Turnings

By Ernest Yates

This is Ernest Yatess ninth volume of poems, and the sixth volume in an ongoing cycle based on his wanderings through the streets of Philadelphia. Yatess turns through city streets recall the wilderness wanderings of Bash in 17th-century Japan, and especially the wanderings of the rivers and mountains poets of the Tang and pre-Tang dynasties of China. Receptive to his terrain as they were to theirs, Yates relies on syncopated rhythms, fragmentation, and abrupt rhetorical turns to capture his responses to that terrain. A portrait of Philadelphia emerges?its diverse citizenry, streetscape, and history, as these are revealed in phenomena of the streets themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514472866

Ernest Yates

Born in Ancon, Panama, and raised in New Orleans, Ernest Yates obtained a doctorate in English from the University of Pennsylvania. He has lived and worked in the Philadelphia area for fifty years. Mr. Yates has published poetry in dozens of literary magazines and journals, and has won the Grand Prize of the Pennsylvania Poetry Society, among other poetry awards. For further information, please consult Mr. Yates’s website? ernestyates.com

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Copyright © 2016 by Ernest Yates.

Library of Congress Control Number:     2016903749

ISBN:               Hardcover         978-1-5144-7288-0

                         Softcover           978-1-5144-7287-3

                         eBook                978-1-5144-7286-6

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Rev. date: 04/26/2016

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Contents

Among Common Things and Fine

Short Block between Bodine and 3rd

In this Fine Precinct

Composition in Smoke #174 (Reclining Seat in the Theater)

Feasting on Whatever

2nd Street Brou-ha-ha

Corner of 7th

Near the Wall of the Interstate

Stasis

Witness

Sills

Composition in Smoke #24 (Glitter)

Note to Posterity

A Pause in the Walk

Composition in Smoke #214 (Microcosm)

Million Dollar Shoes

Dangerous Journey

Blues for Philly Joe

Tottering through Paradise

Spill Control Products

September Neighborhood

Atman

Composition in Smoke #79 (Destination)

Short of Breath

Materials

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

Wind in an Alley

Riverbank

Funny Questions

Fall:  A Chance Meeting

You Know Times Have Turned Bad

Out of Nowhere

Two Parked Cars

Composition in Smoke #106 (Response to Interrogation, ⁶th and Brown)

Thus I Have Seen

Puzzle Pieces

Composition in Smoke #165 (Loading Dock on Allen Street)

Spring, upon Reaching Market Street

Sweet Voice

Crossing the Bridge:  Four Fragments

Necklace

A Half Block Later

Happy Hour, MCFADDEN’S

Plywood Sublimity

Fine Day

Composition in Smoke #54 (Reasons)

One Car

The Case

2nd Street Charge

Precarious

Meditation near TRANE APPLIANCE SERVICE CO.

Composition in Smoke #209 (Scarecrow on ²nd Street)

Cathedral Tune

Misunderstandings

ALL RIGHT PARKING

Brand New

Near Christ Church

Composition in Smoke #246 (Gargantuan)

Beyond the Pale

Just the Facts

Gray Sponge

Sometimes Rock, Sometimes Swing

Perennial

Brick Wall with Landing, March, in the Rain

Iron Stanchions

After a Fence

Composition in Smoke #212 (320 North Water Street)

Wooden Crates

A Council of Sages:  2nd and Brown

2nd Street Refrain

Composition in Smoke #134 (A Reason for Paranoia)

What Love

Composition in Smoke #267 (315 Market Street)

Circulars

To Jacqueline

Turnings

AMONG COMMON THINGS AND FINE

Fairmount Avenue’s on display

where CENTRAL AUTO BODY stands

beside CHIAMICELLO’S pizza restaurant.

Three garages

break up the brick front

of the two-story weatherworn

CENTRAL AUTO BODY,

all three closed by galvanized metal shutters.

Red-letter signs

announce AUTO DETAILING,

CAR WASH,

INSURANCE ESTIMATES and CLAIM SERVICE.

An unworthy spectacle, we might say . . .

but the drama here’s not less because

it’s not a majestic vista of mountains

or a portrait of delicate and refined whatnot.

The joy of weddings or tears of the tragic

are as common on Fairmount