Daryl Nielsen
Susan Constable
The lotus flower
Is sustained by mud;
This single dewdrop,
Just as it is,
Manifests the real body of truth.
Ikkyū
translated by John Stevens
Jack Kerouac
the distant mountain
reflected in his eyes...
dragonfly
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
all day
wearing a hat
that wasn't on my head
Jack Kerouac
the little boy
tumbling all day...
violets
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
Flowers
aim crookedly
At the straight death
flitting butterfly--
thus is Buddha's law
in this world
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie
Sunbeam shone, mousy girl on the end pew
You'd stay home, oh if only they let you
Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie
Municipal pool, you're a junior life saver
But you're friends are all serious ravers
Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie
Reading Judy Blume
But you came too soon
You're too tall, much too tall for a boyfriend
They run and hide, from your buck tooth and split ends
Don't be scared, like the books you've read
You're the heroine
You'll be doing fine
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Bestowing the memory of good and evil
On the ones you left behind
The heartless swine
And you love like nobody around you
How you love, and a halo surrounds you
Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie
In the Autumn cool
Say cheerio to school
Listen Dear, I've been watching you lately
If I said all these things you would hate me
Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie
At the church bazaar
I nearly went too far
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Give yourself up to the allure of
Catcher In The Rye
The future's swathed in Stars and Stripes
Wouldn't you like to get away?
Kerouac's beckoning with open arms,
And open roads of eucalyptus
Westward bound
NamesIf I had to choose
just one name
to give a girl child,
it would be Mary,
placing her at
the center of all sorrow
which is to say
where all hope waits.Albert Huffstickler
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
 |
| Photo by Eliott Erwitt |
Candy Everybody Wants
If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give 'em what they want.
Hey, hey, give 'em what they want.
So their eyes are growing hazy 'cos they wanna turn it on,
so their minds are soft and lazy.
Well, hey, give 'em what they want.
If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give 'em what they want.
So their eyes are growing hazy 'cos they wanna turn it on,
so their minds are soft and lazy.
Well... who do you wanna blame?
Hey, hey, give 'em what they want.
If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give 'em what they want.
So their eyes are growing hazy 'cos they wanna turn it on,
so their minds are soft and lazy.
Well... who do you wanna blame?
And still the light,
always the light.
Mornings are hardest,
the light so like
that other light,
that light we remember
when we don't remember
anything at all.
And still the day
And still the clouds
And still me
sitting over coffee
on this street where I live
and the cars pass
while the sky
keeps trying to rain.
The thing about
bringing Lazarus back --
did Jesus ask him?
Albert Huffstickler
night mist--
the horse remembers
the bridge's hole
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
 |   Browse Inside this book |  |
The weaving of the old kimonos is finer than today's, not only visually but also structurally; in them Mr. Umewaka [today's leading Noh actor] can move more freely, or I should say less constrictedly, thanks to some peculiar fashioning of the sleeves which would now cost millions of yen to reproduce. Moreover, he tells me, the artificial fertilizer ingested by the plants on which twenty-first century silkworms feed weakens the silk."
"I would say it [Kerouac's work] was based on observation, it was
based on imagination, it was based on benzedrine, also."
"Oh, Jack ..... Jack, Jack , Jack.
Walt Whitman's WatchingWe sweat & we wipe
work the world's rhythm
sway with the grass & leaves
we drink the day's end
ignore the astronomer
gazing at the stars in our cups
we speak what we will
across cyberspace
bold water, flesh & air
so snuggle up
take off your clothes
let me write a poem on you.Bart Solarczyk
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
Georg TraklMy Heart At EveningAt nightfall you hear the bats shriek.
Two black horses leap across the meadow.
The red maple rustles.
The small inn along the way appears to the traveler.
Delicious the young wine and nuts.
Delicious: to stagger drunk in the darkening forest.
Cruel bells ring through black branches.
Dew drips on the face.
DecayIn the evening, when the bells ring peace,
I follow the miraculous flights of birds
That in long flocks, like lines of pious pilgrims,
Vanish in clear autumnal skies.
Strolling through the dusky garden
I dream after their brighter fates
And barely feel the hour hands move.
Thus above clouds I follow their journeys.
Then a whiff of decay makes me tremble.
The blackbird laments in the leafless branches.
The red wines sways on rusty trellises,
While like the pale children's death-dance
Around dark rims of weathered fountains,
Blue asters bow and shiver in the wind.
September evening; the shepherds' dark calls echo
Through the twilight village; fire sparks in the forge.
Violently a black horse rears up; the maid's hyacinthine locks
Strain at the heat of its purple nostrils.
Softly the doe's scream freezes at the forest's edge
And the yellow flowers of autumn
Bend mutely over the pond's blue face.
A tree burned down in red flames; bats flutter up with dark faces.
12.Reaching down into the grass
boiling with crickets, lifting a moth
off the wall as carefully as I can and
letting it out into the night, only it falls
on to the front porch instead of
flying away.Hugh Fox
Ah, the birds
--at dawn
my mother and fatherJack Kerouac
when will it become
a cricket's nest?
my white hairIssa
translated by David G. Lanoue
Circlewe move in time with the wind's hands
swaying the greendesire ashleaf branches
the way our two bodies sway moonmaked
with the breeze rhythm learned
from watching the wind seduce the ashchristien gholson
The sky has pulled its shade
down to the sea that now
caresses the shore like a
secret lover softly sighing
like a lullaby to which the
coconut trees sway a gentle
hula crickets sing their songs
to the stars and the hidden
insects dance about my porch
light like a coven it is quiet
now more quiet than a dream
more tranquil than nothing at allCheryl Townsend
1992My feet aren't working.
The clock is dead.
There's a new world coming:
beauty's headlights
blind us
from a distance.Bart Solarcyzk
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
In preparation for a session of the 3 Poems By ... discussion group, I've been reading all things James Wright. Could I have a better job, getting to research one my favorite poets in preparation for a work project? And the things I've learned.
I mostly detest reading about poetry. That's not a hard admission, though it is a bit of a damning one. In any case, I am beginning to realize how wrongheaded that is. Here is a quote I ran across in a Paris Review interview with Wright (a .pdf) from 1972:
"Tolstoy was asked in a letter by a pacifist group if he could give them a definition of religion and, if he could do that, to explain to them the relation between religion, that is, what a person believes, and morality, that is, the way he acts in accord with some notion of how he ought to act. Tolstoy worried about this letter, and as I recall it, he said: 'I can only go back to myself. I look around myself and I see every year that, no matter what people do to themselves and to one another, the spring constantly renews itself. This is a physical fact, not a metaphysical theory. I look at every spring and I respond to it very strongly. But I also notice that every year the spring is the same new spring and every year I am one year older. I have to ask the question: What is the relation between my brief and tragic life and this force in the universe that perpetually renews itself? I further believe that every human being asks this question. He cannot avoid asking it-it is forced upon him. And his answer to that question is his religion. If he says the relation between me and this thing is nothing, then his religion is nihilism. As for morality, what ought I to do? I wish I knew.' That was a great letter."
Bluejay drinking at my
---saucer of milk
throwing his head back
Lonesome blubbers
---grinding out the decades
with wet lips
A current pimple
---In the mind's
Old man
Robbie Gamble
upturned shells
cup the receding tide...
still not over youJeffrey Stillman
Love Song #22Your absence
lengthens like a shadow
in the afternoon sunMartha J. Eshelman
Peggy Heinrich
even for winter's withering
an indifferent face...
sea gullIssa
translated by David Lanoue
"There are nights when I think Sal Paradise was right"
"The devil and john berrymanAnd the rest of the lyrics aren't too shabbing either. As a bonus, here's their Late Night performance of "Stuck Between Stations" -
-took a walk together,
-They ended up on washington
-talking to the river"
Untitled Wednesday PoemCan snake misbehave
in Jungle? Can cougar
error by mountain cedar?
My sad old knees ache in bed
in dream before dawn, but
know their job is to bring
my body to its resting place,
like full bloomed rose
in August, like cherry tree
its trunk absorbing moon's heart.Pat Andrus
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
Spiroman
she wondered how large the man
standing beside the person
clipping hairs from walls
would ever have to be
to cover the shortest curve
of the last strand
while still being able to see himself
fit any crevice
without knocking her cold
Stacey Sollfrey
persimmon leaves--
once they turn crimson
game over
Issa
translated by David Lanoue
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Madonna Who Throws So Many
Intimate Details Out Fast
to camouflage
or distract
like pick
pockets who
work in pairs
a shove to
get you off
balance as
she moves in
to lift your
heart
Lyn Lifshin
the tea smoke
and the willow
dance partners
Issa
translated by David Lanoue
Well, I had a W. S. Merwin poem all ready to go this morning, but there is a typo and I don't have the book at hand, so I'll have to check it out when the book is in hand.
So, it's time to punt.
Ed Baker commented on a recent post when I talked a bit about Jack Kerouac's Tristessa, urging folks on to his The Scripture of the Golden Eternity (You know that I'm listening, eh, Ed?). I've been wending my way headily through: here is section 29 of a book made up of tiny meditations, koans and prose poems (as the back cover touts, rightly):
------29Are you tightwad and are you mean, those are
the true sins, and sin is only a conception of ours,
due to long habit. Are you generous and are
you kind, those are the true virtues, and they're
only conceptions. The golden eternity rests beyond
sin and virtue, is attached to neither, is attached
to nothing, is unattached, because the golden
eternity is Alone. The mold has rills but it is one
mold. The field has curves but it is one field.
All things are different forms of the same thing.
I call it the golden eternity — what do you
call it, brother? For the blessing and merit
of virtue, and the punishment and bad fate
of sin, are alike just so many words.Jack Kerouac
Ah the birds
-at dawn,
my mother and father
Bach through an open
-dawn window—
the birds are silent
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Jack Kerouac. Whether you love 'em or hate 'em, he resonates and one has to suspect that's just the way he'd like it.
Hate him, you ask? Who might do a thing like that? Well, though the evidence is purely anecdotal, there is an awful lot of backlash against Kerouac out there these days. The beauty of Jack is he put it out there, flaws and all, and even if you feel that ultimately his was a sad tragic life, he rose above it to heights others can't even dream of. Could he be a prick? Absolutely. Was he full of, among other things, an expansive, all-encompassing love for everything? Sure was. Did he die a hopeless drunk, squandering much of what might have been? What of it?
If you're reaching for that first stone, know that a mirror is very fragile thing, indeed.
Here's a one-line poem from his Tangier days ...
I strike at that snake-heart that hurt my family
Haiku-KoanDoes a dog have
the Buddha-nature?
Water is water.
POEMI could become a great grinning host
---------------like a skeleton
Hung Up in Heaven
The moon,
--the falling star —
Look elsewhere
This is from Jack Micheline's latest volume, One of a Kind, which I mentioned in a previous post. All original punctuation, spelling etc. retained.
Letter to Kerouac in Heaven---------Globesville, Colo
---------------------------------------------------Oct 15, 1984
---------------------------------------------------4411 Logan
---------------------------------------------------Denver Colo 80216
Dear Jack,
---I'm sorry I never made it, but I tried to do it my way.
I just could not find a courageous publisher with distribution.
None of my 9 books can be found in any American bookstore.
I want to thank you for your encouragement. It's been a
long hard road. Bobby Miller is still getting drunk in North
Beach on week-ends. He tells some good corny jokes he must
be close to sixty and he still chases girls—Goldfinger is still
alive in the Village. Walking the streets, that beautiful crazy
Jewish elevator man. Harold Anton has passed and your
drinking buddy the composer Chuck Mills has departed the
earthly plane. They had a Kerouac Conference at Boulder a
couple of years ago. You would have been proud of me. Ken
Kesey gave me the most valuable performance award. A
bottle of wine for Harvey Silver, and a bottle of whiskey for
Jack Micheline.¹ I was really on that afternoon and I hope
you heard me up there in Heaven. I hear Bobby Donlin is
still alive managing some club in Cambridge. Charlie Min-
gus is also gone, passed away, gave up the ghost. People are
more frightened than ever now. The reason I never made it.
I wouldn't play the game or ball with the publishers, they
seem so self-involved, publishing mediocrity. Rick Kids play-
ing games with a pack of ass kisses always around them,
when was it any different. The arts is not for us poor kids.
we create because we have no choice. It is what we have
to do—no matter what. I swear I'm not jealous of these
people. with their power that is the way they show their
love. I guess I should have more compassion, they always
refuse to go for a walk in the sunlight. Frightened Men. The
Ring of fear. Sing me a song baby Blue. A song that rises to
the heavens. A song that dances with The Stars .. Sing me a
song Baby Blue. A song of the open road. You have a beauti-
ful daughter, Jack. By the name of Jan. I don't see much of
Allen and Peter. I was never close to them, they seem cold
and detached, they're lousy trying to make it. But you see I
always was a loner, A bare stick in the water, A hot piece, An
outlaw, a runner, Doing my chaotic happy dance across this
land. I want to tell you, I tried Baby. God knows how I tried
to say it like it was never said before.
---You know this world never loved genius, we exist in
spite of the world. I heard Charles Mills talking to the lions
once in Central Park. He wrote over 90 pieces of music in
his lifetime. I'm putting this book together—Let's Ride the
angel goodbye! I am staying with an old buddy from Chicago
now in Denver named Ken Krebs, you'll be happy to know
all your work has taken off all over the world. They read
you everywhere now. You are a departed legend of time,
and I guess you knew it all the time. I saw Carl Solomon at
the Kerouac Conference. He still lives with his mother and
works as a messenger boy. I was in TAOS New Mexico last
[break in manuscript] celebrating an art show at Shadoni of
Bill Gertz a painter friend. A guy you would have loved to
have known. He introduced me to Geronimo's grandson who
is a painter and a poet. Heavy dude you take one look at him.
He gives you the willies he is so real. Life goes on to the end.
I hope they are treating you nice in heaven. You know how it
was on the earth and I hope it's better up there.
----------------------Love your friend
------------------------------Jack Micheline
P.S. your acquaintance Rainy Cass disappeared, The guy,
The sleepwalker from New Orleans, the guy who plays
the cornet and put out Climax Magazine. Some guy named
Willie put out a magazine called The Willie, he disappeared
too. It seems all the good people disappear. There are too
many phoneys in the world. The arts are loaded with them.
Somehow we must rescue the consciousness of man. Some
way some noble purpose must exist. Away to a new aware-
ness. At the Kerouac Conference Chellon Holmes was such
a Beautiful gentleman. He really loved you Jack. He called
you the great rememberer and read a soul stirring piece
about you, what rare, fine soul. and such a gentle spirit. Too
many people do not live their poems. We are still in the dark
ages baby. Bless you Jack your kind gentle spirit. Shig is still
alive and is very sick and has moved to Southern California
to spend his last years. The one armed [words missing in
manuscript]
---I hope you are well in heaven. And god bless the damned
and bless the angels too. bless em all the long and the short
and the tall, bless all their children and their bastard sons
Bless em all.
---Remember that song Jack
---Bless Em All!
----------------------Love
--------------------------forever
--------------------Jack Micheline
¹ Jack Micheline was born Harvey Silver, also known as Harvey Martin Silver, on November 26, 1929, in the Bronx, New York City
A bare stick in the water.
Kerouac did an introduction for Micheline's first book, River of Red Wine, which is lost in a pile somewhere around here or I'm sure I'd be quoting that right now.
In any case, if you never knew how to talk to the dead, this has been your lesson. And when you speak like this, friend, the dead talk back.
someone else's affair******* George Harrison's birthday ********
you think...
lanterns for the deadIssa
translated by David Lanoue
Sunday, February 8th, was the shared anniversaries of the births of Elizabeth Bishop and Neal Cassady. Each, in their own way, was a formidable figure of 20th century American literature.
Elizabeth Bishop is one of our finest poets, a poet's poet, as the saying goes. At the same time, her work, though not talked about generally as much as one would expect, is regularly anthologized. I've found it is appreciated by folks in the lifelong learning sessions on introductory poetry I've taught over the past few years; I'm planning to use the following in this year's session, coming up this April:
Filling StationOh, but it is dirty!
─this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it’s a family filling station)
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color─
of certain color. they lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO—so—so—so
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
10/31/1958
Dearest daft dove deliberately doubling deft devotion despite despair dripping dumbly down delicately dim decolletage deserving diametrically different dissectional dressing—drenched daily in daddy's deepest dedication—to you, Lady of the Gardenias, Carolyn, wife dearest; Just as little as did the Druids in Gaul 22 Centuries ago suspect their annual late autumn blood & harvest gleaning sacrifice to Shaiman, God of the Dead, would eventually degenerate into tonites small fry trick or treating hollow culmination, did, I'll wager, you guess when writing it that "Hallelujah, the Pope is dead" would nigh make you a byword here synonymous to the opposite of your true character by exciting, without excepting P. Donovan's two negro friends, every convict who saw it to comment in admiration as misunderstood as it was genuine, "Jeez, what a tough (means great) broad", "Man,what a swingin' chick ya got", & the topper, from an older felon absolutely bugeyed in disbelief, "Where's she doin' time?" Anyway, I, not having fully forgotten Cayce, knew how you meant that already almost classic final line—say, just this second, as I wrote "classic", a faint recollection struck of some famous Prince or King in history dashing into the castle's great hall proclaiming "Hallelujah, the Pope is dead"; no doubt the "cons", you & I were all standing there thunderstricken—& was altogether proud of your performance, so amusingly mistaken by them, still it is true, as my initial letter this month stated, that I did feel a foolish twinge at Pius XII's passing, somewhat, perhaps, because of two detailed biographies I read, but mostly, due, I think, to heightened sensitivity toward anything familiar that jailing always produces in one, because my priest Godfather had talked with him 3 times rather recently & this closeness by proxy had somehow helped impress on me his true saintliness—of course, at 82 practically anyone can assume that aura, note Churchill, now 84, or Elinor, 76.
darting to the beat
of the downpour...
a swallowIssa
translated by David Lanoue
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