Where the Sky Went

Explorers of the inner side of nowhere
for only that moment
as if your prey

Gazing upward toward
entropy
Still in the published bones
secret things stand, explore the curve of torsos, psychic Alps

Deep inside the volcano that erased the
Mediterranean world
as if a blind coyote
get someone on the phone immediately
paraphernalia of binah, chthonian muck

Oncoming lights, the human velocity of
maintaining leaves me
this time between the sheets
of paper in the dark river of delirium
attention shoppers
some passing storm

walked
inside me

A pool of mirrored yesterdays
must be slowly dying of
some esoteric discipline

up sprouted only sorrow
as if this clear light
walking le morning

would you ask ad execs
to design a new skin for you
in front of televised fires.

Caravanserai

This afternoon is a film character at the wheel
thunder break the dishes of the sky
one never sleeps as late as daylight is a weird omen

to you the one without clothes
naked as a skinned peach

plagiarized glances stolen ambulances
I'm gone over the edge only wish to reconstruct
beautiful gardens under your blankets

maybe we haven't been speaking
of a stolen automobile

Breathless

that's how I found you
watching a
movie not stealing automobiles
million birds along a clothesline

the telephone rings exploding into stars
hoi polloi grace sidewalks Sundays.

What the World Needs Now

Talking to Fred Sasaki the other night about rock lyrics and how poets have been influenced by them had me thinking about Marc Bolan. I know that T. Rex, Dylan, and other rock lyricists have influenced my conception of how images work in successful poems. Because it's also Valentine's Day,

"The lively sparks that issue from those eyes,
Against the which there vaileth no
defence,
Have pierced my heart, and done it none offence,
With quaking pleasure more than once or twice."

-Sir Thomas Wyatt

I'm also framing this off-the-cuff blog entry with the thought in mind that the rock musicians I've always loved have written lyrics that use imagery to create a vivid mind movie that harkens back to the tradition established by the medieval troubadors. Renaissance poets also spun tales of lost love that resonate and that imagery has been recycled to the point where it has become the source of much cliche. But a line could be drawn connecting the lyrics of these poets (which could be taken even further back to the work of classical poets like Sappho) to the lyrics of rock artists such as Marc Bolan, the Rolling Stones, and now Beck.

"You slide so good, with bones so fair
You've got the universe reclining in your hair
'Cos you're my baby, yes you're my love
Oh girl I'm just a jeepster for your love.

Just like a car, you're pleasing to behold
I'll call you Jaguar if I may be so bold
'Cos you're my baby, 'cos you're my love
Oh girl I'm just a jeepster for your love."

-Marc Bolan

The blason was invented by Clement Marot in 1536. This enumerated form of catalogue verse of praise or blame works well to list the reasons why the object of one's attention is deserving of that.

"I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need."

-Mick Jagger

One of my favorites is Free Union by Andre Breton, which explodes with uncommonplace imagery and comparisons so singular that the reader is forced to envision a woman so fantastical that no comparison can be made between the woman described and any living person. Breton's goal was to take the reader someplace unique and never before imagined.

"My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing...

My wife with the shoulders of a champagne..

My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials...

With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum.."

-Andre Breton

Sure this stuff seems a little hokey now in the year 2007, but the music of T. Rex still sounds cool. Bolan's pen was filled with something magical ... there should be a new subgenre of music invented for him. Thanks to YouTube for the kooky video. Enjoy.

Always Returning

Return always to the
first day when the world
opened, gushing memory,
its libretto against our skin

Doorbell sonatas and
fire stations scream
red in the night:
enter the labyrinth
of our every mood.

The last star is a rerun in
the sky, burning the
atmosphere of a
summer there hovering.

Could it always be that day
when we meet and map
each moment's lounging frame?

Dancing Off the Edges of Our Lives

We notice ordinary things like flower pots
filled with sighs and closets dripping
monsters. Is it time yet to depart
from the cloistered probability
that our study of cognac has yielded no
transparencies other than what we
imagined? Here in the future our
wings are mere footnotes
ancanthus medallion, ribbon of sky,
facts smile from posterior gardens.
There is a spy called wonder who watches our
habits. There is a virtue to the geometry of
sleep for a friend is a ruddered thing requiring
citations and phosphorescent rooms.

Cool Foreign Accent

There is a pit of silence look where
the music waits and the softest rain
will never reach us there

Dawn cannot be wrong and lilting like
shadows untrimmed, this drizzle

Let us forgive them of error
recluse words in a poem. Don’t they
sound like heartsick and willing appetites
brought to morning
where the music waits with capitalized eyes?

Lens

These mysterious hours

are long-legged


little spiders.

The last day of each year

is my classified ad.



Scent of beach enter.

Lonely passenger, ride the dream bus.

Visit stores without clientele.



Heart so mountainous,

there must be

some unseen map,



bridge to nowhere.

We're in the midst of working on milk, vol. 8 and again I'm amazed by the quality of the work we'll present. It's been my honor to publish the work of these artists since 1998.

I haven't tapped into the world of comics in a long time, but I've been doing some research on Frank King and Chris Ware.

I've written a story that my friend Joe Kimball is going to illustrate.

I'm just remembering working on my first issue of Nexus with my friend Mark Knapke as assistant editor. I remember sitting in the Nexus office in the middle of many nights laying out pages and spending hours on the phone talking to various people amazed that I had a big budget and could make endless long distance phone calls. I remember calling Morocco to try to get Paul Bowles on the phone because someone had given me what was supposed to be his number and hearing a soft voice so unintelligible that I hung up. The Nexus magazine that I edited is not to be confused with the new age fluff mag of the same name. Nexus the poetry journal was founded in 1967.

Those who appeared in Nexus vol. 33, no. 1 include the following:

Hakim Bey, John Brandi, Ken Brown, David Chorlton, Ira Cohen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Henri Ford, Allan Graubard, Renee Gregorio, Paul Grillo, Gabor Gyukics, Maggie Jaffe, WB Keckler, Nancy Levant, Angus MacLise, Gerard Malanga, Sheila E. Murphy, Simon Perchik, Jean Marc Sens, Gustaf Sobin, Sparrow, Tetsuya Taguchi, Janine Pommy Vega, Paul Violi, Ken Wainio, Nan Watkins, AD Winans, Taylor Mead, Tuli Kupferberg, Ronnie Burk, Philip Glass Interview

Video recording was invented in 1956 as an intermediary in live broadcast television. It was a cheap means to pre-record and edit regularly scheduled programs taped from live events. Roughly twelve years later, conceptual and minimalist artists would take an interest in the medium, making “artist videos” at a time when there was no such thing as a video artist. Michel Auder is an exception. He chose video as his primary means of expression well before video was accepted as a practice in its own right.

Born in Soisson, France, in 1945, Auder began making films at the age of 18. As an aspiring young filmmaker, he fell under the influence of the French New Wave and experimental cinema, most notably Jean-Luc Godard and Andy Warhol. In 1969, Auder met and eventually married Viva, one of Warhol’s principal talents. A year later, they moved to New York where Auder has since resided. That same year, he purchased a Sony Portapak, one of the first commercially available video cameras. Since 1970 he has persistently documented the people, places and events that are his life.
 
The label “video artist” was applied retroactively when Auder began exhibiting his work in 1980. At that time he produced a series of discreet works, some of which were from scripted biographical material and others that were video collages appropriating material from television. As technology improved and access to editing facilities increased, Auder’s skills as an auteur became more apparent. He is a consummate voyeur, one who literally reads scenes of intimacy, exchange and daily life as verses of poetry unto themselves.

Meanwhile

Going on boats
morning’s candelabra
splinters light
across water.


Horizon
an eyelid.

Daily fireworks, roof
of stars
give way to
blue.


Frozen oranges,
erupt
from the palm of my hand.


*


You have
come so far
and somehow
the call
was heard, as
a telephone
ringing
on the moon.


Don’t
worry, we
are marooned
in a
nevertheless city,

I’ll unzip
the buildings,

release the
birds.

Kentucky

You are coatless Kentucky
You are drunk and disorderly
Your lawns however are immaculate
Your women are chatty, horny
You don’t pick up the check
You're the home of Johnny Depp
You are peppered with horses
Your eyes are barbeque pits
and I’m ok with that.

Frank Sherlock Needs Your Help

Amy King writes:

Philly poet and host of the La Tazza Reading Series, Frank Sherlock, recently suffered a heart attack and kidney failure, among other anomalies, during a very brief window of time that he was without health insurance. It’s one of those crap shoot moments, folks. Anyway, he’s a good guy for sure, young (early 30’s), and a poet who encourages and supports poets — all feats I’m a fan of. He has run that series for a good long time now (I read in it years ago) and gets a much deserved “A” in my book. He needs cash and books and good words sent his way for recovery.


Thanks to the generosity of Juliana Spahr you can now send checks for the Frank Sherlock EMERGENCY FUND which will be tax deductible!

'A 'A ARTS
c/o J. Spahr
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613

CHECKS SHOULD BE MADE OUT TO "'A 'A ARTS"
and these checks will be tax deductible.

PLEASE MAKE A NOTE THAT YOUR CHECK IS FOR FRANK SHERLOCK.
Your donations are very much appreciated.

Ice Cubes Rising from My Glass

Exotic trigonometry
coaxe the possibilities.

Love the phrase "cool million."

Not oft understood
a figure of speech cartoons.

Sunday, glare from the front pages.

When I rise to refill my glass,
real life goes on despite reality television.

Television, quip quixotically.

Into my fantastically
real mouth enters

the cold suburban reality
that there are no more.

Graffito

Describe your chokehold
on my gaze?

The decision clinical
let me paraphrase

that you are new every morning
blowing fresh
breeze of unease

Disturbing to the status quo
you and I know
but even as I eternally so

such a one as you

We are discontinuous pages
in some unwrit book

every hieroglyphic
look.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

This is the only blog where you'll see Mick Jagger painting...I mean a Mick Jagger painting.

these _______ gaps aren't
in
our conversation
don’t they
_________ resemble anything
but
themselves________
and we pause to let
it

the _______ wash
over us

"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" made an impression on me. Frost admitted late in his life that he repeated the last line only because he couldn't think of anything else.



Stopping By ___________* On A Snowy Evening

Whose ___________ these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his _____________ fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the ___________ and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The ___________ are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



*Popeye's chicken, Jewel, Navy Pier, Crobar, La Creperie,
Simon's, Giordano's, Myopic books, Buckingham fountain,
Uptown, Danny's, Union Station, Park West, Resi's,
the Hungry Brain, Funky Buddha, Velvet Lounge,
Holiday Club