The suburban ecstasies beckon,
and I am still
at work, preparing
to drive away from them. NYC
you dirty son-of-a-bitchen crotch
puncher. Everything else says
my children. I hope my car
behaves, the night
does not
slam down too hard
on the daylight ivories, I don't
forget
to forget
silly combat.
I have been studying
economics
the way an old,
dogged, Red
Auerbachesque, cigar-
chomping high school
coach,
in search of his 300th
win, studies his opponents.
All they say
so far is: you trade
this
for that; all I know
so far is:
I haven't got
much this,
I need more
that, bad poetry
costs
just as much
as good
when you weigh it
on the same
slimy scale
that weighs
a pound of ham, quarter
pound of swiss,
and throw in a few
rolls for my girls.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
There is some evidence that Rembrandt was at times irascible and whimsical. According to Houbraken, "One day he was working on a great portrait group in which man and wife and children were to be seen. When he had half completed it, his [Rembrandt's] monkey happened to die. As he had no other canvas available at the moment, he portrayed the dead ape in the aforesaid picture. Naturally the people concerned would not tolerate the disgusting dead ape alongside of them in the picture. But no: he so adored the model offered by the dead ape that he would rather keep the unfinished picture than obliterate the ape in order to please the people portrayed by him."
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Breathing Tubes / Whitman
distillation . . . mouth . . . forever . . . smoke . . . have you reckoned a thousand acres much . . . entretied, braced . . . quaker . . . art and argument . . . wormfence . . . heaped stone . . . adjunct of an earth . . . sparkle and scud . . . killing clothes . . . organloft . . . songs and behaviour . . . true sustenance
Friday, May 8, 2009
My Father in the Night Commanding No
[This is a poem by Louis Simpson]
My father in the night commanding No
Has work to do. Smoke issues from his lips;
He reads in silence.
The frogs are croaking and the streetlamps glow.
And then my mother winds the gramophone;
The Bride of Lammermoor begins to shriek--
Or reads a story
About a prince, a castle, and a dragon.
The moon is glittering about the hill.
I stand before the gateposts of the King--
So runs the story--
Of Thule, at midnight, when the mice are still.
And I have been in Thule! It has come true--
The journey and the danger of the world,
All that there is
To bear and to enjoy, endure and do.
Landscapes, seascapes . . . where have I been led?
The names of the cities--Paris, Venice, Rome--
Held out their arms.
A feathered god, seductive, went ahead.
Here is my house. Under a red rose tree
A child is swinging; another gravely plays.
They are not surprised
That I am here; they were expecting me.
And yet my father sits and reads in silence,
My mother sheds a tear, the moon is still,
And the dark wind
Is murmuring that nothing ever happens.
Beyond his jurisdiction as I move
Do I not prove him wrong? And yet, it's true
They will not change
There, on the stage of terror and of love.
The actors in that playhouse always sit
In fixed positions -- father, mother, child
With painted eyes.
How sad it is to be a little puppet!
Their heads are wooden. And you once pretended
To understand them! Shake them as you will,
They cannot speak.
Do what you will, the comedy is ended.
Father, why did you work? Why did you weep?
Mother? Was the story so important?
"Listen!" the wind
Said to the children, and they fell asleep.
My father in the night commanding No
Has work to do. Smoke issues from his lips;
He reads in silence.
The frogs are croaking and the streetlamps glow.
And then my mother winds the gramophone;
The Bride of Lammermoor begins to shriek--
Or reads a story
About a prince, a castle, and a dragon.
The moon is glittering about the hill.
I stand before the gateposts of the King--
So runs the story--
Of Thule, at midnight, when the mice are still.
And I have been in Thule! It has come true--
The journey and the danger of the world,
All that there is
To bear and to enjoy, endure and do.
Landscapes, seascapes . . . where have I been led?
The names of the cities--Paris, Venice, Rome--
Held out their arms.
A feathered god, seductive, went ahead.
Here is my house. Under a red rose tree
A child is swinging; another gravely plays.
They are not surprised
That I am here; they were expecting me.
And yet my father sits and reads in silence,
My mother sheds a tear, the moon is still,
And the dark wind
Is murmuring that nothing ever happens.
Beyond his jurisdiction as I move
Do I not prove him wrong? And yet, it's true
They will not change
There, on the stage of terror and of love.
The actors in that playhouse always sit
In fixed positions -- father, mother, child
With painted eyes.
How sad it is to be a little puppet!
Their heads are wooden. And you once pretended
To understand them! Shake them as you will,
They cannot speak.
Do what you will, the comedy is ended.
Father, why did you work? Why did you weep?
Mother? Was the story so important?
"Listen!" the wind
Said to the children, and they fell asleep.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Like a good hunter, I should track
how anxiety moves through
the body,
when and why it appears, disappears. Is the body
radically available
or does anxiety
talk its way in the door,
slipping the bouncer
a twenty?
Who would dance with
such a selfish animal
that wants the world
to want to run from
its visage?
And then lives in what's left . . .
the body,
when and why it appears, disappears. Is the body
radically available
or does anxiety
talk its way in the door,
slipping the bouncer
a twenty?
Who would dance with
such a selfish animal
that wants the world
to want to run from
its visage?
And then lives in what's left . . .
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Insult (It & It) Blossoms
of all the ways
to be poor
you had to choose the one
where you work
80 hours a week
and leave your best stuff
in the butterfly nets
of the young--
that disappearing
buddhist
crap
wandering-in-the-woods
lonely-man
breaking-barriers-
into-song
stuff
hooked me
the way Europe did
in my early
twenties--
but now
today
this minute
and forward
you wouldn't catch me
sharing a room
with 16 cots full
of Germans and Swedes
itching and sweating
for the perfect
black & white
photograph--
you know
the one that looks
like a version
of the truth
by any other name--
So where's that leave us?
Jersey, I guess
to be poor
you had to choose the one
where you work
80 hours a week
and leave your best stuff
in the butterfly nets
of the young--
that disappearing
buddhist
crap
wandering-in-the-woods
lonely-man
breaking-barriers-
into-song
stuff
hooked me
the way Europe did
in my early
twenties--
but now
today
this minute
and forward
you wouldn't catch me
sharing a room
with 16 cots full
of Germans and Swedes
itching and sweating
for the perfect
black & white
photograph--
you know
the one that looks
like a version
of the truth
by any other name--
So where's that leave us?
Jersey, I guess
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Prologue to the Book of Meetings
These thoughts, my dear Friend, are many of them crude and hasty, and if I were merely ambitious of acquiring some reputation in Philosophy, I ought to keep them by me, 'till corrected and improved by Time and farther Experience. But since even short Hints, and imperfect Experiments in any new Branch of Science, being communicated, have oftentimes a good Effect, in exciting the attention of the Ingenious to the Subject, and so becoming the Occasion of more exact disquisitions . . . and more compleat Discoveries, you are at Liberty to communicate this Paper to whom you please; it being of more Importance that Knowledge should increase, than that your Friend should be thought an accurate Philosopher.
~Ben Franklin to Joseph Priestley
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