Lemon Balm
for L.Z.
conscious longing joint weed polygonaceous
jonquil fragrant yellow or white flowers
showing up in our yard as if by magic
joy stick juba lectionary
pasqueflower
musaceous murther murre myrrh
Muss-o-lini (the plumber named "Muss-o-lini Miles":
"Just call me 'Moose'")
(O Princess Flower, most beautiful of)
Glory Bush
"I love your cock" absolute magnitude
Magnitogorsk desoxyribonucleic acid
desoxyribose Deo gratias coral Mayweed
jigger mortmain Morocco
otalgia O tempora! Papilionaceous
(O Princess Flower, most beautiful of)
press-room prest
And the golden Calif. Poppy
(anthology: a gathering of flowers)
papyrus hemidemisemiquaver
lemon balm
[Note: This poem is as close as I've come this year to writing a birthday poem. A little bush of lemon balm magically showed up in our yard one day. I'm diabetic and take a long walk daily to deal with the disease. I see a lot of flowers as I walk and it struck me that the flowers were something like the words I sometimes discover when I "wander" in the dictionary. By etymology, an "anthology" is "a gathering of flowers": words and flowers. "LZ" is Louis Zukofsky. The little story about the plumber is true.]
Two Prose Poems: Complaints
a.
I'm of the sixties generation. We came into the world as the "Second World War" ended. It was a historical moment of "Democracy Triumphant." Our teachers told us things—things about equality, for example. We took what they said literally, but that isn't quite how they meant it. We live in a country in which repressive modes color everything, including speech. It is rare that people say exactly what they mean. Later, we accused those teachers of hypocrisy. This was true in a way, but in another sense it was simply repression: saying not exactly what you mean in the hope that what you mean will be evident anyway. We took the idea of equality literally—which is not how our teachers meant it-and we looked around and saw how unequal the world was. We complained, loudly, and with some effect. Self-righteous always, we also generated our own modes of inequality-which of course, in our own modes of repression, we failed to notice.
b.
Consumerism creates a kind of metaphysics of individuality and choosing-affirming individuality (or ego) by choosing. It's not that choice doesn't exist but that it is far less extensive than it is given credit for being. It may well be that what we represent to ourselves as "choices" are nothing but the promptings of a situation which in fact determines why we move in one direction or another. Isn't that the lesson of Freud and others? What about the concept of "fate"? Perhaps "fate" is one's situation. If one ceases to believe passionately in individuality (which doesn't mean that one therefore begins to believe passionately in the opposite of individuality, "the crowd") then having to choose one thing rather than another becomes far less important. Consumerism loves choosing. Buy this rather than that. But choice may be damaging. Why not both/and rather than (in Kierkegaard's phrase) either/or? Why not an entirely new arrangement of possibilities? Assertions that certain things are "best" arise out of this emphasis on choosing. The "best" is "the chosen one." What if there is no "best"? What kind of poetry arises out of a consciousness opposed to individuality and choosing? Choose.
Two Passages from Fragments
those masters of language whom we emulate
but cannot hope to equal
those masters who summon wor(l)ds in words
we listen
but can only—
there are those
who think by opposition
who are awakened only by the circumstance of contra-
diction
we are not—
those masters of language
summon wor(l)ds
which
resonate
resound
so that experience is
alive with random fragments seeking others—
fragments summoning
not unity but constant interaction
peace
is the reward of oppressive systems which hold imagination by the throat
and murder wor(l)ds
FOR MARY-MARCIA CASOLY
those silent birds I gave you
have you listened?
those silent, metal birds
catch sunlight like sound
and flash it to your ears
which nonetheless hear nothing
silence
is a complex entity
which these birds sing in deafening profusion
silence is the—
sings
from their unmoving
wings
Writing Between the Lines: Argüelles Answered
Ivan Argüelles sent me this poem:
[john donne]
white side under goes
bleached blank the frame
music in its 17th century
resounds its unsounded Note
to name such things to sleep
in the beneath whorled leaf
sundered from the starry throng
mind's single core relents
wake then Thou! worm devour
heart's restless entity alive
in search of what underbrush
turn each blade around its green
link to nerve its everyness
the holiday of aching dolorous
will we pine then in the hostel
wearing each other's wretched
skin a mask of flame and dross
the smoking cadaver in your eye
will it not wait for the avenue
with what tense invoke the Holy
being and its unexplained event
such is hush the eventide
its instrument yet now dulled
why the glass in its bleeding
light why the merry-go-round
its painted tigers whirling
in the eccentric lamp of time
do sit then Soul and nod off
reckon as no more the day
when thought creates its Air
move then around Love's pyre
and sitting for the hour whole
divine which is the entrance
and which the exit of Paradise
I answered by writing between his lines:
[JOHN DONNE]
white side under goes
who are all these Buddhists?
bleached blank the frame
no man is.
music in its 17th century
in the rectory standeth
resounds its unsounded Note
the lewd don,
to name such things to sleep
Donne
in the beneath whorled leaf
Alight
sundered from the starry throng
in Seventeenth Century
mind's single core relents
clear sunnelight
wake then Thou! worm devour
Dayseye
heart's restless entity alive
shines in the heart
in search of what underbrush
Un-
turn each blade around its green
Donne
link to nerve its everyness
Lord, Thou singest
the holiday of aching dolorous
(eye of bone)
will we pine then in the hostel
Lord, Thou singest
wearing each other's wretched
Flaming
skin a mask of flame and dross
Sword's words!
the smoking cadaver in your eye
Start with stars
will it not wait for the avenue
Then (all) is donne
with what tense invoke the Holy
Light is shee
being and its unexplained event
whose grave (a bracelet of bright haire!)
such is hush the eventide
hath kisses
its instrument yet now dulled
placed thereon
why the glass in its bleeding
Shee weeps thy—
light why the merry-go-round
"Death, be not—"
its painted tigers whirling
No man is an I
in the eccentric lamp of time
Nor woman neither
do sit then Soul and nod off
Stand stille
reckon as no more the day
and I will read
when thought creates its Air
This is the shadow
move then around Love's pyre
This is the deepest shadow
and sitting for the hour whole
John Donne
divine which is the entrance
Anne Donne
and which the exit of Paradise
Undone
Doggish
woofarfwoofarfbowwowwoofarfarfarf
woofarfbowarfwoofwoofWOOF
bowwowwowgrrrrrrwoofarfwoof
bowwoofwowgrrrrrrahoooooarfwoof
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrwoofarfarfwowwobrrr
woofrrrhahhahhahhah(wag tail at this point) awoooooo
brrrrrrfffffffbowwowhahhahhahwoofarf!
Mein Eiegntum
(after Hölderlin)
the great gleams of Hölderlin's
lines (love the gods and think kindly of mortals)
move through my mind
as I walk
east oakland's streets
in the glorious
california light
shining from the buildings
along MacArthur Boulevard
my wife at my side
my son laboring to complete
his book
("my" in this sense
does not imply
possession
any more than
"my god my god why have you forsaken me?"
implies possession:
this is the wife
this is the son
that pertains to me: mein eigentum, my concerns)
the spring day rests now in fullness
cherry blossoms fall
like snow
light from the heavens softly filters
insinuates itself
in everything we see
beglükt, wer, ruhig liebend ein frommes Weib
a pious man with
a pious wife
to what god do I owe my piety?
it is enough to love the sun
(those who've thought most deeply love what's most alive)
and yet:
the mortal soul that has never experienced darkness
barely exists
"a soul will fade away
if it wanders only in daylight
a pauper on holy Earth"
MacArthur Boulevard
full of history
and the history of war
seems innocent
in the sunlight
even "fromme," pious .
in the joy with which
we walk
mornings
before the disasters
of any day
before any god
can seize us
and lift us
into the fierce heights of holiness
O Golden One
let my soul not long
for more than this life contains
Snow
[poem imagined to have been written and spoken by the poet protagonist of Orhan Pamuk's novel, Snow]
flakes whirling (general all over
Kars) —he keeps watch
over his childhood
there was a special hill (not too high)
do you remember
down we went (her image there
as she walked a dog too large for her
dark eyes shining at him as the dog pulled forward)
do you remember
(not her dog but he didn't know it
then!)
cemeteries
where we walked (the listening
dead)
the enormous
silence of the snow
at night especially
do you remember?
all that distance away
& now again
snow
emblem of purity
(but not of innocence)
les neiges, les neiges—où sont:
"It snows only once in our dreams"
The Artful Darger
after seeing In the Realms of the Unreal and the Darger exhibit at Seattle's Frye Museum
That's me—
the little girl with the penis.
"There's a party upstairs?" "No, no, that's Henry—"
the little girls forever in darger (danger)
some die violently
"Henry makes a lot of noise—"
the little girls battle like men—epic—
"but only when he's alone. He'll never talk to you."
Fern disappeared after a while, walking down the road toward Zuckermans'. Her mother dusted the sitting room. As she worked she kept thinking about Fern. It didn't seem natural for a little girl to be so interested in animals. Finally Mrs. Arable made up her mind she would pay a call on old Doctor Dorian and ask his advice. She got in the car and drove to his office in the village.
Dr. Dorian had a thick beard. He was glad to see Mrs. Arable and gave her a comfortable chair.
"It's about Fern," she explained. "Fern spends entirely too much time in the Zuckermans' barn."
Henry can't draw
But he can trace.
He wishes to be a painter and must find a way
To put his magnificent visions on paper!
See the strangled little girl
Whose tongue is out as she dies,
Gasping.
What violence to Henry's "inner child"!
Henry paints pictures and makes stories—
vast misspelled panoramas—
no one sees or reads
(We are not individuals but choruses)
God is involved in these pictures and stories
Why does God never give Henry what Henry wants?
(Henry is Catholic and makes shrines to God;
he entreats Him in a humble and heartfelt manner,
though he also rails against Him;
he goes to Mass daily—sometimes several times daily—and takes the sacraments:
God stands in His Heaven and is Silent)
Henry pants after little girls
Henry and little girls are the same
except for the burden of the penis
(There are no breasts in Henry's world)
Except for the burden of the penis
he and the girls are the same, and they are both in DANGER
Henry can make girls that have no girl parts
but he is furious that God has imposed this terrible burden upon him
Henry is God
but he is also God's great enemy, the conscious artist.
Henry withdraws from the world.
He wishes to be a representational painter
but he is a representational painter who can't draw—
not a representational painter who draws badly
but a representational painter who can't draw at all.
He must transcend his limitations!
Henry, a janitor, is violently disturbed but keeps to himself so that no one except God
knows.
"I'm a hard-boiled egg," he says. He is also Humpty Dumpty-who fell.
He is crazy as a loon but he is not harmful except in the "realms" he inhabits—"the realms of the unreal"—where he shoots and murders and rescues little girls who have no
sex, whose legs are spread in utter panic as they run.
Saint Agnes, martyr, pray for me.
"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She stood below him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben Weatherstaff, it was the robin who showed me the way!"
Then it did seem as if Ben would scramble down on her side of the wall, he was so outraged.
"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha badness on a robin—not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'. His showin' thee th' way inta the garden! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt"—she could see his next words burst out because he was overpowered by curiosity—"however i' this world did tha' get in?"
"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested. "It was the robin who showed me the way."
At Jennie Richee. Hard pressed and harassed by the storm.
At Jennie Richee. Waiting for the blinding rain to stop.
At Cederine She witnesses a frightful slaughter of officers.
Here Henry is in his element—the air—
He rises to trace a flower—l'absente de tous bouquets
It is a task
performed in secret, sacred space night after night
He will never be anyone's father
He will only be these flowers
that grow in the empty nothing of consciousness
in a room no one will want to enter
in a loneliness that is nothing less than the entire visible world
(Henry wishes for a family, for his gone sister
whose name he never discovered)
His room is filled with children's books, books of adventure
God will save the children
Ug AK Gurg Gawk, I'm this thing getting choked
His world is the world of the Oz books turned round and darkened
He looks into the heart of the Emerald City and sees—?
He is "everyone and no one"
Oh, God, grant me grace of heavenly place, save me, salve,
for the waters come upon my soul, and I am lost too late too late
Lord, I have discovered no one wins the battle of life
and no one KNOWS—
What side was I on?
Darger (danger/darker) is everywhere
Oh, God (Deceiver)! Save me!
...
what is the difference
between a cowboy
and a soldier
what is the difference
in imagination
between a cowboy
and a soldier
what is the difference
for a boy
brought up
and trained
in the 1940s
trained
to be a boy
and a soldier
what is the difference
between a man
and a woman
for a boy
brought up
and trained
in the 1940s
(why do they argue so?)
what is the difference
between a boy
and a soldier
between a man
and a boy
between a man
and a woman
between a boy
who dreams
and a soldier
who wonders
will he escape
alive
will he escape
at all
who wishes he were a boy .
who dreams
like the boy
of escape .
and the cowboy
who rides
through his dream
[Note: Quotations from Charlotte's Web by E.B. White and from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Well-known outsider artist Henry Darger (1892-1973) lived his entire life in near-poverty and showed his life's work to no one. His primary achievement was The Story of the Vivian Girls, in what is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, an immensely long saga Darger both wrote and illustrated. The phrase "l'absente de tous bouquets" is from Stéphane Mallarmé's essay, "Crise de vers": when God says "flower," a real flower appears; when the poet says "flower," there appears "l'absente de tous bouquets," the one that is absent from all bouquets.]
Election 2008
HOOFER
for Bert Wheeler (whose routines I used) and Barack Obama
"how bout it baby whadda say will ya"
For the moment things seem settled
(range rider delivery purple sage elegance)
Though they are not
"sing to me sing to me how about one hour with you sure but sing to me first"
The weather was stormy
(what sugar savor it in the saddle)
But by November 4th it cleared
"looka them oranges fall from the tree"
It was not the man
(loggerhead forewarn apostasy wheels)
But the image of the man
"one orange falls whenevah you tell a loy"
That called forth beautiful words
(ride it, fella knees)
How but by words can action begin?
(hand on heart) "I NEVER LOVED ANYONE BUT YOU"
The weather was an element, but it was clearly the image of the man
bonk goes the orange!
That made things clear
"hey what's holding those pants up fella"
The audience was a Norman Rockwell painting—
"if I knew I'd tell ya"
It swooned at the word "America"—Hope
see this it's a time step and this (flip!) I did it at fifty
Is the secret name of the secret place in the secret desert of American politics
died of cancer two weeks before I joined her in death
[NOTE: Bert Wheeler was a once-famous song and dance man who was teamed with Robert Woolsey in a number of films. You can find some clips at these links:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XRL5bngnMuI
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=T_njECz_IJE
The poem's last line refers to the fact that Wheeler's daughter, who had starred in a Jean Renoir film, died shortly before Wheeler himself. I was thinking of Wheeler at the same time that Obama won, so the poem incorporates some of Wheeler's bits. The fact that my father was a tap dancer in vaudeville is undoubtedly relevant. And of course so many black people have been "hoofers."]
Uum Kulthum
| listening to the astounding listening to the astounding sounds sounds of umm kulthum of umm kulthum is like being is like being transported transported not to not to Arabia Arabia but to but to some vas t some vas t empty empty space space filled filled with sounds with sounds akin to akin to wailing wailing to a mo- to a mo- an an tha- tha- t t breaks loose breaks loose into everything and show- s and show- s the utter authority the sheer authority the vast immensity the sheer immensity the all-encompassing SAHARA of pa- of pa- in in |
Rendition generates tarab, enchantment Listening in Egypt is usually participatory: audience members call out subtle compliments or loud encouragement to performers. Silence is interpreted as disinterest or dislike. Demands are not met by wishing: the world can only be taken by struggle. Opinions are complex entities, subject to many forces, some contradictory to one another. A stated "opinion" is a kind of selection from a matrix of forces that swirl around a subject. It is the point of poetry to name the matrix. |
Eddie Lang
This is Blind Wille Dunn talking to ya (G7)
Nobody else (Am) you can see my
Nimble fingers even if (F major)
I can't see yours what happened
What happened I'll (E9) give ya
The straight dope (C major) I got no
Reason to lie Eddie I sd Eddie (Em)
I don wancha (C major) to go into that
God damn hospital you know (C major 7)
People die (G7) in hospitals Jesus Blind
(wch is what he called me, Am) Crosby
Said to do it and (E9) I tell ya Crosby
Knows what he's talking about and Kitty (Cm)
Sd it was ok so why (G7) should I
Worry Christ (D7) nobody worries about tonsils
Gimme (A major) the racing form I wanna
Pick a winner (G7)
And (I Am) (I Am) (I Am)
He died
[This is a poem for the great guitarist Eddie Lang. His last words are included in the poem; he died at thirty as the result of a tonsillectomy! The symbols are guitar chords, which I play when I read the poem. I was interested that the "sad" chord A minor (usually represented as "Am") was the same spelling as the word "am," as in "I think, therefore I am." "Blind Willie Dunn" was a pseudonym Lang sometimes used. ]
Missing U
this is a poem abot
missing yo
i know what dr. fred wold have thoght
and what carl jng wold have cleverly taght
oh, hear my nhappy shot:
I miss yo!
Coda
loved rivers winding
suns failing
all falls into the sea
and the speech of lovers
garlands of praise
whatever sweetness life brings
(lovers who cannot tell
their love)—in a flash
all yearnings
turn and she
for whom our speech is present
smiles in the morning sun
for only a moment
(till morning turns
moaningly to mourning) she
whose body
moves with grace
amid the vanishing grass
or as she dries her hair
or stares at the early morning light—
she who is mistress mother wife
touches us and tells
the sweet speech of what is
as the morning fails
as the sun fails
as all falls
as all
fall
[Note: The lines "To wait in the dark," "for a day of steam and wet," and "life as it should be" are taken from Katherine Hastings' poem, "Laundry."]
My Death
by David Bromige
Krishna & Ron are so very sorry. Ron met me 41 years ago (I gave a reading at the Albany Public Library with Harvey Bialy which Ron attended) and I was a wonderful & generous friend the entire time. David, 'sturdy' - like a rock or a tree.... Stephen heard me read in the city in the mid '80s, wrote "Cracking the Code" for The Difficulties issue devoted to my work. Charles Bernstein loved me and my work and my death fills him with sorrow. William Knight is very sorry to hear of my passing. He met me on several of my visits to Vancouver to see Chris and to do readings. He remembers the quicksilver, the knife edge, the words that softly split his head open. And laughing with me later. Steve Tills just learned of this a minute ago—has been busy moving to a new home. Aside from his own father, I was pretty much the dearest and most generous man Steve will ever know. He will miss me like the dickens. I taught them all how to be alive and how to squeeze everything meaningful and fun and loving and real out of every moment we live. Gosh, he loves me. For Charles Bernstein, I was a prince of poetry and a wonderful friend and compatriot. "A Great Companion," as Robin Blaser said. Curtis Faville didn't know me but his wife took her first English course at Berkeley from me when I was still a TA in the Department there, pursuing my graduate degree. I was a juvenile diabetic, but lived to be 75. This alone is a feat almost beyond belief. He is sorry he never had the occasion to know me. George Bowering will always remember the poem I wrote in the cafeteria at UBC: "Borrowing from Bowering / is a neat / feat." He just turned his tired old neck to the left and saw his shelf of Bromide books, and said thank goodness, and in his head I scoffed at the object odf that verb. D.A. Powell said I was his first teacher. What one of us lacked, the other forgave. Tom Raworth said I will be missed. It's a clear dawn there on the South Coast of England: sunlight on cream-painted Regency houses he looks past to arrive at the sea. And the light reminds him of the last time he spent with me, some years ago, when I drove him from Santa Rosa over to Camp Meeker where Val, the children and he had lived back in the seventies. He remembers the echo of our tread on the boardwalk of Occidental Fragments of memory. Ed Coletti says it rained untimely this morning early on in June when I disappeared.
[ Note: In 1980, David Bromige's book, My Poetry appeared. The title poem, a hilarious collection of quotations from reviews of Bromige's work, is dedicated to Bob Perelman. It begins, "My poetry does seem to have a cumulative, haunting effect—one or two poems may not touch you, but a small bookful begins to etch a response, poems rising in blisters that itch for weeks...." After David Bromige's death, a tribute website was set up: http://bromige.wordpress.com/. I wrote this poem in homage, using things people wrote on the website.]
Ekleksographia:
Wave Two
November, 2009
Poems
-
Coda
Jack Foley
Jack Foley is an innovative, widely-published poet and critic who, with his wife, Adelle, performs his work frequently in the San Francisco Bay Area. His poetry books include Letters/Lights—Words for Adelle, Gershwin, Exiles, and Adrift (nominated for a Northern California Book Reviewers Award). Foley's Greatest Hits 1974-2003 (2004) appeared from Pudding House Press, a by-invitation-only series. His books of criticism include O Powerful Western Star (winner of the Artists Embassy Literary/Cultural Award 1998-2000), Foley’s Books: California Rebels, Beats, and Radicals, and The Dancer and the Dance: A Book of Distinctions, with introduction by Al Young. A book Foley edited, ALL: A James Broughton Reader, was designated number one gay book of the year by AfterElton.com. Foley's radio show, Cover to Cover, is heard every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. West Coast Time on Berkeley station KPFA and is available at the KPFA web site; his column, "Foley's Books," appeared for many years in the online magazine, The Alsop Review. Foley is currently at work on a fifteen-hundred-page timeline history of California poetry from 1940 to 2005 to be published in 2010. Dana Gioia describes Foley's poetry as "that rare commodity—genuinely avant-garde poetry...experimental poetry with depth and intelligence as well as intensity." Poet/playwright Michael McClure calls Foley "our firebrand experimentalist": "he holds his torch high so the reader can have more light." The Wikipedia entry, "Jack Foley (poet)," gives a sample of Foley's poetry. Foley's play, The Boy, the Girl, and the Piece of Chocolate was filmed by Alabama filmmaker Wayne Sides.