here follows an email book review I just received from my friend David Mahaffey who is moving to Boston in a couple of days (I'm not going anywhere soon)--

Why do good writers rely on gimmicks? Why do readers fall for them? I've just
finished _House of Leaves_, and my assessment is not positive. At first I thought I'd
found a promising novelist who'd read a little too much Calvino and Borges...which is
probably still true. The problem with HoL is that there's nothing holding it
together. There is no viable center, no fulcrum against which the writer can lift the
reader. It's all a stupid game, hidden at first by some beautiful writing, hinting
even at a sound structure. Yet in the end, the structure dissolves, leaving the
characters, the narrative, the plot, and myself blinking at one another in the dark.

At least it wasn't tedious to read, until near the end. The novel's non-traditional
typesetting (designed at various points in the novel to mirror stairsteps, a spiral,
a window, a maze, etc.) is used to surprising effect. A Google search for this novel
reveals some of the most interesting reviews I've ever read--it has a true cult
following, it seems. So does that mean I'm missing a very large point, or that said
critics praise to the heavens that which is a little strange, that which might lift
the curtain and reveal their critical cluelessness?

Regardless, one blurb on the back of the book is great. If I ever have a book
published, I want this review:

"This demonically brilliant book is impossible to ignore, put down, or persuasively
conclude reading. In fact, when you purchase your copy you may reach a certain page
and find me there, reduced in size like Vincent Price in The Fly, still trapped in
the web of its malicious, beautiful pages." -Jonathan Lethem in a review of Mark
Danielewski's House of Leaves

I am mostly packed. Today I am having lunch with X, Z's wife and a delight in her own right. We've worked together at MXMXMX on several projects. Tomorrow is lunch with the boss and a few others, and dinner with the family in Statesville. These farewell dinings make me uncomfortable. I'll be glad when it's all over and I'm sitting, alone in my Boston apartment, staring out the window with my cat in my lap, wondering how on earth I'm going to afford to eat.

David

I mean REALLY, laughing

Now Johanna has me laughing...

turnips are great stir fried with garlic and later including the tops (greens) avoiding overcooking for sure
using roasted sesame oil makes this even more scrumptious

of course, variations are possbile, such as the addition of burdock root cut into matchsticks

burdock root, by the way, has been mentioned by both of my kids as a strong favorite

etc etc etc

I have already baked potatoes and am now baking a coffee cake in an effort to get the oven work done before the day heats up.

Unfortunately, I am having a case of the harumphs this morning since discovering my most vigorous grape cutting was destroyed overnight, so I am going to post a brief list of complaints:

1} referring to the Democrat Party as the Democratic Party (this has been #1 on my piss list for some time)
2} Think Tanks
3} the expression "sea change" except when found in Shakespeare
4} the usage of "absolutely" instead of "yes" or some variation of yes thereof, "yea," "yeah," "yep," "yup," "uh huh" etc. are all okay.

Thanks to all for bearing with me during this little temper tantrum. Now I'll try to be nice again.

I had a dream last night in which I had an opportunity to revise my behavior which occurred a previous dream.

I was aware of the previous dream in the present dream (which obviously is no longer present in this recollection), and as such I was really glad to act more heroically the second time around.

Anyway, I saw the roof of one of those big old three-story type city houses in flames and ran over, busted in, and warned everybody very loud and assertively. In the second version I was quite ashamed of my more timid approach in the first dream in which I tried to politely warn the inhabitants that their house was afire. The occupants in the second dream were (weirdly) business men dressed in suits with ties as if in an office, and they didn't take kindly to being bossed around, but I refused to take any guff, especially from one guy who was more resistant than the rest, and whom I actually shoved toward the door, even as I told him I didn’t care if he died, but that if he didn’t yet want to do so, he’d better get out now. During the entire sequence of events, I constantly compared myself to myself in the previous dream thinking that in the last dream I just didn’t get it right.

When I woke up, however, I had no memory of the previous dream except as through the lens of the most recent dream, and then I thought the entire dream was kind of silly, me running around acting the hero and very thrilled with the chance while somebody’s house went up in flames, but oh well, that’s how it happened.

And I also thought, great, now I have something to post on my blog.

Inmost Boa Monkey Bluff

where I was monkey snake

where I was boa boa

serpent out the monkey in

monkey in the middle thin

dust so boa shall we

scatter be oval be diamond

forthwith imperator parry

worthy strike wonder

full middling mouth in any

event a hirsute monkey leftward leaning

grease clean monkey riddle slim 

monkey gut bound bones and skin

nothing special poppy python

border postcard floral bound

series serpent writhing band

ape thematic snake surrounds

meaning thus fen nipple then

hunger thus and hunger when

cannot what arm monkey span

middle what lump twist again

ballad serpent unit dwell

adrenaline cleft

locale capture camouflage

somewhere guessing hispid swell

ripple where I boa when

a suppositional twerp

monkey muscle monkey shin

snake mouth open ape fall in

acid shroud lone boa lucid

middling monkey mean and stupid

thin myself a man apt meaning

monkey man my senses screaming

any way my monkey heart

avow finagle slender flop

flop then froward cunning cast

ponder primate eye twitch lash

middling monkey in the snake

thus imply an ape in rumen

jungle fleet or nibbled eaten

monkey reckless purge and squeeze him

monkey forthwith snake rouse snout

monkey one small clambers out

tour not long after dawn

trip trip tripping friends abound

boa gadget brazen flash

tweed deft pulsate primate mash

monkey windmill flash and kipper

snake roast scrabble monkey liquor

nigh primate mine iris bloom gullet

my lung yours and we lunge

out the darken only medulla

to loosen one inmate cerebrum anew

make that plural

time for the siren

afternoon deluge from above

without specific proportion--

fleet port ion sup s of some

unknown necessity     some

                 where out bound in

climb on in gleg cappy, flop

              on dim for a snide

gotten scold even and this witnessed

             spooling

all aboard for a movie might

             ly

commandeer portly departure

one location sporting an inordinate

                                         limp

rapport

from which one                 leaps

                         into a permanent

albeit               piecemeal                         anonymity

perfect pattoey defiance

     natty support

                                from Port Necessity

and comportment

          in any case with

                                one wicked shiner

special thanks to Jean for helpng me grapple with HTML code

tooth #15 throwing a fit
hypersensitive to heat
a fresh cup of coffee steaming

mulling a cool suggestion...

KSM's statement to the effect that Carl Annarummo’s "arm | sasser" is funny is an understatement. He's hilarious! Thanks for the tip.

Dream recollections always seem to me inadequate. Even when my dreams are remembered vividly, when those dreams are recalled with words, the dream always looses its actuality. So too, I always feel that most of the dream is forgotten, and this holds true for dreams I'm able to relate in some detail. I've always a hunch that most of what passes through my head escapes to live elsewhere with some parallel velocity, much like a photon I suppose.

Another interesting post by Johanna...

Maybe this photon peculiarity business has something to do with a strange light phenomenon I witnessed during a total solar eclipse way back when (early 80s?) one rainy AM (winter or spring?) in Olympia Washington. It was one of those amazing moments as many people went to the mountains to witness this event at a higher altitude in an unsuccessful attempt to get above the cloud layer.

Those of us who stayed behind, however, were amply rewarded when the rain stopped about ten minutes prior to the eclipse and the clouds simply broke up leaving us a full view of the sunrise and simultaneous eclipse over Mt Ranier. It lasted (I guess) about 20 minutes and remained in full view the entire time.

Anyway, as the moon began to take a bite out of the sun, lines of shadow began racing over the ground as if a fan were in front of the sun, and this happened until the sun was blotted out, and then again it occurred as the moon exited the other side of the sun, but the line shadows flashed in the opposite direction.

Might I thereby meet myself in passing? It certainly gives us yet another reason to treat each other with respect and compassion.

Jean, I have no idea why "port" is the only word I remember.

That dream was peculiar in that I visualized a text in which the structure was constant while the words weren't. I did read it several times but woke up with nothing but a textual image and that single word followed by several letters unseparated by spaces.

More usually I "talk" to myself in my head while emerging from sleep, or else while balancing somewhere on the verge of being fully awake, and then I might write down what I heard if I feel ambitious.

I guess it has to do again with the visual and the aural, though in dreams the senses seem to experience more of a cross-over, a synesthetic effect.

What's the code (while I'm on the topic of this dream text and you're helping Li Bloom with the same thing) for spacing between stanzas? I haven't figured this out yet, as is evident with my posting of the dream poem where the tercets were lost upon "Post & Publish."

Many thanks...sssssssstttttttttttttttteeeeeeeeppppppppphhhhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnn

forget I ever "said" it - they've returned
much to my relief

well - I guess it isn't all that absolute
those fascinating Angie Dickinson images all seem to be MIA

having a bunch of problems w/ blog images loading today - they don't

nursing mothers unite in Asheville NC

Mars Hill NC

(I saw this)
big cops bully mexicans

car at the curb
behind it the blinding

blue flash
I could hardly bear to look

the car full
that is

passenger right front
passenger right rear
passenger left rear

driver behind car receiving the brunt
big cop bellies up bends hands on hips and

bellows
meaning I might suppose

to transcend the language barrier
by sheer intimidation

a brutal
presence

a fine example of
"in your face"

diplomacy

with little success in terms of what we might otherwise consider
higher communication

a certain skill with which he seems
unconcerned

while another cop scurries around
flashlight held high in his left hand right

hovering over his gun butt

beam probing into the car
left rear door released

begins to open
at which he hollers

keep that door closed and it reverses

clunk
by one who seems able to translate

furthering possibilities of
misunderstanding

then turning to point and bellow

you

meaning me
standing flat across the road

keep moving

those are supposed to be stanzas

rather, letter combo

Jean must have planted the suggestion about blogging dreams, and (much to my surprise) I think I had one last night, though don't recall much.

It had to do in any case with a poem I read on somebody's blog I thought fantastic.

Each time I read it the words changed a little, but if letters were added here and there it shifted from English to French.

It was written in long line tercets of about 4 stanzas followed by a perfect box shaped envoi of unspaced letters.

It looked something like the following:

xxx xxxxx



xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx xxx xxxx

xxxxxxx xx xxxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxxx x xx xxx xxxxx

xxx xx xxxxxxxxx x xxx xxxxxxx xx xxx



x xxx xx xxxxxxxx xxx x xxxx xx xxxxxx

xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx xxx xxxx

xxxx xxx xxxxxxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx xxx xxxx



xxxxx xx xxxxx xxx xxx xx xxxxx x xxx xx

x xxx xx xxxxx xxxx xxx x xxxxxxx x xxx

xxx x xxxxxxxx xxxxx xxx xx xxxx xx xxx xxxxxx



xx xx xxxxx x xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx x xxxxxxxx

xxxx x xxxxx xxx xx xxxxxxxx xxx xx

xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxx xx x xxxx xxx xx x xxx



                         xxxxxxxxx

                         xxxxxxxxx

                         xxxxxxxxx

                         xxxxxxxxx

                         portxxxxx

That's not exactly how it appeared, but close (I hope).
These posts never behave according to my wishes.

That "port" bit is the only actual word combo I remember.

now I hear rakes on the pavement
siren
some bird tweeping

umpteenth confrontation

tree mower upheaval sounding awful & approaching uphill
little guys running around with toy chainsaws

KZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZKZ

what'll they think of my weed barrier out leaning into the road
unimpressed

GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

hey

RGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRG

non-subtle thwackers
what's that noise?

give me some more big consonants

QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ

not magnifying glasses

KRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKRKR

the jungle kept at bay
vegetable hounds

lunch break

KEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYKEYK

some jobs just suck

sometimes the old blog just fails to comply

1st confrontation

a vegetable wall
beach - mud and

the unknown

disease

and potential
anomosity

death far from home

risks of (course)
complete vanishing

act

De Soto sunk
in the river

thinking of my name, its

attachment to me, and my (hand)



writing:

              Fs like Ts

              Ts like Fs

              As like Zs

                   like 2s

              or even 5s



and the willingness of others to

	guess my intentions



                    "KIRBZCH"



an elimination of the vowel



	krb-zhk



           kur - batch

           kurk - bak



                             krbzch



                    stphn



             "stv"



sieve sleeve stove staven



              step in



                    "mach"

I need some sleep.

out in the yard and under a sun looking at my grape plants when a major sky key
wracks with some wicked sounding electrons

it weren't minor no more and

now darken down water

how's I wonder the
laundry gone dry at this rat

streams above
gusty

below

circumstance elsewhere become known though distant 	 what

               examples one might provide, a dog stands in a municipal setting

               (neighborhood) and barks, disorient and color degrade

               in the glare of the sun



                                             chronic barking leading to one

                                             with a desire to feed

                                             such a dog

                                             rock salt



and otherwise known as				     old yeller



                           who might in another instance apply

                           for a job unconditional	by desire

                           to itch   	as an optional I

                           might pursue	       (consider

                           first	when	  I	 tickled

                           intent	on initiating

                           a capital violation	      notice

                           the ghost	of commander       hiss mister



                                          stone head

                                          one man Janet

                                          hat granite



                           shovel an appropriate whole someone

                           or other wants to peer down into



a complete and irrevocable import disorder 



	a memorial relief			mean meaning meaner

well meanest, to flick take that flap movie own making drape



                                      shrieking in the skin of some uncertain

                                              god	  mad gash

            glass

                        discharge erstwhile quixotic

                                        war unequal armed



extent such production in boast glyphic befit

sinews	      genial, this	      armpits which drip        	saber fleet

                                                         sneaker

            in which I rides



                                             led by a fire 

                                             flight highway and out

                                                    alike                 light



                                             animal

                                                     traffic

                                             by desire driven        count

                                             to ten         and do it again

Here's one of my favorite websites.
See if you can find the lizard.

Get back in the car and step on it?
But I happen to be quite fond of my bicycle.

the human guilt machine
a reality TV show I heard
about, not having a television
nor having had one for
years in double digits

the almightly peculiar

blog appears different
which makes me wonder
how has it appeared to others all along?
I haven't intentionally "changed" anything

maybe I need a new template

computering seems to function again
somewhat more properly, at least
more closely to my expectations

the guilt tool bad dog imposing
control, dominance, the domestication
of “others” might be found in I didn’t do it
job training, subtle human interactions
how to further complicate
wherein one who might be an
owner encourages another as a
guilt distributor
through chuckles and head
shakes, seemingly
amazed at the behavior of those
employees, people will be people, dogs
bad etc., and then they were cow
otherwise known as ed

inside an awful door

perhaps some commas might alleviate
confusion

let's play the game of who
are you

an unbody zigzag

chopstick cross taper
personal privacy

and certain associations
with guilt

an elaboration perhaps
on how guilt

might best be applied
an object containing

a variety of colors
orange

for instance
and probably green

for some reason
bamboozled

an impossible
attraction

the city you say
and I do

nothing witness
instead one

fluid instill each
waking instant

ground vapor and
underbrush

thicke

Definitions: inverted totaltarianism

having a bunch of trouble with internet access
IE quite and Netscape works in bursts
crashes
anytime and whe

gleg a lube a the gleet

notes scribbled on rising almost 17 hours ago

from the office (home computer acting screwy)

I got skills, can
genuflect, not here
and haven’t for years,
done that the sign, this
middle morn, people talk,
some unseen someone
ransacks, radio, tape
machine defunct, get
your own google chip
implant, no thanks, no
truant, ground booty
forensic, stipend disposable,
taking prints, (we) leave
them, she won’t allow
it, conflating but maybe
another would serve my
purpose, american, what
it means, really, context
for the dead, been there
before, spilled the wine, I
don’t have none, get on
up then and walk, or
is it run, this is an
order, for now though
it’s the coffee, 3:56
AM on a Sunday, out
of the microwave and
all over the knuckles,
sloshing it, crickets out
side, window wide
open, this is the kitchen
table, cat after, something, look
up and down the street, an
actual hill, no thief
in sight, one day too
late, ransacker sneak,
even the dog slept through it
all, not yet but some
how, an empire implodes,
las palabras de nada aqui, pero
sheer self-assurance, nothing here
but us and the animals

day said to break
that the night be known
as brittle brain generate
video clips

and one salt river that had store
of oisters

meat trees hung for to pluck

seen through the ice of an alien

so & shirvered in NM
97°F

so too malarial
keep the heat in the house

release the excess

red cheeks of my son
ears gone crimson and coughs

needled w/ heatlamp at feet

iuergdnv iwdnc
iojc oiuqwn,co
I cjjasfn hcom
dfhugb 76 comp
hohu huh compu
dard plbcomput
ublz trcompute
76w zhcomputer
a ficocomputer
3rz computer w
knocomputer wh
x computer who
ucomputer whoa
computer whoas

I wish gladiolus wouldn't fall over. Mine have tumbled prone, a pitiful sight for something otherwise so lovely. I go out and prop them up, talk to them, but down they come when I'm not looking. Is this the result of human tampering, big flowers at the expense of sturdy stems? I like gladiolus a lot, but they seem do do better once cut and placed in a vase, a peculiar destiny, it seems.

hectic day, coming and going

My car has taken on the characteristics of a bird. Whenever I let up on the accelerator, it chirps.

Conservative N. Carolinian Republicans feel picked on and in turn attack UNC incoming freshman summer reading material, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, an examination of what it's like to have a lousy job.

I guess this is a brief “test of poetry,” serendipitous too in that these translations came together in my mind through reading Johanna’s blog, addressing as she did her discovery of Jerome Rothenberg’s anthologizing, and thereby stimulating my continuing thoughts about the contrasts between these two translations:

Funeral Song

You're like a drifting log with iron nails in it
I built my house from that log
I hope you float in like that log did
on a good sandy beach
The sun goes into the clouds
like you go into our great mother
That's why the world is so dark

John Koller’s workings, after John Swanton


The Mourning Song of Small-Lake-Underneath (by Hayi-a k!^u)

I always compare you to a drifting log with iron nails in it.
Let my brother float in, in that way.
Let him float ashore on a good sandy beach.
I always compare you, my mother, to the sun passing behind the clouds.
That is what makes the world dark.

(Tlingit Indian)

At first I thought these must have come from differing original versions, not having read them side by side or even on one day following another, but now I doubt that this is the case. As Rothenberg points out, James Koller reworked Swanton’s original translations. Obviously, and especially since Tlingit and English are in no way related as languages, wide discrepancies in translation are not only possible, but probable, though in this case we are looking at one which reworks another as if in the childhood game of telephone.

In any event, we have here an original ritual and personal song “used when a feast is about to be given for a dead man” turned into a poem (or poems) found in a book, and this transformation becomes problematic if overlooked. To simply refer to this as a poem potentially disrespects the original author, Hayi-a k!^u, as well as the Tlingit people more generally, but not only that, it’s also culturally misleading, as if an equivalence exists between the Tlingit oral tradition and, both our own commercially driven publishing industry, as well as the career driven mania exhibited by so many these days who refer to themselves as poets. With the understanding that this equivalence does not exist, however, the above translations can certainly be examined as poems and accordingly discussed via whatever conventions might best be utilized in order to gauge the relative success or failure of these translations as poems.

Rothenberg, of course, addresses the cultural gap which occurs when these pieces are taken out of their original context, translated and plunked down into a book, and as such it is worth considering for a moment. Thus, the opening “poem” and attendant notes in Shaking the Pumpkin serve as a kind of disclaimer:

what the informant said to Franz Boas in 1920
Kersan

long ago her mother
had to sing this song and so
she had to grind along with it
the corn people have a song too
it is very good
I refuse to tell it

-English working by Armand Schwerner


Page 3 WHAT THE INFORMANT SAID TO FRANZ BOAS IN 1920

Source: F. Boas, , Publications of the American Ethnological Society, Volume 8, 1928.

A FURTHER CAUTION. To the reader who imagines that a book like this can really hold the spirit-of-a-people, etc. the editor testifies that in instance after instance the best remains untold or its powers reserved for those who “have ears to hear,” etc. But the rest of us have to begin somewhere.

That said, the translations are (to some extent) freed up to be considered as poems. Not having more of Swanton’s translations leaves me unable, however, to agree or disagree with Rothenberg in regard to how his work stands up to Koller’s, and though I am inclined to trust Rothenberg’s eye/ear for pinpointing poetic success, I prefer in this instance Swanton’s version of the two poems listed above.

Koller’s version is clumsy in comparison, and this is obvious in the first two lines. Where Swanton opens - “I always compare you to” – Koller replaces it with - “You’re like a.” On first glance, Koller’s version seems an improvement in it’s concision and directness, but in reality, he looses the essential and living mystery which renders Swanton’s version so compelling. While Koller’s use of second person specifically addresses the reader (who probably doesn’t feel like a log full of nails), Swanton allows the more personal first person speaker to establish an intimacy with a “you” who seems somehow removed, other than the reader, and this sense of removal resonates immediately with the title. Simultaneously, Swanton’s opening line is funny and surprising. Is this a good comparison for a deceased loved one? The answer to this question isn’t at first obvious, and one is compelled to continue seeking a resolution to this initial quandary. Koller destroys this ambiance completely with his second line, a detail Swanton wisely chooses to omit.

So too, Koller deploys three(!) similes, most often a weak construction here made weaker by sheer frequency. In Swanton’s two near-similitudes, on the other hand, what might be taken for similes function as transformative, moving as they do toward something incredibly mysterious and larger; and thereby they work more directly and dramatically as metaphors which accumulate into an overall conceit. Koller, simply put, works too hard, and it’s evident, while Swanton instead swiftly amasses something more nearly mythic, and all this happens without sacrificing the diurnal and individual tang of happenstance.

And then Koller’s line breaks end stop, end stop, end stop, end stop for seven lines with not one caesura, always terminating with either an invisible comma or period. Well, the same goes for Swanton (with the exception that he does employ caesuras, though lacking as they both do enjambment), though Swanton’s five lines are stronger, containing no caesura in the initial long line, a smooth statement which moves quickly to the end despite its length, only to be followed by two shorter lines made to seem longer by the intrinsic pauses, one in the second line marked by the comma, “in, in”, and then another more subtle pause in the third, unmarked by punctuation, but there all the same between the initial command and the following prepositional phrase, “Let him float ashore // on a good sandy beach.” The subtlety of this third line, the softness of the aspirates, “sh,” “s,” and finally, “ch,” following as they do the string of hard consonants, “t” and “t,” both of which are preceded by “l,” an onomatopoeic collection which thus further serves, along with the phrasal rhythms, to evoke in the reader the feeling of being there on the sand. There arrives then at this point the climactic line, the longest yet and containing two distinct caesuras, “I always compare you, my mother, to the sun passing behind the clouds,” a line which furthermore circles back to repeat the opening phrase (another oceanic characteristic), only to gather and pulse, briefly, in a universal gesture of homage to the mother, and therein shift toward an image stunning in its very commonality while simultaneously establishing a relationship with the title, “The Mourning Song of Small-Lake-Underneath,” a move in which the private anguish of great loss is rendered public and thereby a shared experience.

And yet, the poem continues for another line, concluding finally like a hammer blow, quick with no caesura, a basic statement which again surpasses Koller’s, benefiting not only by contrasting rhythmically with all which precedes it, but so too by its formality, considering the circumstances, Koller choosing instead to accentuate the conversational through his usage of the contraction, “That’s.”

Anyway, with all this I intend no disrespect toward James Koller, this single example taken out of context, but merely as a “test of poetry,” as I pointed out above, to discover how one poem might be considered more successful than another. And again, it’s only my opinion, but I prefer Swanton’s efforts in this instance, my thoughts in this respect sealed by a comparison of how each writer treat’s the references to the mother. When Koller goes for the goddess, I think he misses by avoiding that which is specifically real to mammalian being, coming as we all do from a mother, and so too this is why his appeal to the “you” fails, in addition to the fact that by this he seems to intend me, and I am not dead yet.

Swanton’s version, on the other hand, gives me as an outsider a glimpse into a private address, and for this reason it seems to be MORE direct, and thereby more authentic, being as I always will be an outsider to that which is ultimately Tlingit, while at the same time, I “get it,” that I might too grieve for a loved one, more specifically my mother, as we are all human and more alike than different in the end.

Just listened to Nick's audioblog version of "The Wandering Poem" found at Jim Berhle's latest blog, and this is a recommendation for others to do so.

I'm all for the Ear Club Jean, leaning that way I suppose to the extent that I take notes on others' speech, or enjoy the way words resonate next to each other or even some distance apart as well.

shaping up into another splendid afternoon for the trail up around Sleepy Gap

that sign is just the right height for stretching the leg, and I usually park in front of it (trails off in several directions with varying degrees of steepness (stepth))

though the description says "one way," as with poem construction, this isn't true, and there are an array of loop possibilites, one need only explore

I can't contain my excitement at the idea of Eileen as a presidential candidate.

At last, life is looking rosy; all potential wonders stretch out beyond.

Okay, okay, I'm going up on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Sorry folks, but it's a 10 minute drive from my house.

(I don't mean to rub it in)

heheh...

okay, so it is kind of lazy, but I want to go stomp around a little in the mountains this afternoon with my dog...

hatstuck origins (google sonnet)

and - In order to show you the most
indigenous poetry, chants, the true origins
vestiges of indigenous poetry,
at Hatstuck Snarl. my ignorance- that

at Hatstuck Snarl. my ignorance- that
you like, you can . Dissatisfied
with your search results? - - - -
Hatstuck Snarl. my ignorance- that

of documents, literature, and popular
that there were poets gathering
origins of our - relationship between

of documents, literature, and popular
ignorance- that there were poets gathering
of our - relationship between

I, for one, ache to see these "tweed-basted critics hopping from one foot to another"!

and as for the official Presidential Nomination,
I 2nd it.

an approximate refusal, and later
I'll steer clear, while he
rants and waves it around

barrel oblivion veer incident
[squint] collection
cumulate

pawcussacks - gunnes
marrapough - enimies
maskapow - worst of

enimies all summer
long the drought carpet
guy shoots about everybody

what a holiday luggage
strapped to the roof and
when I stop

for money only a cat
comes out of the cash
machine

hatstuck google sonnet

LotMark Woods Hatstuck and Snarl - :: fait
reading & writing . . . he's sure
lott conchology deep language elsewhere
elsewhere equanimity eeksy peeksy fait

elsewhere equanimity eeksy peeksy fait
chris lott conchology deep language elsewhere
conchology deep language elsewhere
peeksy fait accompli fortheHealthofit

& writing . . . he's sure
. . . he's sure got a lot of
Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri,

conchology deep language elsewhere
18, 19, 20. 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.
show you the most relevant results

Shades of two Shelleys! Mont Blanc rears over le Tour de France!

Don't dis Wal-Mart if you're in North Carolina,
"Wal-Mart does so many good things for communities"

or angst over freshman summer reading assignment for UNC (again)
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

last year Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations, by Michael Sells was taken to court

again from Rothenberg's Shaking the Pumpkin, an entire (arranged and reworked by James Koller after John Swanton) sequence of sorts from the Tlingit--

here's found the same "Mourning Song" by Hayi-a k!^u though different, more detailed and retitled:

Funeral Song

You're like a drifting log with iron nails in it
I built my house from that log
I hope you float in like that log did
on a good sandy beach
The sun goes into the clouds
like you go into our great mother
That's why the world is so dark

This book seems to have been owned by 2 others prior to falling into my hands for $2. It's a Doubleday book published in 1972. The notes for this particular piece differ only in the omission of details. On the other hand, Rothenberg offers an interesting overview:

Koller's workings probably deliver much more than Swanton--describing the poems as "highly metaphorical" & hard to understand--thought possible to get across. But good poets have the advantage of not believing in metaphor, therefore not being conned by its presumed presence. What emerges, anyway, is a cumulative picture of Tlingit life & attitudes (given above without a break for singers' names, etc.) that the present editor finds almost unbearable in its clarity and directness.

If it's not otherwise apparent to the reader, note should also be made that many of the animal references (Wolf, Eagle, Crow, etc.) are to clans in the original, though Koller has chosen to emphasize their natural and totemic significances. "Crow" in Tlingit is more like "raven."

a couple of examples of this as in:

I wonder what eagle did to him
all those crows around him
it only took one crow to make the world

********************************

You surprise me, crow
whenever you see wolf people
you get way up on some branch

"I wonder what eagle" originally composed by Gaxe (Crying Wolf)
"You surprise me" originally composed by Nigot
according to the notes

I just realized how well with these Jordan's "Million Poems" juxtapose, for instance

#682

Staying close to the chair
While they're shooting around me
Finds something worth government
In the loose bits of rubber,
What a monitor creates by its remote
Preference. The defaults are set,
Glued in place even.

posted by Jordan at 12:56 PM

As for the rest of the Tlingit songs, they usually are connected to some event or conflict, as Johanna remarked.

But I need to go...

Some newsflash highlights from today's tour, lesson: don't get aggressive during toilet breaks--

15 H 51 - We Await 7th Place At The Summit
The race radio cracked under pressure and the name of the seventh rider over the summit of the Col du Galibier sounded like Xokihxcklc. (ie. gibberish). We will post the full results soon.

12 H 42 - Bettini Gives Pineau A Blast...
After his attack during Virenque's attempt at a toilet stop, Bettini (the Quickstep team-mate of Virenque) has told rider who attacked what he thinks of his attacking antics.

12 H 41 - Portal 30" Ahead of Peloton
The latest time check for the stage leader, Nicolas Portal, is 30".

12 H 40 - Virenque Answers Call Of Nature...
As Virenque pulls to the side of the road to answer the call of nature, there has been an attack from a Brioche la Boulangere rider. The surge stopped Virenque from his toilet stop and the yellow jersey is now being led to the front of the peloton by Bettini... The Brioche rider can expect to cop the wrath of the current overall leader after breaking a gentleman's agreement which exists in the peloton.

In case anybody is interested, David Ehrenfeld's article and more might be found in the Loka Institute link in the above right corner of hatstuck: "There is, however, a better route to security, one that relies on reinvigorating and protecting the stable and sustainable elements of our national life..."

Tenet dances much like Poindexter (some might recall)?

...sometimes known as "taking the heat."

hooray!

found it (I think?)

Hayi-a k!^u

Spam Poem (fresh off the wires)

SearchBar TM
Blue [ADV] Azul [ADV] Bleu [ADV] Blau [ADV] Blu

face cracks laughing...

Aggression and the wish to be admired.

I'm interested in the idea that poems can get up and roam (books like beds) skewing in the process human trajectories which otherwise appear inevitable.

Perhaps books "contain" our terrors into something we can shelve?

I'm bugged now that I wrote that.

Something about poetry in books annoys me, and yet, how else would I have access to all these poems by divers individuals, anonymous and otherwise, ranging deep into the human past?

And I have piles of these books which I like very much.

Johanna writes:

Interesting how many of the Tlingit songs gathered (I keep wanting to type "fathered") by Swanton in Rothenberg's work were composed as precursors of some conflict or upcoming engagement. I keep thinking of the word "invocation", as if sound and song revivified some preternatural host. Scary.

Wondering about the power of poems in "real" time and where the need or desire to make them originates - still today a poem might be "written" which is scary. What happens to the residual force when these "poems" are captured in books?

A song composed for a specific occasion translated and later anthologized is no longer what it once was, become as it is then a "poem" according to current understanding.

Cassie Lewis writes:

Quote of the day

(enjambment mine)

"Do the improbable and the
Universe will wonder; do the impossible and the
Universe will change."

- Nick Piombino 3/24/86
- posted by Cassie @ 7:07 AM

How might poems as well (perhaps) revivfy a "preternatural host"?

I'm reminded of Maria Sabina and have a book about and "by" her somewhere around here which I now want to go dig up.

How might poems be released (uncaptured?) from the page?

Intent is critical. "What is my intent?" is probably a good question to ask myself.

nope, the final "u" should be superscript -

I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I don't know how -

After posting in haste the last bit about and by Rothenberg, I felt discouraged in that I am unable to reproduce the actual look which is found on the page as in the book. Perhaps the pre code,

Hayi-a k!u

laundretics

...now for that laundry line...

I noticed via Nick's link to Rutabaga that Johanna has discovered Jerome Rothenberg. My edition of Technicians of the Sacred is quite a bit older, published in 1969 by Doubleday Anchor. If it were a car, I might refer to it as "preowned." I picked it up for $1.50 at Browsers' Bookstore in Olympia WA. She even asked Rothenberg for permission to post one of the poems in her newer and expanded edition.

One of the cool features of this excellent book is the extensive endnotes section, "The Commentaries," from page 385-520, thus here on p464 an addenda, "Semi-idiotic Poem" by Ian Hamilton Finlay, impossible for me to reproduce here as it resembles a box divided into 5x5 compartments, some of which contain lexical symbols while other remain empty, or a photocopy of a "Poem & Collage (1960)" by Jess Collins. Wasn't he Robert Duncan's partner?

Anyway, Rothenberg's anthological project in addition to his poetry is quite remarkable, and I'm glad to read Johanna's response to his truly incredible contribution.

Here's another poem from Technicians followed by the commentary, pgs 91 & 443, respectively:

The Mourning Song of Small-Lake-Underneath (by Hayi-a k!u)

I always compare you to a drifting log with iron nails in it.
Let my brother float in, in that way.
Let him float ashore on a good sandy beach.
I always compare you, my mother, to the sun passing behind the clouds.
That is what makes the world dark.

(Tlingit Indian)

John R. Swanton, Tlingit Myths & Texts (Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 39 [Washington, 1909]), p. 395.

Composed by Hayi-a k!u (Small-Lake-Underneath) about a drifting log found full of nails, out of which a house was built. It is used when a feast is about to be given for a dead man "& they have their blankets tied up to their waists & carry canes."
The Poem comes from a collection of 103 Tlingit songs gathered by Swanton. "By far the larger number were composed for feasts or in song contests between men who were at enmity with each other."

I once picked up a guy hitch-hiking in the San Joaquin valley down around Buttonwillow on a blazing near 100F afternoon. He was wearing an overcoat and carrying a bowling ball bag which in fact did contain a bowling ball. He'd been to visit his mother down around LA who made him take these items when he left (or so he claimed), and he was on his way up to around San Jose, if I remember correctly.

Sitting here wondering what to post and listening to Hamza El Din's CD, Lily of the Nile, oud, vocals and tar.

I need to go buy some laundry line but am procrastinating.

okay okay I am dragging myself on hands and knees into the office thirsty after 13 hours of work to post something today on the blog - this is not my office but that of my employer for whom I drove a truck today to Atlanta loaded it and just returned - but I feel a real urge to put something up for the day and that before I complete my paperwork -

so what do you have to say for yerself, kirbach?

not much, you?

how about if I reveal the contents of my purse? okay, that'll have to do for now because I don't want to be here all night as I have to be back in the AM anyway and I wouldn't mind going home -

but how can I resist it -

blogging from the office -

my purse is what I call this little black thing, as that is exactly what it looks like - I've carried it around for years the main zipper is permanently sprung, but no matter - the contents are what I'm afta - and I best get to it, as it's stuffed -

1] Such Rich Hour, by Cole Swenson

2] Gone, by Fannie Howe

3] The Poetics of the Common Knowledge, by Don Byrd

4] Some other Kind of Mission, by Lisa Jarnot

5] Overtime: Selected Poems, by Philip Whalen, edited by Michael Rothenberg, intro by Leslie Scalapino

6] New Time, by Leslie Scalapino

7] The Front Matter, Dead Souls, by Leslie Scalapino

8] one of those black & white marbled Mead composition notebooks, 100 sheets 200 pages 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 etc. almost full of writing

9] a black sketch notebook with blank pages almost filled with writing slightly smaller than the above listed Mead

10] a three inch long wooden comb

11] knife sharpener

12] 2 mechanical pencils

13] pink pen

14] orange pen

15] red pen

16] burnt sienna pigma brush

17] 5 quarters

18] 1 dime

19] 1 nickel

20] 4 pennies

21] another wooden comb with both ends broken off slightly shorter than the above listed WC which remains intact

22] a plastic garbage bag

Despite having all these books (plus more down in my car in a tomato box) today I read some of John Searle's essay, "The Future of Philosophy." I have this printed out half sized down to two pages per page (quite tiny) and it is starting to show signs of abuse as I carried it around while loading my truck.

I think he articulates quite well the idea of a "basil or background, conscious field...a unified field which is modified in specific ways by the various stimuli" which we all receive constantly. Understanding this (for me) is quite critical to understanding where people are coming from when they use vague terminology such as "mind."

and has everything to do with (according to me) where poetry originates

that being before the words get attached

though not limited to that of course

but I am wiped out and cannot go into it now - but here you have it - straight from THE OFFICE

parental manifest force driven bit glance
in one's own mental labyrinth free will
relinquished fragmented by the perfect
memory garden where steeples flame
out of the heavens a metaphysic
delirium of incomplete charm stolen
time cracked open only to lunge
wander weed rapid wave ranging

By Clar Ni Chonghaile

Goree Island, Senegal - US President George Bush made an eloquent speech but did not win many friends during his brief visit to Goree Island off Senegal on Tuesday.

As the sun rose over Goree before Bush's arrival, the only people to be seen on the main beach were US officials and secret service agents. Frogmen swam through the shallows and hoisted themselves up to peer into brightly painted pirogues.

Normally, the island teems with tourists, Senegal's ubiquitous traders, hawkers of cheap African art, photographers offering to take pictures and all the expected trappings of a tourist hot-spot in one of the world's poorest countries.

17 H 10 - Seven Posties Lead The Overall Classification...
The US Postal victory in today's team time trial stage was so dominant that seven of the American-registered team's riders will be at the top of the overall classification. They are: 1. Pena; 2. Armstrong; 3. Ekimov; 4. Hincapie; 5. Rubiera; 6. Heras; 7. Landis... we await official confirmation of this top 10 places...

17 H 06 - Pena In Yellow!
The US Postal team won the stage, 30" ahead of ONCE, 43" ahead of Bianchi, 1'05" ahead of iBanesto and 1'23" ahead of Quickstep.
Their gain is enough to put Victor Hugo Pena in the yellow jersey for stage five. He is the first Colombian ever to wear the jersey of race leader in the Tour de France!


17 H 05 - US Postal Win The Stage!
The US Postal Service - Berry Floor team has won the 4th stage with a time of 1h18'27"13. Their average speed is 52.77kph.

Some snappy highlights from todays Tour:

15 H 39 - Armstrong Having A Good Laugh About The Disruption...The defending Tour champion, Lance Armstrong, is in the middle of the peloton and having a good laugh about the attempt of the protest to stop the Tour de France.


15 H 38 - Protest Distrupts The RaceThe peloton is now working its way through the crowd of about 50 protesting actors.


15 H 37 - Peloton Arriving At Site of ProtestThe peloton is now riding towards the second of the route which is being blocked by the actors who are using the Tour to voice their concerns about poor support from the French government...


15 H 35 - Actors Cause The Disruption
The were threats of a blockade of the Tour de France before the start of the race. The actors' union are responsible for the protest which slowed down Anthony Gelsin's escape.


15 H 34 - Strike Blockes The Road!
There is a protest on the road! Geslin has been able to ride his way through a crowd, but the peloton is yet to arrive at this point of the course...

*********************************

15 H 12 - Odd Time For A Pedicure...
After his pedicure-on-the-bike, Beloki is riding back to the peloton with the help of three of his ONCE team-mates.


15 H 11 - Beloki Has His Toenails Clipped
The rider who finished 2nd in last year's Tour, Joseba Beloki, has dropped back to his team car. He has removed his shoe and the mechanic is now clipped the toenails of his right foot...

Yikes, Condoleeza Rice for president in 2008!

tissue court institution come call it afternoon georgic and hum
optic seed hey who has control the heave of whomever live

outside of power permissible cranial structures and fib
shuffle litter a new person flung from the head and kerplunk

crazy thus muscled conduit forging ahead by indistinct
journal work lacquer weight diplomats tote

daily interaction with others coincident
phrase and name remain utter an easy aggression

hat a rider s caliber led
out overall slim
at the our separate
another in total 30
thin 20 best golden
parade in a day
grit and deter the
win over all lead
attack in the fifth and
only reel concert chase
by the sprint such cruel
ate of an opportune tempt
balk gallant tempt on the
rolling which led to sedan
and then when the loom to
lead jump round train
in the final prove lace
in the or cookie point past
wad of the misjudge rush
to the line ear with the claim
any in but he missed tour on ear go
not this day caught behind work
perfect a bigger ear
a better leg think accidental
tact as ideal time us earn book
in we go push him from 48th over
to third age clad in maintain
a tender lead ace for the green
rage very fact there were seven
eclipse previous transit ride
this antipode dress low
an obvious sign lent on offer in
catch-cry been poignant
a round world years ago fan hand
chant ever thong should be formal
here may be no musical
rhyme but at least it means
inflation cage dance in the ear

cogito ergo sum

Shovel it in--

"The huge effort to restore Iraq's oil industry begins every day two hours south of the Iraq-Kuwait border, at the lavish Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kuwait City. No sooner does the lobby restaurant open at 5 a.m. than a line of middle-aged men in jumpsuits, golf shirts and identical tan caps forms at the breakfast buffet, eschewing the mezzeh and labneh for French toast, home fries and beef bacon." writes Dan Baum..

it's anybody's game

But what does a Poet Laureate actually do?

Please submit your nominations for North Carolina's next poet laureate:

The deadline for nominations for the post of North Carolina poet laureate is Friday, July 11. Nominations should explain how the nominee meets the criteria for the post, include contact information for the candidate and the nominator, and be no longer than two pages. Send nominations to Kirsten Mullen, Literature Director, North Carolina Arts Council, Dept. of Cultural Resources, Mail Service Center 4632, Raleigh, NC 27669-4632. For more information, visit NCARTS.

6:05 AM more rain doesn’t stop the birds.
They have their agenda and don’t need to carry clipboards to evaluate.

A couple of days ago –

me sitting around with some neighbors, on the porch across the street,
one daughter with her 86 year old mother-

daughter says - you know those bumper stickers with the flag, these colors don’t run? (all nod) well I saw one which said these colors don’t run the world

her mother says - THAT’S a good one

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

measuring the instant, a contradiction in terms

been thinking about this, caught as I was at 1st wondering about the “answer”
I have to laugh at me -

:: Monday, June 23 ::
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6/9/84

Micro instants of
perception-
(what *fraction* of
experience is
current in the
current Now?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nick Piombino 2:23 PM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

100%

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

yesterday, spotted due west on HWY 23/74 downhill from Balsam

CH CH

WHAT’S MISSING

U R

Well, I guess that’s accurate enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

a friend of mine prints up a big stack of bumper stickers

JIMMY CARTER IN ’04

which prove quite popular

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

50/50 nation

talked to a guy yesterday who HATES everything French (whatever that means)

refuses to consider le Tour de France

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

dog stares at me - “Let’s go.”

le Tour de France live updates (newsflashes read backward like a blog)

up from the muck



riffle mat and layered

          leaf pack

distrustful of the book



that perhaps our skull

continues to shrink or

as such toward a vanishing



point sudden

a series of tracks



left Idaltu casting

these collections



these hands after driving



—ded



        —ded

        locust

        drizzle

        runner

        frisbee

        wheel

        valve



                        —ound

                        snatch

   torque           hammer

   feather          catching



he fell into the cactus

running without watching

              arm outstretched



get out the guidebook auto



unfurl thy flag

for whatever snatch flapping



the dead runners will wheeze

glancing back over his bone

shoulder eye sockets



          unlocked



bone race agent



have become unglued one

woke up one morning and wasn’t



willing nor able

	to here



varnish the roadside and worse

the mind ever and always



          wordless

Nice to see Dan Tessitore trying to wrap his thoughts around a passage by Leslie Scalapino. I don’t have the specific book he’s working with. It’s back at the library, but I have several others—

Some quick thoughts—

Writing not to display knowledge but rather as an act of discovery, and the movement as such from one word to another, with hesitations even as under observation and comments occurring to that effect, simultaneity, theoretical, occurring at once as poetic, journalistic, academic (ie formal), mixed with fiction(s), and memory (I must be neglecting something here) is phenomenalistic while unwinding on the page or computer screen as words, or even reduced half steps, evidence of passage, as an examination of the world and where one (writing), hers happens to be within this world amongst others while mostly public, like at the beach or on a sidewalk,

this in order to transform how we perceive as working to more FINE TUNE OUR ATTENTION.

Under the current circumstances (military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan), Scalapino’s The Front Matter, Dead Souls accrues even more significance than the considerable significance it already possessed prior to this mess, “written for publication in a newspaper” and submitted as such to news venues during the 1st Gulf War. I want to look more closely at this.

The specific piece I quoted on Wed Jun 18 (here my precision linking inability in evidence, unfortunately) was from that 1st essay in Public World/Syntactically Impermanence (now back in the library), and I dropped the parenthetical reference to Philip Whalen’s work since I was focusing on Jerome Rothenberg at the time in order to examine his expansive contribution (as I see it) to a way in which we might consider tradition as something quite broad.

But that’s it, no more time...

Here's curious story from these here hills about a convicted murderer who recently killed a popular deer living with some cows which mourned.

I'm curious about any more Ruhr sightings.

Ruhr occurs twice!

Clayton Couch, Sund June 22 03 "collectibles mold me &"

Jack Kimball, Thurs July 03 03 "For the Euro Prexy"

wish I knew how to link more precisely...

What's up with Ruhr anyway?

more real estate

This sounds like a chain letter but isn't.

People complain about the rain anywhere and always, though I’ve never much minded precipitation. Here we’ve had plenty this spring and supposedly cause for complaint (after three years of drought), and although lately it’s been hot and sunny, the rains came again this week, solid for about fifty hours, pushed up into the southeastern corner of the Appalachians by tropical storm “Bill” (a great opportunity to name the upcoming storms after presidents and their wives, or even that vice-miscreant, Cheney, the big “Dick” himself and potentially a hurricane with humor, barring any damge).

Anyway, here it is July 3, and we already have about five inches of accumulation for the month. It was a windless rain which ended yesterday about noon, after which some little wind kicked up the silver undersides of leaves, and it was all very lovely toward seven as the long angles of sunbeams shot through this ponderous sky and into these flashing branches of silver exchanging deep tints of coppery greens. Yet massive cumuli-nimbus clouds in all shades of grey remained squat all surround concealing the peaks probing this saturate roof, and how the sun penetrated this bounding vapor wasn’t clear.

All this as I am thrilled by my new books received yesterday from Ms CorpsePoetics, Eileen Tabios, books I’d gladly grab had I come across them in the local bookstore, 100 More Jokes from The Book of the Dead, by Archie Rand and John Yau, and her own Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, and I even found 90 minutes to enjoy them, which I'd explain further, but won't as I am out of time, having some grape cuttings which need transplanting.

(old notes)

a man rants

"thieves worse than parasites"

"at any moment you may be robbed with
a dagger in your neck"

not word for word, not
acutal

the implication as actual

repartee
and then comes a prophet

an angry man

if not then another
a man is exhausted

by his shoes
when hunger arrives

on an hour made moaning
divided by two into one taken waiting

yogh

some inner seething

the usual formalities might disintegrate into an impeccable speed

notate approaching essay perspective
of through time and

places the self
truth fractures divergent a singular

ideal rendered piecemeal
flatten tang

an attempt a
monopoly on truth against

perspective

heaven haven haven’t
eaten yet

flatten tang conflate
truth fractures

solidification as if
granite

granted crack

coelacanth

configure an ocean as bend
away nothing but wind

a rise from the grave only
to shoulder the sand

one thud followed
by a diminishing

whoosh

and another begins

in field cut creek seething brew
suctions

But the hot dog hat, David, isn't as bad as these genuine Hats of Meat, as I'm sure you'll agree.

So now “things” seem to be up and running after restarting my computer, and so here’s John Searle’s link which in turn links to an array of his articles—

and here’s a HOT DOG HAT:

this strange public notebook as is perhaps
a simple listing
pretending at times to believe in that which it don’t
or changing the mind (a curious expression) mine
the mind of course a notorious problem
for which John Searle (I’d make a link but none of the search engines seems to be functioning) proposes there might exist a solution with
proper study and I’m reading around
in lots of blogs and having certain reactions responding
that’s how this happened a couple of weeks ago
as a quick response into which I’ve been more and more drawn
such that this acts then as an extension of what I have already
been doing

pieces which may or may not coalesce into an already expanding sequence
is it replicating

zero the hole, one

who is nobody but

myself, skin the eye of a

predator and wings I



might imagine Ben Had

don’t git no nuttin wit

tinkin does taughts godlis

notherwise nd cloodin does



craks bond sed kashed prosper

today not in that struggle

toward expression nor

representation nor in 



reflection of nor in the

making of something of value

although useless or else

otherwise lacking		all



                                       utilitarian purpose



we wears his Nikes

explosives strapped to the kidneys

cords cliff side

                     carve

                              tension 



tour stout cubic neck

squeeze

precipitate

species



puny the rat and whammo

	the man 	slaps

at the air

				twirling	 a shoe

that extension’s not it, rather
I keep returning to the mind and mind-related concepts, the subtle
differences, stutters in intelligence, for instance, how much we
humans

tend to overrate our own and underrate that of animals,
acting surprised when a dog does something “smart”
any number of examples might occur

and yesterday when I read Bill Marsh’s numbered list at SPDG (it precedes by 2 posts his most intriguing thoughts on Nick Piombino’s unfolding and fascinating blog

me kind of nodding along, yep, yep, etc, and always overwhelmed
in many ways by velocity, and in this case in

(phone rings)

what was I saying?

oh, something to do with the velocity of blogs which deal in various ways with poetics, and how as Bill Marsh points out a dynamic of responses, purposeful exponential and otherwise

kind of ricochets

(TV bullet sounds bouncing off rocks, a high pitched hum)

topical and otherwise

well, I think, what is going on here and how do I fit into this thing?

tableau: two car collision glimpsed in passing, the car positions seeming impossibly strange, the drivers okay and even waving

maybe this is some kind of movie, since even now I have no idea as to what might happen next, heheh,

quite intrigued by social/political construction

the president portrays himself as clairvoyant
the role, the Defense Secretary’s evasions as “found” poems
wherein anyway
something stinks

and there’re the invisible lines
checkpoints as weak links and the current human construct having much
in common with a multi-vehicle pileup

or rocket attacks

drawn and artificial borders which encourage dispute

and then this from Ronald Johnson’s Ark (center justified),
“BEAM 25, A Bicentennial Hymn," step by step drawings of mitosis, beginning with one cell and ending with two, plus a bunch of words which lead to—

:the mind become its own subject matter:

and I then ponder how this statement differs if
the word “matter” were dropped and what as usual is meant by “mind”

I don’t mind
I’ve heard myself say

or

mind over matter

and I find all this endlessly curious

and if anybody has read this far I thank you very much