a device
commodity
object, possession
once owned
taunting, teasing
a provocation
of youth and sexuality
property of prospect
resulting in beauty.
lost
to decades, days, hours
and seconds
avoiding intimacy
silencing loneliness through
intelligence
selfishness
control
a different kind of
authority
unleashed upon those
now owning
the loss.
a conflict between
wanting
wishing
waiting
and remorse
for the seconds when
individuality rebutted reputation
potential negated accomplishment
passion superseded intellect.
only rimbaud can overlap crudeness, vulgarity, arrogance and prettiness with delicate finesse.
the few walt whitman lines of poetry i had read sucked , as he really did. gay bath anthems and old hairy men with a new world sense of the epic. brash mustering of one huge thing against another. in retrospect, as person, i feel he would have been a much pleasanter chap than rimbaud.
i also second ee cummings. he writes the way some really good doodlers doodle.
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' 'bout the things
They woulda coulda shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little Did.
God tried to teach Crow how to talk.
'Love,' said God. 'Say, Love.'
Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea
And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth.
'No, no,' said God. 'Say Love. Now try it. LOVE.'
Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito
Zoomed out and down
To their sundry flesh-pots.
'A final try,' said God. 'Now, LOVE.'
Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and
Man's bodiless prodigious head
Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes,
Jabbering protest--
And Crow retched again, before God could stop him.
And woman's vulva dropped over man's neck and tightened.
The two struggled together on the grass.
God struggled to part them, cursed, wept--
Folly and error, avarice and vice,
Employ our souls and waste our bodies' force.
As mangey beggars incubate their lice,
We nourish our innocuous remorse.
Our sins are stubborn, craven our repentance.
For our weak vows we ask excessive prices.
Trusting our tears will wash away the sentence,
We sneak off where the muddy road entices.
Cradled in evil, that Thrice-Great Magician,
The Devil, rocks our souls, that can't resist;
And the rich metal of our own volition
Is vaporised by that sage alchemist.
The Devil pulls the strings by which we're worked:
By all revolting objects lured, we slink
Hellwards; each day down one more step we're jerked
Feeling no horror, through the shades that stink.
Just as a lustful pauper bites and kisses
The scarred and shrivelled breast of an old whore,
We steal, along the roadside, furtive blisses,
Squeezing them, like stale oranges, for more.
Packed tight, like hives of maggots, thickly seething
Within our brains a host of demons surges.
Deep down into our lungs at every breathing,
Death flows, an unseen river, moaning dirges.
If rape or arson, poison, or the knife
Has wove no pleasing patterns in the stuff
Of this drab canvas we accept as life —
It is because we are not bold enough!
Amongst the jackals, leopards, mongrels, apes,
Snakes, scorpions, vultures, that with hellish din,
Squeal, roar, writhe, gambol, crawl, with monstrous shapes,
In each man's foul menagerie of sin —
There's one more damned than all. He never gambols,
Nor crawls, nor roars, but, from the rest withdrawn,
Gladly of this whole earth would make a shambles
And swallow up existence with a yawn...
Boredom! He smokes his hookah, while he dreams
Of gibbets, weeping tears he cannot smother.
You know this dainty monster, too, it seems —
Hypocrite reader! — You! — My twin! — My brother!
In honor of the Nathaniel Mackey, who recently won the National Book Award for his book of poetry, Splay Anthem, I am posting one of his poems below. He gets a gold star for liberal use of the space bar.
~~~~~
On Antiphon Island
—"mu" twenty-eighth part—
On Antiphon Island they lowered
the bar and we bent back. It
wasn't limbo we were in albeit
we limbo'd. Everywhere we
went we
limbo'd, legs bent, shoulder
blades grazing the dirt,
donned
andoumboulouous birth-shirts,
sweat salting the silence
we broke... Limbo' d so low we
fell and lay looking up at
the clouds, backs embraced by
the
ground and the ground a fallen
wall
we were ambushed by... Later we'd
sit, sipping fig liqueur, beckoning
sleep, soon-come somnolence nowhere
come as yet. Where we were, notÂ
withstanding, wasn't there...
Where we
were was the hold of a ship we were
caught
in. Soaked wood kept us afloat... It
wasn't limbo we were in albeit we
limbo'd our way there. Where we
were was what we meant by "mu."
Where
we were was real, reminiscent
arrest we resisted, bodies briefly
had,
held on
to
·
"A Likkle Sonance" it said on the
record. A trickle of blood hung
overhead I heard in spurts. An
introvert trumpet run, trickle of
sound...
A trickle of water lit by the sun
I saw with an injured eye, captive
music ran our legs and we danced...
Knees
bent, asses all but on the floor, love's
bittersweet largesse... I wanted
trickle turned into flow, flood,
two made one by music, bodied
edge
gone up into air, aura, atmosphere
the garment we wore. We were on
a ship's deck dancing, drawn in a
dream
above hold... The world was ever after,
elsewhere.
Where we were they said likkle for little, lick
ran with trickle, weird what we took it
for... The world was ever after, elsewhere,
no
way where we were
was there
Poetry: the telling of stories of the soul
A JEALOUS BATTLE
a device
commodity
object, possession
once owned
taunting, teasing
a provocation
of youth and sexuality
property of prospect
resulting in beauty.
lost
to decades, days, hours
and seconds
avoiding intimacy
silencing loneliness through
intelligence
selfishness
control
a different kind of
authority
unleashed upon those
now owning
the loss.
a conflict between
wanting
wishing
waiting
and remorse
for the seconds when
individuality rebutted reputation
potential negated accomplishment
passion superseded intellect.
Oraison du soir
Je vis assis, tel qu'un ange aux mains d'un barbier,
Empoignant une chope à fortes cannelures,
L'hypogastre et col cambrés, une Gambier
Aux dents, sous l'air gonflé d'impalpables voilures.
Tels que les excréments chauds d'un vieux colombier,
Mille Rêves en moi font de douces brûlures :
Puis par instants mon coeur triste est comme un aubier
Qu'ensanglante l'or jeune et sombre des coulures.
Puis, quand j'ai ravalé mes rêves avec soin,
Je me tourne, ayant bu trente ou quarante chopes,
Et me recueille, pour lâcher l'âcre besoin :
Doux comme le Seigneur du cèdre et des hysopes,
Je pisse vers les cieux bruns, très haut et très loin,
Avec l'assentiment des grands héliotropes.
only rimbaud can overlap crudeness, vulgarity, arrogance and prettiness with delicate finesse.
the few walt whitman lines of poetry i had read sucked , as he really did. gay bath anthems and old hairy men with a new world sense of the epic. brash mustering of one huge thing against another. in retrospect, as person, i feel he would have been a much pleasanter chap than rimbaud.
i also second ee cummings. he writes the way some really good doodlers doodle.
and edgar allan poe. velvety.
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' 'bout the things
They woulda coulda shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little Did.
-Shel Silverstein
from raven to crow:-
Crow's First Lesson
God tried to teach Crow how to talk.
'Love,' said God. 'Say, Love.'
Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea
And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth.
'No, no,' said God. 'Say Love. Now try it. LOVE.'
Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito
Zoomed out and down
To their sundry flesh-pots.
'A final try,' said God. 'Now, LOVE.'
Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and
Man's bodiless prodigious head
Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes,
Jabbering protest--
And Crow retched again, before God could stop him.
And woman's vulva dropped over man's neck and tightened.
The two struggled together on the grass.
God struggled to part them, cursed, wept--
Crow flew guiltily off.
- Ted Hughes
To the Reader
Folly and error, avarice and vice,
Employ our souls and waste our bodies' force.
As mangey beggars incubate their lice,
We nourish our innocuous remorse.
Our sins are stubborn, craven our repentance.
For our weak vows we ask excessive prices.
Trusting our tears will wash away the sentence,
We sneak off where the muddy road entices.
Cradled in evil, that Thrice-Great Magician,
The Devil, rocks our souls, that can't resist;
And the rich metal of our own volition
Is vaporised by that sage alchemist.
The Devil pulls the strings by which we're worked:
By all revolting objects lured, we slink
Hellwards; each day down one more step we're jerked
Feeling no horror, through the shades that stink.
Just as a lustful pauper bites and kisses
The scarred and shrivelled breast of an old whore,
We steal, along the roadside, furtive blisses,
Squeezing them, like stale oranges, for more.
Packed tight, like hives of maggots, thickly seething
Within our brains a host of demons surges.
Deep down into our lungs at every breathing,
Death flows, an unseen river, moaning dirges.
If rape or arson, poison, or the knife
Has wove no pleasing patterns in the stuff
Of this drab canvas we accept as life —
It is because we are not bold enough!
Amongst the jackals, leopards, mongrels, apes,
Snakes, scorpions, vultures, that with hellish din,
Squeal, roar, writhe, gambol, crawl, with monstrous shapes,
In each man's foul menagerie of sin —
There's one more damned than all. He never gambols,
Nor crawls, nor roars, but, from the rest withdrawn,
Gladly of this whole earth would make a shambles
And swallow up existence with a yawn...
Boredom! He smokes his hookah, while he dreams
Of gibbets, weeping tears he cannot smother.
You know this dainty monster, too, it seems —
Hypocrite reader! — You! — My twin! — My brother!
-Baudelaire
days like today in the country I am reminded of this fragment of a sonnet by Shakespeare remembered from high school:
That time of year thou mayest in me behold
when leaves or few or none do shake against the cold
bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet bird sang...
In honor of the Nathaniel Mackey, who recently won the National Book Award for his book of poetry, Splay Anthem, I am posting one of his poems below. He gets a gold star for liberal use of the space bar.
~~~~~
On Antiphon Island
—"mu" twenty-eighth part—
On Antiphon Island they lowered
the bar and we bent back. It
wasn't limbo we were in albeit
we limbo'd. Everywhere we
went we
limbo'd, legs bent, shoulder
blades grazing the dirt,
donned
andoumboulouous birth-shirts,
sweat salting the silence
we broke... Limbo' d so low we
fell and lay looking up at
the clouds, backs embraced by
the
ground and the ground a fallen
wall
we were ambushed by... Later we'd
sit, sipping fig liqueur, beckoning
sleep, soon-come somnolence nowhere
come as yet. Where we were, notÂ
withstanding, wasn't there...
Where we
were was the hold of a ship we were
caught
in. Soaked wood kept us afloat... It
wasn't limbo we were in albeit we
limbo'd our way there. Where we
were was what we meant by "mu."
Where
we were was real, reminiscent
arrest we resisted, bodies briefly
had,
held on
to
·
"A Likkle Sonance" it said on the
record. A trickle of blood hung
overhead I heard in spurts. An
introvert trumpet run, trickle of
sound...
A trickle of water lit by the sun
I saw with an injured eye, captive
music ran our legs and we danced...
Knees
bent, asses all but on the floor, love's
bittersweet largesse... I wanted
trickle turned into flow, flood,
two made one by music, bodied
edge
gone up into air, aura, atmosphere
the garment we wore. We were on
a ship's deck dancing, drawn in a
dream
above hold... The world was ever after,
elsewhere.
Where we were they said likkle for little, lick
ran with trickle, weird what we took it
for... The world was ever after, elsewhere,
no
way where we were
was there
yes!
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
This is exactly how I feel today.
it is at moments after i have dreamed
by E.E. Cummings
it is at moments after i have dreamed
of the rare entertainment of your eyes,
when (being fool to fancy) i have deemed
with your peculiar mouth my heart made wise;
at moments when the glassy darkness holds
the genuine apparition of your smile
(it was through tears always)and silence moulds
such strangeness as was mine a little while;
moments when my once more illustrious arms
are filled with fascination, when my breast
wears the intolerant brightness of your charms:
one pierced moment whiter than the rest
-turning from the tremendous lie of sleep
i watch the roses of the day grow deep.
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