Saturday, June 18, 2005

At what point did "fiction or nonfiction" turn into a tough quiz?


Akam and puram. (via John Barn*s's 3arth mad* of Glass (1998).)


"Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic."


Zi: watching Incubus to Dir 3n Gr*y.



    ”Apology

A word sticks in the wind’s throat;
A wind-launch drifts in the swells of rye;
Sometimes, in broad silence,
The hanging apples distil their darkness.

You, in a green dress, calling, and with brown hair,
Who come by the field-path now, whose name I say
Softly, forgive me love if also I call you
Wind’s word, apple-heart, haven of grasses.”

--Richard Wilbur (1956)



Inf*rnokrush*r. (via Goblin M*rcantil* 3xchang*)


37.

pasigraphy walking as · I agrypnotic grom baggy
apply ghastly typical · twinkling caracul slalom
skim winch an orgival sandcoil · is gibbons faring



"Freaders will realize that it's been a long time since The Astute Gelepanos became a parody of themselves. So they're going to do it again. And this time, they're going straight to laserdisc."


"We have mostly killed the shamen, their rites and languages. That's why it's important that artists should be inventing new rituals, new forms, new strangenesses."


Friday, June 17, 2005

alas


34.

dominion formal Umbrist · I snarky lithic wodwo snuff
of cosmos or ambit damp sky · dump ump abrupt crumb bishop as
it will assay in patchouli · brisk skiff hyacinth


35.

malison candy flint I · ossuary wodwo snap scrawl
walking anchor adrift by · affords slant pitchy ongoing
stab film fossick usufruct is · ruinous favor


36.

insidious incog is · I mortmain nullify Oswald
limulus snag accrual · sobbing Ogdoad limits ask
military Om forlorn fray · its am taikonaut



I concur with Springtail.


Thursday, June 16, 2005

Slak*s Limbo.


"In vain I rail at Opportunity,
At Time, at Tarquin, and uncheerful night..."

--Th* Rap* of Lucr*c*


    "No Bad Sugar"

twilight aways with · allowing lilt
again wholly static · mask owning wall
my assignation · owls sing it
who watch · old aluminum bows
awaiting birth and again · allowing lilt


    "A Lay of Mutilation"

dark saloon rabbit · nano origami
urticant bliss · this sixth Sith
lobo Cobol · factions of circus
sharp pillars · nips stun gulag
a lug nut's spin · Shingon pachinko
marshmallowdrama · rockupation
Czolgosz · how top typists turn into brands


A n*w book on Virgilius Maro of Toulous*...


"...there are not only separate sets of pronouns for different combinations of social ranks, but a distinct set reserved just for addressing ethnic Chinese."


Tuesday, June 14, 2005

The God Bubbl*.


"I do believe that Bush and other high-level administration officials will face a court someday, but I think it will be after 2009, and probably in a national court such as Brussels or Madrid (exercising universal jurisdiction) rather than the
ICC. . ."



Acid Wolf 2.


    "Beat It

Enough, perhaps, that Pop should have a King,
without the other perks that from it flow--
but what if one should claim perpetual spring,
and fondle boys, and all the parents know?

Justice, a gaud that we no longer cling
when there's so many other wads to blow,
(and foreigners to torture)-- level field
for millionaires--your peasant folk fall prey
to all the bleak idolatries they wield:
I do believe we're in this slough to stay.

But lo, before the final verdict's sealed
on what was once a refuge, the gift repealed
and the hope dashed, what of this relict day?"

--Victor V*rmis


    30.

domino gorgon implant · I incur contrary Ogpu
joy cruzada ogling pomp · snort gilt among spork claypit lamps
and stringy bitmap birdtalk · school ruinous grom


    31.

basilisk carillon is · I float with astrological
skidmarks octopus warp cry · will ply clown zoomorph only
wig us dim of slag sorrows dark · italic twinkling


    32.

auditory fulcrum odds · I storing polyps from hylic
of ruinous slight acclaim · fright hustling amok conus odds
odorous as hinth assault it · nor program gibbons


    33.

pacini gambit Scully · I incoming dig sgraffito
rapacious impacts obstruct · with still ash Icarian mulch
flashbangs olfactory by hint · big on scab Notus



alas


Monday, June 13, 2005

Maintains. (via Silliman)


    Doves

      1

Mother of mouthings,
the grey doves in your many branches
code and decode what warnings
we call recall of love’s watery tones?

   hurrrrrr
   harrrrrr
   hurrr .

She raises the bedroom window
to let in the air and pearl-grey
   light of morning
where the first world stript of its names extends,
where initial things go,
beckoning dove-sounds recur
   taking what we know of them

from the soul leaps to the tongue’s tip
   as if to tell
      what secret
in the word for it.

      2

The bird claws scraping the ledges.
I hear the rustling of wings. Is it evening?
The woodwinds chortling or piping,
sounds settling down in the dark pit where the orchestra lights glow
as the curtain rises, and in the living room,
as another stage,
lamps are lit.

      3

  The lady in the shade of the boughs
  held a dove in her two hands,
  let it fly up from the bowl she made
  as if a word had left her lips.

  Now that the song has flown
  the tree shakes, rustling in the wind,
  with no stars of its own,
  for all the nets of words are gone.

  The lady holds nothing in her two hands
  cupt. The catches of the years are torn.
  And the wood-light floods and overflows
  the bowl she holds like a question.

  Voices of children from playgrounds come
  sounding on the wind without names.
  We cannot tell who they are there
  we once were too under what star?

  Before words, after words . hands
  lifted as a bowl for water, alms or prayer.
  For what we heard was no more than a dove’s

   hurrrrrr
   harrrrrr
   hurrr

      where the Day slept
  after noon, in the light’s blur and shade
  the Queen of the Tree’s Talking
  hears only the leaf sound,
  whirrr of wings in the boughs,

  the voices in the wind verging into leaf sound.

      4

I wanted to say something,
that my heart had such a burden,
or needed a burden in order to say something.

Take what mask to find words
and as an old man come forward
into a speech he had long waited for,

had on the tip of his tongue,
from which now . O fateful thread!
Sentence that thru my song most moved!

Now from your courses the flame has fled
making but words of what I loved.”

--Rob*rt Duncan, Roots and Branch*s (1964)



J*richo.


On my victrola: Clust*r- Gross*s Wass*r.


Sunday, June 12, 2005

"Samuel Menashe
   — "In the storm's eye"
   — "Wake up late"
   — "The only one"
(The gnomic simplicity of Menashe's poems reminds me of William Bronk; these three last lines make kind of a nice poem in themselves.)"



"Different Ways to Pray

There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could somehow
fuse them to the sky.

There were the men who had been shepherds so long
they walked like sheep.
Under the olive trees, they raised their arms—
Hear us! We have pain on earth!
We have so much pain there is no place to store it!
But the olives bobbed peacefully
in fragrant buckets of vinegar and thyme.
At night the men ate heartily, flat bread and white cheese,
and were happy in spite of the pain, because there was also happiness.

Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen
to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.
When they arrived at Mecca
they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times, they would bend to kiss the earth
and return, their lean faces housing mystery.

While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.

These were the ones present at births,
humming quietly to perspiring mothers.
The ones stitching intricate needlework into
children’s dresses,
forgetting how easily children soil clothes.

There were those who didn’t care about praying.
The young ones. The ones who had been to America.
They told the old ones, you are wasting your time.
Time?—The old ones prayed for the young ones.
They prayed for Allah to mend their brains,
for the twig, the round moon,
to speak suddenly in a commanding tone.

And occasionally there would be one
who did none of this,
the old man Fowzi, for example, Fowzi the fool,
who beat everyone at dominoes,
insisted he spoke with God as he spoke with goats,
and was famous for his laugh."


--found at Say Som*thing Wond*rful.


At a chain bookshop: 6 scrapbooking publications.



Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.


Local artist.


Attack of th* Monst*rs.


R*ligion Against the S*lf.


Panopticon. (via Dr M*nlo)


Tomorrow is dog carts.