** disappeared **
Blog originally designed for the cruelest month, when I scratch out a poem a day in order to stay connected to Robin Reagler. Now also a repository for my matters poetry. (Ab Chaos Poesis is a riff on Ab Chaos Lex, which is Joyce's joke on the catholic motto, ab chaos ordo.) (No relation to the metal band which is top fifty results of a 2020 google search to check the latin.)
11 April 2014
Kit Smart's Birthday (always cheering) (alcoholism, debtor's prison and madhouses can do that to a gal)
Here's a little bit from Jubilate Agno, Fragment B, by Christopher Smart.
For GOD nevertheless is an extravagant BEING and generous unto loss.
For there is no profit in the generation of man and the loss of millions is not worth God's tear.
For this is the twelfth day of the MILLENNIUM of the MILLENNIUM foretold by the prophets -- give the glory to God ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY --
For the Planet Mars is the word FORTITUDE.
For to worship naked in the Rain is the bravest thing for the refreshing and purifying the body.
For the Planet Jupiter is the WORD DISPENSATION.
For Tully says to be generous you must be first just, but the voice of Christ is distribute at all events.
For Kittim is the father of the Pygmies, God be gracious to Pigg his family.
For the Soul is divisible and a portion of the Spirit may be cut off from one and applied to another.
For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome especially if it be leaven'd with honey.
For a NEW SONG also is best, if it be to the glory of God; and taken with the food like the psalms.
For the Planet Saturn is the word TEMPERANCE or PATIENCE.
For Jacob's Ladder are the steps of the Earth graduated hence to Paradice and thence to the throne of God.
For a good wish is well but a faithful prayer is an eternal benefit.
For SPICA VIRGINIS is the star that appeared to the wise men in the East and directed their way before it was yet insphered.
For an IDEA is the mental vision of an object.
For Lock supposes that an human creature, at a given time may be an atheist i.e. without God, by the folly of his doctrine concerning innate ideas.
For it is not lawful to sell poyson in England any more than it is in Venice, the Lord restrain both the finder and receiver.
For GOD nevertheless is an extravagant BEING and generous unto loss.
For there is no profit in the generation of man and the loss of millions is not worth God's tear.
For this is the twelfth day of the MILLENNIUM of the MILLENNIUM foretold by the prophets -- give the glory to God ONE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY --
For the Planet Mars is the word FORTITUDE.
For to worship naked in the Rain is the bravest thing for the refreshing and purifying the body.
For the Planet Jupiter is the WORD DISPENSATION.
For Tully says to be generous you must be first just, but the voice of Christ is distribute at all events.
For Kittim is the father of the Pygmies, God be gracious to Pigg his family.
For the Soul is divisible and a portion of the Spirit may be cut off from one and applied to another.
For NEW BREAD is the most wholesome especially if it be leaven'd with honey.
For a NEW SONG also is best, if it be to the glory of God; and taken with the food like the psalms.
For the Planet Saturn is the word TEMPERANCE or PATIENCE.
For Jacob's Ladder are the steps of the Earth graduated hence to Paradice and thence to the throne of God.
For a good wish is well but a faithful prayer is an eternal benefit.
For SPICA VIRGINIS is the star that appeared to the wise men in the East and directed their way before it was yet insphered.
For an IDEA is the mental vision of an object.
For Lock supposes that an human creature, at a given time may be an atheist i.e. without God, by the folly of his doctrine concerning innate ideas.
For it is not lawful to sell poyson in England any more than it is in Venice, the Lord restrain both the finder and receiver.
10 April 2014
Poem drawn from the "fellows followed" list on my blog at 10:20 pm 10 April
I sense you understand me perfectly.
(Language drawn largely from
the "fellows followed" list
on my blog at 10:20 pm 10 April)
(Language drawn largely from
the "fellows followed" list
on my blog at 10:20 pm 10 April)
The traffic on First is careful tonight,
earnest, gray. Birds, pianos and the moon
our self-portrait. The sheriff rides in
to arrest the weather, fat snowball
competing with her favorite tumbleweed.
For the excellent career in roustaboutery,
broken bowls, winter blooms, acerb
whistles over interference.
It’s all interference,
pulsing handbrakes,
ridiculous.
06 April 2014
I will post a poem today, eventually--I'm enjoying the whole thing this year--but for now, I'm taking a warm bath in Madeline Gins:
One thing men haven’t realized is that unlike them (all men are mortal), women do not die — This makes all the difference — although some women, having been brow-beaten by sheer syllogistic brawn, have at times pretended.
Most women do not look like themselves; although many women do assume the form of 'woman;' some are men, others gas and electricity, and still others are indistinguishable.
Most women do not look like themselves; although many women do assume the form of 'woman;' some are men, others gas and electricity, and still others are indistinguishable.
-- Madeline Gins, What the President Will Say and Do
That's a little bite of wisdom from American artist, architect and poet Madeline Helen Arakawa Gins (November 7, 1941 – January 8, 2014).
Gins' architecture projects, mostly done with husband Shusaku Arakawa, sound like poems, as in the Reversible Destiny Lofts and the Lifespan Extending Villa.
She and Arakawa also did the escalator at the super-groovy Comme-des-Garcons-funded Dover Street Market, just up the block from me. Up several blocks, actually, but who's counting. Their Biotopological Scale-Juggling Escalator is worth a visit. See it online here or make a trip here.
01 April 2014
NaPoWriMo 2014
I would not do it this year, that I was certain of. Definitely not. No way. Then the planet spun round again. Surprise. On Thursday last week I signed myself up to do it twice over, here and at Tiferet, though I'm not clear where and how the poems will move from here to there. . . . .
30 April 2013
That's it? That's it--it's the 30th of April 2013 and the month was far less cruel than ever before.
I followed the prompt this time and was glad about it. The suggestion was to take a shortish beloved poem and rewrite it, line by line, replacing words with words that mean the opposite.
I chose an old sentimental favorite, "Of Mere Being," by Wallace Stevens. It's possibly one of Stevens' most sentimental poems and I don't believe it was published until after he died. What's more, his daughter later complained that there was a wrong word in the poem (it's decor), but I didn't want to get into all that today.
I had a noonday stab at it and then an evening stab at it, and I put them both here--they are so different. In the betweentime I did an N+7 noun replacement with the original, since I've been so intrigued by those interventions for a couple of months, and enjoyed the result at N+12. So I threw that in here, too. I'm missing my Robin terribly this go-round but am grateful for Alan Kleiman joining me and for the editor(s)(?) at NaPoWriMo calling out my blog.
Until next year.
(10 p.m.) After oblivion
The rhizome at the onset of body
before the first instinct, descends
on the blue-white floor.
A silver-scaled fish
is mute in the rhizome, all animal nonsense,
a mineral indifference, a local silence.
You forget then that it is the consequences
that break us, unhappy or happy.
The fish is silent. Its scales eat light.
The rhizome lolls in the center of time.
A fire quickens at the root.
The fish’s water-wimpled scales spark alive.
(Noon) On all death
The grass at the start of
the heart,
before the first
instinct, falls
in the gilt morass.
A silver-furred beast
chokes in the grass, with
animal meaning,
with mineral indifference,
a local silence.
You misunderstand then
that it is the result
that makes us unhappy or
happy.
The beast chokes. Its fur
dulls.
The grass lays in the
center of time.
The wall rushes quickly
in the roots.
The beast’s water-wimpled
skin rises.
N+12
The
parent at the enquiry of the misery,
Beyond the last tile, roofsIn the bunch decor,
A grammar-feathered blood
Sings in the parent, without human member,
Without human fig, a foreign specialist.
You know then that it is not the reconstruction
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The blood sings. Its festivals shine.
The parent stands on the election of spell.
The wolf moves slowly in the breezes.
The blood's flash-fangled festivals dangle drink.
Of Mere Being
by Wallace Stevens
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor.
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor.
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
28 April 2013
AQ's 28 April Twitter poem almost in response to NaPoWriMo
Poem-ish result of Twitter search of mourning + Freud
“If you read
tiny
if you read
muses
and Melancholi-a-muses
perspective
of working through
Judith Butler+
if you read thought
about Lois...
remind me to explain
con
intimate process. But Brazil
if you read reality
out of this tragedy
LOVEdontLOVEmee
efendim my master
if you read we show
what happens
next muses, tiny
(I Want The Future,
I Also Want to Hold Onto
museum remembrance
late open if you read
tomorrow
muses until
film
poetry if you read
from doc forward
(This content is available only to
Premium Members. It is copyright)
triumph
if you read
of melancholia?
I'd lv 2C more attn
paid 2 processes,
medicalizing them
isn't the way. if you read
Psychology Books:
to perform tiny tiny
From Sigmund?: Question
arts brief tiny
mourning
after
journey into nostalgia:
To borrow such
runs risk
-- pathol...
too real to be tolerable.
Positive effects
of depression
genius if you muse.
melancholia.
24 April 2013
17 April 2013
an admission, as a warning against the value of our conclusions
What's happifying? I got a copy of my new chapbook.
I have erica kaufman and Sigmund Freud and especially Lynne DeSilva-Johnson to thank for this (especially Lynne's Exit Strata's Print! Document Series).
I have erica kaufman and Sigmund Freud and especially Lynne DeSilva-Johnson to thank for this (especially Lynne's Exit Strata's Print! Document Series).
16 April 2013
Alan K's for 15 April
How i feel
I'm a bear in a room
[A bull in a china shop]
Raging on tip toes
At mosquitoes
That dot my air
Make an appointment
if you want to visit
So I can comb my hair
And brush my teeth
Giving the appearance
of civility
I will not repeat not step on you
Or scare the be Jesus
If I can help it
I'm a bear in a room
[A bull in a china shop]
Raging on tip toes
At mosquitoes
That dot my air
Make an appointment
if you want to visit
So I can comb my hair
And brush my teeth
Giving the appearance
of civility
I will not repeat not step on you
Or scare the be Jesus
If I can help it
11 April 2013
First, a little Kit Smart on his birthday. I hope he got what he wished for.
For God has given us a language of monosyllables to prevent our clipping.
Tho' toad I am the object of man's hate.
Yet better am I than a reprobate. who has the worst of prospects.
And for a great article on him by R. Pinsky.
08 April 2013
Welcoming another guest blogger: Ryan Nowlin (lately of the Poetry Project). He will be joining me sometimes henceforth.
I don’t get Brooklyn
My boss thought the catnip
on my desk was pot. Go figure!
The reason why I like you
may stem from unresolved
issues from jr. high school
Atari was my personal hell.
See where this behavior gets you?
Newark has the feeling of being
affixed, but not New York City.
Prudential Building is mostly
underrated in New Jersey.
Teens who hang out on street
corners become bus drivers.
Every stale breeze seemed
to whisper “Louise”
I have this recurrent dream
of a starry carousel creaking
After days of retrofitted murmurs
soft hypnotic laughter
approaching fresh fantasies
a licked window.
by Ryan Nowlin
|
05 April 2013
Just under the 5 April wire: The really great thing is to go bananas
The really great thing is to go bananas
and get put in the attic for one of your transgressions--
a broken nail, say, or murder--and then begin the
tremendous game of pretending you're not
in the attic, even get a whole bunch of people
to strut by, make campy entrances, take sharp
exits, play like they're on the ground, play
you're also on the dirt, everyone on terra
firma, we're all test-touching it, tasting
sweet thick loamy in spring
when it's interrupted by roots
spreading worms digging life
and (hey) you like to write about it even
though you don't know that metal smell,
haven't whiffed it in years (ever?) but perched
(above) you keep on writing about it. Aw, poetry!
and get put in the attic for one of your transgressions--
a broken nail, say, or murder--and then begin the
tremendous game of pretending you're not
in the attic, even get a whole bunch of people
to strut by, make campy entrances, take sharp
exits, play like they're on the ground, play
you're also on the dirt, everyone on terra
firma, we're all test-touching it, tasting
sweet thick loamy in spring
when it's interrupted by roots
spreading worms digging life
and (hey) you like to write about it even
though you don't know that metal smell,
haven't whiffed it in years (ever?) but perched
(above) you keep on writing about it. Aw, poetry!
01 April 2013
15 April 2012
15 April
A person was paid to plant these pinks
not hoping but knowing how it happens
every year. Again. And again, so much
more remains buried and the dog snuffles madly and
whiffs, rooting. These first post-equinox weeks
I come to remind you
or to make you forget
there is another way
its path is petal-near
and it will cost you everything, or maybe nothing.
not hoping but knowing how it happens
every year. Again. And again, so much
more remains buried and the dog snuffles madly and
whiffs, rooting. These first post-equinox weeks
I come to remind you
or to make you forget
there is another way
its path is petal-near
and it will cost you everything, or maybe nothing.
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