Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Meta-lects 14



Flags and flight. The big night. All chicks at their ready, stacked in a Soviet wrestler's embrace--t-shirts over Bulgarian biceps. A short history of Bessarabia--the one-thousand and one nights, each one longer, or shorter, than the last, as the customer wishes. And tray of gallinaceous h'or d'oeuvres--the dry martini with Ethiopian thistle--guizotia abyssinica--for the house finch set. Missing here, in the domestic array. Better a flight path, long distance, to southwestern Mexico, and beyond...

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Meta-lect 13



Benny Goodwing and his Balalaika Orchestra--with the pizzicato twins on fife and violin, Harry Q on rustic drum, and Alberto Rotondo on bass. It's the New Year's Bash at the Acropolis Club, downtown Oakland, waiting for the Athenians. They've sent a messenger, it seems--a small Greek bird bearing gifts--as would be appropriate, given the season. States of the world nothwithstanding...but the music must go on...

Lower Broadway, retsina, sad song...

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Meta-lect 12



Rings and reprimands. The challenge of rearing chicks--golden halos notwithstanding. It's their small size that makes them fit--ring and range, admissible. Hunched in the dark green chair, back to the sun, listening... The human sound...

Friday, December 26, 2008

Meta-lect 11



Dawn patrol, with coach. Heading for Swami's, big north swell breaking all the way out beyond the point, whitecaps and combers, no day for novitiates. But what does a chick know, when all the rest huddle on shore, knit caps and grey hoods pulled up high over their heads. A clear report, and fearless--that's the way, as with Paramahansa Yogananda and his golden domes--mushroomburgers--just now catching the light...

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Meta-lect 10



And also for today, a trip to the garage, in Oceanside. Instructional, to be sure--with the varnished map of the world that Dad once mounted on plywood, carefully framed in rounded molding, which hung above our beds. Not so elegant, perhaps--the Mercator view, with Greenland looming, and the famous Siberian goat giving his Alaskan moose a perpetual kiss. At least it was so imagined, along with all the rest--Spitzbergen, Kamchatka, the Seychelles...

The foundations of knowledge, ca. 1954, or, a large non-blank slate, onto which one might project all possible vectors of meaning. A kind of preparation, yes, for the future--the great unknown...

Meta-lect 9



Troop 739--sub-chick division, present and accounted for. The great hike--overnight--with a stop at Panky's Pastures, arriving in style, by car, somewhere east on Highway 76. Towards Pala, in the old days, ends of the earth. Cold cold cold in those lightweight wraps, waiting for dawn, tossing and turning in the valley mist. Owls in the sycamores, mistletoe, season's cheer...

Alternative: scuba gear, well, fins and mask, all summer's fare...

Monday, December 22, 2008

Meta-lect 8



Another high-wire act by the master of the Ring--Jeanette, that is, not entirely sure as of this broadcast just what her purpose. A scaffolding from deep in Dr. Perrin's office--optometry tools of old, reworked here as a gallinaceous hi-dive wand. But wait, my dear, don't jump, your friends below will cheer you on--take heart, it's more a ballad, dreaming, dreaming, more a song...

Henry the Rat, Don Frog, Manny the everlasting Snail, Howie G.S. and James William Mallard III, present and accounted for. We shall see...

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Meta-lect 7



Off we go--the special swing, a loop for a chick, while mother hen looks on--as do all the other assorted locals. That would be Henry the Rat, Don Frog, Manny the everlasting Snail and Howie, of garter snake kingdom fame. A kind of ground-level admiration society, for it's not every creature that can manage the ring. Yes, the Ring--that all-encompassing band of coppered wire, specially fabricated by Schirmer and Sons, many years back, in Paris--and tuned to precisely the chicken-octave key. Make note, no sound so fine--just ask little Jeanette, in all her yellow fluffery...

For she will tell...

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Meta-lect 6



Vacation spots, some miles south of Cancún, flying in on Aeronaves de Mexico, a corporate venture to be sure, and fairly soft, as wings and prayers go. But who's counting, only this lonely returnee, his briefcase in hand--a gallinaceous CPA--with a parasol against the sun. New Jersey yards, no doubt, transposed west--to Petaluma, with all the feisty argument: Arakana, Old Hungarian, Rhode Island Red...

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Meta-lect 5



Ah yes, the henhouse WPA, revisited in a new century--where the roads and bridges and dams find their reincarnation as broadband schools. Or interiors, green. And yet and yet, the shovel, the rake, the hoe--implements of the farmer's life, appropriate, too, when every techno-jot and tittle must need be questioned. What price power? What price love?

Monday, December 15, 2008

Meta-lect 4



And for this morning, a chicken pie--no, wait, that won't do--introducing the little ones to lives of such complexity. Maybe deep dish beef--how much more less so. The whole thing's caboodle. Such sweetness goes not with feedlot fare, so it's to berry we turn--picked fresh, off the vine, a wild tangle alongside the henhouse--the local jungle in late summer--yes, late summer--somewhere in the world--and there's again the rub. One can't even nibble safely.

Back to gleaning, rows of harvest corn, end of autumn. There but for the taking...

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Meta-lect 3



Chilly here on the farm--upper reaches of the San Pablo tract, where parked semis and yardbirds meet, en route north along a winter's road. Yesterday: three crows in the mimosa, black black black against whirl of softer grays. Nudging left, hops and skips, make me room. Cluck or two, but mainly not--their silence, just above.

Good morning. It's Sunday again, sound of rain on skylights now, dark within. All as predicted--the weather, the fare--a rice cracker spread with peanut butter and berry jam, black coffee in warm glass. Greetings to Thelonious, solo in San Francisco, years ago--and to Po-Chü-i, beyond beyond...

Friday, December 12, 2008

Meta-lect 2



It was a quiet morning on the farm. The chicks were busy with their worm explorations. Or just wandering in the misty light. Mother a bit harried--as are all hens--the fox, the crow, the unknown beast. Beast. Well, maybe a tiny rat--caught by Natasha (she could not help it)--squeals on the order of a baby raccoon, hiding we were told behind the couch. But no, this morning, small stretched form on dawn rug. Almost at peace.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Meta-lect 1



Full-bodied largely ground-feeding domestic or game birds, characterized by feathers and forelimbs modified as wings--pheasants; turkeys; grouse; partridges; quails; chickens; brush turkeys; curassows; hoatzins--thought to be descended from the red jungle fowl. A cosmopolitan order of land birds having small heads and short legs with four unwebbed toes…esteemed…