Dane Cervine Writes

Welcome

Dane Cervine is a poet and therapist who lives in Santa Cruz, California along the Monterey Bay coast. His website is designed to provide glimpses into his work, postings of recent publications, and links to related poetry activity. Contact Dane at DaneCervine@cruzio.com .

Adrienne Rich recently chose Dane's poem The Jeweled Net Of Indra as the winner of the 2005 National Writers Union (Local 7) contest, as well as his poem Holography for Honorable Mention. She comments that each has a fine sense both of language and the interconnectedness of human lives that for me is at the heart of poetry.

Tony Hoagland chose Dane's poem Accordions & Shotguns as a finalist for the 2005 Wabash Prize for Poetry. Commenting on Dane's poem, Tony says: The sheer volume of information in this poem is impressive--which is to say that all that story is fluently delivered to the reader--but it is really the passion and precision of the final stanza that earns my full attention.

Dane's work has appeared in The Hudson Review, The Sun, and the Atlanta Review, with over 100 of his poems published in a wide variety of small press journals and magazines.

The poet Jane Hirshfield comments that Dane's work in Moving The Dark God's Hand, especially his short poems, are clear-struck bells.

The poet Gary Young comments: Thanks for NEWS FROM A BURNING MAN. The prose poem form seems to agree with you. This is a very strong collection.

Dane's new book The Jeweled Net of Indra was released in 2007 by Plain View Press, and can be purchased at: Plain View Press link to Jeweled Net of Indra

Dane's book entitled What A Father Dreams: Poems of Family, Love, & Aging can be purchased through Amazon.com, from the publisher at Xlibris.com, or from the author at danecervine@cruzio.com.

In addition, Dane publishes a new chapbook every year, including these recent titles: The Last Days, News From A Burning Man, Moving The Dark God's Hand, Speaking In Tongues, and Blue In The Face.

Winner of the 2005 National Writers Union (Local 7) Contest chosen by ADRIENNE RICH

Dane's winning poem chosen by Adrienne Rich:

The Jeweled Net of Indra

Driving down the freeway, remembering Hindu mythology—

Indra’s net, each intersecting weave holding a jewel

reflecting every other facet of every other jewel, infinitely.

Suddenly, I see the hands that paint the white lines,

that lay the black asphalt, hands of a man joyous or lost

soap-scrubbing his body clean for dinner and beer,

for the wife who loves him, hands that hold their tickets

for London to see the grandmother, the hard-drinking

pub matron whose body bore children in building rubble

when the Nazi bombing relented—and if not for that war,

would I be driving now, hands on the wheel, listening

to the radio recount the birth of the child named Tsunami

after the storm that drove her mother into the hills,

would the meager dollars I send to rebuild a village—

minted with the Rosicrucian-eye above the pyramid

dreamed by this country’s founders as the all-seeing

vision of a world where not a sparrow falls

that we don’t know about—would I have known

to send it, if not for the hands that flew the kite

that drew electricity from the skies that made its way

into the flat-screened box that unveils this jewel-linked world

twenty-four hours of every gleaming day, weaving news

with advertisements for clothes made by hands in China

nimbly sewing a dream of Hollywood and Ipod and offering

their bodies one by one for a better future—

while the coal that fumes the electricity that plunges

the needle drifts in air that circles a globe that warms

the icecaps that melt into sea that shifts the current

that loves the wind that swirls from heaven to earth

stirring one storm after another, blowing

its diaphanous passion over New Orleans like a trumpet

sinking the heart so low with blue notes that flood

is a dark cure for what burns—this illusion

that anyone stands alone—stranded

on the roofs of our swollen houses mouthing

save me to a world whose  millions of hands

can turn up the volume loud enough to finally hear,

or flick with a single click the entire interconnected

vision of it all off.

Dane's poem chosen for Honorable Mention:

Holography

Coal country, West Virginia—I walk into a diner,

past the $100,000 reward poster in the window

for the sniper who shot Jeannie at the Speedway.

Our waitress—a poised old dame—

carries herself, effortlessly and without pride,

as the hidden center of a universe, and maybe

like Jeannie, she is, for someone. I open my book,

The Passion of Western Philosophy, wait for eggs,

bacon, biscuits, read about the Copernican revolution—

the earth no longer the center of things,

a peripheral sphere lost on the edge of an endless

black cosmos amid small blazing lights. Maybe

this is what Jeannie’s lover felt—the empty year

reeling out of orbit, no gravity, lost

in a centerless universe blown wide.

Then, like Nietzsche, killing his own god

in the bleak landscape of a world edged

on the abyss. But looking into the waitress’ eyes

as she says thanks hon for the extra tip,

I feel this universe circling back inside me—

Jeannie, her stalking lover, the beating

of a billion galaxies sounding here,

the thump-thump inside this chest,

the aching muscle at the heart of it all.

CONVERGENCE poems On-line

The Visitation published in Convergence, Winter 2006: www.convergence-journal.com/winter06/poetry_the_visitation.html

Chimera published in Convergence, Summer 2004: www.convergence-journal.com/summer04/poetry_chimera.htm

The Golden Germ published in Convergence, Summer 2004: www.convergence-journal.com/summer04/poetry_golden_germ.htm

MiPOesias poem in Vol 19, Issue 2

At The Entrance To The Santa Cruz Wharf can be found at: www.mipoesias.com/Volume19Issue2/cervine.html

WHAT A FATHER DREAMS at Xlibris Bookstore

Dane's new book What A Father Dreams: Poems of Family, Love, & Aging is described by the poet Maude Meehan: This collection of poems by Dane Cervine is a rich feast. An exploration of the joys and exigencies of family, commitment, parenting and deeply sensual love. We journey through an infinite variety of emotions and observations penned from an amazingly open heart. The lyric quality of this work delighted me.

What A Father Dreams can be viewed at: http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=27334

This link allows viewing of sample poems and related pages.

This book can also be ordered directly from the author for $12 (plus postage) by emailing: danecervine@cruzio.com

Wabash Prize for Poetry Finalist chosen by TONY HOAGLAND

Tony Hoagland chose Dane's poem as a finalist, which was published in Purdue University's Sycamore Review (Winter/Spring 2005):

Accordions & Shotguns

Opal stands with an accordion at twenty-one years of age,

on the steps of the family’s 49^th Street house in Los Angeles.

It is 1934, and the land of angels breaths in then out

like the ribs of her instrument. My father poses next,

little brother, all of six years old, shoeless, grinning,

the world spread out in front of him like an endless field

through which he runs. The back alleys and parks,

strewn with beaten trash can lid shields and stick swords,

Chinese boys behind the market tossing rocks like grenades,

the sand at Venice beach where black kids would wrestle

with brown and the white of his skin didn’t matter

because the city was his, he didn’t need much,

was protected from harm, from the want there was

by dashing older brothers who’d appear as right out of a movie screen,

with their polished white shoes and slicked back Hollywood hair,

letting him reach deep into pocket to fish out fistfuls of coin,

who’d show up the very day the electricity was to be turned off,

lay a few greygreen bills in mothers calloused hands, the ones

that had been up all night wringing & folding in hard-bitten prayer,

the miracles that always seemed to follow after: a pair of shoes,

a bag of groceries. A young boy, he had no word for depression,

neither the 30’s, nor his own that would come later.

There was no such thing as not enough, only the wonder

of what you had, the house where so many relatives came and went,

his bed a couch, this bevy of siblings, lovers and wives old

as uncles & aunts, being the youngest of twelve, the tag-a-long,

and always the next miracle they brought. Like shotguns in the desert,

Opal and Lloyd and brother Leslie out in the Mohave,

cooking eggs and bacon at dawn, cocking their huge, long rifles

loaded with shells—hunting rabbit, hunting what you can still find

when you’re young, and your country’s young, and the war is still

a ways off, and the world’s a swirling dream you can shoot at

in the hugeness of sky and not worry about a thing. Later,

those things would happen: accordion lost with its music;

shotguns emptied, buried in the basement; a war or two

working their way through onto Hollywood screen, and

you’d barely recognize anything—what your life was to become,

what it actually became, the miracle that it is still somehow yours,

that you love it anyway—how you carry the violence like a spent shell

in your pocket to remember, your ribs expanding and contracting

with each breath as though you are an instrument

life is still learning how to play.

Poem in the BATHYSPHERIC REVIEW Spring 2006

Dane's poem Purpose appears on-line in the Spring 2006 edition Monterey Bay's Bathyspheric Review: http://www.montereybaypoetry.com/cervine.html

This journal celebrates writing that is connected to ocean themes, to water, to all things connected with the sea...check it out!

Emerald Street Writers

The Emerald Street Writers are a longstanding poetry critique group that I've had the privilege of belonging to for a number of years now. Amazing poets all, I plan to profile a number of them on these pages with sample poems and links to their publications. Here's a picture of some of us at a typical critique group (though we have quite a number of Emerald St. "alumni & friends" not pictured here...Click on the picture for a larger view.

Several of the Emerald Street Writers (Phil, Len, Julia, Marcia, Maggie) are founding members of Poetry Santa Cruz (which also includes Dennis Morton, Tilly Shaw, Robert Sward), and sponsor a wide variety of poetry readings and activities in Santa Cruz County. Peruse the great web-site at: www.baymoon.com/~poetrysantacruz/

In addition, several Emerald Street Writers (Len Anderson, Joanna Martin, Julia Alter) are also members of the Hummingbird Press publishing collaborative, whose excellent books bring some of the best writing coming out of the Monterey Bay into print. Peruse their web-site, and additional excellent poets, at: www.skyhighway.com/~hummingbirdpress/

NEWS FROM A BURNING MAN Chapbook

Every year for the past decade I've produced a chapbook of that year's poems, and hosted a reading at my home for 30-35 folks. This year's chapbook is entitled News From A Burning Man, a collection of mostly short prose poems inspired by the work of fellow Santa Cruz poets Gary Young and Joseph Stroud. Click on the image for a picture of the cover...

Download news_from_a_burning_man_cover.doc

Here's two sample poems:

Rainbow Gathering

  Modoc County, California,1985

After graduate school, my brother took me to a remote corner

of the world near Nevada, where we pitched our tent

next to a pair of  astonishing rainbow women: nude

except for a feather here, a crystal there. Democratic

latrine pits in the open air, no one able to hide

their shit. Food for the asking, mushrooms, spirits.

After, not a shred of garbage anywhere. But it was the circle

at dusk, a mile-wide circumference of Om that still haunts—

how at the edge of the meadow the plateau plummeted

far down into barren desert below—how I’ve lived

with the memory like a ghost-limb ever since.

News From Burning Man

  Black Rock Desert, Nevada, 2004

After forty mile an hour dust storms, any water

you’ve brought simply turns your body ashen.

Thirty thousand techno-anarchists, some of them

your neighbors from back home, offer to paint your penis, 

cheek, torso in colors the desert only dreams of.

The bottomless night is when the real work begins,

pursuing Dionysus down endless tunnels the devil

himself has yet to conceive. But when the Wicker Man

burns---huge tower of corporate cardboard lit

in the dead of night---it is then you know

there is hope, that the world may yet be saved.

To order a copy, simply email me at danecervine@cruzio.com

BRANCHES QUARTERLY On-Line Poems

The following two poems were published in Branches Quarterly:

Omens: www.branchesquarterly.com/2.2/CervineBennett.htm

A Birthday Reverie: www.branchesquarterly.com/2.1/Cervine.Lyon.htm

RED RIVER REVIEW On-Line Poem

This poem appeared in the Red River Review:

HONEY: www.redriverreview.com/A55656/RRR.nsf/0/36760dcc236312eb862568d0001f72c9?OpenDocument

Poem in THE SUN Magazine

My poem ENGINE appeared in the November 2005 edition of Sy Safransky's THE SUN:

www.thesunmagazine.org/november2005.html

Here's the text of the poem:

Engine

The Los Gatos parking lot is filled with Lexus,

PT Cruisers, & Hummers. Housewives angular & tan

stream by, eyelids creamed & lined, optimistic breasts

nonchalantly pointing straight ahead, past the men

striding confidently with their cell phones

plugged to ears as though listening to somebody’s gospel,

or mutual funds rising, or another country falling.

Emerging, then disappearing again inside sleek metal

& fiberglass cocoons, pistons fire in each cylinder of heart,

spinning the world’s crankshaft, powering this endless rotation

through the void. There is always

someplace to go, something new to want.

And the young single women slide by so unencumbered,

radiant, untested by weddings, births, the thought of death—

engines humming beneath hips, cache of eggs to spill or grow.

How the young men revel, penises purring under red hoods,

bent on roaring down the road. Or the aging beauty in pink pants,

blue star shimmering on the curve of each bouncing cheek—

doesn’t someone love her like a secret, like the only one

worth having? Sometimes

there’s just too much speed, something in you careening,

looking for more, always more, cylinders of the heart

wanting to slow, to meander past these opulent hills

into the great brown fields of the San Joaquin—

so much space you almost feel lonely for the small

huddled towns, could almost start again—odometer

counting down the years, the ones that are left,

numerals fluttering languidly towards zero.

Porter Gulch Review Poems

Dane was chosen as the 2006 Porter Gulch Review POET OF THE YEAR, and his poems have appeared regularly in this Santa Cruz journal from Cabrillo College since 1997. The following link will connect you to on-line versions of the journal from the year 2000 forward:

http://www.cabrillo.edu/publications/portergulch/

Dane's poems can be found in the following editions and pages:

• 2006: Good Friday (page 61); In Praise of Women & Men (page 68); Where The Grass Is Greener Still (page 91)
• 2005: Engine (page 120), later published in the November 2005 issue of The Sun
• 2004: A Crack Between Two Worlds (page 60); Grateful Deadheads Talk Trash At The Cafe (page 124)
• 2003: Norte Americano (page 59); Oh Say Can You See (page 82); This Is My Body (page 168)
• 2002: Blue In The Face (page 41); What We Cannot See (page 57)
• 2001: Sex On The Kitchen Floor (page 36)
• 2000: I Am A White Man (page 87)

In addition, the Porter Gulch Review's pages include a wide spectrum of some of Santa Cruz's great poets, including a number from my Emerald St. Writers group, Poetry Santa Cruz, Hummingbird Press, and others. Worth exploring these great pages for poems, short stories, and great photos and art work.

Facets Magazine Poem

My poem What The Rain Brings, Leaves was published in Facets Magazine and can be viewed at:

http://www.facets-magazine.com/VolIVIss4/cervine.html

Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets 2004

The Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets 2004 is a great collection of work from a wide spectrum of poets living in the Santa Cruz and Monterey regions, published by Chatoyant Press. You can peruse the photos and bios of included authors (including myself) at:

http://www.montereybaypoetry.com/poets_directory.htm#C

My poem Every Last Bit Of It is on page 18 of the hard-copy, which can be ordered from Chatoyant Press at:

http://www.chatoyant.com/press/index.html

Porcupine Literary Arts Poems

One of my favorite small press journals is Porcupine, published by Buz and Vicki Reed in Wisconsin. Three of my poems appeared in the volume linked below:

http://www.porcupineliteraryarts.com/vol8-2.html

The first poem, What Infinity Can Never Bring, was also chosen by Dennis Morton for broadside publication and dissemination during National Poetry Month at our wonderful independent bookstore Bookshop Santa Cruz: 

What Infinity Can Never Bring

I love the old men gathering at Beckman's Bakery,

the hobble in the step of one, the sad eyes of another---

the joy of company that brings them together over coffee,

bagels, regrets. Even now, their conversation still lingers

on children, grown, scattered: my daughter's an alcoholic,

says one, mine's unemployed says another. But then,

in the next breath they are on to other loves,

simple passions---as only the old can do,

eyes ablaze with finitude's fire.

Buddha Hanger

A rusted hanger abandoned,

melting into black asphalt under rain.

Beauty only the holy can see, and for a long moment

I do---the oxidizing metal turning orange as a sun

lighting the horizon, a last goodbye.

Having held a warm coat, someone's favorite shirt---

or perhaps anonymous in a warehouse,

bearing a dress identical to thousands nearby,

waiting to be loaded, to find a home.

What more could anyone desire---

to be of such practical use,

to bear the beauty of others,

and when forgotten, to lie in the rain

content, letting go.

Would You Recognize the Truth if You Saw It

A small boy with blue glasses

pokes his head round the corner of the black metal newspaper stand,

stares. I crack the smallest of smiles, enough to send him

giggling for cover---till he reappears inside the empty black cage,

pokes his head through, stares at me again. This time,

I look him full in the face, radiate what gave us birth

those eons ago, this ecstatic recognition of being,

the surprise of it all. Gazing back through oval lenses,

never blinking, he radiates back---as though it was still,

all of it, just beginning---that there was endless time

to love your life this much.

Sacred Fire Anthology

My poem This Burning is included in the anthology Sacred Fire, which can be purchased at:

http://www.sacredfeathers.com/FIRE/contributors.htm

The poem was inspired by the true life story of a father I met at a mental health conference in San Diego, and my subsequent drive home through a night-blaze in the hills north of Los Angeles:

This Burning

In the dark ahead, it floats like an orange mirage,

eerie flame of light in the hills that surround Los Angeles

like taut, brown undulations—driving back from a conference

about youth, abused & neglected—how the world swims

in alternating waves of fierce light & infinitely dim

shades of despair. The plenary speaker with his grim tale

of childhood—the rapes, the abuse—how the system

saved his life, foster parents lifting him up

far enough to stand on his own DNA & the mysteries

of karmic spirit carrying his story to the New York Times,

his work to three presidential citations for excellence.

And the road winds higher through the night as the orange glow

grows brighter, flames lapping the black outline of swelling ground—

still too distant to be afraid—but the awe growing.

As when I met Azim—Persian born in Africa, educated in England,

financial consultant turned crusader against the violence

that took his son in the streets of San Diego, college student

delivering pizza unfazed by the bogus address

in the run-down neighborhood, the 14 year old gang-banger

waiting for him with the gun, told he’d become a man

by taking the other one down. And in the aftermath,

Azim finding the 14 year old boy’s grandfather, saying

my son’s death must come to mean something—

how they banded together bent on saving at least one more,

and another, then another. How his eyes burned

as I shook his hand, thanked him for his story,

told him it means everything—how I drove silently

in the night into the heaving hills afire, so close now,

not knowing if there would be a way through,

the black asphalt road leading inexorably

into the smoke-orange flame of the grapevine,

the only way out being through—and there it was,

the fire-break, the very road I was on, separating

Hades’ heat on one side from the quiet untouched hills

on the other. In between, in this eerie safety

of windshield & engine & wheels, I see

there is but one way to travel this world,

and it is towards, not away,

from this burning.

Working Hard For The Money, POETRY ANTHOLOGY

Two of my early poems were included in the anthology Working Hard For The Money: America's Working Poor in Stories, Poems, and Photos from Bottom Dog Press. They are Radar, and Lions After Slumber. Use this link to the publisher to order the book:

http://members.aol.com/lsmithdog/bottomdog/cat.dog.htm

Use this link to view the two poems: Download working_for_the_money_poems_by_dane_cervine.doc 

New Poem in CONTE

A new poem of mine entitled The Magic Trick appears in the on-line journal CONTE. Take a look at the following link: http://www.conteonline.net/issue0203/p01.shtml

POETS AGAINST WAR

Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry, and is a website that many poets have submitted poems to. The link below leads to the following poems: What We Have To Offer; What We Cannot See; Peace March; and All Hallows Eve. The line breaks didn't always work right on the web page, so please forgive...consider submitting your own poems if you haven't yet.

http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/displaypoem.asp?AuthorID=354

The Jeweled Net of Indra CONNECTIONS

The Jeweled Net of Indra is the poem listed at the beginning of my web page, as well as the name of my forthcoming book with Plain View Press. In keeping with the spirit of this poem, a google search turned up this link where the poem was used by Victoria Safford of the White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota as the basis for a sermon. I thought it an apt connection.

http://www.whitebearunitarian.org/sermon06oct08.pdf

Then, in the San Francisco Shambala Meditation Center Newsletter (Nov/Dec 2006), the poem showed up on page 2 in the Dharma Art section, submitted by sangha member David Asbury...a very nice graphic reproduction of it. View it by clicking on this link:

Download newsletter.pdf 

Here's another connection, where the poem shows up on Stumble Upon:

http://mlekas.stumbleupon.com/tag/blog/

The poem SIN, mentioned by Edwina Trentham in BEAD Interview

Sin

The worst part is failing to kiss the ground each morning.

Or the cold pot of resentment stirred and simmered

well into the evening. Everything else comes from this,

grows.

It wouldn’t be so bad if such immense portions of good fortune

weren’t squandered each hour, minutes the long dead

would ransom eternity to regain.

Even now, ripe apples lie rotting casually about the floor,

single bites taken from each—there is no worm, no snake…

only this failure to praise.

This is one of my favorite poems, I suppose, published in Freshwater by Edwina Trentham. I was surprised and pleased to see her refer to the poem as one of her favorites too in an interview published in BEAD. See the full interview at:

http://www.beadreadingseries.com/trentham-interview.html

REMEMBERING, in the Atlanta Review

This poem was published in the Atlanta Review's Spring 2006 edition:

Remembering

The gourd mask hangs on the wall,

round mouth hollow, speaking nothing

but what one hears beneath the ear drum,

like the sharp red feathers of the Mardi Gras mask,

longer black plumes rising from the eyes

as question marks:  who do you see?

I take each mask from the wall,

one for you, one for me—

peer through holes into the mirror:

we are changed. Another looks back

through feather and gourd, shaped

by them, something different

than wife, than husband—

a dark chimera, a luminous being.

There are alleys angled within,

numinous as an Orleans night,

bright trumpets, somber trombones:

any turn taken a new music,

how the blues began, like us.

Is it only a question of laziness,

that we become so little of ourselves?

Or fear, the mask we can’t see

beyond.

Bending the tri-fold mirror around,

we are reflected in endless variation,

each face beckoning, sighing,

relenting.

We are always more, never less.

Two Poems in THE BIRMINGHAM POETRY REVIEW

The following two poems were published in the Winter/Spring 2006 edition of the Birmingham Poetry Review:

After the Amputation

At ninety-five in the nursing home,

Aunt Opal says I don’t know where my leg is,

and my mother replies someone’s taking good care of it.

Her dead husband, forgotten. Her small house,

not even a memory. But the body knows

when something is lost: how the spirit, severed at birth,

has trouble staying in skin & bone.

Floating On The Wide, Blue Sea

I remember Uncle Bob’s chair in the Long Beach apartment

where he’d settled with Aunt Opal after the war—

the trundle bed opening from the wall,

the blue vinyl box of toys, the prune juice each morning—

how I’d sit in his lap nights listening to the radio,

feel the weathered blue cotton of the denim shirt

he always wore, remnant of his Navy days,

the way his eyes would drift far away into the stories

Opal whispered in the kitchen, about why he was so silent—

buddies floating in the blue sea, the way war sinks you even deeper still.

New Poems in the Monterey Poetry Review

You'll find a number of new poems on page 8 of the Fall/Winter 2006 edition of the Monterey Poetry Review:

Holography; The Last Days; Dark Flowers Speaking; Seeing Too Much; Obscurity; The Devil's Blues

http://www.hartnell.edu/mpr/index.php

Sex On The Kitchen Floor

The following poem was published in The New Laurel Review, and the Porter Gulch Review...it's a fun favorite, read in a variety of forums including Mary Orr's (a local Vipassana Buddhist teacher) Flesh & Spirit couple's workshops. The poem also appears in my book What A Father Dreams:

Sex On The Kitchen Floor

Can’t say I’ve done it

but there was that time

behind the boulder on the beach

on the steps at night in Venice

somewhere on the Interstate between

Phoenix and L.A.

in the field while our horses wandered home

naked in the car while 18 wheelers rolled by

fooling around in the bathtub

and then there was Greece again and again

the time with that rope but we won’t go there

unless blindfolded which isn’t a bad idea

but the bed’s a pleasant place to land

so I keep coming back there

and does it really matter anyway

even the missionaries

with their singular position

must have had it good enough

to call it sin.

Why I Love Fundamentalists

Here's another quirky poem I like, published in several venues, based on a true life experience as I visited my in-laws in Indiana. In this day and age of polarizing blue/red states, conservatives and liberals, this poem expresses a bit of the category-busting opportunities that often surround us...

Why I Love Fundamentalists

I was playing basketball at the corner hoop

in Madison, Indiana, stroking the ball

like it was the grace of god on asphalt

in the parking lot of the Nazarene Church

when he cornered me, the preacher

guarding my escape till he could find

out who I was

just visiting my father-in-law

down the street

and his face lit up like Christmas

wanting to know if I knew the Lord

or was I lost, so I faked left

my father was a Nazarene preacher,

I’ve got several going back

generations on my mother’s side.

He warmed to the task of finding out

if I was walking with the Lord now,

so I started dribbling fast but couldn’t

escape the fact that at that moment

I was the center of his whole world,

he felt my life for all eternity

hung in the balance of his broad hands—

and that my next decision would be

the most important one I’d ever make.

This is a rare experience in life, to be

so fully in focus, someone waiting

on your next act with each breath

and I basked in it,

but didn’t want to lead him on unduly,

so took a shot from beyond the three-point arc

swish

and grinned, saying

don’t know if I’m exactly walking

with the Lord, but he’s sure running

fast trying to guard me.

The preacher smiled back as I jogged

down the street, uncertain

but thinking he had maybe

changed the life of one more soul forever

and for those few moments

when he and I were the only two people

who mattered on the face of the earth

he was right.

Raven Chronicles Poem

Watching the news recently made me remember a poem I had published in the Raven Chronicles Special Issue: This Neutral Air - 9/11: What Needs To Be Said. The poem is entitled NORTE AMERICANO and appears below.

Check out Raven Chronicles at their website for socially infused writing that is provocative and well-written: Raven Chronicles

Norte Americano

We have arrived at the end of the earth, cannibalizing

the four directions, everything that lies between.

There is no end to what we cannot have, which is what we want;

every king knows this—the world is not enough.

Hunger consumes its children, picks over the bones that remain.

We are the children of bones, oblivious to what consumes us.

We are loud.

Silence has many advantages—hearing what we cannot have,

the open hand, the space it leaves, the nothing that is left

our one hope, emptiness capable of receiving, what is simple:

the heft of a hoe handle,

the weight of water

a fist uncurling fingers

surrendering this infinite seduction, the chain of want

spread across the globe as a cloud, pale as the skin of ghosts.

We Are This -- A Spiritual Poem

This poem first appeared in the journal Lucid Stone; in the chapbook anthology Above Us Only Sky, as well as my own chapbook One Small Life Breaks Open.

This poem weaves elements of early Gnostic and Christian themes, wrapped in a bit of existential poetic proclamation at the end that, indeed, we are this very struggle that is consciousness, that is the poet...

We Are This

Something in us wants pain

as a quill tip the darkest

black of ink; no other color

conveys such clarity

against the glare of white

the dominion of light

the color Lucifer wore falling

into shadow as radiance assaulted

his proud body, leaning into the void

it cast, turning and following

down the ventricles of descent

where he lay finally in the cool

of earth dreaming us, the children

God longed for but could not make

alone.

This, then, is our lament,

pain the color of our quarrel

with what is perfect—

for we are far from this, only night

conveys the absence we feel

with every turning away—

the moon shedding its light,

circling in a vast inkwell waiting

to be dipped in, elucidated, explained

by what chooses such loss—

the hand of something

unfathomable within

murmuring our dark story

as a woman chanting the name

of the child emerging triumphant

in blood ablaze between her legs

and we are this

the cry, the sting of birth,

everything that comes after.

Poetry Should

This poem first appeared in the journal Buckle &, and will appear in my new book from Plain View Press entitled The Jeweled Net of Indra in 2007:

Poetry Should

Poetry should matter

like water

something to die for

necessary as air

bread

for the hungry

not

shelved, pristine

above the fray

each of us could speak

something

urgent from the bottom

of our lives

anything

with weight, levity

what is essential

is the speaking

as though lives depended

on it for

we do.

Cinematic Poetry at MOVIES FROM THE HEART

My brother Scott Cervine and I are collaborating on blending poetry and film in his Cinematic Poetry at MOVIES FROM THE HEART website: http://www.moviesfromtheheart.com/

Go to the Screening Room and click on The Lawn Bowling Incident for a short film (allow 1-2 minutes to load) that includes the following poem:

The Lawn Bowling Incident

The grass of the lawn bowling green

lay sleepy as cows under midday sun.

Retirees in white hats, white pants and skirts

leisurely chat in clumps like cotton

awaiting harvest, now and again rolling

a solid black ball small as a large fist

toward the jack on the other end of the green.

Perched on a bench opposite the green,

the hypnotic rotation of the ball lulling

me roll by roll into reverie, I muse

that there is a difference between

spending time and passing time.

It is as though in spending time we become

a tight-fisted man pulling a wad of greygreen bills

from our front pants pocket, unhitching

the gold clip, and paying off the various demands

on our time and attention.

Time is metered out, rationed, allocated --spent.

Even with our children, our mates.

Especially with ourselves.

In passing time, the world slows enough

to hear the clink of ice-cubes in the lemonade glass

on the front porch railing, the lazy creak

of the swing as it sway back and forth,

the smell of anise and lavender in the yard.

This kind of time is like a stick in a river,

lolling on eddy and current, circling,

given over to the flow of what is larger and wider

than itself.

Opening my eyes at the sound of a sharp click

as to a hypnotist's finger-snap,

I see it is a black lawn bowling ball

hitting against another.

The sea of white clothing and gentle smiles,

so unlike the turbulence of the government

center next door, draws me into its slow tide.

I rise, confused for a moment as to which way to go,

where I am supposed to be. My feet under me finally,

I begin to walk down the path, past the open gate

of the green, and into the grey building adjacent.

But along the way, I wave towards the lawn bowlers

and make this promise:

to pass as much time in green as I spend in grey,

and to learn to slow down the lawn bowling way.

Conversations With My Son at MOVIES FROM THE HEART

My brother Scott Cervine and I are collaborating on blending poetry and film in his Cinematic Poetry at MOVIES FROM THE HEART website: http://www.moviesfromtheheart.com/

Go to the Screening Room and click on What's New (Screening Room 3) to see a short film of my poem Conversations With My Son (allow 1-2 minutes to load)

Conversations With My Son

He is eight, builds his cardboard box house

in the backyard with scissors and tape

stuck in his work-belt like uncle Steven.

A quiet happiness descends on us

as I watch in the mid-morning light,

not talking much, like two old men

familiar, puttering, the occasional story.

He begins with the one from Declan,

kid scientist at school, how some folks

in Australia bathe in the mud with their pigs

to protect their skin from burn,

how there's a hole in the sky that's growing,

and what's the strongest kind of sunscreen?

I tell him stories from when I was young,

the way things go wrong, how you survive:

finding a bullet on the road with aunt Opal,

the rock throwing that ended with blood,

the time uncle Steven slipped from the rope

swinging over the dry riverbed and I thought

he was dead. After the last story, and the house

he is building has taken a fine, firm shape,

he says Some kids love their moms more than their dads,

and I catch my breath, wait to exhale slow.

It is a common story: sons longing to be seen,

disappointed. But when it comes,

the I love you as much as mom, I am undone.

Without another word, we walk indoors

hand in hand for lunch, as though

this life together were the best

story of all.

Rock & Sling: Three Poems

Rock and Sling:A Journal of Literature, Art, and Faith is a fascinating journal dedicated to sustaining a forum for writers "to search both the depths and near misses of spirituality", and "writing that nudges up against Christian faith". For instance, publishing a poem from the vantage point of a gay Judas musing on his relationship with Jesus. Check it out at: www.rockandsling.org 

Three of my poems appear in the Fall 2006 Issue: Testify; Dante's Spoons; Salvation's Weight. You can view the web version of Testify at the following Rock and Sling web-link: TESTIFY at Rock and Sling

Click on the following file to see text version of Dante's Spoons: Download dantes_spoons.rtf

Click on the following file to see text version of Salvation's Weight: Download salvations_weight.rtf

You'll also find links and information regarding other poets connected with Rock and Sling, such as Li-Young Lee and Ellen Bass.

NEW BOOK RELEASE: The Jeweled Net of Indra

I am so happy to announce the release of my new book The Jeweled Net of Indra from Plain View Press. The following link will take you to the Plain View Press catalogue page where the book can be ordered: Plain View Press link to Jeweled Net of Indra

The back cover includes comments from Adrienne Rich, Ellen Bass, Robert Sward, and Patrice Vecchione. The title poem was chosen by Adrienne Rich as the 2005 National Writers Union winning poem, and was subsequently published in The SUN and Poetry Flash. Many of the other poems were published in a wide variety of magazines touching on themes of social justice, the environment, family, and the interlinked web that ties us all together.

The metaphor of Indra's Net is attributed to an ancient Buddhist teacher named Tu-Shun (557-640 B.C.E.), who envisioned life as a vast net with a jewel at each juncture. Each jewel, representing an individual life form, atom, cell or unit of consciousness, reflects all the other jewels in a cosmic matrix and is intrinsically and intimately connected to all others. A change in one gem is reflected in all the others.

The image of Indra's Net conveys that the compassionate and constructive contribution a person makes produces a ripple effect of beneficial action that reverberates throughout the universe. By the same token, one strand of the net cannot be damaged without damaging the others or setting off a cascading effect of destruction.

I was drawn to the Plain View Press vision, which editor Susan Bright describes: We Find Healing In Existing Reality.

Plain View Press is a 32-year-old issue-based literary publishing house. Over the years we have become a far-flung community of activists whose energies bring humanitarian enlightenment and hope to individuals and communities grappling with the major issues of our time--peace, justice, the environment, education and gender. This is a humane and highly creative group of people committed to art and social change. The written explorations of major issues are significant evidence that despite the relentless violence of our time, there is hope and there is art to show the human face of it.

The title poem, winner of the 2005 National Writers Union competition judged by Adrienne Rich, appears in the September 2006 edition of The SUN Magazine, which can be ordered at the site-link below:

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/september2006.html

The poem also appears in the Summer issue of Poetry Flash, and can be viewed in the opening sections of my website.

The Jeweled Net of Indra book endorsements come from the following poets:

"In the great fields of his country--not just the U.S. but the country of the heart, the country of poetry--Dane Cervine sits with and questions what is unfathomable but must be lived with anyway. I admire his faith in poetry. I admire his demand that it serve us. His lyrical and image-rich poems help light the way. They shorten the distance between us."

---Patrice Vecchione, author of "Writing and the Spiritual Life: Finding Your Voice by Looking Within

"The Jeweled Net of Indra is itself a jewel, an antidote to the illusion that any of us 'stands alone'. A testimony to how we are all of us consciousness and inextricably linked. A change in 'one gem' is reflected in all the others. I go for truth, I go for beauty...Dane Cervine's Jeweled Net of Indra has them both."

---Robert Sward, author of "Collected Poems: 1957-2004"

"'Poetry should matter' Dane Cervine writes in The Jeweled Net of Indra, a volume which tackles some of the most difficult and urgent subjects of our day: war, poverty, greed, alienation, the threats to our environment. These are poems rooted in commitment, caring, and a vision that comprehends our deep interconnectedness--poems that matter".

---Ellen Bass, author of "Mules of Love" 

Blue's Cruzio Cafe: The Jeweled Net of Indra

For a truly unique visual & auditory experience, check out my poem The Jeweled Net of Indra at Blue's Cruzio Cafe:

http://www.cruziocafe.com/saloon.html

Currently in The Saloon, it will migrate to one of the other "rooms" later on...check out the other amazing poets reading their work in dazzling different guises.

5 Poems on Santa Cruz GOOD TIMES Poetry Corner

Five poems of mine appeared in April 2007 in the Santa Cruz GOOD TIMES Magazine on-line Poetry Corner:

Santa Cruz GOOD TIMES On-line Poetry Corner

They are:

• The Jeweled Net of Indra
• Absent War's Preoccupations
• Norte Americano
• A Crack Between Two Worlds
• Why Men in Wartime Are Not To Be Trusted

New Poem in Paper Street: Fame

A new poem entitled Fame appears in Paper Street, a journal from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...Paper Street Press

The text of the poem can be viewed at this link: Download paper_street_submission_of_fame.doc

Three Poems in Porter Gulch Review 2007

The Porter Gulch Review 2007 includes three poems of mine:

• Moving The Dark God's Hand
• Sake & Satori
• Naked

Click on the following link to upload the 3 poems: Download porter_gulch_review_2007_from_dane_cervine.doc

You can also view the poems on pages 21, 40, and 67 in the on-line edition at the following link, along with other great poetry from Santa Cruz County and the Monterey Bay area:

http://www.cabrillo.edu/publications/portergulch/2007/Online%20PGR%202007.pdf

Four Poems in R.KV.R.Y Literary Journal

R.KV.R.Y Literary Journal publishes poetry, non-fiction and fiction writing related to Recovery, in the broadest sense, from human woundedness. The Summer/Fall 2007 issues includes four poems of mine:

The Spell -- My Father's Depression -- The Measure of Desire -- Keeping Watch

http://www.ninetymeetingsinninetydays.com/DaneCervinePageTwo.html

Two poems appear per page; use the link at bottom of each to navigate to the other two poems. Check out the rest of the journal for a wide variety of nteresting writing.

After The Amputation, on The Birmingham Review website

The Birmingham Review recently posted my poem After The Amputation on their website. You can peruse at:

http://www.uab.edu/english/bpr/32cervine.htm

POETALK Poem: Leaning Towards the Southern Hemishpere

My poem, Leaning Towards the Southern Hemisphere, was published in the Bay Area's POETALK magazine. The poem also appears in my new book from Plain View Press, The Jeweled Net of Indra. The poem was written during a visit to Costa Rica, while musing on the cultural differences between north and central/south americas.

Leaning Towards The Southern Hemisphere

Samara, Costa Rica

Veranda, hammock—refuge from what I’d become.

Small red frogs with immense toes sit silent

in trees nearby, poisonous, bearing witness. Forgetting myself,

I worship every cocoanut husk, green parrot, afternoon rain.

Even mosquitoes sound like singing, feel like tiny bruised kisses.

All insolence drains from my body, reverence the only tongue I know.

There is something here:  milk inside the husk.

Beneath the ground, a single bean germinates.

Inside the bean, the husk, a mountain grows:

it is my life.

Emerald St. Writer's Anthology: HARVEST

I have eight poems included in Harvest from the Emerald Orchard: An Anthology of the Emerald Street Poets recently published by the writer's collective I belong to. It is a wonderful collection, with diverse but congruent voices from seventeen poets in Santa Cruz, California.

You can read the following poems by clicking on this link:

Download emerald_st_dane_poems.doc

The Anonymity of Poets

The Meaning of Life

Every Wound A Kiss

Sin

A Rose, A Thorn

How to Know God

Would You Recognize the Truth If You Saw It

Becoming a Poem

The other great poets included are: Julia Alter-Canvin, Len Anderson, Virgil Banks, Jenny D'Angelo, Guarionex Delgado, Kathleen Flowers, Robin Lysne, Joanna Martin, Phyllis Mayfield, Maggie Paul, Stuart Presley, Carol Rodriguez, Joan Safajek, Lisa Simon, Robin Straub, Philip Wagner.

If you'd like to order a copy, just send me an email at: danecervine@cruzio.com and put "Emerald Anthology" in the email title.

Love's Lexicon in the ATLANTA REVIEW

The Atlanta Review's Spring/Summber 2007 edition is entitled IRAQ, with quite a number of amazing voices from Iraqi poets. I was grateful to have a general poem, about my father, included in its pages...

Love’s Lexicon

I spy my father in his seventy-third year,

pausing on his daily walk through the forest

to gaze upward at a patch of light in the sky,

arms held aloft as though worshiping a silent muse.

I should have known, peering down this tunnel

of dark pine & cedar toward the clearing where he stood,

that he was being called, that he would soon go.

But I approach as any son might, hoping

for a few more good years—

stand next to his slightly stooped figure,

massive arms still strong, pulling me closer,

looking me in the eye, saying

do you know how loved you are? And I do,

but cannot bear it, heart filled beyond

what such a small sack can contain.

Listen instead to his story: how he walks

pausing here and there to listen,

how certain brothers & sisters, long dead,

visit—assuring him there is another road

just ahead, that they will be waiting.

Sometimes the years seem too many,

sometimes too few. But just now,

this moment fills a space that could

only be called infinity, lasts a time

that could only be named eternity—

love’s lexicon imprinting the heart

with language only grief can bear,

only joy pronounce.

3 Poems in TERTULIA MAGAZINE On-Line

In November 2007, 3 new poems of mine appeared in Tertulia Magazine on-line. They are:

• Advertisement for Poetry
• Uniform
• Poetry

Scroll down at the following link to see all three poems:

Three poems at Tertulia Magazine

About Tertulia Magazine

In the late 1700’s, rooms in the local theaters in Madrid were reserved for men of letters to engage in intellectual discussions. Since most of these men were Catholic clergy, their discussions many times revolved around the Church Father Tertullian. Thus, the tertulia was born.

In 2003, Tertulia Magazine was founded by Rosa Martha Villarreal, An H. Nguyen, and Bernardo Salinas to continue the tradition of independent, non-ideological discourse through art and written word in cyberspace.

Poem in Out of Line 2007 -- Writings on Peace & Justice

A new poem appears in the 2007 anthology OUT OF LINE (here's a link to Garden House Press to order): Garden House Press

My Daughter Reads The Morning Paper

She opens the world

as a present unwrapped slowly,

unsure if it might be her heart's desire

or a sensible pair of socks to replace the one

with holes. Unraveling the morning paper,

she comes to expect the small wars,

the persistent headlines about this tragedy

or that, the occasional stories of everyday people

triumphing against the odds. Mostely she loves

the comics, the heroism of sports, learning

the world's humor, a taste for winning.

Twelve years of tenderness are woven

through the strands of her heart,

the softly spun gray matter

cupped in her skull more precious

than radium or plutonium, the potent

half-life of her soul glowing now

as it meets the lost half of the world:

I hear it calling her in the earthquakes of Iran,

the tin-cities of Brazil, the picture on the back page,

the one she doesn't mention, the one

she peers at as though the world, unwrapped,

was more than she could dare

to care this much for.

Out of Line is an annual anthology of imaginative writings with underlying themes of Peace and Justice. Sam Longmire, editor.

"Out of Line combines a passion for justice and peace with a passion for excellent literature. Whether the poems, stories, and essays focus on war, racial injustice, child abuse, or any of a number of other issues, they are well-crafted and moving. Each issue inspires me both to improve my writing and to increase my commitment to make this a better world for everyone."
- Wilda Morris, President, Illinois State Poetry Society

This poem also appears in my book THE JEWELED NET OF INDRA from Plain View Press.

Three Poems in Monterey Poetry Review

Here's a link to the on-line version of the Monterey Poetry Review's Summer 2007 issue, which includes several poems:

• Leaning Towards the Southern Hemisphere
• At the Russian River
• After the Earthquake

Monterey Poetry Review

New Poem in The Eloquent Athiest: Which Way is Heaven?

I've had poems appear in a wide variety of journals, including Quaker, Buddhist, and Christian. Oddly enough, I now have a poem appearing in The Eloquent Athiest, entitled Why Way is Heaven?

http://www.eloquentatheist.com/?p=159

The poem emerged from a conversation with my son over breakfast. Hope you enjoy.

Sex on the Kitchen Floor, at Blue's Cruzio Cafe

Beau Blue hosts one of the most unique poetry sites anywhere, with his unique use of photo-avatars to present a poet and poem. His web-site contains a variety of "stages" (Main Stage, Saloon, Afterhours, the Green Room, etc) with a wide variety of famous and local SF Bay Area poets.

Check out The Saloon for a rendition of my poem Sex on the Kitchen Floor, which will migrate later to one of the other stages. For instance, my poem The Jeweled Net of Indra is now showing in "The Saloon" after running on the Main Stage.

http://www.cruziocafe.com/saloon.html

Also on the new Main Stage are poems by Ted Kooser, Morton Marcus, and others. The Cafe can always be found at www.cruziocafe.com

Three Poems in Rock & Sling

In the Winter 2007 edition of Rock & Sling (Vol 4, Issue 2) are 3 new poems: Some Prayers Are Better Unanswered; The Soles of My Feet are Bourne Upon the Earth; The Foot Washing Ceremony. Rock & Sling is a great journal of "Literature, Art, and Faith" with poetry, essays, fiction and reviews that "bump up against" spirituality and western religion in some way. Check out their webiste at:

www.RockandSling.org

The following link will take you to the 3 poems:

Download rock_and_sling_3_poems.doc

Sound of One Angel Clapping (Falling)

A new poem entitled Sound of One Angel Clapping (Falling) appears in the 2008 edition of FRESHWATER, a poetry journal edited by Edwina Trentham at Asnuntuck Community College in Connecticut. Edwina told me a few years ago that she had posted my poem "Sin" on her computer as a daily reminder of gratitude, after publishing the poem in an earlier edition (you can read that poem elsewhere in my weblog). I am grateful she chose to publish this new poem:

Sound of One Angel Clapping (Falling)

Every morning, I hear it---the crows

flap from tree to tree cawing their joyful lament.

I rise, arch my shoulders to ease tightened muscles

from night's lifeless repose---reach back to touch

the bony stubs where, once again, I dreamt wings grew.

Remorseless, I walk rather than fly into the day,

into a world I will one day give everything to.