On My Desk


Paul Gauguin, *Noa Noa* , NIcholas L Brown, 1919

"Tehura, immobile, naked, lying face downward flat on the bed with the eyes inordinately large with fear. She looked at me, and seemed not to recognize me, As for myself I stood for some moments strangely uncertain. A contagion emanated from the terror of Tehura. I had the illusion that a phosphorescent light was streaming from her staring eyes. Never had I seen her so beautiful, so tremulously beautiful. And then in this half-light which was surely peopled for her with dangerous appariations, I was afraid to make any movement which might increase the child's paroxysm of fright. How could I know what at that moment I might seem to her? Might she not with my frightened face take me for one of the demons and specters, one of the Tupapaus, with which the legends of her race people sleepless nights? Did i really know who in truth she was herself? The intensity of fright which had dominated her as the result of the physical and moral power of her superstitions had transformed her into a strange being, entirely different from anything I had known heretofore."

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Sylvia Plath reads-, Caedmon, 50 minute cassette

The Poetry of Sylvia Plath/Stanford




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Anne Sexton: the voice of the poet, 60 minute cassette, 64 page book

"Tonight I will learn to love you twice;
learn your first days, your mid-Victorian face.
Tonight I will speak up and interrupt
your letters, warning you that wars are coming,
that the Count will die, that you will accept
your America back to live like a prim thing
on the farm in Maine. I tell you, you will come
here,to the suburbs of Boston to see the blue-nose
world go drunk each night, to see the handsome
children jitterbug, to feel your left ear close
on Friday on Symphony. And I tell you,
you will tip your boot feet out of that hall,
rocking from its sour sound, out onto
the crowded street, letting your spectacles fall
and your hair net tangle as you stop passers-by
to mumble your guilty love while your ears die."

Anne Sexton reads


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Ernesto Priego, who makes his home in Mexico City, now a student in Britain, opines on mouth-watering
Fish and Chips, a la Roland Barthes


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Mark Young, who makes his home in Australia, muses on the oddities of discovering John Cage's *X writings* at book fair in Rockhampton, and takes note of how much I am enjoying his *Falsely Goethe* (Otoliths). By the way, when Kimberly Lyons, Nada Gordon and Gary Sullivan were visiting here last (speaking of mouth watering) to feast on Toni's awesome baked chicken and fries, and store bought Key Lime pie-at the moment Gary was talking about Tom Beckett, Kim had opened Mark's book to his poem that refers to Tom's *Unprotected Texts* gamma ways

(from *Falsely Goethe* by Mark Young)
"*Day twenty-one*

Today the
postman brought
me Tom Beckett's *Unprotected
Texts*. Special delivery.
Bubble wrapped
inside a plain
brown envelope. I
opened it up. That
print smell was
wonderful."


""Day ninety-six*

Today the
postman brought
me a new edition of *The
Selected Works of
Signumd Freud.* It's
full of what
appear at first glance
typos- though on
reflection perhaps
deliberate. Esp. when
you find such lines as
'...he dreamt his
mother fucked
him into bed.'"

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New on Penn Sound

On My Desk


Cesar Vallejo, *Aphorisms*, translated from the Spanish by Stephen Kessler, Green Integer, 2002

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"I love plants for the root, not for the flower."

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"Nature creates eternity of substance. Art creates eternity of form."

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"My simple anarchy, my great pain composed of joys."

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"Aviation in air, in water and spirit. Its laws are different in all three cases. The spirit soars the more it weighs and sinks into itself. The heavier the spirit, the higher and farther it flies."

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"CAREFUL with the human substance of poetry."

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Frank Hlton, *Baudelaire in Chains: A portrait of the artist as a drug addict*, Peter Owen, 2004

"'There are moments when I'm seized by a desire to sleep for ever; but I cannot sleep anymore, because I'm always thinking...So, to sum up, it has been *demonstrated* to me this year that I could really earn money, and with application and persistence, a lot of money. But the disorders already mentioned, unceasing poverty, a new deficit to make up, the wearing away of my energy by little worries and finally, in a word, my tendency to reverie have nullified everything.' For reverie, read 'opium'. The former is a favourity euphemism for the drug among all the literary opium users of the time. For Baudelaire, it means a phantom world of dreams and plans and projects for poems,plays, articles, novels, stories- all revolving endlessly in his mind, repetitively listed among his papers but rarely developed beyond that point."

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Tom Beckett on Prime Time

Nicholas Manning announces "The Continental Review: videos of and by poets; the first issue includes a video by Tom Beckett.

a loaf of bread, mark woods' blog, a jug of wine and thou beside me singing in the wilderness; ah wilderness were paradise enow

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*fait accompli*, the book: Four Years in the Making, with a cast of about six; me, Toni Simon, Gary Sullivan, Bill Marsh and Octavia Davis, iwth an assist from Nada Gordon- and, now, hopefully, you, the readers, who have visited or clicked on this blog, over 300,000 times since February, 2003


*fait accompli* has been available for free for over four years. If you feel an urge to support this blog, please consider buying a copy of the book based on it, published by Factory School, titled *fait accompli* If you don't find it at your bookstore you can buy it from Small Press Distribution or Factory School. Based on many of the responses I have been receiving so far, I feel confident you will appreciate having it.

Contradicta





Sadness offers a hundred words and explanations while happiness has but few and is inexplicable.





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It is easier to lose love than passion, but it is sadder to lose passion.

Contradicta


Rise above the petty thoughts which viewed as pains will unite into chains.



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Anger, hurt and cruelty are helpless without each other.




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Penn Sounds Radio Buzz

Charles Bernstein interviewed re: Penn Sound on San Francisco radio

On My Desk

Again, from Mark Young's terrific *Falsely Goethe*, Otloliths

"Day Fifteen

The pretend gypsy
who is also a
genuine mother
figure tells me
that a storm
composed of the
active ingrediets
from soft handwash
lotions is brewing
again. Expect
more of the same,
she says, unless I
can deliver to her
a 1950's-themed stereo-
scopic 3D extravaganza
of America's entry
into racing's victory
circles within the
next three days. She
also says she has
messages from
all our ancestors."

Otoliths Lulu Storefront
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Did you know David Shapiro was a child prodigy on violin and still plays?

from David Shapiro, New and Selected Poems, (1965-2006),The Overlook Press, 2007

*Friday Night Quartet*: 1, ST. BARNABAS

"My mother said
All surgeons want to do is surge.
And as one took the staples from her skull
She said, Neurosurgeons are not nice.

Mostly blind and leaning against a wall
She told my father, Irv, you can be replaced
God forbid I should sit where I want to sit,
And what's wrong with this chair pray?

Sitting and crying, she said
This is not Chekhovian
Or Tolstoyan David.
This is annoying.

Lying on the angiogram cot, strapped down and hot and bloody,
My mother said, The worst words in the English language
Are these David- Don't move.
And what do you think the best words are: Here's some water.

My mother said,
I'm not wavery because I have a wall
And I love it-
Walls are convenient because they don't move...."

David Shapiro Overlook Press