I loathe you
But I will let you pass
Through me. Your
Stupidity smeared all over me
Your hot breath in my ear
Tonight I am the only door
Through which you can be made
To disappear
Source: Reines Ariana. Mercury. 1st ed. Fence Books 2011, p. 3.
Once,
I was afraid of dying
In a field of dry weeds.
But now,
All day long I have been walking among damp fields,
Trying to keep still, listening
To insects that move patiently.
Perhaps they are sampling the fresh dew that gathers slowly
In empty snail shells
And in the secret shelters of sparrow feathers fallen on the earth.
Source: Wright, James. Above the River : The Complete Poems. A Wesleyan University Press ed. Farrar Straus and Giroux ; University Press of New England 1992, p. 142.
All piffle & twaddle—influence of the Bottom Dog man.
For real “decadents” read Huysmans & other French authors.
Diarrhea of words—stew of classic allusions.
Fuck Artemis et alia!
Don’t put intellect in your prick!
Write honestly even if poorly.
Humor is weak—immature.
Try drugs and compare two kinds of writing.
Try using only Anglo Saxon words.
Throw your dictionary away!
Don’t mix realism with poetics!
If you can’t make words fuck, don’t masturbate them!
When you speak of the Cunt put hair on it!
Try to forget everything you learned in college.
Try talking like an ignoramus— or an Igaroti.
Read, for emetic, “Palm Wine Drinkard.”
You will learn to write only when you stop trying to write.
A line without effort is worth a chapter of push and pull.
First ask yourself if you have anything to say.
Don’t draw the pen unless you are ready for the kill!
If you don’t get rid of the Classics you’ll die of constipation.
Never show any one what you’ve written until a year or two later.
Use the axe to your 1st draft and not the fine comb.
The latter is for lice!!!
Source: Miller, Henry. “Advice to a Young Writer.” The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, edited by Alan Kaufman, Emeryville, Calif: Thunder’s Mouth, 2000, pp. 115-116.
Photo: Gerace, Joe. “When you speak of the Cunt put hair on it!” Nov. 28, 2020, JPG.
In the prebirth of the evening
the blue cherry blossoms
on the blue tree
from this yellow, ended room—
press to the windows
inside shall be out
the clustered faces of the flowers
straining to look in
Source: Williams, William C. “Cherry Blossoms at Evening.” The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume II (1939-1962). Edited by A Walton Litz and Christopher J. MacGowan. New York: New Directions, 1991, p. 10.
Photo: Gerace, Joe. “The Blue Cherry Blossoms on The Blue Tree.” Nov. 26, 2020. JPG.
It was raining.
I could hear the rain
taking the pins out of her mouth.
Soft rain became hard rain
so that hard things became soft things.
The wet leaves under the trees
became heavy as diapers,
the book left open
on the grass
could finally sink in her bath
without a word,
the way, after a hard day,
I rest my head on the edge
of the claw-foot tub and
my mouth falls open, empty
at last.
Actually I saw that in a painting
when I ducked into a gallery
because it was raining.
It is always raining somewhere,
somewhere the wells are filling
from above and from below.
Somewhere someone is sleeping,
somewhere the lady of the house
puts the alarm clock in a drawer
where she cannot hear it
then tells the children to be quiet
and stands there listening
to its tick.
Source: Ruefle, Mary. “Lightly, Very Lightly.” Dunce, Wave Books, 2020, pp. 52-53.
Photo: Gerace, Joe. “The Lady of the House Puts the Alarm Clock in a Drawer.” Nov. 7, 2020. JPG.
My word
Hand caught in the door
Stuck tight old boy stuck tight
In other words
Or
The password please
Many thanks
Now I hold the key
The bolt begins to twist like a tongue
Therefore
Trans. Michael Benedikt
Source: Aragon, Louis. “Safety Lock.” The Poetry of Surrealism, edited by Michael Benedikt. Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 1974, p. 151.
Photo: Gerace, Joe. “Stuck Tight Old Boy Stuck Tight” Nov. 14, 2020. JPG.
Men disport themselves.
They help each other:
“Reach in my chest and massage my heart.
I am not dead.”
If clouds are God’s table linen,
what is rain?
He gave men towels to dry themselves.
He blessed their soap.
The city grew like the desert, by erosion
Men walk in it.
God is not so much dead as resting.
His seventh day has just begun.
Men step out of the wind.
They give money and necessaries.
They steal what belongs to them.
The eighth day, doors open on new sights.
Men in hats rise from the ground:
Bless these broken dolls and mend them.
What goes through cloth, walks and floats?
We rise lightly in you.
Source: Schuyler, James, James Meetze, and Simon Pettet. Other Flowers: Uncollected Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Print, p. 179.
Photo: Gerace, Joe. “Men in Hats Rise from the Ground” Nov. 14, 2020. JPG.
This is the song of one hundred
Thousand chemicals approximating
Sunshine in my hair. My lover bit
My cheek this morning. I think I’ll
Fall from one trance into the next
Might fall asleep any minute
It gets tiring making yourself look
like you’re alive while you’re looking
Hard practicing turning
Away from the shit we’re in
Source: Reines, Ariana. A Sand Book. , 2019. Print, p. 157.
Photo: Gerace, Joe. “The Song of One Hundred Thousand Chemicals Approximating Sunshine [Secaucus Junction].” Nov. 14, 2020. JPG.
The city of Nara of good blue clay glows like a blooming flower, now at its prime
Source: Ono No Oyu. “Tanka.” From the Country of Eight Islands: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry, edited by Hiroaki Sato and Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987, p. 43.
Photo: Church Street, New Paltz; Nov. 6, 2020; Joe Gerace
“Ono no Oyu (?-737) was a Japanese bureaucrat and a poet. He served under Ōtomo no Tabito during the Dazaifu administration. He rose to the rank of Assistant Governor-General (daini). Three of his tanka poems have been preserved in the Man’yōshū.” Wikipedia
Why am I making myself
do and be things that I don’t really want to?
Because I have an idea of what I should be doing and/or
I don’t have an idea of what I really want to be and/or do.
And/or both. I seem to be very and/or,
with an urge to flex everything until it loses
what I secretly feel to be its false polarity.
E.g., there is a such thing as good and
such a thing as evil, it’s just
that they aren’t opposites.
Am I a good person? Yes, after
a certain point, and no, after another.
Deep down I’m just down there, a kind of gurgling
black Jell-O that doesn’t have any idea
of what’s going on up here. Up here
I have on a baseball cap and have
a vague desire to fix the closet door.
Source: Padgett, Ron. Collected Poems. , 2013. Print, p. 503.
Photo: Main Street, New Paltz; Nov. 6, 2020; Joe Gerace