I can’t quite recall how this gentleman from Boise came to my attention over the world wide web, but I am glad he did. Ken Rodgers is one of those writers who lives a fascinating life and then tells us about it in poems, stories, and film. He also tells the stories of others–one of his most recent projects is a documentary film about the Bravo Company of US Marines during the Vietnam war (co-produced with his wife Betty.) Rodgers has “…chased sheep across the desert, chased the enemy through the jungles of southeast Asia, run the head gate to capture cattle, pounded the keys of a calculator, pounded the keys of a typewriter, peddled mountain real estate, and tailed off recycled redwood at a finishing mill,” we learn from his website. How can you not be intrigued? And he is deeply committed to writers and celebrating words, working in various capacities as a teacher and artist. Lucky for me–and for you, too–Ken Rodgers is willing to open up his writing space to us with his View From the Keyboard.
Rodgers: Space to nap, ponder, and write. A bookshelf bulging with poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. A corkboard with postcard-sized renditions of art that fetch my fancy or churn my memory. Copies of ancient mosaics, also Cezanne, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Velasquez, Chagall, Picasso, De Kooning, Degas, Manet, Magritte, have spurred chunks of my written musings.
I am particularly fond of a postcard copy of a Diego Velasquez titled “Democritus.” Democritus was an ancient Greek philosopher interested in answers that rely on material data in response to philosophical questions regarding existence. Not much of the spiritual, just atoms and material things.
Although philosophy is one of my interests, it’s Democritus’ face that captures me. The same face a longtime friend owned, and I wonder if Velasquez’ model isn’t my friend’s ancestor. The Democritus in the painting wears a quixotic grin that when rendered by my friend, meant mischief was afoot. Life was like a bronco that needed to be broken. Rollicking, hoof stomping. We drank whiskey and fought. We got drunk and he fought cops. He pulled guns on cops, and mostly got away with it. I watched. Busted Metaxa bottles on the backs of bars. Gambel’s quail gunned down out of season. The one-night flings with rough-cut women.
Democritus would have recognized our shenanigans as evidence of the material. Not much of the spiritual in our behavior.
My friend has been dead many years but I still write poems, stories and lyric essays based on our common monkeyshines. Often prodded by Velasquez’ grinning—or is it sneering—“Democritus.”
Stalled on the Runway in a Boeing 707, waiting for the B-52s to take off
A sudden blow, the great wings beating still…
William Butler Yeats, from “Leda and the Swan”
We wait for them
stately black
and unmarked
to leave on their missions
Await our turn to leave the wounds of war
behind
On the Kadena tarmac
we wait
Lined up they wait
to fly southwest
to carpet bomb the ridges
and tree-lined draws
the amber flats
the creeks that meander to the South China Sea
They wait
to loose their bombs
with red frown faces painted on
Bombs nestled in their bomb bay breasts
Stately black
their too-long wings bobbing up and down
as they rumble and creep
forward for their time
to fly
Stately black
We wait for them
Await our turn to leave the wounds of war
behind
◊◊◊
→Ken Rodgers, thank you. -PMc←
Patricia Ann McNair 