2.21.24
Exploding the Tangerine
Yesterday I worked on two poems.
I am thinking through balance issues — Lowell, who treads against angst heavy levy —- Emily, who uses flashlight and shine?
Emily always finds a way, she does not back down.
I am having discussions with Terry about balancing things I do — hinge at peeks, swing low sweet chariot, touch the ugly, and —
Try not to exclude the middle.
Em’s started with middle — easy ins, then opens up like a flower. And —- her beautiful top offs at end, sudden and — mysterious, kind of.
Sometimes consider Ems and Maya two most important women poets. Cause they touch middle with everybody. And the answer is Yes, always Yes.
I come from Dr. No-Know. Purple Haze and Fiddlers Green.
I graze middle, here, then there, but moreover consider myself a mud bunny, fighting back the mads, with Syvs and even Lowry —- I am a depressing Sod, darkling veined with masses of marble garble. Always admit the worst you can do.
Lately turning towards middle at ends. Really worried it goes too far… on The Big Easy —
Drops down to hell now, added spells and hell… And unless you are a darkness hound, it is not humorous.
Its merciless makes puddy.
Ahkmatova was merciless pretty much from the get go. As was I, so I was told. Rhymers touch middle and can be merciless and flash shine.
Anna could bring nature in to soften the horror. I dont have that around me.
She gets onto wonder of nature, as save the bunny, is as good as Yeats. Tho probably closer to Heaney.
I am surrounded by brick, metal and glass.
Nature is above me…
Stop worrying….
Changed title on Swat the Bot, to The Big Easy.
http://dustyhope.com/poetry/big-easy/
Daft Bleak Darlings
Since I dont have that — what else can I use. No faking…
Magic shows up as a transplant, mystic as merriment and murderer, allegorical strains widdle wadder through the metaphysic… religion philo…
Nothing growing up was believed, all grieved uncertainly.
All — was tainted with religious horror, I believed that horror was real. Perhaps even more real than real.
My childhood was a suburban bland anti-matter oasis that I so often despised, its lawns empty of traffic — mostly quiet a kind of suffocation of dawn. Nor a sunset to be seen. Mostly white skies, blank, and flat. Insidious it seemed to me.
Stick in the mud. Breaking taboo. My mind a wired spiraling blasphemy of wind and storm, curious abominable religious traces parading forlorn, wild with run off riots of the unknown, circling with escalating migration, tippy and taboo. But never did it grace the surface. Life was cut in two.
To exist was to not exist, where staged a hinge, a trackless rebuff lonely and only in the dark. Time was bleak, murderous are the meek, and jealous with poverty. Money — pure tedium, seemed a hopeless scam, how conquer boredom, what to do with Dr. No-Know, whose curiosity ruled the plains.
Crushing Velvet
The N words. No. Never. Swirled like cotton candy laced in figures of pell mell hell, as wisp and warrior?
Yesterday wrote a poem that includes the word velvet, its been edited now four times. Seems to be getting there. Inspired by a poem that
put up yesterday, called A Course in Miracles by Meg Freitag.I love inspiration. It inspired me to write A Box to Outfox. Already been edited four times…. Poe shows up to defend, at end…
Thanks to you both!
The Big Easy works for me. When I was in New Orleans for a bit, the excitement of the lightness of the night music riveted me as I bar hopped, a religious experience, but there was an undercurrent saying beware, danger lurks
Vehemence of exercise—these lines suggest that physical exercise can be a twisted way to get better at living and breathing. Why work so hard just to forestall death
Fireproofing the place with a fire burning inside—attempts at a safe normal existence when the heat is always on… fireproofing is an oxymoron…then there is the transforming power of fire—it won’t permit us to stay solid
Eyes grow antlers is a mystery. I can visualize it. I think of Sartre and merging with natural objects. This is a moment of radical insight into the horror lurking inside the fragile reality of exercise and human companionship. Not sure whose eyes have this vision problem
Cutting air with axe—after the antlers, there could be a frantic attempt to defend against the very gas that keeps life living…an effort to engage the intangible with the tangible
war and ecstasy- the unmarked closeness could be human companionship that is unmarked by customs or rings or boundaries, a wild ride that reaches the extremes of emotions
the lure—the spell, the attraction, the thing that keeps the fire burning, a desired belief in fireproof
the spur—ride em cowgirl get the hell out of here
Shadows cow for alloy—shadows are an alloy of light and dark, but at times they seem bright by comparison
Tries to speak ocean—trying to say something as huge and mysterious as the ocean is bound to overwhelm. By this point the attempt to fireproof is doa
Under the holly
Dante's forlorn folly—it ain’t worth it to make the trip to hell stand under the holly and get your Xmas kiss
Talking bird—I think of Milton and Chaucer, the ring that lets people talk with birds magic
and singing tree—post-humanism ties back to the earlier reference to music
Restless with freedom—definitely a middle ground
and curiosity—no matter the trip to get to the end the poet is still vibrant, searching for a way to make peace with the animals inside us
I really dig this poem
I think I see. One of those things that can neither be given to someone in adulthood, nor relieved in those who already have it, learned as it is alongside the basics of life, watermark for the tabula rasa. I suspect if it weren't for mine I simply wouldn't have a lens. Just empty frames.