Congratulations, Tara Reid!

                

Tara Reid is now 95 pounds!

Alright, Girl! Liquid diets are so cool!

Here is a fun way to pass a few moments. Compute how many Tara Reids you are, exactly. Like you might be 1.35 Tara Reids, or 2.42 Tara Reids. For instance, if you weighed 194 pounds you would weigh 2.04 Tara Reids.

I think we should adopt this as a healthy reminder of the girlish figure.

My favorite Tara Reid clip is where she is riding on the upper part of a double decker bus in London and tree branches are smashing her in the face and she's just giggling and oblivious because she's so plastered.

Texas A & M Jokes

D.J. Denny Logan just told a whole slew of Texas A&M jokes...

What does the average Texas A&M student get on his S.A.T.s?
Answer: Drool.

How do you get a Texas A&M graduate off your front porch?
A: Pay him for the pizza.

How can you tell if a Texas A&M graduate is married?
A: There's tobacco spit on BOTH sides of the pickup floor.

How do you get a Texas A&M gal into your dorm room?
A: Grease her hips and push her through the door.

How many Texas A&M freshmen does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. That's a sophomore course.

Okay, that was some serious good hateration there, Denny. You made me snorkel my sweet tea. Thanks! Sorry A&M'ers! Direct all retaliation to Denny Logan.

Darren Hayes

I like some of Darren Hayes's music. Lee's a much bigger fan than I am. This song is very funny, but I couldn't find a real video for it on YouTube...only this rather dismal, dark thing where Darren apparently got trapped in a Borders and couldn't escape...it gives me chills...because you know after the first few hours of circling like sharks, those books begin to attack...it always feels like that movie Open Waters when I enter one of those bookstores..worse than a furniture store, and it's not even human beings...

"they've got those bombs up in the planes, they've got those bombs up in the trains, they've got those bombs up in my face, don't want to talk about it..."

&

"the president...who FUCKED the world for every future boy and girl...is golfing...in AARRRUUUUUBAAA....with a suntan and SCUBA...."

Funny song, bad video.

And here's a more professional video, for a song with a great intro. Martin Gore probably feels complimented. I bet this sounds great in concert, amped up. I like origami peace cranes. I have one from Hiroshima. It's on my Crimbo tree.


Decent video, decent song.

Some Christmas Music

My favorite Christmas Carol is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." My favorite versions of it are Judy Garland (typifag, I know) and Dave Matthews (he is like so crunk when he does it). It's a bit of a sad carol, yes I know. I like the downers sometimes.

Here is a link to Icelandic Band Mum's cool My Space site. We first encountered this band when we were in Iceland...they gave a great performance. I just wanted to give you a link to their alternate brain wave song "Marmalade Fires," but YouTube only had live versions that weren't stellar. They do some great weird videos and have some songs that sound as though they would come out of a Teletubby that you squeeze, but some of the stuff is just otherwordly beautiful. So here's a link to their MySpace page and it will probably start playing when you get there...if not, look for the inset box with like four songs and click Marmalade Fires...it's like a mellower version of that band that does Yoshimi and "do you realize?"...I forget their name just now...but love that old album too...

Ecstasy this way.

Christmas Poem

               


    Today I thought of gods and then my walking stick insect's four children...



...exact replicas of herself
produced without a partner,
a tiny pharaohnic dream...
they ride on her as if she were
a giant bus, they are giddy
as poets in an anthology,
giant legs are carrying them
across snowy panormas & they hold tight.

they are exquisitely happy

    *


The people who we were leave us,
but only as music leaves.
Something dark stands there
the other side of the bright concerto.
It takes our picture & cannot grieve.


    *

Prokofiev blows through the room,
ecstatic he's become nature
& is no longer a stupidly grieving Russian man.


don't take it too personally
that a winged lion wants the sky
& not you. Prokofiev didn't.
He just went off and died.
like everyone you know or love.


eye clouds.


say please.

On the Eve of the Phantasm....

               

I WANT TO WISH ALL MY FRIENDS, ACQUAINTANCES, LOVERS, EXES, TRICKS, ETC. ETC....HAPPY HOLIDAYS...

For those of you who are Christian....

I look very much forward to burning in Hell with you. At least we will all have some good books to discuss. It will be like Goodreads...only hotter.

For those of you who are Jewish...

I am exceedingly jealous of you. Jews are so hot. Plus all the greatest writers throughout history have been Jews. I was certain I would end up with a Jewish boyfriend. But I guess that's just not the way the rugallah crumbles.

For those of you who are Muslim...

I think the Koran is pretty. I am happy we are friends. But let's not kid ourselves about your view of heaven. The only person who has ever gathered up that many virgins at once is Michael Jackson, and look where it got HIM.

For those of you who are Hindus...

Try to relate. Don't have a cow, man. Frosty sorta looks like Gandhi, right? Only fatter. And Santa...he sort of looks like Gandhi too, right? Only fatter. Oh who are we kidding...the average American arm is fatter than your average Indian. Materialism Schmaterialism! You still better buy her that diamond in whatever shape is in this year! A flower blossom won't cut it. Diamonds--like the endless cycles of tortured rebirth--are forever. And so is the nagging when you don't get her what she so clearly told you she had no earthly use for. You believed her??? What is your skull made out of anyway...wall board???

For those of you who are Buddhists...

Enjoy the tofu with Richard Gere and Patrick Duffy. And don't forget to give your kids a nice plushie...like maybe, oh i don't know...a "dolly llama." Get it? Get it? Do you ohmifuckinggod you didn't get it did you? Okay you got it. It just wasn't funny. I know. Well, enjoy the emptiness or something.

For those of you who are atheists...

Oh, you just think you're so cool, don't you. With all your talk of "you can't disprove a negative" and "God is dead." Well, go to fucking work. Don't you dare take this day off! I want you to feel CRUCIFIED! And when you cry out from your keyboard, "Eli! Eli! Lama Sabacthani!" maybe you will finally SEE!

Just kidding, it's cool. We all know a four year old could design a better universe. Well at least morally. (Like a universe where organisms didn't need to eat each other to survive.) But still...there is much to admire about the universe....like the acoustics...and the SPACE! My God, it's a real estate agent's dream!

For those of you who are members of Heaven's Gate...

I hope the comet is very pretty and that you are all singing Christmas Carols with Do as you pass Andromeda. And you are all wearing the same sneakers! It's almost like "An Osmonds Christmas!"

HAPPY
SOMETHING!

HAPPY HAPPY
JOY JOY!

HAPPY
HAPPINESS

BE WELL
DRINK BERONSIPLY

If You Will Be in New York in Early January, Check Out My Cousin*!

Look at this. Can you possibly go wrong by checking this out?

No, you cannot.

You will come away with the feeling you did not miss out by not being in Berlin entre les guerres.

*=my cousin since earlier this evening

In A Corner of Our Kitchen, Up Near the Ceiling...

I just found the cat at a country thrift shop...I put her way up there, because she stares down at Dru when he's eating and freaks him the fuck out...I love it...it reminds me of one of those cats in the Japanese prints watching the spider...it's prettier as an inversion...

Joseph Keckler

I had seen this guy's name floating around and wondered: is this a relative? I'm terrible on genealogy. If he can trace any of his forbears to Enola, Pennsylvania, he probably is related, as there was a major diaspora of Kecklers out of there.

And then there are members of the Lakota tribe who are Kecklers. I hope I am related to them. It would be nice to sort of drop out and join the reservation. If I'm Lakota (or if I'm not), I'm tired of bearing your white man's burden already! Fuckin paleskins.

Joseph is cool. Check him out on YouTube and on his site...a link is below. He is a major hyphenate: composer, opera singer, painter, performance artist, actor, you name it. And he's cool looking and photogenic and doesn't mind being geeky on camera, although you can just tell he could play the John Lurie role perfectly if he chose to be annoyingly suave like that.

But he doesn't, which I think is cool.

I hope I'm related to him. Maybe I will invent a relationship. Joe, can I make you a first cousin? If you join the cousinship, you'll get some high power OTHER cousins in the bargain, like my cousin Paulie who is a real estate magnate in New York. Did I sweeten the deal enough yet?

I like the song from his original musical on YouTube where he and Ms. Markey sing IM sex cliches back and forth. That's cute!

Here is the Keckler I want to add as a cousin.

Here is his very impressive and diverse curriculum vitae...


ORIGINAL PERFORMANCE WORK


LOOKING FOR LIMBO. Original musical theater piece for 7 actors, co-written and composed with Erin Markey. Produced in conjunction with The American Living Room Festival and HERE Arts Center, presented at 3LD Art and Technology Center, NYC, 2006.


THE BALLAD OF JUNK AND MALFUNCTION, original two-person experimental musical co-written and performed by Joseph Keckler and Melaena Cadiz. Music composed by Joseph Keckler. Premiered at The American Living Festival, HERE Arts Center, NYC, 2005. Excerpts presented at Collective: Unconcious. Full production ran for four weeks at Dixon Place Theater, 2006.


HAS-BEEN IN MICHIGAN, 4 screen multi-character video-cabaret/ performance installation. Text, music, and all characters performed by Joseph Keckler. Videography and art direction by UArts Faculty Member Mike Enright. Presented at Monkey Town in Fishbowl Cabaret and in Dahlia Digital Presents; presented at Galapagos Art Space in conjunction with Lip Service.


TALES OF ECCENTRICITY FROM THE MITTEN STATE, original solo performance, Dixon Place Theater, NYC, 2005.


PANTY RAID, four-person experimental musical written and performed by The Men That Got Away, premiered at The 11th Annual Performance Studies International Conference, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2005. Remounted, HOT! Festival, Dixon Place Theater, NYC


WHAT ARE YOU INTO?/ KISS AIN’T A KISS. Written by Joseph Keckler, Erin Markey, Jim Leija, and Bryan Heyboer. An “Epic Love Song” that amalgamates found texts—craigslist personals and extracted chat-room dialogues-- set to music and fused with classic love songs and “Kiss Ain’t a Kiss” by Joseph Keckler. Featured as closing performance in Afterparty with John Cameron Mitchell at Joe’s Pub (Curated by John Cameron Mitchell). Also: The Stain; Galapagos Art, MIX: Gay and Lesbian Experimental Film Festival, The Delancey.


TNT: DYNAMICS AND FEATURED SELECTIONS AT SAVE-A-LOT. Original monologue. Presented at The Arena Theater, The Work Gallery, Arbor Vitae, Grand Valley State University, The RC Auditorium in MI; Dixon Place Theater, NYC, 2001-2003.


LET’S STAY IN TONIGHT, performance/installation, Ann Arbor Film Festival.


MADE OF HONOR, solo show by Erin Markey. Composed score. Single File Solo Festival, The Athenaeum, Chicago


SELECTED PERFORMANCE

AFTER A FASHION, Holly Hughes. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC
365 DAYS/ 365 PLAYS, Dir. Penny Arcade. The Public Theater, NYC
HEAT AT THE KITCHEN, Jack Waters. The Kitchen, NYC
TRACES/ FADES, Lenora Champagne. HERE Arts Center, NYC
ZENITH 5 , John Moran. Spiegeltent, produced by PS122, NYC.
DECREATION, Anne Carson. The Duderstadt Center, Ann Arbor
MEXOTICA, Guillermo Gomez-Pena. The Duderstadt Center, Ann Arbor
SPACE, Reverend Billy. The Duderstadt Center, Ann Arbor


OPERA

Have performed numerous operatic bass-baritone roles, including: Padre Guardiano (LA FORZA DEL DESTINO), Ramfis(AIDA), Colas (BASTIEN UND BASTIENNE), Commendatore(DON GIOVANNI), Monterone (RIGOLETTO), Angelotti (TOSCA), Zuniga (CARMEN), Raoul de St. Brioche (THE MERRY WIDOW), The King (AIDA) Dottore Grenvil (LA TRAVIATA), Bartolo (LE NOZZE DI FIGARO).


COMPETITIVE EXHIBITIONS

Paintings/Drawings exhibited four consecutive years in West Michigan Area Show at The Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, juried, respectively, by Robert Stackhouse, Arnold Mesches, Eleanor Heartney, and Michael Bergt. (2000-2003)

Showed work in “Annual Regional Juried Show”, Carnegie Center for the Arts, Three Rivers, MI. (2003, 2004)
Pieces regularly exhibited in The Work Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI. (2003-2004)

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS AND LECTURES

“Performance as Public Practice: Imagining the Future of Performance Scholarship”, University of Texas, Austin. Presented original academic paper, “After a Heterogeneous Ideal” in the panel, “Contested Turf: Strategizing the Interdisciplinary Rehearsal Room”

“Defeating Fear: Strategies of Feminism, Learning, and Resistance in Dangerous Times”, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Pre-Conference, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto, ON. Participant in panel, "Performance in the Academy"

“Artbreak”, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.
Delivered gallery talk on double self-portraits


RESIDENCIES
Witt Artist In Residence, University of Michigan School of Art and Design, 2007
Artist in Residence, Tuff Love, Supreme Trading, Brooklyn, 2007

EDUCATION

BFA, Painting, University of Michigan School of Art and Design, summa cum laude

HONORS AND AWARDS
Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Finalist, New England, 2007
School of Art and Design BFA Award, given annually to the graduating senior the faculty believes best represents the school , 2004
Richard Wilt Memorial Award, for installation, “Self-Portrait in Natural Habitat”, 2004
James B. Angell Scholar 2000-2004
Avery Hopwood Award for a Personal Essay/Performance Text, 2003
Anne Reek Amendt Award, for “Someone Who Has the Potential to Make a Significant, 2001 Contribution to the Arts”

Liz Fraser & Jeff Buckley...it doesn't get any better...

                

I must have listened to this a hundred times in the past few months. If you need an "up," click on the following.


Ecstasy this way.

This is monumentally beautiful....

                

Or should I say anti-monumentally beautiful?


Be transported to ecstasy here.


The original Last of England. I love tondos...erm, tondi.

Isn't the study ugly? But the finished painting is supernal. No wonder it finished so high on that survey of favorite paintings.

Oh Tilda...

Oh Derek...

Thank You!

I was watching this and thinking "who the hell did he find in England that could sing like Diamanda Galas?...and then I scrolled down and in the comments someone said "it's Diamanda Galas." Wow! I love that piece she has on the Giorno c.d....that's an awesome c.d. in general....

I love Tilda's face. She was so perfect in the last filmic adaptation of Orlando. One of my favorite moments in modern cinema: when the surly British publisher asks her, "How long did it take you to write this?" lololololololololololol.

Her arch gaze into the camera is one of a precious few examples where that overused device is actually earned and completely effective. And Quentin Crisp was THE definitive Elizabeth I. I'm sorry Cate, but he just slightly outdid you.

And Jimmy Somerville! God I love that meretricious angel at the end, and that ethereal song! Bring back the castrati! Just kidding!

"i am on earth and i am in outer space i'm being born and i am dying"

Of course, Jarman did great video work for the Smiths and some so-so work for the Pet Shop Boys, when he was near the end of his life...here is probably my favorite Smiths video...not hard to choose...


"So I broke into the palace with a sponge and a rusty spanner...she said I know you and you CANNOT sing...I said that's nothing you should hear me play pian'er."

My SPD (Small Press Distribution) Wish List

Okay, I received the new S.P.D. catalogue (Spring 2008) and am going through the usual overload, intoxication from all these books I am curious about and/or want.

Since I can't go on another shopping spree, I figured I'd mention my S.P.D. "WISH LIST" and see if anyone wants to send me any of these titles. If you are the author, publisher, or have a vested interest in promoting any of the following books, feel free to send a gratis copy my way for possible review. If I like it at all, I will review it. (I don't see the point of reviewing a book about which I have nothing good to say. Small press authors suffer enough!)

If I listed a book here, it probably means I have already seen writing by this author that I admired, or just that the huge buzz about that book has me curious...or that S.P.D. did a great job of pimping your title.

Feel free to email me at Bewitjanus@aol.com and request my mailing address should you wish to promote one of these titles.

Lest you see this as a parasitic or cheap Scrooge move, I would add that I have been an ardent supporter of S.P.D. (and small presses) over the years. When I received my various fellowships, I patronized S.P.D. to the tune of several hundred dollars annually. I also made a donation at one time. In general, I tried to make sure my fellowship funds were substantially turned back into poetry (and not in any selfish or self-promotional way).

Six Gallery Press is to be my next publisher, and I am looking very much forward to being a part of that entity. You can find Six Gallery books all through this S.P.D. catalogue...the press is launched in full force. Judging by the books I've read so far, all I can say is "Pick one Six Gallery Press book at random and I bet you won't be even the teensiest-weensiest bit dissatisfied!" One great title after another has been rolling out over there lately, including Elias's latest novel, The Terror of Loch Ness. The presence of Michael Hafftka as the (seeming) house illustrator and designer is clearly a boon! Six Gallery Press books are eye-candy as well as great reads.

And if any of Elias's poetry volumes are available here, I can give the highest endorsement. Meddles into Preclusion was the title that really won me over. His poetry is a mindfuck and sui generis. All I can think of to possibly explain Elias's otherworldly style is to say it's as though Horace escaped from antiquity in a time machine, entered Gertrude Stein's spirit sometime around 1930 in Paris and then set the machine to land them in the middle of LA MOMA or someplace like that...and then Horace-Stein started talking to all the paintings in an idiom they would understand, possibly thinking they were beings of the future.

But that sort of thing happens all the time, I know, I know...

Anyway, enough yadda...here are my picks for my wish list. If you want to take your chances and get my tongue wagging, just email me at the above address, Mr. or Ms. Writer or Publisher or P/R slickster...


Tim Atkins, Horace

Rachel Tzvia Back, On Ruins & Return

Stephen Berg, Cuckoo's Blood: Versions of Zen Poetry

Ted Berrigan & Gordon Botherston, River Under the House

Raymond Bianchi & William Allegrezza, The City Visible

Jenny Boully, One Love Affair

Laynie Brown, The Scented Fox (congrats on the NPS win, Laynie!)

Garrett Caples, Complications

Anne Carson, Short Talks

Thomas Devaney, A Series of Small Boxes

Linh Dinh, Jam Alerts

Paul Eluard, A Moral Lesson (translated by Lisa Lubasch)

Benjamin Friedlander, The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes

Susan Gevirtz, Thrall

Judith Goldman & Leslie Scalapino, War and Peace 3

Noah Eli Gordon & Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Figures for a Darkroom Voice

Duriel E. Harris, Drag

Lucas Hunt, Lives

Lisa Jarnot, The Iliad Book XXII (translation)

Basil King, 77 Beasts

Robert Kocik, Rhrurbarb

Joanne Kyger, About Now: Collected Poems

Joanne Kyger, Not Veracruz

Dorothea Lasky, Awe

Michael Magee, My Angie Dickinson

Osip Mandelstam, Tristia (translated by Kevin J. Kinsella)

Chris Martin, American Music

W.S. Merwin, Migration

Douglas Messerli, My Year 2005: Terrifying Times

Jennifer Moxley, The Line

bp nichol, The Alphabet Game (god it's a shame he's gone!)

Ron Padgett, How to Be Perfect

Ted Pearson, Encryptions

Pierre Reverdy, Prose Poems (translated by Padgett)

Rilke, Rainer Marie, Rilke's Late Poetry (always good to check out ANY new translations of him)

Martha Ronk, Vertigo (congrats on the NPS win, Martha!)

Reginald Shepherd, Lyric Postmodernisms (this looks to be a GREAT anthology!)

Alexander Skidan, Red Shifting (translated by Genya Turovskaya & Eugene Ostashevsky)

Laura Solomon, Blue and Red Things (way to go Ugly Duckling Presse!)

Juliana Spahr, The Transformation

Brian Kim Stefans, Kluge

Eileen Tabios, The Light Sang as it Left Your Eyes: Our Autobiography

Edwin Torres, The Popedology of an Ambient Language

Walking Theory, Stephen Vincent

Joe Wenderoth, No Real Light

Geoffrey Young, Pockets of Wheat (He's kept one of the best presses in America for I don't know how many decades now)

Rachel Zolf, Human Resources


I didn't read every single entry in the poetry section in its entirety. Many people whose names I did not recognize had blurbs that were so hyperbolic that they were functionally meaningless as a way to judge what the work might actually BE, or just had these generic descriptions of what the work might be. So my eye flitted, as eyes are wont to do. So there might be a dozen masterpieces in there I did not even put on my WISH LIST. If so, I am truly sorry that I will not in the immediate future have a chance to reckon your greatness.

There's always tomorrow.

P.S. S.P.D., the cover on this catalogue was really not up to snuff. You have set the bar high with some of those past designs...that one with the drawings of contemporary poets in little cartoon strip boxes will be bought and traded for decades for the stellar artwork...who did that, Gary Sullivan? And I can think of other S.P.D. covers that had mystery and allure. Even that black and white photo taken from an old family album was great! This one just looks like an ad for an imaginary Cologne which retails at Dollar General and says on the box, "IF YOU LIKE SCHWITTERS, YOU'LL LOVE ALEATORIA!" How come when the Dadaists and their ilk dropped pieces of paper it was so much prettier? I think they cheated. I don't think Arp really let chance have its way. Compositionally, this is ugly, and not even ugly in a provocative or ekphrastically-inspiring way. Just ugly. Like a dog's butt with a dangling winter dingleberry. That kind of ugly.

Thank you for reading my thoughts, S.P.D.

More Middle English and Some Poetry Inspired by It

                

The following three poems are from that great little book, One Hundred Middle English Lyrics. I'm sure a paperback copy can be found very inexpensively online.

Ne hath my soul but fyre and yse
And the licame erthe and tree:
Bidde we alle the heighe kyng
That welde shal the laste doom
That he us lete that ilke thyng,
That we mowen his wylle don;
He us skere of the tithyng
That synfulle shullen an-underfon
Whan deeth hem ledeth to the myrthe
That nevere ne beth undon. Amen


This poem the editor actually gives a source for--Jesus Coll. Oxf. MS. 29 (OEM No. XII) c. 1275. So if you're near Oxford, stop in and ask them if you may walk around holding the actual manuscript while you read it. And have a chocolate donut in your hand when you ask.

Did you realize you were going back to Middle English when you used the word "ilk?"
The book glosses this well so it is easily understood...

   licame body
   welde wield, rule over
  skere of the tithyng free (or excuse) from the wages (reward)
  an-underfon receive
  myrthe mirth, joys (obviously ironic)

  that ilke that same, that very (one)

What a strangely Boschean image that is, and what great sounding language! "Whan deethe hem ledeth to the myrthe that nevere ne beth undon."



And yes, it sucked to be a woman in this period of history. Witness...


Sey me, wight in the broom,
Teche me how I shal don
That myn housebonde
Me loven wolde.

"Hold thy tonge stille
And have al thy wylle."



  broom   broom, brushwood
  wylle   will; desire; purpose (think: to have one's wiles about one, or the word wily)

A "wight" is a person or a creature. It was pretty non-specific at that time. As English went forward then, it seems to have been more commonly applied to creatures (than humans) and especially tinier ones, if I am remembering correctly.



And this little mortal poem is really beautiful wordplay...


Erthe took of erthe, erth wyth wogh;
Erthe other erthe to the erthe drough;
Erthe leyde erthe in erthen through:
Than hadde erthe of erthe erthe ynough.

            circa 1320

The editor notes that there are many variants, versions and expansions of this last one extant.


   wogh   wrong, harm
   drough drew, added
   through coffin, grave

I'm fairly certain I know how those end words would sound. If I am correct they would end in very aspirated k sounds, rather like Germanic "ich." I wouldn't think the earlier version of "enough" would be pronounced with the "f" sound we use today. Can anyone conversant in ME pronunciation confirm that? Than is "then," by the way. The modern word "through" was actually "thurgh" at this point in time.

I love that last line, so mortal, so rich with living: Than hadde erthe of erthe erthe ynough.


My ex used to love playing with older forms of English, and often wrote in a synthesized form of archaic English which did not aspire to be pedantically faithful to anterior forms, but rather played liberally with the sounds and language of these older forms of English. It was a mock English, a hybridization.

Here's a poem he wrote that we published in Logodaedalus, a zine we jointly edited some years back...he was publishing under the name Weidenhoff at the time...


   Dialougue between Lucifer as a serpent and Eve in the garden

Lucifer: See me woman
upon thee feet
full of licoris & grais
sieng thee serpent chant wit me

Lucifer and Eve: Serpent pedde spinx penna
Serpent pede spinx penna

Lucifer: Aye woman of composed yet faire
me lady deid not hear
dis wondrous breath of musicd pose
fond in da core
of dat dare appil on dis tree

Eve: Dis here tree dat though be sienging
yet me knows
dat Eate we of it we do amiss

Lucifer: Take of dis fruithe assaie
it is good meate I dare
laye else dis Lord wld not
be kind to set
such melisma in yer midst &
not to let ye
take dis musicd pose
frem voice uf grais
to cover yer boedie en prievasy

Eve: Lo Eiei haf long lamentd
to dis hevn's eye dat Eiei
shld naked be in day & night &
wold Eie cld be riengd to musicd
pose wld Eie
have respite from dis sonne
dat beats aulle daily unt neight

Lucifer: Then bold be woman
sheer and gauzd in de sonne no more

Eve: Dear Adam com teoi mei
& geve dis heart a trye


     circa 1992

Two Poems for Winter

The first is from a great book, One Hundred Middle English Lyrics, and the second is from Barbara Guest's The Red Gaze.


    Myrie it is whil somer ylast
    Wyth foweles song;
    But now neigheth wyndes blast
    And weder strong.
    Ei! Ei! What, this nyght is long,
    And I wyth wel muchel wrong
    Sorwe and murne and faste.




    ylast lasts, endures, continues

    wyth because of, as a result of








        The Gold Tap


    The arrival of a winter morning unclasping its bandeau of sleep.

    Marionettes are late risers. They awake in late morning,

    bringing their hands to the gold tap and drinking its rare waters.

Kindly Disregard The Following Eruptions, Gentle Reader...

The following is a faux-post designed purely to see if (as I suspect) this is what people really want to see (or at least what they query) in the blogosphere and everywhere else...

VAMPIRE SEX STORIES

GIRLS WHO SWALLOW

ELMO ON ICE

ANIME SEX

MICHAEL VICK PRISON SEX

LESBIAN SLEEPOVER

LESBIAN PILLOWFIGHT

THE JUKE

LESBIAN JELLO WRESTLING

HERSHEY HIGHWAY LESBIANS

GAY DAVID BECKHAM SEX SLAVES

HERSHEY HIGHWAY GAYBOS

MANGA SEX

BISEXUAL DAVID BECKHAM HERSHEY HIGHWAY PILLOWFIGHT

DON'T TASE ME, BRO

MANGA SEX CLUB STICKERS

ANIME SEX TORTURE LOVEBOYS

EAT CORN FROM MY NOOTCHIE

DON'T TASE ME BRO!

RICHARD GERE AND THE GERBIL

LESBIANS WHO LIKE STRAIGHT GUYS

BISEXUAL ANIME

GAY ANIME

ANIME SEX SLAVES OF DAVID BECKHAM

LINDSAY LOHAN MUFF SHOT

BISEXUAL MANGA

GAY MANGA

TRANSSEXUAL MANGA

TRANSSEXUAL ANIME

VAMPIRE ANIME

GAY VAMPIRE ANIME

DON'T TASE MY GAY ANIME VAMPIRE SEX SLAVE, BRO

GAY VAMPIRE MANGA

DAVID BECKHAM

GAY VAMPIRE ANIME LESBIANS WHO LIKE STRAIGHT GUYS

BISEXUAL VAMPIRE MANGA LESBIANS WHO LIKE STRAIGHT GUYS

GAY ANIME SEX STORIES

SNUFF ANIME

SNUFF MANGA

SNUFF GAY VAMPIRE ANIME LESBIANS WHO LIKE STRAIGHT GUY STORIES

SNUFF BISEXUAL VAMPIRE ANIME LESBIANS WHO LIKE STRAIGHT GUY STORIES

OPRAH WINFREY

SNUFF FILM BISEXUAL LESBIANS WHO LIKE DAVID BECKHAM

OPRAH WINFREY DR. PHIL SNUFF FILM

GAY ANIME OPRAH WINFREY EATS CORN FROM HER NOOTCHIE

BISEXUAL DR. PHIL MANGA SEX SLAVES EAT CORN FROM HER NOOTCHIE

DAVID BECKHAM SPONGEBOB SNUFF FILM

MICHAEL VICK ANIME SPACE SEX SLAVES WHO LOVE LESBIAN DOGFIGHTING

ANIME DOGFIGHTING

ANIME DOGFIGHTING SEX

ANIME LESBIAN DOGFIGHTING SEX

ANIME FISTING

MANGA FISTING

OPRAH WINFREY DR PHIL FISTING SPACE SPONGEBOB LESBIAN DREAM

WEBKINZ

I Finished the Taggart Review

I finished the review of the chapbook featuring excerpts from Taggart's forthcoming book. The book came out through publisher Atticus Finch...a gorgeous production. The designers know what they are doing, and this book will not feel underdressed for the ball at all when it is placed next to Taggart's early volumes published at one of the renowned stamperie in Italy. I forget the name...starts with a V. Several of his early books were published there. Unveiling/Marianne Moore (the work I reviewed) is already sold out; all of Atticus Finch's titles quickly sell out. I think the price on the thing was eight bucks, so no doubt this is a labor of love. They could be much more exploitive on pricing and still get it.

I liked the work the first time I saw it, but I didn't realize until the second or third read what Taggart was doing with this book. It's both a futuristic and anachronistic work, which strays in and out of phenomenological terrain. I was suprised by how much it is a poem of age, and how mortal the book is. And yet the work retains a great dignity...it never goes maudlin on you. It's more about the calling than anything. The gravitas is a spooky one, however. Taggart is not afraid to be weird, and this book is weird (think Weird Sisters, not weird like weirdo). It's basically an apologia and a death poem, and a spiritual biography/autobiography (in petto) of two unique and decidedly quirky American poets (Taggart and Marianne Moore). For those of you not from this area, Moore grew up in Carlisle, PA. Taggart has spent most of his adult life in Shippensburg, PA. Just down the road a piece, as they say.

You might be able to find a copy online, at ABE or elsewhere. I'm curious about hunting down the last title Atticus Finch did, which was by Myung Mi Kim...also long gone of course. I like her writing quite a bit.

My little essay is scheduled to come out in a book focused on Taggart. I'm not sure of the particulars but I think he said Bertholf is one of the contributors (wowsers!). It's probably a festschrift, I'm guessing. So it's good I liked the book, if it is. No one wants Banquo's ghost at the banquet.

Can You Draw This Turtle?

Albertus Magnus: Being the Approved, Verified, Sympathetic and Natural EGYPTIAN SECRETS--OR--White and Black Art for Man and Beast--OR-A Ton of Shit

Okay, this is one of many books I found at this really great strange little curiosity shop out in the middle of the sticks....actually Lee's mother found it, and since Lee is a country boy he had no problem finding it for us, and then striking up a conversation with the owner in that way countryfolk do, so that they had soon had each other's entire family trees mapped out, had exchanged a long roster of shared acquaintances and friends, announced heretofore unknown deaths to each other and quickly mourned, then passed on to discussions of the latest divorces and which partner had made out better. All of this, when I forget the names of my aunts and uncles on some days, and have lost count of the number of nephews and nieces I (allegedly) have.

But it's a marvelous store. I paid seventeen dollars to fill about three boxes with awesome stuff. Everywhere I looked was serendipity. Shelves and shelves of vintage and antique tchotchkes and figurines drew me in...weirdly beautiful and salable wares. All sorts of strange animals and mythic beings perched there, most stickered at 25 cents or 50 cents. I estimate it's about 400 dollars worth of items (online auction value) I found there in an hour or so. I have only sold three items out of about forty so far and am already sixty dollars ahead...a few items surprised me with the price they brought at auction.

One of these books (and all books regardless of whether they were hardovers, signed by author, whatever, were a quarter!) I was going to sell, but decided to keep because it is so FUCKING WEIRD and has strange cabalistic (unintentionally) funny writing all through it, is this little New Age book that sold for one dollar back in the sixties I think (see photo). It goes for a good price on ABE...I could have sold it and got somewhere between ten and twenty dollars for it, depending on how purple my prose was feeling on the day I listed it. It was reissued in the nineties in a facsimile edition I believe...of course that edition is worth much less but New Age books in general do very well when sold online. Usually, it's a matter of smaller runs on independent and/or quirky presses and the collectors of these things are fairly rabid. DIVINE LIGHTS BOOKSTORE is one of the most interesting little stores on Main Street in Steelton (now that we lost our great quirky little gay bookstore FOREVER BOOKS that did things like have "Gertrude Stein Night"....FOREVER BOOKS you are gone but not forgotten! You tried!) and it has been here basically forever. All the books from DIVINE LIGHTS (new and used) have pages redolent of a great mix of incenses (patchouli is predominant) and they keep their scent FOREVER! I bought a few Theosophical books there and some secondhand poetry titles. My friend Marty used to curate a cool poetry reading series on the second floor of the building (the store only occupies the first floor). It drew a strange crowd. I like it because you can stand amidst all the chi-chi iridescent dragons and dangling Celtic symbols, walk past Wiccan blades and Crowley's thick opuses of crap and look out the big windows in the back and there's the Bethlehem Steel Mill in operation. Walk a few hundred feet and you're actually in the mill.

The mill has been dying forever, but somehow always manages to limp on. I saw the Germans have taken over a significant portion of it (big blue letters MITTAL on one building). They have one of their corporate offices in an old Beaux-Arts building that was probably a government building half a century ago, which is right down at the bottom of this incredibly steep and winding road that comes up past several rather photogenic, somewhat spooky Victorian houses to our house. One of these is being turned into a "bread and breakfast" by a gay couple who lives there. Lee told me that. It's so funny, because who would want to stay in a bed and breakfast in Steelton!?! I mean it's a picturesque house (Lee's parents' friends once owned it and they told us horror stories about their heating bill) and the sort of quaint architecture that elicits "oohs" and "aahs." Don't get me wrong, I think Steelton's a town with a great history for being so young (founded in the early 1800s but incorporated in 1881) and I love the architecture. Of course you could have probably guessed this: "The community was named after the Pennsylvania Steel Company, which chose the site for a plant in 1865." I suppose someone could see staying in that house as a bed and breakfast inn if they were here for amusement in Hershey, sightseeing in Gettyburg, etc. Sorry Steelton, I didn't mean to knock you. I think this is a cool town. And hey congratulations to our high school football team, who just won the State Championship yet again! In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was as if Ellis Island just flew through space and came down PLUNK right here....this is the original melting pot, baby! Even our town motto references that amazing diversity. My biggest crushes when I was in junior high school were usually on Serbian and Croatian classmates...I'm just a sucker for those cheekbones.

Steelton's a town of ridiculously steep hills and that's a perfect objective correlative for the lives of the immigrants who came here. They climbed, and climbed very well. I remember talking about Steelton with the daughter of the landlord of the building we rent for my company. He owns a very succesful limousine company and several other booming businesses. He owns all the buildings in the industrial park where my company rents. She told me of the family history, which started very humbly in Steelton. She was researching the grandparents who settled here and the language they spoke. I thought that was great. You should read some of the tombstones around here. Absolutely mesmerizing. I will have to shoot some photos. My favorite cemetery, however, is down by Falmouth on the leeward side of a tall hill facing the Susquehanna. Falmouth is where they still hold annual goat races! Actually, this is right by T.M.I. (what a day that was for those of us living here on March 28, 1979!) I call it the Viking Cemetery. For some reason, in that cemetery everyone has created these "you CAN take it with you" shrines, and as the dead were usually avid fishermen or hunters, there are all these great tools for the afterlife all over the cemetery. You walk through the cemetery up to the top of this sloping hill (it's awesome on windy days) and there's a great panoramic view of the underestimated Susquehanna, with the huge hourglass-shaped concrete spools, the cooling towers, dominating their little nuclear island and throwing up these billowy steam clouds you can see from many miles away. My dad loved to fish off Falmouth and kept a little boat down there. I loved playing as a small child on the large river rocks, some the size of small houses...clambering all over them....especially the ones with native petroglyphs.

Okay enough yadda. I meant to post some excerpts from this creepy book....let's see what's in here...what follows is "practical" information for problems using the spiritual world...DO NOT DO ANY OF THIS SHIT! I will not be responsible for any vomiting, poisoning or soul-sickness that results from you taking any of this with even half a grain of salt. If you are afflicted with any of the following physical or mental conditions, consult a real health practitioner. :-)

    For the Epilepsy and Palsy

Willow tree, I now beseech thee. I pray thee take away from me my seventy and seventy times epilepsy. This must be spoken three times, three Fridays in succession, when the moon is waning; mornings, before sunrise, go to a running water, and direct the face in the direction whence the water runs, and upon three willow barks make three knots in the name of the holiest being,

        ss.sytz. X X Z.
    X. E. S. X. IL A. G. M. U. A. H. O. N. C. S. H. ss. H.
        Ghost.
  Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus beware the words of God as to the blessing over the archangel Gabriel.

    For a Ruptured Child

When a child is afflicted with rupture, grease it with lard from a fox, and the rupture will soon heal.

    When a couple of Oxen are to be trained, speak, while putting the yoke upon them, as follows:

  Bless or Brown, take the yoke upon thee. Patient be, like Jesus Christ was patient.

Want to get ahead in an argument. Here's a great almost-Christian way to do it!

    For Rows and Fights

  In the name of God, I do begin, lame your hands and feet because you sin. God grant that I may come out best or never I'll find peace nor rest, the true Son, Master, Jesus Christ, died on the cross for all mankind.

    How to be able to see in the Darkest Night

Grease the eyes with the blood of a bat.

     To banish Spiders, House Flies, Gnats or Mosquitoes from a House or Place

  Engrave the figure of a spider or fly upon a piece of copper or tin, in the centre, engrave from one to twenty to the sign of the fish rising over the horizon in the zodiac, and while engraving, pronounce these words: This is the image which drives away all flies or spiders, forever and ever. Afterward, conceal the plate in the centre of the house or suspend it in the middle of the house, or conceal it in the wall, where no one can take it away. This burying in the ground or concealing must be accomplished when prima facies taurus rises, and thus it will come to pass that in such a house, no fly, etc., shall be seen.

    How to drive away Bed Bugs

Fern leaves gathered between the last two days of the month of June, and put under the bed, will drive away the bed bugs sure.

And you thought you needed glasses? You fool....you prodigal, spendthrift fool! You don't need to be buying no damn prescription glasses, you foo'! Read on.

    Eyewater which makes the Sight Clear, so that no Spectacles are needed.

Take some good brandy of nettles, one drachm of ginger, camphor, fishberry, herb and nasturtium, of each one drachm, of cloves one scruple, of rue toothwort, eyebalm so much as may be held between two fingers (one pinch). Bruise all these articles, and put into the brandy, and distill it in the sun, during the winter season twenty-four days in a warm room. Dip your fingers therein and rub the eyelids therewith, morning and evenings, this will keep the eyes clear, and make them strong without the use of spectacles.

And you go to a dentist for a toothache? I repeat: YOU FOOL.

    For Violent Toothace

Take a new nail, pick with this the tooth till it bleeds, then take this nail and insert it in a place where neither sun or moon ever shines into (put it where the sun don't shine? oi!--me), perhaps in the rafters of the bin in a cellar, toward the rising of the sun; at the first stroke upon the nail call the name of him whom you design to help, and speak: Toothache fly away, by the second stroke: Toothache cease, pain allay!


    For Bad Hearing

   Take the oil with which the bells of churches are greased, and smear it behind the afflicted ears, and relief will come at once.


    To prevent Fire Arms being Bewitched

     Take nine blades of straw from under a sow while she is nursing young pigs, therefrom put nine knots into the shaft and insert them between the two barrel loops, and such a gun cannot be bewitched.

    For Haunted Horses or Cattle

    Take the left-hand glove of a woman afflicted with rheumatism in the right arm, steep it in fresh water, and allow the animals to drink therof.

    When an animal loses its usefulness

D F W S H D E S S Z Uz eo W V T V T D V 117 F 9 W I X S V

Throw away your lonely Tyenol.

     To Cure the Headache

   Take carrot-sap, and inhale it through the nose, and your aching head will be cured at once.

    For Shooting Pains

Carry upon your body:

    ARILL.   AT.   GOLL.   GOTTZO.

You went to Cy Spurling? You got a presciption for Rogaine or Minoxidil. You dupe!

    To make the Hair Grow wherever you Chose

   Take dog's milk and paint the spot therewith, wherever you wish to have the hair grow. It will surely grow.

    To drive the Mice away from Barns

   Burn a rotten crab to powder, fumigate the barns with it and all the mice therein will die.

Hmm...I know a lot of rotten crabs, but I'd probably be arrested if I did that.

    For the Witches

  Take the core of a quince, and give, on St. Mary's Eve, every animal, such a core to eat.

Hey quinces are underrated! We finally got a Wegmans here in the midstate area, and I love their cheesemongers! I got the best little plate they had prepared, a sampler of rarer cheeses, and there was a quince chutney included on the plate that was just heavenly and acted as a great counter-savory (or palate cleanser) to some of the cheeses! Wegmans rules!

I had bronchitis earlier and I missed this! It would have been so much easier! I don't think PETA will approve however.

    Another Remedy for the Bronchitis

  Take three male crabs, but no female, pound them alive in a mortar, pour three spoonfuls of white vinegar thereon, then press the juice through a cloth, and take it evenings before retiring to bed. Wet a woolen cloth therewith, rinse the mouth thoroughly with it, and gargle with such water. If it does not help at once, continue the cure for two or three days in succession.

     When a Dog is bitten by a Mad Dog

   The following words shall be given to him in a drink:

    Cinium   Cinium    Gossium    Strassus   God    Strassus

Okay, the following one would also make a LOVELY CHRISTMAS GIFT by the way! Only FIVE SHOPPING DAYS LEFT!

     That none may Vanquish you, and how to Open Locks

    Take the eye of a raven, lay it into an ant's hill for eight days, and you will find a little stone thereby, that stone carry with you upon your person.

The book claims to be translated from the German and to be authored by Albertus Magnus (affectionately known on the street, of course, as HEY HEY...FAT ALBERT). Here is some of what Wiki says about Albertus Magnus...there is some great maneuvering room here for a fun and potentially interesting screenplay...sci-fi or supernatural...

"In the centuries since his death, many stories arose about Albertus as an alchemist and magician. On the subject of alchemy and chemistry, he wrote treaties on Alchemy; Metals and Materials; the Secrets of Chemistry; the Origin of Metals; the Origins of Compounds, and a Concordance which is a collection of Observations on the philospher's stone; and other alchemy-chemistry topics, collected under the name of Theatrum Chemicum. He is credited with the discovery of the element arsenic. He did believe that stones had occult properties, as he related in his work De mineralibus. However, there is scant evidence that he personally performed alchemical experiments. Much of the modern confusion results from the fact that later works, particularly the alchemical work known as the Secreta Alberti or the Experimenta Alberti, were falsely attributed to Albertus by their authors in order to increase the prestige of the text through association.

According to legend, Albertus Magnus is said to have discovered the philosopher's stone and passed it to his pupil Thomas Aquinas, shortly before his death. Magnus does not confirm he discovered the stone in his writings, but he did record that he witnessed the creation of gold by "transmutation." Given that Thomas Aquinas died six years before Albertus Magnus' death, this legend as stated is unlikely.

However, it is true that Albertus was deeply interested in astrology, as has been articulated by scholars such as Paola Zambelli. While today we would view this as evidence of superstition, in the high Middle Ages--and well into the early modern period--few intellectuals, if any, questioned the basic assumptions of astrology: humans live within a web of celestial influences that affect our bodies, and thereby motivate us to behave in certain ways. Within this worldview, it was logical to believe that astrology could be used to predict the probable future of a human being. Albertus made this a central component of his philosophical system, arguing that an understanding of the celestial influences affecting us could help us to live our lives more in accord with Christian precepts. The most comprehensive statement of his astrological beliefs is to be found in a work he authored around 1260, now known as the Speculum astronomiae. However, details of these beliefs can be found in almost everything he wrote, from his early Summa de bono to his last work, the Summa theologiae."


ENJOY! SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS!

I Have Always Loved this Poem by Hadrian

               

The book from which I take this reminds us, "The emperor Hadrian lived from AD 76 to 138. Of his writings only a few short poems and fragments survive."

Wiki has it: "Publius Aelius Traianus Hadrianus (January 24, 76 – July 10, 138), known as Hadrian in English, was emperor of Rome from 117 to 138 AD, as well as a Stoic and Epicurean philosopher. A member of the gens Aelia, Hadrian was the third of the "Five Good Emperors". His reign had a faltering beginning, a glorious middle, and a tragic conclusion."

Hadrian's enduring love for Antinous has been a theme taken up by many poets, especially by gay poets. The endless array of statues Hadrian had erected in so many cities throughout his empire to the memory of this young man (who drowned in the Nile according to most sources) have reappeared in numerous poems.

Here is Wiki...

"While visiting Greece in 125, he attempted to create a kind of provincial parliament to bind all the semi-autonomous former city states across all Greece and Ionia (in Asia Minor). This parliament, known as the Panhellenion, failed despite spirited efforts to instill cooperation among the Hellenes. Hadrian was especially famous for his romance with a Greek youth, Antinous. While touring Egypt, Antinous mysteriously drowned in the Nile in 130. Deeply saddened, Hadrian founded the Egyptian city of Antinopolis. Hadrian drew the whole Empire into his mourning, making Antinous the last new god of antiquity.

Hadrian died at his villa in Baiae. He was buried in a mausoleum on the western bank of the Tiber, in Rome, a building later transformed into a papal fortress, Castel Sant'Angelo. The dimensions of his mausoleum, in its original form, were deliberately designed to be slightly larger than the earlier Mausoleum of Augustus.

A strange fragment from the Roman History of Cassius Dio of uncertain context:

"After Hadrian's death there was erected to him a huge equestrian statue representing him with a four-horse chariot. It was so large that the bulkiest man could walk through the eye of each horse, yet because of the extreme height of the foundation persons passing along on the ground below believe that the horses themselves as well as Hadrian are very small."'

I love the phrase "pederastic beloved." Gee, do you think the Wiki author was a little put off by Hadrian's taste in bed buddies? Do you sense a Wiki edit from something probably even un-nicer?"

Here are some clips from When Hadrian Met Antinoos (I prefer that older spelling with the diaeresis):

"When Hadrian arrived on the Euphrates, he characteristically solved the problem through a negotiated settlement with the Parthian king (probably Chosroes). He then proceeded to check the Roman defenses before setting off West along the coast of the Black Sea. He probably spent the winter in Nicomedia, the main city of Bithynia. As Nicomedia had been hit by an earthquake only shortly prior to his stay, Hadrian was generous in providing funds for rebuilding. Thanks to his generosity he was acclaimed as the chief restorer of the province as a whole. It is more than possible that Hadrian visited Claudiopolis and there espied the beautiful Antinous, a young boy who was destined to become the emperor's eromenos — his pederastic beloved. Sources say nothing about when Hadrian met Antinous; however, there are depictions of Antinous that shows him as a young man of 20 or so. As this was shortly before Antinous's drowning in 130 Antinous would more likely have been a youth of 13 or 14. It is possible that Antinous may have been sent to Rome to be trained as page to serve the emperor and only gradually did he rise to the status of imperial favorite.

After meeting Antinous, Hadrian traveled through Anatolia. The route he took is uncertain. Various incidents are described such as his founding of a city within Mysia, Hadrianutherae, after a successful boar hunt. (The building of the city was probably little more than a mere whim — lowly populated wooded areas such as the location of the new city were already ripe for development). Some historians dispute whether Hadrian did in fact commission the city's construction at all. At about this time, plans to build a temple in Asia minor were written up. The new temple would be dedicated to Trajan and Hadrian and built with dazzling white marble."


Wiki on the literary Hadrian:

"Hadrian wrote poetry in both Latin and Greek; one of the few surviving examples is a Latin poem he reportedly composed on his deathbed (see below). He also wrote an autobiography – not, apparently, a work of great length or revelation, but designed to scotch various rumours or explain his various actions. The work is lost but was apparently used by the writer — whether Marius Maximus or someone else – on whom the Historia Augusta principally relied for its vita of Hadrian: at least, a number of statements in the vita have been identified (by Ronald Syme and others) as probably ultimately stemming from the autobiography."

(And of interest to the pogonophiles among you...)

"Another of Hadrian's contributions to the arts was the beard. The portraits of emperors up to this point were all clean shaven, idealized images of Greek athletes. Hadrian wore a beard as evidenced by all his portraits. Subsequent emperors would be portrayed with beards for more than a century and a half."

Personal tastes and character...

"Hadrian was a humanist and deeply Hellenophile in all his tastes. He favoured the doctrines of the philosophers Epictetus, Heliodorus and Favorinus and was generally considered an Epicurean, as were some of his friends such as Caius Bruttius Praesens. At home he attended to social needs. Hadrian mitigated but did not abolish slavery, had the legal code humanized and forbade torture. He built libraries, aqueducts, baths and theaters. Hadrian is considered by many historians to have been wise and just: Schiller called him "the Empire's first servant", and Edward Gibbon admired his "vast and active genius", as well as his "equity and moderation"."

Here is a small but extremely memorable work by Hadrian, often quoted. It's rather simple Latin, hence often memorized. You may recall Oppen using the first line of this poem as an epigraph for one of his poems.

It has beautiful rhythms, almost like a lullaby to sing oneself to one's final sleep. A noble humor here...typically Roman...

   Hadrian's farewell to his soul

   Animula vagula blandula,
   hospes comesque corporis,
   quae nunc abibis in loca,
   pallidula, rigida, nudula,
   nec, ut soles, dabis iocos?


Here's the textbook author's literal translation:

"Poor wandering sweet soul,
guest and companion of the body,
to what places will you now depart,
pale, stiff, naked,
and not jest (give jokes) as you are accustomed [to do]?"

I attempted to smoothe the literal translation. How about...

Oh my sweet confused soul,
body's strange visitor & friend,
where will you wander now,
ashen, frozen, bare,
& all yesterday's jokes forgotten?

or perhaps, going even further...trying to capture a bit of the Underworld...turning it creepier...

Errant little harmless thing
lived inside me, a friend,
homeless now...
frozen, maggot-white, naked,
forever gone where it
will jabber no jokes in the dark

Any poets want to attempt a translation or two of the thing? If I like the result(s) you get (or even half like them) I'll put them in a future post.

Let's Say Our Days of the Week in Latin

                

Shall we?

This starts with Sunday and goes through the week.

dies Solis   day of the sun (sol)

dies Lunae   day of the moon (Luna)

dies Martis   day of the war god (Mars)

dies Mercuri   day of the messenger god (Mercurius, Mercury)

dies Iovis    day of Jupiter

dies Veneris   day of the love goddess (Venus)

dies Saturni    day of Saturn, father of Jupiter

The author of the book from which this is taken writes, "It will be seen how most have come down into French and Italian with little change, except that dies and the divinity change places (Fr. lundi, It. lunedi, etc.). In northern Europe the Roman gods were replaced with their Germanic equivalents, and so in English we have Sunday (day of the sun), Monday (day of the moon) etc.; the only exception is Saturday where the name of the Roman god was kept."

(I assume the writer assumes we know: Wednesday is Wodin's or Wotan's day, Thursday is Thor's day and Friday is Freya's or Frigga's day, as the last was variously known.--me)

Interesting the way certain days keep their original functions, or do to my mind. Friday is still most often a day of amorous pursuits; Sunday is often a day for relaxing in the sun or some indoor sun in winter, and Saturdays can often turn into Saturnalia. Tuesdays always seem like martial camps for me at work, but I think that might be pushing it just a bit...

Two Poems by Michael Lee Johnson

                  


      Twist My Words


I see the spring dance all over your face in green
you were arrogant before you viewed my willow tree
outside my balcony.
Now you wave at me
with green fingers
and lime smiles.
You twist my words,
Harvard collegiate style,
right where you want them to be--
lime green, willow tree, and
dark skinned branches.




    Berenika


Do what I tell you to do
your face is like flour dough
your nose like a slant directionally
unknown like an adverb--
tossed into space.
Your hat is like an angel
wedding gown draped
over vodka body
like a Christ shield
protecting you in innocence.
It is here I kiss your lips as a total stranger;
bring myself closely to your eyes;
camp out on your narrow lips
and wait for the morning
before I slide like a sled
deep snow, away.

A Perfect Day for Indie Filmmakers (Not Bananafish)

After the two ice storms that we have had here in central Pennsylvania, I do hope the most exploitive among you indie filmmakers went out and just told your actor friends to extemporize in some wooded area or other. Every forested area is solid crystal, cathedrals of Orrefors everywhere and when the sun strikes these stands of trees they are blinding! The tallest branches are knocking together like antlers in combat, shattering the glass which falls and scintillates everywhere like Kristallnacht.

What's not encased in ice is furred by it, so hills in shadow look like Miss Havisham's vacant rooms left in eternal preparation for her nonexistent nuptials.

Wow that was purple! Purple as a dog's dick!

Just think of the budget some terrible movie like The Ice Storm probably spent creating its fake ice storm. And here you have it just given to you! Zero budget! Maximum special effects! Your own bergfilm! Just have the actors walk around and have deep thoughts if you don't have any dialogue. People will still "ooh" and "aah" when you get to the ice storm scenes. This is called serendipity, folks!

I am clumsy with a camera. Lee does all our camerawork and he's busy at work so I leave it to you indie kids.

It will probably be awesome at night too, especially if the moon is up. You'll freeze your ass off, but if you get some of your actors to pose moodily in those glass cathedrals tonight you will have indie gold. Also, if you can talk them into getting naked it might be pretty awesome. Maybe have a naked woman pretend she is not cold at all while standing there...have her talk about how she is never cold, she doesn't know what's wrong with her.

Or have some young buck or two of them go into the ice forest tonight and take a basketball and hoot and holler having a great time throwing the basketball up into the branches and then running like hell as the branches and the crystal comes raining down. The sounds would be awesome and so would the falling ice knives, especially if they caught some moonlight. I hope it's not new moon or something.

Go for it! JUST FILM IT!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIOVANNI RIBISI!

Happy Birthday, Giovanni Ribisi!

You are 33 years old today and I celebrate your entering middle age (that's the offical new age that middle age starts at, although discussions of moving it to 29 are underway as we speak).

I think you are very, very sexy although I can't remember a single movie you were in.

It's not you, it's me.

I do remember being very drunk in some motel room and taking consolation in watching you play a sleazebag in some movie about either gambling or the mob or corporate evil. I forget.

But I just focused on your bone structure, and Giovanni, it gave me the best feeling in the world!

Dear Giovanni, if you die before me, can you say it's okay if I get your skull? I will sit and stare at it and smile and probably caress it, massage it while I'm thinking about what a beautiful man this skull was once inside.

Hot. You are so hot.

Happy Birthday!

More Pictures of the Divo Max (Moo's Twin Brother)

Moo's New Friend in Florida

Moo is a Gateway Cow, rather large, who sat around our house this past year being terribly unmotivated. He spent most of his time in the cat's favorite chair (leading to a terrible rivalry) or else lounging on the downstairs couch. He is a true bovine slacker. A total slugabed. We didn't mind indulging him and we liked the fact that a corporate pawn could so embarrass the company which created him by being the living embodiment of sloth (Gateway would be apalled.)

But we knew he had been hiding the fact that he was lonely even from himself, so we took it upon ourselves to remedy this.

We put him for sale on EBAY.

Of course, we didn't tell him this before the sale had been finalized (one never knows how much neuroticism is there under the surface, waiting to be unleashed) and travel arrangements had been booked.

He went PRIORITY MAIL (Lee and I convinced Moo that this is better than First Class on any airline, and that only celebrities travel this way). We also told him the styrofoam multicolored peanuts were ordered from a Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue, which somehow made it easier to coax that first step into the vehicle of transport.

I had no qualms about sending him to his new home as email correspondence with his buyer indicated a warm individual who was clearly aware of his special needs, and I realized right away that he would be as indulged there as he was here (possibly even more so). And what's more, she surprised me by later revealing MOO is a TWIN! He was apparently separated at birth from his brother MAX, who lives with the kind buyers, and to set our minds even further at ease, she sent me some pictures of MAX. All I can say is now I believe MOO is going to have fun, but that there may be some SERIOUS sibling rivalry, as MAX apparently is a bit of a dramatic character...see pics and note his flair for costume changes. I'm not sure yet whether MAX is emulating his owners (by buying matching slippers, for example) or if they are emulating him!

Clearly, he is a charismatic character, this MAX! I wonder how the psychologic dynamics of Moo's slacker nature will jibe with Max's flair for the dramatic. Max does strike me as a bit of a divo. Moo has told me in the past he always agreed with Quentin Crisp's take on "keeping up with the Joneses." He quoted to me, "It's much easier to bring them down to your level, than try to aspire to theirs."

Max, you might want to watch yourself, or you might find the most challenging part of your day is having to wash that orange stain from Cheese Curls off your belly...or if you are like Moo, asking someone else to do it for you.

We miss you, MOO! But we know you have found a good home and that you will write us from time to time to let us know how much you prefer that climate down there to Pennsylvania's. You got out just in time...all you missed is two ice storms and the sight of the cat Febreezing your chair.

MAZELTOV! SALUT! ABRACADABRA!

I Adore Mei-mei Berssenbrugge.

Here is a broadside from 2006 by her. She is my favorite living poet. I don't think any living poet writes in a manner as phenomenologically astute, or sees with such a perceant gaze. I sort of connect her to the project Ponge began...or one strain or avenue in Ponge's oeuvre anyway. I love the line in this poem, "The light is wide as waking can embrace at one time." That's a perfect sutra all by itself. Enjoy...

I Am On Goodreads...Here Are Some Capsule Reviews I posted there...

I joined Goodreads sometime during the summer but haven't been on much until lately. Here are some capsule reviews I posted on there. If you are on Goodreads too and would like to add me as a friend I would be honored.


NOTES FOR ECHO LAKE, MICHAEL PALMER

Half of this book is rather tepid throwback surrealism. The other half varies from good to great poetry. Palmer's position in the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E pantheon has always been rather marginal. One wonders if the language poets were jealous of his assimilation into the culture...which seems to have been much easier for him than for the inner cadre of more formalistically intrepid writers. This faster assimilation was no doubt due to the fact that he was basically writing in a received tradition and just importing certain shared modi operandi (disjunctive methodology, linguistic concerns,etc.) He basically writes a lyric poetry rich in surreal imagery, which means his writing was more recognizable as poetry to obtuse people when it appeared. He's at least half French and his warm friendships with French poetry (famously Hocquard and Albiach) are more than personal...they are cultural. He is a bridge figure as such and interesting in that regard also. Poems that I love in here would include "Song of the Round Man," many poems from the titular sequence, and the tiny but powerful "A book of." There are others. It's worth owning. And it has great cover art by Irving Petlin, creepyasfuck. I like the recent poetry I've been seeing by him and really want to pick up that Company of Moths book (is that the title?). I love when he writes those tiny knifelike poems that reflect the world with their cold metallic surface. A difficult art to master!


VITA NOVA, LOUISE GLUCK

This is my favorite Gluck book of those I've read (not nearly all). I don't know what my favorite is among those I have not read yet. I love the fun she has with the lyric tradition. People so often misread her as this uber-sincere, confessional writer, when I think she actually skewers the personal lyric tradition more cogently and hilariously than so many avant-garde poets (who tend to be much more ham-fisted in their attacks). The way she gets herself out of this collection (the final poem) is a nonpareil literary sleight of mind. Talk about Deus Ex Machina! Her sense of humor is dry so some people just miss it entirely...they may be the kind of readers who need James Tate or someone like that. Yes, she is a slyboots. (I love the word slyboots and will do anything to pretend to have a reason to say it!) But I do love this book.

A GREEN LIGHT, MATTHEW ROHRER

It's nice but as soon as I started reading it I thought "Nice James Tate touches" and then I turned to the back of the book where James Tate is saying in a blurb "nice james tate touches" basically...with a bit of Salamun thrown in...and then there's Salamun blurbing also....there are some really nice poems in here....there is a sort of staginess in some of the poems, though, and I really didn't like the second section of the book "MK Ultra" where phrases are recycled throughout poems in a loose formalistic game...that whole section felt really forced and the poetry didn't work for me. He had a few little diamonds in here, short lyric pieces spinning and imparting a torque to the reader's mind....rather like funnier, higher-energy, more neurotic Creeley....if you like animals and anthropomorphic cutesy animals used as mascots of philosophical systems (shades of Tao Lin!) you will probably love this book....the thing that probably irked me most about the book is that it feels like an outsider pose of grace and naturalism but in every tiny nook and cranny you see glints of the staging...the frame of past "hipnesses" which is holding this all up....you get the uncanny sense that the poet knows this is the perfect blend of nonchalance and warmer feeling that the literary MOMENT seems to favor....en bref, it feels calculated....calculatedly "disarmed." That makes me nervous...I am an animal...I am always watching the brush around me...New York is some of the darkest brush around. I bet a good deal of people think the title is a Fitzgerald reference, but it's not. It's a line from a poem in here, "Ancient Chinese War," which may or may not have been written in response to Sun Tzu. At first I thought it was, but nah.

JANET GRAY, 100 FLOWERS

A great book of poetry very few people know about. I have no idea why the author left poetry (or it seems she has judging by all outward indices). She takes 100 O'Keefe flower paintings and turns them into lyric poetry....it would be interesting to study this book alongside Gluck's Pulitzer-winning volume (The Wild Iris) which also uses flowers as a departure for her poems...one of Gluck's books which I don't like that much. Gray's poems start with material that's already highly organic and often very erotic (the paintings) but takes it in sci-fi and philosophical directions...many of the poems seem to see the flowers as incarnations of appetites almost human in their ferocity and focus...this poetry book reads like a deliciously weird Theosophy text.; the poems seem to read objects in an almost noumenal way. I know that's impossible Kantianism! But she seems to do it somehow .Gluck's poems are going for the transcendental by meditating on flowers also, but her aim tends to be a human spiritual transcendence, so her book comes off as rather monastic. Gray's transcendence, on the other hand, is very, very inhuman...and very memorable. If you can find an old copy on ABE or elsewhere snatch it up! You won't regret it! Also, this book goes really well with My Bloody Valentine's Loveless album...try listening to it while reading this...a GREAT experience! Track 3 complements her writing particularly well! And Janet? Come back to us!! :-)

DEAR MILI, WILHELM GRIMM (illustrated by MAURICE SENDAK)

Ostensibly, a children's book, this would fall into that subgenre of writing where the work operates on two or more vastly different levels...where children come away with one sort of story and adults (or these same children grown up and returned to the book) come away with a completely different story. The one for children is a comforting story about the Lord looking out for his sheep. The one for adults is much darker, a story about how losing a child makes time stop permanently. The book is a poetic meditation on time, and is as strange and beautiful and paradoxical as St. Augustine's little disquisition on the same subject. It has an almost Biblical tone and majesty. This was a long-lost story by Wilhelm Grimm of the Brothers Grimm that was unknown until it turned up not too long ago, in a letter Grimm had sent to a child sometime in the 19th century. Sendak illustrated this quite masterfully; he clearly read the story in a perceant manner, and managed to create artworks with the subtlety to work at dual levels. It required a heartbreaking duplicity...to illustrate both the comforting child's bedtime story, and at the same time give us visual clues and signs that he read with full understanding and empathy the concealed mature story about what it is to lose a child.

I Went on a Literary Shopping Spree Today...

When I get in a certain brain wave and start going into that "let's find a book to flip" mode I can sit at a computer screen and go through several thousand titles in a few hours.

I just did that now, but everything I bought is for me or Lee this time. I didn't buy any of these to flip, although I could probably make about a thousand simoleons very fast flipping certain choice titles here. But I want these for my library. I spent 228 dollars and 76 cents. I was at work fourteen hours yesterday, and it was largely crisis mode all day (I am the entire payroll and billing departments, and half the human resources department for a not exactly small company) with the holiday increase in volume...so I figured I deserved this little internet binge.

Here's what I ended up with for me....


ERUDITIO EX MEMORIA.
MAYER, Bernadette. One of only 400 copies. Read Nada Gordon on this if you want some good critical writing on it. A very early work. Douglas Messerli also wrote very eloquently on this title, and Nada excerpts from that as well. Gorgeous cover art (see Nada's blog for that).


Acker, Kathy
DON QUIXOTE. SIGNED. (Uncorrected galleys that Acker gave to a friend...she inscribed it very funnily).


I LOVE SINGING FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS AROUND THE HOUSE so I bought this...

The program from the 1934 benefit performance....it's like 28 pages and in pretty great shape...

1934-1935 Season. Auditorium Theatre. First Event - Monday Night Music Series. Presenting "Four Saints in Three Acts" Gertrude Stein Virgil Thomson . . . Benefit Performance November 7, 1934 for Vocational Society for Shut-Ins . . ..


Peter Milton: Complete Prints, 1960-1996
Milton, Peter; Johnson, Robert Flynn

This Milton book is not a rarity. But when I worked at the Susquehanna Art Museum with Patricia Murray (God rest her beautiful soul) during the early founding years, I loved the Milton show we did and have been hankering for this book since then. I know he's sorta mainstream (or should have become so) but his works really stay with me....


GUEST(Barbara)
POEMS. 1962. Signed and inscribed by Guest. I got this at a very good (cough) price. Unbelievable price for this volume beautifully inscribed. This could be seriously flipped, but I adore her. This is coming from Europe, but the shipping was very reasonable!


THE MAKING OF AMERICANS: The Hersland family;
Gertrude Stein.
This one's a first edition from 1934 in great shape and it was under 20 bucks. Not amazingly rare or anything but a very good price and I want this book. Tired of reading damn excerpts.


I can't wait to read this....

OTHER VICTORIANS: A Study of Sexuality and Pornography In Mid-Nineteenth-Century England.
Steven Marcus. A nice hardcover from the 1970s I believe.


And this...


THE NUDE MALE: A New Perspective
Margaret Walters. A nice hardcover version of a book that sounded intriguing.

I want to read a lot more about Victorian erotic photography and pornography (written and otherwise). And of course I want to look at a lot of it. Because it's fucking hot. I think there are even fetish sites online for people into this. I love the appurtenances and trappings found in these photographs as much as the nudes themselves. So much theatre...and I love the masking that goes on as a protective gesture in the 19th century nude photographs. I also like the work of modern photographers who work in this tradition and try to simulate the period aesthetic with modern models. That's very hot.

I think I added thirty books into my "Save For Later" file when I went through those thousands of titles this afternoon. Some were just great candidates for major flipping; others were books I can't wait to get but felt it was prudent to put on hold for now...for instance, I noticed Laura Moriary has a Selected Poetry out now. I probably own 90% of her published writing but the description said it included a lot of scarce writing and perhaps previously unpublished work? That has to be one of the best books of poetry to be scouting for right now! As esteemed as she is, she's still seriously underrated.

Channeling Richard Brautigan...

I am inviting readers to attempt to channel Richard Brautigan (poetry or prose) and send me the results. I would like to see any Richard Brautigan poems from BEYOND THE GRAVE!

I will publish anything sent. Email to Bewitjanus@aol.com.

Also, current high score on the NAME THAT POET (aka Odd Poetry Facts Quiz) is 5, held jointly by Aaron Tieger & Gina Myers. If you feel froggy, scroll down a bit then jump!

Now I'll hope some pumpkins wash up on the beach (it must be Halloween in the sea) and that your magic isn't down, that your spells don't mope about the house like (sick dogs was it?) Yes those are Brautigan misremembered and half-remembered lines.

Now, I say to Richard as Death says in Cocteau's Orphee, Richard, Levez-vous!" (RICHARD, ARISE!!!)

Variant Haiku

               

     Dead Poets Gay Dairy

We're hot. Dead poets
milking other dead poets.
Wanna join us, stud?

Dead Poets Society

               

     Dead Poets Society

We're dust. Dead poets
fighting other dead poets.
Wanna join us, stud?

Some Cut-Ups from a Burroughsian Machine (of the poems below, their earlier versions by a few minutes)

                

    & smiled

off down the street. forever...
Sometimes a baby Darth Vader.
forgives i've erased. you. sent
me this valentine, i love it.
the eye of the flower. of the stupidity.
Make your bed and your bed is
exes. ephemeral pricks. irksome blood.
your bed is the ocean. i miss
the stupidity in myself.
the coming home to you. who
were never my friend. my lover.
who assured me while atop
dribbling darkness in yr kiss.
"you will never die correctly."


    like dido i suppose

minus the L.
about to be apparitional flowering.
Nature writes back. only half-convincingly.
"Sometimes i can't."
a flaming retarded giraffe. or Immanuel Kant.
"These things happen."
ghost inside language (it has all these




    i want to be a hunter again

This was an accident.
The Buddha Nature invited 675 people
to my funeral.
But I wasn't dead.
I was so embarrassed.
I mean, people bought clothes!
And I greeted them there
at the door, laughing.
But then I realized I was.
Not there.
There was no funeral.
675 people were milling about
a single word.
I was like Paul Hoover,
a UFO floating
over a poetry anthology.
I just stared with my jaw
like a porn film.
Insert closure here.


    ice storms for dummies


how to be my friend. This was an accident.
The buddha nature reached
out. the ghost inside
who. i should be Yesterday,
my computer invited
the eye of the flower.
off to forgive themselves.
a street like a flaming giraffe
filled with poets. now friends
with Darth Vader. These things happen.
President Bush was prepared
for the hurricane. He had a comfortable
pillow by the t.v. Sometime's
it's death. sometimes a baby.
Darth Vader for a half century
trying out unsuccessfully for Rent.
stand talking on the street
& feel like a moose talking
to a UFO in its mind. it cares.
"Andrew Lundwall is now friends
with Darth Vader." "Lucas Klein
is now friends with Paul Hoover."
How are they more than one friend?
The people who are shooting people
and burning them to death would
like you to not call Burma
the eye of the flower, or home.
Things are about to happen
in nature. accidentally. myself
i feel apparitional as email
ocean. fucked-up irksome
ephemeral ocean bed. to die
makes you hungry. enormously
as george bush now feels
closer to everyone. the trick.
to squint so the future appears
to be receding and not approaching.




    eyes for dummies

675 people to be
The buddha nature

fucked-up flowers

*

apparitional

this impresses me
to make your bed

oh you've fucked me

*

oh self-interest expansionism

*

    Poem Not for Tom Raworth

buddha website prick
all veiny like language

*

exes, ephemeral pricks, blood hexes
& irksome people i've erased...
the living & the dead
the same message.

what's.

the flower's name.




    ere long done do does did


Yesterday, my computer invited the eye of the flower of the stupidity i miss in myself. I feel like a moose seeing a UFO over nature. i watch amazed: "Andrew Lundwall is now friends with Darth Vader." "Lucas Klein is now friends with Paul Hoover." Human things happen accidentally in nature and nature forgives the humans, who have forgotten how flowering of language & all to forgive themselves. Sometimes it's death. Sometimes a baby xerxoing other babies. Sometimes it's simply two friends who stand talking on the street & a flaming retarded transgenic panda erupts out of one of them and rolls off down the street, forever, as they are. "Thanks for the add!" Nature writes back. but still better than a total rejection. angry, but i can't. you are the seam message. you are you are. still acting like tokyo at night. and i won't call til you invite me. i want to pretend i'm inside Sophia Coppola the first time we do it. then i want you to put this in a cut-up machine to see what i was really trying to say.

Everything is Encased In Ice Today, It's like Nature's a Big Commerical for Fiber Optics

                

      Goodreads.com

Yesterday, my computer invited 675 people to be my friend.
This was an accident. The buddha nature
reached out to all these people, and i study
these kind ones who responded, not to me,
but the ghost inside language.
when we would hide. these people...
the apparitional flowering of language.
all of you are hungry
for many different things
but (most of all) to die correctly,
& i won't lie, this impresses me
enormously. you are trying to make
your bed and your bed is the ocean.
oh buddha computer! you sent the living
& the dead the same message, didn't you?
I feel like a moose seeing a UFO over nature
but inside nature. healthful eyes. so open.
"Andrew Lundwall is now friends with Darth Vader."
"Lucas Klein is now friends with Paul Hoover."
Frogs falling in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie
are more plausible than poets writing poems
in a world grown this dark, this long.
And yet "These are things that happen."
the little boy whispers, watching the frogs
rain down like god's vengeance (as he yawns).
Human things happen accidentally in nature
& nature forgives humans,
who have forgotten how to forgive themselves.
Sometimes it's death. Sometimes a baby.
Sometimes it's simply two friends who stand
& talk on the street as a flaming retarded giraffe
runs out of one of them & off down the street
spouting the philosophy of the future eloquently
forever. as they stare. "Thanks for the add!"
Nature writes back, only half-convincingly,
but still better than god's rejection form letter.



    God's Form Letter Rejection

Thank you for thinking of me
with your fine mortal life and works on earth
(the sweat of your brow, etc. etc.)
While I have carefully considered these works,
I must for the moment respectfully decline,
as we seem to be (for now at least) full up here.
I do hope, however, you will consider me
for future submissions, and you might want
to familiarize yourself a little more carefully
with the sort of works favored here.
While I won't be considering submissions
for the Next Millenium or so,
after that I will be looking in earnest
for fresh work and hope at that time
you will consider me, possibly even
with these, if you haven't found
a place for these fine works elsewhere
by then.

A Poem by James Dickey

I was reading in an older anthology that includes many now obscure poets (which anthology does not in time) and I found this poem by the not-obscure James Dickey. I remember reading this years ago and liking it. And I liked it again tonight, probably because it's a clever enactment of the sort of heaven every child has imagined at one time or another for a pet or beloved animal that died. It sort of makes sense to the child mind, the view of heaven articulated here. And of course it's probably a not-so-oblique critique of the childish hankering for heaven in adults, and the rather naive or childlike ideas of heaven many religions espouse. I wonder to what degree (looking at the historical context) the last few stanzas of this poem might have been a sympathetic skewering of Marxism and its dialectics of fatedness and self-sacrifice. Dickey's poem is more than a little Vanilla Sky long before Vanilla Sky. Of course, if I had to complete this sentence: "__________ is the most Vanilla Sky poet(.)" I would write in "Rae Armantrout." Actually, I think that's a multiple choice question on the 2008 SATs, so write that down if you are seventeen years old.

I think this poem would actually belong in the subgenre I was trying to define and outline a few months back on this blog, namely the idea of poems seemingly written for children, but really written to be read on two (or more) entirely different levels by the same individual when a child and then when he or she is grown. I cited a Michael Palmer poem from Notes for Echo Lake as a classic example of that subgenre.

Here's the Dickey poem...

     The Heaven of Animals

Here they lie. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required;
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfulling themselves without pain

At the cycle's center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.



Do you think he originally wrote the last line "They rise, they are born(.)" and then decided that was too pat, that the rhyme had a cheapening effect? I just had an inkling that might have been the case. "In a sovereign floating of joy" sort of stands out like a sore thumb amid the beautiful simplicity of the language otherwise.

Of course, a child would have gone with this child logic completely and said the prey in the predators' virtual world would have been virtual prey only, not other creatures...the more benign animals would simply have their own Eterna-Savannahs where they grazed in peace forever and ever amen.