Resolution/aphorism for 2004:

Getting angry you hurt yourself,
sap your patience and give pleasure to
your detractors.

Here's a beautiful New Year's greeting from
Charles Bernstein, who has given us permission
to publish "Lost in Drowned Bliss",
one of a series of eleven short poems
called *World on Fire*, which will be published
later this month by *Nomados Press* in Vancouver.
It was also published in the Fall/Winter
2003 issue of*Golden Handcuffs Review*.


*****************************************

Lost In Drowned Bliss

"Things are what they are, but we are never
what we are," she said as she wrapped the sand-
wich in plastic and tucked away the tears
in a flute.

"No it's things. They hourly
change before our eyes while we stay stuck in
who we are and where we have been."

"Things are
solid; we stumble, unglue, recombine."

"Or what we see is no more a part of
us then the baby who beckons from the
forest: we splinter in the void to catch
the light, then hail the sparks as paradise."

-Charles Bernstein


*****************************************

Determined to teach myself Spanish by reading blogs.
So I start with guesswork.

Si pensamos realmente en lo que el zen podía ser en Estados Unidos, John Cage y Gertrude Stein son un zen más autético que Suzuki

::from Muledar, movedizo, muledar (Heriberto Yepez) {click here} ::

Does this mean something like: If we were really thinking of zen as it is practiced in the United States, John Cage and Gertrude Stein are more authentic than Suzuki.

*********

I'm going to gamble on this one too, from Never Neutral (Ernesto Priego) {click here}

Sin amor, el hombre está perdido.
-Carl Seeling

How about: "Without love, man is lost"

Notebook: 4/29/84

horse (harrow, stood) stem (lecture,
call, lake) callous (list, stitch)
time (immense, immeasurable) figure
(route, exclaim, esteem, bother, other,
bring, allow) surge (before,
narrows, sweet, limits, holds, one,
once, curtail, is, so, continues,
useful, draft, hither, refer, taste,
equals, worthy, tithe, breadth, pleasure,
category, settles, tease, toes,
debt, turn, tomorrow, warm,
selects, reads, notes, added, brush,
push, seem, his, search, uplift,
mistake, decision, infringe, feelings,
intrude, teeth, sort, roast, travel,
wither, tryst, yelps, strum, swum, unless,
furthers, tops, span, achieve, awkward,
wayward, meaning, shifts, construction,
traced, deliver, room, sways, isotope,
unites, tests, creation) conception
(cool, outward, loll, volume, pity,
swarm, river, tips, spoke, opportune,
bravura, sparks, viccisitude, travels, veers,
something, effronts, sturs, roars, such,
change, achors, another, challenge, or,
secure, quest, station, disappear, loud,
lowers, sleep, thought, reception, tone,
need, eddies press, shaped, conquer,
identity, conch, perception, pest)
past (asked, stormy, pirouette, choked,
tasted, etiquette, positive, slips, between,
around, beset, bet, bereave, viewpoint,
redict, dictate, delete, detain,
detour, dirty, corner, career,
culture, until)

January 1st, 2004
12:57 pm
25,000th visit to ::fait accompli::
since 5/24/03
referred by Brand New Insects(Shanna Compton)

also
38, 610 page views
**
On the other hand, men are obsessed with rankings
which, while having some interest,
ruins a lot of things, and could,
if some things don't vastly improve,
ruin everything.


*

::fait accompli's:: 1st birthday
coming soon: 2/11/04

When one door of happiness closes,
another opens; but often we look
so long at the closed door that
we do not see the one
which has been opened for us.
-Hellen Keller {click here}

It's time for the countdown.

Thinking about so many shared
moments with blogging friends
in 2003.

To them, and my many *fait accompli*
readers

Happy New Year!

Charles Baudelaire

*A Wag*

The New Year's Day upheaval was at its height- a chaos of mud
and snow churned up by a thousand carriages; a glitter of toys and
sweetmeats; a swarm of selfish greeds and heartaches- the officialized
delirium of a great metropolis, calculated to unbalance the sanest
loner's mind.

In all this uproar and pandemonium a donkey came trotting briskly
along; egged on by a lout wielding his whip.

As the donkey turned the corner of the pavement, a well-turned-out
gent, immaculately gloved and groomed and cruelly cravated,
encased in his brand-new outfit, bowed with great ceremony towards
the humble creature and said, as he raised his hat, "Here's wishing
you a Prosperous and Happy New Year!" Then he turned towards
his cronies with a fatuous grin on his face, as if inviting them to add
thier approval to his self-satisfaction.

The donkey took no notice of this foppish wag, and went galloping
along to wherever his business called him

As for me, I was suddenly filled with uncontrollable rage against
that superlative idiot, who struck me as the incarnation of the French
mentality.

[1862]

Baudelaire
The Poems in Prose
translated by Francis Scarfe
Anvil
London, 1989

Paging through Baudelaire's
letters I found two types.
Most were written to his
mother to beg for money.
In the others he complains about
boredom. He's only happy once:
when he tells his mother about
the publication of *Fleurs
du mal.*

Asking myself what the difference is
between writing and "just thinking."

****

The hardest thing for the group mind to remember
that the individual mind can never forget is:
writing is not just a contest
(series of evaluational summaries:
books, readings,
reviews, awards.)

****

It's impossible to think for long
in a staight line.
Feelings are the drops,
curves and long ascents
on this rollercoaster
called lilfe.

****

Overlap (Drew Gardner)
{click here}
suggests some new year's
resolutions for the heavyweights.

Notebook: May 17, 1991

1.

On a stage where each one makes a final appearance
(A smile, a bow and another document)
Absence is presence and God is a fool-
Because if you feel for a wall and nothing is there
No one is there and you'll doubt yourself
And it makes me sigh that even my own language
Is foreign to me and tastes better that way.
Don't be superhuman, don't even shrug your shoulders
In the face of pain- still it's too early to get up
Read but stop reading, write but stop writing,
Speak but stop speaking. This, in fact, is the only way
You can hear anything at all. By the way,
Where's my hairbrush?- I want to know because I don't have one
And want to borrow yours.