In a recent exchange with Max about poems and poetry, Max inquired of two poems I wrote in the early 1970s that are the first poems I published, both appearing in the delightful Santa Cruz free weekly newspaper Sundaz. I received no pay for these poems but was thrilled beyond words to be a published poet.
The first of my poems to appear in Sundaz was that clicking sound? A year or so after that clicking sound? debuted, the poem was included in a chapbook anthology of Sundaz poems called the the. I no longer have a copy of the the, but I still have my poem.
that clicking sound?
we have a hundred men downstairs
each employed
in some
part of the process;
breaking
the backs
of crickets
The second poem of mine to appear in Sundaz was pilgrimage. Coincidence or not, pilgrimage also mentions insects. Well, more than mentions. In each poem insects are the denouement.
pilgrimage
went to see the saint,
the martyr,
found him
sitting by a wall
his tears falling on
ants
Reading that clicking sound? fifty years after it appeared in Sundaz, I remember the moment I saw the poem in the paper.
crickets
at a sunlit table,
his mug casting a long shadow,
a young man leafs through a slender newspaper
and finds a poem about crickets by someone
who has the young man’s name.