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Surf-Riders, Honolulu: Charles W. Bartlett, 1919 (Honolulu Academy of Arts)
Life should have enough arresting moments
to create at least a tropism in Xanadu
between the bamboo swizzle sticks
and the sarongs soaked in lizard spittle
revolving ceiling fans banana trees
birds of paradise and pineapple daiquiris
but little is expected by those who
dwell in the environs of the lawn bowling court
for them it is a perennial Mondo Samarkanda
a pointed tin roof above cute wood shingles
the ghost of Reagan bumbling through the palms
amid a sunset out of Papua New Guinea
like a great snork bird homing in on orange juice
The Surf-Rider, Hawaii: Charles W. Bartlett, 1921 (Honolulu Academy of Arts)
4 comments:
Lizard spittle and the ghost of Reagan bumbling like a drunken juice-hungry snork bird...wow. i want a holiday to there.
Peter, the poem was writ in Santa Barbara, during the regime -- and downhill from the ranch -- of RR. Samarkand is a neighborhood, or would one say enclave, in SB. And "Xanadu" was, or had been, just up the road a ways at San Simeon.
I love that "surf artist", an Englishman named Bartlett, classically trained as a painter, who made his way to the Far East and learned print-making at the feet of a Japanese master of the art. The good teaching "took", I do believe. He ended up in Hawaii, catching these waves.
Yes, the teaching "took." He really catches the waves, as does the poem.
Thank you, Nin.
As our Ronnie used to say, even after he had forgotten all the numerals from 0 to 9, "hang ten!"
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