*Serendipity*, the amazing bookstore on
University in Berkeley, takes my breath
away, and on this occasion, a few dollars
also, but I didn't mind.

Both were Black Sparrow books, one by
Jackson Mac Low, *22 Light Poems*, gorgeous,
fascinating book from 1968 (I met Jackson
in 1967, in jail, but that's another story).

The other book, *Ex Cranium, Night* by
Carl Rakosi, was signed by the author to
the poet Stephen Rodefer. It contains this
powerful passage, a notion that, for me,
cannot be repeated too often:

"The practice of ranking poets as major or
minor, the bastard offspring of grading students,
freezes the poet in his tracks and makes him
a nobody if he is less than great. This situation
tempts him unduly into lofty postures,the breeding
ground of rhetoric and abstraction, and intimidates
his most precious asset, his individuality.

What does ranking have to do with poetry anyhow? The term, *major*,
when it is not a sales gimmick, is the
creation of those who like the power of dispensing
judgment and need a medium in which to display their
intellectual talent.

It has become a great plaything and a way to silence
poetry and put it away.

This world has more parrots than the jungles of Brazil."
**

Also saw the reprint of Ron Silliman's beautiful book
*Tjanting* in Moe's yesterday with preface by Barrett
Watten. Also, a copy of the first edition of Charles
Bernstein's *Controlling Interests* at a very good price.
**

Less advice, more response, support, encouragement and recognition.
**

The chickens were less fun yesterday; we
had to run around for half an hour forcing
them back in the pen. How quickly we living beings
become spoiled!

The Dream Bay

I am quietly certain
in a night's empty sound
that all that may
in its own way come to be
mine or yours or
anyone else's
may be found
or will one day
find an opening
and get its way
to me

And surely by
now the evening
bell has struck
if the sky has
turned brown
and the sun has
set black
and has
fallen into
the gray
and sunk
into the muck
for the dream
I had lost has suddenly
come back:

I fall the floating
spiral down
and sightless
see the moon
is cold
and know the way
somehow untold
to find a world
ungrown

Then running
unaware of night
unknown I pass
the line of day
to find a mist
the morning light
and touch
a clear blue bay

And if I said
I saw a face
in the wave
as I turned
in the dream's
own place
what sorrow tears
to have found
my way
with the sight
of the depths
of the bay

notebook (poem): circa 1964
**

The Year of The Chicken; or,
If You're Going to San Francisco
Be Sure To Wear Some Chicken Feathers
In Your Hair

As I looked out on the gorgeous
sunset over
the bay from our perch in the
Berkeley hills yesterday,
I remembered one of
my earliest poems,*The Dream Bay*
that I happened to have memorized.
I am attached to it, despite
the glaring influences of Blake,
Eliot, Housman, Gray, Poe,
Coleridge, and
other youthful favorites.
It's a joy to be here this
summer. Sorry to have missed
Jean Vengua, who seems to
have slipped away to Missouri.

The owner of the house has
added one responsibility this
year- the care of 6 chickens!
(I noticed the coincidental, recent
-synchronistic?-
encounter with a chicken referred
to on Katie D's {click here}
blog by the way.)
The chickens, who had been
given the run of the lower
part of the house, have
been placed in a pen in
the back yard. Our assignment
is to let them out of the
pen every day- so I guess
we are -"chicken sitting"-
replace their water and
straw, etc. This is more
fun then I expected. (Yet again
it was a relief to learn
that the rooster, afer some
local complaints, was recently
farmed out to a local suburban family.)
I noticed that the red
one kept running away from
the others, and Toni pointed out
it is the smallest. So I
gave it a little pep talk
(think big, don't let them
push you around,etc). Then it climbed
up on a log and stared down,
mightily, at the others.

Also, when Toni made dinner
she made you know what. When
she kept mentioning this in
front of our charges, I complained.
Doesn't she understand
chickens have feelings too?...
**

If you're in Oakland on
Sunday, hope to see you at
the Gala New Brutalist
Cabaret. For
details see the link on the
sidebar to your left.

Thanks to
Immolation.org {click here}
for the link
and kind comments about
*fait accompli* and
our EPC Blog List.

Love checking out new
blogs.

And, yes, the EPC Blog List
is due for an update.

Silenced

Without the employment of intensified focus, alternated with
a fully accepted loss of focus, nothing.

**
The "willing suspension of disbelief."

**

An equivalence, an attainment of balance between
the willingness to listen and the willingness
to speak; part and parcel of the greatest
conversation.

**

Cite meter, sight meter, site meter

**

Silenced by being unresponded to;
silenced by being echoed in a
resounding voice.

The meaninglessness of'
meaning.

**

Silenced by sarcasm.
Silenced by silence.

**

Silenced by indifference,
ridicule, deliberate
misinterpretation,
exclusion, prejudice,
gossip, group
formation, elitism,
Big Brotherism,
poverty, intimidation,
seduction.
**

Silenced by
Disenfranchisement {click here}
**

Silenced by
Martial law {click here}

**
Silenced by Critical indifference {click here}
**

Silenced by political manipulation {click here}
**

Silenced by the deafening roar of the
noise of bombing, war, shooting,
news reports, misinformation, disinformation,
fighting, arguing, moral indictment,
advertising, celebrity mongering,
hectoring, violent physical intrusion.
**

Silenced by exhaustion, physical
and psychological illness,
fear of death and death.
**

Silenced by lack of response,
silenced by being ranked
and sidelined.

***

Silenced by the economics,
the driving insistence,
the gender conflicts
of sexuality.
**

Slenced by discrimination.
**

Silenced by one-upsmanship,
competitiveness,
exclusion by means of
critical categorization,
moral sanctions
badgering.
**
Silenced by starvation,
physical or
psychological
**

Silenced by confusion,
inarticulateness, lack
of vocabulary,language
skills, numbness,
shock.
**

Silenced by lack of
social skills, sense of
irony and humor.
**

Silenced by address unknown,
nonlisted number, code 404
blog not found.
**

Silenced by "lack of
sufficient funds", "we
are sending this bill
to our credit department",
"account closed."
**
Silenced by, "please
leave a message,"
"your call is valuable
to us please stay
on the line."
**
Silenced by "line
forms here", by
"sold out", by "bus out
of service"
"last stop."
**
Silenced by
"how are you?",
"congratulations",
"happy birthday"
"what's new?"
"what's happening"
""I'm so jealous!"
""Guess what?"
**
Silenced by
"Anything
you can do I can
do better,
**
Silenced by
"Award-winning
poet"
**
Silenced by
the short list
**
Silenced by
"no refunds"
**
Silenced by
"toilet only
for customers"
**
Silenced by
"whatever"

Eternal dissatisfaction leads to little productivity,
not mastery and perfection

Without patience, nothing.
Without joy, nothing.
**
Tonight, read Kathleen Fraser, *Twentieth Century*
a+bend press, 2000

still reading: David Markson, *Vanishing Point*,
Shoemaker & Hoard, 2000

Jordan Davis & Sarah Manguso, editors,
*Free Radicalls: American Poets Before Their First Books*,
subpress, 2004

Gary Sullivan & Nada Gordon, *Swoon*, Granary Books, 2001

Jonathan Lethem, *Motherless Brooklyn*, Vintage Contemporaries, 1999

Douglas Messerli, *First Words*, Green Integer, 2004

Tom Beckett, *Vanishing Points of Resemblance*, Generator Press, 2004

Maria Damon & Miekel And, *Literature Nation*, Potes & Poets, 2003

Charles Alexander, *Arc of Light/Dark Matter*, Chax, 1992

editors Nanos Valaoritis & Thanasis Maskaleris, *An Anthology
of Modern Greek Poetry*, Talisman House, 2003

Andrew Levy & Bob Harrison, editors,
*Crayon 4th Issue*, 2004, (includes Laura Elrick,
Rodrigo Toscano, Tina Darragh, Heriberto Yepez,
Norman Fischer, Drew Gardner)

Selected Writings of Walter Benjamin, 1938-1940, volume 4, Harvard UP, 2003

Joel Sloman, *Cuban Journal: A Poet in the Venceremos Brigade, 1970*,
Zoland Books, 2000

Frank Kuenstler, *A.I.R.*, unpublished manuscript
Frank Kuensler, *In Which*, Cairn Editions, 1994

An act of writing is an occurance
Of experience. What is foregrounded
Are the minute particulars of being,
The chancy accidents of furthered demonstration,
Not the broad strokes, the grand organ stops of
History droning the deep notes endlessly through time,
Mendeleyev, Paine, Valery, Confucious, Trotsky.
The longer the time, the larger the name,
And eventually this name is also a word,
Another wave. But here, in the measurable intervals,
Still at the side of memory, the hands
Of pictured people feel still the treasures of smell,
Affording the great ideas the basic emphasis of presence
Yet granting attention its honored focus on immediacy.
Ring the bell, knock loudly, shake the curtains,
This rustling soon ends. Now listen. Do you still
Hear the names, or are you already digesting the nuances
Of noon, the adventure's hankering, the tingling
Push of pleasure's waiting gate? And walk, and ride
And sing, and touch.

Notebook: 8/20/86