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"A note to Pound in heaven: Only one mistake, Ezra! You should have talked to women"
--George Oppen, _Twenty Six Fragments_
Archives:
xoxo Hey, E-Mail Me! xoxo
ManY PoETiKaL HaTs LisT:
Holly's Pirate-girl Hat,
chrismurray in a straw hat,
Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern NOLA Fedora.
Duchamp's Rrose Selavy's flirting hat.
Max Ernst's Hats of The Hat Makes the Man.
Jordan Davis' The Hat!
poetry. hks' smelly head baseball cap.
Samuel Beckett's Lucky's
Black bowler hat,
giving his oration
on what's questionable in mankind,
in *Waiting for 'God-ot'*.
my friend John Phillips's 1969
dove gray fedora w/ wild feather.
Bob Dylan's mystery lover's Panama Hat.
Bob Creeley's Black Mountain Felt Boater Hat.
Duke Ellington's Satin
Top Hat. Acorn Hats of Tree.
Freud's 1950 City Fedora.
Joseph Brodsky's Sailor Cap.
Harry K Stammer's Copper Hat
Hell. Lewis LaCook's bowler hat(s).
Tom Beckett's Bad Hair Day
Furry Pimp Hat. Daughter Holly's black beret.
harry k stammer's fez. Cat
in the Hat's Hat & best
hat, Googling Texfiles:
crocheted hat with flames.
Harry K Stammer's tinseled berets.
Tex's 10 gallon Gary Cooper felt Stetson cowboy hat.
Jordan Davis's fedora.
Dali's High-heel Shoe Hat. Harry K Stammer's en-blog LAPD Hat
& aluminum baseball cap. cap'n caps. NY-Yankees caps. the HKS-in-person-caps
are blue or green no logos nor captions.
Ma Skanky Possum 10's nighttime cap.
moose antler hat. propeller beenie hat.
doo rag. knit face mask hat. Bob Dylan's & photographer Laziz
Hamani's panama hats. Mark Weiss's Publisher's Hat.
Rebecca Loudon's Seattle-TX-Hats'n'boots.
Ever-Evolving Links:
Silliman's Links
Dominic Rivron
Unidentified
Br Tom @ One & Plainer
Dan Waber: ars poetica anthology
Dan Waber: altered books anthology
chris daniels: Notes to a Fellow Traveller
Chris Daniels: Toward an Anti-Capitalist Poetry
David Daniels: The Gates Of Paradise
subterranean poets: Beijing Poetry Group
Charles Alexander/Chax Press: Chaxblog
Headlines Poetry: the latest weblog entries
Henry Gould's AlephoeBooks
Julie Choffel's Understory
Tom Murphy's former one
Jean Vengua's New Okir
Roger Pao's Asian-American Poetry
Tom Lisk: Oilcloth and Linoleum
Kevin Doran
Reb Livingston's Cackling Jackal Blog
Janet Holmes: Humanophone
Lorna Dee Cervantes
Mark Young's gamma ways
Brian Campbell: Out of the Woodwork
Shanna's DIY Publishing Blog
Galatea Resurrects: a Poetry Review
Tom Beckett
John Sakkis: BOTH BOTH
New Francois Luong:Voices in Utter Dark, KaBlow!sm is...
Old Francois Luong: Voices in Utter Dark
Margin Walker: Andrew Lundwall
Free Space Comix: the latest BK Stefans blog
Adam Lockhart, Experimentalist Composer
Antic View: Alan Bramhall & Jeff Harrison
lookouchblog: Jessica Smith
MiPOradio
Web Log -- Charles Bernstein
Google Poem Generator: Leevi Lehto
Marie Mutsuki Mockett
Feral Scholar: Stan Goff
worderos: Tom Beckett
In Galatea's Purse
Japundit
Quiet Desperation: Jim Ryal
Luca Antara: Martin Edmond
Brief Epigrams: Ryan Alexander MacDonald
Radio My Vocabulary: 4 pm Sunday Poetry Streams
Mark Lamoreaux: [[[0{:}0]]]
Hot Whiskey Blog
louder
Nick Bruno: They Shoot Poets Don't They?
Joe Massey: Rooted Fool
Kate Greenstreet: every other day
heuriskein: Tom Orange
Chiaroscuro Metropoli: Tom Beckett
Behrle's latest spout!
Fluffy Dollars: Michelle Detorie
Jane Dark's Sugar High!
The Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center
(Charles) Olson Now: Michael Kellaher & Ammiel Alcalay
kari edwards' TranssubMUTATION
Notes on the Revival: Jeremy Hawkins
PurPur: Petrus Pokus
Snapper Missives: Scott Pierce
A Sad Day for Sad Birds II: Gina Meyers
Great Works: Peter Philpot
zafusy: experimental poetry journal
Writeboard: a collaborative writing tool
John Latta: Rue Hazard
KP Harris: Croissant Factory
Stephanie Young's New Site
Stephen Vincent's New Site
Portable Press@Yo~Yo Labs
Square America
Amy King's blog
Robert: Peyoetry Hut
Muisti Kirja: Karri Kokko
Karri Kokko's Blonde on Blonde
Yummeee Blog (recipes)
Nice Guy Syndrome: Tim Botta
Left Hook
Del Ray Cross: anachronizms
Juan Cole: Informed Comment
BuzzFlash - Daily Headlines, Breaking News, Links
Aaron McCollough
Chris Lott's Cosmopoetica
Chad Parenteau
Little Emerson
Fever, Light--by Sawako Nakayasu
Second Wish
Nomadics
Alison Croggon
Radical Druid
Ron is Ron: the Ron Silliman Cartoon by Jim Behrle
Dagzine: Positions, Poetics, Populations: Gary Norris
Shadows within Shadows: Tom Beckett
Self Similar Writing: Jukka Pekka Kervinen
The Little Workshop: Cassie Lewis
Sky Bright: Jay Rosevear
Poesy Galore: Emily Lloyd
Lisa Jarnot's Blog
Poetry Hut: Jilly Dybka (has moved here)
Pornfeld: Michael Hoerman
Seven Apples: Justin Ulmer
Hi Spirits: Andrew Burke
Bacon Bargain!: Joe Massey
Ivy is here: Ivy Alvarez
Whimsy Speaks: Jeff Bahr
Umbrella: Jeff Wietor
Chicanas! (Susana L. Gallardo)
Masters of Photography
Blog of Disquiet: Gary Norris' Teaching Blog
Suzanna Gig Jig
Bad with Titles: Jay Thomas
Spaceship Tumblers! Tony Tost
Desert City: Ken Rumble
E-Po
Zotz!
Optative Mood: Tim Morris
ecritures bleues: Laura Carter
The Ingredient: Alli Warren
Skanky Possum Pouch
Slight Publications
Jewishy-Irishy: Laurel Snyder
Sea-Camel: Alberto Romero Bermo
Growing Nations: Jordan Stempleman
Tom Raworth
Entropy and Me: Hal Johnson
Scott Pierce: Snapper's Junk
Chicano Poet: Reyes Cardenas
Semio-Karl M&M
Stephen Vincent
Hoa Nguyen/Teacher's & Writers
a New Word Placements
Narcissus Works: Anny Ballardini
Richard Lopez
Tributary: Allen Bramhall
The_Delay: Chris Vitiello
Jukka Pekka Kervinen: Nonlinear Poetry
Lanny Quarles: Phaneronoemikon
Clifford Duffy: Fictions of Deleuze & Guattari
DagZine
Carrboro Poetry Festival
Steve Evans: Third Factory
DEBORAH PATILLO
SKANKY POSSUM PRESS
Tim Peterson: Mappemunde
WOOD'S LOT
Geof Huth: DBQP
Ann Marie Eldon
Jim Behrle: The Jim Side
Ray Bianchi:Postmodern Collage Poetry
Never Mind the Beasts
Diaryo
New Broom
Flingdump Scattershot
Tony Tost: Unquiet Grave
Grapez
SB POET
Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming
|||AS/IS2|||
Li's A Private Studio
Anny Ballardini's Poet's Corner
Tom Beckett: Vanishing Points
Dumbfoundry
BadGurrrlNest
Jean Vengua's Okir
Hear-it dot org: info on hearing problems
Tim Yu's Tympan
James Yeager's Modern Lives
Tony Robinson: Geneva Convention
Daniel Nestor's Unpleasant Event
Ex-Lion Tamer
Carlos Arribas: Scriptorium
David Nemeth
Ela's Incertain Plume
Mairead Byrne's Heaven
Catherine Daly
Black Spring
Br.Tom's Finish Yr Phrase
Shin Yu Pai: makura-no-soshi
Harry K. Stammer: Downtown LA
Corina's Fledgling Wordsmith
Jilly Dybka's Poetry Hut
Ben Basan's Luminations
Katey: Chewing on Pencils
YaY!! Eileen Tabios: Chatelaine Poetics !
Jill Jones: Ruby Street
Geoffrey Gatza's BlazeVox
Bill Allegrezza's P-Ramblings
Gary Sullivan's Elsewhere
GoldenRuleJones
Poetry_Heat
Bookslut
Chickee's SuperDeluxeGoodPoems
As-Is !
John Latta's Hotel Point
Sawako Nakayasu's Ongoing Show
Shanna Compton's Brand New Insects
Crag Hill
kari edwards: transdada
Fluss
Michael Helsem's Gray Wyvern
Word Placement
Bogue's Blog
Jordan Davis: Equanimity
Robert Flach's Unadulterated Text
Michelle Bautista
Ironic Cinema
Mike Snider
Farewell Tonio!
In Through the Out Door
The Blonde Brunette
Awake at Dawn on Someone's Couch is Toast
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen:Non-Linear
Xpress(ed) !
Chris Lott's Ruminate
Venepoetics
Laura: Yellowslip
Stick Poet Super Hero
Mighty Jens!
Radio UTA: Toni's Thursday Poetry Show
Tim Morris: Lection
Gabe Gudding
Constant Critic
Sappho's Breathing
Waves of Reading
Jhananin's Insite
Fanaticus
AdvExpo
Stephen Vincent
Stephanie Young: New Well Nourished Moon
Kasey Silem Mohammad's Newest Limetree
Lanny Quarles: (solipsis)//:phaneronoemikon
States Writes
Rebecca's Pocket
Simulacro
Braincase Links
Sentence
Sor Juana
73 Urban Bus Journeys
Poeta Empirica
poetry for the people: canwehaveourballback?
Ernesto Priego's Never Neutral
Nick Piombino's Fait Accompli
Weekly Incite blogresearch
Jim Behrle's first monkey
Jim Behrle's Monkey's Gone to Heaven
David Kirschenbaum's Boog City
Not Nick Moudry
Laurable
David Hess Heathens in Heat
Jack Kimball's Pantaloons
Li Bloom's Abolone
Ron Silliman
Chris Sullivan's Bloggchaff
Chris Sullivan's Slight Publications
Chris Sullivan's Department of Culture
Kasey S. Mohammad's Old-New Limetree
Kasey's Old Limetree
James Meetze: Brutal Kittens
Cassie Lewis: The Jetty
Joseph Mosconi's Harlequin Knights
Nada Gordon's Ululate
ultimate: Stephanie Young's First Well Nourished Moon
Steve Evans: Third Factory
Noah Eli Gordon's Human Verb
Jean Vengua's Blue Kangaroo
Sawako Nakayasu: Texture Notes
Free Space Comix: BK Stefans
Crosfader
Malcolm Davidson's eeksy peeksy
Marsh Hawk Press group
Catherine Meng's Porthole Redux
Josh Corey's Cahiers de Corey
Very Nice! Shampoopoetry
UTA's Lit Mag: ZNine
Wild Honey Press
Jacket
JFK's Poetinresidence
Malcolm Davidson's Tram Spark poems
HYepez: RealiTi
HYpez: Mexperimental
Aimee Nez's Gila Monster
BestMaX: Jim Behrle's jismblog
Cori Copp's Littleshirleybean
Jordan Davis: Million Poems
Eileen Tabios: Corpsepoetics [see Chatelaine above]
YaY! Liz's Thirdwish
Ultra Linking
Henry Gould's HG Poetics
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Thursday, December 25, 2003
Happy Holidays from The Chatelaine: she's featuring a poet for the Holiday: Sean Finney! Very nice work--Thanks, Sean, and Eileen !
chris at
5:47 PM
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Squatter and Cracky Christmas Update
They are watching The Nutcracker Suite on PBS, with rapt attention. Something about the sparkling, walking, talking/singing, dancing Nutcracker and Clara, must be terribly appealing to them. Fascinating and terrible. For, they keep lifting up two claws to cover their eyes on the scariest parts. Two other claws trying to cover their ears at the same time. And two more to cover their mouths (where ever their mouths are--I have still not figured that out, and likely won't: won't examine them [ugh: who wants ever to be "examined," clinically, instructionally, or otherwise?--this goes way beyond "test anxiety" or even "text anxiety"; it must be something innate about not wanting to be opened without consent or permission; something about authority & power relations, no?]; won't send bow-wow Google out there to fetch a sketch of hermit crab anatomy. As for my own education in the field of biology: I think we dissected worms, sheep's eyes, and frogs back then--yes, we did, memory confirms (with another ugh & distinct gag: formaldehyde ). But not hermit crabs. Some things one just does not need to know. Ever.
Squatter and Cracky have uncovered their eyes and perked up some. Clara is wearing a blue bow. Actually, two: one for each braid-swirled around, above her ears. And now she's gone to bed with her happy little nutcracker doll. Enter Sugar Plum Fairy--briefly in this production. I have the sound turned off so am not sure to which point the symphonics have progressed so far--maybe I'll turn it on. But if so, then I'll have to turn off Alison Krauss + Union Station, which is kinda nice right at the moment, so, I dunno. Squatter and Cracky seem too caught up in the visuals to care much what the sounds might be. And for all they know, The Nutcracker Suite is Alison Krause + Union Station. So be it. Next up?--Buena Vista Social Club, a Christmas listening must, around me. Looking for blue bows for Squatter and Cracky. They'll share.
Meanwhile, The Turkey of the day bastes itself (whatever the heck does "self basting" mean?). Not nearly as scarily as those well lighted deer everyone in burbie land has on their ever-green lawns. Grassy lawns are still being cut around here though not as frequently as in July. I guess they have to lift the well lit deer off the lawn before they can mow; maybe like how my mother used to lift those overstuffed chairs up by their corners in order to vacuum beneath? I dunno, I do as little of any of that stuff as possible, but don't have any big chairs to lift, or extra lawns around to mow, basically.
Well they're up on all claws now, trying to twirl. This is a real Disney-moment. Gee I should have bought a camera--they just look so cute. And really, exposing them to the Nutcracker Suite, if only in visuals, will certainly help them later. They will soak it all up, just like they do the water out of their sponge--even if I can't tell from what part of anatomy they do so.
chris at
3:22 PM
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Merry Christmas!
chris at
12:55 PM
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fixin turkey with cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, green beans with bacon, cranberries, pumpkin pie, for daughter Holly, Jeff, some of their friends, and me. lookin forward.
chris at
12:50 PM
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hmmmm. Blogger's spell checker wants to replace "Texfiles" with "decibals"--
um, okay... but only once in a while on the holidays... ?
chris at
3:57 AM
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from [o soulful, so lovely] E. E. Cummings * :
[O sweet spontaneous]
O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)
(550-551)
*e. e. cummings, "[O sweet spontaneous]," in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair, Eds. New York: Norton, 1988.
chris at
2:41 AM
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Christmas Day I:
1. You are happily asleep, I hope.
If not, let me happily wake you...
2. I love this June Jordan poem, which speaks intimately to matters of need for goodwill as a community issue. I have committed it to memory for the god forbid times when I might need to recite it over and over.
3. June Jordan's poem:
You Came With Shells
You came with shells. And left them:
shells.
They lay beautiful on the table.
Now they lie on my desk
peculiar
extraordinary under 60 watts.
This morning I disturb I destroy the window
(and its light) by moving my feet
in the water. There.
It's gone.
Last night the moon ranged from the left
to the right side
of the windshield. Only white lines
on a road strike me as
reasonable but
nevertheless and too often
we slow down for the fog.
I was going to say a natural environment
means this or
I was going to say we remain out of our
element or
sometimes you can get away completely
but the shells
will tell about the howling
and the loss
(1468-1469)
*June Jordan, "You Came with Shells," Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Richard Ellman and Robert O'Clair, Eds. New York: Norton, 1988
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Christmas Day II: (in progress...)
On Holiday Messages: Right Now Is the Day
to Say "Merry Christmas" --
& In the Interest of a Most Goodly Wished
Holiday to All & Every Human,
Whence & Wherewithal (as if told, well, somewhat, by such as an Anne Bradstreet) :
I must take the message in this christian holiday reductively, for I am heartily sKeptikal of religion as an institutionalized influence prone to the most useless of dogmatic exclusionary rhetorics.
1. Un-Uber-Clothed-Implics
But to reduce this one to only its bareness (perhaps a good thing?), its un-uber-clothed implics, there is something warm like a body of good will, as similarly, the urging about sharing, that exists in many other religio-cultural practices and influences. This is one of the fundamental bases for all community as far as we now know: shared goodwill.
2. Who Would *Own* Goodwill?
Despite what its advocates like to claim, christianity does not own goodwill or the history of its influence on human community. Indeed when disseminated by christianity, as by other prominent yet strident religions in *the world* (whatever that means), the concept of good will takes on an ominous, spreading arm of co-optation for other means and purposes, easily an appropriation, a colonization, an "interpellation," as Althusser famously points out--it puts its subjects in a position of feeling convinced (believing) that they have been especially called on by a certain power who owns the decisive say that defines the religion's essence and import, and its teachings.
3. Result of Good Will
This contradictory problem will always haunt the notion of good will. But who can do without some fundamental basis in good will? Thank goodness it cannot be *owned.* It is given, shared, or revoked, for good reason, if necessary. But if revoked by whim or mere self interest, then the thing shared is not made of good will. Enterprise, perhaps, but not good will, which requires extreme mutuality between those who would otherwise be strangers. Many have written on this: Heinlein, Bradbury, Delaney, Borges, Sappho: legion is the result of the thematic of goodwill.
4. Basic Need of Goodwill
We would all be subject to the worst paranoiac havoc, it there were no sense of some basic trust in good will. Humans think too much, use their consciousness too extravagantly and wonderfully, to have it any other way. All of literature is made of this problem, no matter the time or intention.
5. Beneficence: Conscience: There are no Rings to Kiss
I take the best of the message in the christian tendency, then, to be beneficent: that 'tis to cultivate good will, share it, and share how to do both those things--that which will create, sustain, and expand community in ways that all will benefit from freely and in good conscience.
6. Yeah, an idealist. So be it. Write more. Tell me about it!
Keep On, and Happy Holiday--
of the most sincere Good Will,
from Texfiles.
more quandaries
in stranger shapes,
soon...
:)
ab&cm
chris at
12:17 AM
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Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Sor Juana Libreria (de *Vianett,* que dice, "Tambien te deseo una Feliz Navidad." :
"I wish you a Merry Christmas, too."
Muy bueno!
Good will, the
finest cloth
in all of
talk--no?
chris at
11:07 PM
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Dept of Holiday Ponderables
this one, from Jeanette Winterson * :
"I don't know if other worlds exist in space or time. Perhaps this is the only one and the rest is rich imaginings. Either way it doesn't matter. We have to protect both possibilities. They seem to be interdependent."
(146)
*Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry. New York: Vintage, 1991.
chris at
6:08 PM
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Leyendo * :
La Jornada sin Fronteras, porque es un link al blog exelente, Libreria Sor Juana. (Actualmente, el primero link es por el periodico, La Jornada, y se va al otro link.)
Y encuentro las articulistas de una de mis favoritas escritoras, Elena Poniatowska. (articulistas [on culture and arts, film, novels, etc] de 2003, en el verano)
Y, este es el version largo, en Ingles (arrgghh! Yo escrito el Espanol un poco y es muy pobre !): I was reading over at Sor Juana Libreria
and through a link & comment hopped over to La Jornada for some news. There I found the related periodical, La Jornada Sin Fronteras, and I got to looking around there. I found that there are several series of articles by notable theorists and writers of international reputation. One series is by and also about the writer, Elena Poniatowska, who I heard speak eleven or so years ago at Rochester, NY, (University of Rochester, Spanish Dept. Presentation), and had the honor of meeting and speaking with briefly. The talk there was about her work on the literature of testimony in Central and South America. She, and her work are simply fantastic. In, this series of article-links in La Jornada Sin Fronteras, there is one about celebrating Poniatowska's 50th year as a writer (13 de junio 2003), and also about the status today of literary "Testimonio," the literature of testimony (which, Poniatowska reminds us, is necessarily "always political") (3 de julio 2003). I was heartened to find this and to read in Spanish. However halting (out of practice!) my speech or writing of it may be, I enjoy reading in Spanish and can do so very well in consultation with my uberspirit for everything: a decent dictionary :)
I wanted to note this find, and send this message of gratitude:
Gracias a Sor Juana--
y Feliz Navidad !
* please forgive my awkwardly written Spanish. thanks.
chris at
2:18 PM
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from Patrick Herron, Texfiles Poet of the Week :
"Mutation 12" & "Mutation 18" with mp3 links:
(text first published in Muse Apprentice Guild, Issue: Spring 2003)
Mutation 12
My place is in a collection of
landscape sounds, bent windows,
piles of junk, and godawful people
contained by the storefront.
Random shelves group on the harsh curb
to implicate capricious lines
& invisible sounds.
I am generalized to write this
with anonymous faces, reflections,
and an arbitrary rotting fish
named "Miserable."
*
Mutation 18
Push fish peels into five locks for landscape extraction procedures.
Bend window panels, eat crust pinches, make piles of hammers. Look, the godawful
oxidant clouds (I saw those people extruded through no reason). Storefront.
Not one I generalizes you, not if written with bending anonymous arms
or with axed rotting memories misnamed "Forgotten". (Inquire without).
Extant random selections shelve narrow groups. Down on some ideas lulled
into curbing repeated implicating mutters? Ask about whatever happened
to our capricious invisible aphasias, the ones we never had.
chris at
2:14 AM
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I am enjoying (went back twice today!) reading this continuation of Nada Gordon's "Song of My Own Self"--thanks, Nada, and big congrats on the blog's first year anniversary!
chris at
1:39 AM
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Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Footnote (!) to the Hat List
generated here (scroll down a bit) last evening from reading
over at Jordan Davis' Million Poems :
Via suggestions from Jordan, add :
Moose Antler Hat
Propellor Beenie Copter Hat
Knitted (!) face mask
Doo Rag
and then I realized I had forgotten to list one other that comes to mind for me:
(who can forget that special hat Salvador Dali painted?)
the Ladies (Non-Sensible Black Heeled) Shoe Hat
chris at
4:24 PM
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from Clayton Eshleman ** :
[excerpt from "Notes on a Visit to Le Tuc d'Audoubert"]
the cave floats,
in a sense, in several senses,
all at once,
it rests on the river, is penetrated
by it, was originally made
by rushing water--
the cave
is the skeleton of flood
images on its walls
participate, thus, as torsion,
in an earlier torsion--
Here one might synthesize:
1) abstract signs
initiate movement
brought to rest in
3) naturalistic figures
(bisons, horses etc)
In between, the friction, are
2) grotesque hybrids
(useful--but irrelevant to systematize forces that must have been felt as flux, as unplanned, spontaneous, as were the spots/areas in caves chosen for images--because shadowing or wall contour evoked an animal? Any plan a coincidence--we have no right to systematize an area of experience of which we have only shattered iceberg tips--yet it does seem that "image" occurs at the point that a "naturalistic" horse is gouged in rock across an "abstract" vulva already gouged there, so that the rudiments of poetry are present at approximately 30,000 BC--
image is crossbreeding,
or the refusal to respect
the single, individuated body,
image is that point
where sight crosses sight--
to be alive as a poet is to be
in conversation with ones eyes) ...
(310-311)
*
The Lich Gate
Waiting, I rest in the waiting gate.
Does it want to pass my death on,
or to let my dying pass into the poem?
Here I watch the windshield redden
the red of my mother's red Penney coat,
the eve of Wallace Berman's 50th birthday drunk
truck driver smashed Toyota,
a roaring red hole, a rose in whirlpool
placed on the ledge of a bell-less shrine.
My cement sits propped against the post. To live
is to block the way and
to move over at the same time, to hang
from the bell-less hook, a tapeworm in the packed
organ air, the air resonant with fifes, with morners
filing by the bier
resting in my hands, my memory coffer
in which an acquaintance is found.
Memory is acquaintance. Memory is not a friend.
The closer I come to what happened,
the less I know it, the more I love
what I see beyond the portable
frame in which I stand--I, clapper, never free,
will bang, if the bell rope is pulled.
Pull me, Gladys and Wallace say to my bell, and you
will pass through, the you of I, your
pendulum motion, what weights
you, the hornet-nest shaped
gourd of your death, your scrotal
lavender, your red glass crackling
with fire-embedded mirror. In vermillion and black
the clergyman arrives. At last
something can be done about this
weighted box. It is the dead who come forth to
pull it on. I do nothing here.
When I think I do, it is the you-hordes
leaning over my sleep with needle-shaped
fingers without pause they pat
my still sillhouette which shyly moves.
The lich gate looks like it might collapse.
Without a frame in which to wait,
my ghoul would spread. Bier in lich,
Hades' shape, his sonnet prism reflecting
the nearby churchyard, the outer hominid limit,
a field of rippling meat. I have come here
to bleed this gate, to make my language fray
into the invisibility teeming against
The Mayan Ballcourt of the Dead, where
I see myself struggling intently,
flux of impact, the hard
rubber ball bouncing against the stone hoop.
(308)
** Clayton Eshleman, "The Lich Gate," and " "Notes on a Visit to Le Tuc d'Audoubert," in Postmodern American Poetry. Paul Hoover, Ed. New York: Norton, 1994.
chris at
2:42 PM
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This evening: more poetry & mp3 from Patrick Herron, Texfiles Poet of the Week
chris at
1:11 PM
|
fromJordan Davis : from The Million Poems movin' on down the (poetic) line(s) :
# 969
"I list my debts
And forgive them.
It's Christmas
And the bakery's on fire!
"It is so difficult
To be a grown-up..."
***
purely a conjectural, idiosyncratic response on my part:
a big Amen, I say,
Amen...
***
But keep on reading till you have traveled to this, # 956 :
"... I have that
Get up and be there feeling myself,
And as long as I can remember it's
Sent me out to the arcade, unmoored,
Maybe in a fedora, who knows. Just
Leave me alone means come home
And love me, I thought everyone knew."
***
OOoo, a fedora!--
or a Yankees cap
or a Stetson
or a navy knit
or a beanie
or a long tailed ski cap
or a sombrero
or a strawmade field hat
or a hand crocheted pull over
or a buddhist prayer hat, gold/red
or a golf cap
or a santa hat
or a veil
or an audrey hepburn polka dotted veiled hat
or a there so many hats!
and if someone,
who for the sake of great
love, says "come home":
then i want to say aloud
that is *exactly*
what one version of
*it*
*is*
all kinds of nice stuff all over there, Jordan! Thanks much.
chris at
3:25 AM
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Monday, December 22, 2003
Live Action Museums: my Fetish Life is at ACE
Still trying to get to those errands--actually they are at the hardware store, which is one of my all time favorite places to go. Fact: it gives me shivers to think about wandering the ailes: all those shiny gadgets--and only a few people really know what they are for! And other things: even industrial strength hand lotion, the kind pharmacists don't even have, but that every truck driver knows about. I just love that. And lamps: all kinds of lamps for every reason of light.
Yes, I know. I am twisted, and not just about that: car washeterias are second ultimates: the little convenience stores attached have all these fetish items for cars--furry things!: scented things!--whole universities (!) devoted only and lovingly to modes of movement. And in these places the universities are so practical: everything that could ever be professed about such as home plumbing or vehicle cosmetics.
Of course, I basically think we should all be on trains. Doing without cars by now! And certainly will have to before too long, for what should be obvious environmental and human-cost reasons, but it does not keep me from being enamored of these live-action museums of the O-so-cared-for-everyday, ya kno?
chris at
6:57 PM
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Errands to run. On return I think I will audblog some of my poems.
In fact, if anyone is interested in audblogging some poetry over the next few days, just email me:
cmurray@uta.edu
if I don't get right back to ya it's because UTA email might be down
so try this address
cmrry88@aol.com
--looking forward!--
chris at
5:43 PM
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Geoffrey Gatza sends along this notice:
"HouseCat Kung Fu is Back!!!
After long last HouseCat Kung Fu is back and better than ever! http://www.blazevox.org/zoo/ An interactive poetic journey through the Buffalo zoo.
HouseCat Kung Fu by Geoffrey Gatza. A Poetry happening enclosed within a buffalo zoo. Kent Johnson says, "Hey, this is pretty good" and Dana Gioia calls it "a work of trash from the made-for-TV crowd, definitely fit for animals." Companion to the Award winning CD. A must have for any collector :-)
It's Not Too Late! Choose UPS NEXT DAY to receive by December 24.
get your copy NOW
HouseCat Kung Fu
by Geoffrey Gatza (Paperback)
Product Number: 9080308
$10.00 | Graphic Poetry
HouseCat Kung Fu
HouseCat Kung Fu Audio CD
by Geoffrey Gatza (Audio CD)
Product Number: 6573046
$10.00 | Trance Verse | Hear Samples, too
to order at CafeShops
to see at BlazeVox Zoo
HouseCat Kung Fu is not associated with the Buffalo Zoo or any of it’s animals
We returned the tiger so please drop the charges :-)
Thanks!
Geoffrey Gatza
editor@blazevox.org
chris at
4:37 PM
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And lately I have been fascinated reading Bill Allegrezza's blog, P-Ramblings...
fascinated, as well, by Ben Basan's Luminations, where last week he reviewed
Factorial !--
Sawako Nakayasu's publication-in-partnership (Hi Sawako!--how's everything?)
And things are lookin' good over here, too, at Sawako's other blog, The Ongoing Show.
Enjoy!
chris at
4:31 PM
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Happy Solstice, Everyone ! !
I have received some lovely Solstice greetings from folks. Thanks, all, so much!
I think that human expressions, in the formal ways of greetings shared, tend to spread good will, a very necessary element for human interaction: "hello" is not only "hello I am here to speak with you," but also "hello: I mean you well and hope we share that meaning."
So let me end this with a big Hello!
Y, la luz continua...
chris at
2:50 PM
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from Patrick Herron, Texfiles Poet of the Week :
Day of the Dead
for Aaron and Andrew,
and Ramon Fernandez too
I read in a bar last night, on a wall in a
piss-stained stall in the bathroom. It read:
One day you will be dead.
And with the sound of splatter on the floor
(I missed the bowl I had come in earnest to fill)
came the words of one bleak bitch Siren.
She sang, not so sweetly, but shrill, as if out of the plumbing,
the shadows of the fragments of a dark and weightless tune:
Your time will come; you will be cast into
that endless deep black lonely sea. Forget the piss.
As you sit upon your high overt rocky cliff
and wave your arms over this huddled city, over this
the ignorant mass below yearning without hope to be
wonderful if not free, you should not forget: your arms
have no magic. You too is standing right here in the pee.
The wind will blow and blow and the wind will bellow
as above, so below, as above, so below, as above, so below:
remember the piss. You too will drown, the same as me.
This ghost of the pisser,
I did not miss her.
She made me quake
in my boots and so I
remembered to flush but
I forgot to shake,
Patrick
Here's some recent publishing and bio-info on Patrick Herron:
Of Patrick's book-length manuscript of poems, Be Somebody, which is written in the ventriloquising-voice of Lester, a sock-puppet, Ron Silliman wrote in a keen review, "My Sock Puppet, Myself," (blogpost, 24 Nov. 03), that there are "Steinien levels of of play ... in Lester's intimate striptease of the self." The poems deal with problems of pronouns in both usage and representation/subjectivity, demonstrating the basic paradox of pronouns either as reliable markers of grammatical navigation or as representatives of an actual person. This kind of poetic revelation illuminates problems of far reaching consequence, even though in the poems this is ostensibly all only in fun--puppet-play. Thus, another layer of paradox--rhetorical & poetic beyond the "me" and the grammatical as fit for a page or one more line of words strung together for logic and communication to sort out--is nicely revealed through the poems.
By way of a bio, Patrick writes:
"The sum total of Patrick Herron's poetry is worth approximately $147.22;
that's approximately $0.10 a poem. He has recently completed work on
his third and fourth books, "Black Iris" and "The American Godwar
Complex." The fact that none of them are published gives you some clue.
Approximately four score of Patrick's poems and essays been published in
the last three years in journals such as Jacket, Canary River, VeRT, and
Fulcrum; two of his poems appeared as part of Project Hope at the Tokyo
Metropolitan Art Museum in 2002. Zzzzzz. He is currently a graduate
student at UNC-Chapel Hill and a research assistant at Ibiblio.org
(http://www.ibiblio.org). Just because it happened to him doesn't make
it interesting. When Patrick has free time he likes to compose record
and perform laptop music or work on his ongoing web art project,
Proximate.org (http://www.proximate.org). Give me a break. He
currently resides in Carrboro, North Carolina, where he is Poet
Laureate. He wants you to know that he is, by definition, not Lester.
Yeah, sure, don't try selling me wooden nickels, pal.
And Patrick's book, Lester"
Thanks, Patrick!
chris at
4:29 AM
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Sunday, December 21, 2003
going to the store to get some yarn for presents--scarves!
when i return, I plan to post more work
from Texfiles Poet of the Week, Patrick Herron
chris at
8:35 PM
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from Joseph Brodsky, "Lithuanian Nocturn" * :
XVII
Muse of dots lost in space! Muse of things one makes out
through a telescope only! Muse of subtraction
but with remainders! Of zeros, in short.
You who order the throat
to avoid lamentation,
not to go overboard,
that is, higher than "la"!
Muse, accept this effect's
little aria sung to the gentle
cause's sensitive ear,
and regard it and its do-re-mi-ing tercets
in your rarified rental
from the viewpoint
of air,
of pure air! Air indeed is the epilogue
for one's retina: nobody stands to inhabit
air! It is our "homeward"! That town
which all syllables long
to return to. No matter how often you grab it,
light or darkness soon darn with their rapid
needles air's eiderdown.
(223)
*Joseph Brodsky, Collected Poems in English. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2000.
chris at
7:39 PM
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*****......Cricket Time Poetry........********
I am posting this poem because I had a lovely, encouraging note, requesting some poetry (of mine!). I hope y'all like it.--cm
13 ways of listening to a cricket
all day drizzle flecked
air sweating brown lawn
across asphalt ground
in a veil of Texas
crude & yellow leaf salting air
through the alphabet of infant
tears naming a first noon
or day breaking its noun porthole
of two ampersand rigs
in almond reverb light
& neighbor’s asparagus fern spreading
oak breeze ting-ting wind
chime, your bare lips slowed to a word
cm 10:00 pm, 8 Oct. 03
888888888888888888888888888888888888poetry by chris murray8888
chris at
3:36 PM
|
So, I guess the game is really up now.
It was not enough just to quit the real cigarettes...
Now I'll definitely have to quit my "Psychic Cigarette," too ... *
* To Slight Publications: thanks for this!
chris at
3:06 AM
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Saturday, December 20, 2003
Dept. of a "Rocking Disco Santa" Response
As he usually does, my father, James T. Murray, who lives in the area of Rochester, New York, sent a holiday card with a Santa Claus on it. Well, that's understandable--he was Santa for a long time for six little people (Chris, Joanne, Nancy, Jayne, Jimmy, Patrick) and then to a large degree, also Santa for their children, too, over the last twenty-some years.
On picking up the mail, I recognize the handwriting immediately in the pile, and eagerly open the envelope to see what Dad has thought up this year by way of a card--it's an art for him, sending offbeat cards or sending ordinary ones and tweaking them to make something offbeat, noticeable, different, a kind of signature-Jim-Murray. But there's somethin' more than a little off about this year's card-image of Santa: he has a very bright face: a very bright green face. And the red suit looks a little frayed, ill-fit, worn out. The hands look gray-green though not so green as the face. And then there is all that dishevelled (this is a word that always reminds me of the word, "devil," because of its sound) hair: long white-ash-looking hair falling any which way from the head, long beard, falling same, scraggly. This Santa's hat, too, is ill-fitting, kind of deflated, the way a wind sock looks when a gust suddenly vacates it.
I walk away to think about this odd card--there is no doubt that it has a joke built-in to it. My father has a wonderful sense of humor--something is always funny to him, and he passes it on to others easily. So, I don't trust this card to be something straightforwardly sentimental, as such cards usually are. And it's certainly nothing out the ribald genre. This is my father here, afterall.
Opening the card, it has this message: "Christmas: it takes its toll on everybody." Okay. True enough. But something's still not sinking in here, I just know it. So shutting it and turning it over, I see that it is made by an outfit called "Actual Pictures from Holidays Past."
So I return to the card's front side, looking more closely at the green face of this Santa. Jeeze: it's my father's face, I finally notice. Dressed up or foto-funned-up to be Santa, sure, but also the Grinch!--so how did I miss all that the first time around?!
Many Thanks to you Dad, for all your generous Christmas-ing. Also, not least for your good humor--in honor of which I send out this Christmas song ** for you:
Rocking Disco Santa !
**courtesy of information about American Song Poem Music Archives and its links, found 20 dec 03, at Slight Publications blogspot--with thanks!
chris at
11:11 PM
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"... fingers made of rain /wanting breath or branches /computerless Ahhhhh... "--Guillermo J. Parra
keep rockin, Guillermo!
chris at
3:39 PM
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UTA email is down. If trying to reach me, please use one of these addresses:
cmrry88@aol.com
cmurray88@yahoo.com
chris at
3:23 PM
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Books Within Reach (books currently on the writing desk):
--Simon Ortiz, Woven Stone (U of AZ, 1991)
--Joe Ahearn, sin.thet.ik (Firewheel Editions, 2002)
--Carolyn Forche, Blue Hour (Harper Collins, 2003)
--Beverly Dahlen, A Reading, 1-7 (Momo's Press, 1985)
--Anne Carson, Sappho: If Not, Winter (Vintage, 2003)
(Sappho Transl)
--Nathaniel Mackey, Four for Glenn (Chax Press, 2002)
--Cesar Vallejo, The Complete Posthumous Poetry (UCal Press, 1980PB)
(transl. Clayton Eshleman & Jose Rubia Barcia)
--Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales (Modern Lib, 1994
--William Carlos Williams, Collected Poems, Vol. 1 (New Directions, 1991PB)
--Columbia Poetry Review, no. 16 (Columbia Coll, Chicago, 2003)
chris at
1:14 PM
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Friday, December 19, 2003
Going out to walk. Then to get some Vietnamese Pho--lately a favorite since discovering a new cafe 5 or so miles away over by the Hong Kong Asian Foods Big Supermarket that Fei and I go to. But closer to home here the other day I did find some good Thai food just up the street, neat little drive through cafe (huh?--drive through cafe?--that must be an oxymoron, no?). Daughter Holly says the place is not that good, but what does she kno?--she's not me!
More soon. Maybe more poetry soon.
chris at
6:11 PM
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Check out this Gender-Fender-Bender
from Texfiles Poet of the Week, Patrick Herron :
Smashing Girls and Boys
"Girls are what they wear,
and boys are who they hit."
Shit not worth one dead hair.
This prescribed bloodstained valance,
It's a bullshit visaged balance,
panache-ridden parlance, barren farm passed
as palace and panacea. See here, is this
dissimilarity or peaceful parity:
this is a cock here in my panties.
Smashing girls and boys.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Smashing Poetry!!!!!!by !!!!!!Patrick Herron!!!!!!!!!
chris at
4:30 PM
|
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
UTA sent a msg around saying email will be off this weekend. If trying to reach me from midnight tonight to 8 a.m. Monday, use one of these:
cmrry88@aol.com
cmurray88@yahoo.com
thanks.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
chris at
9:39 AM
|
from daughter Holly, a little seasonal fun:
Get Yr Mouse Ready for Snowglobe!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
some things are just so twisted, so wucking fazey, you know?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chris at
4:22 AM
|
Some New Linx & Things
A. "Andrew I found this thing for you... "
B. "Babel-17: ... Rimbaud was knocked off ... "
W. "What did Beckett say? ..."
Squatter & Cracky are heavin the sponge around like it wz a little volleyball, sayin' : Linx & things are lookin' good !
chris at
3:23 AM
|
********************************************************
Announcing a new Texfiles Poet of the Week Feature:
** Patrick Herron ! **
A warm welcome, then, to you, Patrick.
You Rock!! Especially when Politicians are lyin (that's always... )
But hey, here is some of Patrick's Best Bad-Boy
Oh-So-Ginsu Wit (including his mp3 reading aloud) :
Patrick Herron's "What Basho Wrote"
What Basho wrote me about the dust of Gautama
Dear Patrick,
Empty your mind and your hat will follow. So please begin by transcribing the following seventeen hats, and do hold onto your own hat for the duration. Only the hat will remain. I'll explain later.
The Ten Hats of Buddhism
A Zen Buddhist is not a Zen Buddhist
but a person faking paradox
and a person faking paradox
is a fake Zen Buddhist paradox and
"A Zen Buddhist is not a Zen Buddhist"
is an attempt by a fake Zen Buddhist
to fake a fake Zen Buddhist paradox
and the fake attempt of a fake person
who is of course a person and yet empty,
not a person or even a Zen Buddhist at all.
The Four Noble Hats of Buddhism
Which is to say Zen Buddhism is fake
so to be a real Zen Buddhist (Listen up! Kneel, slave! Thwack!) you must be fake at faking the forsaking of Zen Buddhism
and be a fake paradox or even a fake fake fake.
The Two Hats of Buddhism
Perhaps paradoxically, three fakes
do not negate each other when they do.
Buddha, The Enlightened Hat
They merely give nothing a cover.
Love,
Basho
PS My final and perhaps only coherent recommendation is that you always wear a hat. It will help one of you to appear as if you are flying above the dust in the wind, above the hatless masses. I'm giving up on the cold austerity shtick altogether and am heading to someplace warmer. Look for me there, where it's warm. I'm the one in the hat.
************* Pottery Hats by Patrick Herron****crak-crak-crak****
chris at
12:53 AM
|
India/US Hellos: Gurudev Bhat!
I have had a very nice email from Gurudev Sirsi Bhat who is from India, and is a former computer lab tech/admin here at UTA, in the Writing Center I direct. After graduation, Gurudev wanted to remain here in the US to work, which is a very competetive job market for international students. But he was able to secure what many students consider a dream job in computer engineering here in the US. I am happy for Gurudev--having seen his achievements here. And now he sends good wishes for the holidays, so nice to hear! I am very grateful for Gurudev's good will whenever he writes.
Five months ago he sent the most elaborate wedding invitation!--beautiful. Of course I could not make it to India for the celebration, sorry to say. I know I would have loved it. But now, 5 months into the beautiful marriage he writes that he and his wife send happy holiday wishes. And
"If you're coming down to California, please do come and stay in our little
place whenever you pass by San Jose or San Francisco.
Wish you a Very Happy Christmas to you and your family."--Gurudev Bhat
Gurudev, that is so sweet!--I would love to! Thanks so much. I will be coming to California before too long and I will not fail to be in touch so we can all say warm hellos! I hope you and your new wife are happy and that all goes well for you during these holidays, and always.
Best Regards, Best Wishes, and Hugz to You Both!
Chris
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