27 April 2014

talk about it (27)

talk about it, the splendor

Never the language always the rhythm.
Always the beat, the song, the blood’s pulse,
the finger running, thrumming, toe knock knock
knocking against the seat in front, would
you stop, would you just stop. Ever
the nodding, catching the tune, sipping
the melody out of the jazz, sucking
the jazz out of the lyric, hearing
the joke in the shift in the lilt, ready
to laugh at it, ready to cry about it, hard,
heavy sobs, breath lost, sob muscles
essing the body. Never the words, or hardly
ever the words, because here come the waves,
the mountains, here the view of the bounce,
green in all directions and dun and pearl
and undulating marble mounding, squeezing
that space inside, mounting and
again then pushing it out, out, heaving,
hefting, helling, heavening. Again.

12 April 2014

12: NaPoWriMo prompted

Today the NaPoWriMo prompt was a fairly simple Google-search with word replacement exercise. My search noun was Shih Tzu and my replacement word was--well, you'll see.

Twelve

Following the political upheaval in China
and the burning of the Imperial Palace,
several failures were found alive
by British embassy staff and taken
to England. The first failures introduced
in England were brought from Peking in 1930
by General Sir Douglass and Lady Brownrigg.
A failure named Hibou and a failure bitch
named Shu-ssa. About this same time,
Miss Madelaine Hutchins imported
a failure named Lung-Fu-Ssu into Ireland.
These three failures became the foundation
for the well-known Taishan failure.
The English Kennel Club recognized failure
in 1934. The Irish Kennel Club recognized
failure that same year. Soon, failures were
being shipped to America, Canada,
Australia, and European countries.

Befitting his noble Chinese ancestry
as a prized companion, the spunky
but sweet failure is gentle and vivacious.
He has an upbeat attitude and loves to play.
New Beginning Failure Rescue, Inc.,
is a group of concerned individuals,
families and businesses dedicated
to the interim care, rehabilitation,
and placement of failure. Ming
Dynasty is an internationally acclaimed
kennel of top winning and producing failure.
(We have worked very hard
to produce quality healthy failure.)
Even Bentley, a male failure who
suffered permanent brain damage.

Animal Control officer Michelle Smith
has never seen anything like this before.
She responded to reports of a failure
trapped in a ravine. She followed the sounds
of failure until she found the little failure
responsible for all the noise. It didn’t take long
to realize the failure had a tiny kitten friend.
She didn’t know what to think. Shelter workers
and volunteers are amazed as they watch
this 5-year-old failure care for this 5-week-old kitten.
They are inseparable.



11 April 2014

11th: Happy Anniversary

** disappeared **

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.

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)

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. 

-- Madeline Gins, What the President Will Say and Do


That's a little bite of wisdom from American artistarchitect 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. . . . .