Gatherings: Collected Poems 2006-2011 (Sections: Park, Levels, Orderly Arrangments and Gatherings)

By Jan G. Otterstrom Fonnesbeck

The labor of Jans birth began at the San Francisco Opera house in a World War II blackout during the second act of Rigoletto, Jan Pierce tenor, Jans namesake, from then he has been haunted by the musical sounds and meanings of words and the silences in between them. Being nurtured in a devoutly religious but intensely artistic home his hauntings soon took the form of poetry. Despite his many academic degrees and varied professional careers, his poetry has survived as his primary personal calling. The author of five previous books: Burning Bush1985, Particles of Thought 1988 (both University Flaming Arrow Press), Ibis of Imaginings, a Poetic Diary (Editorama Poesia 1995), Loom (TELAR) in 2005 and "Suite de La Habana" in 2006 both Edicions Union (UNEAC, Cuba) in which Otterstrom recounts a peculiar poetic odyssey, as he decided to abandon the security of his business career to return to an inner home which became Havana, Cuba to discover its importance to his destiny as poet.
This book GATHERINGS (sections: PARK, LEVELS, ORDERLY ARRANGMENTS and GATHERINGS) is a collection of poems from 2006 until 2011. During this time Jan has continued to travel between Costa Rica and Cuba, having sensed a spiritual link between him and what he feels and sees in these countries. Otterstrom experiences a wide range of literary, scientific and mathematical knowledge in his poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465379429

Jan G. Otterstrom Fonnesbeck

The labor of Jan’s birth began at the San Francisco Opera house in a World War II blackout during the second act of Rigoletto, Jan Pierce tenor, Jan’s namesake, from then he has been haunted by the musical sounds and meanings of words and the silences in between them. Being nurtured in a devoutly religious but intensely artistic home his hauntings soon took the form of poetry. Despite his many academic degrees and varied professional careers, his poetry has survived as his primary personal calling. The author of fi ve previous books: “Burning Bush”1985, “Particles of Thought” 1988 (both University Flaming Arrow Press), “Ibis of Imaginings, a Poetic Diary” (Editorama Poesia 1995), Loom (TELAR) in 2005 and "Suite de La Habana" in 2006 both Edicions Union (UNEAC, Cuba) in which Otterstrom recounts a peculiar poetic odyssey, as he decided to abandon the security of his business career to return to an inner home which became Havana, Cuba to discover its importance to his destiny as poet.

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Copyright © 2011 by Jan G. Otterstrom Fonnesbeck.

ISBN:          Softcover                                 978-1-4653-7941-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-7942-9

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Contents

The Park

On The Edge

Clouds

Longing

Dawn

The Center

The Rent

Efficacy

The Curb

Wars

Closed Vision

Reservations

Bee

Lesson Of Pandora

A Park, Miramar Playa

Rebuilds

Stone

Life Fit

Funeral

Hearing

Summer A Season

Morning

My Calling

Heavens

Age I

Age Ii

Age Iii

Age Iv

Dreaming On A Park Bench

End

End Ii

Life’s Course

Island

Parks Within

Pruned

Lindens

Cool Shade

Travelogue

Spaces

Enfolded

Messenger

Winter In Paradise

Poem Beginning ‘O’

Glimpse

My Poet Implodes

Circle

Circle Ii

Circle Iii

Where The Dead Are Buried

Circle Iv

Circle V

Circle Vi

Tomorrow

Levels

Flaming Sword

Castor Pollux

Levels

Levels Ii

Levels Iii

Levels Iv

Idle Witness

Shipwreck

Stretched Canvass

Yields

Rubble

Farther

Foundation

Salve

Jean Brown

Journal Entry

Rummaging

Precision

Allegory

Forest

Evoked

March 13, 2009

Blurred

Combined

Burden

Blue

Shattered

Love

Gordon

Archaeology

Separation

Empyrean

Nimbus

April 18, 2009

Incomplete

Impend

Creator

Home

Tides

Havana Flight

Shade

Cipher

Line

Havana Diary

View

View Ii

Activist

Fable

Pages

Leibniz

Father’s Day

Tropics

Midst The Fallen

Shift

Dream

To Project

Theorems

4 Nephi

Leaving

Leaving Ii

Go On

Holding Time

Havana Diary Ii

Quetzal

Cloud

Line

Darwin

Space/Time

Ash

Guide

Person

Waifs

Sixty Five

Person Ii

Person Iii

Person Iv

Strategy

Bay Street

Orderly Arrangements

Order

Order Ii

Order Iii

Flow

Utah

Bent Flight

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

01/01/2010

Youth

Day 4

Cross

Day 5

Day In February

Afternoon

Night

Memory I

Diary

Memory Ii

To Carry

Memory Iii

Day In March

Mortal

Day 6

Day In April

Day 7

New Eye

Seasons In Transition

Chicharra

Landscapes

Beyond

Beyond Ii

Thought

Moment

Moment Ii

Foundation

Moment Iii

Moment Iv

Moment V

Moment Vi

Alchemist

Chain

Moment Vii

Gate

Moment Viii

Inner

Moment Ix

Inner Ii

Cuban Edge

Church

Cuban Edge Ii

Reconcile

Moment X

Survival

Poised

Moment Xi

Stranger

Stranger Ii

Moment Xii

Yearn

Yearn Ii

Yearn Iii

Yearn Iv

Out

Last Hour

Starting Over

O

O.Ii

Day 8

Day 9

I

Ii

Iii

O.Iii

O.Iv

Moment Xiv

Shadow

Music 101

Yearn V

O.V

Iv

V

O.Vi

Symbol

Vi Internet

No Name Lake

Love I

Love Ii

O.Vii

Love Iii

O.Viii

Love Iv

Deluded

Park Reverie

Afternoon

Afternoon Ii

Afternoon Iii

Day 10

Day Eleven

Afternoon Iv

Moment Xv

O.Ix

Moment Xvi

Moment Xvii

Moment Xviii

Love V

Unwritten Lines

Urn

March 25

Moment Xix

Transitions

Heart

Moment Xx

Poem

Poem Ii

Poem Iii

Love Vi

Love Vii

Poem Iv

O.X

Easter

Gram

Musas

Illusion

Illusion 2

Illusion 4

Illusion 5

Illusion 6

Illusion 7

Muse

Muse Ii

Muse Iii

Muse Iv

-Gram 2

-Gram 3

-Gram 4

Muse V

O.Xi

Vortex

O.Xii

Dawn

Reverie

Presage

O.Xiii

End

-Gram 5

Map

Map 2

O.Xv

O.Xvi

Milieu

O.Xvii

Gatherings

Return

Return Ii

Return Iii

Return Iv

Return V

Return Vi

Return Vii

Unit Line

Unit Line 2

Postscript

The Park

ON THE EDGE

On the edge of the park

Border of a cosmic limit

Zero is my position, bells

Toll the hour, white faced

Numbered moon signals

Mid-morning; St Peter

In cement holds his keys

Jesus carved in wood

Toils his cross, bracing

Breeze stirring passion,

A durable conversion.

Yesterday high clouds

Bumbled rolling yodel

Thunder beyond volcanoes

From cumulating cumulus.

Then a dog bitch

Drug herself out

From under my bench

As there were police

On both corners,

Watching what movements?

Was it my memory of,

Under surveillance:

Monday’s sun

10:00 O’clock high

Shadow lacework

Under green trees

Along a highway bank?

November 6, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

CLOUDS

I used to lie on my back as a boy

In our yard, watching the clouds

Through the eucalyptus, now here

In front of the Church, clouds drift

Above the cross as 9:30 bell tolls

Its half hour, bong. People in habit

Cross themselves, birth to death

The space in between, as I knell

In this arboretum before symbols

Massive cement edifice mimicking

In its mean, Roman or Aegean themes.

The mornings are always spectacular

Heavy mist capping the green caldera

Rim, we live on ancient alluvial, steam

Vents have become our water cisterns

For the giant cumulus building from

Sultry green lowland Caribbean air

Perspiring off the San Carlos plains

Wind pushing the rising clouds over

The forested Central range, until

Rain on higher altitude farms or towns.

Coffee or ornamental plants decorate

Our hills, banana citrus patio alcoves.

Here I am only 3000 feet above the sea

To the north, mile high volcanoes preside

Before condensing tropical depressions

Waters of baptism nurturing renewal

Lightning energizing my humble covenant.

November 11, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

LONGING

I live in longing, hope sustains me

Driven on to learn, my mind bent

Toward the good, yet thought’s knot

Would snarl my course, cursed for

My presumptions at the loom.

Under the eave of heaven, my tomb

In view, a vine covered porch, ashes

Slowly taken by the wind, whisperings

Of the leaves. Now I unfold my possessions

Diary of a lifetime, a guitar to play

My song: addiction to the fiction of love.

Who were my ancestors setting me forth

Passage through the underworld? Its low

Circles scribbled here in journal entries

Memoir of mortality, my myriad of meteors

Earnest desire, longing to return home.

November 12, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

DAWN

At dawn, a happy conspiracy of words

Flows from the busy static of dreams

Men’s hearts fail them, prophets said

Drowned in an evil ocean of commotion

The world tittering, everything slides away

Trying to live each hour intensely, within

The flowering of the flames fullness.

Today resists interpretation, waking ritual

Reflects yesterday’s hearing of doom

A final collapse of civilization. Nuclear

Terror gripped us in the 70s, I prepared

With new sun glasses to watch the show

From our rooftop, nothing materialized.

Dante examined life’s inferno poetically

From his Arno vantage point in Florence

The sun rising each day on new suffering.

Here the morning sun dries night’s tears

The last of winter rain, glistening boughs.

November 15, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

THE CENTER

At the center of the park a kiosk

Adorned with colorful murals

Of rural scenes, a circular stage

For bands to play, music unifies

Life here clarifying shadows

Mutilated by volute vision, obtuse

Thoughts lingering near benches

Damp shade concealing reason

My importance is an illusion.

Paths radiating away from here

Going to the limits, the curb before

The abyss, the jumping off point

Launching red taxis and buses

Circulating through imagination

A tangle of roads pot holed, beaten

Broken surfaces torn up by rain

Heavy weight rolling over them.

In the center I sit, government

Justice holding a rent fabric, torn

From Christ’s frock held in time.

Roman guards beat their drums

Solemnly, I lift his cross in relief

That I may never forget nor fail

To remember this central theme

Atoning sacrifice harmonizing life.

November 17, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

THE RENT

With the winds of summer, the heavens open

Revealing the stars, my future seen darkly

Through a swishing of leaves, rending curtains.

The park is a square block of exotic trees

Named and catalogued with bushes and flowers

Intermingled amongst the precision spokes

The paths connecting the center, symmetry

Of balanced elements, seat of authority.

Here lives an assortment of native folk

Iguanas, sloth, squirrels, green parrots

Swirl around the pylons of palms, chattering.

At night we all turn inward, meditating

Hearing some future hum, cooing stillness

Feeling the rise of December air blown

Surging and falling across once innocent seas.

A black Melpomene sky, holds constellations

In their order, dialing the zodiac, counting

My numbers, the lizard’s spines stand erect

The ground rolls with distant tremors, hearts

Alert, the unknown advances, standing firm

Prepared to cross some golden threshold.

November 18, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

EFFICACY

Darkness of my night, implicates my will

I should not have come, there is no wine

Nor words restoring order, emblems dried

Eerie vapors enclose a velvet black, Time’s

Vice turns tighter, a struggle to release

At least a cry, signal to freedom’s eye.

Have I decided to be bound, squeezed

Into this space, with the fall of evening?

Like Virgil’s Aeneas, set to wander

Alienated and displaced from home

Seeking ever to return but not certain

Where, yet still inventing likenesses

Entrapped in reason as my destiny.

Inside I rage, in refusal to resign

To die, to accept this troubled lot

Compelled by a mangled warp of form

That no longer serves the substance

Mixing sacred appearances but denying

The efficacy thereof.

November 28, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

THE CURB

Waiting on the edge, the curb before

The coming on, humid and overcast

Mist and clouds cap mountain rims

Dogs sleep off the night, while deacons

Sweep the steps. The hour is chiming

No funeral rites today. Do I dare step

Off, to cross the street, touching distant

Shore? Interference of cars and bikes

Alters my path, a lump of human mud

Going from point A to B. I have a lot

To learn, my curb view is incomplete

So much is lost within the folds, clouds

Blocking brilliant intensity of light

Filtering rays, waves tunneling through.

I am an irreducible representation

A sapient symmetry group, my mind

Processes data with a bias, trapped

In local perspectives, our methods

Of thinking harnessed with blinders

I only remember now, and reflect

Upon the past.

November 29, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

WARS

Sitting on a Park bench

Birds chatter, a trail of ants

Carry home their cuttings

An Iguana is cautious before

It turns and Truman stopped

Macarthur on the 38th parallel

Soon the troops were returning

Before race riots set Watts aflame

Kennedy cut a deal with Khrushchev

Soon he was dead in Dallas

We all watched the news reels

A hundred times, our President’s

Blood and brains splattering his limousine.

Soon Viet Nam welcomed the excess energy

Then surfing buddies were coming

Home in body bags; Johnson called

For more troops and Napalm

For all roads to Hanoi, Victory was in site,

He said. Paris Peace talks gave Nixon

72 hours to leave, everybody was running

From the loss. CIA operatives were busy

Murdering Salvador Allende and Father Romero

Keeping the Americas suppressed.

Nuclear weapons proliferate the planet

Promising a thousand deaths to each of us.

Oil soon fueled new adventures

To Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq

Zionists are never able to survive alone.

Sitting here my brothers dieing

Preserving conspicuous consumption

Up north from here.

November 29, 2006

Palmares, Costa Rica

CLOSED VISION

The day falls

A setting sun dusts

Fading green hills

Well etched

With fields of photons

Paling before

A dark forest base

Holding up