all that mighty oneself
one sees stretch online
glassed by the trees
its easy eye
and wine glasses
lost in branches
by the pain that’s
remembered
her sea bottom
home for suede
flash stupid
save oneself
from love you
see selfless be
come classless
seawine in a park
ing lot terrible
things unfriendly
things how much love
is parking one
sees measure sees
love love
is what one sees
oneself flash io
then flash
something else
no longer seen
“For a moment, you may think that as long as you stay inside the castle you will be safe. Outside, everything is transient and destined to decay. Inside everything is incontrovertible, eternal, joyous, and glorious.” Alessandro Carrera on Severino’s Magical Castle
with
blood
we arrive
by boat in his jacob
frères desk
long fibrous
scaly
noses
but the
ophrys morisii on his palace
portraits of
his jacob
frères desk
are long fibrous
scaly
noses
but the
flowers on his palace
portraits of
his palace
with blood
we arrive by
boat in his jacob frères desk
are
long fibrous scaly
noses
but the
flowers on his palace
portraits of his
anachromistic
whatever
that means topped
with
blood
we
arrive by boat
in
his jacob frères desk long
fibrous scaly noses
but the
flowers in his palace
portraits on his jacob frères desk
are ophrys morisii with amphibious eyes
“What shall I do? not be Rich or Great, / Not to be courted and admir’d, / With Beauty blest, or Wit inspir’d, / Alas! these merit not my care and sweat, / These cannot my Ambition please, / My high born Soul shall never stoop to these; / But something I would be thats truly great / In’ts self, and not by vulgar estimate.” Mary Astell, 7 Jan. 1687
different weapons
related to change
from a glance
in oxford of one substance
hackensack whiteout
reported into gold
altar holy dreg
trans
mute
learn more
helped sentences
for transform vs transmute
form from nature substance
without god no possession
day transmutes
learn more
helped sentences
form from transmission
was transformed
form nature selling different
hymnals change
for transmutation apparent
changes in appearance
without god no possession
if equipment can transmute
transmute me into other
withouted objects
without god
no possession
apes appearance
It does not know it glitters
It does not know it flies
It does not know it is this not that.
And, more and more often, agape,
With my Gauloise dying out,
Over a glass of red wine,
I muse on the meaning of being this not that.
Just as long ago, when I was twenty,
But then there was a hope I would be everything,
Perhaps even a butterfly or a thrush, by magic.
Now I see dusty district roads
And a town where the postmaster gets drunk every day
Melancholy with remaining identical to himself.
If only the stars contained me.
If only everything kept happening in such a way
That the so-called world opposed the so-called flesh.
Were I at least not contradictory. Alas.
Source: Miłosz, Czesław. New and Collected Poems 1931-2001. New York: Ecco, 2001. Print. Page 164.
This weekend I attended the Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark, NJ. The weekend was fast-paced and my experience there included conversations with and readings from Yusef Komunyakaa, Stephen Kuusisto, Patrick Rosal, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Brian Turner, Rebecca Lindenberg, Bridget Talone, Dan Vera, C. Dale Young, Sharon Olds, Billy Collins, Alex Lemon, Alberto Rios, Brenda Shaughnessy, Rita Dove, Gary Snyder and more.
Sunday afternoon, I heard a stirring tribute to Amiri Baraka.
Marilyn Nelson read this poem, “Black Art.”
Her introduction to the poem was moving. She gave permission to easily offended listeners to leave the auditorium. As she had done with her students before, she warned that the poem contained language that might offend the easily offended. Her caveat: She refused to apologize for the poem. Poetry is supposed to provoke and make you uncomfortable. Challenge the reader, she said. This isn’t a commercial for Dove soap, she said, it’s art.
Thank you, Newark.
Black Art
Poems are bullshit unless they are
teeth or trees or lemons piled
on a step. Or black ladies dying
of men leaving nickel hearts
beating them down. Fuck poems
and they are useful, wd they shoot
come at you, love what you are,
breathe like wrestlers, or shudder
strangely after pissing. We want live
words of the hip world live flesh &
coursing blood. Hearts Brains
Souls splintering fire. We want poems
like fists beating niggers out of Jocks
or dagger poems in the slimy bellies
of the owner-jews. Black poems to
smear on girdlemamma mulatto bitches
whose brains are red jelly stuck
between ‘lizabeth taylor’s toes. Stinking
Whores! we want “poems that kill.”
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
with tongues pulled out and sent to Ireland. Knockoff
poems for dope selling wops or slick halfwhite
politicians Airplane poems, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .tuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuhtuh
. . .rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr . . . Setting fire and death to
whities ass. Look at the Liberal
Spokesman for the jews clutch his throat
& puke himself into eternity . . . rrrrrrrr
There’s a negroleader pinned to
a bar stool in Sardi’s eyeballs melting
in hot flame Another negroleader
on the steps of the white house one
kneeling between the sheriff’s thighs
negotiating coolly for his people.
Aggh . . . stumbles across the room . . .
Put it on him, poem. Strip him naked
to the world! Another bad poem cracking
steel knuckles in a jewlady’s mouth
Poem scream poison gas on beasts in green berets
Clean out the world for virtue and love,
Let there be no love poems written
until love can exist freely and
cleanly. Let Black people understand
that they are the lovers and the sons
of warriors and sons
of warriors Are poems & poets &
all the loveliness here in the world
We want a black poem. And a
Black World.
Let the world be a Black Poem
And Let All Black People Speak This Poem
Silently
or LOUD
Source: Selected Poetry of Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones (1979)