Distribution Automatique

Saturday, July 26

I left Mama Buzz last night with an armful of books and a definite buzz. Two of 'em I won in a raffle! (Brenda Hillman)- others I received with the admission, others came my way by indirect trade with Michael Cross.

They include:
Michael Cross, six beautiful poems (letterpress) on separate cardstock sheets
Michael Cross- "gamut (for lz)" from "Involuntary Visions: after Kurosawa's Dreams
James Meetz "How Beautiful Tragic Weather" (Tougher Disguises)
Josely Vianna Baptista, "On the Shining Screen of The Eyelids" with artwork by Francisco Faris (Manifest Press)
Stephen Ratcliffe, "Sculpture"(Littoral Books)
Brenda Hillman,"The Firecage"(A + Bend Press)
Brenda Hillman, "Loose Sugar" (Wesleyan UP)
Syllogism #5 (edited by Lisa Kovaleski, Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, Carrie Laing Pickett)- Manifest Press, 2001, includes review of Kathleen Frazer's "Translating The Unspeakable:Poetry and Innovative Necessity" plus 31 poets and 3 fiction writers

Today I'm reading Tanya Brolaski's "The High Lonesome: Letters to Hank Williams" (True West, July 2003, tbrolaski@hotmail.com)

"dear hank,

from the distant past. with each separate thrill I begin. we are no common lemony lovers.
you are most murderous under the moonshine, like a stitch in time when no tongue can
accuse me."my heart's dead, and yet I'm livin" still squeaks when I'm close at arrow.
when I'm twelve feet below oyster shells.

I can only wait for you in all of them.

your

eunice"

(p. 6)

*


hank,

We're going around in circles. lately I've uprigged my thought on the rail-as-ship and
there are no cardinal directions- when you're selling postcards of the rubble I empty my
pockets for the opry. but does it cure what ails you? I hear the hills would literally come
alive.

Tell me something.

euie"

(p. 14)

*
-Can We Have Our Ball Back- is out with new poems from Catherine Meng!!!
Friday, July 27th, Mama Buzz Cafe: Cynthia Sailers, James Meetze, Geoffrey Dyer, Eli Drabman, Michael Cross, Trevor Calvert, Tanya Brolaski & Julia Bloch in a benefit reading for the book INVOLUNTARY VISION:after Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, to be published by Avenue B.

If you couldn't make this terrific reading, get the book when it comes out this Fall. You might as well. You're going to be hearing a lot about the New Brutalists. Every now and then, a group of people start to inspire each other, enabling the spirit of poetry to be rekindled. Doesn't this usually happen first in the Bay Area? It seems that Michael Cross is on his way to the Suny/ Buffalo poetics program-just in time!

James Meetze: "Where are the men who do not explode?"

Tanya Brolaski: "just when you think a girl is buried with a stake in her heart there comes a clearing"

Friday, July 25

Stephanie noticed that I slipped "Starbucks" for "Peets" in my blog about our meeting yesterday. I guess this means she read my post pretty carefully. Stephanie has a rare, impressive quality of looking at the positive side of things. This is a special in a friend, that inspires, or should inspire, reciprocity and gratitude, if not outright love. Also, I've noticed that she is a careful listener. Fans of Well Nourished Moon (among which I have long counted myself-a month in blogland is an eternity) no doubt have appreciated this. Recently she quoted this from a tee-shirt: "More dharma, less drama." Temperamental baby that I am, I have adopted this as my motto!
From "The Notebooks of Samuel Butler" (1835-1902)

Poetry

"The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespeare are not the greatest- they are only the greatest that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whether in music or literature, is ineffable -it must be felt from one person to another. It cannot be articulated."


Feeling

"Man is a substance, he knows not what, feeling, he knows not how, a rest and unrest that he can only in part distinguish. He is a substance feeling equilibrium or want of equilibrium; that is to say, he is a substance in a statical or dynamical condition and feeling the passage from one state to another.

Feeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired by taking pains. The analogy between feelings and words is very close. Both have their foundation in volition and deal largely in convention; as we should not be word-ridden so neither should we be feeling-ridden; feelings can deceive us; they can lie; they can be used in a non-natural, artificial sense; they can be forced; they can carry us away; they can be restrained.

When the surroundings are familiar, we know the right feeling and feel it accordingly, or if "we" (that is the central government of our personality) do not feel it, the subordinate departmental personality, whose business it is, feels it in the usual way and then goes on to something else. When the surroundings are less familiar and the departmental personality cannot deal with them, the position is reported through the central nervous systemt to the central government which is frequently at a loss to know what feeling to apply. Sometimes it happens to discern the right feeling and apply it, sometimes it hits on an inappripriate one and is thus reduced to solicism till the consequences lead to a crisis from which we recover and which, then becoming a leading case, forms one of the decisions on which our future action is based. Sometimes it applies to a feeling that is too inappropriate, as when the position is too horribly novel for us to have had any experience that can guide the central government in knowing how to feel about it, and this results in a cessation of the effort involved in trying to feel. Hence we may hope that the most horrible apparent suffering is not felt beyond a certain point, but is passed though unconsciously under a natural, automatic anaesthetic - the unconsciousness, in extreme cases, leading to death.

It is generally held that animals feel; it will soon be generally held that plants feel; and after that it will be held that stones also can feel. For, as no matter is so organic that there is not some of the organic in it, so, also, no matter is so inorganic that there is not some of the organic in it. We know that we have nerves and that we feel, it does not follow that other things do not feel because they have no nerves -it only follows that they do not feel as we do. The difference between the organic and the inorganic kingdoms will someday be seen to lie in the greater power of discriminating its feelings which is possessed by the former. Both are made of the same universal substance, but in the case of the organic world, this substance is able to feel more fully and discreetly and to show us that it feels.

Animals and plants, as they advance in the scale of life, differentiate their feelings more and more highly; they record them better and recognize them more readily. They get to know what they are doing and feeling, not step by step only, nor sentence by sentence, but in long flights, forming chapters and whole books of action and sensation. The difference as regard feeling between man and the lower animals is one of degree and not of kind. The inorganic is less expert in differentiating its feelings, therefore its memory of them must be less enduring; it cannot re-cognize what it can scarcely cognize. One might as well for some purposes, perhaps, say at once, as indeed people generally do for most purposes, that the inorganic does not feel; nevertheless the somewhat periphrastic way of putting it, saying that the inorganic feels but does not know, or knows only very slightly, how to differentiate its feelings, has the advantage of expressing the fact that feeling depends upon differentiation and sense of relation- inter se- of the things differentiated- a fact which, if never expressed, is apt tø be lost sight of.

As, therefore, human discrimination is to that of the lower animals, so the discrimination of the lower animals and plants is to that of inorganic things. In each case it is greater discriminating power (and this is mental power) that underlies the differentiation, but in no case can there be a denial of mental power altogther.

Some minor computer problems last night prevented me from posting here. Also, at present my email is not working, so my apologies to the
peeps (Hi Eileen!) who have written to me of late. Jean and Kasey, I did receive yours, but right now am unable to respond. Would like to plan a visit soon. Catherine, Cassie, James, Del Ray, Chris, Patrick, Eileen, Kasey, Jean,so many others, can't wait to meet you! And hopefully this will take place very soon, and in some cases, at tonight's New Brutalist reading!

Finally met Stephanie in person. No surprise to me -since we are e-pals- that she is every bit as special as I expected but her in-person charm exceeds my powers of description. We went for a brief walk, drank some coffee at Starbucks (ahem, her treat!) and mostly talked about you wonderful bloggers and how exciting it is that so many of you are converging here this month. We looked forward to a similar East coast convergence this fall. We talked about her job (which I didn't realize she has had only since this past November), her pride in the fact that despite the fact that her boss smokes she has not had a cigarette since working there and Stephanie's new play project, which started, as she has already told you on Well Nourished Moon, with a major cry. Having had a little spin as an actor myself many an undernourished moon ago, I reassured her that I am positive she is off to a good start. Steph also gave me some posters for our upcoming Postcard reading at the Oxygen bar (I could have used the oxygen right then and there, because I was so thrilled to meet the glamorous -she is!- Stephanie in person, I could barely breathe, I kid you not). I gave her my extra copy of Bernadette Mayer's great book "Moving" and a miniature writing book, because I somehow needed to reward her for her hard work on our collaboration, and frankly, for putting up with difficult me as a new friend! To my delight, she seemed more pleased to meet me than to receive these humble gifts, which was flattering in itself. Soon enough I dropped the posters off at Moe's (spent a few bucks there for some great books, more on that later), Cody's, the campus and a record store. After she went back to work, I lingered around the places we walked for awhile. What can I say? Life gave me an awesome boost when I made friends last March or so with this warm and gifted Bay Area poet. She may be indeed a New Brutalist to you, but I must say she is a new Friendlyist to me!

Thursday, July 24

Thanks for the warm welcome, James. No doubt we will be meeting soon. I hope to earn the right to call myself an Old Brutalist!

Jean, Toni and I were duly warned and brought lots of warm clothes and we think the fog rollin' in the morning is quite atmospheric! The house we are in has a fireplace which we haven't used yet, but we plan to. So glad you can come on August 10th for my reading with Patrick at 21 Grand. But I don't think I can wait until the 10th to meet you, so we may come to Santa Cruz before then! The owner of the house we are renting couldn't find enough nice words to say about Santa Cruz- mostly that it is warm there now and that there are beautiful beaches. Soon we will have car so don't be suprised if we track you down and visit you!

I'm meeting Stephanie today! Wow!!! (SY exclamation points.) This may be the most planned and blogged meeting in history!

Bill Marsh posted the itinerary of his visit here today. He'll be at the postcard reading at the Oxygen Bar on the 3rd.

Stephen Vincent sent me the most amazing dream anybody has ever had with me in it that I know of. If he says it is ok, I may post it here. If he gives his permission, free copies of my early book "Poems" (Sun and Moon,1988) may be made available to anyone that can help me to understand it.

If I've neglected or forgotten anyone who I know who lives in the Bay Area who is for any reason offended please tell me. Ye olde memory function ain't what it used to be but I still love them, I am quite sure of that! Let me know, please, ok? I want to hear from you.
11/17/84

The psychological issue of asking. Why we don't
ask-what makes us ask?

By returning meaning to its primary
forms such as letters we unearth the
inexact domain which constitutes the heart.

The other side of not asking is the right
to refuse, which is to choose, which ultimately
relates to the aesthetic, discriminatory function.
The dimensions "when" and "where" become the
obsessive"if," that is, if there is"if"
then there is "if not" and a story begins which
is transformed into the measurement of time.

11/29/84

Ron Silliman's-my writing = my writing-
resembles Derrida's "trace" except that
this presentation is tautological and
paradoxically pragmatic.
Thanks for your warm welcome to the Bay Area, Johanna, Patrick, and Stephanie. I hear you are in town, Chris!

Hey Catherine, it's not Keats or Yeats its dates, dates, dates!

Thursday, July 24
Bhanu Kapil Rider and Arnold J. Kemp
read at New Langton Arts
8:00 pm, 4-6$, 1246 Folsom Street (between 8th and 9th streets), 415 626 5416


In Oakland:

Friday, July 25
Stephen Ratcliffe, Cynthia Sailers, James Meetze, Geoffrey Dyer, Eli Drabman, Michael Cross, Trevor Calvert Tanya Brolaski & Julia Bloch in a benefit reading for the book INVOLUNTARY VISION:after Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, to be published by Avenue B.

7:00pm, Mama Buzz Cafe
2318 Telegraph Ave at 23rd
$5-$50 Admission includes a limited edition chapbook from Tougher Disguises Press or Atticus/Finch.


Sunday, July 27th
Book release party for Geoffrey Dyer's new book from Krupskaya, featuring Eugene Ostashevsky, Eli Drabman's The Black Plastics and Chris Stroffolino’s Continuous Peasant.
7 - 9 @ 21 Grand
449B 23rd St., 4$
originally posted by Well Nourished Moon ... Stephanie Young

Wednesday, July 23

It is 6:22 am and I am in my quite lovely rented house in the Berkeley Hills. The extremely kind owner greeted us here and stayed overnight. She kindly offered to allow me to use her Apple G4 but I really didn't expect to be blogging this morning. To my surprise (have you noticed how inept I am with a computer-for example, Laura had to set up my template, Kasey and Stephanie and others are complaining how unreadable the type is, though others kindly came to my defense about staying with the dark background -thanks!) I figured out how to start this thing and with great joy I started reading the blogs. (Using somebody else's keyboard, though, feels like wearing somebody else's clothes) Peeps (borrowing from Eileen Tabios' page here) I am sitting here with a huge smile because I am feeling so welcomed thanks to comments from Jean Gier, Kasey, Cassie, Catherine and others. And thanks Del Ray Cross, who I am especially looking forward to meeting, for announcing my upcoming participation in the Postcard Book reading at the Oxygen Bar and for his having awhile back published selections from my part of my collaboration with Stephanie Young on Shampoo. (And greetings to Carl A- yes I do read Arm/Sasser every chance I get. And to Jim B for noticing my belated Petrarchian birthday greeting to adorable Laurable.) Folks, I think our little blogland is the warmest place on earth! But not Berkeley...brrr, it's cold here at 6am!

The plane trip was awful! We got stuck waiting for repairs in Dallas for 3 hours. Fortunately I brought my CD player and consoled myself with lots of Joni - but I lost my copy of Court and Spark boarding the second plane in Dallas (two of our planes needed maintenance). (Uh-oh, the connection was just terminated, I better save this). Toni was frantic because our friend Zee Zeleski-who lives in Berkeley- was meeting us at the airport. After a little wait, Zee showed up and took us to our lovely house here in the Hills. The owner owned an antique store so it is unusually charming with gardens in the back and front. I hope some my Bay Area friends will have a chance to come and see it. I am excited that lots of bloggers- including charismatic Chris Murray and charismatic David Hess will be visiting here-. And soon I'll be meeting many bloggers I've been reading avidly. Jack Kimball is right- I'm a natural fan- no apologies, I love it!

And the glamorous Stephanie Young -can you believe I'll be meeting her soon also? -though I know her schedule is full to bursting with her multitudinous friends and fans. But even if she can't fit me in, I know I'll be reading with her and her many other collaborators at the Oxygen Bar on Valencia in SF on August 3! Hope to see you there -and, if not, hope you'll visit here where I'll be writing about this excitement until my fingers grow numb. Hey, I better find the owner and see if I can post this. I've been writing to you for an hour and I haven't even had my tea yet, I'm so thrilled to be here!

Tuesday, July 22

1977

An Arab in Marrakech: Why do you look all around?

Which? To see the faces to hear the
meanings of the voicings or put more
words next to words.

A poet: Something about not asking so
many questions.

Quality moments. Sun. Sound. It has
all happened many times before....

Before the next first
Hold on tight
It's outa sight
All through the night

B does most of the talking. B
speaks to A who listens
neutrally commenting very seldom.
B needs to talk because he
needs to see something about the
totality of his experience: so he
often speaks in generalities. He
is trying to see if there is
some coherence in what he is
saying. He doesn't need A
to say very much because he needs
to understand it himself though
he is so reliant on A's interest and
responsiveness.

B: There is something I've needed
to say to you for a long time.
After my father died, or rather,
since my father died, from time
to time...Is this too personal?

A: No. Why?

B: Because sometimes I feel
I shouldn't talk this way. That
people expect you to hold it all
in, to somehow transmute what
one feels and experiences directly,
comprehend it alone, separately.
I don't know what people talk
about. Sometimes I don't know
what to say when people talk to
me, how to respond, almost.

A: You were saying something
about your father.

B: My father was a very
quiet man. Terrific sense of
humor, sometimes, but he didn't
speak very much about himself.
Often,when we were alone
together, as long as an hour,
or two even, he wouldn't say a
word.

A; What did you do?

B: I'd get quiet too. I'd be
afraid to say a word, afraid
to upset him. When I'd talk,
he'd hardly say anything at
all. It was upsetting, confusing,
especially, I suppose, for a
child, an intellectual olne at
that, whoh read a lot of books,
and thought a lot, and needed
to say things and be heard,
responded to.

A; How did you feel towards
him? I mean, did you resent
this, were there other things
to make up for this?

B: There must have been, because
I loved him very much and
I liked to be near him and
didn't especially try to get
away from him when we were
together like that. But what
I was getting at is, now that
he is gone, since he's been...
dead, because he was always
so quiet, I can imagine his
presence very easily. I dream
about him a lot. It takes a
long time to adjust to these
things. Is this bothering you,
my talking like this? Is it
upsetting to you?

A: No. Go on.

B: Once, when I was working
outside at a flea market, selling
magazines, I imagined that
my father ws standing right
behind me. I felt the need to
turn around to see if he was
there. And whenever I dream
about him he is always content,
and often in the dreams he
gives me advice. So, at the
flea market, in the magazine stall,
it seemed he stood behind me
serenely. As if to say, "I'm
here with you just as I used
to be, nothing has changed."
I guess as a child, even
though we didn't talk- even
when he was very sick and I visited
him alone in the hospital, we
couldn't or didn't-even then,
there was a silent communion
between us, I think. He used to
wake me up in the morning to
get me to school so cheerfully
but the conversation would never
go beyond that. And later, when
we drove to work together sometimes
for more than an hour without
speaking. I wonder what he
thought about during those times.
Maybe he was thinking about me.
He used to say I was good at
book knowledge but not at
people knowledge. Maybe he was
disappointed with me because
I was a Momma's boy,
spending hours in the kitchen
over coffee talking with her
about books, about the past,
and what life has to offer.
My mother likes to think a
lot and talk about what she
thinks. From her I learned to
love speech and from him I
learned to love silence. So that
now when I am alone and I
listen to the silence that
surrounds all, that permeates
every moment no matter how full
I often think of him and how
in some way he must have
understood this and could draw
something from it. Now, when
people in my famioly talk about
him, I don't mean my mother
or my brother, but others
who spent much less time with
him, who knew him less well
they themselves are surprised
at how well they remember his
presence and what it felt like.
That mysterious privateness.
How frustrating it was for me
that I couldn't enter into it,
no matter how briefly. You
know, I used to be afraid to
be alone and I wonder how that
connects with the way things
were with me and my father.

A: It must have.

B: I don't knolw. I have to
be certain about these things,
I don't like to guess. I'm
wondering right now, for
example, why I need to talk
about this in this way. Maybe
I should keep it to myself.
I mean, you and I are
talking. I know you understand
what I'm saying, but I feel
I should keep the facts to
myself. I think specifics
are very important and one of
them is that you aren't that
involved with me. But you
chose to be here and one would
think that might be enough.
I like to give myself a lot of
time, to get the explanation
slowly over a long period of
time. In that way I guess
I think I can direct it
more- relates its reality
to the real way I think.
I rememver you talked
earlier about fool lighting.
Out out brief candle. If
I talk this way you might not
think I wasn't explaining
anything to me. Dwelling in
the subconscious I lose
all my dramatic tension. In that
other way I'm no longer
speaking to you. This is
only an instance, this one
about my father, why I
asked you to come. I guess
I figure in ta way it's one way
to go crazy. But do you
listen somewhat horrified
just as afraid as I am.
But if you don't there's
no control and in a way I'm
just falling- falling
down a long chute into
specifics I can name in
order. Maybe telling you
this one is not fair, even
this one time. All emotion
is specific, though (again
giving myself permission)
and the next moments
after this will not be
any less significant.
I taper off like him-
what if they say it's
nothing. Anyway I
don't owe them any images.

A: I think you drifted
off.

B: I guess I did. I
guess what I really
think is that specifics
are the most interesting
when they're sub-conscious.
Everything has it's own
private meaning. I don't like to
distinguish betgween the parts
of life that make you feel
excited and the other part you
find incredibly tedious and
contrived. But I think the
most important thing is
that I told you about my father.
___________________________

I shouldn't worry about
how to write- I lost
it all that time- I
let it go...I lost control.
I guess what I learned from
them the incredible importance
of the specifics. If no oone is
interested then I am no one.
Narcissism. Loss of concentration
can be followed closely
by physical exhaustion.
The trouble with prose is
it demands experiences
of physical movement over
long periods of time. This
helps bring my attention to
my increasing lack of concentration.
It feels as if there is no
more or hardly any more bits
of consciousness left. In
a sense I am pushing myself
forward mercilessly like a
soldier. The Kafka
poem. I was working on
perfecting how to do those
when I switched to prose due
to a first class runner.

Now it's

a) Licking postabe stamps
or
b) nothing.

Concentration and pushing the
pen. Right now, as always,
the pen feels awkward in my
hand. But I used to print poems
in short lines on the page and
immediately type them up. But
this space is really hard to
market like that.

The situation (the specifics)
A kind of figuring out
by obsessional thinking.
There seem to be orders
demanding decorative figures,
for example, wooden parakeet
cages. But I need to let the
day go fast as often
as I want.

Let the day go fast
so slow down the day

As I listen I hear contradictory
demands;

Isolate yourself
Build your own world
Write poems
Travel the strange road inward
I hear the enchanting
Song of the bells
Each bell rings once
And its a new bell
You do it because it feels good
YOu're lost, you're making it up

I put anything in the spaces
I let myself lose track
I put spruces in the empty part of the sentence
I am sure, I become unsure
So little is permitted by the
authoritarian voice (my father)
who labels it not usable.

Monday, July 21

Rutabaga reports:

The president of Finland is a belly dancer!!


the well nourished moon
announced today: 

    on Sunday, August 3rd:
Poetry Espresso presents a
Postcard Poem Book Launch
7:00 pm
@ 2202 Oxygen Bar
795 Valencia (@ 19th St.)
San Francisco
With readings (in pairs!) from:
Cassie Lewis
Del Ray Cross
Jennifer Dannenberg
Stephanie Young
Tim Yu
Catherine Meng
and Nick Piombino
Belated Happy Birthday Laura- (whose birthday, like Petrarch's is July 20)

When his father died in 1326, Petrarch returned to Avignon, where he worked in different clerical offices. The turning point in his life was April 6 1327, when he saw Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire d'Avignon. She became the queen of his poetry.
Orwell Bookstore : Search Author : Francesco Petrarca
1. Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta
Price $29.95
Authors Mark Musa, Barbara Manfredi, Francesco Petrarca,
Published Indiana University Press 01 April, 1999
2. Longing for Laura
Price $14.00
Authors Francesco Petrarca, A. M. Juster,
Published Birch Brook Pr 2001
1977

Although a kind of orderliness
emerges from the mental organization
preceding the first frame of the film
I lay down at that time the
blurry and later faded edges
of the sun spelled out of what this vast
if vaguer field offers to my
senses, my intellect and my
imagination. Even the voices of birds
which beat an exciting rhythm
in totally sympathetic
synchronicity with the even more
chromatic aspect of their tie-in
(I've allowed myself to drift along
with the sound of a plane)
as long as I can simultaneously pull
away from the voices of people calling
back their dogs from my dog, here in
the sunny pavilion of similar parks.
I am quickly begging the world to be
still as it can to listen to the
drums and the other noises that
let themselves drift in this strangely
unfamiliar position in the grass in
the Spring sun. Finally it's here.
I don't want to be interrupted
because I'll need time to mentally
and physically absorb the energy
that waiting can somehow
bring on more quickly to the earlier
connection with incoherence, horizontal,
vertical and small. Maybe I'll try
to pretend to not be impatient.
There I am at your table not
talking. In that frame of this
time a world has changeable,
replaceable parameters. The moon
is then allowed to have as many
phases as it can, every
connection as vital as the one
before and the seemingly tighter and
looser phases
before the end. Even now I'm
almost too excited by that
confident expectation. The
attitude could suddenly change
into a very detailed sequence of
images and sequentially
satisfying motifs so that then
things would stop just before an
unexpected turn-off. Then you or
I or we would get lost and even
a little scared, but that little
touch of fear would not be
represented by a need to get
suddenly busy. It's a smiling
impatience, as if you were
hesitating on a platform against a
cliff high above the sea. Below the
mountains are folded in widening
and narrowing parabolic shapes.
This adventure can stop any minute
and lapse into boredom. Sooner or
later the sun will warm me less,
the wind will come up with some
word that doesn't belong here and the
essay will have to stop. No matter
how many times I say or shout or
scream the leaves are mine, they
will laugh at my screaming
when I go to the marketplace. You
sing the moon is mind and they
will pay you there a dollar for
singing that reminds me of the
marketplace in Marrakech and the
red stones and now the shadows
of the leaves against the page are
diamonds. It's almost impossible
to believe how sure those drums
are. There is purple in the shadows
the blurry edges of the shadows
surrounding the clearer edges of some
of these shadows and the
clear, sharp images of the twigs.
The bird comments that the sea is
still out there. No, I can prove it,
I wonder how long those shadows
could speak of themselves. The
words insist they can talk
out loud. The quotation of the
word geography subsumes itself
in orchestration against the
parallel sequence of thoughts
which humbly accept the continuous
assistance of the music the world
is creating through its movement.
Next to them the words speak
themselves awesomely as voices
interrupting a peaceful, descending
counterpoint.

Now, overlooking the lake, I
realize that plane was a helicopter
and the drums I thought were
far away are 50 feet away. I
can make out the drummers' faces
but not their expressions. The important
thing is that the sun is on my
face here. Also from here the sound of
the crowd of the fountain is much
louder, the right track of the stereo
for my right ear and the nearby drums,
now there is a rattle, the maracas
and there is the shadow of my pen and
my fingers instead of the leaves I
made the symbols out of transferring
the image of continuously, kaleidoscopically
changing meanings tonally connected to
the shifting patterns of noises set
against the once stopping feet at the
lower edges of my vision of the notebook
lightly interrupted by the consciously
repeated titles like "Call Collect,"
and the sub-title, lots of this won't
exactly mean anything or mean too
much.

Evn today, I won't give all the
sun to poetry. I want a beer.
I want the expectant pretty faces.
I want the smell of food. Moments
of noticing and being noticed. This
is close enough. The air is clear.
I need to think about the transparent
smell of the air and its shifts-
now a bird is throwing in a
syncopated note. A woman
passes and her dog is playing
with Whimsey. My noticing needs to
coincide with meanings that
shift irregularly but regularly,
like tides. I'm glad there's a word
like transparent to distract me on the
path to a sentence. The conversation
of birds is almost too precise, like
electric rock. Poets notice we think
different than we mean to think,
so they bring along several
languages for this, including
an off-key remark after the
reading. The page is my table.
Words sit all over the place, where
they want to.

Go get blown away from the
table. Go get a beer. The days
divide with paragraphs, the essay
becomes a calendar of things to
do, I'm pre-occupied with schedules
all the time, lists of every kind.
It takes more than one moment,
for sure, to remake the play in
Chinese and allow all the drift
I need. I let in the wind
again. Some of these sounds might
have been planes.

Sunday, July 20

Thanks to Jim Berhle, a poem by me appeared today on the cover of the latest issue of *Boog City*. The issue is devoted to the years 1977-1978. Time travel hits the poetry magazine circuit! This poetry newspaper is delivered free all over New York and Philadelphia. California people: thanks to the editor David Kirschenbaum, I was able to pick up copies to bring with me for you. See you soon! (Berkeley, here we come: July 22-August 22).

Got my computer back today with a new hard drive. Didn't have to pay for info retrieval, Toni had backed most things up except a few weeks of email. So, I am only out about $200 for rental of an ibook and the hard drive courtesy of AppleCare.
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Thanks, Kasey for the post re: -fait accompli-, for the kind shifting of my link and for the wonderful time machine logo. Love those links!