he's a jazz muscian

a David Blaine magician

a meta meta physician

he's a statistician

with an ample sample

of bell and swell and well

distributions of

the human psyche

the air nike

of long distance

poetry runners

He is Ray Clark Dickson. When we produced Cocoloba with Ray, we intended to put some music behind some of the poems. Ray selected a blues beat in his head and started reading. Back at the studio I put a recorded blues beat behind Ray's reading. Ray's delivery matched the recorded meter perfectly from beginning to end. He did that without sacrificing pauses and rushes in his delivery. That is perfect, perfect timing. That is an RCD trademark.

Concision? A champeen bulldogger of character description. It is easy to overlook how fast Ray can create a character in your mind. With incredible magicians you quickly give up asking HOW? Hey, it is magic! But we know magic doesn't just happen. It is the result of innate talent, hard work, and a Nietschean will to consummate deployment of skill as well as an ongoing affair with Ms. Muse. Ray is 86 years old. He says, "Jack, I am a working poet." He means just that. He creates as many as four works a day and never a clunker. It is just a matter of which of those jewels shall be shown off. Ray's Parlando is 295 pages. Cocoloba is a combination audio/chapbook package. I am pleased with some of the music that I composed and performed for background to this work. But nothing compares with the audio of Ray's voice delivering his own work. Cocoloba is a love manual and a jazz history, all in one package.

RCD has been published in dozens of respectable poetry journals. Here is some real recent Ray:

MISS NEW ORLEANS

Her face

behind the hurricane lamp

is a dusky darkness,

wet eyes from cerise depths,

her lips

appear pursed, undecided,

a kiss of goodbye

or of welcome,

that love can begin again.

STONED IN THE QUARRY OF LOVE

One must get stoned

On quandary

In the quarry of love,

Searching in a mine

Of diamonds, platinum,

Breath of Amethyst,

Vows of Zircon, a flash

Of fool's gold,

Knowing a hidden treasure

Is there, somewhere,

And must be found.

DOUBLE TIME

Time

seems to hang around,

waiting for birthdays, anniversaries,

diaphanous by day, disappearing

in the dark; its contract

with humanity,

deplorable,

accelerates to double-time,

a pick-up payment

at the end, can't be found

to end a war.

For seven decades, Ray, born in Portland, Oregon in 1919, has written with clarity, sensitivity and narrative power. A state track champion groomed for the Olympics, he won an athletic scholarship to the University of Oregon, graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism. An experienced drummer, he formed and led his own 12-piece Big Band during his university years. Ray says being a drummer gives him fresh inner rhythms between line-endings. During War Two he served in the Pacific Theatre as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps; he was among the first Marines to enter Japan at end of war.

Ray follows Bergson's concept of Duree, "We carry with us all of our rolling experience compacted in the ever-growing snowball of our lives." Arthur Knight, author, critic and publisher, commented on RCD's book, Parlando, 'I don't think anyone since Malcom Lowry has captured what it means to be a gringo in Mexico as well as Dickson."

Ray will be the featured poet at Slo Deliverance, Wed. Oct. 5, 7:30pm at Linnaea's Cafe SLO. Visit the RCD site: ourSLO.com/RayClarkDickson. See Ray's Cocoloba page: ourSLO.com/cocoloba. Also find Ray works at ourSLO.com/poetrypage

Poet's corner is compiled by jack mothershed, slomo@ourSLO.com.