Inspiration: A Breathing In
from *Plausible Worlds* by Aaron Belz:
"MERYL STREEP
"Hard to believe your first movie
Came out in 1977-you are timeless,
Like a Dracula statue in the rain:
And now, as you rub my shoulders,
Wearing that flowered nightgown,
We hear actual rain, or is it wind..."
***********************
from *The First Hay(na)ku Anthology*
edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young
"Night
is language.
And I will."
(Tom Beckett, Eileen Tabios and Mark Young)************************
from *Stops* by Joel Sloman
"Modernism's dead.
A gloomy wand shimmies.
A blue lake among clouds, dizzies upside-down humans.
Our heads have been rattled, shattered, shivered.
It's just 20th-century stuff.
Some colorless remnants are shredded on branches,
a maroon sapling leans away from the future..."
************************
from *AN AUGUST DAYBOOK* by Ray DiPalma
"Words, parts of words, fragmentary phrases, lengthy and complex sentences-some of which were carefully punctuated-elaborate mathematical computations indicative of the application of careful procedures evolving into ever more detailed numeric and symbolic discernments- written everywhere, covering every surface in the hallway and all three rooms, covering the walls, the floors, doors, the drapes, blank pages in books, paintings, the bedding, shirts, trousers, the surfaces of appliances- every available space in the entire apartment..."
************************
from *A February Sheaf* by Gerrit Lansing
"Boston, you were to me, after I left New York
hub of, haven,/
Would pile in exhausted from nights of pleasure /
to hear yr morning chatter,/
drink coffee, sometimes beer or wine./
You knew the Boston crevices, their histories, the rats,/
and marketplace..."
*************************
from *The Letters of Gusav Flaubert 1830-1857*
selected, edited and translated by Francis Steegmuller
"Tobacco? My throat is raw from it. Alcohol? I am pickled in it. The only thing left is eating, and that I do for hours on end. As a result, my body is fatter but my mind emaciated. In the past I used to think, reflect, write, dash down on paper all the verve I felt in my heart. Now I no longer think, no longer reflect- even less write. Poetry has left me, too bored to stay. Poor angel, will you ever return? And yet I have a confused feeling of something stirring within me, I am in a period of transition, curious to see what the result will be, how I'll come out of it: I am moulting (in the intellectual sense). Will I be hairless, or magnificent? I wonder. We shall see. My thoughts are confused. I am unable to do any work requiring imagination, everything I produce is dry, labored, painful. I began a morality play two months ago- what I have done of it is absurd, absolutely empty of ideas. Perhaps I'll drop it. Too bad: at least I'll have had a glimpse of something sublime, but clouds came up and plunged me back into the inglorious commonplace. My life, in my dreams so beautiful, so poetic, so vast, so filled with love, will be like everyone else's- monotonous, sensible, stupid. I'll attend Law School, be admitted to the bar, and end up as a respectable district attorney in a small provincial town, like Yvetot or Dieppe..."
(to Robert Chevalier, [Rouen, Sunday morning, February 24th, 1839]. Flaubert was 18 years old when he wrote this letter]
****************************
from *How To Proceed in the Arts* by Gary Sullivan
"True or false: No matter how much intimacy remains today between the book and the writer, no matter how directly the author's figure, presence, and history are illuminated by the circumsances of publication- circumstances that are not accidental but that may be already slightly anachronistic- in spite of this, every reading in which consideration of the writer seems to play such a large role is an impeachment that obliterates him/her in order to give the work back to itself, to its anonymous presence, to the violent, impersonal affirmation that it is."
*****************************
from *Slush* by Marshall Reese
"The President reached under the table for my hand and squeezed it. He started speaking, looking off distantly, as if gazing into an imaginary teleprompter:
Herein lies the tragedy of the age, our images, those we paint have lost their power. How can their canvases beguile the mind, when words are without meaning? This is the algebra of our times, imperfect though it is.
He drew his hand in front of him and began to trace lines in the air of an ancient and bleak geometry. He made gestures of fantastic equations, calculations of soiled beds and mattresses drenched with blood. He pointed to integers of matted hair, and combined them with blood congealing around the nose. These he multiplied by a woman slumped in her chair to arrive at a constant divided by the coefficient of a hole in the head. Such formed a parabola, hand clutching blouse, triggered by the debris of a skirt over thighs and blood spilling out. Thus, our President spelled out his policy."
***********************************************
Aaron Belz, *Implausible Worlds*
(2005)
Observable Books
3734 Hartford Street
St Louis, Missouri 63116
http://www.observable.org
The First Hay(na)ku Anthology
edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young
2005
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Road
St. Helena, CA 94574
http://www.meritagepress.com
Joel Sloman, *Stops*
1997
Zoland Books
384 Huron Avenue
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Ray DiPalma, *AN AUGUST DAYBOOK*
2005
NYC
Gerrit Lansing, *A February Sheaf*
(2003)
Pressed Wafer
9 Columbus Square
Boston, MA 02116
The Letters of Gustav Flaubert 1830-1857
edited by Francis Steegmuller
(1979)
The Belknap Press
Harvard UP
Cambridge, Mass
Gary Sullivan, *How To Proceed In The Arts*
[dedicated to David Bromige]
(2001)
Faux Press
Cambridge, MA
http://www.fauxpress.com
Marshall Reese, *Slush*
(written 1992-1999)
Situations
NYC
