tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111261792024-03-17T19:22:42.958-04:00 Five Branch TreeBrianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.comBlogger1889125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-34428488328355970472024-03-17T19:22:00.001-04:002024-03-17T19:22:06.412-04:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit8xtPQ1zNgo3gLDKII3t1TFBNEEUBZahrNGYl19jZI5FRaB_UBJUWTxoMpdenb3DB_NZI10XRNKlocEMDvEd4WGxGnTi3Vxz2kHV88h_Bb_ZpVC7U13VABVI73fc0b5sMfb3ABVO6wMDHz0s2mkuCMZCtMYvVwbyvNOx-0jSIooD8gTdIDiVM/s540/memory-of-a-dream-march-15-1919.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="540" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit8xtPQ1zNgo3gLDKII3t1TFBNEEUBZahrNGYl19jZI5FRaB_UBJUWTxoMpdenb3DB_NZI10XRNKlocEMDvEd4WGxGnTi3Vxz2kHV88h_Bb_ZpVC7U13VABVI73fc0b5sMfb3ABVO6wMDHz0s2mkuCMZCtMYvVwbyvNOx-0jSIooD8gTdIDiVM/w400-h270/memory-of-a-dream-march-15-1919.jpg" width="400" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ <i>Memory of a Dream March 15, 1919</i> ; Charles Burchfield ]</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-58227735388909359702024-03-15T12:17:00.001-04:002024-03-15T12:17:00.131-04:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46322/a-little-language" target="_blank">A Little Language</a></div><div>--Robert Duncan</div><div><br /></div><div>I know a little language of my cat, though Dante says </div><div>that animals have no need of speech and Nature </div><div>abhors the superfluous. My cat is fluent. He </div><div>converses when he wants with me. To speak</div><div><br /></div><div>is natural. And whales and wolves I’ve heard </div><div>in choral soundings of the sea and air</div><div>know harmony and have an eloquence that stirs </div><div>my mind and heart—they touch the soul. Here</div><div><br /></div><div>Dante’s religion that would set Man apart </div><div>damns the effluence of our life from us </div><div>to build therein its powerhouse.</div><div><br /></div><div>It’s in his animal communication Man is </div><div> true, immediate, and </div><div>in immediacy, Man is all animal.</div><div><br /></div><div>His senses quicken in the thick of the symphony,</div><div> old circuits of animal rapture and alarm,</div><div>attentions and arousals in which an identity rearrives.</div><div> He hears</div><div>particular voices among</div><div> the concert, the slightest </div><div>rustle in the undertones,</div><div> rehearsing a nervous aptitude </div><div>yet to prove his. He sees the flick</div><div> of significant red within the rushing mass</div><div>of ruddy wilderness and catches the glow</div><div> of a green shirt</div><div>to delite him in a glowing field of green</div><div> —it speaks to him—</div><div>and in the arc of the spectrum color </div><div> speaks to color.</div><div>The rainbow articulates</div><div> a promise he remembers </div><div>he but imitates</div><div> in noises that he makes,</div><div><br /></div><div>this speech in every sense </div><div>the world surrounding him.</div><div>He picks up on the fugitive tang of mace</div><div> amidst the savory mass,</div><div>and taste in evolution is an everlasting key.</div><div> There is a pun of scents in what makes sense.</div><div><br /></div><div> Myrrh it may have been,</div><div>the odor of the announcement that filld the house.</div><div><br /></div><div> He wakes from deepest sleep </div><div><br /></div><div>upon a distant signal and waits </div><div><br /></div><div> as if crouching, springs</div><div><br /></div><div> to life.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-25811756520377672282024-03-13T12:16:00.001-04:002024-03-13T12:16:00.256-04:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://poets.org/poem/warble-melting-snow-river">The warble of melting snow is the river</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">--Emily Lee Luan</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>is the bleat of the sandhill crane</div><div>is the hush of the autonomous mind of the flame above the canyon</div><div>is the cow drinking water from mud is the cow and the word cow</div><div>is the deckled face in the overhang of stone</div><div>is the bone weathered into wood</div><div>is the wood weathered to stone</div><div>is the sentence</div><div>is the moment that longs to be the sentence hidden in a sentence</div><div>is the legislated road is the grass is the grass</div><div>is the nerve that runs from socket to wrist</div><div>is the common knowledge of aperture and speed</div><div>is the hole to be yawned into its origin the stone that says</div><div>the impulse of water is the moss against</div><div>is the growing in spite of</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-71706612165684070722024-03-11T12:09:00.001-04:002024-03-11T12:09:00.135-04:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>[<a href="https://poems.com/poem/the-pentatonic-spring-washes-its-winter-clothes/" target="_blank">The pentatonic spring washes its winter clothes</a>]</div><div>--Jay Wright</div><div><br /></div><div>The pentatonic spring washes its winter clothes.</div><div>Five is a difficult color—</div><div>not this green of reflected sky, nor the red</div><div>clamor of midnight riding by on a church bell.</div><div>Think of the Greek of it,</div><div>an Egyptian river,</div><div>the dry desert voice you hear in the cleansing.</div><div>All before this moment found its own measure,</div><div>an ingenious inganno, a blessure</div><div>occasioned by a consonant's turmoil,</div><div>a Germanic algebra brightly a-boil</div><div>through all the strings, a fortspinning always pure,</div><div>always a public shrine to a wood secure</div><div>in its origin.</div><div> White is a difficult</div><div>sound in the edowa above the tumult</div><div>fastened to the soul of widows, magnitude</div><div>that arms the darkest nebula. The rude</div><div>dead awaken to another baptism.</div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-60314126482195190042024-03-09T12:03:00.001-05:002024-03-09T12:03:19.917-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkGEQ3e53L0XW6Vuds3s4XNhtofDwiaT0WSmKJEgootrQZT9KwoQxKE7G8aU9giKK9U7dtZ8owK_batWjWGKsmD8U0B3X8xSoz2p1Zpbda8socOsQHfz0jNrwJw8wt7f3ONHcPessLatj4ivsfDXuPqYzPRJ90RVqdYo4-WIKGZwESTlAlMAAz/s570/untitled.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkGEQ3e53L0XW6Vuds3s4XNhtofDwiaT0WSmKJEgootrQZT9KwoQxKE7G8aU9giKK9U7dtZ8owK_batWjWGKsmD8U0B3X8xSoz2p1Zpbda8socOsQHfz0jNrwJw8wt7f3ONHcPessLatj4ivsfDXuPqYzPRJ90RVqdYo4-WIKGZwESTlAlMAAz/s320/untitled.jpg" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ <i>Untitled</i> ; Pierre Roy ]</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-16850887033275681232024-03-03T19:07:00.001-05:002024-03-03T19:07:30.242-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Haiku- Winter 2023/2024</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;">a lack of sunshine</div><div style="text-align: center;">gradually again replaced</div><div style="text-align: center;">by rain and then snow</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">another new year,</div><div style="text-align: center;">all that sweet melancholy</div><div style="text-align: center;">is getting so old</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">hard arctic freeze-</div><div style="text-align: center;">my backdoor</div><div style="text-align: center;">froze shut</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">leaving the warm bed</div><div style="text-align: center;">unraveled and was perfect</div><div style="text-align: center;">for the winter blues</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-12024581473392198092024-02-29T18:39:00.003-05:002024-02-29T18:39:44.442-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><b>Delimitation</b></div><div><br /></div><div>How was it? And how is it? The perpetual birthday <i>of one</i></div><div>that is personally yours and yours to have as needed.</div><div>As many as you might like to fully arrive back to the brand new.</div><div>A clearing after replacing and forever losing the birthday</div><div>never asked for, the one that was the year's or theirs</div><div>and not to be much more, back when you were young but once.</div><div>Which is now gone. And now the choice to be old again,</div><div>again and again. What follows, what's held off, and waits</div><div>for experience to reveal those extended ages and then</div><div>the light that arrives as your air takes to breathe in the barren,</div><div>so you can say this is okay, while you walk in the midst of waking</div><div>through the no longer not too far off distance of evening, that arises</div><div>after the new year is never ever new but always instead, <i>anew</i>--</div><div>as lone wind is understood, when finally here as you always were.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-51789968239085081022024-02-27T11:34:00.002-05:002024-02-27T11:34:47.026-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXhkCu9yZ5AhlOmasms4qFejMq7oS2bVmBWY5-gPPCPZbhd1jPePlIkOf0wU_ROV1B6ghd4rSvWaogFsR5hip_Wb2ABBK6Q4eMNRZaz-KWkXbiKnD9gQ7PFZiZyApa-ips_lb4jHDSZZ_v6-h5qxG7N4eIlHB66c4wZcGi6S8gvTYZy82edVH/s1045/Tree%20Trunks%20Silliart.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1045" data-original-width="735" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXhkCu9yZ5AhlOmasms4qFejMq7oS2bVmBWY5-gPPCPZbhd1jPePlIkOf0wU_ROV1B6ghd4rSvWaogFsR5hip_Wb2ABBK6Q4eMNRZaz-KWkXbiKnD9gQ7PFZiZyApa-ips_lb4jHDSZZ_v6-h5qxG7N4eIlHB66c4wZcGi6S8gvTYZy82edVH/w281-h400/Tree%20Trunks%20Silliart.jpg" width="281" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ T<i>ree Trunks</i> ; Léon Spilliaert ]</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-69141355441369752672024-02-25T16:06:00.001-05:002024-02-25T16:06:00.155-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div></div><blockquote><div><a href="https://www.versedaily.org/2024/emilydickinsonsherbarium.shtml" target="_blank">Emily Dickinson's Herbarium</a></div><div>--Chelsea Woodard</div><div> </div><div>Wide-lobed threes of trillium leaves taped</div><div>and labeled, trifoliate veins, wrinkles dried</div><div>and finite as her penciled marks beneath.</div><div>My hands are attuned to the weight of pages pressed</div><div>long on such fragile anatomies—pistils of lilies,</div><div>cowslip petals, delphinium halos and bright spikes</div><div>of iris, ovaries and ovules tenderly picked,</div><div>patterned and splayed. I know the body</div><div><br /></div><div>of desire could fill a book and still spill</div><div>out. It isn't a question of will, or killing</div><div>for pleasure, for beauty that's flattened and lasts past</div><div>the end of one season, where we've lived in bloom</div><div>and hate to leave. Late February casts</div><div>its defeatist light and I quit this reliquary now, this room.</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-26411044238609381272024-02-23T14:03:00.001-05:002024-02-23T14:03:00.245-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div></div><blockquote><div>ENVOI</div><div><br /></div><div>In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,</div><div> To sleep for a season and hear no word</div><div>Of true love’s truth or of light love’s art,</div><div> Only the song of a secret bird.</div><div><br /></div><div>--<i>from</i> '<a href="https://poets.org/poem/ballad-dreamland" target="_blank">A Ballad of Dreamland</a>'; Algernon Charles Swinburne</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-65456132804387545512024-02-21T14:01:00.001-05:002024-02-21T14:01:00.154-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div></div><blockquote><div>Exquisite loneliness</div><div>Bound of mine own caprice</div><div>I fly on the wings of an unknown chord</div><div>That ye hear not,</div><div>Can not discern</div><div>My music is weird and untamed</div><div>Barbarous, wild, extreme,</div><div>I fly on the note that ye hear not</div><div>On the chord that ye can not dream.</div><div><br /></div><div>—<i>from</i> “Anima Sola”; Ezra Pound</div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-47080755799236742462024-02-19T13:57:00.000-05:002024-02-19T13:57:00.127-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div></div><blockquote><div><a href="https://poems.com/poem/farewell/" target="_blank">Farewell</a></div><div>--Wang Wei</div><div><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(trans. by Wong May)</span></div><div><br /></div><div>You said dismount</div><div>& have a drink</div><div><br /></div><div>We stood</div><div>You unsaddled your discontent</div><div><br /></div><div>& I took your offer of wine</div><div><br /></div><div>Down South you said</div><div>You saw</div><div>A bed</div><div>By the mountainside</div><div><br /></div><div> But why ask why</div><div>Start out</div><div> Friend </div></blockquote><blockquote><div> White clouds come </div></blockquote><blockquote><div> We pass on by</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div> </div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-91764839946048637112024-02-17T14:05:00.001-05:002024-02-18T12:09:02.896-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3TpuskQbOnAKk_-Fnq2xKA9HGp37tivxpenR4hHwBLNcROnIS6lIWJme-z0OxrgndF7zc2kmV8tyWXMAApVS64z_leHH9AlN9UDUdk9BfhYAmnaaXHUD9Gmc4u1czsjd0zlrKam6L7sq0-wdLoueuw42xfCWxf1lTfGXYP3iz8oGn69fZgSyw/s606/tumblr_9644f1ee97dfecfaedadcd11dbb0433c_650c8376_640.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="606" data-original-width="605" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3TpuskQbOnAKk_-Fnq2xKA9HGp37tivxpenR4hHwBLNcROnIS6lIWJme-z0OxrgndF7zc2kmV8tyWXMAApVS64z_leHH9AlN9UDUdk9BfhYAmnaaXHUD9Gmc4u1czsjd0zlrKam6L7sq0-wdLoueuw42xfCWxf1lTfGXYP3iz8oGn69fZgSyw/s320/tumblr_9644f1ee97dfecfaedadcd11dbb0433c_650c8376_640.jpg" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ Pawel Kuczynski ]</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-90029450258621113132024-02-15T14:05:00.001-05:002024-02-15T14:05:00.129-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53244/sonnet-for-alice-n" target="_blank">Sonnet for Alice N.</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">--Jack Collom</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Why & what is sweetness all alone?</div><div>Either that or it becomes, alas, fleeting,</div><div>Which actually helps, because of rhythm.</div><div>& there’s a pale intensity to truth, no matter</div><div>How pale it is on the levels we receive on.</div><div>I mean, the minute you invent a time interval</div><div>The more it seems to “jelly out” the excitation</div><div>Of accidents; zum Beispiel, “Saginaw, Michigan.”</div><div> After a while, we almost expect him or her</div><div>To inveigle us into a cafe without bay-breasted warblers.</div><div>It’s almost like we have a streak of orange-smell</div><div>Which nobody’ll pay for because they can’t talk to it,</div><div>Although that’s probably all wrong, or at least falsified</div><div>By its very mention, like gravity. Do you agree?</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-80510272900616823232024-02-13T13:50:00.004-05:002024-02-13T13:50:00.125-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From a January 13, 2013 interview with Jack Collom (<a href="http://omniverse.us/a-conversation-with-jack-collom/" target="_blank">OmniVerse</a>):</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #555555; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;"></strong></span></p><blockquote><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">ER:</strong> I’ve heard you say many times that nature is comprehensive, that nature is EVERYTHING. That sense of inclusiveness manifests in this book in a way that really reflects your attitudes. Could you cite an example from the book that shows how you perceive such expansiveness?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">JC:</strong> I’ve been playing a lot with this little string of definitions. Jonathan Skinner was talking with me about how Timothy Morton and some other ecologists want to abolish the word “nature” because it’s become debased, abused, sentimentalized, perverted even. But what I would like is to let the meanings proliferate, even the pile-up of contradictions that come with different definitions. Contradictions are important, by the way, because nature is full of contradictions when you look close.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I mean, we wouldn’t, I think, change “I love you” to “I experience interpersonal gravitation in regard to you,” although “love” has been debased and corrupted.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the preface at some point I have a few nature definitions listed, and I’ll just read them to you:</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nature is everything and something.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the ocean in which culture swims.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s that which is not manufactured.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a stick, a ladybug.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">OOOoooooooooooo.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s its logic.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s causal essence.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a lost purity.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a rose and it’s a photographed rose.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the desire to smash something. Therefore it’s an entity of great simultaneous scale. We need to be in touch with these to some degree all at once.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Incidentally, what I’ve been doing in my current writing in the last couple of weeks—I’ve been trying to make an expanded list of “Nature is,” of really expanded scale. It’s difficult to be selective and still convey infinity.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">ER:</strong> Along with being encompassing—nature and its great simultaneous scale—what comes through so strongly here is this sense of play. Nature plays amid us, among us, with us. I can’t think of your writing without thinking of the play, whimsy and humor of it. How do humor and nature interrelate or interact?</span></p><p style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; overflow-wrap: break-word;">JC: </strong>Yeah. I think play represents freedom from one’s own preconceptions. I think humor is just accuracy. Humor’s mechanical basis is incongruity, and when you look close anywhere, in nature and anywhere else, if there is anywhere else, there is a lot of incongruity. I think the universe is very funny. It’s just seeing that first you have one thing and then another thing too, and there are many ways in which they are mismatched. We tend to slur over these processes and get overviews too quickly, too simply for an overall idea of what we are looking at.</span></p></blockquote></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-996315921502460872024-02-11T19:22:00.003-05:002024-02-11T19:22:37.084-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;">February</div><div style="text-align: left;">--Jack Collom</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>It is all kind of lovely that I know</div><div>what I attend here now the maturity of snow</div><div>has settled around forming a sort of time</div><div>pushing that other over either horizon and all is mine</div><div><br /></div><div>in any colors to be chosen and</div><div>everything is cold and nothing is totally frozen</div><div><br /></div><div>soon enough</div><div>the primary rough</div><div>erosion of what white fat it will occur</div><div> stiff yellows O</div><div>beautiful beautifully austere</div><div> be gotten down to, that much rash and achievement that</div><div> would promote to, but</div><div><br /></div><div>now I know my own red</div><div>network electrifying this welcome annual hush.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-25786111645452868762024-02-09T12:27:00.001-05:002024-02-09T12:27:17.927-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjly6MjycQxU5FmnqYaTXC2KQXAHXOzltK0IcsYoPKHZpFvGec3IqpZSh4SEdUYE4DDTDDJQ7bpXC6hRa81lG4iyxkwrDRpW417BiUxN-A-oMIj0H7wkDcpVIAiLmCqgQit2Uxc7fFFw-C10zhcDkLfWpUCwVoQhzG9gwGRZYKwINRCBQmfOaZ7/s600/pot-glass-and-book-1908.jpg!Large.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="491" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjly6MjycQxU5FmnqYaTXC2KQXAHXOzltK0IcsYoPKHZpFvGec3IqpZSh4SEdUYE4DDTDDJQ7bpXC6hRa81lG4iyxkwrDRpW417BiUxN-A-oMIj0H7wkDcpVIAiLmCqgQit2Uxc7fFFw-C10zhcDkLfWpUCwVoQhzG9gwGRZYKwINRCBQmfOaZ7/s320/pot-glass-and-book-1908.jpg!Large.jpg" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ <i>Pot, Glass and Book</i> ; Pablo Picasso (<span style="font-size: xx-small;">1908)</span> ]</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-30946588175699700372024-02-07T13:39:00.001-05:002024-02-07T13:39:00.248-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51823/a-diamond" target="_blank">A Diamond</a></div><div>--Jack Spicer</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-small;">A Translation for Robert Jones</span></div><div><br /></div><div>A diamond</div><div>Is there</div><div>At the heart of the moon or the branches or my nakedness</div><div>And there is nothing in the universe like diamond</div><div>Nothing in the whole mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>The poem is a seagull resting on a pier at the end of the ocean.</div><div><br /></div><div>A dog howls at the moon</div><div>A dog howls at the branches</div><div>A dog howls at the nakedness</div><div>A dog howling with pure mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>I ask for the poem to be as pure as a seagull’s belly.</div><div><br /></div><div>The universe falls apart and discloses a diamond</div><div>Two words called seagull are peacefully floating out where the</div><div> waves are.</div><div>The dog is dead there with the moon, with the branches, with</div><div> my nakedness</div><div>And there is nothing in the universe like diamond</div><div>Nothing in the whole mind.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-30113910611838353282024-02-05T14:34:00.001-05:002024-02-05T14:34:00.133-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><a href="https://allpoetry.com/Fifteen-False-Propositions-Against-God---Section-XIII" target="_blank">Fifteen False Propositions Against God - Section XIII</a></div><div>--Jack Spicer</div><div><br /></div><div>Hush now baby don't say a word</div><div>Mama's going to buy you a mocking bird</div><div>The third</div><div>Joyful mystery.</div><div>The joy that descends on you when all the trees are cut down</div><div>and all the fountains polluted and you are still alive waiting</div><div>for an absent savior. The third</div><div>Joyful mystery.</div><div>If the mocking bird don't sing</div><div>Mama's going to buy you a diamond ring</div><div>The diamond ring is God, the mocking bird the Holy Ghost.</div><div>The third</div><div>Joyful mystery.</div><div>The joy that descends on you when all the trees are cut down</div><div>and all the fountains polluted and you are still alive waiting</div><div>for an absent savior.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-3424491064181437922024-02-03T18:00:00.000-05:002024-02-03T18:00:02.470-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div></div><blockquote><div><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/51258/any-fool-can-get-into-an-ocean-" target="_blank">“Any fool can get into an ocean . . .” </a></div><div>--Jack Spicer</div><div><br /></div><div>Any fool can get into an ocean </div><div>But it takes a Goddess </div><div>To get out of one.</div><div>What’s true of oceans is true, of course,</div><div>Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming </div><div>Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed</div><div>You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess</div><div>To get back out of them</div><div>Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly</div><div>Out in the middle of the poem</div><div>They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the</div><div> water hardly moves</div><div>You might get out through all the waves and rocks</div><div>Into the middle of the poem to touch them</div><div>But when you’ve tried the blessed water long</div><div>Enough to want to start backward</div><div>That’s when the fun starts</div><div>Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural</div><div>You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown</div><div>Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth</div><div>But it takes a hero to get out of one</div><div>What’s true of labyrinths is true of course</div><div>Of love and memory. When you start remembering.</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-23471882765768210002024-02-01T13:52:00.001-05:002024-02-01T13:52:00.147-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNZ0bhIbBxN8I-_pPeiYMiSO1o8Yx1TksBvbYah_fOK5ize7KwGq57Je7SLq2e4iFi3pZX4Qxw_bgZ6AvS3_vHvPRN0LRTP2SJFK8n1dWZOyr0hdRsKFaYPZkd5HxETwhNe5gv6DynOvm82nmQG3yXcWvRMnxMutPoD3pVJKlvfoLf4faL6SMw/s800/Impresja_zimowa_1_73x54_2014.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="800" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNZ0bhIbBxN8I-_pPeiYMiSO1o8Yx1TksBvbYah_fOK5ize7KwGq57Je7SLq2e4iFi3pZX4Qxw_bgZ6AvS3_vHvPRN0LRTP2SJFK8n1dWZOyr0hdRsKFaYPZkd5HxETwhNe5gv6DynOvm82nmQG3yXcWvRMnxMutPoD3pVJKlvfoLf4faL6SMw/w400-h295/Impresja_zimowa_1_73x54_2014.jpg" width="400" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ <i>Winter Impression I</i> ; Marta Zamarska <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(2014)</span> ]</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-63126739352298862272024-01-30T14:01:00.001-05:002024-01-30T14:01:00.126-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><a href="https://allpoetry.com/In-The-Wheel" target="_blank"></a></div><blockquote><div><a href="https://allpoetry.com/In-The-Wheel" target="_blank">In The Wheel</a></div><div>--Ted Berrigan</div><div><br /></div><div>The pregnant waitress asks</div><div>"Would you like</div><div>some more coffee?"</div><div>Surprised out of the question</div><div>I wait seconds "Yes,</div><div>I think I would!" I hand her</div><div>my empty cup, &</div><div>"thank you!" she says. My pleasure.</div></blockquote><div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-29460528305165198132024-01-28T13:56:00.001-05:002024-01-28T13:56:00.130-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56127/people-who-died" target="_blank">People Who Died</a></div><div style="text-align: left;">-Ted Berrigan</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Pat Dugan……..my grandfather……..throat cancer……..1947.</div><div> </div><div>Ed Berrigan……..my dad……..heart attack……..1958.</div><div> </div><div>Dickie Budlong……..my best friend Brucie’s big brother, when we were</div><div> five to eight……..killed in Korea, 1953.</div><div> </div><div>Red O’Sullivan……..hockey star & cross-country runner</div><div> who sat at my lunch table</div><div> in High School……car crash…...1954.</div><div> </div><div>Jimmy “Wah” Tiernan……..my friend, in High School,</div><div> Football & Hockey All-State……car crash….1959.</div><div> </div><div>Cisco Houston……..died of cancer……..1961.</div><div> </div><div>Freddy Herko, dancer….jumped out of a Greenwich Village window</div><div> in 1963.</div><div> </div><div>Anne Kepler….my girl….killed by smoke-poisoning while playing</div><div> the flute at the Yonkers Children’s Hospital</div><div> during a fire set by a 16 year old arsonist….1965.</div><div> </div><div>Frank……Frank O’Hara……hit by a car on Fire Island, 1966.</div><div> </div><div>Woody Guthrie……dead of Huntington’s Chorea in 1968.</div><div> </div><div>Neal……Neal Cassady……died of exposure, sleeping all night</div><div> in the rain by the RR tracks of Mexico….1969.</div><div> </div><div>Franny Winston……just a girl….totalled her car on the Detroit-Ann Arbor</div><div> Freeway, returning from the dentist….Sept. 1969.</div><div> </div><div>Jack……Jack Kerouac……died of drink & angry sickness….in 1969.</div><div> </div><div>My friends whose deaths have slowed my heart stay with me now.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-77639237620516280042024-01-26T13:54:00.001-05:002024-01-26T13:54:00.129-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div></div><blockquote><div><a href="https://april-is.tumblr.com/post/87760564/april-2-2007-words-for-love-ted-berrigan" target="_blank">Words for Love</a></div><div>--Ted Berrigan</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: xx-small;">for Sandy</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Winter crisp and the brittleness of snow</div><div>as like make me tired as not. I go my</div><div>myriad ways blundering, bombastic, dragged</div><div>by a self that can never be still, pushed</div><div>by my surging blood, my reasoning mind.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am in love with poetry. Every way I turn</div><div>this, my weakness, smites me. A glass</div><div>of chocolate milk, head of lettuce, dark-</div><div>ness of clouds at one o'clock obsess me.</div><div>I weep for all of these or laugh.</div><div><br /></div><div>By day I sleep, an obscurantist, lost</div><div>in dreams of lists, compiled by my self</div><div>for reassurance. Jackson Pollock RenÈ</div><div>Rilke Benedict Arnold I watch</div><div>my psyche, smile, dream wet dreams, and sigh.</div><div><br /></div><div>At night, awake, high on poems, or pills</div><div>or simple awe that loveliness exists, my lists</div><div>flow differently. Of words bright red</div><div>and black, and blue. Bosky. Oubliette. Dis-</div><div>severed. And O, alas</div><div><br /></div><div>Time disturbs me. Always minute detail</div><div>fills me up. It is 12:10 in New York. In Houston</div><div>it is 2 pm. It is time to steal books. It’s</div><div>time to go mad. It is the day of the apocalpyse</div><div>the year of parrot fever! What am I saying?</div><div><br /></div><div>Only this. My poems do contain</div><div>wilde beestes. I write for my Lady</div><div>of the Lake. My god is immense, and lonely</div><div>but uncowed. I trust my sanity, and I am proud. If</div><div>I sometimes grow weary, and seem still, nevertheless</div><div><br /></div><div>my heart still loves, will break.</div><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11126179.post-8582612322036014002024-01-24T13:40:00.000-05:002024-01-24T13:40:00.132-05:00<div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgky2kvoi4dPPw49oh92opTZcbviMwD9DcZVFa1M0g19Ft6KlzCiqJjurxVfC1w9Gq1BAVYiRyKao53mkburRTc3QE-QbG8zOLV5Wq0xBvJMboBJD8iZsTGr3GYLZzP4NZpMsQpnVSGXCngm8CDnBzOjibPI5r0GA8qnVUODfzV7Sy6FVpNPp35/s600/foot%20prints%20in%20the%20snow%20krupa.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="450" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgky2kvoi4dPPw49oh92opTZcbviMwD9DcZVFa1M0g19Ft6KlzCiqJjurxVfC1w9Gq1BAVYiRyKao53mkburRTc3QE-QbG8zOLV5Wq0xBvJMboBJD8iZsTGr3GYLZzP4NZpMsQpnVSGXCngm8CDnBzOjibPI5r0GA8qnVUODfzV7Sy6FVpNPp35/w300-h400/foot%20prints%20in%20the%20snow%20krupa.jpg" width="300" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">[ <i>Footprints In The Snow</i> ; Alfred Freddy Krupa <span style="font-size: x-small;">(2016)</span> ]</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11632328198420140293noreply@blogger.com0