ADVENTURE IN PARADISE        ©Copyright by Edward Mycue  

It’s hot today; the horse races would be nice; 

And the grandstand will be shady, quiet, cool.

Several years ago we’d had a rainy summer

And at the end of August, Richard drove us up

From San Francisco north over the Golden Gate

Bridge (that’s painted dull orange) past all those

Towns on Highway 101 through Marin County

Through green hills this year, past Lucas Valley

Into Sonoma County crossing the San Antonio

River, past Petaluma (for which Harry Partch

Decades ago now composed “On The Seventh

Day The Petals Fell In Petaluma”) (and where

Richard Steger went to junior and high school

–because Cotati eight miles north had none

Then) and then rose with the road north from

Denham Flats to past Cotati, past Rohnert Park,

Nine more miles to Santa Rosa for the annual

Sonoma County Fair where this year 1998, 

The theme was Adventure in Paradise.  We ate,

Went to the horse races, to the Hall of Flowers

With the paradise theme show and a volcano,

Got ice cream squares dipped before us in hot

Chocolate (then rolled in peanut pieces on sticks)

In Grace Pavilion, then bought a ginza knife set 

And then went to the judging of earnest teen and

Preteen dairy goat raisers. Llamas,  a small snake

tent, a midway, the Spaghetti  Palace, Tri-tip barbecue.

Then back south on 101, Richard drove us home.   

(C) Copyright  Edward Mycue

BACK TIME COMES FORWARD

Back, time comes forward.

Life, death sentences remain.

Unfinished, some memories throb.

Reveries, wheels, rush remembering.

Cardinal directions play sorrow missions.

We animals, who remember, smile a little too.

                                                                           © Copyright Edward Mycue, 2021

IL TRITTICO

        A. BACK EVEN BEFORE THE TIME OF SET

1. The most symmetrical objects seen

Sideways look mainly asymmetrical.

2. Sheep ate the shepherd, locked in

A clarity of language connections.

3. An egg is a splendid cage

4. Failed we feel safe from Armageddon,

From the wolf of the magic town.

5. Identity loops dream to  reality.

6. Dark blossoms in the swimming night

Keep the eyes out, as the curtain, as

That curtain rises onto a lost world.

7. We make all kinds of distress calls to

Share something deeper to extend.

8. Turning tables doing it now, interning.

B. TO THE SAN FRANCISCO MINT ON A LONELY ROAD

Seven miles north from the Seven Mile House

Into San Francisco to the Ferry Building while

East a central California valley morning Tule fog

Burned-off into a sun’s golden angel rushing over

The clown face remembered as history westering

Above the City and out over the Pacific Ocean’s

Far scattered Island kingdoms into the Asian Orient.

But first come back to San Francisco’s Bay edge

To those flats where a pony express stopped and

Might have stayed overnight at seven Mile House.

It’s still there since 1853 on Bayshore still a lonely

Boulevard at San Francisco’s southern end where

Today Brisbane begins at Geneva Avenue. Go north

Seven Miles to the Ferry Building and Mission street.

Then go west up a mile to the Old San Francisco Mint

Where Wells-Fargo stagecoaches changed the payloads

Having first pawed and paused at seven Mile House

Maybe stayed the night, delivered the mail, exchanged

Passengers, fed and watered the hard-pressed horses

Setting-out again into a night or dawn hooves pounding

On that still lonely Bayshore road from and to San Francisco.

C. PEACE CORPS HISTORY DRIFTS

We these early volunteers

New in so many following

Early growth vanishing

Spanning a century in our ages

Bettering our worlds listening

Time paper thin growing curious

From fires facts fictions

Drift stilling sailing away

Followed into the wind

As I hear in that wind

Long gone voices

New phantoms mustardstars

Paper thin our world and its desolve

Curious silences with a dream.

                                                                  (C) Copyright  Edward Mycue, 14 December 2021

Edward Mycue studied at the University of Texas at Arlington; studied and taught at North Texas State College; Lowell Fellow, Boston University; taught (Peace Corps, Ghana); MacDowell Colony Fellow. Books: Damage Within the Community (1973), Chronicle (1974),  Root Route & Range: The Song Returns (1979), The Singing Man My Father Gave Me (1980),  Edward (1985), It’s A Grate Country (1986),  Torn Star (1987), Pink Garden Brown Trees (1990), Because We Speak The Same Language (1995), Nightboats (2000), Mindwalking New and Selected Poems (2008), Song of San Francisco (2012), online I Am A Fact Not A Fiction (2009).