Poetic Feet Selfie 5 ~~~> The Angels of the Radiators by A. Poulin Jr.

The Angels of Radiators

Every night when my wife
and daughter are asleep
and I'm alone in this old house
lost in landscapes somewhere
between the points of stars,
my furnace fails like heaven.

The water that will turn
to steam and turn to heat
and rise as grace runs out.
In unlighted corners, angles
opening to blank space,
radiators, cold and white,
are silent and dead angels,
incarnate where they fell.

Every night, every winter,
I have to go down cellar,
turn the valve until the gauge
is full of water once again,
until the furnace starts
to rumble with its resurrection.
Then the house begins to move,
and through the winter night
that threatens us like Hell, by God,
the pure spirit of the fire roars
blue, veins ring, and radiators,
a whole chorus of Dominions, sing
and dance wild alleluias warm as spring.

"The Angels of the Radiators" is from Selected Poems.

As seen on The Poet Walk, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY

 

a week of poetic feet selfies ~~ It Wasn't The Wind by Linda Allardt

It Wasn't a The Wind by Linda Allardt Memorial Art Gallery Poet Walk

It Wasn’t The Wind

nor chasing squirrels

that brought the snow

down from the trees, but sun

before the clouds moved in.

I think of sails,

thin membranes spread

in the solar wind

Such far travel

before so slight a push,

always away from the sun

in slow acceleration, its course

an imperceptible bent past planets,

micro-impacts, the turbulence

where light meets light

between paired stars.

Stretched wide to the sun,

how far I find myself from anchor.

Linda Allardt, "It Wasn't the Wind" from Accused of Widsom (Foothills Publishing, 2004).

A Few of My Favorite Things 6 ~ why do I do this, some Stratozpheric portraits

I have developed a habit of searching out statues to duck behind, but not before I hand the camera off to Mosaic Woman.  I am not sure if I dig the statues or the hunt to find ones to duck behind ~ 

Stratoz with The Fawn by John B Flannagan
Rochester NY
2012

Atmosphere and Environment XII by Louise Nevelson
Philadelphia, PA
2012

Ceremonial Table of the Bontoc People
Reading, PA
2010

Cloumn of Peace Antoine Pevsner
Washington, DC
2010

John L Surra Landscape II
Olean, NY
2010

?
Rochester, NY
2011

Wordless Wednesday: Three from the Memorial Art Museum in Rochester, NY

After "American Gothic" by Devorah Sperber; having fun in Rochester

Take some spoils of thread...





create an upside down master piece...





give Mosaic Woman a tool made of glass...





and have fun at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY ...

7 for the weekend--- RIJF Day 3 + 4 = 7 full sets

It was time to bring my amazing analytical skills out of the closet, I mean was I not the man who scored better than 99% of those taking the GRE back in the late 80's. Day one we got to town a bit late so that explained the 2.3 hours/sets. Day two was more like 2.67 hours/sets. So there I was with Friday's schedule as we wound down in bed after Thursday's jazz.

And I nailed it! Four full sets on Friday (consider this: we saw four hours of jazz within a five hour time frame!!!!!) and Saturday we saw three full sets, the three we most wanted to see.

Disappointing: The sax player was grounded in NYC because of monster thunderstorms, but the Italian bass player we saw on Wednesday grabbed hold of a young trumpet dude and created a great show, though we had hoped to see Mirko Guerrini...

Then it was the band that had me highly excited, the bass player, Dan Berglund, from the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (or E.S.T.) had his new band in the US for the first time and we were there. Tonbruket where we first heard steel guitar played in a jazz band.
Then to see a pianist, who the program said had been compared to Keith Jarrett and Bill Evans, Andrew McCormack and Jason Yarde (sax) played beautiful duets (and inspired a CD purchase). I loved their originals, and their take on Gershwin's Embraceable You was a highlight of the festival.

Watch them talk about being a duo and listen to them play ...
And why not have a second batch of Nordic Jazz for the evening, though it would be our last for the festival. In The Country, a trio of dudes (the vibes player in the video was not with them) who took up running to be in shape to go on tours...


A leisurely and tasty dinner led to us missing the earliest of shows. The night started with solo guitar work by Martin Taylor, who was hoot between tunes and showed why his students flock to see him play standards and his originals, like this one: True, which became the theme to a Japanese TV show about poets boxing each other.

When we saw that jazz composer/conductor Dave Rivello had been taught by Bob Brookmeyer and that Maria Schneider liked his music, well we were there to see him conduct his 11 piece band and left with a CD in hand.


We left the amazing jazz orchestra to hear 38 Special blaring one of their big hits at a free concert (no rant about them playing at a jazz festival, since we had plenty of jazz to see and lots of folk were having fun in the street) and quickly ducked into the closest jazz venue, which is where we wanted to go any which way. And in the same setting where we ended the festival two years ago, we saw the full set of Ben Allison, yet another bass player, as he led his trio which included a trumpet and guitar. and that is that!

Rochester Jazz Day 2: a duet, a trio, a quintet

well, first I stood inside a really big stump.

But eventually we made it downtown again. We started with UK jazz with the Episcopalians (the photo is from a past year when a backdrop did not cover the Tiffany Mosaic.) and with light fading through stained glass...




... we listened to a duet: Fraser Fyfield and Graeme Stephen play tunes like this...

The Trio for the evening was Nordic: Ounaskari-Mikkonen-Jorgenson with the Lutherans.




and for the quintet, that was in the home of xerox, where Dave Young paid tribute to Oscar Peterson. Here he is playing bass with Oscar in 2007:

Wordless Wednesday: standing inside a tree

Rochester Jazz Day 1

Plan: leave work, drive, buy pie, drive, say hello with pie, listen to jazz.

So we headed to that fortress of God and Nordic Jazz known as Reformation Lutheran Church and found a long line of people hoping to see Sinne Eeg. A quick check saw that the church was packed and the line was filled with people with more hope than I could muster after 7 hours on the road.

So we walked about a bit aimlessly but ended up singing Down By The Riverside with the three trombonists of Bonerama. And so with a disappointment came great joy.

The next 10 acts would be from various countries outside of the US, and not just Canada like the second act for the evening.

While most of the bands would be doing original music, Brienn Perry was celebrating the great American songbook with his voice and alto-trombone (yes there is such a thing, and yes it was a grand night for the tronmbone)



It was at this point in the evening I realized I had lost our Wednesday evening cheat sheet or maybe we would have ended up seeing Emilie Claire Barlow but instead we headed to see some Italian jazz: LaBarbera-Occhipinti Quartet. What I remember most is an Ellington tune that I had never heard of, but that is what it is all about for us, why stand in line for hours to see the person/band we have heard of playing in Kilbourne Hall when all kinds of new jazz awaits us.. So we would pass up seeing Grace Kelly, Bill Frissel, Kenny Barron, and Regina Carter. Maybe it helped that we had seen all but Grace Kelly, and she is so young there is a good chance that day will come. Here is Roberto Occhipinti and his nonet.

jazz and anti-lake effect rain patterns

Mosaic Woman and I looked at my work schedule and the Rochester Jazz festival schedule, and said no to jazz for this year. But as quantum physics explains the world, if you are the observer, you will observe different things, if you look again.

A friend in Rochester invites us to stay with her if we ever come to the festival. The schedule is observed again. This time a possibility is seen.

At which point did we see a festival schedule that became our vacation.

As I pack, I observe a forecast filled with great probability of rain. An hour or two later I see words written by my friend...

"Hopefully, it will do the reverse lake effect thing that it's been doing for over a month now and there will be little if any rain. I'll explain it when you're here."

On Wednesday, heavy rains hit our car as we drive to Rochester... at the same time my friend observes heavy radar on her computer screen. We park the car and soon observe a wet cat flee from a door step.

With Thursday night jazz schedule in one hand, I use an umbrella with the other. There are forces greater than the lake. We enjoy Friday's weather. Then it rains all day on Saturday. Saturday night for the festival the lake will send a long thin line of steady rain onto Rochester.

The lake says, "if you look, then it may rain, or maybe it won't." It did.

Mosaic Woman had come down with "Herman Flu" (the wet cat) and we were satisfied with the quantity and quality of jazz, so instead of going to see one more act we stop by to hear a couple more at the second set of Antonio Ciacca, who had amazed us earlier in the evening.

I put on my jacket and picked up my umbrella, then Antonio named the next tune. When an observer glances at his world, sometimes things look different. Six minutes later, we left the building.

This is how Antonio once recorded a jazz standard which delayed us heading back to our friend's house where a Cd playing by Stevie Ray Vaughn brought up some memories and I once again observed my past. It probably wasn't exactly the same, but I told stories anyway.

I am glad my friend had us take a second look at that schedule.

...

invitation to all

invitation to all
Originally uploaded by stratoz

I would cross out especially and replace it with "even"

We are back from Rochester, NY where the Jazz continues for all. These words were at the bottom of a sign outside of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, one of the 10 venues where we ended up seeing jazz.

The sign was an invitation for folk to show up for a Jazz Vespers service. I would be there, but I am no longer in New York.