Thursday, December 31, 2009

Research Regarding Poetry and Driving




Recently received: A great New Year’s gift lovingly sent and signed by my old friend and author, John Levy. Half a dozen new prose poems in a three-color foldout from Bob Arnold’s excellent
Longhouse. Reminiscent of Michaux at times but without the French writer’s pervading sense of terror, these pieces are Levy at his unpredictable, whimsical best. Highly recommended. Available in both signed ($15) and unsigned editions ($7.95).


Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Deconstruction

Near brimming candlelit cemetery
Under a waning winter moon—

Ring of barrels emptied of lime
Next to an ashen shovel, light.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Chair Contemplating Colossus of Cyprus


In the Museum garden

Empty chairs:
the statues have returned

to the other museum.


--George Seferis, from “Sixteen Haiku”


Four days on a guided tour of Cyprus during the Christmas holiday (courtesy of the Greek Agricultural Pension Fund) were not enough to fully appreciate this beautiful and still tragically divided island, nor am I well-enough informed to know what really happened there so many years ago; still, the sight of a huge crescent and the flag of the illegal Turkish pseudo-state of "Northern Cyprus" provocatively carved on the mountainside overlooking Nicosia and the barricades dividing the city make me wonder if there will ever be a viable solution to the Cyprus problem. For those interested, you can read what the island has gone through
here. Sadly, another tragic story that time is slowly but inexorably erasing.

As for the photo of the gigantic (10m!)
statue of Archibishop Makarios situated about 500 meters from his grave, it’s a shame that such a beautiful spot high up in the rugged Troodos mountain range should be defaced by such a monument to bad taste. How the plastic chair found its way up here is anybody’s guess but it makes a fitting complement to the kitsch atmosphere pervading the scene.

NB:
George Seferis wrote a great number of poems while on his first visit to Cyprus in 1953; published in 1955, they were included in his Collected Poems 1924-1955 as Logbook III.

NBB: Seferis' haiku should look like this:

In the Museum garden

Empty chairs:
the statues have returned
to the other museum.


Monday, December 28, 2009

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Friday, December 25, 2009

Xmas in Limassol, Cyprus














In lieu of an appropriate card from Cyprus, here's a picture taken a few years ago during an exceptionally severe winter in Meligalas--where we shall return to on the 28th!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Standing One's Ground

In the end meaning may well mean many things to many,
But may it never mean not budging an inch when

Everything crawling becomes suddenly deathly still.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Clotho at Work


In this instance, my sister-in-law’s long-departed grandmother. Photo taken in the early 70s outside the back entrance to our old house. Judging from the three or four layers of clothes she’s wearing and the fact that she’s huddled in the southwest corner taking in all the sunshine she can get, it must have been a sunny winter's day. Apart from that, this picture also reminds me of how large her hands were and how effortlessly they worked at unraveling the ball of yarn and twisting it onto the spindle until she came upon a knot and had to stop to untangle it. Utterly engrossed in what she was doing, she never realized I was three feet in front of her, never once looked up, never heard the shutter click, never even saw the picture afterwards before her fate called her away.



Thursday, December 17, 2009

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Samizdat Revisted

Where one poet confesses 
To writing reams 
 
Of clandestine literature, speechless 
Others have nightmares 
 
They hand out pieces of his tongue 
And dream, dream, dream. 
 
 

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Hassle number 8



Recently received from the author: Hassle number 8, featuring David Miller, Hassle Press: 27 Treverbyn Rd, St. Ives, Cornwall TR26 1EZ UK, hasslepress@yahoo.com

Poet, editor, art/lit critic, and accomplished clarinetist, see
The Mind Shop, this is Series 5, #5 of Miller’s Spiritual Letters. A short biography, plus information about David’s many publications and some succinct appraisals of his highly demanding but always satisfying work can be found here. My thanks to David for sending me this “Spiritual Letter” under the guise of a plain black-and-white pamphlet. Much appreciated!

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Tangerine

“The commune of Poetry becomes so real that [the poet]
sounds each particle
in relation to parts of a great story
he knows will never be completed.”

--Robert Duncan, Bending the Bow

The Sung, tangible as
The word sounds.

In this instance, poet,
A small round

Reddish-orange object plucked
From a mandarin’s bough.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Immaterial

Nothing substantial, a revenant
Forever taking us back to where

We thought we were relevant.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Southern Exposure

In a stretch of winter sunshine,

Against a harsh weather-
Worn veranda wall,

Soft blue slippers up-
Right in the afternoon,

Next to a beckoning
Red-pillowed chair.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Monday, December 7, 2009

Starship Earth

Beam us up, Scotty—

Our captain was dead right when he told us
There’d be enough light

Years here for only
One night.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Narcissus

Perhaps

One imagines himself,
As in that line
Of Oppen’s,

Addressing his peers,
Or one does not. If he does,
He may well wonder how;

If not, he may fancy himself
Lost in reflection,

Wondering why.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Bird in the Hand

im. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

One crow cawing in the luminous
Distance remains

Never so ominous
An omen

As one groping in desperation
For the next one waiting

To hand him over
To despair.

(Thanks to Annie Wyndham, whose blog post here inspired the above.)

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Token of Appreciation

Love, here’s a penny for your thoughts—
The word I gave you had a hole in it,

Not worth a plugged nickel—now tell me
When are you going to give it back?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Subterfuge

Dummy, you still don’t get it—
To reach the truth, death must

Pretend to lie about it through your teeth.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Enemies of Promise

“Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising.”
--Cyril Connolly


Tottering from within—

Enterprise

That what will not be
Breached, though treacherous

Enemies have sworn
They will try to

Bring it to rubble whenever
Promise gathers the anointed

Rabble before the gates.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

ServesUright.com is never wrong














Dear Mr. Zambaras:


ServesUright.com regrets to inform you that your application to register the name Saffilis Zaengmac as your lawful nom de plume cannot be accepted due to the fact that said aforementioned name was duly registered by one Goask Elgart on June 20, 1972.


Illegibly yours,


(signed)

Saffilis Zaengmac, Jr.


PS. Serves you right for not writing your name in block letters instead of signing off with just your signature, BLOCKHEAD.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Lie of the Land

1.

Our luck,

stopped among

the carobs and pines.

Needles. The beckoning stone
hut sunk
in whitewash, inside
the heart lines creasing

familiar land.


2.


Coming out

now, the close lie

of the gulf

for a thousand miles
between us,


the hard truth hurting,
absolute light.


(First published in a somewhat different version in Sentences, 1976)

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Soulmonger's Thanksgiving

Ungrateful chattel,
Munching on every minute

Of every day, lest you forget
The hand that feeds you,
Give thanks

For all that is given,
All shall be sold,
All carted away.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Scrabble of Sweet

Lethe-bound, I had a dream
In which all I remembered

Remained a three-word puzzle:
Short, mysterious, sweet.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Harmonium

Let it be decreed and duly inscribed:

The word of a poet’s passing
Shall be accompanied
By a pealing pandemic
Multitude of reads!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Village Coffeehouse, Summer 1969














Sunday morning after church, 40 years ago: My mother's brother's coffeehouse in my home village of Remmatia--one refrigerator, one sink, one tiny butane cooker for the preparation of Greek coffee, three small round metal tables, a few wooden chairs, a hard-packed dirt floor, and the village's only telephone.

From left to right: My first cousin on my father's side of the family, my father, the village priest, my uncle, my cousin John on my mother's side--the only person still alive--all captured in a room inundated with incredible, bright late morning light.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Machiavellian

Comforting

To know poets are
As good as their word—

It’s their politics
That’s disturbing.

Friday, November 20, 2009

À Rebours

Concealed  

In the golden autumn 
Leaves of the Judas tree, 
 
There is a solitary  
Goldfinch  
 
Whose every note threatens   
Betrayal.
 
 
 

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Morning

The village was a hard place--a few white squares against
the mountain. No wells, no streams, a taste of cisterns on
the widow's lips who had brought him food--white cheese,
hard gray bread, black olives. She watched him eat and
told him to stay for the cool hours of evening and the
morning that would come alive like the light moving along
her lips now.

(From Sentences, 1976)

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Metaphor

Wallace,

When we got to the moor,
We saw the one thing still

Moving on that mossy-like surface
Was a waterlogged semaphore.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Today as April 21, 1970

Who will calculate for us the cost of our decision to forget?
--
George Seferis

For the past
three years, she's been at it,
nagging as I descend
the steps into the garden, bent
over, bringing the sky with me:
Elias, where's the sun? You forgot
the sun again. You know how
we depend on you.

Hag. How she stumbles
in her garden, blistering her knees
against the rocks, while I sit here,
idle, and think about it:
"You know how we depend on you..."

I should have been an owl in daylight
or a marble face dumb in the night.

It would have been easier then,
hating her.

(From Sentences, 1976)

NB: Today is the 36th anniversary of the fall of the repressive, brutal and despicable Greek junta which seized power on April 21, 1967; true to form, the US was one of the first countries--perhaps the first--to recognize the dictators.



Air of Gravity

Raindrops tripping the light
Fantastic?

On high tree limbs, light-
Headed wind brings them

Down to earth again.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Kismet


desert storm


. . . . . . . . . . . .

mirages err

or ages speak

mirrors terror

. . . . . . . . . . . .

crushed the bones

jaws of asses

do not clatter

. . . . . . . . . . . .

thus of error

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Mentor

Not to be swayed by one thought not worthy—
Keep this thought with you when I’m not.

Immaculate Conception

Not what you would think but

Poems as pure,
Crystalline

As the snow
That’s driven us

To perfection.


Thursday, November 12, 2009

Supposition

What does it mean,
To grope? To an inquisitor,

I suppose it must
Mean to find yourself
Feeling uncertainty when
It happens

You find yourself fumbling
At the end of a rope.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Careless

YOUR MISSION, SHOULD YOU DECIDE TO ACCEPT IT,
REQUIRES YOU TO DESCRIBE CAREFULLY
IN FIFTEEN WORDS OR LESS

THE PITIFUL STATE OF AMERICAN POETRY

Who cares if care is required
To enrich poetry, pity

The poor slob who cares.



Invasion of the Slug People

You know

They’ve finally taken over
The world

When we no longer
Have the time

To shovel the slime
We’ve left behind.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Environmental Awareness

Lone predator

Scouring the environs,
Peregrine falcon out

On uppermost branch
Of blighted tree limb—

Pray keep an eye on him.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Quintessence

Worthy

O gods, the sprawling earth-
Bound spirits spawning

Their issue in aether,
Spilling their fire-

Like essence over
A consummate

Wine dark sea!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Whence the Problem of Poetics

Poetry? I remember

I had a soft spot for it in my heart
That became hard to explain

Once I let it enter my brain.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Good-For-Nothing Record of a No-Account

His ledger rife with minuses,
Two plus two never making four,

He put a rifle up his sinuses—

Nothing made sense anymore.


Recently Linked: My thanks to Elisabeth Hanscombe, who has just signed on as a follower. Elisabeth hails from Victoria, Australia and is a writer and psychologist who can be found writing on her blog ,
Sixth In Line.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Another Oral Writing Lesson

--after Claude Lévi-Strauss(1908-2009)


Whoever said that
Writing could change
The intellectual

Conditions of human existence
Should have thought twice
Before writing it.

(Written after learning of Claude Lévi-Strauss' death on
Ron Silliman's blog.)

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Vacancy

Room with large windows
Opening to the sea

In which to close
One’s self upon waking.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Supplicant

High above the ruins
Of Ancient Messene
And below the lone village restaurant,
There is a haggard dog chained
To a large, earthenware jar.

His view of this once-rich
City is indeed magnificent, truly
Uplifting to the spirit, but
As he knows it by heart,
He prefers to sit on his haunches

And turn his back on it,
Looking up instead for any sign
Of the bones he prays the gods
Might find it in their hearts
To throw down to him.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

My Friend Tree

Lorine,

I thought it was
the wind,

and turned in time
to see

leaf after leaf falling
between

my friend and me.
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