting, "The Chronicle," by Ruth Bavetta
We gather, staring at the far-off point beside the fire plug,
where an ambulance, fire truck, and police car
block the street. Most people merely chat,
although one man stands apart,
lifting his glasses for a better look.
A woman with a camera waits around
to snap an image she can sell
to local newspapers.
Not first page business-- only enough excitement
for a summer Saturday.
Turns out two boys decided to go spelunking
in the sewer, and got stuck
under a manhole cover, shouting
and crying for their mothers.
The boys’ parents, never vigilant,
stand rumpled in the summer heat
as an officer writes up citations for child neglect.
The firefighters lower ladders down
then disappear beneath the street, bearing
emergency supplies. And soon,
the boys appear, climbing up
and up into the sunlight,
like heroes in a myth,
covered in muck. We shout
and wave as the paramedics load them
into the ambulance.
We know those boys will catch it
when they finally come home,
but maybe their adventure,
however brief, was worth it.
This is a story one could milk for years,
describing for the multitude who’d never see it
what’s beneath the street, dark passages
and ladders leading nowhere, rats as big as terriers.
And to think that this had been here all along!
It makes us wonder what we might be missing,
but not enough to go down there ourselves.
July
A summer night, just like the ones
I remember, when the ice cream truck
circled the block like a recurrent dream,
and distant thunder rumbled
and sometimes the rain
poured down, then stopped
all at once, rising in nebulae clouds
and quarters stuck to my palm
in hot red circles.
No wonder I couldn’t sleep
with the moths blundering
into the screen and desperate
signals of lovelorn fireflies
outside my window
and the laughter of neighbors
the red ends of their cigarettes
burning holes in the sky like sparklers
the murmur of the ballgame
rising from a hundred transistor radios
on and on into the night.
After the painting, "The Chronicle," by Ruth Bavetta
We gather, staring at the far-off point beside the fire plug,
where an ambulance, fire truck, and police car
block the street. Most people merely chat,
although one man stands apart,
lifting his glasses for a better look.
A woman with a camera waits around
to snap an image she can sell
to local newspapers.
Not first page business-- only enough excitement
for a summer Saturday.
Turns out two boys decided to go spelunking
in the sewer, and got stuck
under a manhole cover, shouting
and crying for their mothers.
The boys’ parents, never vigilant,
stand rumpled in the summer heat
as an officer writes up citations for child neglect.
The firefighters lower ladders down
then disappear beneath the street, bearing
emergency supplies. And soon,
the boys appear, climbing up
and up into the sunlight,
like heroes in a myth,
covered in muck. We shout
and wave as the paramedics load them
into the ambulance.
We know those boys will catch it
when they finally come home,
but maybe their adventure,
however brief, was worth it.
This is a story one could milk for years,
describing for the multitude who’d never see it
what’s beneath the street, dark passages
and ladders leading nowhere, rats as big as terriers.
And to think that this had been here all along!
It makes us wonder what we might be missing,
but not enough to go down there ourselves.
July
A summer night, just like the ones
I remember, when the ice cream truck
circled the block like a recurrent dream,
and distant thunder rumbled
and sometimes the rain
poured down, then stopped
all at once, rising in nebulae clouds
and quarters stuck to my palm
in hot red circles.
No wonder I couldn’t sleep
with the moths blundering
into the screen and desperate
signals of lovelorn fireflies
outside my window
and the laughter of neighbors
the red ends of their cigarettes
burning holes in the sky like sparklers
the murmur of the ballgame
rising from a hundred transistor radios
on and on into the night.
©2016 Robbi Nester