Dane Cervine Writes

ENGINE appears 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:

• 2015: Self Awareness in the Modern Age
• 2014: Beloved; The Glossolalia of Poetry; Moonbeam at the Destruction Derby
• 2013: Comeback
• 2011: Four Hubcaps & A Prayer; The Golden Dragon
• 2010: Turning Fifty; Signs
• 2009: The Fantastic Four; A Dark Country
• 2008: American Jihad; Kamikaze Diaries; Gulf Wars
• 2007: Naked; Moving the Dark God's Hand; Sake & Satori
• 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.

CONVERGENCE & FACETS Magazine Poems On-Line

Samples of Dane's poetry on-line can be found at CONVERGENCE Magazine:

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

 

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 List - & Monterey Bay Poets 2004

 Here are some of the recent anthologies my poems have been privileged to appear in -- scroll through the listings in ANTHOLOGIES for more detail in chronological order, with poem samples and publisher information. Most books can be ordered too through your local bookstore and Amazon:

 

 

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.

 

 

 

My poem Every Last Bit Of It is on page 18 of the hard-copy, and appears below:

 

Every Last Bit Of It

 

My son calls me, daddy come see! as I saunter into the backyard,

find him bare-legged, bare-chested, bright red under-shorts

caked with mud, as are his shins, his hands, his face, as though

a young Jehovah, ecstatic in the garden he was making, paused—

water & dirt of life smeared up to elbow & knee—bellowing

that first exclamation, that it was all good, every bit of it,

even the mud, especially the mud. Unlike that young,

effervescent deity, my son

has someone older to ponder his handiwork: how the hose,

hooking like a snake round the tree, has created a small river,

how the river has dug a channel, the channel now a lake

for boats filled with tiny pirates marauding the coast,

the forest of lawn lurking dangerous nearby,

myriad adventures waiting on his whim to unfold.

What I see:

sturdy eye calculating the damage to clay path,

the now filthy grass, the time it will take to make it right—

how age shapes estimation, the crazy extravagance of spring,

the raw glee of summer’s heat never failing to remind

of autumn’s steep fall into winter—the work it requires

to be ready, always ready. This may have been the feeling,

my own father standing in the carport when I was five,

hands on hips, surveying the damage to the VW bug that I,

the painter, had rendered. Swaths of color across headlight,

fender, hubcap—this masterpiece of unrestrained creativity—

my slow dawning that something was amiss, that it wasn’t

all good, not every bit of it, not this urge inside

to find out for myself: this undertow into the underneath

of things. As with my son now, his eye scanning mine,

intent on finding praise—and I give it, his flush of pride

evident on skin amid mud. Then we begin

 

the slow task of unraveling creation, the story of how

it must be made whole again, the garden put back

not quite the way it was: laden now with memory,

each fault buried beneath new clay, each mistake softened

till the path is smooth, the grass again green, father & son

knowing that it is good, that it is all good,

every last bit of it.

Porcupine Literary Arts: 3 Poems

One of my favorite small press journals is Porcupine, published by Buz and Vicki Reed in Wisconsin. Three of my poems appeared in this edition.

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.

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 & 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.

 

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

grows brighter, remembering the next speaker, 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,

a 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 of Los Angeles 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.