Poetry, Writing

Les poules couvent souvent au couvent.

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Dress in saturated sage, magenta violet canary seafoam circles.
Lithe tan limbs.
Strong smile, kind voice, sly grin worth knowing.
Unpracticed poise from presence in the moment.
Dirt is not dirty, it is loam, soil, potential.
Plonger la main au plus profond d’un sac de grains.

Les poules couvent souvent au couvent.
Take in your senses, children, slow things to remember them.
Things you know in this time of life are growing all around you, take it in.
Things will not always be growing, growth will slow all around you.
Things you know will decay, more things, as you grow.
Draw out the time and the life and the colors and the tastes as you can.
Train yourself to observe, discover new measurements, new standards.

Alors, quand le moment vient, il faut sauter la barrière sans hésiter.
Do not fear the quiet, impose it during a flurry, use it. Return to it.
The quiet space may be empty, but empty is not hollow.
Les temps sont durs pour les rêveurs.
You can train yourself, in every place, to listen, see, taste, breathe.
Remember in the stark times to laugh at the cold.
That is your breath, your will. They are for you.

Poetry, Writing

Rain pond on the sidewalk

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On a December walk the rain was steady and the clouds gray.
The spirit of blue above the gray made the grass and weeds and flotsam leaves lush.
Standing water made for a small swamp but the water was clear and fresh.
Translucent glass that dimmed the view of a world just as saturated away
But brittle. I feared my fingers might not break through.
Might freeze and turn blood and flesh to ice and I would lose the fingers.
Or get stuck, and the placid scene I saw would be ruined for others
Left to wonder why the man in the rain jacket complained and could not move.

Poetry, Writing

Brave raging Gummi Bear

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A jewel! A polished stone!
A dollop of sugar translucent red on a dingy sidewall in a mediocre greyish day.
I admired your defiance, rear end upward, “Dissolution may come, but I will shine!”
Considered popping you in my mouth to infuse that spirit within my watery flesh.
Left you, the gelatin ass ridge bending highest, the last part fated to melt.
So important when one can choose the manner of the end.
To leave a gem-like stain is honorable.
Will probably forget about it with the next handful of Gummi Bears.

Eating, Poetry, Pop Culture, Writing

Christy Turlington and me.

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Born the same year, supermodel Christy Turlington and I share a certain kinship. We’re often mistaken for each other in public or at parties (I know, Christy. Hilarious, right?) but she lets me know she’s a few months wiser than me. Alla time.

Saw this magazine ad with the tagline “Her heart. Her soul. Her beauty. Her scent.” Thought it needed a few more lines.

Her heart. Her soul. Her beauty. Her scent.
She strolled. She sprinted. She stopped. She went:
“You gambol, you laugh, you eat, you write.”
I thought. I smirked. I held her. “That’s right.”

Activity, Poetry, Writing

‘Pillar, ‘pillar burning bright

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On the Amazon Trail in Eugene, I saw two caterpillars today. One alive, one dead. A poem:

A long wooly caterpillar slinked o’er a jogging trail.
Its steady undulations puffed “I cannot permit a fail.”

It focused its ambition on crossing to the low cool green,
And got there, relieved now to be beyond the human scene.

A shorter wooly, charged one-third the way, gasped, then upturned.
Feet to the sun, its plumpness biding pick up by a bird.

Drying, its spirit whispered as it passed our mortal sight:
‘I burned life’s candle at both ends, and gave a lovely light.”

Art, Poetry, Writing

Hospital, doggerel antidote – what is truly great

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Bradley: His Book, 1896, by William Henry Bradley, NYC Metropolitan Museum of ArtHad a spare hour yesterday, spent it writing in a hospital cafeteria. My first productive period in a month and a half. Felt good to be in a hospital out of volition. No cause to visit anyone, or to get treatment. No vigil. Taking agency against amoral Nature. Did you feel the burn, there, physical entropy? Did ya? Sure, the eventual victory will be yours, but to rage, RAGE against the dying of the light, yesterday gave off a lovely light.

A couple lines of musty doggerel yesterday stuck in my head yesterday. In the gym today, I tried to find something to chase that away. Scanning my iPod, found “Seascape” by Stephen Spender. The catch? The track is named “Seascape” on the iPod, but it was “I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great” that I listened to over and over. Let that be a warning about the integrity of bootleg poetry tracks downloaded during the Napster heyday of 2000-01.

I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great
Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of light where the hours are suns
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell of the Spirit clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the Spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are fêted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

Poetry, Reading, Writing

Origin of “text”

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On a lark, I looked up the word “text” in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here’s what that Good Book gives as the origin:

“Etymology: < French texte, also Old Northern French tixte, tiste (12th cent. in Godefroy), the Scriptures, etc., < medieval Latin textus the Gospel, written character (Du Cange), Latin textus (u-stem) style, tissue of a literary work (Quintilian), lit. that which is woven, web, texture, < text-, participial stem of tex-ĕre to weave."

I had never thought of text as a tissue or something that is woven into a tissue. It always seemed a linear train of words flopped one over the other, then stacked sheet over sheet. Or typed up and pasted in. A product to be stored. Had never considered it as a planned fabric both lateral and longitudinal. I like that very much.

Art, Poetry, Writing

From lump to bean

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A book of Anne Sexton poems have been on my nightstand for about a year. I can only read 1-2 poems at a time before saturation. On those nights, chances run high I’ll dream about Sexton. Mostly her voice and sitting around in living rooms and dining rooms. Don’t even know what we talk about. Tried to write her back, with Father’s Day on my mind.

Women are born twice, men once.

But for us, son, the drying off is slow.

From lump to sapling to tree to bean.

And in between we watch and attend.

Watch clumsiness turn to grace to poise to squeezing life out again.

Help from the outside, only let in in small ways.

We are builders and servants, boasters and protectors.

Anne, what would you have made of us

Had you seen us grow from lump around again to bean? Seen us

Fuller, slower than invaders and thralls.

Between you and your slender friend in a Boston cab,

Breaking away from Lord Lowell. Brobdingnag jokes.

You both would catch in my eyes when I saw you as vessels.

As I would see in yours whether I was politic and small or rescuer and hunter.

Consigning you to gray sparking damp clouds would not happen on my watch.

Talking with trained strangers and medicinal minuets probably would.

Son, see how a poem to you turns to apostrophe

Of desire and dreams and duties?

Those are all of the things we do.

Do not let them be all the things you are.

Do not be afraid to take taxi cab rides alone.

Do not take all of your taxi cab rides alone.