Okay I'll Try

I follow a blog called Cafe Selavy. He is a friend. I suppose I can call him that though I only know him through his blog. Is that odd? I don't know the whole blog thing is odd to me. I'm so late in arriving to the whole scene. I am out of touch with it all.

Cafe Selavy he posts every day and he's a very good writer. He wants to be known for his photographs though, I think.

Anyway, I'm going to try to write stuff here. Though I don't really know why. Here is the link to Cafe Selavy. He's better at this than I am. A million times.

http://www.cafeselavy.com/

NaPoMo April 2010

Well... it has been nearly one year since I last posted anything here. And nearly that long since I've poemed. I'm going to try NaPoMo again this year.

I think I have a book in the works. This is exciting and frightful news isn't it? More on that another time. The only reason I mention it in this post is because many of the poem in the "I think I may have a book in the works book" were penned during NaPoMo 2008 and so it seems like I should push through another year.

I didn't have the same results with 2009 -- though one or two poems do rear up in the manuscript.

So I will post them here and hope that something good will come from the exercise. I do know I'm a junky for the whole "group write through the month" thing. There is something communal about sharing 30 days of poems with a group of people doing the same thing. There is a camaraderie about the experience -- like a Habitat for Humanity building trip or something.

NapoMo

Yeah

Hi.  If you happen to be reading ... if not, well it is always good to talk to yourself,  I have been writing and posting in my NaPoMo group but haven't had the energy/time to bring them here these last few days.    I will though.  Eventually.

April 20 & 21

Haven't had time to post these days here barely time to write -- 

and not sure

they are even worthy of posting them

but since I said I was going to do that, I must.  

4/21

Becoming Uncoupled at the base of South Mountain One Early Spring Evening When Fog Hangs in the Air 


After love, we listen in the dark
to rain make a song on the thin roof
-- a cat meowing at the door sounds 
like an untuned lute. 
He says "I love your voice" 

why is it this way --
too much passion brings such affliction. 

4/20

Confronting Helen 

For Beauty's nothing
but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear,
and why we adore it so is because it serenely
disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.

Rilke, the First Elegy




Fuck Rilke and his mysterious angels 
the terrible angels -- his limpid, lapis eyed 
mysterious creatures who hold up the blood of Imam Hosayn, 
Prince of Martyrs so the world doesn't fold.

I birthed a baby boy whose eyes revealed
the answers to the pyramids 
and a daughter whose face
iswaswillbe torment the minds of poets
for eternity. 

I am not afraid of you, Helen, who sent 
legions of men smiling 
into the mouth of death --the promise
of you on their lips 

"Love made ME such that I live in fire 
like the Phoenix, who dies and rises 
at the same time." *



* from Gaspara Stampa's Rime 208

Day 18 -- late and rushed thoughts of about Love

Euphorion, again 



You, not a boy, not a man but something
forever in between, Magician. 

When I say "Beauty must be broken 
for the sake of this poem"

it doesn't surprise you -- 
"In everything I've encountered 

a dark-side exists but She is the promise
we can be something more 

than animal." I know your eyes 
and, the sadness their color holds 

wounds me. I keep mining for more.
The devil forever heating the space between us. 

Day 16 Out of Order

Helen in San Fran



I saw a photograph of her
in a San Francisco crack house 
or maybe she's just a runaway

a naked mattress-- 

a blonde boy next to her
a modern day Paris

her face either California suntan 
or dirty, I couldn't tell. 
That face always wearing

the perfect ratio. 

Day 17 (Day 16 will have to wait)

Day 17 "Meshes of the Afternoon" “.......time is built into her body in the sense of becomingness.”                    Maya Deren  Helen, we must talk directly now -- do you understand  at all  what you are?  Your slender footed beauty  and perfect face, the pearl luster of your cheeks  you are unnecessary, not essential  at all  to human survival --  like Love itself how I have fallen.  This cruelty I speak is not meant to bring you pain but freedom – can you feel it?   “becomingness”  my Helen who has lived too long  ensconced in white stone. Come with me now to the slums of the Kathputli Colony  allow your hair to be infused with the smell of curry  and slaughtered cow.  Laugh with me  at the sword swallowers  and stilt walkers  take off your ivory dress and forget that the ocean is pretty it is only its immensity that makes it so  its depth a deathly mystery  “I feel your closeness like a shot gun”  Helen of my own soul, slay the beast, let the wrinkles come.

April 14 & 15

Struggling - too mentally busy last few days to have time to find poems -- only fragments

and dusty pieces of stories ...

my apologies 

April 15

hieroglyph 3




A Berber of Kabylie 
her head wrapped in linen 
blew in with the Sirocco 

They call her "tribeswoman"
she seems more a girl --

doll lashes
like black sun spray fringe
wet riverstone eyes 
set in a Helen's face. 

after Emile Frechon 

April 14

hieroglyph 2



Thetis, in a pink bikini,
pedaling her purple bike 
on the Atlantic City Boardwalk,
thump thump the wheels on the wood.

Just up from the sea, her skin in the sun
sprinkled with diamonds. 

Day 13

Day 13 

Hieroglyphs 1.

the seasons revolve around a pause in the infinite rhythm of the heart and of heaven.

Helen of Egypt, H.D. 



In a stand of trees 
branch tips tumefy 

with buds 
oblivious to the mechanics 
of the ticking clock. 

Days 11 & 12

Day 12

For Childhood, an elegy

"The imagination spans beyond despair

Outpacing bargain, vocable and prayer."

from For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen, Hart Crane

Our castle, built of white sheets strung

on mother's laundry line smelled

of sunshine and dandelion,

a limp stemmed flower tucked behind my ear.

Do you remember the span of grass

between the swing-set and the sandbox

we called the Groundless sea?

Your ship the latest cardboard box we fished

from my father's trash.  Your cargo, provisions

of pebbles and sticks.  

I loved the choppy blonde ocean

of your hair and never tired of trying to decode

the secrets stamped in the map of your eyes

those two, ragged petaled irises.  

These stories still draw themselves 

in stringy clouds set

inside fiery sunsets, in the open and close of spiral shells 

in the sparrow's mottled wing

what is real we didn't imagine -- 

but if I look too close,

I see wrinkles in my hands and wonder how we manage 

to live with ruined Troy 

burnt and smoking 

inside our human hearts.

Day 11

Day 10 but poem written on Day 11

this is, i suppose, day 10 but really day 11 but poets don't care about chronological time 

anyway.  but i'm not a poet so i suppose i have no excuse.  

the elegy continues -- sort of, I guess,  Faust the fucker is everywhere. 

Anton Webern probably because of my

murdered Austrian Grandfather

"Doomed to a total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference

he inexorably kept cutting out his dazzling diamonds, the mines 

of which he had such a perfect knowledge."  

Stravinsky

It happens like this

-- what do I know about the twelve tone technique?

I quit piano

at 13.  

Long before my teacher

allowed me the honor of Schoenberg. 

Goethe's Faust

I put it down -- remember?  We went 

to find Robinson and that piano;

those red socks and the cat called Lonesome,

curled and sleeping through the endless ringing phone.

A small beat up book of immortal poems

Hart Crane, page 267 

"For the marriage of Helen and Faustus" 

and this isn't meant to be didactic 

put it down.

"A Little History of Modern Music" 

by William H. Gass -- last in the book

bought for 25 cents at the Hospital Thrift 

Shop on a steel rain Holy Saturday.  

I thought 

about the women who guarded

Christ's tomb, about Jesus' decent to Hell

and Gilgamesh.  I tried for something 

else -- Cochise, Arizona, a ghost town 

Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate 

hot desert, prostitutes 

killing a copperhead in a far off canyon--

but even notes are not random 

-- each one like a star thrown from a fist

to form a constellation

then 

you clear your throat very close to my ear. 

April 9th -- really.

And it has come back to you ... 

Robinson I should have known

the rabbit that slid through my tires

that dark night

on Iyanough Road 

would eventually lead me to you.

I've grown weary wrestling the two halves

of Goethe's brain 

give me your indestructible shoulder 

my head needs a rest where it is always quiet

or play on your piano 

a song written in the language of God.

*Weldon Kees Robinson. 

Day 7 & 8 --- struggling.

vii.  Stop the flowers

Gretchen, her soft blouse open, rubs pussy willows

against her cheek.  Frank, watching from the garden fence

wants to touch her.  

He plucks a yellow rose from the twisted vine.  A dot 

of blood blooms on his finger.  

A small interlude the devil will perhaps miss

Let this moment last a while -- 

the butterfly alight on the milkweed

a blue-black raven stitching doubt to the sky

Hazel Dickens singing about West Virginia 

the same melancholy as knowing about the execution

of Camila O'Gorman, her baby baptized in bullets.

It is endless -- the beauty of sadness;

the dusty Sphinx losing its face, wild sweet violets 

young girls in white Easter dresses praying to Jesus. 

Catching up on Day 5 too.  

SheTrickster 

V. Elegy for Euphorion 

I hold night in my hands

turn the sea with my finger

Sapphira, Helena, Jezebel

my sister.  Die Mutter, the Witches.

Do I dare disturb the Universe?

Bring David to his marbled knees

open a carpet of crocus across the once barren lawn

and set the baby birds' throats to wailing O's?

Gather up my amulets, my book of sigils, summon

the sirens, the symbols and Sybil

I hear a new boy has tired of his searching 

the time is now to revel at the sign of the Brocken spectre. 

Day 6

The Lover 

IV.  Elegy for Euphorion 

//say "Nades, Suradis, Maniner"

and a dijinn will appear; tell the dijinn "Sader, Prostas, Solaster,"

and the dijinn will bring you your true love."//

from the Black Pullet Grimoire

The Lover binds the heart

like a Chinese mountain mother binds

her daughter's small feet --

spancelled, an animal hobbled by each days glossy thread.

I don't know if I like this amber-eyed inamorato thieving my freedom 

I don't know if the knots you make are tight enough -- I don't know 

tell me, are you in service to the devil?

April 4 -NaPoMo

Victorine's Saddest Eyes

iii. Elegy for Euphorion

"All things do change: All things do love: All things are locked in ate:

Whoever fully thinks his through/holds the key to Man's estate"*

He left her a the railway station, gave her the puppy and a few coins.  

She's reading Quirinus Kuhlmann's "Himmlische Libes-Kuess" for the

thousandth time.  The face-less child, the chubby hand gripping 

the iron fence, watches his body dissipate into smoke. 

* Love Kiss XLI translated by Richard Sieburth 

NaPoMo

Well it is National Poetry Month and like last year I have pledged to write a poem a day for the 30 days of April.  

I have decided to post them here as well as post them online with the group I'm doing NaPoMo with --- 

They aren't polished and some will be very bad.  The object of the exercise is to write something everyday -- which for many is standard practice but for me -- not.  I write only when the muse strikes and so during April I do everything I can to entice her to me for at least 15 minutes a day.  Sometimes she's a real bitch.  :)

And so .. 

Day 1

An Elegy for Euphorion, Part 1

Helen couldn't keep the boy

from cutting paper wings, taping them--

crooked and tattered to the back of his Superman t-shirt

or from jumping from the highest rung of the metal slide

in their backyard -- though

she never really tried

lacking herself, a decent sense of sin.

And when the boy found Mallarme and Heinlein

and took his guitar

         to the edge of the northern cliff

his nose stuck in pages rattled by grass-spiced wind

his toes dug into the rain softened dirt

pulling the curl drooped on his forehead -- straight to spring --- straight to spring

no one

not even his father

recognized the disease.

note:  Faust 

Day 2

II  that unnamed girl talks about Euphorion

My mother knew his father

I have heard together

they sang the Song of Solomon.

I met Euphorion after humanities

a copy of Steppenwolf tucked

in the back pocked of his knee-patched Levis

he smelled of good weed and a bit of baby shampoo

his face was

his face was

his face was

a Caravaggio angel 

though it is not fashionable

to say that -- here

-- this audience disappointed by cliche

I still have the gold bracelet he took from his jacket

and clasped on my wrist. 

Day 3

"My real name is Mephistopheles, but you can call me baby..."

III. Elegy for Euphorion

His plane touches down

in Manhattan

fresh out of the Amazonian 

jungle -- alpaca jacket

blow gun

poison darts -- soft brown hair

resting on his shoulders

Murphy has run out of cigarettes

stops and empties out his pockets

on the top of a metal trash can outside the men's room

sweeps together the pile of lint

cat hair and what's left

of the Nino Korin tobacco -- a few strands stolen from a shaman's bag in Bolivia

His slender fingers peel a rolling paper out of the pack with a familiar

crinkle -- the Fashionable, the vagabonds 

don't seem to notice

security cops walk right by

He lights up and leans -- one long leg bent

leather booted foot pressed against the white wall

inhales, smiles --and coughs with the harsh first suck.

Poems

The mind is a fallen angel

on April 14.  © All rights reserved 

A sun-fucked sea
its chalky soda crackling a slow saraband
steady there
at the shoreline, where the waves beat themselves dead
only to begin again in the pull and tinkle of shells

but you know this ...

so what can I tell you about the soul of the grass?
Green exalted to gold, green breathing green
dew, an abdication of moisture,
a blessing on morning feet. Grass, a servant apostle.

What wizard cants “All is connected,” 
is that you Basho?
from inside the white pine, your voice
the dry “chek” of the red-shouldered blackbird?
The marsh awakens to the fox

hungry for breakfast, a small murder
duly accepted. Brown field mouse,
a communion wafer to assuage night's hunger.

Bend your body down, sniff
where the loam breaks open with cruel birth. Dare
to touch its bitterness to your tongue.

Every idea must be picked up, run between fingers,
weighed, tasted, and finally crucified,
nailed to the splintered wood.

---

2. "Withness"

on April 16.  © All rights reserved 

“Withness”

The Quiet Animal of Thought 




How tender the pads of your paws 
and your eyes, teal pebbles,  
your beating heart breaks rhythm against mine.

Nocturnal beast with no burden 
save the fugue sung by the black dog's chorus and the poor monkey ripping 
at the buttons of its jacket trying 
to break free.  

Even when you rub your clover ears at the back of my neck, 
I never think of skinning you for your downy pelt 
despite the fine Love poem it might make.  

---

4. "Withness"

on April 17.  © All rights reserved 

“Withness" 

The Animal of Magic Gives Lessons to Students  



translate the language of bird feet stamped 
in wet sand.  
Understand the impressions of trampled grass 
where the silver arrow called Coyote puts itself down  
to rest,  read bleached fish bones and owl pellets for spells -- 

when necessary breathe through ruffled gills that resemble  
the frilly underside of the deadly mushroom.  Save your easily crumbled 
symmetrical, powdered wings for emergencies,  yes, opening them is painful  
but necessary  
when speaking of the dying child.  

We are responsible for the centaur and sphinx.  In clouds  
you must uncover music,  
adagio a rainbow born in an aria, a thundercrack opera.  Pocket  
the tumbling hair of sunshine for a garland and stash away  
the sweetness, the iron-scented snow still far off ringing the moon  

and of the moon ---  

you must be silent until your eyes witness its unseen side where  
the mystery of Love is revealed.    

Jump through all five fire hoops to discourse with angels,  
to sup with the gods.    And bow when you meet Buddha, curved  
like an almond playing his cello.  Then rest yourself on Basho's silk pillows, 
close your eyes, this will take a while --- 
  
more than yesterday's  blue curve of morning  
well past the fugue and the ever-pecking robin.  
Feel in sympathy,      you must 
for the still bound and dancing monkey.

With Robinson at the Fairgrounds after Hours

With Robinson at the Fairground after hours

Robinson, your harrowing, gray-felt seclusion
the cat named Lonesome
and red socks left in the sink,

come, let's walk arm in arm
on trampled grass through the deserted stalls
and stale smells of the workers' fires,
to a field of tents
strung with a necklace of lanterns.

The jewel stuck in my throat, dear Robinson
I wish it was a pearl
swirled from Aphrodite's mantle
something to soothe,

alas
it may only be this,
a worthless bauble, a cabochon of fear.

I say, “How hushed the gilded calliope
parked under the massive oak and yet
in the distance, I hear music.”

“Something about gold, it sings to blackness.”

The smoke from the cigarette wreathes his head.
Pigeons on the bridge fluff,
pick fleas, coo,
our steps in unison, these dust covered shoes.





after Mallarme

release of burst! issue 3

Our little ezine burst! has made issue 3 live.  It is the first issue on our own website.  Please have a look:

www.burstwherethoart.com

Thanks.

Lisa 

Poem

March

If I thought of you,
I only thought of something that endured,
that might endure...

H.D.





A muscling light strains against
morning collapsing black to gray,

slowly the December star drains
to nourish the lily and tuber rose;

Ophelia's bones undrowned and bursting
into snow crocus and Nausicaa,

the ship burner, slips closer to shore
bearing heat to burn the sleety

sea. In rough bellsong, birds chime
the way home to still bare oaks,

Jesus alight on the sparrow's wing,
Apollo's horses lugging cruel April.