One man found a large lump of melted gold and the haste with which he shoved it under his coat and made off was astonishing. He was chased several blocks by the police, but was not captured.
Sebastian Ness was kicking through the
Still cooling ash at First and Main
When something solid led him to the
Enticing thought that not in vain
A gloved hand might venture, bending,
To touch some mystery, depending
On fortune’s smile to turn his fate
From lead to gold, to love from hate.
The lump he lifted flamed like foil
Beneath the blue, bird-speckled skies,
And Ness took flight with silent cries
That oozed out from his soul like oil.
His feet were fleet and did not pause
To ponder morals, rights, or laws.
Sebastian Ness
November 25, 2012 by at 3:07 pm
Furth Steps Forth
November 21, 2012 by at 12:17 pm
… when firemen pried up planks from the sidewalk near the north end of the block, intense heat drove them back. The basements of buildings were roaring furnaces …
Jacob Furth, dressed in tails and top hat,
was hastening across Western Avenue
when he saw smoke rising around a slat
near the curb. He hailed a fire crew
busy hauling hoses toward the dock
at Pier Two, then knelt on the boardwalk
to get a closer look. Felt the plank
for heat. As the firemen began to yank
loose the boards, Furth stepped back
to survey the entire block. Up the street
there was a shout, then a blast of heat
as the firemen fell back, their faces black
with smoke. Furth stepped forth … nervous …
the basement itself was a roaring furnace.
The Institute of Living
November 18, 2012 by at 1:31 am
From the New York Times comes this story about Marsha M. Linehan, a psychologist at the University of Washington here in Seattle. It reads like a real-life inversion of Chekov’s terrifying story, Ward No. 6. It also has implications that readers of a certain novel published by Korrektiv Press might find interesting.
It was 1967, several years after she left the institute as a desperate 20-year-old whom doctors gave little chance of surviving outside the hospital. Survive she did, barely: there was at least one suicide attempt in Tulsa, when she first arrived home; and another episode after she moved to a Y.M.C.A. in Chicago to start over.
She was hospitalized again and emerged confused, lonely and more committed than ever to her Catholic faith. She moved into another Y, found a job as a clerk in an insurance company, started taking night classes at Loyola University — and prayed, often, at a chapel in the Cenacle Retreat Center.
Moved into the Y, found her faith: no Will Barrett she. Read the whole thing.
Bird’s Nest in Your Hair
November 12, 2012 by at 8:58 pm
Finally! The third book from Korrektiv Press is now available. I hit the “publish” button a few days ago, and was told the page would be up later this week. My brother called to tell me he’d manage to find it at Amazon today. You can all also get it at CreateSpace (the printing division of Korrektiv Press).
Here’s the description: Diana tends bar at Queequeg’s Tavern, where she meets Pete, a recent retiree always ready with a joke, and Jeb, a homeless student driven by a poet’s Romantic aspirations. Tangled up in a history of the family blues, she sometimes takes refuge in a church she can’t decide to join for good. Tom, the manager of a video store near the tavern, is settling into a new marriage with Helen, an adult film producer wealthy enough to save Tom’s store from impending doom. But when a figure from his past walks through the door, who will save his marriage? Who will help whom as this nest of birds unravels?
Bird’s Nest in Your Hair: a novel about bartending, old-time religion, and the twilight years of commercial pornography. Plus, poetry!
Before the Altar
Two dozen beers on tap and even more in bottles,
and not just beer, but wine and especially booze,
built up on shelves in something like a ziggurat
for a cult dedicated to the certainty of conviction
granted only to drunks in the blindness of an alcoholic
haze. Rituals have their priests; I see you as a high
priestess of drinking, surrounded by the paraphernalia
of your order: corkscrew, strainer and cocktail shaker,
a dozen kinds of glassware handled with a dexterity
demanding devotion, a cloud rising from cigarettes
burned as incense by attendants at your altar.
How well you handle every office—confessions
whispered without sorrow or regret, the jukebox choir,
and a communion of breadsticks and Beaujolais.
The Denny Party Clears a Hill
September 28, 2012 by at 11:10 am
Seattle was founded by members of the Denny party, most of whom arrived at Alki Beach on November 13, 1851 and then, in April 1852, relocated to the eastern shore of Elliott Bay. With the filing of the first plats on May 23,1853, the “Town of Seattle” became official. – “Seattle: A Brief History of Its Founding”
That settled it. Our hunger beckoned
We cross the bay once winter ate
Our stores; here, clearing trees, we reckoned
To tip the balance back to what
We had in Illinois, what took us
To Alki Point, and there forsook us.
So timber shivers, cedar shakes
And lumber quivers, falls and stakes
Our claim to land. We mean to bear it
When snow and rising winds combine
To needle sighs from match-stick pine.
For future’s fire (Can man endure it?)
Ignites the morning, tree by tree,
And lights our dawning industry…
The Last Coffee
September 21, 2012 by at 12:26 pm
It was our final midday coffee
Before the world had singed our ears –
Then, cupboard doors flew off, and whisky
And tumbler served to douse my fears
With flame – soon shooting horizontal
Across the sky while sacramental
Destruction drapes an ashen pall.
You looked at me – and saw it all
But kept your wits and rose to gather
The full importance: “Smoke, not steam
Is now your business, Rob. The dream
Of Pontius Pilate’s wife would rather
That Rome not face that man, the Jew.
And what’ll Seattle do to you?”
Melissa’s Dream
September 7, 2012 by at 2:56 pm
A naked Mr. Back was courting
My hand behind your back. He slipped
His hand beneath my skirt, and hurting
He pulled it quickly back. He gripped
And held it out – all burnt and throbbing,
A hive of bees. He kept on sobbing,
“My hand! My hand!” The honey dripped
Like molten blood from icy crypt,
Igniting parquet floor and ceiling.
Our bedroom chamber burned to hell –
I called, you came, and silence fell
(With Mr. Back on prie-dieu kneeling).
You pulled at hose along my thigh –
But could you reach a fire that high?
Moran Composes His Will
August 10, 2012 by at 9:59 am
I flipped a switch and ghosts were banished
By cold electric light. The bed
And room were bare. Melissa vanished
And silence hummed with words unsaid.
Rosario and I said farewell
(I left her by the servant’s stairwell)
And Argus-eyed, her windows blazed
With conquered fire – I’m still amazed
That tame destruction had established
A city: Sown as dragon’s teeth
A million volts had sprung a myth
And shone, a jewel that’s never polished –
Secure the flame and time forgets
The gross reward that nets regrets.
The Prophet Speaks
August 8, 2012 by at 9:41 am
And genuflecting to the shoreline,
Unsheathing meaning in Lushootseed,
He chiefly paints on water: more than
An ancient oak, his lush shoots seed
The acorn’s fire; his tongue is bladed,
An oar that cuts the sound, though faded:
I give these words to future chiefs,
Who know the dead will speak beliefs
Beyond these flames: once more with water
And mud, with feathered fin again,
With web and spider’s tale, let pen
Produce the vessels, let the potter
Rebuild Seattle’s house of words;
Let beards entangle clever birds.
The Prophet Rises
August 8, 2012 by at 9:27 am
June 7, 1889
The smoking signal of disaster
Is blanketing the sky and makes
Its message known: the cracked pilaster
And crumbled tombs on Blake’s
Discovered island rumble thunder –
The earth, a curtain, slips from under
The waking ghost of Chief Sealth
Upon the dawn, his day of death,
The seventh day of June, some twenty
And three Duwamish seasons dead,
Has raised a hand above a head
Still crowned in clouds of silver, flinty
As words that sparks his tongue to speak
And cut through smoke on mountain’s peak.
Read All About It
August 7, 2012 by at 3:10 pm
The Post-Intelligencer outlines –
(The second column from the left,
Above the fold) in piled headlines
With fonts of varied size and heft
That spread the burning news post-haste and
Describe how all the Southern lowland
Was sunk beneath a fiery sea –
The awful news: that charred debris
Is all Seattle has to sell now.
The paper tallies up the cost
The acres, blocks, and millions lost –
Both brick and wood made food for hell now –
But ends with this more hopeful claim:
A phoenix rising from the flame.
The Legend of John Back’s Death
July 30, 2012 by at 11:50 pm
As legend has it, whether true or
Perhaps a tallish tale, John Back
Was dry and needed more hard liquor
Than what he’d hid beneath his sack.
He barged aboard a tied-up steamer
And found a case of gin, some creamer,
A loaf of cheese — that was enough:
John grabbed the gin and other stuff —
As much as his poor arms could mule —
And would have left the ship, but that
Was not his fate; instead a rat
Appeared and challenged him to duel,
Produced a tiny pistol, fired:
John Back lay dead, wiped out, expired.
Moran Calls For Help
July 29, 2012 by at 10:06 pm
The fire had crossed Second Avenue, and was heading up to Third. Smoke could be seen in Tacoma, and the roar of the fire heard for miles. Help had been called in from Tacoma, Portland, and even Victoria, B.C. …
Realizing their geoduck was cooked,
Moran raced into the offices of the Sunset
Telephone-Telegraph Co. and unhooked
the contraption himself. “Get
me Tacoma!” And Portland and Victoria,
B.C., and then, remembering a noria
he’d seen on the faraway Kickapoo
River, put out a call for someone he knew,
had heard legend of, anyway—a Wisconsin
firefighter by name of Paddy or Mick
O’Somethingerother, who with a single lick
and a little spit could put out the fire in
Hades itself. “The name? People are dyin’
here! Wait; I got it … Get me O’Brien!”
Kipling Haunted by the Ghost of Pushkin
July 27, 2012 by at 12:45 am
No one, not even the Government, knows the number of islands in the Sound. Even now you can get one almost for the asking; can build a house, raise sheep, catch salmon, and become a king on a small scale.
When Kipling left Seattle’s ashes
Behind and navigated north
Toward Vancouver, gentle splashes
At prow and rocking back and forth
With island views at every turning,
The ghost of Pushkin, spirit yearning
To flow again in blood and ink,
Appeared to him and bade him think
About the island kingdom every
Moran or Murphy might create
From fire of love and ash of hate
Away from worldly woe and thievery —
But only to flame up like hay
When lightning strikes on Judgement Day.
Disillusionment at Four O’Clock on a Thursday Afternoon
July 27, 2012 by at 12:01 am
By four o’clock, most residents knew
downtown Seattle was finished.
After crossing First and Second Avenue,
billowing and bellowing, undiminished,
the towering inferno climbed to Third.
The roar of the fire could be heard
for miles around, and smoke was seen
from as far away as Tacoma. Between
the heckling crowds and their abecedarian
abilities, some of the volunteers dropped
their buckets on the spot, stopped
by their own worthlessness. Marion,
Madison, and then Spring were consumed
in a matter of minutes. All doomed.
There will be an extra point
Top three comments in Johnsonville, immediately after witnessing what Wayne Laravee referred to as “The Travesty”:
1. “Russell Wilson: First quarterback in NFL history to win by throwing an interception.”
2. This is how Obama is going to win in November.
3. I thought Giants fans [i.e. JOB] were out of control!
Then to add insult to injury, because points scored by a team in a game are part of the play off calculus at the other end of the season, as the AP reported it, the Packers had to eat their anger and show the stuff of true sportsmen by having to endure a final humiliation:
The game wasn’t over for another 10 minutes after both teams went to their locker rooms and were summoned back to the field for the extra point. But that was just the cap to one of the most bizarre finishes in recent memory.
ADDED: The NFL came out definitively in favor of the rep refs (i.e. Footlocker employees and Lingerie football rejects):
Simultaneous Catch. If a pass is caught simultaneously by two eligible opponents, and both players retain it, the ball belongs to the passers. It is not a simultaneous catch if a player gains control first and an opponent subsequently gains joint control. If the ball is muffed after simultaneous touching by two such players, all the players of the passing team become eligible to catch the loose ball. (emphasis mine)