Guest Poet Gallery:
12 Poems by David Gitin

MUSIC FOR ZEN MEDITATION

 
eucalyptus outside my window
sunlight plays on the floor

yesterday’s papers
motes of dust

sudden green
of Betty’s blouse

THE CRABPICKER
 

the crabpicker
cracks the shell spines

breaking bonds to savor
the pass of energy

up our straight spines
full circle

into meat
for some future form

DREAMTRACK
 

two horses

      chew the sun
            bleached grass

                             and lope
                                   volumes of air away

ANGEL POEM EXCERPT

 
leaves

      animal traces

            ground

                on which we step

                         light

                             as thieves

WHITE ON BLUE


birds

in

formation

one

straggling

tail

empty 

sky

WINTER NIGHT


the TV shines
                  a tooth
                         in the house dark
                                  beyond the streetlight

THE DOOR
 

the door

slopes of light

your body

a delay

in glass

PASSING THROUGH
 

a feather
or a knife

at the crossroads
of memory and desire

this skin of earth
and fire

water and air
layer after layer

in touch 
with the world

FINGERS


fingers extend

white blossoms

KYOTO


in the company

all night

of a horsefly

CHUCKLE
 

chuckle down fear

year after year

smile like a porpoise  

LAKE LADOGA
 

vapor
rises

milky
white

birches
white

nights

Author's Note:
I've just returned from East Africa. Lions pant in my dreams. The continuous dance of life/time, Masai jumps, newborn wildebeest running within two hours of birth, awesome abstraction of dating human remains in Olduvai Gorge, render me (nearly) speechless. Upon receiving Michael's phonecall and generous invitation, I pored over my own finite gulps of air (in/spiration) to collect these twelve poems, 1967-1999. They begin in San Francisco where I co-founded Poets Theater in the Haight-Ashbury with Jim Wilson, moving into the rural town of Cotati, CA and the "Athens of the Midwest," Madison, WI, before I settled in Monterey, CA, working as a jazz disc jockey as well as teaching English at Monterey Peninsula College. One poem is from the time I lived in Japan and another from a visit to Russia. Two books remain in print: THIS ONCE (1979) and FIRE DANCE (1989), both from Blue Wind Press. Recent online publications include Big Bridge, Comprepoetica, and Frank's Home. Performances of the poems are often in collaboration with musicians, including Leonard Paschini (electric guitar), Preston Houser (shakuhachi), John Tchicai (saxophone), Laszlo Gardony (piano), and John Cortes (saxophone).