Between going and staying the day wavers, in love with its own transparency. The circular afternoon is now a bay where the world in stillness rocks.
All is visible and all elusive, all is near and can't be touched.
Paper, book, pencil, glass, rest in the shade of their names.
Time throbbing in my temples repeats the same unchanging syllable of blood.
[...]
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 8 April 2004 17:00 (twenty years ago) link
the atrium of the heart beckons with pendulous lipsany seaman would point his submarine inside: sirens singan eye flutters. strewn with carrion: the cliffs
pilot: could I go deep into the plasma of the seapull myself from the wreckage. red tide, white squidrefractile bodies caught in this prismatic stream
surely salvation bilges. suffers our immersionas a macrocyte absorbs a viral fret. into this deepthe whorl of shell and wave flash brilliant consecration
how the anvil beats within the limpet ear. we drift[...]
D. A. Powell - [the atrium of the heart beckons with pendulous lips]
― bnw (bnw), Friday, 9 April 2004 14:20 (twenty years ago) link
The Volkswagen parked in the gap,But gently ticking over.You wonder if it's loversAnd not men hurrying backAcross two fields and a river.
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 9 April 2004 18:25 (twenty years ago) link
― ...in bed. (Chris Piuma), Saturday, 10 April 2004 02:37 (twenty years ago) link
― the finefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 08:01 (twenty years ago) link
last night I found an old issue of Poetry Review what was designed by Jerry the Nipper, who was also writin' in it. And it also contained reviews of Sean O'Brien's anthology The Firebox, along with the Armitage / Crawford collection, AND Ian Sansom on The Deregulated Muse!
Meanwhile, I read something like 90pp of SO'B's pomes earlier in the day so for once I knew a little of what I was talking about, I mean, reading about.
I am not wholly sold on his... subtlety? intelligence?
But I guess what's thrown me most is the wee sketch of bristling him next to Sansom's review.
Should I blame the Nipper?
― the pomefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 08:04 (twenty years ago) link
Most of it is real; crap.
― Ally C (Ally C), Saturday, 10 April 2004 11:44 (twenty years ago) link
And grave by grave we civilize the ground.
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 11:53 (twenty years ago) link
― the spellfox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 12:26 (twenty years ago) link
(is there any nipper writing in them?)
JtN: you were otm re: 'Skid'. my copy arrived this morning; I'm enthralled.
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 16:11 (twenty years ago) link
If the Nipper was in, the country, he could tell us, naturally, or artificially.
I think that JtN provided some of the best moments in the guid magazine, but I am [fill in word: you decide].
― the spellfox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 16:58 (twenty years ago) link
Summer 1998, vol 88, #2: JtN on Farley: pp.88-89
Winter 1998, vol 88, #4: JtN on Pessoa: pp.13-14.
The second piece (there) quotes Paterson and Rimbaud, and mentions FO'B and a tad obliquely JJ's tenners.
The first piece (above) mentions the Dandy Warhols, Thomas Pynchon and... Don Paterson.
How long can you hold out?
― the pomefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 17:05 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 18:19 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 10 April 2004 18:22 (twenty years ago) link
Odd... premonition of Ewing.
― the pinefox, Saturday, 10 April 2004 22:30 (twenty years ago) link
(from Bob Perelman's "Chronic Meanings".)
― ...in bed. (Chris Piuma), Sunday, 11 April 2004 09:03 (twenty years ago) link
― the pomefox, Sunday, 11 April 2004 09:54 (twenty years ago) link
I have been re-reading things. Some of it is perhaps not crap.
― Ally C (Ally C), Sunday, 11 April 2004 10:31 (twenty years ago) link
― the bellefox, Sunday, 11 April 2004 13:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Monday, 12 April 2004 09:45 (twenty years ago) link
My Little Utopia
Why the high, wrought-iron fenceWith sharp spikesAnd four padlocks and a chainOver the heavy gate?
I drop by in late afternoon.Make sure it's locked,And peek through the barsAt the rows of sunny flowers.
The tree-lined winding pathAlready streaked with shadowMasking a couple kissingAs they mosey away from me.
Charles Simic
― donald, Monday, 12 April 2004 12:12 (twenty years ago) link
From Sean O'Brien, 'The Park By The Railway'
(this one might be quite good, I think)
― the pomefox, Tuesday, 13 April 2004 07:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Tuesday, 13 April 2004 11:53 (twenty years ago) link
It's all good.
― the pomefox, Wednesday, 14 April 2004 17:37 (twenty years ago) link
the first lines of Portrait of Tragedy - Joseph brodsky
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 16 April 2004 04:24 (twenty years ago) link
third stanza Portrait of Tragedy - Joseph Brodsky
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Friday, 16 April 2004 04:34 (twenty years ago) link
He picked you for your hair to play this role: a look had reached Bootle from Altamont that year. You wouldn’t say you sold your soul but learned your line inside a beating tent
(From 'Keith Chegwin as Fleance' - Paul Farley)
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:04 (twenty years ago) link
(From 'Whang Editorial Policy' by Mark Halliday. Full text here: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/review/pr88-4/halliday.htm)
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 16 April 2004 12:07 (twenty years ago) link
But I sacked the presumptuous hag the next week,I was that lonely.
(from 'The Geranium' By Theodore Roethke)
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:20 (twenty years ago) link
(the end of 'Frost At Midnight' by ST Coleridge obv. I have always loved that last line quite unreasonably much.)
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 16 April 2004 13:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Friday, 16 April 2004 15:42 (twenty years ago) link
For a solid month I tried to think of something new to say about riversI called the newspaper to find outhow many horses were left on earth,and numbly watched mosquitos swarmover a pile of high-heeled shoeswhile my colleagues hunted in the corners.
At least I was not in the line of workthat had me spending most of my dayavoiding God. My desk held painfullycomplicated sufaces filled with shadow cassettes, black bear theory and drinking water.
There was the sadness in a name like Jesse Winchesterand the wind howlingon the answering machine when I returned homefrom daydreaming in a margarita shop.
All the blessings and counter-blessingsthat move my mind like FM wavesfrom a butter churn, and granted me the sightof parallel collies standing on a hilltop
And the rain falling on the United Stateswhile it wonders'What is the United States?'
I used to sing a song that went'No more Springs, no more Summers, no more Falls'I believed I was nearing the morning whennettles would pour from the shower head.When I would be ripped out of the world for re-castingof blues and plastic.
I believed that I would finally break where I had been bent,that I would lose the game inside the gameBut that has not happened,And now I don't expect it ever will.
(David Berman)
― Ally C (Ally C), Friday, 16 April 2004 16:05 (twenty years ago) link
But I love it so.
― Ally C (Ally C), Friday, 16 April 2004 16:06 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 16 April 2004 16:39 (twenty years ago) link
The Pope's Penis
It hangs deep in his robes, a delicateclapper at the center of a bell.It moves when he moves, a ghostly fish in a halo of silver seaweed, the hairswaying in the dark and the heat - and at night,while his eyes sleep, it stands up in praise of God.
----- Sharon Olds
Finally: “Asked what distinguished him, as a poet, from an ordinary man, Wallace Stevens replied, Inability to see much point to the life of an ordinary man.”
― Ingolfur Gislason (kreator), Sunday, 18 April 2004 22:05 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 22:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 19 April 2004 08:23 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 19 April 2004 19:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:04 (twenty years ago) link
― Ingolfur Gislason (kreator), Monday, 19 April 2004 20:28 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 01:34 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 02:06 (twenty years ago) link
--After An Argument Over Global Warming
You feign sleep and face the wall because you believe in ice shelves cleaving under the weight of their water.
Your birthmark melts down in the dark.The lack of pigment sapped into a lack of light.
We stood in the kitchen with the faucet running.You at the sink washing the same plate over and over, mepropped up on the counter top. I spoke of the shoreline
creeping upward in inches over centuries.The gradual spread of seashoreand drift of continents.
You saw the bayou sucked into the Gulf. Desert droughts blooming in the countryside.Monsoons washing out the soil.
And when I said "Beauty is slow," you dropped the plate like a shard of ice and bolted into the bedroom.The faucet running.
― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 20 April 2004 03:08 (twenty years ago) link
... Then one hot day when fields were rankWith cowdung in the grass the angry frogsInvaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedgesTo a coarse croaking that I had not heardBefore. The air was thick with a bass chorus.Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cockedOn sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some satPoised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kingsWere gathered there for vengeance and I knewThat if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.
Death of a Naturalist - Seamus Heaney(i used this as a freaky trigger focus group response but i don't think it ever ran.)
― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 22 April 2004 17:11 (twenty years ago) link
last stanza of "Lost in Translation" by James Merrill
Lost, is it, buried? One more missing piece?
But nothing's lost. Or else: all is translationAnd every bit of us is lost in it(Or found-I wander through the ruin of SNow and then, wondering at the peacefulness)And in that loss a self effacing tree,Color of context, imperceptiblyRustling with its angel, turns the wasteTo shade and fiber, milk and memory.
― aimurchie (aimurchie), Saturday, 24 April 2004 23:40 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:19 (twenty years ago) link
Early in spring the weather hasn't changed.The concert-room is peppishness unhinged.
Tonight the lady pianist who playscon fuoco hardly hears her own applause.
*
A Mr Macaroni stops his Fordtwo streets away and lets the engine flood,
the radio just loud enough to hear,one crate of pippin-apples, one of beer.
She makes her music, loosening her hands.The moment holds. But if the evening ends,
Matthew Welton
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:34 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:35 (twenty years ago) link
For another bone in the stock,mug of water in the soup,more of the plate,more fresh air baked into the cake:for a better look at the breadthrough the butter, at the kneethrough the trouser leg;for a longer washing line,for the bar of grimeto be raised a little higher up the side of the shared brown bath;for a wider photograph,extra drawer –another face,but it’s full of yours.
Jacob Polley
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:36 (twenty years ago) link