FLAMENCO -> COLTRANE -> WINE POETICS

First, Moi gets kissed off by Mark ... my Flamenco series notes that the third commandment of flamenco is not to reveal anything but the first two to outsiders. Mark reveals what might be the fourth commandment (muy interesante, yah?)

Secondly, I've been enjoying the blog of Marne Kilates with whom I once shared the Philippines' Manila Critics Circle National Book Award in Poetry. Marne reminds me of this year's Pulitzer citation for John Coltrane. When I first arrived on Galatea's mountain, she spurred me to stream forth a series of wine country poems -- these were among the most effortless to flow out of moi pen. Marne Kilates' "Lush Life" homage-post reminds me to share my own tribute to the late jazz great:

"Pursuance" By John Coltrane


It's not a memory
of Coltrane

It's not fireflies
mating

It's not a turtle
taking a step

It's not bluebells
openings

Here, where a cloud
shifts to birth a moon--

where Napa River awaits
water from distant mountains--

the steady pulse of your heartbeat
against the flat of my roaming palm

is the sound of grapevines
growing

***

Correction: it is also
a memory of Coltrane

The above was first published, amazingly enough, in the local newspaper, the St. Helena Star which had offered the community a space to share poems. The feature was a short-lived one. I don't know why the newspaper didn't continue it (change of editorship?), but google "St. Helena Star", you editors, and maybe you will see there is interest in poetry in the area. How can there not be? Is this not wine country?