5/29/ 5/30/96

Note

In 1996 I returned to a study
of Cesar Vallejo's *Trilce*. I
don't speak or write Spanish with
the excuse of time. Time is nothing
that invites me close so don't
criticize or disagree. The poem is
found elsewhere.

Enigmatic notes in the middle of
nowhere. This is a kind
loving that wrenches me out of
language, that reverses me inside a
catalogue of surrealistic prepositions.
That they always correct deprives us
of accurate lessons. I stand by
my note about *Trilce*. It's not
much but that's all there is,

I am inside outside inside.
Transference of the lexicons. Exhausted
admiration not me. But that's all to
continue. Midnight. That
wrenches language out of me.

Voting machines are online again at:
Jim Berhle's Famous Monkey.

Texture Notes (Sawaka Nakayasu) "keeping it
real."

New Jim-sides on Jim Berhle's new blog: The Jim
Side

Like most bloggers, after
furnishing my blog with
the basics: name, subtitle,
template, a vague sense
of direction about where I might
be going with it,
links to friends and their favorites,
I began to take some
long walks around the far
reaches of the territory. I
did it the way most beginning
bloggers do it, not
by drifting through lists at
Technorati or Blogroll,
but simply by going
into the links lists of blogs,
from those into others, and on
and on into some pretty
strange and unusual bloglists.
Occasionally I would forget
to bookmark and never found
my way back. Already a
close reader of Silliman,
Davis, Sullivan, Gordon,
Kimball, K.S. Mohammad,
Berhle, Hess and
Mayhew, I
was immensely lucky to discover
two blogs early on
that extended my vision as
to what blogs could
be. These blogs were
Boynton
and what is now called
Solipsistic, but
was then called
Solipsistic Gazette.
It was around the time that I
discovered these blogs that I
decided to start my bloglink "Crush
List"- the title of my listing was meant
to be a vague parody of Jim Behrle's
famous "crush list."

What I love about
Boynton and Solipsistic is that
they are unclassifiable. Boynton
is a fictional name for a blogger
living in
Melbourne.
Boynton's wry and dry humor early on
became an antidote for me
for almost anything that might
ail me, but particularly my penchant for becoming
overly serious and worried,
(especially about the future of blogging),
not an unusual quality for a poet, though
this does not get me off the hook.

Recently, Boynton celebrated
her first birthday as a blog,
and as a sort of surprise gift,
I let her know about her listing
on the Electronic Poetry Center.
We had linked our
blogs to each other ages ago,
so this was
a modest gift indeed.
With her usual gentle wit she
reminded me that she would have
replied to my middle of
the night missive sooner, but she was
about to go for an afternoon walk,
as it was an unusually sunny day
in Melbourne at the moment!)
It's this kind of moment I live for
in blogging.

-fait accompli- wishes to
thank Boynton for mentioning and
praising, today, our
Sidereality feature so highly! Or is it tomorrow?
Y'know it's kind of fun
having a friend who lives on the other
side of the planet, and who is
so much fun
and who we know only by her fictional name!
She can visit us for a little
lift anytime-(she spoke, as so many have
recently, about "blogger malaise"
on Boynton today).

I strongly suggest you should get to know
Boynton,
if you haven't already.
You'll enjoy it, and please
let her know so she may be
convinced to keep it
going.

A few people who attended my reading
with Corina Copp on Saturday at the
Bowery Poetry Club asked about my
poem "With Open Arms" which repeats
the phrase: "Poetry is..."The poem was
published on -fait accompli- on May 14th
and it can be found in the archives column
on the left . Thanks to all
who came, and while we're at it, to all
my readers at -fait accompli-.
If you couldn't make it- see you next time.
Or look for me and
say hello-
you will find me at the Bowery Poetry Club
every Saturday if humanly possible-
want to know why? First, it's a terrific place to
hang out, hear poetry and music and second,
check out this series
curated by Nada Gordon and Gary Sullivan:

Next week (Oct 25), the
Manifesto Marathon: Mairead
Byrne, Rachel Levitsky, Kristen Prevallet,
Kim Rosenfield, Marianne Shaneen
and Rod Smith; November 1: Robert Fitterman
and Murat Nemet-Nejat;
November 8th: Poet's Plays: Charles Borkhuis,
Jordan Davis, Ethan Fugate and Brian Kim Stefans;
November 15th: Michael Gottlieb and Michael Scharf,
November 22: Process and Formal Invention:
Jena Osman, Tina Darragh,
Matt Mdden, and Warren Craghead;
November 29th: Allen Fisher and Ange Mlinko.

Let's hear it for Bob Holman, owner, manager,
maitre d' of the Bowery Poetry Club who
makes it all possible! (Wouldn't hurt if
we spent a few bucks while we are there,
we need this place to last! Good drinks,
good eats. The admission,
which goes to the poets, is $5)

c. 1995


"The good mixers, liked by all." Alan Davies
"We ask for a catharsis, we get a cathexis." Abilgail Child

Unfinished business. A fragment broken off from
a dream object. What is a dream object. An
object to dream on . So long since it was said
hello to. A voice gone, or hidden.

T.C. a theoretical construct, yet real. You
can't really object, in words, to a dream created
by another person. Technically, it exists. That way,
T.C. is loved, the way anyone known to all,
accessible to all might be loved. Also hated
according to a similar process.

Something was created, then hidden away. This
is part of its metaphysical charm. Part alive,
part dead, half poetry, half real, a centaur or
griffen to readers. Another character (A.C.?)
might walk by T.C. and notice him. She is, or
was, almost created. They may, or may not,
have noticed each other.

Certainly T.C. had to create something, just like
H.C. had to create him. Who am I to stop
him or decide?

"You notice the sound of a day, its smells,
some children clustered on a stoop, a man in
a car just sitting there and staring. You'd think
someone had died. In fact, someone has died"
thinks T.C. looking at A.C.as she walks by.

A.C. almost, but doesn't, say "Hi." This is
because you might say she heard what he was
thinking. This isn't, of course, telepathy. It's
just possible in theory.

H.C. has wondered whether the blurbs
for this book might be asked for in advance of
its writing, since no money will be involved,
they way a cash advance might be offered to the
writer of a book before it has been written, the
credits being an integral, even a structural
part of the whole creation. H.C. reasons,
however, that T.C. , still coming into existence,
and still possibly never coming as fully as possible into existence,
might strongly object to this. In his own case
realizing that this book might be aptly called
Six Authors In Search of A Character. He decided
to consider it, but not to do it yet, recognizing
that this creation (T.C.) was being formed and
effected further in this way. So far, in any
case, there is little to distinguish T. C. from
H.C. A chip off the old block.

What is fully palpable, T.C. reasons,
is anger. I know I am an excuse to distance
myself from H.C. Yet
I still have my own opinions, thinks T.C.,
my own ideas. H.C.already knows I am not
fully in his control. I see anger everywhere
about me, when I look. Rage oozes from...
the streets, from the sidewalks, in the cracks of
voices you hear on t.v. They are angry at
everyone and everything. They are constantly
angry. And for good reason. They needed
objects to dream on, metaphysical objects,
and what did they get? Death, disappointment
and disease.

H.C. suddenly imagines what A.C. might
think of this. A.C. appears and looks impatient
and annoyed. Then, absent mindedly she goes
back to her painting. Leave her alone, thinks H.C.
Without saying a thing, A.C. touches a
brush to the canvas and disappears right into
it. H.C. wonders about this effect. About the
colors, specifically, the green. Besides, thinks
H.C. I hadn't planned on this text being so
seamless.

Mine wouldn't be, thinks T.C. To both their
surprise he has noticed A.C. "I like the
painting," he says.

"You do?" she says, incredulous and delighted.
"T.C. meet A.C., A.C. meet T.C." H.C. says
sarcastically. Both ignore him.

What do words approximate, wonders H.C. while
A.C. and T.C. stand there wordlessly
in A.C.'s studio. Now they are talking but H.C. can't
quite make out their words. Or is it that I
just don't want to interpret them, thinks H.C.
He looks at A.C.'s painting. Lines over lines over
lines. Scratches over scratches, indentations. He wants
to say something to A.C. but now she and T.C. are
far away. "I need some space," T.C. had
whispered to him earlier. "So we're going to
move over here."

They were still in her studio, but at this
distance the room loooked like a room in a doll's
housed with one wall removed. A.C. was showing T.C.
her paintings

"Criticism in the New York Times has always
seemed to me to be negligible. I had not
realized before the publication of Professor
Matthiessen's piece that whether what the Times
prints is negligible or not it makes a great deal
of difference that the Times prints it. Moreover,
I had not realized before I saw your clippings that
the idea there was anything queer about writing
poetry and being in business at the same time
was anything more than an American attitude..."

Wallace Stevens
To Barbara Church
Hartford, Conn.
July 17, 1947.

Despite my dwindling supply of my 1999 book *Theoretical Objects*
(I think Amazon still has some)
CorpsePoetics(Eileen Tabios)
and abolone (Li Bloom)
and I swapped books via snail mail.
I am awaiting Li's book
but Eileen Tabios' *Reproductions of An Empty Flagpole*,
one of the most aptly titled books in recent memory,
is packed with prose poems that will bring a
reader back for revisits again and again.
Thanks to both for recent mentions
and generous quotes
on their weblogs.

From *Reproductions of An Empty Flagpole*:

"What does it say about me when I ask for asylum in places where
people wish to leave? I try to find meaning in flags. But they
repel me when buffeted by an incidental breeze. Oh, I reconsider
when I am pierced by an empty flagpole. It makes me think of barkers
at street corners flaying the wake of traffic. They should never sell
their souls."

Ron Silliman kindly read and responded to
Lewis LaCook's interview with me in the recent issue of
Sidereality.
He said that when he saw that Lewis asked me whether Ron would
ever write in code, in the budding genre of hypermedia that this
would be as likely as his taking up the trombone. He disagreed
with LaCook's sense that I have envisioned blogging
as a new genre of writing, and Ron's
feeling is that blogging is more comparable to giving a
poetry reading than offering a new form . I
thought that Ron's reference to an instrument that is rarely used
as a solo instrument perhaps has to do (unconsciously) with a view
of writing as being something one might do in concert with others,
but that one performs, essentially, alone. Of course, as I see it,
it is just this assumption
that blogging undermines, an aspect of blogging that Ron
may be eagerly participating in without
necessarily wanting to recognize or perhaps acknowledge.
In the pre-blogging view of writing, writing was a solo activity.
Each writer reads each writer,
and each takes a turn onstage, reciting their "own"
words on the stage. Each acknowledges the echoes in
all the others' works, but each
"plays" alone on stage. Such writers as Jackson Mac Low
have made bold attempts to undermine this view of performance.
Mac Low does this in so many ways, not only in performing his
work aloud with others, but frequently "writing
through" other writers. But even in Mac Low's masterful work,
the activity remains "solo." My sense of the situation
right now is that blogging has the potential of bringing about
dramatic changes in such assumptions.
The poliical implications are powerful, particularly in that
torturously unresolved, complicated, universal and
literally explosive issue of competition,
that powerful but wily stimulant,
which, like so many other short term highs,
when thoughtlessly
indulged in, takes its participants
right down that slippery slope
into exclusion, domination, cruelty,
violence. The poetry community,
while no doubt having its
issues, is hardly vulnerable to critique
in this area at all
by comparison to the global
corporate world, and to the antics of
blood thirsty nationalists.

Yesterday's post (Saturday, October 18, together with that
of Friday, October 17)
from Never Neutral (Ernesto Priego)
is exemplary of the kind of spontaneous
collaboration I am thinking of
(I don't pretend to speak for Priego
here at all, and wouldn't want to try, and whose work, as much
as I admire it, I don't, as
yet, know very well. This is merely a "tune" I am hearing
in my head, that I have improvised, reading through
his blog post):

Priego quotes an intensely
lyrical philosophical passage
from Luce Irigary on the
multi- dimensional aspect of time.

Next, a brief diary entry. A cross-section
of a day in EP's consciousness, open, funny,
dream-like, intimate. The implication
from #2 (I have to work a bit more on section
1) is: one moment in a person's life cuts through
an entire spectrum of their experience.
A self-portrait, not quite a caricature, but more
than a sketch.

Then, a quote, an intensely
lyrical/philosophical aside,
in a sentence,
from Amy Bernier's Moonshine Highways(Amy Bernier).

Finally, Priego quotes Derrida, but in Spanish!
My thought was: he is
following through on Heriberto Yepez' open
challenge to "US- and only US- land" poets.
The understated plea
here is: reread Derrida, but in another
language, for example,
Spanish.
Then, maybe you'll be
able to hear him again, and,
incidentally,
familiarize yourself a little
further with the language
of an enormous number
of your closest neighbors .

It is just this sort of spontaneous
act of publishing, an improvised sudden
jump cut across temporal boundaries
and genre categories, writing through the work
of a few other writers, a kind of musical/
literary/personal/philosophical/ensemble
thinking/conversing/envisioning, that excites me
about the collaborative possibilities
of blogging, that I think Ron remains
skeptical about. But Ron is a wily
theorist. He wouldn't throw down
a gauntlet like this to discourage,
is my sense of the situation,
not at all. He is following
every nuance of this form,
he is listening to every moment
of the game
(the "words" and "the music")
as intently as anyone,
maybe even more intently. And if he
ever picks up that trombone, watch out:
the whole orchestra may suddenly join in
and jam on and on into the bloglinked night...

c.1989

The tone of voice is an imprint.
The particular rhythm, the emphasis
The hesitations. I am reminded of its timbre
(So long ago) of the ordinary reality of that time
A nostalgia for some particular. Stops
Which are not fit for comparison because
An echo, in the beginning or the end
Is not just one, an echo repeats and
Therefore extends its singularity. Blue, for
Instance, guards and abjures its composite
Structure, and in that simplicity, undermines
And fragments its discontinuous image in
Measured intervals. Having brought them that
Close, breezy elements, places and abstracts
Specific references, now drawn thin,
Splits the nature of distance across its solitude
Changes and hastens the burnt taste of false beginnings,
Electing to shift words away from strangeness
In a flight of common pictures, forming the
Least stress of inflection before and next to
His insignia (this insight). Such forms are yet constant
And identifiable. They represent the command "Retract!"
The tinny, electronic sound of a machine's voice.
These scratchings mark the place where thought was born
Hoarse throat, shaken head, eyes misty and far away.

Tim Davis' show at
Brent-Sikkema
closed this past Saturday. Tim is also a poet,
whose book *Dailies* was published by
*The Figures* press:
"Everything I see reminds me of something I can't remember"

Poetry, bah! All I feel like doing today is listening
to Cat Power.

By the way, Chan is slated to be singing in Philadelphia tonight (Trocadero).
But sometimes she doesn't like performing, so be prepared.

EPC Bloglinks

When the EPC asked me for
permission to copy my links list
I was deighted, and this is why:
The EPC gets lots of hits. When I agreed,
I explained that my list of links
is completely personal and reflects
nothing more than my own tastes.
I made and make no claims of impartiality
or representativeness for my bloglinks list.
When I publish my "crush lists" I am not
claiming that these are are the best blogs.
I am only announcing them
because I like them and want
to recommend them for that reason. I
have always been a whimsical reader, but
I will make the claim that I am not fickle. This
consistency may have created the illusion
that my links list is meant to be
representative. My links list reflects
my own preferences and nothing more.
If a blog is not included it is not
meant as a condemnation. Readers of my blog
or my bloglink lists should understand that I
explained all this to the EPC when I
was invited to post them there.
Like any blogger, I reserve
the right to include or exclude whatever
blog I wish on my links list.
Some bloggers have
very long lists, some have short lists.
The EPC accepted my list
exactly the way it was and asked no
questions, requested no changes, made no
suggestions or comments, except
that it be alphabetized.
Again, the EPC has not edited or
made any suggestions or even
any comments whatsoever except
their gratitude for my willingness
to share my links with them.
I will say that if a blogger stops
blogging for a month or more,
I may sometimes temporarily
remove the blog from my links list.
This is merely for the
convenience of the readers.
When the blogger resumes,
it be be returned to
the list. As I implied above,
in all likelihood, once a
blog is on the list it will remain
there as long as the
blogger continues to post.
And it is for this reason that
I try to be careful about the blogs that
I link to on -fait accompli-.
But the selections
are the result of my own enjoyment,
interests and admiration only.
There are no other claims made
for my selections. Some of the blogs
on my list link
to -fait accompli-, others don't. That
is their choice.
Sometimes I enjoy poems or other
work by writers or artists who don't seem
to be interested in my
poems or art. Certainly the reverse
might occasionally happen,
I don't know, but there are so very many
interesting writers and artists.
I may link to many of the
blogs others seem to link to, but
sometimes I may not. I regret any
upset or displeasure that results
from these decisions and choices
but I reserve the right to make
them. However, thus far only
one blogger has approached me
directly since the announcement
about the EPC bloglinks list
and that blog has
already been added to my links
list. I will just add that apparently
there are some people that
may be taking this
opportunity to express anger
or foment anger towards the EPC
or the Suny/Buffalo poetics list
through me because of grudges they hold. This may be
the downside of making this
institutional connection. I don't take this
personally, but I will
continue to evaluate whether
or not this project is worth the trouble
to me or to others over time.
Enjoying blogging means too much
to me to let bitterness and bickering
get in the way. This is exactly why
I mostly left the Suny/Buffalo
poetics list and started
blogging in the first place.
So I'll have to see what happens
over time. You can be sure of
one thing: I am determined to
continue to enjoy blogging and reading
other people's blogs whatever
happens.

Blogger menaces mugger. Check it out on Overlap(Drew Gardner)

Right now, wherever he is, Jim Berhle is chattering his head off, he's so happy. Boston ahead 3-0!

Yankee rally fails at the bottom of the seventh inning. I bet there is
one happy Monkey.
As I write this post, another home run for the Sox!

What a game! Jim and I
should be audblogging this one!
Yankees rally in the 8th inning!
Tie game.

Bottom of the tenth inning.
Tie game.
Jim Berhle's Famous Monkey
will not appear on my screen.
Uh-oh.

We're into the 11th inning.
Tie score. The crowds are roaring!
This is no time to Monkey
around, Red Sox.
Go, Yankees!

Top of the 11th inning.
12:10 a.m.
"This will be pitch #40
for Mariano Rivera"
1 out.

3 shut-out innings for
Mariano Rivera. On to
bottom of the 11th.
Yankees at bat.

Home run!
Yankees win.
Sorry, Jim

Better luck next year!

First game of the world
series: Yankees vs Marlins.
Saturday night.

How quiet and neat
the occasion that
the happiest and
most sad unite as
birds on a single
branch, each being
delicate as
such, each being
adjacent, each
perpetual,
each separate,
each complete

the other closes,
one begins,
the other ends,
one is never
enough, one is
always too much,
one is minor,
one is major,
one looks back,
one looks only
forward, one
subtracts,
the other adds,
both necessary,
both human

each one half
of the whole
thing, each
in time, each
for a time,
each only for
a time.

8/28/77

As I sit here and sweat, and know that I
have been fooled by earth, the words
fall tremblingly out and away from their
origins: because nothing is built to last
(that is wrong, say the pyramids)

A gesture the cat is too full.
"I am telling you"
Not as it points to
It just something you get up and do

lifting up our arms we imitate our origins
someone doesn't "take a plate & throw it
against the wall"
the critical voice
too self-important, too critical

an homage to the forest
a bailiff gestures to the noose
a sea takes place as a circular noun
that bears adherence & jazzy the last
line bears little resemblance to
a specific but gracefully Coltrane sings
me to attention to the ego of a black
wooden clarinet: uptown, downtown, it has
a real bad beat, not least of all because
I tried to consciously slow myself down to
watch a small piece to be drawn from a
previous insert, no less similar to
frequently misled, insecure laws, as
which you are too familiarly acquainted
seemingly but not actually ill-equipped
for, sort of fading but somehow gradually
led up to by the noticeably preceding
phrase, itself lacking presentiment of its
continuance, but irrevocably, unchangeably
marginal & only suggested without
conceivable completion, insisted on by a
following comma, without necessary
extention but intentionally followed by
a later suggestion in material
shape, something familiar, graspable &
real, for tonight & maybe tomorrow
night. If not, to add in violins
could be a controllable folly in the
paraphrased world seen outside of this
one. All day & all night the bridge
left no fortunes to finance the
interpretation of dreams.
I reminded Mike to call me back into
this one. The doctor says rain is good.
A warning trembles over the grass. The
continuance of a kimono is immanent.
Certified in certifiable folly. Audiences
of birds bite the words in their
mouths. As ultra drawn back of the
tongue. Of silence & uncompleted
dangers unresolved relationships tingle
against my listening memory like
chimes to be tuned according to the
rules of beneficent academic blessing.
Cloaking the skills I make my off-
key remarks. Magic tricks learned from
books make the iridescent words
illuminate the recent lapse. The
end of the bridge, the part leading
to a spot I gaze upon, at the
broken end of a bridge without
continuation. The sinister darkness of
a plane gives a grammatical mood to
an explanation of broken syntax. This
is intersected by a busy twist of
reminders. Your voice makes a peculiar
gesture towards my memory. Of course
it is mixed with memories of my
mother.

A Chinese puzzle.

More pyramids.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    

Academic affairs : Tim Yu's
close-up on the EPC's recent crush on blogs.

Today The Skeptic (John Erhardt)
posted links to websites of 7 of his favorite bands
playing in the Northampton,
Massachusetts area in the next few weeks.

"I remember looking forward to a certain thing
or event that is going to happen, and trying
to visualize its actually happening and not
understanding "time" one bit. (Frustrating).
Frustrating, because, at times, one can almost
grab it. But then you realize it's too slippery,
and just too complicated, and so you lose your
foothold, totally back to nowhere. (Frustrating).
Still believing that a certain sort of understanding
is somehow possible, if approached delicately
enough, from just the right angle."

Joe Brainard
*I Remember*
Granary Books
New York City
2001 (original
copyright, 1975)

Thanks much to the bloggers
who have posted a link to my
interview with Lewis LaCook in
Sidereality.
I've posted a link to the "contents"
page of the e-zine on my sidebar
- also, again to Lewis and to
Clayton, thanks for including my
work and thoughts in the the mag.
Well, truthfully, Laura Willey posted
it for me on my blog and thanks
to her too!

Observant Tim Yu made the following point today:


Tuesday, October 14, 2003  

Nick's blogroll is no longer his own; it's the "EPC Blog List", edited by Nick Piombino.
posted by Tim | 5:14 PM

I could see why Tim was concerned. When I was invited to post my links list on the EPC I raised the same concerns. I was assured that my suggestions would be accepted without question. If the EPC refuses a blog that I recommend (which would surprise both of us, I'm sure) they would take responsibility for this decision; but the link would remain on my list.

What you are noticing, Tim, is that the EPC requested that I alphabetize my list, which I did. It took me many hours, and it is a change long overdue. I only removed one link, and that was Nick Moudry, because there were no posts since mid-September. If Nick Moudry starts posting, he's back!

Million Poems (Jordan's Poems) is back with seven poems in one day!

4/27/96

Dot the plenitude. In fact,
transferring the underbelly of native
response tracks a fallow sympathy
far across the waiting expanse to a
plethora of received regrets. Simulating
caring in flower-bedecked continuum
color crosses tonal registers in undisguised
affection. You say affliction, I say
a friction. You say a fiction I say
reflection. You say connection I say
convection. You say suspicion I say
lyric starburst refractions on a
scratchy disk. Holding hands. Hurried
on a windy weekend, dusty on a
sympathetic Saturday. Oh they are
listening- it could have been anything-
a kind of wordy subsitution. Cascades
of clapping cousins scooping seaside
reveries out of criss-crossing web
sites. Lifting belly pressing buttons
unbuttoning dresses dressing keyboards
blaring keystrokes stroking changes
changing selves. Sunstrokes, salves,
sore serenity, serene suburban
sunspots. Covering the outside stresses,
hands subtract a thick slice of
clinging cotton against a slowly
tiring temporally fading set of
orange shadows.

I am curious to see what
comes next. I never understood
how it must return to the recent
poem to further answer a question:
what comes next? Or only
tracking myself tracking myself.
How about making it as blank
as I want?

10 Empty Forms


1. Hidden
2. Removal
3. Burial
4. Unavailable
5. Detached
6. Blank
7. Not functioning
8. Unintelligible
9. Confused
10. Exhausted

1. Placed beneath another unrelated page of writing
the searched-for notes remained unfound.
The facts were unaccountable without
this specific data. There existed
nonetheless a continued idea of the whole.
This idea, which floated just beyond
the grasp of consciousness attempted to attract its
true locale. An icy spark of nothingness
kept igniting bits of light above this unnamed place.

2. Nagging anxiety of nothingness.
What had been taken away? A
very faint shadow of persistent
actualities remain. What is gone
still needs to be described. A reverse
announcement. A disappearance
tells its way to the front. Its
presence is known by a certain
expectation that persists. The
repetition of anticipation makes it
real. This shadowed reality has
color sounds and form. These
consist of wanting. Through
time a movement is constantly
shaped. It is so familiar it is
absent but its escaped qualities
embrace all thoughts like a kind of
temperature. Its departure is
perceived by its component
vectors. If there are words, there
are selves.

3. Unearthing is a task that voids
displays. Letters issue a tangled
hope that plies a force. Try a list.
Announce a course. Trumpet a set
of clues imperatively. The dots that
traced some fingers, then a hand,
when hurriedly applied drowned out
a previously embraced impassioned hierarchy of
convictions. These seeming pointers
eventually only crowded the room
with silhouettes of bungling. These
darkened figures followed certain
inexact instructions.
Replayed more slowly, only doubts
articulate themselves. Like so
many other things, doubts are made of
words. This is an awesome power-
denature a demanding set of rules
with heightened pleasure.Yes, they
all go into the dark but they come
come out laughing like they owned
the world.

The :: fait accompli :: bloglinks list is now also available at the Electronic Poetry Center.

Rough Draft for Automatic Irony Software

I had a great time.
Yeah, I had a "great" time too.

She's so cool.
Sure, real "cool."

God, I'm hot.
Yeah, you're "hot."

What a terrific movie.
Right, "terrific."

I like that director a lot.
Yeah, she's a good "director."

Fine acting too.
Yeah, the "acting" was so fine.

What a great class.
Sure, just "great."

She knows a lot about that.
Yeah, she "knows" a "lot" about that.

What do you think it meant?
What do you "think" it "meant"?

I love you.
I "love" you too.

I missed you a lot.
I "missed" you a lot.

See you soon.
Sure, real "soon."

He's a nice guy.
Yeah, what a "nice" guy.

Well, take care.
Well, you "take care" too.

Jean "How embarassing at this moment to lack irony..." Vengua tells it like it is. In poetry!

"...You ask whether I should continue to write
if no one but myself would ever see my work.
There is no reason to believe that anyone will
ever see any more of my work; you may change
your mind about another book. Anyone who has
known a number of poets must have been struck
by their extraordinary egotism. There is not the
slightest doubt that egotism is at the bottom of
what a good many poets do. However, there are
other theories about that: for instance, there is the
theory that writing poetry is a sexual activity. The
truth is that egotism is at the bottom of everything
everybody does, and that, if some really acute observer
made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex,
people would forget a good deal about sex and find
the explanation for everything in egotism. I write poetry
because I want to write it.

We are likely to give many incorrect explanations for what
we do instinctively. It is very easy for me to say that I write
poetry in order to formulate my ideas and to relate myself
to the world. That is why I think that I should continue to
write poetry whether or not anybody ever saw it, and
certainly I write lots of it that nobody ever sees. We are all
busy thinking things that nobody ever knows about. If a woman
in her room is such an exciting subject of speculation, a man in
his thoughts is equally exciting."

Very truly yours,

Wallace Stevens

[letter 339 to Ronald Lane Latimer, Hartford Conn.
January 10, 1936, p. 305, *Letters of Wallace
Stevens*, edited by Holly Stevens, 1996]

1976

I walked gingerly across my familiar aloneness.
I hid in the cover of quiet space they represent
as wholeness for only a few. But how big would
it be for me just one time. What to do with
such a vast space.

My utterance was a range only as vast as my
sadness would allow. I hastened to be as
quiet as I could. I recalled someone was there.
I turned around and gazed into her face.

Again and again I saw only irony. To soothe
myself with lieterature I labelled it ivory. I
don't, my dear friend...predict. Unfortunately,
I also do not plan enough. Considering
an infinitesimal space were represented by the
sign of a larger one. So...when. Book of a
book. Terrestial, tropical. As mixed, as transient
as a seaport, full of adorable facsimilies. Even
as space has holes of or, solidifying would have
been so foolish as, would be as careless as, a
mixed taste of what is drawn in. As much as
you get anyway. Only the dead ones don't
breathe. I wanted to be quiet so I could really
hear their voices. The all precious Saturday
night, the light and delicate lingering

I'm very pleased to announce that
I am the featured poet in the current
issue of *sidereality*
edited by
Clayton A. Couch.
My section includes my article "Confessions
of a Blog Artist" published
this past summer in *The Poetry Project Newletter*,
edited by Gary Sullivan and Nada Gordon
an interview by Lewis La Cook plus
Bill Marsh's blog report on -fait accompli-
originally published by
San Diego Poetry Guild.
The issue also includes some
of my collages and selections from
this blog. Plus writing and art by
over 50 other contributors!
I am eternally grateful
to all who assisted in each of these
projects, and especially to Clayton and Lewis.

"Hand me that thorazine/I want to read something
That has me in it/ As I am establishing/
I am even as I read/By glomming onto someone/
You offered (the tape's erased))/
Hello are you there/Hello is that you you/
Poetry the theory of heartbreak/
Precisely why one cannot/
Exactly what one wants/"

David Bromige
*T as in Tether*
"Defeat's Defears (2)"
Chax, 2002

The Jim Side "strikes back"

The Blue Kangeroo
follows through on
Mikarrhea's
list of movie montages inaugurated by
Porthole Redux.

**
Mike Snider
takes a stroll through
Blogland Park.

**

Am I really the last person
in the world to know that
Malcolm Davidson
(Eeksy-Peeksy)
lives in Gdansk, Poland?

**

There's more to the UK than
Tony Blair and Britney Spears-
check out william watkin's blog
.

**

Speaking of jolly olde England,
The Skeptic
weighs in on linebreaks and Raworth.

**
Two's Company

Crag Hill's Poetry Scorecard
eavesdrops while
Sheila Murphy and Tom Beckett
discuss poetic collaborations.

**

One Poetato

Alli Warren
knows The Ingredient
for a tasty poemm frite.

"Americans want to escape reality..."
This just in from Mexperimental...Heriberto Yepez

Yesterday Venepoetics discussed
the death of Satchidananda and life and death today under
Chavez in Venezuela. Like so many others, I was a denizen
of the Integral Yoga Institute in the 60's and 70's
and an admirer of Satchidananda,
whose gentle kindness
will be very much missed.

Yesterday, Gary Sullivan
made a convincing argument that Bruce Andrews' poetry is sadistic.
As an open admirer of Bruce's early writing, works such
as his classic "Wobbling" (Roof), and being well aware of his knowledgeable
and enlightened political viewpoints (we've walked together on peace marches,
read together at many readings, he was one of the editors of L=A==N=G=U=A=G=E,
a visible supporter of my own work, etc, etc), while not particularly relishing his work
in recent years, I've been reluctant to openly criticize it. I'm not particularly fond of
publicly criticizing anyone's poetry, because my hunch is that it is so hard to get
an audience for innovative poetry on the whole, and that it is better for contemporary
poets to avoid so much open conflict. Divide and conquer, as they say. As it is,
innovative poetry as yet does not find it easy to get much of a serious hearing,
and it is not that helpful for anyone to scare away scarce readers. And while
controversy does win attention, it often loses it quickly and
permanently after the fight is over.

When Bruce's writing first turned harsh, during the Reagan years,
it came across as extremely apropos. Yet I instantly disliked
the title "Give 'Em Enough Rope." Compare it to: "Stupid White Men."
It is vague and indirect. Who is being addressed? While I knew
what was meant, it also could be misread as just a harsh thing to say.
But at the time it was infuriating and very scary to see the
United States become a fascist state. But that was a long time ago,
and while it is more enraging and discouraging than ever to see cruel
Nazi types rise to power, it is no longer surprising. It is obvious to
everyone that the left (this anachronistic metaphor itself seems to be
coming into question) in this era needs strategy, clear and shrewd
thinking and less invective. To continue shouting and yelling
angry words has long become a banal and
unintelligent exercise serving only to increase despair and
hopelessness, and sometimes divide rather than unite otherwise
allied people in the long run. It just
isn't inspiring anymore to witness a brilliant poet
play the Terminator:-
unless he is planning to run for governor.
And Gary Sullivan's point, as painful
as it may be to accept for the aging
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E group
(I can't help but smile and think of a recent
installation at the Whitney that
featured all the comic superheroes
quietly hanging out and dying in a nursing home)
that Bruce Andrews work may no longer
serve to awaken political outrage,
but instead may unconsciously be supplying covert
erotic pleasure, a release from
frustration, seems apt and well timed.
If Gary is correct, the work may then be diverting focus away
from objectives that might more
effectively lead to political conceptualization
and action. Bruce Andrews as dominatrix?
Bruce Andrews as sex spam?
I am quite sure the writer of the
*Sonnets (Memento Mori)* (This, 1980)
has more engaging things to offer.

On Wednesday, October 8 Catherine Meng
issued a call for favorite movie montages. I felt a slight bristle of annoyance,
because this idea tempted me, and at the same time
I remembered a silent promise I made to myself
a long time ago that I would avoid mentioning
movies on my blog. Why? Because most social
conversations get around to this topic -and stay there
- for some very good reasons. I have loved the fact that
poetics blogs stick mainly to poetry, poetics, politics and books-
something you don't hear a lot about when you chat with people-
even at readings! (Maybe because one doesn't have the books
at hand to consult!). So I thought: great idea, but I am not going to give in.
But just now I read Michaela Cooper's
engrossing list, which, by the way, is like taking a mini-course in film.
(Would love to hear more about her screenplay). As it happens,
tonight Toni and I watched parts of the moving and beautiful
*On The Waterfront* as we switched back and forth to see
Jon Stewart interview Hillary Rodham Clinton
on *The Daily Show*. I plan to study Ms Cooper's list carefully
and try to put one of my own together. I will probably have to cheat
though and consult my copies of:
*Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner* (Paul M. Sammon),
*Film Noir* (edited by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward),
*House of Games* (the complete screenplay by David Mamet),
*Alphaville* by Jean-Luc Godard, *Weekend* by Jean-Luc Godard,
*L'Aventura* by Michaelangelo Antonioni and
*Antonioni* by Ian Cameron and Robin Wood.

**
You don't have to take the Fung Wah bus ($20)
to read "Other Jobs For Poets" on
The Jim Side

**

2/24-3/6/73

it

we found that not to be violent
was to be violent by moving the margins
that the assumption of an assumption
is an assumption pipedream of construction
pardon monsieur if I take your ticket
this way to the library of assurances
this way to letters things absence of
wonder at trees the configuration gets
cloudy the t achieves thought by shapes
rising from flesh for instance relax you must
remain unafraid of a negative image you will
take it & again song will assert itself you will
be lying awake aware of thinking gentle abstract
thoughts it will disturb you tumble your coffee
exactly as it was supposed to & take you over

night after night have i lain awake thinking
impossible impossilbe the t chart may be a
catalogue of negativities & my translator is
asleep i nudge him carefully and say teeth
teeth casually as if i don't mean it i always thought
i use to think i used to pretend to pretend yet all
that time i was imagining pretending
i got along that way for awhile imagining pretending
when it tapped me & said no images i really wasn't
afraid of that nor was i afraid of imagining imagining
same old abstractions i thought i think same old
consciousness ame old lined paper
this is the difference between a diary & dreams
it wishes to make friends but pretending imagining
pretending i was much too careful i was sure
it could rip me off so i rambled into a terrific boring
dance a heroic time long ago here in which i am
visited by the great spirit of opening my mouth
without words i can't refuse to say it so i crumble
it into a ball & heave it through a hole in the world
of my mouth same impersonal problems of the
personal same refractions magic & disapproval
ahead of memory it resembles the future & causes
a slip to be made in the cause of modern indifference

1992

Music

From the very first notes in a minor key
You could sense, follow and anticipate the eventual final chords.
And this is why the joy is always mixed with sadness.
And isn't part of the pleasure that these intense feelings
Shake us from our otherwise uncomprehending, hypocritical calm?
There was something in your letters that brought all of this
To mind, as I, optimistic as ever, read them here
On this sunny hilltop in Italy. And I am reminded
As I read them that they were not written to me, and
That when words well up first from the heart
And then from the throat and only out of fear form in the mouth
There is a hunger in the receiving of them that can be easily
Overlooked. Then comes the thought that too often
We want things to end, wanted them to begin in their endings,
Final out of the earliest of their subjugated necessities,
Torn from the foundations of houses, wedded to the oceans
Of origin, blued and oranged in the frightful neglect
Of future geometries.

9/1-9/6/94

Few have alluded to that delicious
Feeling of anticipation that continues long after
The act. Entire lilfetimes may have passed
In which ambiguous figures conducting vague activities
Habitually, repetitively, avoided recognizing
The the present is composed of so little that could
Properly be called current. Perhaps Freud,
In his effort to establish the primacy of memories
Best realized this frequent absence of texture to time
In the acknowledgement of so much repetition an absence
Of spontaneity. These edifying concepts have suppled an essential need
Though they have not settled this lingering issue of vacancy,
This annoying series of reminders that our postures
Of self-satisfaction have soothed, even supplanted
This urgent question of experience, this itch
Of dissatisfaction in so frequently finding ourselves
At the commencement of a scream that is, as yet,
Wordless. We prefer, of course, to regard
This neighboring cluster of anomalies, these chuckles
Of relief, that at times we can gather into a foam
What seems like a torrent of fizz, which just as quickly
Settled down to an even level of the liquid
We were just sipping as we turned the pages
Of a book that perhaps, in retrospect, we were reading
A bit too avidly, only noticed when we tried to explain
To a friend what was so wonderful, and could not find
A simple concrete example, but again pointed to the flow
Of the thing, to its variety of effects which produced certain
Particular sensations. But what, in fact, were these sensations
(Though, again, it is really too soon to be
Asking this question, when rushing has again replaced
An imaginably calmer, more sure footed excitement which, precisely,
Expected an actual future)? We can
Only conclude, alas, that the kind of time
We have so frequently imagined is probably not forthcoming,
And the best we can hope for is to better examine
What we've unconsciously dismissed as a poor replacement- yet
This, in fact, *is* experience, a reasonably
Typical concoction of anxiety, ecstacy, distraction, relief & despair,
All held together by wishes and hairpins,
Already falling apart at the moment that it started,
Zooming, booming , bursting, flaccid & odd,
Lying, standing, turning, stretching & bent,
Embarassed, victorious, diseased, cured, unifed & alone.

II.

If you were flying a kite
You'd depend on the vagueries of breeze
Without charting, plans or technical advice.
You raise it to the skies with a little exuberance
And hope for the best. It would be great if it were possible
To say this is not the condition of poetry
(And nearly everything else, along the way).
Only the the power to wait, to restrain one's feeling of irritation,
However it can be done, is worth anything.
Then everything else will take care of itself.

III.

Now it it is time to go down to the river
To feel the cool breeze against your face,
To watch the boats. There is a small garden,
There is a place to get something to drink.
Soon, it gets towards sunset. Together,
The cool air combined with the bright sun, feels great.
The trees against a blue sky look good too.

8/1970

even if my poems belong here only by dint of being dead leaves in my own imagination
dint dead leaves imagination
frustration.
trois images
in my white rainbow
coat my poem
possibly reads here

(some things
depend on how
much strength)

I am being born of some poetry
to have hunted in the antique cave
of the mind for certain metal objects

"poems are dead
leaves"
if nothing else

(1) state the situation clearly
(2) change everything immediately

mind feeding the mind
arguments
against action

there is no self-protecting device
*if it can't be done in five minutes
sometimes I won't want to do it*

Be patient
with
yourself

even if my poem belongs here by being dead leaves
even if
my
poem
belongs here
by
dint of
something
else

3/8/84

Seeing what has already been seen, the
"story" proceeds by twists and turns which,
on close inspection, do not connect. So much
so that an interval, when measured
closely, consists of varied units of time, different
types of time which can only be quantified in
comparatively gross terms.

There is an aspect of experience
which transcends what we know to be our
own identities. Identity is a construct which
we build as a topmost layer to fend off
the destructive potential of the
actuality. If the
identity is capable of mediating between
the exterior reality and the innermost
sensors of experience then this inmost
sensor is all the more enabled to function
smoothly despite the corrosive potential of the
actuality.

In this sense, the social construct of
time itself is dependent on the deepest
and longest lasting collaborative venture.
[this paragraph deleted in the notebook]
*

Time is a human construct. To grasp
its deepest meaning experientially is one
of the highest challenges of being. Einstein's...
[next page not yet located]

:: fait accompli ::
spellbound speculations- time travel

(((((BLOGLINK)))))(((((CRUSH)))))((((((LIST)))) (New Links) (Unchanged-posted 9/25/03)

((((((THESE))))(((((BLOGS)))))(((((ARE)))))((((((HOT))))))

Stick Poet Superhero

Brand New Insects

Super Deluxe Good Poems

The Philly Sound

Allodox

Venepoetics

Savoradin.com

[nonlinear poetry]

My Thoughts Thinking Through Nick Moudry

Kill Me Again

Rockets and Sentries

Automobile Xerox

TJ Desc

Derailed Commodity...Alexander Trimble Young

la photo du jour

Poop Chute...Brooke Nelson

This Journal

Poetry Hut...Jully Dybka

Semioanalysis Discoteche

Surf Poetry Collaborative

Fishblog

Squirrels In My Attic

Mosses from an Old Manse

Finish Your Phrase

******

I attended a terrific reading today
at the Bowery Poetry Club given by
two of my all-time favorite poets,
Lynne Dreyer and Steve McCaffery.
Lynne is from DC and Steve is from
Toronto (teaches at York U) and both
read great new work. Bob Holman,the
owner and master poetry impresario
met me at the door with a kind reference
to my continued presence here in blogland.
Lynne read first, introduced by Nada Gordon,
and these exciting readings would have been
worth going to just to listen to Nada's introduction.
Nada must be a great teacher because she is so
easy to listen to at a podium (maybe a few of you
old time bloggers remember the phrase
"kick the podium" and what that signifiies).
She had great things to say about Lynne's work
but I don't remember most of them because
I was unfortunately too busy being jealous of how
relaxed she is onstage, and thinking how I wish
I could be like that when I read- especially
since I will be standing in exactly the same spot
there in two weeks (please come if you can.) I do
remember that she mentioned that Lynne
hasn't published much since her Roof book
*White Museum* that came out in 1986. Lynne
read truly moving, great new work, including a piece
that dealt sensitively and lyrically with her feelings
about her hiatus from writing and how she felt about
writing now (excited and gratified, I think).
My bet is that her piece "Keeper" will show up
in print sometime soon.

Steve McCaffery read a number of hilarious and
brilliantly witty works including one that he said
dealt with his feelings about entering into
male menopause. The piece was riotously funny,
and kept the packed audience laughing throughout.
It included the unforgettable line
(afterwards he admitted to me it was one of his
own favorites): "I'm too nervous to die."Another
favorite line:"A pocket quide to architecture
or an architectural guide to pockets." There was
another line I won't quote now because I'm saving
it to use when I begin my reading in two weeks.

At this point I want to mention that
Maryann Shaneen was sitting next to me
for part of the reading and I noticed her
taking lots of notes. I assumed she would
blog those notes or I would have copied out more
of Lynne's lines. I have read Lynne's books
*Tamoka*, *Stampede*
and *Lamplights Used To Feed The Deer* literally dozens of
times, (collected in her Roof Book *The White Museum*).
Her books are still the most likely writing I would turn
to in a time of personal stress.
Does this mean a comeback for
Froth?
Let's hope so, because Maryann is a fine writer and
Froth is a great blog. I'm seriously hoping to see a report
on this reading by Maryann tomorrow morning on
Froth because
I miss Maryann in Blogland and I know I'm not the only one.

Audience members included Lytle Shaw, Emilie Clarke,
Jackson Mac Low, Douglas Rothschild, Laura Willey (!),
Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Sally Silvers,
Liz Fodaski, Cori Copp (who was present when
outside at the break Mitch Highfill asked me
what I would be reading at the BPC in two weeks
and when I mentioned that I would start with
my new haikus, her mouth dropped- I tried to
explain that they weren't *typical* haikus, but
I'm not sure that helped), Ann Tardos,
Alex Trimble Young (!), Rob Fitterman, Kim Rosenfeld,
Drew Gardner (!), Sam Truitt, Abigail Child, Miles Champion,
Michael Coffey, Brian Kim Stefans, Ulla Dydo, Cole Heinowitz
and, no doubt, at least two dozen luminaries
I have not yet met, but hope to soon!

As always, the BPC was on a tight schedule,
and as we left, Keith Waldop was on his way
in to read some translations in the following BPC event.

Next week's reading, October 11, again curated by
Nada Gordon (!) and Gary Sullivan(!),
is titled "In Others' Words: Parody and Pastiche" and will include
Charles Bernstein, Jack Kimball, Brendan Lorber, Michael Magee,
Brandon Downing, and Benjamin Friedlander.

And the BPC beat goes on...

11/29/85

Large print into smaller and smaller print=
significant into less and less significant. Mallarme-
different types of print set in varied ways on and
around the surface of the page. Find the intuitive,
the prophetic in the specific details. Maybe it will
smell (for example) like very old paper. So, this
poem composed of large type and then smaller and
smaller type, like a newspaper with large type and
smaller and smaller type restores some of the powers of
the pictographic aspect of language. Speculation:
that the combinatory aspects of the
inguistic and sensory stimuli of experience
can point to a field of untapped or less
tapped resources that could be a source of
a tremendous release of energy. It's possible
that this "resounding" meaning merely indicates
that something is "more" for now only because
it is an emphasis not yet exhausted by
experience. In this sense, boredom with something
more indicates that its power to stimulate is
over for *now*, it isn't necessarily a comment
on the limits of its usefulness. Time=timing.
In this sense, what we experience as time
may be a kind of "space" for the changing
of a choice of materials. Substance accumulates
differently thru knowledge.

One parameter: simulaneity of already combined experiences
another parameter: an individual sensory experience
(duration of one sensory experience)

9/91-2/92

The Phases of The Moon

Life has been engulfed by words
Only silence moves me
An ironic sun
A black hole of incomprehension
And passion evaporates into
Transparent calm
There are no complete entities
Only systems in flux
Breathless and stunned states
The precipice of change

But only when I've placed the silences
(Continual recurrence of the idea of the whole)
At equal distances
Each guarded by its separate host
The person and the transcendent object
For sytactical freedom
For isolation in the individual signature
Not beginning, not ending
Social security for primal insecurity
A tap-root to androgynous species
Combines of doubt bunched into selves
Which is the spontaneous experience
Which is so much less obvious in the daydream
Or the fantasy
Can equivalence of movement calm
Which appraises situations
With a watchful eye to sufficiency

The excitement would be
Waves on the sea
A changing and moving part
On the surface of a medium
Suitable for living within
Troubled by storms above
It watches, distant

You repeat yourself
Said the publisher
Very well then I repeat myself
I am large, I contain Gertrude
And I contain multitudes

You can easily be too thin or too rich
But you can never be too slow
*Che chelida manina*
What cold hands you have

It proceeds
Of itself
Pain and pleasure
Fall away from it
Like rain
Whether outside circles it
Or inside inhabits it
It continues in the names
And goes on, undressed or in
Full regalia
And it's good to have one foot in
And one foot out
Sometimes

Let them breathe
Take from the beginning
The soggy apples that Fall
Dropped pointlessly
On the concrete
Gifted hands, etching a first name
Feeling the too-much which here
Is almost not quite enough
Which snits this world
Its clothes are not on so straight
That you can understand the words
Because you have the book
Things know their range from centuries
Of ignorance
This half is full
What comes before appreciates its place
Let them move
The things done

There are certain things that can't be felt
By feeling
There are other things that can't be said
By saying
There are little things that can't be sung
By singing
There are bigger things that can't be touched
By touching
There are sad things that can't be wept
By weeping
There are complex things that can't be thought
By thinking
There are delicious things that can't be drunk
By drinking

Fundamentally nothing has changed
The mind resists awakening
One morning the stem says sing
Next day it speaks philosophy
Or is it that words are more than what they mean
The shy master of ceremonies (language)
Introduces them
This is impossible: no, stay
Someone is shaking me
The glass is half emtpy
Here's the tee-shirt
Here's the scale
Here's the light

What does a reader want?
The mind dances or regrets
Sounds silence such questions
And words of enigmatic calm
Which make time perish without a will
And something gone- a thing afraid

The agonizing problem
The unspeakable exaltation
The lip service
The paradox of the simultaneous occurrence
Of contradictory realizations
The old moon

What is reading?
Opposites contract
Allowing a subtraction of content
From the object of the declaration
The half moon
Sleight of hand (not slight of hand)
The disappearance (or silence)
Represents disappointment
Watch his face
He avoids embarassment

Here-or where
(We're here)
What we're? What's this?
That's who
That's when

Don't you see how things
Return to us
Sometimes even more so
When we push them away?
If they want to remain
Their shapes resemble ours
But the intentions are similarly hidden
The new moon

The sense that everything's prearranged
Grows out of an appreciation of proportions
The attributes of a sunset are encircled immediately
By other, equally important reflections
This is where time comes in, when there is some
Uncanny that words lead out in front of our sentences
I more than take note
More than something to endure, to admire
Very light hues of reddish yellow
A long line and branches against blue
Which one- but that is a question
Barges-racks-patience
Something that fits into something else
At first, a smile
Quiet, mysterious strings and only that
Then the piano in very soft chords
Each moment absorbed and counter-absorbed
Tubas, and then amulets

The full moon
But all is forgiven in this particular turn
The phases behind a fragment in front
Explanation or exploration
Yet even the facsimile of the event
Had a real present quality which gave it
A lingering past-tense kind of absence
Don't you agree? That we're only thinking
In voices separated out from a cohesive memory
Shattered, syballine
The fact of its mistakeness was not yet
Or only the central thing'
Yet only an uttterance
An open door
A spray, a figure
Far up, over and out
A synchrony, a symphony
Entranced in finding yourself there
Settled in and already gone
The place already part of the next thing
Unfolding, simple presence of a feeling
A delicacy, a warmth I usually associate with music
Memory, next to memory, next to memory

Two things unbelievable together
The human ability to tolerate
And time
More than two, but it doesn't
Matter
The great pleasure of remembering
Blankness of waiting
Incomparable combination
Unnecessary to be so scared about survival
But this too is part of it
The fear and the daring
Pushing us forward
Blankness and memories
Providing the ballast
And exhiliration the wind
And travelled there by its lightness
And by reaction
And bubbled over
Such excruciating times
A storm of locusts
And remembering hard because of pain
Images returning gradually in snatches
Rest, rest

I shall prove beyond a shadow of a doubt
The valley of the shadow of death
I shall fear no beyond
I shall prove beyond a shadow of the valley of doubt
I shall fear no doubt
Thy proof and thy shadow
They doubt me
They comfort me

haven't tried playing "Stay Up Later Than Nick" in a while. Well, two words: job market.
posted by Tim | 2:10 AM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hope you find a job you like, Tim. Anyway, at 2:10 AM you may have beaten me, partly because the weather's still nice so I want to get up earlier, partly because now I'm just as likely to blog in the morning, as long as I blog before all those office bloggers get to work.

Weekends? Fuhgetaboudit, work bloggers expect to be paid to blog. But shhhhh, don't tell the boss!

"Get a horse!" Derailed Commodity...Alexander Trimble Young explains why he can't read a poem online.

Now, how do those fandangled typewriters work, anyway, and where did I put that quill pen?

Oops, gotta go take that goshdurned record off the turntable, it's skipping again.

Dad, what's a record?

10/2/99

From the standpoint of true
happiness all of the usual
props for enjoyment stand out
as superfluous.

An idea for a sentence
or an idea for a new
category of sentences.

Observe yourself in your
round of lesser events.
You move again and
again, from place to
place. Look at it as if
you don't know how you
got there. Now, what
does this mean.


10/4/99

"You know much better than
me what is customary in
this land."

The failed poems streak
like falling stars across
the sky of understanding.
This is why a poem must
wear a mask.The poem
that announces itself
risks not being
heard because somehow
it speaks out of turn.

It's hard to get people
to read what you write.
Keep writing anyway.

c.1979

Fragment

Previous thought: "Empire Boulevard."
Or how about "experimental" thought.
Wrong. The figurative meaning. Quarantine.
The shape of thought to come. Lucrative.
Bank president. Amiable. Not only
the function of the comma. Minor. Only
the function of the comma. Il n'existe pas
the comma. It comes between
place that were heretofore
not exact. Maybe all those are before
thoughts. 1, 2, 3. The comma maybe just
separates numbers. The tone falls. It is
autumn. Absolute September.
What I'm getting at is. Approximation
in a hurry. Then a big stop.
Literature ultimately. The hand
grew out of the arm. But since he
claims I go on to him here
the voice falls, dolphin
speaking to him in Front
of a background of waves.
Days. Roundabout. But
if you disappears. Baby I
them the photograph,
the photograph. Brontosaurus.
Flash and, with that phrase:
history, histology, fissures
token a list. Hieroglyphic
heretofore. Spliced
airplane in. Whatever
the. 20 minutes. No
longer than that
telephone call. You know
uh huh. You were
there for that. Backing
into, horizon horizontal. Al
with a big
slap on the back. Bar
mitzvah. Brother,
But you were there for that
backing out . Just in time.
No, not withdrawal
actually affirmative. A big
smile warms you up.
Arbitrarily adding you.
For that it
folds one moment.
Explosion equals.
Stamps, Implosion.
So, enigma (strings)
you can use words
on target. Plasma.
But still that was
an illusion. Multiplication
chimera. So many
almost accurate.
Remember that?
Glissandos. Words.
An allusion. Exact.
Still there were
words for the
unambiguous
punctuation. Mountainous
region. Reason. At
length. Just an amount of
time and rain. Lagoon.
An on rush. I was
with the
shaman. 1950's
South American. Dashes
represented the part
the space between
words and the
thoughts didn't
represent.
I didn't...

4/10/78

4 footnotes in search of a text
Between the lines
Subtitles
a few simple offhand remarks
the origin of the bicameral mind
the belly
I was reading it all as the title and the
name of the residence=one residence
listening to the ones who at that point in
the conversation, collaging the instructions
contained in the envelope I am mailing
this to you in, i.e.
as in Schwitters
c.f. Schlegel's "directing concepts"
1906
tomorrow's Wednesday
one sure way to avoid extra pain
don't knock your head against the wall

Notably, Jordan Davis' astonishing Million Poems
blog went silent on September 10th.

"The most seasoned reader...does not bother about
understandinng; not, at least, at first. I know that some
of the poetry to which I am most devoted is poetry
which I did not understand at first reading; some is
poetry which I am not sure I understand yet..."
T.S. Eliot

**
"It is better to read a difficult poem a dozen times,
than to read it once and then have it explained to you.
In the one case the process of re-creation takes place
and in the other it does not."
Leo Stein

1987

The Recondite Wayfarer

As such, a word has color.
Its program
is made of reversals,
a trapeze swings emptily
after the circus
because the performer
has jumped and is
no longer safe. These
constant switches in time
during which
an entire inheritance
of living flesh is
endangered at the
mere site of the social
occlude any impulse to name:
now the performer
(the word) has moved
to the forefront
(the forehead)
of thought.

To keep reason
in the background
brings forth the
elephants, the
elements of style.
Exactly this repetition
reminds us of
children because
here the coughing
and jumping are
gleaming with the
bright play of
babble.

Reminders are
nascent in the
American state of
the land. Noise
travels forwrds
and backwards
in time, continuously
covering it. Decisions
are made at the
edge of action.

Premises
combining with
breath
the social
makes the
shape of the
room and
determines
the shape
of liberty:
feel it
with your
heart- this is
the boundary
of the flow
of freedom.
Now you see it
whole, you see
it flowing with the
vast complexity
of temporal
networks. Such
are the voices
of the shy and the
bold, thoughts
cling like
memories, they
slide forwards in
rhythmic twangs
beating their joys
in pumping
farewells, announcing
a concurrance of
of present
rituals.

All this
happened in an
interval of time
indefinable by the grace
of received ideas. These
are measured by the
metronome of
absolute zero,
answering and swaying,
beating a fist at the
side of feelings
announcing a tone
of total trust.

Yet by this measure
time can be swayed
to unite deficiency
with a scale
of being. The
recombinant nature
of complete response
denies the limitations
of exploded
will.This torque
promises access
to the pespective
of seeing the future
curved by joining
opposites. In the end,
the apolcalypse
is a prelude, the
expected revelation
is a call for work.

What masks the slowing
of growing love,
or should I say
who? She sees
the gestural language
of bursting, while I
count the chimings
of change.This is the
same, but the
gathering memory
of childhood's shadow
sings in a turn
that must be heard.

A listening held us
captive, a hearing
meshed with the
ringing of cash
registers, blaring clock
radios, the bursting of
hydrogen, and the smooth
sucking sounds of the the
quicksand of property
engulfing its owners.

Love keeps us loose
while certainty
hardens us
for the continuous
struggle.

Congratulations to Ernesto Priego,
whose blog is Never Neutral,
for recently winning an award, in what appears
to have been a fierce competition. I'm a
faithful reader of Ernesto's
blog and recommend that you read his moving and
open revelations about his ambivalences. The same
for Chris Lott's
recent posts.

I find it fascinating and exhilirating when
writers have the courage to be open
about their feelings about their experiences
as writers. When they do so,
I want to get to know them better and to
know their work better. How is this different
from "confessional" writing? For one thing,
bloggers invite reader response and interaction
which means they prefer to connect with others
rather focussing on being or feeling special,
which frequently leads to little more
than feeling and being isolated.

c. 1994

Leaky Thicknesses

1.

I love to get lost on the way
to completing a sentence.
A heart's forum. I like
to wander blindly inside
an idea, breaking contact
with its literal referent,
traveling on the incomplete
tracks which still haunt the
casings of things that
wanted to be, but found
themselves becoming
something else just as
they were coming to exist.
I like to close my eyes and
lie down in secret memory
inside the ridges left in the
pillows and blankets of
yesterday's dreams (I was
only greeting a future friend
who I have not yet met,
whose book might be able to
open this thought at its spine-
thoughts can mark each other
like sister spirits). I have to
be funny to haunt this one-
even echoes have to be made
out of something. Because only
here does lateral motion
encompass both the heart
and head.

2.

Embrace the whole,
but let the parts also
encompass places.The
name itself lets things
join in. Forever after,
what comes before: in music.
Heard, remembered. Extending
hand, let in. Following is
moving, eventually
coming upon (melting).
But meeting is melting.
Unless, unto. Seeming,
been. Words lie
beside each other, bask
in themselves, bask in
each other. Little hurts,
words said, real too,
eyes aside, small things
not said, not yet met,
misheard, misunderstood-
face, glances averted.

3.

Labor of love-
bits and pieces.
A part to play, dance
of the sexes. Alas,
a hesitant role
for him. A sense of
humor? Don't
make me laugh.
Anyone would
probably get up
again, if you give
them time. I can't
believe how long
it has been since I
looked at those files.

4.

Leaving things
in place I
don't necessarily
get further if I
get bored with them.
In all their skilled
exactitude, inside of
the merciless control
of their cruel and
empty meanings they
will disappear, transcending
the specific by means of
going nowhere. So much
for the intrinsic value
of order. Sometimes I
want to see them
clash just to know they
are there.This can
even involve upset,
if it is in the service of
breaking away from a
threateningly stultifying
situation. To be stultifying
is a checkmate, but
even this trap may be
eventually neutralized
by time. Do I dare
indent a paragraph?
I have seen them
disseminating and
dissolving at the same
moment, emptying
themselves voluntarily
of excess meaning.

5.

Reading as an
attempt to
challenge the mind
to understand
more of what?
Of *anything.*

"If readers were not passive,
but active and true to themselves,
literature would soon acquire a
different aspect and tend toward-
what? one wonders. An active reader
makes experiments with books; tries
out, perhaps, reshuffling their contents."

Paul Valery
*Analects*, p. 111

**

"Anyhow my poems, whether well or badly
done, always say *something.*"

Here we have the principle and origin of
horrors.

"Well or badly"- what indifference! "Something"-
what presumption!

Valery,
*Analects*, 107

c. 1993

postpone

what am I to leave, careless and tired,
to chance to represent my dream,
chosen as evidence of an invisible process
with no apparent thread?
no, I never wait long enought,
never enough long,
to repeat the song
just as I heard it,
without hesitations,
framed in the paraphrenalia
of all my books, in every least thought
I chanced to record,
to once more rearrange the figures
of what represents its total order
plus mistaken points of reference
that at one time were near enough
not only as signs
but within the accidental tracings
of diagonal colors, reminders
of token space,
specific times
now too quickly gone

***

"A hundred posters absorbing the gold not understood of days,
a treason of the letter, have fled..."

Mallarme, "La Gloire"

On The Contrary

The poet's only duty
is to praise.

8/10/77

An Explanation of Listening

I'm waiting it out. There's no choice in this.
If I made it into a chalice would you drink
From it gladly? If I am, in fact, the imaginary
Person you are waiting to appear at the head of the
Door complete with endless forgettable phrases
Twice as absent in their disguised presences
Would I be just as rosy then, widening gradually into a dawn?

Or is it simply an addition of commas which creates
All the work, a solid, impenetrable translation
Of unmade references so tangential so continuously unmade
Out of the touch of your arms breathing inside themselves
It's their breath dissolving into an aid, a helpmate.
Understand me, dear Mr. Rachmaninoff encourager?
I sure have learned how to hide absently bending forward.
How would you call that wrinked or periwinkled?
How dare you label it as words or call it horizontal
When it is transforming unmistakeable signals into singles
All neat, night clearly headed out for? We just wanted

To get a hieroglyph started with rain unmade into being possible
Only absently as a blurted shock of moisture
That isn't only not added properly, but vigorous
In its unadorned suddenness. A sneaky kind of sadness
Puts a poem to sleep. Anything bad has a bit of error
To disprove in clarity. The news before you made it up in your mind.
For example, now would be the time to refer to a rusty ventilator
Or venite, venite, venite adoremus. Welcome back, dear Mr.Beethoven,
Mr Bach, Mr Brahms, Van Gogh, Van Eyck, Van Johnson.

12/9/99

"The world is
a comedy to those
who think, a tragedy
to those who feel."

Horace Walpole

"Just because the
river is quiet does
not mean the
crocodiles have
left."

Malay Proverb

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[nonlinear poetry]

My Thoughts Thinking Through Nick Moudry

Kill Me Again

Rockets and Sentries

Automobile Xerox

TJ Desc

Derailed Commodity...Alexander Trimble Young

la photo du jour

Poop Chute...Brooke Nelson

This Journal

Poetry Hut...Jully Dybka

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Finish Your Phrase

******


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fluss

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