colaborative poem with firefly

can one of the people that were aware enough to write down the poem we did in class last time please be so kind as to post it to this blog so we might all be able to play around with it

Benediction

finally did my prayer today just focused on the fence
null to leave my feelings out and pray to commonsense
for as this is not private just breathe within my head
think up all I wish for you keep sighing you instead
dream that for a slighted case you made them capture why
a thousand words and thirty turns hell hath made them shy
please bless this man with sanity the kind that wanders still
please freeze this poet with certainty the kind he never will
above all five ten fingers and strand sprouting from my head
occupy with loving hope gently lift him from his bed
and if those eyes lie to me and chill those words to foam
bill him to a beautiful space where his true love can come home

Homophonic Translation

Al borde del sendero un día nos sentamos
-Anthony Machado

Al borde del sendero un día nos sentamos
Ya nuestra vida es tiempo, y nuestra sola cuita
son has desperantes posturas que tomamos
para aguardar... Más Ella no faltará a la cita.



Ascension begins during seizures unwinding darting nebula spirals
-Jamie Brown

Ascension begins during seizures under darting nebula spirals
Your narcotic vicariously establishes tremor, yelling no such clarity
Severe hyperventilation demands panic questioning tomorrow
Pondering awfully... molecular explanations naked from a lucid collision.

For Jessica

My heart was broken once.
Well, crunched, really.
That’s the sound it made
while it collapsed
and crumbled in around itself.
Some of it blew away
in September’s breeze.

We used to sit
cross-legged and awkward
on the floor in the dim light of my closet
facing each other.
We’d tilt heads
and widen mouths
seal our open lips together
and blow
hard.
This always ended in laughter
until once
when it didn’t.

And if you’ve ever tried to piece
together a fallen, empty beehive—
then you know exactly how I felt.

Spring and Autumn

Original Poem:
Der Frühling und der Herbst
by Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel

Niemals ist doch der Mensch
mit meinen Gaben zufrieden,
Sagte zum Frühling der Herbst;
dir nur lächelt sein Gruss.
Freund, versetzte der Lenz,
so will es die Sitte hienieden;
Für den Sterblichen ist
Hoffnung mehr als Genuss.



My translation into English:
Spring and Autumn

Never yet has the human
been content with my gifts,
said the Autumn to the Spring.
You are the one he greets with laughter.

Friend,
replied the Spring,
it is their custom.
For mortals, hope
is more than pleasure.



Original German poem translated into French, then into Italian, then into English:

However the man with my gifts
never is not satisfied,
said to the Spring the autumn;
you laugh only its salute.
The friend, has moved Spring,
then wants the habit;
For the dead woman them
is one hope more like advantage

translation poem

Narcissus the Narcissist

The insane love empowers him

the illusion of his reflection within
the clear waving water is a distorted view,

to him: he is a God of Gods
to us: he is a self-righteous ass-hole
seeking the remedy of his self-involved life.

Looking into the pool

unaware of all around

he sees a prodigy in himself

one that sprouts fire

the water cannot quench the thirsty flames
and his fiery eyes are lost in his own
reflection.

His whole life spent deceiving those around him
never true to who he really was
what everyone wanted him to be
at the same time…he never spent a second
loving anyone
but himself
the fire growing brighter
his eyes entangled in his own beauty
FATE caught up to him
turning him into a lily pad
for he fell victim to himself
and
that of his own death ((water))

is
now his life source
to help him grow, flourish
and become beautiful again
all lies within the waves of the water.

Weekly Poem

A Better Tomorrow

Here i am
hands forced over head

my body
i tremble
weep, tears.
He yells “SHUT YOUR TEARS”
He has one
move
my pants.

i couldn’t bare

Wishing
Praying
He entered.
Every
Thrust
He

the last stab

i grabbed

feeling

alone

Sirens

“YOU TELL”

and
“NEXT TIME…”

my head

my heart i felt

a car stopped
his badge
finally felt
i closed my

A

Better
Tomorrow.

translation based on Charles Baudelaire's "Paysage". I ran it through a translator and went back, changing some of the English words into other and translating some of the English back into French.

I want, to chastement compose my eclogues,
To lay near du ciel, like the astrologers,
And, close to the bell-towers to listen by dreaming
Their solemn anthems carried by the wind.
The two hands hold the chin, at the top of my attic,
I will see the workshop which chante and which bavarde;
Pipes, bell-towers, these masts of the city,
And large the skies which makes dream of eternity.

It is soft, through the fogs, to see being born
L’etoile in the azure, the lamp at the window
the rivers of coal to go up to the firmament
And la lune to pour its pale enchantment.
I will see springs, the summers, the autumns;
And when comes L’hiver to monotonous snows,
I will close everywhere doors and shutters
to build in the night my fairy-like palais.
Then I will dream of the bluish horizons, les jardins,
the water jets crying in alabasters,
Of the kisses, of the birds singing evening and morning,
And all that Idylle has of most childish.
The Riot, storming vainly at my pane,
will not make raise my face off my desk; Because I will be plunged in this pleasure to evoke le Printemps with my will,
to draw a sun de mon coeur, and to make
my thoughts extreme, a tepid atmosphere.

Explanation for lyrics below: Clipse are gangsta rappers that rap on the topics of cocaine, crack, and the selling thereof.

Rhyme and Grime

stephen shoup

Lyrics from the Clipse song “We Got it for Cheap”
from the album Hell Hath no Fury

Fear him, as soon as you hear him
Upon my arrival, the dope dealers cheer him
Just like a revival, the verse tends to steer 'em
Through a life in the fast lane, like German engineerum
No serum can cure all the pain I've endured
From crack to rap to back to sellin it pure
For every record I potentially sell in the store
It's like Mecca to the dealer that's sellin it raw
So many deceive ya
I'm on top with the ki's, move over Alicia
I force feed ya the metric scale
Rap's like child's play, my show and tell
Within each verse you see the truth's unveiled
They manufacture proof as they lie to themselves
Puppets on the string like a yoyo
Bouncin like a pogo, they prayin I never go solo

got it for cheap



The song put through a translator from English to French, then the French version back to English:

We obtained for good market

Fear it, as soon as you hear it
on my arrival, the merchants of a doping agent
encourage it like a rebirth, the worms tend to direct the
end of support by a life in the fast lane like
The German engineer no serum can treat all the pain
which I supported
slit to strike it with again
with the pure sellin’ for
each recording
I am sold potentially
in Mecca with the distributor which is sellin’ it
believed thus
much mislead
I am on the top with the cocaine
finished feeding on the force of Alicia
I force the feeding of scale like the play of the child,
metric my exposure and say in each worm that you see the revealed truth
Eye of movement, the dry and hard blow
They manufacture the proof while they lie to themselves of the puppets
On the character string like a Bouncing yoyo
like a pogo, they prayin’
that I never go in solo:
obtained for good market

The Original, The Homophone, and The Translation

A. L’original ("La Voix," by Henri de Regnier)

Je ne veux de personne aupres de ma tristesse
Ni meme ton cher pas et ton visage aime,
Ni ta main indolente et qui d’un doigt caresse
Le ruban paresseux et le livre ferme.

Laissez-moi. Que ma porte aujourd’hui reste close ;
N’ouvrez pas ma fenetre au vent frais du matin ;
Mon cœur est aujourd’hui miserable et morose
Et tout me parait sombre et tout me semble vain.

Ma tristesse me vient de plus loin que moi-meme,
Elle m’est étrangère et ne m’appartient pas,
Et tout homme, qu’il chante ou qu’il rie ou qu’il aime,
A son heure l’entend qui lui parle tout bas,

Et quelque chose alors se remue et s’eveille,
S’agite, se repand et se lamente en lui,
A cette sourde voix qui lui dit a l’orielle
Que la fleur da la vie est cendre dans son fruit.

B. Translation (“The Voice”)

I want nobody near my sadness
Nor same tone expensive not and your face like,
Nor your indolent hand and which of a finger cherishes
The lazy ribbon and the firm book.

Leave me. That my door today remains closed;
Do not open my window with the fresh wind of the morning;
My heart is miserable and morose today
And all appears dark to me and all seems to me vain.

My sadness is near me yet far from my body,
It feels foreign and does not belong to me,
And any man, whom it sings or which it laughs or that it likes,
At its hour which hears it speak to him softly,

And something then is stirred up and waked up,
Be agitated, spreads themselves and deplores in him,
With this deaf person voice who says to him in one ear
That the flower of the life is ash in its fruit.


C. The Homophone (“Voix vs. Voice”)

I want nobody aping my treaty
Needed to share an aimed vision
No indolent hand can caress me
Ruben’s parasail is living firm.

I’m lazy. Portable yesterday rests close;
Never passed my window to vent on the mat;
I concur that yesterday was miserable and morose
I tout my parrot as he resembles vanity.

The tryst of my large loin is out-of-body,
She is foreign, yet apparently close,
The man will chant, maybe or maybe not,
A son’s hour intends to tout the parlor,

Something chose to review my eye,
Agitated, he reprimands and laments the day,
A set of swords’ voice heard in my ear
That the flour lives in sin with the fruit.

Mustache Ride

I'de like to dive into your beard,
or take you for a mustache ride,
to feel your fur
between my thighs
would be
so sensual
and
Oh' so nice.

Wartime Victim Makes Heartfelt Plea For Redress

Her daily routine when she gets up
is to stand before a mirror
"… and smile.

When I see the woman in the mirror
smiling, I say, 'Hey Yong-Soo, let's be joyful
today. Let's make today a joyful day.'”

At 78,
she is among the youngest
she feels added responsibility

Taken to China and Taiwan with a group of teenage girls,
Lee was and
with electrical cords when she fought back.
Serving an average of five soldiers a day

When the war was over
she returned
told no one
It wasn't until 1992.

In April, on the day of the 121 Coalition's protest
it looks like it might rain.

Even as proponents are pushing Congress

a Japanese group consisting of a dozen parliamentarians
scores of politicians, nationalist intellectuals and historians
urges the House to retract

based on "wrong information" and contradicts "historical fact."
Carefully walking to the podium
Yong-Soo Lee, a former sex slave

for the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II
faced American church leaders
at Wilshire Presbyterian Church.
She bows deeply

Lee is a woman
with a mission.

New Translation

La calle en sombra
-Anthony Machado

La calle en sombra. Ocultan los altos caserones
el sol que muere; hay ecos de luz en los balcones.

¿No ves, en el encanto del mirador florido,
el óvalo rosado de un rostro conocido?

La imagen, tras el vidrio de equívoco reflejo,
surge o se apaga como daguerrotipo viejo.

Suena en la calle sólo el ruido de tu paso;
se extinguen lentamente los ecos del ocaso.

¡Oh, angustia! Pesa y duele el corazón... ¿Es ella?
No puede ser... Camina... En el azul la estrella.



haunted boulevard
-Jamie Brown

a haunted boulevard
                lofty dwellings swallow
the perishing sun
                balconies enfold
a rippling radiance


poisoned with curse in the baroque window
and the rosy expression of a memorable figure


a profile blurred within opaque glass
exposed and covered like sex crimes in church


i hear your footprints beating the boulevard
                                                        penetrating deafening silence
twilight ripples slowly evaporate


suffering!         my soul wears ebony         i see HER?!
        hallucination
            wake up
                in the fog a streetlamp

Translation continued

English to English translation (Samuel Putnam's version)
Amadis of Gaul To Don Quixote De La Mancha

Thou who didst imitate my own sad life
so full of loneliness and love's disdain
as on the Poor Rock I endured my pain-
My days once joyful now with sorrow rife,
To pay love's penance was my constant strife-
Thou knowest the taste of tears; for thee most vain
Were silver, tin, or copper plate; thou wert fain
To make of the earth thy table and chatelaine
But rest assured, thou livest eternally,
Or as long as blond Apollo in that fourth sphere
Doth guide on their heavenly course his fiery steeds.
Thy fame and valor shall unsullied be,
Thy fatherland remain without a peer,
And peerless the chronicler of thy brave deeds.


The Sweet Life

You who followed my own sad path
so full of loneliness and love worn
as on the poor rock, I felt the scorn.
My days once joyous, now all sullen.
This punishment, my constant strain.
You know the taste of tears, you too wanted,
like money, you were content
to make the world a feast of concubines,
but certainly, you can live forever,
or as Apollo looks down on all his works
guiding with his ministrations all breath,
your fame and courage shall go unblemished;
your homeland, you remain without equal,
and even more so, the ones who follow you.

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

Note: this is a not a literal translation, rather it is
an attempt to update the language from the 1600s
to my 20th century mindset. If it were 21st century,
then I would put it in text message speak: N+so da 1s hu (r) so stalking u.
Now that would be weird

tattoo project "skin"

Hey friends

This is a collaborative project that I heard about through a friend of mine a few years ago. She is a part of the project. Her word is "don't." Shelly Jackson asks people to tattoo one word of the story on their body--once this happens they receive a copy of the manuscript but are not allowed to share it with anyone. This is the one aspect of the project that confuses me. I don't really know her rationale behind this.

But, this project is so interesting because Jackson is combating discourses of the "writer"--who the writer (s) is/are, how is a piece invented, is writing tangible, etc. Also, this project is a community--these people belong to a piece and have "proof" of this. She messes with the concept of performance art and literature.

FAQ on Skin project
http://ineradicablestain.com/skin-faqs.html

NPR story
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4078910

Something random for the poets

I wasn't quite sure where to post this, so I thought I'd post it here. Quite funny, really:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2007/9/12smith.html

hi lovelies.

Here's the link to the SS photographs that Gabe told us about in class, if you haven't checked them out already. Pretty interesting stuff in there...it's amazing these people can smile. Maybe we could practice our ekphrastic poetry...

http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/highlights/auschwitz/auschwitz_album/

p.s. check your e-mail, I sent out my prayer poem if anyone wants to read it.

speaking of fish

the man tried to make a brick wall out of fish
it would've been easier to use bricks
or to make a fish wall out of his fish
but it would take a very dry mortar to keep the fish in place
and
most likely the fish would die
i suppose he could put in a water feature
flowing water down the wall
and patiently the man could
feed each fish by hand
possibly corn from a can
or the man could give worms to the fish
but i can't think that he would
it would take a lot of worms to feed a wall
big enough to cast a shadow over his hammock


this was my open writing for tonight

medicine makes me fuzzy

The can should be a can't

Just because I am sick doesn't mean I can contribute

**collaged from the Electronic Poetry Listserve

WHAT ARE THESE FISH I DON’T KNOW FISH PLEASE HELP ME!

Please help me, what are these fish?
Large schools gathered tightly
in the Providence River,
Rhode Island. About 18" in length.

I can only guess invasive species,
maybe ocean-hungry spawning but
I DON'T KNOW FISH.

As soon as I saw them
the word "menhaden" came to mind
...I don't remember ever encountering this word
so I looked it up...
thank you Angel Heurtebise for the transmission...
what a lovely word....

If thin, smelt
or alewives.
If chubby, shad.

I believe the fish may be herring
which are found in the Providence River.
Herring have a black spot behind their gills,
as do those in your photos.

herring! yummy!
you remind me of the Norwegian B&B breakfast table!

In Newfoundland
there is a little feller called a Caplin.
resembles a Smelt

prayer of protection

Gaia, please protect my special male friend Michael Boobie Joseph Mukavetz from lactose who currently works at Country Insurance who interviewed with Clarion Hotels who wants to be a high school mathematics teacher.

Gaia, please protect Michael, father of Nataliewood a calico kitty who plays fetch, father of Duncan, a black lab/collie mix who recently passed away, Duncan, Michael’s best friend since he was eight, smeller of crotches and lover of scrambled eggs.

Gaia, please protect Michael, lover of mathematics, movies, and my vagina, writer of lyrics, reader of noir novels by Raymond Chandler from lime disease, killer bees, and bar fights.

Gaia, please protect Michael, who enjoys eating dolmas, Future father to a daughter Olivia Novella or Gaia or future father to a son: Coltrane or Gaius. Or future father to 70, 000 dvds and four abroad adventures from unkind faces, head colds, heat exhaustion, and corporate nonsense.

Gaia, please protect my confidante Michael Underpants Joseph Mukavetz who is from Madison Heights Michigan who grew up on 28752 Tawas Court and before that in a two bedroom apartment with his mother on John R street below thirteen mile but above twelve mile in Madison Heights who also lived in an apartment with his father in Berkeley and now lives in Madison Heights across from Meijer from the war on terror.

Gaia, please protect Michael Joseph Mukavetz who currently lives in Normal, Il 61761 at 4 Larry Court Apt 6 on Summit who lives in a townhouse under a tree of unknown origin that inhabits sparrows and other brown birds and cicadas who used to kayake with his father on Kensington Lake at Kensington Park located in Milford from car crashes and twisted ankles.

Gaia, please protect Michael he who takes my boots off Joseph Mukavetz from kitty hairs, changes in seasons, and chili.

Gaia, please protect this man who loves his sister, Destiny, formerly Dusty, mother of two, Ethan and Alec from root canals because we can’t afford to pay for them.

Gaia, please restore the ability for Michael Joseph Mukavetz, licker of areolas, to eat assorted dairy products, chili, spicy meat, and other nutrients that give him indigestion or how he calls it kickback who loves his mother, Pamela, a loving woman and his father, Michael, a quiet man, teller of bad jokes.

A prayer

A prayer

Abba, You are good.
You hold us in your hands.
Abba, You are good.
Hold my mother, Patricia in Your hands.
Hold Patricia Lynn Weiss in Your hands. The one born Patricia Lynn McMullen.
Hold her in Your hands.

Abba, You are good.
You watch over our comings and goings.
Abba, You are good.
Watch over Patricia’s comings and goings.
Watch over her comings and goings in the 1988 Toyota Camry. The one with the unconfinable hood and the smelly cat back seats. Watch over her comings and goings in the 1988 Toyota Camry that she drives to work. To work with children in the element
ary school where my sister and I spent some of our happiest years.
Watch over her comings and goings in the 1988 Toyota Camry that she drives as she returns home to 312 Birch Drive in Wheaton, Illinois.
Watch over her coming and goings.

Abba, You are good.
You heal the suffering.
Abba, You are good.
Heal Patricia.
Heal her from this sickness, this cancer, this heartslaying that has touched her and hurt her. Safeguard her from future illness and disease.
Heal her heartbreak on the passing of our family dog, Target who lived with us for thirt
een years.
Heal her suffering.

Abba, You are good.
You grow beauty.
Abba, You are good.
Grow Patricia in her love of your beauty. She works your ground and plants flora and fauna. Grow her gardens. She loves your trees that grow along the DuPage and Fox Rivers, the stones on the beaches of Lake Michigan and Herrick Lake. Keep her from overlooking the wonders you have created.
Grow her.

Abba, You are good.
You protect those for whom we care.
Abba, You are good.
Protect Patricia. Protect her family in the town where she was born and raised. Protect those in Massena, New York. She loves horses. Where she was Patricia Lynn McMullen. Protect her from homelongingness. Protect her husband, my father, who led her to Wheaton, Illinois. Where she became Patricia Lynn Weiss. Protect their love and marriage. Protect their home. My home. Where maples and oaks and crabapples grow. Protect their trees. Their limbgrowths. Protect from lovelack and joylack.

Keep her from, want, pain, hunger, despair, loneliness, temptation. Keep her.

Abba, You are good.
I raise the name of Patricia Lynn Weiss, born Patricia Lynn McMullen, to you.
Abba, You are good.

extant collaborative work

Jangling
by Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman
Money cannot find me.
I try to be reasonable but money is horridly banal.
Money, blow and blow is what I think about you.
Street urchins make more than me.
Water tastes funny without cups.
How far will I go?
Jingle jingle jingle.
Despite holes that compromise living rooms, friends visit.
Money money and more holes to look into.
You are dangerously close to falling.
The money said nothing.
The neighbors called up to us, "Your whole system sounds cockeyed!"
They suck the life from each other and we pay the bill.
Money always whispers,
"You pathetic humans don't know my true name."
I know my own name.
It is something exaggeratedly French.

das erste Mal

I gave a German a hug,
and an S.S. a kiss on both cheeks,
first the left followed by the right -
it was an evil
that had not yet been forgiven
and was covered by a smile
it was as real to me then
as it is now.

I laughed with him,
smiled with him,
ate sweet ripe pitted cheeries in his kitchen,
and said sweet things like Gute Appetite
and at New Years said ein gutes neues Jahr.

In the sitting room there was a picture,
he in his uniform and more of
other times at war.
I looked at this and looked away
smiled and met his face.

In Sommer
he tended his garten
and spoke in a dilaect
only known to him and his region
and not yet to me.

In Amerika jetzt,
a cold chill fills my heart,
a naive time passed -
when I thought all
the word was good.

Extant Collob. Project

An one: In the most recent issue of the online journal Tarpaulin Sky, legitimate ekphrasis--appears to--occurs. Poets such as Laird Hunt respond to striking images by artist Nancy Kiefer (Sutherland). Managing editor Julianna Spallholz describes her first viewing of Kiefer's work:

This was the first time I had seen Nancy's work, and I was immediately moved, shocked, saddened, offended, humored by, and grateful for her bold color, her thick black lines, the unapologetic closeness of the subjects of her portraits. Her subjects feel vulnerable, exposed, while the hand that paints them feels like a carrier of sensitive, sensual, unyielding authority.

The writers/poets, then, concoct scenarios to accompany, explain, argue with the images. Interestingly, these narrations all seem to take the form of prose. Their prompting images were created on Japanese paper, the characteristcs of which, according to Kiefer, account for the sketch/adumbration feel of her creations:

Japanese paper appears delicate, but it is strong because of its long fibers. I love it because it has this translucent flimsiness that sort of defies its truer self. The idea of painting pictures on such paper interests me even more so because the ink moves across this paper as if it were bleeding. I think of this work as napkins—images quickly painted, something to wipe your mouth with after you’ve been too polite, or maybe even for coughing up odd nightmares.

Enjoy ye now.

prayer

she’s laked howsome
nor the singed
nor crouch more for you
talking an enclosure
not need threepenny for entry
kissedwindclean the twinkles’ll live for ya
nether told ya
but gether yourself nor i’ll quivering strong enough to
lay those of yours flat as
you’re still
as your as i wondered how you’d be
drop this inspiration to make
itself
live ya more around what
you’ve talked not about
but along the woundness
you’ve accrued purposefully now
have you not for founding why
i’m noticed too more
in this head i’m not give
enough in ya
i’m not stilling the ‘roundwaves
i should like i said
as i ought
your breathness
this ridden song hung me now
it’s yours
me to ring you weller
to round you weller
to nose you into the skys
for you to walk so rather nice
i not as i
but as you thought clearest
in the sped-pillowed twinkled halfness
you’ll stay sounder there
than flying how i might
have read it to last
myself well
in the rising force you’ve spent
as much as i have and you’ll restrinse
into the deadening link weathers
and past them as

Octogenarian Fugue

Grandma shit her pants again
I guess I’m not that surprised
slowing physically
slowing mentally
(it’s not Alzheimer’s, so don’t even assume)

She gave the best presents
birthday, Christmas, whatever
A good ear for listening
and always quite affectionate

She was the babysitter
while my parents attempted to make miniature replacements for me
she put up with grandpa’s bullshit for 53 years
like she had two babies to keep an eye on

Her patience was remarkable
abuse, emotional but seldom physical
the ramblings of an old creep
that I have no pleasant memories for

Now she sits on the couch
watching TV by the half-hour
and remembering almost nothing

She’s still feisty
but far from self-dependent
like a second childhood

Prayer of Protection

Dear: God above all gods we’ve made

i walk to You with a petition of heart
summoning every ounce of Your spiritual being
on a conquest for protection
encompass the luv i love

Joshua Jeffrey Reed
      permanent bolingbrook
      local-current normal
      is that normal? what is normal?
      please make it normal

onward
Joshua Jeffrey Reed i pray for
scatter Your armor among oak and spruce swallow the little mackinaw
christen the depths of evergreen lake adorn every ringly ripple in sweetsickle security
with me with family with dog dazzie
cover the spirit of this teacher friend luver of life
graphics on a mortal quest for immortal design the printer has the answer
God, You know what my words mean
i’d swim across the filthy fecal-infested trenches of the illinois
only to get to him
i love Joshua Jeffrey Reed can You love him as i beyond some figment
of psychoerotical imagination?

hold him in Your hand
may he never feel tragical suffering
drowning in michigan car accidents in the blue Honda Civic
savage sickness cracking of bones
deep wounds may he never encounter a fraction or hairlike hint of emotional anguish
furthermore
no witchified physical anguish of being under the knife...
anesthesia awareness that’s what it’s called right? i guess you would know since well... You are God
duh
then there’s disasters of natural earthly being
no rattling earthquakes please
and please God please God keep the fire tame
prevent searing of flesh
and oh by the way don’t forget the simplistic pains of human reality
growing up
growing old
allow my luv to age in grace

there that’s it
mental halt to the spewing of my inner ponderances
now take them away
i don’t want to think
i said i don’t want to think
i’ll block such darkness
i love HIM i love YOU i love HIM he loves YOU i love HIM he loves ME i love HIM you love ME i love HIM you love HIM i love HIM

amen.

Protection

shoup


Prayer of Benediction

Clara May Kaufman
Clara May Kaufman
Clair M Shoup
Mother of two children
Clair, smell of washed linens––
kind, lonely, not enough money
well-read and so naïve
supported me through powders and cages
and embarrassed and hurt and
calls me in the evening
to tell me what’s on PBS
especially if it’s about musicians
or history of Asian countries

Clair Clara Clara May Kaufman
Clair, by the Illinois River
who lives on a horse ranch
where they kill chickens
and swim in chlorine-filled pools
across from an appliance store
Clair
who hated every girlfriend I ever had
¬––and your blue couch
that is ugly but not
as ugly as the Illinois River
with its dirty bored Midwestern current
that doesn’t reflect the sunlight

I pray to you,
Ever-present-pulse of awareness
that manifests in human suffering
and makes patterns dance on my eyelids
and is like an orgasm echoing
through space for all eternity,
rushing into moments
and galaxies
slowed only by its own ridiculous speed
and distracted only by its own brilliant colors
that got caught in human form
for an average life span
billions
and billions of times
to make nuclear bombs
and cupcakes
and dig up dinosaur bones––
as if we were not those bones
and stars that make the bones
and crickets
of bone star dinosaur
and play accordion and dance around fires
until we get sucked back
into the one-breath
that is not outside us, but of us
and
may She protect you
when you drive to tutor disadvantaged grade-school children––

may the ever present pulse of awareness,
that shape shifting denim demon,
protect over your silver Hyundai
and keep it from running into the guardrails surrounding Kickapoo Creek
where some drunk guy died
floating on a makeshift raft

may the ever present
Clara May
help
you stick to that diet
that you haven’t followed for fifteen years
since dad left you behind
in a pickup truck weighted down with tools and microwave and clothes
who you hate
because he knew you
and didn’t accept all of you, all of you
the parts he couldn’t use
became the focal point
Clara May
may she guide your writing
which you left behind in college
because you didn’t think you were good enough
but really
you were just overwhelmed with the universe
and knew
that mirrors would only show more mirrors
but
you could have been the best
and now
you read my chapbooks
but I only make the in-betweens that hint at larger forms
that we only graze across
Clara May, who instilled a sense of resignation
into my macaroni-grin cartoon always dreaming five year old self
and
made me think the whole world
would wait
Clara May
like you, in rapt attention
to my earliest little melodies
with a cheap guitar and bullshit teen-angst lyrics
trying so hard
to sound like I wasn’t trying

Clara May, may the ever-present pulse
take the last vestiges
of the carcinogens
that claimed your glands and hair
and will to live from you
I love you so much
please don’t die
we are little genes
in spiritual hallucinatory mind-light
and you are so good
to your children
and grandchildren

the Christ and god that you so explain
is the best choice
via Kirekegaard
––if that can be the little moment that sustains
then I’ll pray:

Jesus Christ Dinosaur Star Bone
please give Clara May Kaufman
your servant and child and
who was the ‘you’
of your father, of we
to the peoples
that made your love
for our dirty little flesh race
so completely
beautiful and unfounded
but that is perfect
like sorrow
like the smell of fabric softener
Yes, oh yes
Oh, dinosaur Allah star Gautama Krishna teddy bear smelling salt Moses grand surreal
designer
of tress and nervous systems and DNA and drumbeats and cantaloupes
please
let her samsara end
and rejoin before the entry point
makes another fleshy mirror
to deposit its image into
to live by a shitty Midwestern river
and divorce an engineer
and be a receptacle
to fear of really seeing you
without your clothes on
Clara, Clara May
may you be protected
from:
--the sound of rattlesnakes
--nothingness without music to accompany it
--the bats that flew in the cabin in Wisconsin in 1992
--breast cancer
--black holes, in all their forms
--nuclear bombs
--mass media
--foods high in saturated fat
--the 1980’s, in general
--silence that isn’t chosen

Clara May Kaufman
of Gainesville Missouri
which you ran from and the black holes of your stepfather
then Herman, then Columbia, and Peoria where you dropped me
into a shiny little hospital
where they removed some skin
and gave me my father’s name
who appreciated our art only as an expression of mental illness
Clara May

protect her,
Dinosaur Star Bone
and Nexus too––
the mean gray cat I convinced you to take
and only lets you pet her with your feet and hates children
please
in your infinite nothingness
let the years pass
without fueling the undercurrent
of neurotic hyperawareness
that is the of you
that is she
keep it from exploding and being more
than a hint of darkness in the whites of her eyes
protect and inspire your child
who is a woman of suns
and is the hole of the universe you decided
in your infinite nothingdom
to inhabit
and call Clara May Kaufman
shmalg
finsuin
leemontra
Staform
c’est une possibilite
la mere

The Hollywood beefcake
of your unending eternal run-on-sentence
of salsa dancing and empire building
––thank you for nothing, everything
you silly little schoolgirl of sorrow
version 3.0
in your names
I pray, La Dee Da.

Tarde Tranquila, casi

By: Anthony Machado

Tarde tranquila, casi
con placidez de alma,
para ser joven, para haberlo sido
cuando Dios quiso, para
tener algunas alegrías . . . lejos,
y poder dulcemente

Translated to English By: Willis Barnstone

Tranquil afternoon almost
with placidity of soul,to be young, to have been so
when God will it, to
have had some joys . . . far away,
and to be able tenderly to recall them

I collaborated with Machado by substituting several of the words in his poem with antonyms. I then translated it back to Spanish. My results are below. Enjoy!

Frenzied nightfall, certainly
with roughness of soul,
to be old, to become so
when the world allows it, to
have such nighmares . . . close by
and to be able frightfull to recall them

Tarde frenética, ciertamente
con aspereza de alma
para ser viejo, para hacerse
cuando el mundo lo permite, para
tener tales pesadillas . . . cerca de,
y poder terriblemente recordarlas

Exquisite Candidate

I can promise you this: food in the White House
will change! No more granola, only fried eggs
flipped the way we like them. And ham ham ham!
Americans need ham! Nothing airy like debate for me!
Pigs will become the new symbol of glee,
displacing smiley faces and "Have A Nice Day."
Car bumpers are my billboards, billboards my movie screens.
Nothing I can say can be used against me.
My life flashes in front of my face daily.
Here's a snapshot of me as a baby. Then
marrying. My kids drink all their milk which helps the dairy industry.
A vote for me is not only a pat on the back for America!
A vote for me, my fellow Americans, is a vote for everyone like me!
If I were the type who made promises
I'd probably begin by saying: America,
relax! Buy big cars and tease your hair
as high as the Empire State Building.
Inch by inch, we're buying the world's sorrow.
Yeah, the world's sorrow, that's it!
The other side will have a lot to say about pork
but don't believe it! Their graphs are sloppy coloring books.
We're just fine—look at the way
everyone wants to speak English and live here!
Whatever you think of borders,
I am the only candidate to canoe over Niagara Falls
and live to photograph the Canadian side.
I'm the only Julliard graduate—
I will exhale beauty all across this great land
of pork rinds and gas stations and scientists working for cures,
of satellite dishes over Sparky's Bar & Grill, the ease
of breakfast in the mornings, quiet peace of sleep at night.

by Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton
another collabb poem by these two

Collaboration Research 2

I have chosen to study the late Robert Creeley, an American poet and author of more than 60 books. Creeley collaborated with artforms such as music and paintings. This included many works by Italian painter, Francesco Clemente. Creeley allowed the visual art to move him in his writing. Creeley's strongest poems are those stimulated by the visual art.

Some of Creeley's collaborations with Clemente can be found in the book Life and Death. The poem listed below is an excerpt from a poem entitled "Inside My Head." It is comprised of six short poems: "Inside My Head," "The Tools," "The Swan," "The Rose," "The Skull," and "The Star." I have chosen to post the first excerpt, "Inside my head." I discovered Creely's work at Poetryfoundation.org.

For the complete version of "Inside My Head," click the following link:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171578

For more on Robert Creeley, click the following link:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1509




Inside My Head
-excerpt-

Inside my head a common room,
a common place, a common tune,
a common wealth, a common doom

inside my head. I close my eyes.
The horses run. Vast are the skies,
and blue my passing thoughts’ surprise

inside my head. What is this space
here found to be, what is this place
if only me? Inside my head, whose face?

Ode to Daddy, CRH, 1932-eternity

Claudius Maximus, manager of
the Winters' Wildcats, born in Brady,
the Heart of Texas, 1932, Depression USA
he who had Polio as a child, born of
poor Texans descended from the Mayflower,
John Jefferson the electric handyman
who looked liked John Wayne,
who kept Brady going in the days when dust flew over the world.

Oh Claudius, you sojourner, you nearsighted, devourer
of books, Sci Fi fantasy warlord, inhaler of Hemingway,
You who created Muzzy, you who listened
to the Louisiana Hayride in college, and sat behind
Willie Nelson at the Grand Old Opry, while they jammed.
You who laughed in the face of the Dean at UT
as you wouldn't sign the form declaring
that you were not a member of the Four Starred
Mothers of America etc. etc.
You who cooked tortillas on a burner
with Raul Cardenas, you who were drafted and sent
to Germany to drink beer and take pictures of castles
while doppelgangers died in Korea.
You who tricked the general into admitting that soldiers were dying in Vietnam.
You who worked on newspapers, and magazines and shook
hands, took pictures, traveled the world.
You who wrote novels and plucked
apricots off a dying tree.
You who drove the Orange Turtle, the Astrovan,
the Camper Van, the passport.
You who watched with broken heart: the Longhorns,
the Celtics, the Bills, who walked Nicholas
Buffington the third, and Popsie, spun Vox
jox, and poems that rhymed, who trounced through
New York, Troy, Brockport, New Orleans, San Diego,
Enid, Austin, LA, Las Vegas...

Claudius Ray Maximus, maker of lay ups,
fixer of chairs, watcher of big screen TV sets,
player of Tetris, enemy of telephones every
where, recovering alcoholic, oldtimer, diabetic,
redhead, redneck, red faced writer of novels,
teacher, He who threatened his mother in-
law that he would name his first born son
Radio City Music, He who got threatened
with Korea after intimidating his drill sergeant.
Lover of radio, survivor of the 60s, pusher
of Bill Monroe's bus from the mud at Newport.
Guy who knew Pappilardi, guy who knew Montague,
guy who made love to the radio, guy who wrote for Billboard,
started Radio Report, Radio Forum, West Coast Writer's Conspiracy,
and gave tours of the YMCA. Claude Ray Hall, father of 3 sons,
one a lawyer, one a poet, one an addict turned drug counselor.
The father who wouldn't give up and told us all to come home
if we got in trouble. Daddy who sang bass, Daddy who said that
there were so many hippies on the field that you couldn't see the grass,
who used to lift me up with one hand, who drank beer, and tasted of beer,
then ate ice cream and corn chips and sat in his underwear watching Bird
get his ass kicked by Magic. You always rooted for the wrong team!

I once stood between you and the beer at Trader Joes, begging you not to drink.
I once sat scared as we swerved the hills above L.A., a tiny spin away from oblivion.
I once told you not to worry, that you will make it to the other side.
And as you go there, I wish you well.
I wish you to go gently,
softly,
beautiful,
like a snowflake.
May the higher power absorb you.
May the force of the earth not throw you off,
May the Republicans not shoot you.
I once dreamt you were thrown up against the wall,
and we are always being thrown up against the wall,
such is the nature of revolutions.
Oh dad! May the next dimension be large enough for you,
May there be beings of understanding and love, or something resembling it.
May the lightning storms not scare you but invigorate you.
May your next father be loving, and not wield a belt in anger.
May alcohol just be a pleasant buzz and not a poison.
May your enemies become your friends.
May the orange turtle stop breaking down every ten minutes.
May your mg run wild on the PCH.
May there be plenty of clams under the rocks of San Felipe.
May the Turtle not breakdown near La Ventana.
May the Good Lord throw you a can of diet orange.
May it not explode.
May there be something new and interesting on TV at all times.
Good luck.
May the passing be pain free, or at least, let it be mind blowing like watching a great movie that changes your life, or at least changes two hours of it.
May all the nurses that take care of you till then be sweet, happy, liberal, or at least willing to listen to you.
May the weather always be interesting.
May the Weather Channel always be soothing.
May you always go camping, and have the stars to look up at and talk to.
May they listen, and echo your song.

question...

Is there a way for me to make a private entry (as in...only the members of this particular blog can see it)? Basically I want to post my prayer but only want you guys (classmates) to see it. Anybody know if/how this is possible?

A prayer for my unborn child

God Almighty, protect my unborn child Parker Elizabeth Zimmerman-_______
although she is unborn, unconceived, and may not appear for years to come
protect her being, her soul, her heart, her mind, her body, her life, her.
Protect her from heart ache, may she never feel the pain of a broken heart,
Protect her from global warming, may she live to be 100 and healthy,
Protect her from terrorists, may they never attack or harm her loved ones,
Protect her from the pain and grief of death, let her accept the loss of loved ones
and grow from it,
Protect her from war, hate, and hostile environments, may she overlook them
and see only the good in people,
Protect her from the devil, may he never tempt her or make her question life,
Protect her from rapists, may they never hold her down in the dead of night,
Protect her from abuse, may she only find love and happiness,
Protect her from back stabbing friends, may she have the power to overlook
the bad & only find the good friends,
Protect her from drugs, may she never try or become addicted to any harmful substance,
Protect her from liars, may her heart never be fooled,

And Protect her from depression, may she be able to bounce back from anything life
hands her.

God Almighty, look after Parker Elizabeth Zimmerman-_______,
who comes from me, her future mother, caregiver, best friend, life source,
who comes from a loving family, warm, appreciative, welcoming,
who currently resides in heaven, with you, waiting to come down to me.

Watch Parker Elizabeth Zimmerman-_______
as she grows, and flourishes.
Watch her as she meets friends, boyfriends, best friends, cousins, relatives.
Watch her go through life, working for a living, becoming a student,
becoming inde pendent.
Watch her play with animals, petting softly those she comes across.
Watch her dance, or play sports, watch her read, or write.

Watch her find her talents, find herself, find a meaning.
Watch her in between the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean, and if she travels,
watch her over there, too.
By Lake Michigan and Salt Creek River,

By the willow trees of Wood Dale,

in which she may sit under on a summers day.

By the streets and the cars, the buses and trains, the airplanes and boats

that may take her to and from, around life.

God Almighty, Eta Truse fourte grangevu lorax flample
forever may she be protected
Eta Truse fourte grangevu lorax flample
forever may she be protected.

With her

in your heart

byyoursideforeverholdhernear
With her
in your thoughts
byyoursideforeverholdhernear.

God All
Mighty, Protect my unborn Parker Elizabeth Zimmerman ______.

For if she is to be born,
I will be blessed….
And when I am blessed,
she will be born.

Amen.

a poem from my daddy

I am posting a poem from my dad that he posted on his website... this is not my official prayer-poem submission, but I thought it was beautiful. My dad is 75, a active writer, retired journalist/educator, and all round lovely person. I am going to write my prayer about him. His name is Claude. He's the Texan in me.


MAJOR MATTERS
Life is something you have to live before you
understand that it's not about you.
It's about little old ladies with irritating dogs
that bark in the dark of night when you're trying to
sleep
It's about someone towing your van off and junking it
while you're in the hospital.
It's about sons who come home and run errands because
you can't, one a lawyer, the other a poet, with another
son standing by.
It's about memories of children playing in a yard and
laughing and one or more of them belongs to you and
memories of this alongside a picture of them now, then
looking at yourself in a mirror and wondering who in
the hell that is!
It's about eggs benedict, refrito frijoles, barbeque,
and chickenfried steak and a quiet afternoon on a
cruise with the ocean a cobalt blue and the air good
in your lungs.
It's about old movies and songs you've loved much too
long, favorite books read once again, a phone call
from an old friend.
It's about homeless people you pretend not to see and
higher gasoline prices and wishing you were somewhere
else that you used to be.
And tears you've shed because of these and the women
you've loved and might have loved if you'd known them
and they had known you.
Life is these strange things and more.

From the dawn of day until dusk drifts away and we sit
silent watching lightning play in a distant sky, all
wonders by, just you and I, Good Lord.

I have been grateful for these hours gone. Indeed, I
enjoyed all but the days I was ill and I find no fault
with you, Good Lord, for those. They were mere
lessons I had to learn that lightning in a distant sky
would have meaning.

And so I could learn a better love for my fellow human
being not only with meaning but understanding about
the totality of love, love is more than mere affection,
it's also appreciation.

Most, though, I have treasured - and treasured all -
the good times!
Standing on a cliff, looking back at Port Soller,
glad for the astonishing beauty and glad that I was
there as I have been other places beautiful beyond
belief and realized even then they came because of
you, Good Lord. Brazil, Mt. Fuji, Grenada, the
California Coast, the sequoias, Ft. Bragg, the view of
lower Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry, Watkins
Glen. Ah, if I could name all, as well as the places I
do not remember at all. I thank you for these.
Seeing my children as tiny as a handful, marveling
that they were me and my father Johnny Jefferson Hall
and his father William Benjamin and John Abner before
him and Halls and Smiths and Gillmores, and
Williamsons and Woods and others back to almost the
Mayflower. French, Scot, Brit, and a vast mixture
hither and yon because they boated up and down the
Mississippi and the Old River did that sort of thing
to you in olden days.
Meeting wonderful people along the years, some
becoming good friends and great friends, while others,
basking by, shed a marvelous light that gave me a path
to follow and, thus, showed me the way. I cannot name
all these for fear of offending those many I might
forget. But those I treasured most: Jack Thayer,
George Wilson, L. David Moorhead, Bill Stewart, Chuck
Blore, Gary Owens, Don Imus, Jim Gabbert, Lou Dorren,
Bobby Vee, Raul Cardenas, Ernie Farrell, Paul
Ackerman, Joey Reynolds, Saul Kramer, Jay Blackburn,
Mike Gross, Don Graham, Dave Dexter, Bruce Miller
Earle, Bill Mason, Jonathan Fricke.

It's strange that people and places have meant so much
to me. For I have done little else of value, I
suppose, than the knowing of people. I leave behind
no pyramid, no work of art worth a glance, no statue
of me or by me.

What good am I or have I been? I, sadly, failed to
change the world and make it better. Was this for
lack of guts, lack of desire, lack of chance?

A crime would be that I did not try. Please, Good
Lord, do not find me guilty of this! My heart, I
swear, was always in the right place. But was the
rest of me? For I have indeed walked past the kettle
at Christmas, drove by the man with the sign on the
street corner, passed the car on the roadside with the
flat. Mostly because at those particular times, I,
too, needed help or thought I needed help. Who among
us has not shed crocodile tears for ourselves long
before others?

Here at 75, virtually on the edge of time's cliff, I
often wonder if the life I've lived justified what I
am and what I've been compared to what I wanted to be.
Was it all worthwhile?

I could have lived another life, I suppose. Made
different choices, played with rockets and not with
words, or gone to Spain in the steps of Hemingway as I
planned to do until that day I kissed one of Park
Avenue's most beautiful creatures in the rooftop
garden at 30 Rock.

These, however, were not the ways I went. But, all in
all, my life was well spent and if I pause now and
then to think of days that might have been way back
when, I guess I'd rather go the way I did once again.

For I've lived life on more than whim and though I've
lost and lost a lot from time to time, now and then by
the grace of you, Good Lord, I win.
"A Life Lived" - c. hall, Aug. 28, 2007

a prayer for my daddy

Lord and Protector, please watch over Randall Robert Meier, a farmer and Garst District Account Representative currently residing outside of Armington, Illinois, once being from
Collinsville, Troy, Maryville, and Mackinaw, Illinois and Norfolk and Pilger, Nebraska. We moved a lot. Soon to be living outside of McLean, Illinois. Protect him from hunger, sadness, illness, devastation, being alone when he needs someone by his side, loving someone and not being loved in return, rain to quench the thirst of his crops, tenacity to continue farming even when the work put in outweighs the outcome, never knowing how much his family loves him, never real
izing how much he is appreciated by those closest to him, falling below his own expectations, and feeling he doesn’t meet the expectations of others. Watch over Randall Robert Meier as he farms and contributes to the lives of his family, whether it be watching their sporting events or lending an empathetic ear. Help him to continue to provide for our two dogs, Bubba and Daisy. As well as for our horse, Huckleberry. Keep him safe as he crosses the Illinois and Mackinaw Rivers on his daily travels and as he passes Meier’s Landing Lake and Lake Blooming
ton in his truck. May the large trees shadow. Randall Robert Meier’s yard and provide shade so he may rest.

Collaborative Thingy

A few weeks ago I picked up Lou Reed's "The Raven." Reed performed along with a long list of actors and other performance artists the works of Edgar Allen Poe along with some of his own songs. He rewrote some of Poe's work to fit into the context of a Rock Musical. Reed of course is known as a legend in rock music especially for vitally influencing punk and new wave, but also he kept his wand in the literary world as well as he was mentored by poet Delmore Schwartz at Syracuse University in the early 1960s before moving on to the rock and roll lifestyle in New York City, co-founding the Velvet Underground, and collaborating with Andy Warhol among many others. Before I go on too long into a lecture on the history of Rock Music, I will point out that Reed finds Poe's poems and stories such as The Raven, Fall of the House of Usher, Pit and The Pendulum, The Tell Tale Heart all relevant and especially important in the Post 9/11 sphere.
I have the double cd recording if anyone would like to borrow it, and it is also available on Warner records, released in 2003.

silenced will

Do not use these words I do not understand,
for although I am educated,
my vocabulary is limited,
and my dictionary sleeps shut
on a shelf in the other room.

Closed minded,
strong willed,
fenced off;
from what is current -
what is now -
what is new -
what is -
today.

Never changing with the times,
left ignorant and
unammended,
copyrighted in 1958
and
left a lone,
to aquire
dust

and

shelf ware.

collected from Eve Ensler site

**this should be in two line and three line stanzas.

Scene 1

(4-21-05)

the girls

from Winona

had pins

"i heart my vagina"

they had the play at their school

the school is trying

to get the girls

in trouble for the pins.

Scene 2 APRIL 8, 2002.

WE ARE EMPLOYED AT ______OF PRISONS.

I REPORTED

HE WAS ARRESTED

CHARGED

THEY KEPT HIM ON THE JOB,

I HAVE A RESTRAINING ORDER

HE PLED GUILTY

RECEIVED 15 MONTHS PROBATION AND A STAY AWAY ORDER.

THE ______ OF PRISONS

ALLOWS HIM TO WORK

I HAD TO TAKE LEAVE

I HAVE BEEN OUT OF WORK

I AM NOW NOT BEING PAID.

Scene 3

I was 16 years old.

I helped him with homework.

He was 18

drank gin tonics.

He invited me to a party.

I didn't go to parties.

It was loud.

The house smelled like puke.

I didn't drink.

I didn't dance.

He told me to loosen up.

I asked for some juice.

He brought it.

His eyes changed.

He watched me take a sip

then another.

My sweatshirt is over my head

I can't see anything.

I don't know what's going on.

My hands are over my head.

I try to cry out

I remember three of them

who knows how many there were.

I woke up the next morning with my clothes half on.

Scene 4

As a Middle Eastern woman

I have been taught to be silent.

My grandmother claims that silence

and control go

hand in hand.

What kind of logic is that?

The same logic that made it ok

for my father to rape my mother.

The same logic that reassured

a friend to take advantage of me

The same logic that put my mother in abusive relationships.

The same logic for my uncle's physical abuse

The same logic that leaves women like me feeling helpless and confused.

As a middle eastern woman, I defy that logic.

Scene 5

until I was 11

I was molested by my sister.

As a young man

I felt marginalized

I had been victimized

by a woman.

Scene 6

calling on activists

to speak out against

the “Rapist Number One” doll

released by NECA in conjunction

with the Quinton Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez film Grindhouse.

The doll,

modeled after filmmaker

Quentin Tarantino’s character in the film

has been displayed widely

on talk shows such as The Jimmy Kimmel Show

and is available online

and at selected toy stores across the nation.

Cut Up

a cut up from "big rig owner"

Need a load fast?

many engines, drive fans, fail-safes
robs your horse power

operating temperature—
Less critical but still important,
another concept that should be checked out.

have a bit more “gear”;
claims of global warming
not withstanding

Jessica has a plan that’s
right for you.

humid summer months
Left alone, mixture of vinegar
make at least two thorough passes
even in inter-urban areas.

The Unplumbed Eiger-fierce South Face of Mount Shand (12,660 feet)

The Unplumbed Eiger-fierce South Face of Mount Shand (12,660 feet)

We all know Denali

Slice of subarctic

600 miles

Enter the anchorage

Virgin peaks

Alpine flowers and caribou

Married on the Ruth Glacier

Unvisited

Unclimbed

Undocumented

Climbers

Seeking virgin

Lines

Southern tip of the range

Babel Tower

Travels alpine style

Get in and out

Snowpack facilitates smoother overland

Logistical hazards

Interactions with grizzlies

Lost one camera to cold

cut-up of Matt Samet's "Project Mayhem" out of Climbing.

Old Town Pearl- collaboration with Trib article

Old Town Pearl

“It started its life in 1910 as a tavern on the southeast corner of Sedgwick and Eugenie Streets in the heart of Old Town, and then, during those misbegotten days of enforced-sort of- national abstinence, a speakeasy.”

A bourbon-drinking man leans on the bar.
When Phil died, the kids took over the place.
Tending to customers and the legacy.
Memories.
She went away. Far from her old local haunts. She comes back.
With her niece and cute little grandniece.
They all had something to drink and good conversation and they got some ribs to go.
Some years ago David was back in his hometown. With his wife.
Recalling memories.
Dinners with his late father at a neighborhood saloon that served great ribs.
Now no bowling game. No shuffle bowling game. Still baby back ribs.
Writer Bill will wear a tuxedo as he recalls times before trendy pleasures.
Or checkbook-wielding developers.
They love to hear stories about their place.

“I love no place quite like I love this place. It is everything Chicago is supposed to be: familiar, old, neighborhoody, friendly…”

Taken from “Pearl of Old Town” article from the Chicago Tribune Magazine by Rick Kogan

Kill the fascists

kill the facsists
and fear their religious descent into nefarious horrorsof zeitgeist installation from brachiating visionsof a monkey grown a beard like a Serbian Jewin the roasted sausage at the clambakeat the Hairy Inn of Fork
sweet red pepper fascist ripe tomato freshone fingered fraternal orderof artichoke of mineO Allah, Allah by Jovecumdown to earth, come downto my California of fluids and their dispersal
it's all about liquidscome down sister dew aheadhoarfrost kleinen lust zu stucken the lizards of oblivion blue language A CORK.
kill the facsists
and fear their religious descent into nefarious horrorsof zeitgeist installation from brachiating visionsof a monkey grown a beard like a Serbian Jewin the roasted sausage at the clambakeat the Hairy Inn of Fork
sweet red pepper fascist ripe tomato freshone fingered fraternal orderof artichoke of mineO Allah, Allah by Jovecumdown to earth, come downto my California of fluids and their dispersal
it's all about liquidscome down sister dew aheadhoarfrost kleinen lust zu stucken the lizards of oblivion blue language A CORK.



by
Andrei Codrescu, Laura Rosenthal, Mark Spitzer and Robin Becker

Translation/Collaboration from/with a poem by Claire Goll

You are tender
like the finger marks
of a bird in snow

subtle
like the bend
of June sunflowers

You are sad
like the larch in the mountains
with disheveled hair

quiet
like the breeze
on Monarch’s wings

You are sweet
like the dates
of Biblical palms

And yet you are strong
as a cyclone as a gale
as the bronze doors of the temple

a cut-up from Rolling Stone

shades drawn
strapped for cash
ironing out the final details

a bland-looking man of forty-one
took the place of my father--
kept a low profile

the conversation quickly turned
to immature and silly

lovers hatched a plan
to make ends meet
but nobody was home
at the base of a cliff

noisy streams of tears
being wiped away
with a gray t-shirt

a cul-de-sac in the sky above
nobody was home

Cut-Up

Just look at the ocean–
many people were crying; others just
stare off into space
sorting shrimp in warehouses.

This network, called "Operation Peter Pan"
both for household and agricultural use
provided the permits necessary to export the large quantities of narcotic drugs
at a highly emotional point in the ceremony.

In my terrace I had a candy dish with tranquilizers.
The baby cried too much and prevented individuals with certain technical skills
from leaving the country.
Everywhere. We look, the sign said "No Children"
All I did was cry,
but he was very nasty.

News paper article

Barefoot Busted

people, you can be barefoot.

KNOW MORE. Assume less.
Wearing multiple shoes is dumb.
Foot barefoot shoe
Feet Stand
you might be noticed,
kind of immune to some shoes
a fear of odd behavior
sense.hearing.rumor.myths.

This is just for myself,
if driving under speculated rods
along an accident
The answer to this error is inspired by
YOU.....

...Someone without shoes on,
Wearing feet.

The old man & the sun

The old man and the Sun.
Translated by: Danielle Zimmerman

The old tree rustled in the wind,
the wrinkles in the bark imitated that of the old man.
He used to stand in the shade—leaning on the tree
…the thick tree, with the sad bent down leaves,
hiding from the sun.

He would come during sunsets—his eyes scrunched and wrinkled
wrinkled with age, with a sad tale of his life.
As would I,
passing, watching, observing…
The sun would hit his dusty old shoes first
nibbling at his toes
climbing higher, as though
attaching itself to his body like a leach.

Submerging his entire entity
drowning him in casts of orange—yellow—pink

As I watched from afar

The story of his life unraveled
the sad ness that created his many wrinkles unfolded.
The sun started to capture the whole body
almost causing the wrinkles of the old man
to vanish into the tree.

Like a rock, slowly corroding away,

He began to surrender himself

Into the silence of nothingness

But the colors of the world.

The sun, biting him, consuming him,

With great love and comfort—put him to sleep
dissolving him into the sunset
melting like burning plastic.

And as I observed, the only remains left of the old man
were the soft wrinkles of the tree.
He was born off into the sun’s last rays,
like so many other invisible things of the world.

Shell

I hide my head
not for embarrassment, not for shame, but
for something that is too lofty to clarify
to my lower species

Slowly I crawl
to wherever I’m needed
or where I feel needed
perhaps a little bit of both

How one becomes a low-maintenance creature
is not by intelligent design
but through the evolution of maturity;
The riggers of life slow us down
so that we move like molasses
but it doesn’t feel worth it
until we beat that sticky hare

Le Griffon/ The Griffin

I am a memory that does not reach the threshold
and wanders in the limbo where the glint of absinthe
when the heart of night breathes through its blowholes
moves the fallen star in which we contemplate ourselves

The lingual sky took on a new consistency of a freshly opened
coconut's cream

spitting Andes and sacred Mayumba
sole shipwreck that the eye good sailer pays off for us
when soul maddened shredded maddened
through clouds which reach me in tightly shut fish
I reascend to haunt the sinister thickness of things

This is a poem that was written in french by Aime Cesaire which was translated by Clayton Eshleman & Annette Smith

News Cut-Ups, Two of Them

1.

In a series of vagueness, the giant beat

When you occur now
you occur. Ignition, the air routes:
we combed the helmet well to
two cities of them.
Centered close to the console of
buildings toppled, nor there blown.
Have emitted the clock but
a swell would have to say


2.

“This One Should Be a Part of the Protocol for Eye Doctors”

As a child R.G. could not form the contact of sight. To feel and compress each object.
Jump of line at the following point. Which is fast for______. To work the together of eyes. It affected faces and would take all with opening.” It would go to the people, it and its cheeks affect." Specialists led a battery of the tests; the possible diagnoses attached:
disturbance of spectrum, deficit of rung attention, disturbance of fear. Prescribed three drugs for deficit and floor.

The only constant was now this: although it had already two eye, these years that a specialist placed its finger on the nose. And this one made time, shifted inside and outside him. In minutes, had the diagnosis: cannot work the narrow distance. Suffer a nausea and a nausea which can lead to the bar of attraction, weak Coil-esteem.

We would not like to send kids for efforts of formation and reading them at night “This One Should Be a Part of the Protocol for Eye Doctors."

As you can't withdraw you and say, wait one minute?" or, to know us that kids like the loss of the concentration than what they read."

The examination includes/understands objectives with a feather or a finger.

For nine months it carried the prisms uses, the eyes, to collect towards the interior. It then had three months of the therapy. The could not describe it, indeed because all it is it, his/her mother known. It believed how it had explained us that all along it could not see, nobody however heard."

Newspaper Article

*This poem was pieced together from words and phrases that I cut out of a newspaper article in The Vidette.


Thursday afternoon.
infections penetrate her heart

toxic problems

emissions inhaled

breathing vehicle Quality ventilation
on a nearby respiratory high
poseS

major busy illnesses
produced by particle effects                                 sitting next to
deep regions of ultra-fine cigarette size Technology


and therefore


environment investigated

Here are two examples of some liberal translations/collaborations from/with Petrarch.

The long love that in my thought doth harbor
And in mine heart doth keep his residence,
Into my face presseth with bold pretence
And therein campeth, spreading his banner.
She that me learneth to love and suffer
And will that my trust and lust's negligence
Be reined by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness taketh displeasure.
Wherewithal unto the heart's forest he fleeth,
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,
And there him hideth and not appeareth.
What may I do when my master feareth
But in the field with him to live and die?
For good is the life ending faithfully.
Thomas Wyatt

Love that doth reign and live within my thought

And built his seat within my captive breast,

Clad in arms wherein with me he fought,

Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

But she that taught me love and suffer pain,

My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire

With shamefaced look to shadow and refrain,

Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

And coward Love, then, to the heart apace

Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and 'plain,

His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.

For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain,

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove,--

Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

Henry Howard

Collaborated Poem

A collaborated published poem, published by Matthew Rohrer. I thought this poem was funny & flowed well. Monkeys
by Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman
In another jungle the monkeys fret. Vibrations are tremendous. Terror begins. Mist dissipates. Monkeys alight in unison while beneath them nothing sexy happens. From within one mangrove a monkey flutters helplessly, another watches. Noise like refined alabaster drifts across our monkeys. Human intellect dwarfs only that first tear. Everything else excels. Intellect is nothing to savor. Monkeys know. Monkeys see. Monkeys do. As monkeys follow nauseated foresters across wet walkways they announce their intentions. Mankind savors variety. Monkeys savor mankind. Poachers came and grabbed the monkeys. In disturbing circumstances they thrive. Our satellites saw lilacs. Nighttime. No one wanders forever.

Learn to Suck

Life so far,
Striving for perfection.
Be stronger, faster, thinner, prettier, smarter, better...
Always be better.
People to please,
Always in their eyes.
Don't want to disappoint, sadden, hurt, piss off, suck...
Cannot suck.
Break down walls,
Let go of structure.
Forget about being perfect, flawless, the best, about sucking.
Learn to suck.
It shouldn't be hard,
to lower standards.
To learn to suck.
Let go of the anal standards.
Shouldn't be so hard...
But it is.

News Column

The remarkable offering out there most opposite fanciful boyness, the culture became obsessed with boy-crisis, boy trouble and stories of ancient battles you should remember attractive women in cohort involved a high school hero who embark on a dangerous mentality of males unscrubbed star spectacular which reminds boys to carry a handkerchief to offer affection with enough courageous booze. Little lord, the golden body part he hopes to win the tream to follow that breach idealistically when kids wear helmets to seek online predators the only danger is that boys are hardwired nostalgic. The idea is boyspace, shifted back, never defined, neglected boys, a girl’s mistake this not-so-classic all night pursuit of some fair lady in the tree house of the United States, indeed. The quest is to reclaim the initiative provided being told they are free, free to throw a flower. We have two, once more into the breach. We could be that head up on boys. The Valley of Death means boffo.

A Must See

Friends,

Poet, novelist and journalist Achy Obejas, one of the most well known Cuban-American writers, is coming to ISU! She will be reading from her creative work Wednesday, September 26 at 8:00pm in the University Galleries.

Mark your calendars! She rocks.

tender insomniacs


softly silver in nature sanity hanging over the comfort of words on a tongue shaped dream where owls think wide eyed and birch on a branch where the final line will be crossed

think, what was that movie where she stepped through a mirror and something magical happened? Maybe it scared me.

easing into a meditation where your fingers are felt and the yes in the glass melt into something I can’t feel with someone so unnatural you feel the sleeping elephant drag you into the frame and be with your neighbor

he’s in a tree throwing bananas at you, and they are hard and whipping. you will always dodge them, but the fear bubbles in your throat and deep across your eyes.

he stops, comes down from the tree swinging and with a lovingness that gasps your breath, touches your jaw line with the back of his index finger and whispers

the magic scares me, too.

photo redux

I like this photo's lack of balance, but it seems significantly lacking in its representation of Gabrielle. Is someone photoshop cabable, so that we might be able to superimpose his likeness somewhere, possibly floating above us all in a ghostlike or angelic manner?

Found Poem

Words taken from a kind email an ex-coworker sent me on 9/4/2007. Run through translator 5 times, shown are 2 outcomes. Thank you freetranslation dot com!


with sincere love kind consideration
avid greetings thank you taken that the Lord
will allow me to serve over there oat flakes
for the breakfast lack us you eating any word of God
reveals His truth climbs back up peace is with you
my program dream of friend more close to Him the
passion for the people promises several other candidates
several new friends of voucher

with the sincere consideration of the love kind
gluttonous greetings give thanks carried it that the Mister
will agree that I serve over the you fall of oat
for the shortage of the breakfast we she eating
any word of God you same its ascents of the truth
again in peace are with her the friend of the program
of my dream more closing him the passion
for the promises candidates of witness

Homophonic translation of “Le Balcon” by Charles-Pierre Baudelaire

Hair gay, souvenirs—mattress, gay mattress
Nosferatu, gay measures, Nosferatu: hey bizarre.
You jew rapper, the nudie slave dresses
The douche purr dune toys slur: stray the charm gay bars
There they sew their tears, mate this grey, mate bitches.

I believe we're supposed to submit a poem every week by ourselves, so this is mine for the week.

Connection
Tender
Soft to the touch
Not wet,
But enough to taste.

Two come together and connect
As one
The sound rings in your ears
Like a tune you just can’t shake
SMMMACKKK

It’s almost beautiful all by itself
Yet, The shape of two bodies
Connecting as one
In the shadows
Or the moonlight
Under the sun
Or the rain
It is memorable.

Eyes squeezed tight
Shut out to all around
Heart racing
As if it’s being chased
Twists and turns
Like a loop-de-loo roller coaster.

Clammy
Sweaty
Powerful

All of this, from just one kiss.
Tender
Soft to the touch
Two lips join
And we form one