Saturday, February 11, 2006

"Certain poets require fees higher than the stated minimum: Antin $125, Kelly $200, McClure $300, Dorn $500, in each case plus expenses."


An oracular bard.


"Hafez would start versifying only when he was divinely inspired, and therefore he averaged only about 10 Ghazals per year."


"Visualize! howled the warm man, the keeper of FLARF INTO FREEDOMs
Alms for the poor! cried the briefly, flabbergasted FLARF INTO FREEDOM
With lightning strokes, the berserk shot foreward;quickly, rapidly
Stars filled his mind--it was if monkeys were slamming his head.
A chain growls noisily, but no one ever listens...
Last for the resisting first for the disemboweling--Now you must formulate
Billowing, recalling, the berserk felt like a prostitute.
With doubtful nostrils and tolerant resolution I can
Weap bitter tears, blank face, like Crazy Horse.. . Nothing are you, or will you ever be."

--K*n Springtail



Plan*t 3ast*rbunny.


Thursday, February 09, 2006

"Letter of Palestanian child to Queen of Sweden
By Jalila Jishi

To the queen distant from my mother's painful wounds
Speak not of what you do not know about my mother and me
In her bread, there is a warmth that fills the world with love
In her dress, there is a scent that fills the world with care.
Excuse me ... but do not, against her, make unjust accusations.
My mother who was orphaned
My mother who was widowed
My mother who, in her face, the massacres of my people are etched
My mother who held in her palms the flaming coals of steadfastedness
My mother who witnessed in her age the bitterness of chains
My mother who embraced death alone, behind the borders
And my mother who lost my father as she patiently awaited eras
And my mother who sacrificed for her children all efforts
Do not, queen, utter what you do not know about my mother and me.
You, who in your ivory castle, saunter
And wear the finest and most modern attire
And eat the tastiest European foods
You who, on fur and silk sheets, sleep
How can someone like you ever know my mother?
My mother, who gave me to suckle the milk of the nation
And who from her forgotten tent fed me the love of land.
So do not imagine wrongly and know that ... I thrive from my mother's
veins...and my mother's breath ... and my mother's tears ... and my mother's
agony and anguish.
Still, madam, the love of the nation and the passion of land, is more
precious than my soul and my blood.
Yet, fifty thousand apologies and more you should make and bow with respect
to my mother and me."

via Muslimdomain dot org


"Old prophets help me to believe"


His shadow.


Cub arrows.


Lojban Radio. ...And Products.


Wednesday, February 08, 2006

"Portal"

Shadow to call Aradia giardino;
first black sip of java, giardino.

Crystal grow.:
in dark giardino.

Flying mutiny cold rocks
in cold giardino.

Swoosh of cars, taps of washing, this still
pool of light ink stomp of cold so giardino.

Lungfish up
and stir basic giardino.



Aristasia. (via Momus)


A Pyrrhic victory.


Tuesday, February 07, 2006

3 fridg* hay(na)ku. (via Dumbfoundry)


   "The Silence of God

One night upon the southern sea
In helpless calm we lay,
Waiting for day,
      Waiting for day.

As goldripe fruit falls from a tree
A comet fell; no other sight,
But in the ocean tracks of light
Trembled--then passed away,
      Away.

No sound broke on our waiting ears,
Though instinct whimpered wayward fears
Of things we cannot tell--
      Of things the sea could tell.

No wisp of wind, no watery sound
Reached us; as if high on the ground
We stayed. A sense of fever fell
Upon each mind,
      Each soul and mind.

Until our eyes, that ever sought
The cloying empty darkness, find
Another shape--or is it wrought
Of terror?--on the deep
      The endless deep.

All dark it lay. No light shone out;
And though we cried across, no shout
Came back to us. As if in sleep
The black bulk lay so still,
      So still.

No sign came back; no answering cry
Cleft the immense monotony
That swathed us like a funeral pall,
In folds of menace; almost shrill
The silence seemed,
      And we so small.

Swiftly a boat was lowered down;
The rowlocks creaked; our track shone white
Behind us like God's frown,
      God’s frown.

We clambered up that great ship's height;
There was no light; there was no sound;
Nor was there any being found
Upon that ship,
      That ship.

We groped our way along. God knows
How long the rats had been alone
With dust and rust! Yet flight was shown
To have been instant, in the grip
Of some force stronger than its foes
      --Its human foes.

Then sudden from the dark there thrilled
The distant dying of a song
That hung like haze upon the sea, and filled
Each soul with joy and terror strong,
      With joy and terror strong.

Upon the sombre air were spent
These notes, as from a hidden place
Where all time and all love lay pent
In lingering embrace--
      In lingering embrace.

Deep in our hearts we felt the call;
We knew that if our fate should send
That song again, we must leave all
And follow to the end,
      The end."

--Osb*rt Sitw*ll, Argonaut and Jugg*rnaut (1920)




Trinq!


Mythos in Plastic Block Land. (via M*tafilt*r)


Monday, February 06, 2006

"Spimes that blog? Blogjects?"


"The greatest writer in the maqâmah [rhyming prose] form...was Al-Hariri of Basrah, who was born in 1054 and died in 1122. ...There are sections composed exclusively of words with double meanings, series of sentences ending in rhyming syllables or with regular combinations of consonants throughout, and poems utilizing only certain letters of the alphabet." --Anthology of Islamic Lit*ratur* 3d J Kritz*ck (1964)


"I entered unannounced into Hallaj's room one day (says Ibn Fatik); someone had been in before me. Hallaj was in prayer, and his brow pressed to the ground. He was saying, O Thou Whose Closeness girds my very skin, Whose Mystery spurns me far away as lie all things in time from the Eternal, Thou shinest so before me that I think Thou art all these things; and then Thou dost deny Thyself in me, till I declare Thou art nothing here. And this can neither be Thy Distance, for that would fortify my selfhood, nor Thy Closeness, for that would help me; neither Thy War, for that would destroy me, nor Thy Peace, for that would comfort me. Then, noticing my presence, he raised himself." --ibid (Springtail warps it into this.)


Sunday, February 05, 2006

"Ruth Lilly"

thought of which pithy
individual too faction abscond
must find opinion
in an our arid amalgam
no admonition but follow
up & if as it is said
from tantamount din
that you will only do this
to form a book cunningly
i spurn solution
through paragon filling in
though trod with gild
it was to know



"The verdict is in. Only the conundrum remains."



"People do find ways to inform themselves, as best they can, when the regular "news" is not reliable. In prerevolutionary France, independent newspapers were illegal--forbidden by the king--and books and pamphlets, rigorously censored by the government. Yet people developed a complex shadow system by which they learned what was really going on--the news that did not appear in official court pronouncements and privileged publications. Cultural historian Robert Darnton, in brilliantly original works like The Literary Underground of the Old Regime, has mapped the informal but politically potent news system by which Parisians of high and low status circulated court secrets or consumed the scandalous books known as libelles, along with subversive songs, poems and gossip, often leaked from within the king's own circle. News traveled in widening circles. Parisians gathered in favored cafes, designated park benches or exclusive salons, where the forbidden information was read aloud and copied by others to pass along. Parisians could choose for themselves which reality they believed."


"As if any boundaries are transgressed when you hold a protest within the space (material or cognitive) apportioned off for you by the institution you’re protesting against."