Kenneth Salzmann—or just Ken, moved to Ajijic in 2014, from New York’s Capital Region and Hudson Valley, following careers in nonprofit administration and journalism. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies throughout North America, and in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Another Gray Afternoon in Guernica
Not even the startling red of anguish
pooling in the streets of the ancient
market town, and not even the raw green
silent screams of the women, and not the cerulean
certainty of April skies capping the afternoon
can ever pierce the gray reality.
Gray is the color of death dropping
from the sky in early spring, and the last
color left on the artist’s palette after the bombs
have drained the world of other hues.
I can’t remember how many
gray afternoons I spent in the
very heart of Guernica on a bench
in the museum on 53rd Street,
not daring to breathe while wondering
when the red would begin to flow
from those wounds and wondering
when it would finally stop.
******
In the poet’s garden
In the poet’s garden one summer evening
in June rows of leafy enjambments stop
at the edge of a lush planting of blossoming
trochees and alongside the muted petals
of shade-loving tercets while a simile like a snake
slithers through a bed of perennial metaphors
that spread outward and over the fern
hill to kiss tidy plots where amphibrachs
are draping a trellis and underfoot
anapests are sprouting and iambs abound.
In the poet’s garden rhymes climb pink
spondees at the foot of a synecdoche
of rhythm and hyperbole. Metonomies
now grow where once only concrete was.
******
Lane change
for Sandi
She’ll take the keys
without discussion; he’ll be content,
unquestioning in the passenger seat.
The first mapmaker, while clearly lacking
the global view, was persuaded nonetheless
by elongated blots approximating where he’d been
She’ll navigate little-known landscapes, accelerate
past exit ramps, breathe easily, exhale
minor mysteries, drive on.
She’ll drive on, passing
roadside signs, indecipherable
and that’s okay.
Early cartographers were defeated by perspective;
we map madly now, measuring continents and
gardens and galaxies and the shortfalls of the soul.
But for all of that and science, who can fix a point
and say, “I am there or was or will be?”
She’ll take the keys,
without discussion.
******
Mort Gordon, 94
Mort’s Deli offered all the usual
fare, of course—enticing us
drawing us in after school
(or instead of it)
with briny half-sour pickles
bobbing in a barrel
pastrami dripped across
rock-crusted ryes
salami and eggs
Brisket
a Reuben a Rachel
the impatient prodding
from harried workers
behind the counter
and something more
a third place a hideaway
chicken soup
a refuge.
In those days we knew it all
but we couldn’t have known how
memories
come back like a schmear
when we chance upon
the obituary of the man
who never said
but may have known
the ways we came of age
fifty years ago
in that booth
at the back.
One Day in Oswiecim*
I.
It hasn’t changed. The serene
green countryside reaches
toward a cloudless sky, and this
land could be your land.
II.
The oldest woman in town
trembles a bit remembering
an unsettling glow lighting
her childhood, but this
town could be your town.
III.
There’s a playground now
on the peaceful street
where ghosts were born
and legends linger, and this
street could be your street.
IV.
The women in farmhouses
and tidy village homes kept
the curtains drawn so the
children wouldn’t see, but this
home could be your home.
V.
The world comes in buses now.
Tourists stagger through history,
pausing to catch their breath,
inhaling reassurance that this
history will not be their history.
VI.
It hasn’t changed. The serene
green countryside reaches
toward a cloudless sky, and this
land may be your land.
*A small city in Poland, better known by its German name, Auschwitz.
******
Tango Lessons
For Jim Tipton
Step slow slow quick quick
slow
through a lifetime
of swivels and turns
and graceful cortés.
Embrace your partner
sensuously
as you wished to embrace
life itself, wrapping your arms
around a space between
the firm grasp of certainty
and the loose elegance
of letting go.
Step slow slow
quick quick
slow toward
the final tanda.
Death—the poet of love said
edging unto the dance floor—
comes in a dream
wears a miniskirt
and teaches the dying
to tango.
******
There is a small room in a blue house
“The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon wrapped about a bomb.”
–Andre Breton
There is a small room in a blue house
where memory is the scent of dahlias,
the sound of green silk kissing steel
The cruelty of the corset.
The strength of an insistent palette.
Reflections of impossible realities.
The garden still remembers
hummingbird and caracara
plotting revolutions.
In Tehuantepec the women
hold fast to heritage and power;
the colonists are coming still.
What is irretrievably broken
might be finely wrapped
in the fabric of Mexico.
On a small bed in a small room
in a blue house, a death mask
a mirror a rose.
******
The Last Jazz Fan
The last Jazz fan slipped
from the world one night
like the amorphous
notes of a trumpet solo
at closing time. Some say
reedy melodies hovered
above him like nimbus clouds
at the exact moment rhythm
left the room. Explosive riffs
be-bopped across the sky
when the last jazz fan
returned to stardust,
and clarinets cooled
the darkness. Some say
it is the silent spaces between
that describe the song,
but some say the spaces
might expand until
they swallow the song
and silence is certain.
After he retired and moved to Sedona, Arizona, he taught literature at Yavapai College in Clarkdale, Arizona.
He and professional artist Bev Kephart bought a small motor home in 2003, sold most of their possessions, and traveled the U. S. for seven years. After visiting Mexico several times, they settled in the village of Ajijic, joining the ex-pat artist and writing communities.
Mel’s writing has been published online and in print in The United Kingdom, The United States, Mexico, New Zealand, and Australia. He is the author of three novels, a book of short stories, and several books of poetry. He and his wife now make their home in the village of San Nicholas de Ibarra.
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