Wind People…. ‘Cannery Row’ Cocktail…. That’s The Way To Do It…
by Bernie Bell - 08:45 on 24 February 2023
Wind People….
Two Wind People poems….
One by me….
Scattering Ashes
Scattering ashes
He didn’t want a burial
A windy day
On a hill
The Wind People
Return the ashes
She goes home with him
Scattered over her.
BB
One by friend Fred…..
The Wind People
Their faces are the skeins of air that we
sometimes perceive to finger across a flag or sheet;
their bodies, that which fills a tree
when it is wrought by their possession, throws
about its limbs as if distraught.
And they are like the catspaws of the fire,
and they are simple-minded in their time;
often their quarrels by coincidence
catch in the splinters of a human fate
and pull us willy-nilly to the grave or flame.
Lovers, quite often, capture by mistake
within a kiss, a wind-person by the hem
and then the breath that each one breathes
is the trapped and unknowing spirit of another being.
It’s this that scares a lover oftentime.
The wind people inhabit wars and shores.
It’s they who form the whistle of the shell,
for they are fascinated by all forms of spirals
and love to lie along the horns of shells.
They’re angered, though, by bangs and bells.
Especially in Fall the wind people come by.
They think that we are only swifter forms of trees. To them
the tender flesh of thigh and breast is hard as stone.
In these last months
I’ve become not much different from they.
A year ago I felt a ticking in my eye
whenever wind was round.
Investigating this phenomenon I found
A veil of colours in the air so faint it was
Not so much sight as sound.
At first I could not tell the boundary
Between one windperson and another. Now
I’ve even named them, though their names are secret.
I wondered whether they had anything to do with prayer:
But they come neither out of heaven nor hell.
–And now I know their shapes in whirling sand;
I’ve grown to recognize their smell
(like hills of bitter snow) and see
in turns of my own madness their many-fingered hand
weaving their versions of eternity.
Fred Turner
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‘Cannery Row’ Cocktail….
I’m re- reading ‘Cannery Row’ by John Steinbeck, and the description of how Eddie the bar-man gets free booze to take back to his fellow Flophouse residents…….
“He kept a gallon jug under the bar and in the mouth of the jug there was a funnel. Anything left in the glasses Eddie poured into the funnel before he washed the glasses. If an argument or a song were going on at ‘La Ida’, or late at night when good fellowship had reached its logical conclusion, Eddie poured glasses half- or two-thirds full into the funnel. The resulting punch which he took back to the Palace was always interesting and sometimes surprising. The mixture of rye, beer, bourbon, Scotch, wine, rum, and gin was fairly constant, but now and then some effete customer would order a stinger or an anisette or a curaçao and these little touches gave a distinct character to the punch. It was Eddie’s habit always to shake a little Angostura into the jug before he left. On a good night Eddie got three-quarters of a gallon. It was a source of satisfaction to him that nobody was out anything.”
They want the ‘buzz’ of alcohol - not too fussy about the taste - they get alcohol.
Though…. “This tastes pretty nice after the third glass,” Hughie said loyally”. That may be true enough!
I remember Billy Connolly telling a tale of a pub he used to frequent in Glasgow where there was a big container on the bar into which the leavings were tipped from the glasses before they were washed, then the resulting mixture was sold cheap to anyone who ..…wanted alcohol without being too fussed about the taste. Needs must.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06vh97x/player
‘Regulations’ wouldn’t allow that to happen these days.
‘Needs must’ is the essence of life in Cannery Row. It’s a good read - John Steinbeck always is.
Mike’s Monterey Memories…. http://www.spanglefish.com/berniesblog/blog.asp?blogid=15854
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That’s the way to do it…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64743138
Non-violent resistance – learning from Gandhi… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance
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Here’s one I made earlier…. https://theorkneynews.scot/2020/03/26/the-healing-of-brodgar/
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