Klaus Ebeling

Not Bad Poems

Say something.
Wait a while.
If nobody objects
It might mean
Nobody heard you.
Or it might mean
That it is true.

I don't write bad poems, because I don't believe in

them. The fun thing about poetry is the liberty to exclaim
bombastic or profound statements you wouldn't feel
comfortable making in casual conversation. Song lyrics and
cartoon strips are in the same realm. Be a court jester,
with or without music. As a matter of fiction: when you
read a poem, you sing it to one of your inner melodies.
Sounds are older than words, and words are older than
writing.
Poets write in various formats. Centuries ago some
formats were quite uniformly taught and used ['Sonnet' or
'iambic pentameter' are worth Googling, for instance, and
you'll be in Shakespeare's company]. Old poems also
rhymed, more often than not. Modern poetry likes to
proclaim timeless truths without meter, rhyme or reason.
That sounds derogatory, but I am all for it, including the
no reason part. Poetry, lyrics and cartoons are talking
timeless, cosmic and intuitive stuff that you have owned all
your life, but maybe you were not aware of it. That's my
Good News.
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Barbara was a tree in a former life. In this life she is

my sweet wife for over 56 years and best friend for 57,
mother of our childrenof course, but also of our
plants, grandmother, retired camp counselor, phys ed
teacher and equestrienne, but active crafts collector and
creative knitter and my in-house editor of my amateur
writings. She objects to my starting any writing in the first
person singular pronoun [too boastful and egocentric], and
to my ending any sentence with a preposition [bad style].

I am a visual artist who did or does sculptures,

paintings, photos, videos and drawings: a timeless single
line can make a great picture. I also play poems, dance,
happenings, music: OM! is a chant of a single note
thousands of years old. For several years now I have been
invited to lead the crowd at the awards ceremony of the
World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanksfrom my
home in Adams Center NY, by telephonewith that
timeless song as an international way of thanking Ice
Alaska for their hospitality.
Cartoons are my favorite art medium now, and they
have been all my life. They are the poetry of visual art, the
shorthand for visions, the instant art for appropriate
expression and perception of my and your intuition. I'll
tell you more about that in next year's Black River Review.
In the 1970s, at half my current age and before I had
grandchildren, I invented Max and Dot, a retired professor
slow on the typewriter, and his precocious preschool age
granddaughter to whom he dictates his memoir. But she
would only type what she understood. Example: Max is
waxing eloquent about the 'Great Generation Gap'. "Let
me see that!" says Dot and stops typing.
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"How many grandparents did I have

ten generations ago, Grampa?"
Max: "512" - "And 20 generations
ago?" - "524 thousand 288"
"Wow! And 40 generations ago?"
"270 billion" - "Were there that
many people on earth?" - "No" "What
happened?" - "Many of your foreparents were 'premaritally' related" "But at least nobody died in
childhood!"

I made a gainful living teaching that 'Art is playing with

Time and Space' in all these and other art media and
categories. Call me a mix of Avant-Garde and Renaissance
man. Or call me an amateur, because I really love all arts,
and a cultural rebel who feels compelled to meddle,
trespass and break rules wherever that is neither illegal,
immoral nor fattening. Ask yourself: is this submission to
the BR Review an essay, a group of poems, or a group of
drawings?

Almost every year of our marriage our family has

canoed with tents, with #10 tin cans to cook on an open
fire, with sprouts, yogurt, granola and other yummies to a
wilderness island in the middle of an Adirondack lake that
suffers access neither by road nor by deep channel, no
built-up shores, no visible 'civilization'. In other words, it
is a timeless place where only Nature fells trees and grows
others, where waves rise and flatten out into mirrors,
where one day in May might be for nudists, the next for
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raincoats and a third for snow. And every year we were

surprisedand so are our offspring to this datethat we
find this little great space as pristine as we left it the year
before. That precious silence is my other Good News.
I must keep it a secret. If I teach it to the crowds they
will all go out and search for the sound of silence. And the
woods, lakes, islands, streams and canyons will resound
with their footsteps and calls. Commercial outfitters will
sell them silence by the pound and by the hour. Others
will build motels and marinas for bigger and longer
sounds. Elton John will fill the loudest sound of silence
into Madison Square Garden to packed houses for a week.

Rat race and art are different states of consciousness.

In Ratraceland they struggle to survive physically by
meeting deadlines, fulfilling production quotas, making
ends meet, putting meat on the table, paying the mortgage
and keeping the wolf from the door, mowing the lawn and
plowing the driveway, feeding the car and other fickle
mistresses, climbing all the while the ladder of success and
hoping that the rungs wont break.
In Artland they try to make sense of all this by stepping
out and looking at it from a distance. They become
puzzled and bewildered spectators of the rat race, its
paranoia, pain, frustrations, and its occasional, short lived
successes. Here they attempt instead to establish a long
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range of reliable spaces, times, pleasures, understanding, by

playing rather than racing, starting the play when the spirit
strikes and not the clock and ending the play when it
becomes a drag or has served its joyous purpose.
In Ratraceland, rules apply to everyone, whether
everyone thinks so or not. Its law and custom. They are
caught in a big machine and get molded. Moldy too. And
stereotyped, packaged in ticky-tacky boxes.
In Artland they all decide for themselves when and
which distant drummer to follow. And for how long. No
demerits for changing ones mind. Its not disloyalty. Its
called redesign, change of style, a new tack, a fresh wind,
different vibrations, another angle or vision from a
different vantage point: an ad-vantage.
Its a drop-out but not a cop-out. Its lonely at times or
even often. Monks, explorers, leaders, artists, art
consumers, searchers, finders, meditators, hermits, scouts
are all in a big, partially unknown space which exhilarates
yet requires courage.
The courage to get to know ones Self.
Can you imagine having some week without art?
Not having played or enjoyed, used senses just for fun,
dreamed, planned, and envisioned
is having a lot of NOT
all in one miserable week.
I could survive a day on
a tasted food
a touched surface
a heard sound
a breathed space
a seen light
a thought or two
a smelled odor
a listened noise

I yearn each day for

a tasted kiss
a felt caress
a heard wisdom
a flown space
a seen Mother
a thought of God
a smelled rose
a listened waterfall
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No day should be without

a tasted meal
a felt texture
a heard word
a walked space
a seen shape
a thought image
a smelled air
a listened sound

What a day if there is

a tasted delicacy
a felt skin
a heard kindness
a danced space
a seen beauty
a thought vision
a smelled aroma
a listened silence

Someday I shall have

a feast of life
a feel of death
a sound of time
an endless space
a sight of God
an idea of cosmos
a smell of nectar
and swinging with it all

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