Tad Wojnicki,
US / TW
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Haibun
I Break
for Blintzes
Driving by the Squid Row
Cafe, I remember they make great blintzes. Every time I
stop by, I not only get my fill of blintzes, but of Mama.
Every bite is a bite of Mama. Entering the back door, I
bump into a man hauling in fresh catch. The smell makes me
choke. Sunshine works the shift.
lunch counter
she returns
hungry stare
she hugs me
from behind
fresh catch
According to John
Steinbeck, Doc Ricketts was "half goat and half Christ,"
and Dora Flood’s girls were half she-goats and half
Virgins of Guadalupe. Girls always loved to be bad. Even
more today. Girls best boys being bad.
empty plate
am I going to fill
on smell alone?
Front pages show the Lovers
Point strewn with weeds. "Kelp Us Identify the Seaweed," a
caption reads. I gulp down the blintz, drain the last drop
of my coffee, and schlep down to the Lovers Point.
summer spray
breasts swing with
the tide
waves smash
spray salts
chipped lips
Crashing for
the Night in Car by the Hawk Tower
Right after the
book-signing at Borders, I drive to Carmel. No street lights, no
traffic lights, just a few storefronts. After dark, Carmel is
dark. I love it. I wheel back streets down to the “Hawk Tower.”
The tower is a rock structure built by Robinson Jeffers. He
split the rocks, wheel barrowing them from the wild beach. It’s
raining. The rain is crashing, branches thudding, and surf
gunning big, but I doze in the noise till moonrise. A huge,
freshly-washed face wedged itself into a tree crotch, turning
everything white. I'm trying to fall back to sleep, but I give
up.
I get out, bundle up against the chill. I face the Hawk Tower,
sucking in the black noise of the white surf, and weighing in
the rocks the poet put forth. The tower looks small, yet
monumental. Jeffers isn't here, but his ghost splits darkness
apart.
high up before
the sunrise, a sunlit
seagull
Typhoon Weather
weather scare
the walls crack
in every phone
thinking it over
dust spins the wind
into a devil
a knock on the window
flower pots
in the wind
warning the flowerpot
against jumping downstairs
—the
school bell
the earth
pulls down the sky
by the rain
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