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Catullus Sails to China, Four Poems by John Yau (thanks to John Madera who published them in Big Other in 2019 and posted this link in Small Press News on the poet's birthday)
“Why can’t I be an empty house falling into decay, unaware of myself? Why can’t I be the sky empty or the river flowing into the sea senselessly or an empty plate or knife or fork, whatever is but does not feel itself? If I were the grass that covers the graves I could forget being human. I want it taken away. The sun is sparkling on the waters. Why should I not be the sparkle rather than the eyes that show me the difference in myself. Shine upon me, sun, so that I become lit up like a sunbeam.”
—David Ignatow, “Why Can’t I Be…”
Art Credit Ellie Ga, Fissure 5: 83N, 2E, 2008–11, Digital C-print.
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012): For The Dead
Mar. 28th, 2012 02:14 pmI dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight
An apposite poem at the time of her passing via bryantmcgill.com
Chinua Achebe's poem "Vultures"
Jul. 6th, 2011 08:36 pm
via facebook.com
“Vultures” by Chinua Achebe
In the greyness
and drizzle of one despondent
dawn unstirred by harbingers
of sunbreak a vulture
perching high on broken
bones of a dead tree
nestled close to his
mate his smooth
bashed-in head, a pebble
on a stem rooted in
a dump of gross
feathers, inclined affectionately
to hers. Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the
things in its bowel. Full
gorged they chose their roost
keeping the hollowed remnant
in easy range of cold
telescopic eyes...
Strange
indeed how love in other
ways so particular
will pick a corner
in that charnel-house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
even fall asleep - her face
turned to the wall!
...Thus the Commandant at Belsen
Camp going home for
the day with fumes of
human roast clinging
rebelliously to his hairy
nostrils will stop
at the wayside sweet-shop
and pick up a chocolate
for his tender offspring
waiting at home for Daddy's
return...
Praise bounteous
providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
a tiny glow-worm
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of a cruel
heart or else despair
for in the very germ
of that kindred love is
lodged the perpetuity
of evil.
kaffe in katmandu // Fraction Factions
Jun. 26th, 2011 07:53 pm
Read the poem on kaffeinkatmandu.tumblr.com
Fraction Factions, a poem I wrote two years ago that was just published on kaffe in katmandu, an arts/literature blog. Were I writing this poem now I would substitute the word "climaxing" for "ejaculating" since men without prostate glands do not ejaculate. When I fully recover from my prostate surgery I hope to still be a 40%er.
RIP poet Paul Violi 1944-2011
Apr. 3rd, 2011 08:21 pmApril 03, 2011
Paul Violi 1944-2011
We are sad to report that our beloved friend Paul Violi died yesterday after months of contending with pancreatic cancer. Paul -- a prince of a friend, a generous teacher, an inspiring poet -- was perhaps the most consistently inventive poet of a singularly talented generation upon whom the legacy of Ashbery, Koch, and O'Hara rested not as a burden but an as impetus toward poetic originality and freshness of vision and language. For nearly ten years Paul taught a poetry writing workshop in the graduate writing program at the New School. It was a great experience for students and teacher alike. I will write more about my friend in the weeks to come. But first the news must sink in.
-- David LehmanAppeal to the Grammarians
by Paul VioliWe, the naturally hopeful,
Need a simple sign
For the myriad ways we're capsized.
We who love precise language
Need a finer way to convey
Disappointment and perplexity.
For speechlessness and all its inflections,
For up-ended expectations,
For every time we're ambushed
By trivial or stupefying irony,
For pure incredulity, we need
The inverted exclamation point.
For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,
For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift
Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,
Or felt love or pond ice
Give way underfoot, we deserve it.
We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,
The child whose ball doesn't bounce back,
The flat tire at journey's outset,
The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.
But mainly because I need it—here and now
As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio
Staring at my espresso and cannoli
After this middle-aged couple
Came strolling by and he suddenly
Veered and sneezed all over my table
And she said to him, "See, that's why
I don't like to eat outside."
Elisabeth Frost, Poetry: Issue 43 - The Cortland Review
I heard her read today and bought her chapbook of prose poems, "Rumor."
Elisabeth Frost, Poetry: Issue 43 - The Cortland Review
I heard her read today and bought her chapbook of prose poems, "Rumor."
Ian McMillan on US presidential candidate Barack Obama's poetry | World news | The Guardian
Poetry written by President Obama when he was 19.
Ian McMillan on US presidential candidate Barack Obama's poetry | World news | The Guardian
Poetry written by President Obama when he was 19.
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
—Charles Bukowski
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
—Charles Bukowski
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
—Charles Bukowski
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
—Charles Bukowski
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greatpoetsGeophysics
1.
Only your hands can
change me, saturating my
interstices: gem.
Come and make me light,
opaline before your field
of olivine eyes.
Sway me with your hands,
with a naked sliding home,
fast in the fissure.
Naked before you
I become your hands, your mouth,
this molding, this here.
2.
How many patterns
form this landscape? How many
rivers coming now?
Forged in memory,
the final crystal, final
rainbow — beginning
again. Still water.
A kissing vapor. Your voice.
What are these colors?
What do we read in
these ancient hieroglyphics?
A metamorphing
underground. All hearts
on deck. This sensuous sea
agrees with your eyes.
The great uplifting
begins, an upheaval, rock,
new land of your nude
marble, veins exposed,
fistfuls of cummingtonite;
a naked new world.
--Lorna Dee Cervantes
Geophysics
1.
Only your hands can
change me, saturating my
interstices: gem.
Come and make me light,
opaline before your field
of olivine eyes.
Sway me with your hands,
with a naked sliding home,
fast in the fissure.
Naked before you
I become your hands, your mouth,
this molding, this here.
2.
How many patterns
form this landscape? How many
rivers coming now?
Forged in memory,
the final crystal, final
rainbow — beginning
again. Still water.
A kissing vapor. Your voice.
What are these colors?
What do we read in
these ancient hieroglyphics?
A metamorphing
underground. All hearts
on deck. This sensuous sea
agrees with your eyes.
The great uplifting
begins, an upheaval, rock,
new land of your nude
marble, veins exposed,
fistfuls of cummingtonite;
a naked new world.
--Lorna Dee Cervantes
Hunt At Langley
Jan. 23rd, 2007 07:04 pmWatergate burglar and CIA spook E. Howard Hunt died today. To mark the occasion here is a found poem from my book JFK: Lines of Fire in Hunt's voice, Hunt At Langley.
