Ralph Alfonso has lived in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Oakville. He's a beatnik poet, musician, writer, designer, photographer, illustrator, record label owner and more. For over 10 years, he lovingly hand printed a monthly zine (RALPH, Coffee Jazz and Poetry) on a 1940s Gestetner mimeograph machine (now collected in two books). Currently in Montreal, Ralph is still all over the pop culture map and hopefully he can reconcile many of his loves here.
This is the week for trains and buses, planes and cars... everyone going home or maybe leaving home
The red glow of a lunar exclipse at 3am on a deserted highway... deserted rest stop... closed restaurant... vending machine with one bag of chips left.....
There really is nothing more beautiful than Christmas in the snow in the country, maybe not too far and not too near the lights and clamour... just enough to be nestled away with clear night skies, fresh snow and wonderful smells from the kitchen. These days, this can sometimes be a fairy tale for many and an experience you can actually buy for others, but sometimes you get lucky and circumstance and good fortune can be the best gifts of all.
Here are three vignettes, all based on real experiences in Montreal, Elora (Ontario), and Vancouver Island... sugary little confections best with a warm coffee before or after the mad dash into the Sunday before Christmas.
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Every Star Says Hello
There's a snowflake on my tongue
because God has dropped the
bucket and everything is going white today
Are we all angels
Cross our hearts and pray
Spread our wings in the fallen snow
Kick the powder high in the air
Can everyone come out to play?
In the heart of December
In the soul of Montreal
Here we are
Arms spread out
Hands raised high
Is it a sin to laugh
Is it a sin to kiss
In the halos of orange street lights
In the eternal twilight
Of suddenly evening
They shook out the branches
and we fell
in love, our hearts melting
And every star says hello when you look up
Angels Stop For Flowers In Elora
(A Christmas Poem)
This is the world's most
perfect little country town,
I'm
sitting down with your family
and
we're all gathered round
the big oak table at the
back of your mother's antiques store,
rosy-cheeked from the
snapping flames and here
is Christmas dinner with all
the trimmings and a big
old tree from down the road
wrapped up in spangles and
lights and wooden soldiers
hanging on guard and
all the duck decoys, old
wagon wheels, every kind of
dried flower,
every Norman Rockwell accessory
casting shadows, and
sleepy carols whispered from
a radio made before I was
born, and that's old, baby
and you can hear that
winter wind howling up
from Elora Gorge, having
fun and kicking up the
snow so we can't leave,
and who would want to, anyway,
and when we've all gone to
bed and I'm looking up at
the stars through the attic
window, huddled up in this
sleeping bag, with you asleep by
my side, I figure if there ever
was a time to be in love,
it was now
Nice memories of a Christmas long past. Elora is a wonderful small town in Ontario, Canada, not far from Guelph and close to Fergus (famous Fergus market). This particular antique store is long gone. One of my favourite poems.
In December, 2003, in Columbus, Ohio, Christina Connor read this poem as part of an event called Christmas at 2Co's Cabaret. I discovered this news on the net and the review of her reading is described as "serene yet sensual".
Well, Christina Connor, wherever you are - thank you.
This is not the store I wrote about but hey, they're in Elora and have a video on YouTube...
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CHRISTMAS EVE, VANCOUVER ISLAND
The cat curling up against your leg
a log crackling in the fireplace,
and John Coltrane is sweet on the little
record player we got
to keep us company,
it's Christmas Eve
in Tofino and the waves are rising and crashing
in the pitch black, lit only by the
smiles of angels on their way to
touch maybe our hearts, maybe
your cynical angry heart if you're
reading this or maybe you can
throw this piece of paper away so
someone else can find it,
the big bowls of of
coffee are steaming up the windows
there's always a nice smell to good coffee
and we always talk a long time on a night like this
and maybe it's funny or
maybe it's something
I would never have dared ever
say before, but it's always
something that makes us hug
each other more and it's
midnight, baby, the candles
are one inch away from nowhere
I'm sure I heard a sound on the roof,
yeah, you can laugh, but
why is the cat looking up there, too?
I always seemed to end up in London at Christmas time. Yes, I'm still mewling nostalgic on the mid-80s, the sour milk that festers melancholy like clockwork when it's pouring rain here in Vancouver, a depressing sponge of a town sometimes, and flavours the venom that seeps subtley through some of these older poems. But yes, there I was - deer in the headlights of Oxford Street - pushed along by the crowds - running into Harrods for refuge. It's easy to feel sorry for yourself with a cucumber sandwhich in hand, stirring tea, and silver angels floating overhead, trumpets at the ready, blaring to one and all, "how did you blow this one?" But, listening to relationship advice from holiday ornaments is not on my list of to-do's today.
ralph alfonso
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CHRISTMAS IN COVENT GARDEN
I was lost on Oxford St.
caught in the crush of the
Harrod's crowds, pushing me
through the hurrying mass
scarved and bundled,
The late afternoon twilight
awash in a green and red glow from
the Christmas windows
And suddenly there I was
at Tottenham Tube Station
and I walked up to the little
chip shop and I guess that
was dinner and I stumbled
down Charing Cross Road
and into Foyles, fumbling
through their labyrinth of
books and then
somehow onto the narrow
Covent Garden streets
and the Christmas Market
wooden agels rattling together
tourists with loud voices
pointing at things
I stopped to watch a little music box
two tiny skaters
a Strauss waltz
and then I nursed a little take-away
coffee, sitting on one of the little benches, and up in the dark
of a London night, I saw
there was solitude in the moment
and I knew someone was there
for one quiet prayer
As we approach Christmas 2010, here are some daily holiday thoughts collated together from various disparate sources, some of which originally appeared on my http://www.Myspace.com/ralphalfonso/blog and some from my two books. The MySpace blog contains some wonderful experiments but there is no search mechanism and scrolling back through past posts is very cumbersome so I'm assembling most of my Christmas canon (I know) here.
C'EST JOLIE NOEL - CHRISTMAS IS NICE
c'est jolie Noel
et te baiser
si belle
s'il y a un Dieu dans ma vie
c'est grace a toi ici
et c'est neige et soleil
le matin quand je me reveille
ce fut toujours comme ca
quand c'est toi qui est la
this is our very first Noel
we woke to see the
snow that fell
and Sunday choirs
Christmas bells
I'm grateful for these
winter sounds and
laughter, kindness
with you around
one last Montreal poem in December
one last cigarette (from November)
one last coffee resting beside some toast
quiet little diner
seat in the corner
paper's missing the sports section
but there's a good view of the snow
and the christmas lights
and the black spiraling staircases
every house has got one
and who doesn't love
December
in Montreal
ralph alfonso
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BEAT FOR THE HOLIDAYS
the fireplace
warm
and you and i
together
maybe there's snow
or maybe not
flames on the candles
melting wax
night time
stars are out
and
scratchy records
(real music will never wear out)
drink hot coffee
from a bottomless cup
it's nothing
but it's everything
if it makes you smile
ralph alfonso
Monday, November 29, 2010
This is a poem I wrote sitting on the side of the stage at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York, waiting for my turn to perform and knowing that I would be backed by the David Amram Trio. The words were inspired by the famous photo of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Larry Rivers and David Amram himself (top right) hanging out after shooting the film, Pull My Daisy.
New York is a magical place in December and this is just a little love letter.
There is video footage of the performance and we'll eventually get it on here but for now, please enjoy.
One nice note - this couple in the audience liked the poem so much, they asked for a copy so I copied them by hand since this is not available in my books.
This is a short story that originally ran in my zine,
RALPH Coffee Jazz and Poetry, #52, 1999.
It is a work of fiction but the sentiment is not.
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We Will Never Forget You, Gene Vincent
by Ralph Alfonso
In 1971, I was working the night shift at a Los Angeles FM station.
This was pretty well the end of the line for my career. I was 34 years old.
FM radio was sort of a new thing then and nobody listened to it except for hippies and people that would probably hate me if they ever met me.
Back in the late 50s, I was one of the first DJs to play rock’n’roll.
It was like a new way of living had fallen out of the sky. It was a fantastic time.
And then, one day, it was all gone and I was reading traffic reports for a living.
When The Beatles and all those British groups gave our own music back to us,
I had a real job again.
But, just like before, it was all over, and the world was a different place.
I was washed up and I wasn’t even 30 years old.
I guess I had started drinking a little bit by the time I got this job.
It was a new kind of music now, but I didn’t care anymore. I had rent to pay.
I liked working by myself at night. I didn’t have to talk to anyone else at the station.
I didn’t even answer the phone.
Except for that night.
My cousin at the hospital called me up and said Gene Vincent had died.
I couldn’t believe it.
I went looking everywhere in that goddamn building and I couldn’t find any of his music!
The long-hairs that ran the station had put all the old 50s music in the comedy section
of the library. Well, I’d give them a few laughs that night.
I pulled the needle off the record that was on the air. It made an ugly scraping sound.
“Hey man, I just wanted to interrupt this crap music and say that Gene Vincent died tonight. I know that a lot of you are too stoned or stupid to even care, but I got this one album here and I’m gonna play it all night...”
I spun that scratchy old LP over and over. I was fired the next day.
I drifted around after that, I guess, cities you never heard of. I finally stopped drinking, and now I’m the voice you hear on those stations where everything is pre-recorded.
But every October 12, I come down here to Gene’s grave and say a little prayer, you know.
Sometimes there’s other people here, usually not.
We’ll never forget.
And I hope, if you love rock’n’roll, you never will, too.
This story (along with the poem "Goodbye Jack. Kerouac.") is also available in the book, Faces In The Crowd, published in Japan. It is an anthology of worldwide writings.
A book about Gene Vincent that I enjoyed reading many years ago was written by Britt Hagarty, a Vancouver author and rockabilly cat who, sadly, died a tragic death himself. It is The Day The World Turned Blue. I only met Britt once and very very briefly in the 80s during a press tour - I was going into a radio station with an artist to do an interview and he was coming out and we chatted in the corridor.
In June and July of 2002, I thought it would be a good idea to get a residency at the Cafe Montmarte in Vancouver (I was living there at the time) and jam out new material for my fifth album and so every Wednesday became Cabaret Contraire where various permutations of the RALPH band went through two sets of mostly new sonic experiments, each week taking the new works down different paths until we had lived in a song's skin and figured out its voice.
We were fortunate to have had all these jams recorded professionally by legendary Vancouver psych pioneer Don Xaliman (Melodic Energy Commission) and that September, we performed the best of these new songs in a blistering set on the main stage at Word On The Street Vancouver (with Veda Hille sitting in on keyboards).
However, the album never got recorded and the songs disappeared into the ether. In August of that year, my mother passed away and I could no longer relate to the lyrics and writings and questioned in many ways the why and what for of everything I was doing. One or two of these lost songs did re-surface eventually and it has only been lately that i've found some of the handwritten lyrics still scratched up and words crossed out and words added during that two month run.... and begun the process of moving forward again into something new.
This is one that I could never find the gravity for and I maybe I still haven't but I've recently rewritten it from scratch knowing what I know now and staying true to the original heart of it, especially now that I am back in Montreal and the glorious snow of my youth.
Angel In The Snow
Some people are superstitious about the 13th floor
But I can see the Cross
the big giant cross on the mountain
all lit up and beaming its light
and all the icicles sparkling and swaying on the power lines
winter chimes
silent
except for the wind whistling
through them and up
and around me
here, 3am
the perfect time
the time when every street is
a still picture, painted from memory
everything winter white
like the wings of angels
soaring through heaven
The 10th floor
is where I can see the neon of
my favourite diner
two eggs, sunny side up, brown toast
coffee, juice, and rice pudding for dessert
I can see the cook starting his shift
A stocky man with burly arms
at 5:30am he will open the door
and the taxi drivers will rush in for breakfast
The 7th floor
is level with the windows of the artist loft
sometimes his model will lean out the window
at mid-afternoon
wrapped in a towel
and smoking a cigarette
looking out at the cobblestone streets
oblivious to the whirlwind of
bodies below
sometimes
noticing me spying on her
sometimes not
The 6th floor is
parallel to the bookstore roof
In the summer, the owner and his wife
sit up there in the evenings
with a bottle of wine and books and smokes
everyone still smokes
don't listen to what everybody says
they're all liars
and who knows what they're thinking
I don't
or what books
But I am past the 5th floor now
This is where I used to live in this building
I had to give up my apartment after you left
but
I got lucky
there was a smaller one a lot cheaper on the top floor
It was tough without furniture for a while
but I figured it out
The 3rd floor is where the landlord lives
A friendly guy
Always there
Not really sure if he's married or what
A different woman seems to answer the door
everytime I've gone there, or maybe
it's the same woman
with a wig
but I doubt it
maybe it's him dressed up
they weren't very good looking now that
I think about it more
The 3rd floor means the 2nd floor
and I don't want that one to be a blur
because the psychic woman lives on the 2nd floor
and
she's always wrong about everything
she's ever tried to predict for me
But it would be great if she saw me
right now
so that in the morning
she can take all the credit
and let everyone know
That sound that woke everyone up
That was me
On my way to heaven
But right now
I'm just an angel in the snow
