I suspect the sudden jump(!) in non-lemmings has everything to do with William Michaelian’s response to my recent post regarding his A Listening Thing; I thank him for his gesture and welcome Gabriella Mirollo, Brad and Kiki Thome, a Canadian residing at These Temporal Rooms, and an artist who prefers to remain anonymous—I thank all of you, too.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
At a Loss for Words
I think that most of us have been--at one time or another (to repeat an oft repeated cliche)--"at a loss for words"--and I think I've been there more often than most of you, although I have no way of knowing if that's true or not, but perhaps that's not what's important right now. I think what's important for me right now is to tell all of you I've been trying to find the right words to describe this amazing book and I'm still at a loss. What now? Will William Michaelian/Stephen Monroe hold that against me? Of course not and I appreciate that fact but I also want them to know that even if I am at a loss for words, I can still find enough to say they have given me a gift that is priceless, and I'm inexpressibly grateful for that.
It's That Time Again
THE MAD
POMEGRANATE TREE
In these all-white courtyards
where the south wind blows
Whistling through vaulted arcades, tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That leaps in the light, scattering its fruitful laughter
With windy willfulness and whispering, tell me, is it the mad
pomegranate tree
That quivers with foliage newly born at dawn
Raising high its colours in a shiver of triumph?
Whistling through vaulted arcades, tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That leaps in the light, scattering its fruitful laughter
With windy willfulness and whispering, tell me, is it the mad
pomegranate tree
That quivers with foliage newly born at dawn
Raising high its colours in a shiver of triumph?
On plains where the naked
girls awake,
When they harvest clover with their light brown arms
Roaming round the borders of their dreams-tell me, is it the mad
pomegranate tree,
Unsuspecting, that puts the lights in their verdant baskets
That floods their names with the singing of birds-tell me
Is it the mad pomegranate tree that combats the cloudy skies of the
world?
On the day that it adorns itself in jealousy with seven kinds of feathers,
Girding the eternal sun with a thousand blinding prisms
Tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That seizes on the run a horse’s mane of a hundred lashes,
Never sad and never grumbling–tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That cries out the new hope now dawning?
Tell me, is that the pomegranate tree waving in the distance,
Fluttering a handkerchief of leaves of cool flame,
A sea near birth with a thousand ships and more,
With waves that a thousand times and more set out and go
To unscented shores-tell me, is it the pomegranate tree
That creaks the rigging aloft in the lucid air?
High as can be, with the blue bunch of grapes that flares and celebrates
Arrogant, full of danger–tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That shatters with light the demon’s tempest in the middle of the world
That spreads far as can be the saffron ruffle of day
Richly embroider with scattered songs-tell me, is it the mad
pomegranate tree
That hastily unfastens the silk apparel of day?
In petticoats of April first and cicadas of the feast of mid-August
Tell me, that which plays, that which rages, that which can entice
Shaking out of threats their evil black darkness
Spilling in the sun’s embrace intoxicating birds
Tell me, that which opens its wings on the breast of things
On the breast of our deepest dreams, is that the mad pomegranate tree?
When they harvest clover with their light brown arms
Roaming round the borders of their dreams-tell me, is it the mad
pomegranate tree,
Unsuspecting, that puts the lights in their verdant baskets
That floods their names with the singing of birds-tell me
Is it the mad pomegranate tree that combats the cloudy skies of the
world?
On the day that it adorns itself in jealousy with seven kinds of feathers,
Girding the eternal sun with a thousand blinding prisms
Tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That seizes on the run a horse’s mane of a hundred lashes,
Never sad and never grumbling–tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That cries out the new hope now dawning?
Tell me, is that the pomegranate tree waving in the distance,
Fluttering a handkerchief of leaves of cool flame,
A sea near birth with a thousand ships and more,
With waves that a thousand times and more set out and go
To unscented shores-tell me, is it the pomegranate tree
That creaks the rigging aloft in the lucid air?
High as can be, with the blue bunch of grapes that flares and celebrates
Arrogant, full of danger–tell me, is it the mad pomegranate tree
That shatters with light the demon’s tempest in the middle of the world
That spreads far as can be the saffron ruffle of day
Richly embroider with scattered songs-tell me, is it the mad
pomegranate tree
That hastily unfastens the silk apparel of day?
In petticoats of April first and cicadas of the feast of mid-August
Tell me, that which plays, that which rages, that which can entice
Shaking out of threats their evil black darkness
Spilling in the sun’s embrace intoxicating birds
Tell me, that which opens its wings on the breast of things
On the breast of our deepest dreams, is that the mad pomegranate tree?
--Odysseus Elytis, translation by Edmund Keeley
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
A Matter of Antigravity
Hypothetical
absolute
Glittering absence
Of attraction,
leading us
To a sobriety
That will not go
away.
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