Poets on Site at the Colonnade Gallery in Pasadena

Tim Callahan reads, Mira Mataric, Maja Trochimczyk and Hans Zima listen, Colonnade Gallery, Pasadena, March 2, 2013.

On March 2, 2013, Poets on Site and artists gathered at the Colonnade Art Gallery in Pasadena (2421 E. Colorado Blvd.Pasadena, CA 91107), for the Opening Reception and Poetry Reading for this month's exhibition, featuring, among others, artists Kathabela Wilson, Debby Prohias, Galen Young, Robert Stewart, Ron Pettie (gallery owner), and Hans Zima.

Poets on Site included, in person, Tim Callahan, Taura Scott, Bryan Story, Mira Mataric, Pat McClelland, Debbie Kolodji, Robert Stewart and Kathabela Wilson, as well as off-site poets who sent their work from around the world: Billy Howell-Sinnard, Joan Stern, Sheila Windsor, Veronika Zora Novak, John Daleiden, Pauline Dutton, Vivian Lee, Gary Blankenship, Chris Dominiczak, Josie Hibbing, Willie Bongky, Erika Wilk, Brian Zimmer, Michele Harvey, Dalton Perry, Richard Dutton, Tomislav Maretic, Gerry Jacobson, Pat Geyer, and Jonathan Vos Post. The readings were accompanied by Rick Wilson on Native-American flutes from his astounding flute collection.

I selected three pieces to write about: a photo collage of Yosemite Falls and Cactus Flower by Debby Prohias, a Camellia by Galen Young, and a Death Valley photo by Hans Zima. Debby was so delighted with having a poem written about her piece, that she gave me a camellia! It decorated my lapel in some pictures taken right next to her artwork.

Debby Prohias listens to "Flower Falls" by Maja Trochimczyk

Flower Falls

by Maja Trochimczyk

If stars grew on rocks

And hills flowed with
Liquid light and honey

Would we still doubt
The life force asleep
Inside black basalt stone

Dancing in crisp verdant air
With a sycamore leaf, falling
To awaken in the roots

Of the roots beneath
The earth's surface, filling 
Our veins with sunlight

Yosemite Falls and Cactus Flower by Debby Prohias

She then commented about my poem, Flower Falls, being “such a beautiful way of expressing the feeling of being present in Yosemite and the discovery of a flower that came to open in our backyard.” The flower was that of an elusive night-blooming cereus, a nocturnal miracle, rarely seen, and made even more magical by Debby’s photo collage. The camellia blossom proved to be quite useful in the second poem I read, since the Camellia by Galen Young was not on display. While the camelia I got was pink, my poem may be illustrated with a picture of a white camellia, that I took at Descanso Gardens this spring.

White Camellia by Maja Trochimczyk

Asleep

by Maja Trochimczyk

in the corona

of white petals

gold treasure

waits for its fruit

dark green leaves

color the air, drop

onto the sidewalk

tired of sunlight

the smoothness

of petals shelters

a dream always

blooming within

I followed my reading of this slow, misty and sensuous poem with one filled with joyful exuberance. The contrast between Rick Dutton's work and mine, and the shifting mood of the readings perfectly illustrated the essence of Poets on Site work: creative encounters of different poets with the same artwork and the richness of inspiration that the arts may provide.

Nonetheless, I was not happy with the way my other poem for Hans Zima’s photograph did not quite fit the image I saw live. I had written it to a photograph posted online: the desert looked empty and sad, with muted colors waiting for rain and life to awaken. But the rocks of the original photo in the gallery were an explosion of energy and color, under an intense turquoise-sapphire sky. This is why it is so important to go to exhibitions and see the artwork “live” – in its original form. What’s online “blah” in real life is “aha!” (The same rule is applicable to live concerts, especially with acoustic instruments).

Dissatisfied, I wrote another poem for Mr. Zima right then and there, to another photo from Death Valley. It showed a broad panorama of red sands leading into distant, dark blue mountains, shrouded with mist. The intense hues of this unusual landscape resonated with a feeling of timelessness that, coupled with the Death Valley name, resulted in a spiritual inspiration. Hans was very happy with the poem and commented: “I was amazed how you could create such a beautiful work of art in just a few minutes.” I answered that it “wrote itself” and I just transcribed it. It is a good poem for the awakening of the spring and the Easter season.

Death Valley Sunset by Hans Zima

Death Valley Sunset

~ inspired by a landscape photo by Hans Zima

now it ends

we've come to the edge

the last bush, the last drop of water

it's over....

the red sands wait, immobile

sinking into crimson

darkness

whale bones of white rocks

poke through 

it's over...

it's time for the dark to claim us

exhausted

on the arid, salty plain

we'll walk and walk

for forty days, to the other edge

of Death Valley

we will cross shadows, enter 

misty mountains, sparkling streams

and sunrise

hidden, alluring, they call to us:

"come, come along,

do not fear"

we will reach beyond  

rest in the lapis-lazuli expanse

of new-born sky

© 2013 by Maja Trochimczyk

Debbie Kolodji, Rick Wilson, Kathabela Wilson and Maja Trochimczyk at
the Opening Night at the Colonnade Gallery in Pasadena.

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The Colonnade Gallery Opening Night was one in a series of recent Poets on Site poetry events that included also a wonderful reading for Susan Dobay's Impressions of China at the Altadena Public Library on February 9, 2013 (where I read poems written to Dobay's images of a bride and three old women).

Another poem  of mine written to that series of Chinese travel impressions was published in the Quill and Parchment poetry journal (March issue). It welcomed spring in a light-hearted mood, with "A Skipping Lesson." The poem is accompanied by the image by Susan Dobay that inspired  my work and by four tanka by Poets on Site: Kathabela Wilson, Erika Wilk, Pauline Dutton and Huang Yiwei. 

Sharon Hawley, Joan Stern, Susan Dobay, Rick Dutton, Rick Wilson, Taura Scott,  Bryan Story, Kathabela Wilson, Just Kibbe, Pauli Dutton, Erika Wilk and Maja Trochimczyk at the opening of Impressions of China by Susan Dobay, Altadena Public Gallery, February 2013.

Finally, Poets on Site and friends met at a Poets' Cafe Listening Party at Kathabela and Rick's Salon in Pasadena on February 21, 2013. The reading there featured Kathabela Wilson, Susan Rogers, Neil McCarthy, myself and Mira Mataric - five poets featured by Lois P. Jones at Poets Cafe. Our interviews are now found on Tim Green's website.

Maja Trochimczyk with Kathabela Wilson, reading "The Music Box" at the Poets Cafe Listening Party, February 2013.

I read my "Music Box" (with a music box) that was specifically requested by the host of the Radio Program whom we could hear, during the KPFK fundraising drive, while collecting funds to help poetry on air "live long and prosper."

Mira Mataric, Kathabela Wilson, Susan Rogers and Maja Trochimczyk,
Poets Cafe Listening Party at the Wilson's Salon.

And if that was not enough, my article on Polish Folk Dance movement in America and its paradoxical inspiration by a Stalinist genre has appeared in the Cosmopolitan Review, a journal dedicated to Polish culture in English. This article resulted from a book I published in 2007 on Polish Dance in Southern California; another, fully annotated version of the article appeared in the Polish American Studies (available on JStor.
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The camellia photo (c) 2013 by Maja Trochimczyk, other photos courtesy of Kathabela Wilson.

From the Canyons to the Stars - No, not about Messiaen

If you never go to any classical music concerts but love art and painting, find some time to listen to Oliver Messiaen's monumental suite From the Canyons to the Stars (Des canyons aux etoiles...). This is cosmic mysticism set in sound, maybe the most powerful and inspiring work of music composed in the second half of the 20th century. Not "easy listening" music... one should say "awesome" - if that word did not shift its sphere of significance to somewhere quite distant from "awe." But you have to find a concert hall where they play this surreal assemblage of wind machines, birdsong, horns and instrumental chorales. This song of praise arises from the orange slopes canyons in the American west (the Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon were two inspirations) to the starry skies and beyond.

Here's a visual interpretation of the first movement, Le desert, posted on You Tube by JeeRant two years ago. I found only the recording of the third movement, What is written in the stars (Ce qui est écrit sur les étoiles ), possibly uploaded without copyright clearance. Listen at your own peril! There are many versions of the sixth movement for the solo horn called Appel interstellaire (Interstellar call) posted by ambitious horn players the world over. You can listen to it on your tiny loudspeakers, but to have a full experience of the otherworldly music, you need to go to a real concert with live musicians, such as the one by Ensemble Intercontemporain in Athens, Greece.

My canyons and stars are found in poetry, not sounds. I document things that catch my attention in short occasional poems that have no pretense to "Great Art" - these poems are pages from a personal, intimate journal. They capture impressions and reflections from my peregrinations through a southern California landscape, a place of beauty unparalleled in this world or any other.



Only in California

The desert is rich with the noise
of our ghost river, suddenly filled
with mocha cappuccino, a swirl
of white frothy foam on the surface.

Chuparosa and sunrose blossom.
The moving white spot of a rabbit’s tail
disappears between sticky snapdragons
goldenrod and pearly everlasting.

The last red leaves tremble on the tips
of tree branches. The liquid amber
is bare; the gingko, no longer golden,
a skeleton waiting for summer.

One by one, scarlet star-shapes fall
onto the bright green carpet of new grass.
The shoots of narcissus and hyacinth
peek through the weight of dead foliage.

Puffy pink clouds surround the disc
of the moon, shining on the smooth
turquoise. Seasons melt in a day.
The sun smiles at the audacity

of this preposterous, beyond belief,
one and only, California spring.


My dear friend artist and poet and a person extraordinaire, Kathabela Wilson, has lots of great ideas, one of them asking poets to write about gardens and parks. The following two short poems were inspired, respectively, by the Pasadena garden of Jean Sudbury and Vance Fox, and by the Arlington Garden in South Pasadena, planted in the vacant lots that await the construction of the extended 710 freeway. I saw both gardens in the middle of the summer last year, and what a summer it was!



Time Lapse Garden

Arms of the agave
Stretch out to the sky
Waving in slow motion
Trying to stop the train of time
From moving on and on and on
Past fluffy two-color roses
The madness of cactus spikes
And the hammock swinging
Seductively in the shade
When Jean goes by




The Golden Hour

The mockingbird leads a chorus
of orioles, black phoebes, bluebirds,
finches, juncos, and ruby crowned kinglets.
The buzzing you hear is not dangerous,
these are Anna’s hummingbird’s wings.
Birds crowd around the fountain,
water droplets scatter on sandy path.
The afternoon sighs with relief.
All is well and all shall be well
in our garden at four o’clock.

From the desert, to the gardens, to the skies... An image quite different from these photos of leaves captured my attention when I was working on the materials for the most recent meeting of the Polish-American society that I lead, the Helena Modjeska Art and Culture Club. The meeting took place at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the Polish-American engineers showed us the sublime beauty of cosmos and the allure of space exploration. Entitled "Cosmos - The Real Poetry," the evening was as educational as it was entertaining. I got some photos for the program and the blog with its description; the beauty of cosmos, indeed.



Cosmos

green rings around a red heart
sing in the darkness, sing
and blossom

light waves dance across
millions of years swirling
within black matter

the stars are born
the stars are dying
dying

green clouds around red suns
bloom in the vastness, bloom
filling the void

clusters of galaxies
expand, crush and collide
the ages turn

before me — beyond me — through me

a spark of cosmic fire
I float upward to the unknown
glow of the timeless “yes”

the stars are born
the stars are born
brightness

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I find one constellation especially fascinating. Orion, the Hunter. It is not as clearly visible in Poland as here, in California. It dominates the winter's sky above my home and inspired the following love poem of starry skies.



Orion

I saw you
in his contours, when I looked up,
coming home from a late Christmas party –

My Orion, my bright
hunter crossing the night skies
with a bow strung for action.

Smooth skin shines over broad shoulders,
the three-diamond belt
adorns the narrow waist.
You are a constellation of beauty.

But a seraph? A fallen one?
They say he is “Shemhazai” – the angel
who fathered giants,
lured by the silky faithlessness
of golden hair,
the tresses of seduction.

He crucified himself,
hanging upside down in the winter sky,
remorseful, still guilty of desire.

It fills you to your fingertips
when your hands join together
at the small of my back
and you pull me closer.
I taste the salty drops
of your sweat on my lips.

Swathed in the midnight blaze
I’m waiting for the double helix
of our embrace to twirl
higher and higher,
into a brilliant, fluted column
of light

rising to pierce the indigo cupola
where the stars of Orion now sleep
immutable and content
in their silence.


© 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk

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Photo of Thor's Hammer formation in Bryce Canyon National Park, Southwestern Utah, USA. Photo by Luca Galuzzi (2007), uploaded from Wikimedia Commons.

Photos of California (C) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk. Poems "The Golden Hour" and "Time-lapse Garden" were published in chapbooks by Poets on Site, edited by Kathabela Wilson.

Photo of nebulae and stars by NASA/JPL, courtesy of Andrew Z. Dowen.

Photo of Orion over Utah's Arches National Park by Daniel Schwen (2004) from Wikimedia Commons.

New Year, New Moon, New Light

Let us talk about the moon, then... In the month of February, the Village Poets of Sunland-Tujunga will present a wonderful, witty and erudite poet, Mari Werner (February 27, 2011, at 4:30 p.m., Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Avenue, Tujunga, CA 91042). For her "portrait" on the series's blog, she sent in the following poem, which is so delightful, I decided to reproduce it here as well:

Crescent Moon

by Mari Werner

A crescent moon floats above the horizon.
“You can totally see the rest of it,”
she says, as though the moon is cheating.

And the moon is cheating.
A crescent moon should be
what a crescent moon looks like
in a bedtime story illustration,
a crescent clear and simple,
no dark sphere to detract
from its perfection.

Under the smile of the crescent moon,
she sleeps in fluffy comforters,
winked upon by stars
cuddled by a curled up cat,
guarded by a sleeping dog.

That’s the bedtime story version,
but here on the surface of the planet...
you can totally see the rest of it.

In Polish children's literature, the moon is often presented as a "crescent roll" - "rogalik" - brown, well baked and tasty, neither an alien, eerie source of lunar light, casting a pall on all living things (a la "Pierrot lunaire"), nor a wasteland of rocks and dust that the astronauts have walked on. Not really a place for lunatics, either... A tamed, story-book, crescent.

On New Year's Eve 2010, over a year ago, I saw the moon differently: full, enormous, with a fuzzy halo taking over half the sky. At midnight, it crowned the horizon with its lucid glory. I saw its bluish reflections in water droplets on my rose.
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MIDNIGHT ROSE

"...quanta è la larghezza di questa rosa ne l’estreme foglie!" ~ Dante, Paradiso, Canto XXX

A pale light appeared behind the black ridge of the mountains. The moon floated up like a white balloon losing air, whitening the night around it. The bright halo cooled the glare of electric snowflakes on a Christmas fence, sheltering the reindeer of prickly light points and wire. The moon rose higher, the halo around it grew into a solid crown. It took over half the sky, sparkled in water droplets on the rose. Straight above our heads at midnight, it was a brilliant omen for the New Year.

the moon’s new halo
dims electric glare into calm -
illumination
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As the night wore on, the intense whiteness of the moon at midnight reflected the brightness of my rose-shaped diamond brooch that could have been a heirloom, but was not. I make up my own history here, in the land of endless possibilities, so I have amassed a whole bunch of such "could have been" heirlooms. For instance, I bought my Canadian Grandma on E-bay - a portrait of her, at least. It is a gold-framed late 19th-century daguerrotype of a stern dark-haired lady with hands folded in her lap. Elegant, strong, and confident, with a lovely cameo brooch at her neck, small lace collar, and a wide skirt of a shiny brown tafetta dress - she looks like she could have been my ancestor. I'll adopt her, I thought, and clicked "buy now."

I did not buy the brooch, though, it came from my daughter's prom dress, worn once and discarded after one glorious night. I find its shiny petals a notable addition to my festive wardrobe. Like a magpie, I admire all things shiny; since I lost that platinum bracelet of real diamonds worth a couple thousand of dollars, a gift from my parents, I prefer to dazzle without the expense. I do not think any jewelrer would have loaned me those priceless gems for the Oscars. Here it is, a diamond rose sparkling in my haibun for the full moon.
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MIDNIGHT FIRE

"In the golden holiness of a night that will never be seen again and will never return…" ~ from a Gypsy tale

After greeting the New Year with a Chopin polonaise danced around the hall, I drove down the street of your childhood. It was drenched with the glare of the full moon in a magnificent sparkling halo. The old house was not empty and dark. On the front lawn, boys were jumping around a huge bonfire. They screamed with joy, as the flames shot up to the sky. The gold reached out to the icy blue light, when they called me to join their wild party. Sparks scattered among the stars. You were there, hidden in shadows. I sensed your sudden delight.

my rose diamond brooch
sparkles on the black velvet -
stars at midnight
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My Sky - A Poem of Found Images

I like seeing light in the world, permeating little things, enchanting. I notice its presence with a child's wonder, seeing the world for the first time, as if it did not exist before I looked. Raindrops on leaves are an endless fascination. There is nothing as happy as the grass, covered with dewdrop diamonds in the morning after a short summer rain.

In one old children's poem, shape-shifting clouds take the forms of endlessly changing desserts, stacks of cakes, ice-cream, whipped cream... Unlike the hungry, boy dreaming of sweets, Dyzio Marzyciel (The Dreamer), I don't see food above my head, only magic. The transformation of our world from the profane, ugly and boring to the sacred, saturated with quiet charm may happen anytime, anywhere.

In an instant, I see footsteps of the Greek goddess, Demeter, in another, I am moved to inhabit a painting... It takes just a bit of effort, after eyes are washed of the unwanted images of distress, chaos, pain. I still remember that stain of blood on the sidewalk in Venice, left after a suicide. I still see faces distorted by hate. I want to erase these memories with raindrops on rose leaves.

Some of my roses have impenetrable surfaces, keeping the raindrops round, jewel-like. Other ones absorb moisture in an instant, the drops spread out into amorphous blobs and disappear.

My life, my words, may be one or the other, visible or invisible, remembered or forgotten. I do not know what will happen when I'm gone. Now, this is my time to write, to record the beauty I discover. I am a witness to what I want to see. I could write about the rotten cans and layers of graffiti marring the landscape of the riverbed, and that rusty jeep that was sitting on the shore for years, gradually losing parts to the homeless, selling it off, bit by bit for scrap metal. OK, maybe I'll write about that jeep and the homeless. I already started, but that poem is still unfinished. Too dark, maybe? Too hopeless?

Today, it is time for something sweet. Isn't Halloween the day for treats?

MY SKY

A Poem of Found Images by Maja Trochimczyk


I live inside a painting
by Rene Magritte.


My river is made of silver,


my sunsets of tiger stripes.


I make my own rainbows.


My roses sing in the morning


to a sweet tune of water droplets


playing on the edges of leaves.


Spherical, crystal-clear globulets


of white light adorn each green surface,


like a handful of diamonds scattered


by Demeter, the goddess of plenty.


Water shines in full sunlight -


a child's memory, innocent and pure -


glistening before the breeze stirs,


droplets fall and petals begin their journey


crumbling into dust.