Shine on Brightly: Issa's Sunday Service, #77

 



It's three wise kings from the East that bring us this week's selection for the Sunday Service: "Shine On Brightly," by Procol Harum, who are becoming something of a house band.   Perhaps a tad early for Christmas, but it seems their quest was long and nearly endless; our doomed narrator, however, receives the gifts in stead (ahem), presumably giving the Prussian blue electric clock an extra wack for some additional rest for that poor befuddled brain.

Keith Reid rules.

Shine on Brightly   
 My Prussian-blue electric clock's
 alarm bell rings, it will not stop
 and I can see no end in sight
 and search in vain by candlelight
 for some long road that goes nowhere
 for some signpost that is not there
 And even my befuddled brain
 is shining brightly, quite insane

 The chandelier is in full swing
 as gifts for me the three kings bring
 of myrrh and frankincense, I'm told,
 and fat old Buddhas carved in gold
 And though it seems they smile with glee
 I know in truth they envy me
 and watch as my befuddled brain
 shines on brightly quite insane

 Above all else confusion reigns
 And though I ask no-one explains
 My eunuch friend has been and gone
 He said that I must soldier on
 And though the Ferris wheel spins round
 my tongue it seems has run aground
 and croaks as my befuddled brain
 shines on brightly, quite insane

Though often scoffed at for their art rock sensibility, this live performance puts the lie to any such thought. In particular note one of rock's great, underrated drummers, B. J. Wilson can be seen and heard at his finest.  His performance on the second tune, "In the Wee Small Hours of Sixpence," will no doubt remind many of the late, great Keith Moon, in style, flair, and competence.

************

This week's features the opening 4 poems of issue #115, from March, 2001.  In fact, let me include the cover, by the late poet/artist Harland Ristau, since the sequence seems to start with that.

THIS IS THE FIRST PART
OF A LONG ESSAY ON RELATIVITY
AND QUANTUM MECHANICS FROM
THE STANDPOINT OF KANT
AND SOME GERMAN IDEALISTS WHO
SHALL BE NAMED LATER IN
THE DISCUSSION WHICH WILL BE
ALL ABOUT EPISTEMOLOGY
AND PROCEDURE AND REFERENCE-FRAMES
AND PARADOX AND THE ENTANGLEMENT
OF SPACE AND TIME AS SEEN
FROM GREAT DISTANCES PLUS A LOT
OF OTHER STUFF TOO

(... to be continued)

Wayne Hogan

through
              the birds
                              a history of stars

Marcia Arrieta

Etude
  Eighty-eight keys,
  each a telescope trained
  upon a single constellation.

  Stephen Power

Belief
  Those who
  Believe
  The universe
  Ends
  Stop at
  the edge of it.

Edward Supranowicz

looking pretty
in a hole in the paper door…
Heaven’s River

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 76 songs
Hear all 74 at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Talking, Writing, Teaching, Spewing, Loving: Another Week of Poetry

Cover art by Wayne Hogan

Though off from "work" this week, I've been busy with things Lilliput related, which include getting issues #'s 163 and 164 out in the mail to subscribers. Also on my plate, has been wrapping up an interview for Poet Hound, which covers a wide range of questions about the history of the mag, its focus, and how I go about doing what I do. Since Lillie will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2009, it was a good thing for me to sit, think about the journey, and what's ahead. The interview should be appearing at PH sometime around the end of the month. I'll keep you posted.

Dovetailing nicely with that project, I was also asked to write an article for Café Review, for their 20th anniversary issue, about how I select poems for Lillie. I'm working against a deadline, so that has kept me considerably occupied. The article is scheduled for January, but the deadline looms large. More on that in the future.

Two other fall projects that are gobbling up time like twin black holes are two sessions concerning poetry I'm working on. The first is an Osher lifelong learning one-shot class on poetry appreciation and this is the second year I've been asked to conduct it. The second is a new poetry discussion group I've put together with a fellow staffer at the library entitled "3 Poems By ... ." The idea is to have a poetry discussion group similar to typical book discussion groups, only focusing on 3 select poems by a given poet for an hour long session instead of an entire book of poems. The first session will be on Emily Dickinson, with future sessions on e. e. cummings, Sharon Olds, Mary Oliver, and others. We also will be doing one session entitled "3 Poems About," the subject being time, handled by 3 different poets. Both of these projects will be in the first two weeks of October and the clock is ticking.

When the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list hit the 100 milestone, Ron Silliman picked it up for his blog and this page got mighty busy, mighty fast.

As noted in previous posts, Acres of Books has lost its battle against closing (though gallantly championed by Ray Bradbury) to the Long Beach, CA, city fathers. Now, unbelievably, they have turned a jaundiced eye to the Long Beach Main Library and once again Mr. Bradbury has risen to the occasion. Maybe the mayor of Long Beach, the honorable Bob Foster, needs to hear from you.

Since I'm expelling angst, I might as well make a confession: I hate baseball poetry. Let me be clear: I love baseball, it's baseball poetry I hate. I've tried. I can't help it. It's just one of those things. But Jonathan Holden's poem, How To Play Night Baseball, from a recent posting at The Writer's Almanac, has put the lie to any type of definitive statement I was reaching for. This one's a beaut.

One final note before turning to this week's featured work from the Lillie archives; Jill Dybka at the Poetry Hut Blog has pointed to a nifty list, put together by Amy King, of Movies with Poetry. Check it out and if you can think of any that were missed, just add it in the comments section. I did.

Over the last couple of week's, I've been skipping around a bit in the archive and this week is no exception. The following selection is from issue #157, from August 2007, a year ago this month.

gentle,
the wish of not to wish

Sean Perkins

--------------------------------------------

just squeeze into
----hollow sycamore
---------& close my eyes

John Martone

--------------------------------------------

#374
Lying with my lover,
From the bed I see
Through the curtain
Across the Milky Way the parting
Of the Weaver and the Oxherder stars!

Yosano Akiko
translated by Dennis Maloney

--------------------------------------------

Be Still
This shall be the unspeakable:
Long after you've grown old
You will be the breath
Of a lion,
A basket of blue tears,
Landscape of dry reeds.
Your life shall float
Past the warm,
Slow river, skirting banks
Of black mud and straw

Jeffrey Gerhardstein

--------------------------------------------

"nowhere & nothing" from the tao of pooh

time
patience
drift

one
flower/poem
after
another

Marcia Arrieta

--------------------------------------------


Till next time,
Don

PS The Wayne Hogan cover above is supposed to be grey. Every now and then the scanner craps out. It is now.

Wendell Berry, Madam Marie, and the Summarize Monsieur Proust in Two Words (Or Less) Contest

Cover art by Oberc

A couple of interesting tidbits, if not poetic than certainly lyrical. First a very powerful interview with Wendell Berry in The Sun should be required reading for everyone. It's long and it's worth it. Second, sad news in the cultural icon department, as reported by the Asbury Park Press: Madam Marie has passed away at the age of 93. Here's a note by Bruce from his homepage:

Back in the day when I was a fixture on the Asbury Park boardwalk, I'd often stop and talk to Madam Marie as she sat on her folding chair outside the Temple of Knowledge.

I'd sit across from her on the metal guard rail bordering the beach, and watched as she led the day trippers into the small back room where she would unlock a few of the mysteries of their future. She always told me mine looked pretty good - she was right. The world has lost enough mystery as it is - we need our fortunetellers. We send our condolences out to her family who've carried on her tradition. Over here on E Street, we will miss her.

--Bruce Springsteen

As someone who did plenty of time in Asbury Park and saw many a so-called renaissance of the town come and go, the death of Madam Marie, her passing, resonants in many ways.

Today is the birthday of someone who, after many years, has become my favorite writer: Marcel Proust. In homage to Monty Python's The All-England Summarize Proust Competition, the website TEMPSPERDU.COM has a webpage of two, three, four, five etc. word summaries of Proust (all 3,000 plus pages) submitted by visitors to their site. Cliff's Notes could learn a thing or two about summarizing from these folks. I particularly love the two word summaries and can't decide which is my favorite: "Goodnight Mama", "Mmmm ... cookies", "Society sucks", or "Time flies."

Contributor copies of the new issues of Lilliput Review, #'s 163 and 164, went out this week. I will begin working on the subscription run this weekend. Typically, with poetry to read and letters to write, it takes me 6 or so weeks to get the full run out. Such is the life of a small press editor. #163 features poems by:

Yosano Akiko (Dennis Maloney translations), John Martone, Marcia Arrieta, Ed Baker, Hosho McCreesh, Bart Solarczyk, Paul Hostovsky, Kevin Richard Jones, Constance Campbell, Greg Watson, George Gott, Jeffrey Skeate, Alan Holder, Kelley Jean White, Mary Rooney, Lâle Müldür (translated by Donny Smith), Mike Dillon, Joseph Farley, Shey Galib (translated by Donny Smith), and Diane di Prima. Artwork is by John Harter, Edward O'Durr Supranowicz, and Guy Beining.

If anyone has contact info on Edward O'Durr Supranowicz, I could use it to get him his contributor copies. I don't have an address for him.

In #164, poems are by: Diane di Prima, John Martone, Greg Watson, Charlie Mehrhoff, Janet Baker, Paul Hostovsky, LeRoy Gorman, Hosho McCreesh, David Gross, Charles Nevsimal, Hugh Hennedy, Kelley Jean White, Ruben T. Abeyta, Wayne Hogan (also responsible for the artwork), M. Kei, David Lindley, Judy Swann, Mark J. Mitchell, Jacquelyn Bowen Aly, M. Kettner, Marcelle H. Kasprowicz, David Chorlton, Jessica Harman, Bart Galle, and Michael Wurster.

This week's back issue feature from the Lillie archive is #81 from August 1996 (who remembers that a former NFL quarterback was nominated by the Republicans for vice-president?). Here are a couple of samples:

Love in the Warm Sweet Air of Springtime

Sheets loosen
fall to the floor
the lamps tip
magazines slip
everything is touched
everything is moved.

Janell Moon

oh touch me you fool

and for all he's worth
his fingers fall like
pale leaves into the
wet autumn of spring

Angel D. Zapata

typical male

here I am
getting that
hackneyed
dog shit
creeping out
from under the snow
poem
out of my system

Matt Welter

And, you know, sometimes there is the beauty of serendipity or, as Jung would have it, synchronicity. I literally came across the following two poems in this issue after I'd written the above. The first is a nod to the Madam, RIP, the second needs no explanation beyond the fact that it was a "Brobdingnag Feature Poem," an occasional feature wherein the poet is permitted to go beyond the usual 10 line limit. Enjoy.

Columbus Avenue

Sidewalk slick with rain,
the fortune teller's daughter
sits barefoot in a doorway,
her painted toes curl in moist air.
The florist flirts, sells me white flowers,
casablanca lilies, he likes saying.
A street singer cries through this thick air,
he beats good rhythm on his thighs
and I give him money, of course I do.

Lonnie Hull Dupont

Proust

He wrote and
rewrote the
last of Remembrance
in bed, taped
changes on
to changes, some
paper accordion
folded out
across the
room with penned
corrections.
He died days later,
the manuscripts
still near the
bed like a
ticking watch on
the wrist of
a dead soldier.

Lyn Lifshin

Oh, I can't end that way, that's too many lines:

the fate of the tang dynasty

ink died
sparrow lives

W. B. Keckler

That's better.

best,
Don

Note: If you would like to receive the two current issues of Lilliput 
Review free (or haveyour current subscription extended two issues),
just make a suggestion of a title or titles for the Near Perfect Books 
of Poetry page, either in a comment to this post, in email to lilliput
review at gmail dot com, or in snail mail to the address on the
homepage.