Journal of a Naked Poet - II

My first historical memory is the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I was two and a half years old, and did not know what death was. I've written about it in several poems. My father was away, fighting in the "Pacific theater," as the military euphemistically called it. I asked my mother where Daddy was, and she told me he was fighting "the Japs." I asked her what a "Jap" was, and she showed me a monstrous figure that she had drawn with colored chalks on a small chalkboard. The casualties of war are not only the bodies of young men and women; they include the minds, the attitudes, the hearts of civilians.

I remember the rainy night in a Navy housing project in Chula Vista, California, when my father came home from the war. I have written about it in a poem or two. My parents had to shyly get reacquainted with each other. I guess they did, because after Patricia and myself, six more children were born.

There was a terrible housing shortage in 1946, and for a while my parents and my sister and I lived in a one-room converted garage. I think it was there that I experienced what I now interpret as a reincarnational flash, involving an old man in a skullcap, working with plant essences. It was the first of many, and I've written about that, too.

One day, while we were living in that garage, my mother sat cross-legged on the foot of my little bed, and started telling me about God. Of course, since she was an Irish Catholic, it was her version. At first I was excited, as she started out with "Long ago, so long ago that you can't imagine it . . . ," but when she got to the Christ part, I clearly remember thinking, "Oh no, not that old story again," and was quite disappointed. When my father came home from work and asked her what she was doing, she was singing Tantum Ergo to me (a thirteenth-century Benediction hymn by Thomas Aquinas, written in complex and erudite Latin that is difficult even for me, now). I'm sure my mother had no idea what it meant, but the melody, when combined with incense and a golden monstrance, is quite compelling. My father, who had not yet converted to Catholicism, was, I'm sure, baffled by the whole thing.

Religion, or rather spirituality, took on increasing importance in my life.  In 1953, when Stalin died, the nuns in my Catholic school told us to pray for him, because "he was a very bad man, and was surely going to hell." I dutifully did so. By the seventh or eighth grade I had developed an infatuation with the simple life of poverty of Saint Francis of Assisi. Poverty was something that I could understand: we had plenty of it.

In high school, when I became literate in Spanish, I became enamored of the mystical writings of Teresa of Ávila. I read the Imitation of Christ in Latin (my copy had belonged to San Diego's Bishop Buddy, and I still, miraculously, have it). Then, straight out of high school, I entered a Jesuit novitiate. I lasted two and a half months.

(to be continued)

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

Journal of a Naked Poet - I

Like many people, I was born naked. Also like many people, I was born poor. I don't know that I was born a poet, But I began writing poetry in my late teens. My tastes ran the gamut from American Transcendentalists to English Romantics. My favorite of the latter was John Keats. Of American poets, I eventually settled on Walt Whitman.

In my early college days, some of my juvenilia was published, Here are a couple of samples:


AN ANT'S ACCOUNT OF HIS OWN DEATH

by Donald C. Traxler


While I was crawling on the ground
Beneath a crumb of cake,
I heard a mighty, thunderous sound,
And the earth began to shake.
At once the sky turned black as ink;
The sun was hidden from my sight.
The last thing that I saw, I think,
Was one word--"NEOLITE."

I am dating myself here, but in 1963 everyone knew that "NEOLITE" was a brand name for shoe soles.


Here is another, from the same year:


SYMBOLS, SHAPES, AND SIGNS

by Donald C. Traxler


History began with symbols, shapes, and signs
which together made words, and the words made lines.
Xs, lines, and circles in the sand of the beach,
carvings in a cave where the tide won't reach;
scattered, scrambled wedges in baked clay bricks
were made with sharp styluses instead of sticks.
Heads and hands and crooked lines and facy snakes and birds
filled the pharoahs' tombs with pharoah-pleasing words.
In China letters came from jagged lines and hooks,
and characters were made to look the way a spider looks.
And when you come to read old Aesop's fables,
you'll find the ps are rs, the the ps are crooked tables.
And far across the ocean where the sun's so hot it boils,
the Mayas made their letters out of bas-relief gargoyles.
The Arabs of the desert use their sickles, knots, and dots
to decorate their frescoes and their alabaster pots.
History goes on with symbols, shaped, and signs
which together make words, and the words make lines.


Ah yes, those were the days. I wrote some pretty long poems, and also some long, pretty poems. But something in me will no longer allow me to do that. I guess I've become a minimalist poet, for better or for worse.

I remember, in those early college years, wondering why people couldn't walk around on the street without clothes. I just couldn't understand it. Those of us of the Asperger's persuasion tend to have a hard time with social injustice.

I was very thin in my childhood and youth. My need for body acceptance and my love of lying naked in the sun caused me to become committed to the idea of nudism / naturism. In high school, my mother had disapprovingly called me a "nudist" because I slept nude,.I still do, but the term no longer has any sting. Both in Spain and in the San Francisco Bay Area, my wife and I were in the habit of going to nude beaches, a lovely and liberating experience. I also meditated nude, and did yoga nude, even leading a group for the latter on the Internet. Nudity became an integral part of my life, both waking and sleeping.

(to be continued)

Text and images © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

If You Don't Like the Way I Look / Si vous n'aimez pas mon apparence / +es. pt

"If you don't like the way I look,
look the other way."
--Willie Nelson

"Si vous n'aimez pas mon apparence,
regarde de l'autre côté".

"Si no te gusta cómo me veo,
mira al otro lado".

"Se você não gosta da minha aparência,
olhe para o outro lado".

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

asgitisga / ᎠᏍᎩᏘᏍᎦ / Dream / Rêve / Sueño / Sonho

asgitisga yeliquase kanohedi ugodidi
iyusdidine. nasgi yeliquase kanohedi
tla uwasa na gesvise ale na gesvose,
aseno nasquv na gesvase.

ᎠᏍᎩᏘᏍᎦ ᏰᎵᏆᏎ ᎧᏃᎮᏗ ᎤᎪᏗᏗ
ᎢᏳᏍᏗᏗᏁ. ᎾᏍᎩ ᏰᎵᏆᏎ ᎧᏃᎮᏗ
Ꮭ ᎤᏩᏌ Ꮎ ᎨᏒᎢᏎ ᎠᎴ Ꮎ ᎨᏒᎣᏎ,
ᎠᏎᏃ ᎾᏍᏋ Ꮎ ᎨᏒᎠᏎ.

A dream can tell many
things. It can tell
not only what was and what will be,
but also what is.

Un rêve peut dire beaucoup
de choses. Ça peut dire
non seulement ce qui était et ce qui sera,
mais aussi ce qui est.

Un sueño puede decir muchas
cosas. Puede decir
no solo lo que fue y lo que será,
pero también lo que es

Um sonho pode dizer muitas
coisas. Pode dizer
não só o que foi e o que será,
mas também o que é.

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler ꮨᏺꭽꮅ.

The Gardener

I met the Gardener
who had been gone
these many years.
I tracked her down
from room to room
in a palatial theater.
As we sat side by side
in audience seats,
she showed me a cucumber
with its seeds.
"I could take those back
with me and plant them,"
I said.
She said, "At least I
didn't bring
my clippers with me."

I laughed,
and laughed.
Her garden is well,
and so is she.

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.

ᎡᎷᏪᎢ ᎭᏫᎾ / In Silence / En silence / En silencio / Em silêncio

eluwei hawina
gesvase nigadv agadohvsdi
ale nigadv dideyodo.

ᎡᎷᏪᎢ ᎭᏫᎾ
ᎨᏒᎠᏎ ᏂᎦᏛ ᎠᎦᏙᎲᏍᏗ
ᎠᎴ ᏂᎦᏛ ᏗᏕᏲᏙ.

In silence
there is all wisdom
and all teaching.

En silence
il y a toute la sagesse
et tout l'enseignement.

En silencio
hay toda sabiduria
y toda la enseñanza.

Em silêncio
existe toda sabedoria
e todo ensino.

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler ꮨᏺꭽꮅ.

Just Another Naked Poet / Juste un autre poète nu / Solo otro poeta desnudo / Apenas mais um poeta nu

Just another naked poet,
there's nothing much to say.
Walt Whitman understood,
when his beard was also gray,
and I thank the good Lord
for my nudity every day,
it's a blessing in every way.

Juste un autre poète nu,
il n'y a rien à dire.
Walt Whitman a compris,
quand sa barbe était également grise,
et je remercie le bon Dieu
pour ma nudité tous les jours,
c'est une bénédiction à tous points de vue.

Solo otro poeta desnudo,
no hay mucho que decir.
Walt Whitman entendió,
cuando su barba también era gris,
y le agradezco al buen Señor
por mi desnudez todos los días,
es una bendición en todos los sentidos.

Apenas mais um poeta nu,
não há muito a dizer.
Walt Whitman entendeu,
quando a barba dele também era cinza,
e agradeço ao bom Senhor
pela minha nudez todos os dias,
é uma bênção em todos os sentidos.

Text and image © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.