Christien Gholson: "For the tiny insect casting a long shadow ..."

Utamaro: Snake & Green Lizard

Christien Gholson is one of the finest poets I have had the pleasure to publish in the 22 years I've been doing Lilliput Review.   The greatest compliment I can give any poet is simply that she or he is unique: Christien is certainly that.  I've published two chapbooks in the Modest Proposal series by him, along with three broadsides.

What follows is the first publication of this poem anywhere.  I thought about the various paper forms in which I could publish it (broadside or Brobdingnag Feature Poem) and electronic and left it up to Christien.  He chose electronic and I'm very happy he did so I could share this with Lilliput's and Issa's web following.  Enjoy.

For the tiny insect casting a long shadow
across the page of a Burton Watson translation of Ch’i-Chi

“…in my poems I think how cold Hsuan-tsung must be tonight.”

1.

Wings smaller than a lizard’s eye:

Emperor Hsuan-tsung

     attracted to his own name in print?

Wing-veins invisible as wind, thinner

 than the Emperor’s

                        thousand year old hair.

Everything returns.

2.

Emperor, Emperor,

egg to larvae to wing in the time it takes

                                    to turn the page.

Nothing returns.

                       

3.

Born from water, nameless.

Older than stone, nameless.

Pattern of air, nameless.

Feeding on light, nameless.

Everything returns.

                              

4.

Wind-chimes to the left, right:

Calligraphy of lizard tracks in dust.

Nothing returns…

                                    Christien Gholson 



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




This week's featured poems come from Lilliput Review, #153.  Two very different dogs that shared the same page, back in November 2006.   I've read Don Wlekliniski's poem at local readings featuring Lilliput  work - it's fun to read, when you put your back into it.  Afterwards, folks come up an scratch your head.

Enjoy.

  business as usual

money says have a nice day

money says bark like a dog

money says bark like a dog
and roll over

money says blame it on each other

money says have another biscuit

Don Wleklinski

The dog of myself
walking the dog of the dog
through the dog of the world.
I think the dog sniffing around
for the perfect plac to void
is the poetry of place.
And I think the poetry of the void
is the dog of myself tied
to the dying tree of the world,
sniffing eternity out.

Paul Hostovsky

the lazy dog
barks lying down...
plum trees in bloom

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 102 songs

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Don Wentworth: an Interview, by Christien Gholson

If you'd like to know what it was (& continues to be) like to edit a small press poetry magazine (Lilliput Review) for 22 years and then publish your first book at age, well, old ... this is the place:

Christien Gholson's noise & silence

Christien, a long time favorite poet and, now, novelist, managed to ask all the right questions that elicited responses which informed me about my own work.  Usually it is the interviewer that is grateful; in this case it is the interviewee. 

To complement the interview, here's a review of William Hart's Home to Ballygunge: Kolkota Tanka I did recently for simply haiku.

all of a sudden
he shuts up...
crow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

PS  Get 2 free issues. Get 2 more free issues

Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature. Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 127 songs

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Robinson Jeffers: Love the Wild Swan

To read the 4/4/1932 story, click the cover

This past Sunday was the birthday of the poet Robinson Jeffers, whose work I've been avidly re-reading over the last month or so in preparation for a forthcoming discussion with the group 3 Poems By. I'd been meaning to post this poem, which I think succinctly hits a number of Jeffers's major themes and still manages to be an excellent poem for all that.




Love the Wild Swan

“I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch
One color, one glinting flash, of the splendor of things.
Unlucky hunter, Oh bullets of wax,
The lion beauty, the wild-swan wings, the storm of the wings.”
—This wild swan of a world is no hunter’s game.
Better bullets than yours would miss the white breast,
Better mirrors than yours would crack in the flame.
Does it matter whether you hate your...self? At least
Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.

Robinson Jeffers

In his general disdain for man and love of the natural world, Jeffers has been caught up in accusations of misanthropy. I see him almost as an instinctive Buddhist; it is the realization of our place in the world that is the essence of what he is after, not the wholesale writing off of mankind. In addition, like so many artists, he is pigeonholed and, like so many artists, he grew and changed in his vision and interpretation of what was around him.

What cannot be denied is his passion. He put it all on the line for his beliefs and he didn't back down. He went from being one of the most popular and esteemed poets in America to being much reviled, and, finally, into near obscurity. Of recent times, his environmental themes have been taken up by the movement but one can't help but think this would not afford him any real amount of pleasure. The process of selectivity required to produce such a legacy ignores a great deal of what he was about. Initially, he was known for his epic book-length works, as in the era of the above Time magazine article, but currently it is his short work that he is most remembered for.

Ultimately, his beliefs were broad enough to contain all the beauty and all the terror that is nature, that is our existence. Think stern but loving parent. Think tough love.

Think Bodhisattva.


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


The next broadside I'd like to feature from the Lilliput series is Spiral by the poet Christien Gholson. Since this short 4 part poem can't really be excerpted, here it is in its entirety (minus the tactile dimension, the colorful paper, and the nifty Bosch spot illustrations). If you'd like a copy to hold of your very own, it is available for a measly dollar or an even more thrifty SASE.

Spiral

1.
The missing will return.

The train horn scythes the sky in half,
leaves a door for them
to leap through.

They swing down the sickle moon,
ride the back of a grey and white humped-back mosquito
through a sickly sweet over-ripe
jasmine vine.


2.
The dead will return.

They poke their heads up from the sea,
eyeing the shoreline,
moon burning their scales
clean.

From a train window
I saw the glistening roll of their backs
across the black surface
of the bay.


3.
The frenzied legs of a mosquito-catcher
jangle across the lampshade,
across the center panel of a Bosch print,
settle at the foot of St. Anthony.

Every flame is searching for an altar.

At the furthest edge of the night
a wall of white noise hides the first word.
Bones in red dust on a mesa-flat
begin their journey back.


4.
Where the bones used to be,
a solitary seed-husk blown in circles.

Christien Gholson

And the final word to Master Issa, reminding us why it is important not to do certain things we are supposed to do:





that grass over there
won't be cut...
Katydid

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Tom Waits and Two James Wright Poems

I was reminded of this Tom Waits song from a recent Facebook posting and it immediately put me in mind of two James Wright poems, one for obvious reasons, the other maybe not so obvious.  In any case, I'm thinking out loud here: Merry Christmas, good holidays, and Happy New Year, folks.  









Two poems by James Wright

Hook
   I was only a young man
  In those days. On that evening
  The cold was so God damned
  Bitter there was nothing.
  Nothing. I was in trouble
  With a woman, and there was nothing
  There but me and dead snow.

  I stood on the street corner
  In Minneapolis, lashed
  This way and that.
  Wind rose from some pit,
  Hunting me.
  Another bus to Saint Paul
  Would arrive in three hours,
  If I was lucky.

  Then the young Sioux
  Loomed beside me, his scars
  Were just my age.

  Ain't got no bus here
  A long time, he said.
  You got enough money
  To get home on?

  What did they do
  To your hand? I answered.
  He raised up his hook into the terrible starlight
  And slashed the wind.

  Oh, that? he said.
  I had a bad time with a woman. Here,
  You take this.

  Did you ever feel a man hold
  Sixty-five cents
  In a hook,
  And place it
  Gently
  In your freezing hand?

  I took it.
  It wasn't the money I needed.
  But I took it. 

   In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse 
   in Wheeling, West Virginia, Has Been Condemned

I will grieve alone,
As I strolled alone, years ago, down along
The Ohio shore.
I hid in the hobo jungle weeds
Upstream from the sewer main,
Pondering, gazing.

I saw, down river,
At Twenty-third and Water Streets
By the vinegar works,
The doors open in early evening.
Swinging their purses, the women
Poured down the long street to the river
And into the river
I do not know how it was
They could drown every evening.
What time near dawn did they climb up the other shore,
Drying their wings?

For the river at Wheeling, West Virginia,
Has only two shores:
The one in hell, the other
In Bridgeport, Ohio.

And nobody would commit suicide, only
To find beyond death
Bridgeport, Ohio.

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

Finally, a poem from issue #51, back in 1993, by the fine poet, Christien Gholson, to commemorate the day today.  It was #18 in the "Brobdingnag Feature Poem" series, in which the editor slips in a little something beyond the normal ten-line constraint.  Enjoy.

Sudden Compassion in the Alley Behind

      The Apartment, Christmas Day

  The Lords of Trash

   ride the beerbox skidding across black ice.

  Their laughter calls down the dead

  who will not accept their death,

  waiting behind black windows made of sudden crow wings.

  They tumble into the world

  and enter the bodies of flying ragleaves,

  freed from the ice, tossed blind

  back up through the black crow windows

  without a sound.

  Everything is alive like a merciful warning.

  Alive!

  Even those souls gnashing each other

  behind sudden dark windows, desperate

  to finish something that's already finished.

  The tossed leaves shimmer over starlings

  praising the chimney smoke that warms them

  and the leftover smoke opens its mouth,

  drinking down the seed husk coins

  the sparrow let fly onto the wind.

New Year's day -

everything is in blossom!

I feel about average.

Issa

translated by Robert Hass

By way of explanation, under the classical calendar in Japan, New Years is later in the year, about the 2nd or 3rd week in February, around the coming of spring.    Also, it is tradition that everyone celebrated their birthday on New Years.  Issa's undercutting of tradition here is really his poetic signature.

And quite funny.

Happy Christmas all, and, for the coming New Year, may you feel about average.


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 83 songs
Hear all 83 (or so) at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Isabella Rossellini, Dante's Inferno, and Antonio Machado

Cover by Wayne Hogan

Well, this week started with some Green Porno, so who am I not to share? Is it poetry? Maybe not, but it is lyrical in its own way and we need truth like this in a post George Carlin world. Thank you, Isabella Rossellini.

And, oh, yeah, humor. (Don't miss the other mini-films on the side bar).

I've had an idea percolating for a blog post at Eleventh Stack (the blog at my "other job") and it seemed worthy of sharing here (the idea, not the post). I stumbled across the fact, thanks once again to the folks over at the Bookslut blog, that there is a paper puppet version of Dante's Inferno, due for DVD release next month. Here is the trailer, posted at YouTube:





For those with hearty hard drives, you might want to try one of the higher-tech versions at the film's website. If the trailer tantalizes, Ovation TV has posted a 4 minute excerpt that portrays the Flatterers as congressional lobbyists (if this isn't in the spirit of the original epic poem, I'll take my 8th circle punishment right now. Oh, what the hell, here's the 4 minute excerpt (there is no doubt that this is poetry):





Perhaps I've strayed a bit and need a stopover in the 6th circle on my way down. Obviously, that one ain't my call.

In the more traditional area of poetics, I've been digging into a parcel of poetry books this past week, including Han Shan (more about that in a future post, I hope) and C . D. Wright's new take on the state of things, given Iraq and all that, in Rising, Falling, Hovering. If you are detecting some cynicism in the way the later part of the previous sentence trailed off, it seems I've got still another stop to consider. But I'll withhold judgment on that for a moment. Today what I'd like to recommend is a good, strong dose of Antonio Machado.





Dennis Maloney and Mary G. Berg have translated a volume of Machado's enigmatic short poems entitled There Is No Road, published by White Pine Press and pictured above. The works are all short, blending aphorism, philosophy, and a lyrical mysteriousness that is pure poetry. Here are a handful to give you a taste:

It is good to know that glasses
are to drink from;
the bad thing is that we don't know
what thirst is for.

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

Man is only rich in hypocrisy;
he relies on his ten thousand disguises
----------to deceive
and uses the double key that protects his house
to pick the lock of his neighbor.

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

Look in your mirror for the other one,
the one who accompanies you.

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

These chance furrows
why call them roads?
Everyone on a journey walks
like Jesus on the sea.

At 110 plus pages, one poem per page, there is much to ponder here. I'm partial to Dennis' work as I've published a volume of his Issa translations, Dusk Lingers, and one of love poems from the classic 100 Poems by 100 Poets entitled Unending Night. There will be a companion volume to the later focusing on nature poems from 100 Poems to be published in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series sometime next year. The clear, concise language of the translation of Machado comes through in There Is a Road. It's definitely worth a look.

Speaking of journeys, the tour of Lilliput Review's back pages continues this week with issue #83, published in November 1996. If anyone is actually keeping tabs, I've skipped #84, which was a broadside issue by Christien Gholson, Winter Prayers. As with many of the broadsides, excerpting work just doesn't do it justice. If you are interested, it is still available for $1 or can be bundled with 2 other broadsides, for a total of 3 for $2.00. On to the poetry in #83 ....

it is still

worth the risk
to sit, old and troubled
inside the heart
and scrape the walls
worth everything
to dip fingers
in the gravy
to paint the tablecloth
with words
necessary and fat.

jen besemer

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

The Ego and the Raven

Wings, talons, hair, horns:
Why heed a raven's lecture
when you've got it all?

Marjorie Power

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

places I've never been
people I've never met
the things that connect us

David Stensland

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



And one that probably hasn't aged so well ...



I Can't Believe Its Not Buttofucco Madonna

has an oily
texture of
rancid
margarine

Lyn Lifshin

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

Yikes, I can't end with that - here's a Donny Smith translation of an Anonymous Greek epigram:

epigram

The puckered rosebud opens, darkens, withers.
Where it was sweet, now it prickles.

Anonymous (translated by Donny Smith)

Till next time,
Don

The Inexorable March to the Sea: the Lilliput Archive & Happy Paddy's Day

Cover by Oberc

In the inexorable march to the sea that is the ongoing survey of past issues of Lilliput Review, we've arrived at issue #45, from June 1993. The cover above is by the artist poet Lawrence Oberc. Here's a taste from the distant past:

use of religion

let the manna turn
moldy and green,
holy penicillin

Evan Klein

After Paging Through American Poetry Review
A Friend Sent Me In the Mail

This is the game: To compete.
Ads for books, ads for writing programs.
Poems like craftbaskets sold in tourist towns
to the tourist who wants to be an indian.
Evangelization. The sales pyramid.
And the secret desire leaking
from the new churchgoer:
----"If I sell what's been sold to me,
------------------------------I won't be lost alone..."

----------christien gholson

Form As An Intention

the fashion is to heal
and talk
the fashion is to sprinkle
histrionics over
former meals of drunkenness
the fashion is to go away
where bandaids have been laced
together like this
bundle of my etchings
(would you like to see my etchings?)

Sheila E. Murphy

Setting Hair

walls are what make horses bodies
just the right size
to lie atop the first color console television
that doesn't have to ride the back
of anyones small children
just to hold the balance
between both styles
of farrah fawcett hair dos

Stacey Sollfrey

-----This faint light:
-----the presence

-----of absence
-----in a room.

-----Audrey Haerlin

Hearth fire crackles
your silhouette opens a door
inviting me in

William Galasso

a different view

hanging
from a maple tree
upside-down
I see the world
face to face

Garth Ferguson

Voyeur

that heavy breath
against smeared glass

the poet rubbing
windows

for the world to
peep through

Melissa Cannon

Well, since it's Paddy's Day and I'm working on more projects than I can count, I thought it might be time for a brief respite and some accompanying music. The first clip combines two of my favorite purveyors of urban Irish music, The Dubliners and The Pogues. To see Ronnie Drew stand side by side with Shawn McGowan is an Irish music fans idea of Fiddler's Green. If neither uttered a note, their separate unique stances sing endless refrains.

The 2nd clip is of an old time favorite singer/composer, Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan, whose recordings, aside from a cut or two here and there on an anthology, are literally unattainable. He is a long-time favorite of mine and I have none of his records. How sweet the irony then that the only place they may be obtained is via You Tube, where a handful of cuts appear in a static, still photo format. If anyone knows of any recordings out there that are available, I'm loosening those eye teeth as I type. Hope you enjoy this cut, which is but a taste of what he does so well.

Dominic Behan

In addition to the weekly tour through past issues of Lilliput on this blog, the Twitter poem-a-day from back issues of Lillies is progressing nicely. As with these weekly posts, each poem posted daily at Twitter is from a particular back issue, starting from the newest and heading backwards chronologically. The one caveat is the poem must be 140 characters (including spaces) or less. Today the poem is from issue #156. Check it out.


best,
Don

Keith Reid and Cid Corman

Perhaps the single most neglected writer of rock lyrics is Keith Reid, the non-playing sixth member of Procol Harum. Among other non-playing lyricists, there is Robert Hunter of the Grateful Dead and Peter Brown of, among others, Cream. In a post from last year at the old Beneath Cherry Blossoms blog, I placed the Reid penned "Conquistador" side by side with Shelley's "Ozymandias" for comparison and resonance.

Currently, I have the first four Procol albums on my mp3 player and have for the last month or so. It might seem odd to call them timeless; perhaps the more apt description would be out of time. Here are the lyrics from "Pilgrim's Progress," the cut that closes their masterwork, A Salty Dog:

Pilgrim’s Progress

I sat me down to write a simple story
which maybe in the end became a song
In trying to find the words that might begin it
I found these were the thoughts I brought along

At first I took my weight to be an anchor
and gathered up my fears to guide me round
but then I clearly saw my own delusion
and found my struggles further bogged me down

In starting out I thought to go exploring
and set my foot upon the nearest road
In vain I looked to find the promised turning
but only saw how far I was from home

In searching I forsook the paths of learning
and sought instead to find some pirate’s gold
In fighting I did hurt those dearest to me
and still no hidden truths could I unfold

I sat me down to write a simple story
which maybe in the end became a song
The words have all been writ by one before me
We’re taking turns in trying to pass them on
Oh, we’re taking turns in trying to pass them on

In the history of rock, there has been many a concept album; most of them have been noble, if pretentious, failures. The reason A Salty Dog is, in my opinion, the very best is simple; the concept is metaphoric, not literal. To sustain an entire story over a whole album strains believability, mostly because the medium cannot bear the weight (if truth be told, herein lies where many an opera fails, but, of course, that's not the point: so, too, rock fans might argue with, perhaps, less credulity). But the subtle art of suggestion, one of the writer's most powerful tools, within a loose conceptual framework is what gives this album its incredible power, a staying power that only grows over the passing years. Because A Salty Dog, magnificently executed by a fine band at the top of its game, is quite simply one man's story: the story of one particular writer.

Keith Reid.

The enigmatic quality of "A Whiter Shade of Pale," with its allusion to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, has often stumped the casual listener of popular music. The allusion in "Pilgrim's Progress" is even more overt. The words "anchor" and "pirate's gold" tie the song to the overall concept, but no one would mistake this for a song about anything other than a metaphoric salty dog. This album smokes; if you can listen to "Crucifiction Lane" without a wince of recognition, you're a better person than I.

I was very happy to see this week that Garrison Keillor is doing his bit to keep the memory of Cid Corman alive. Check out his rendition of "Someone I cared for" by Cid from Monday's The Writer's Almanac.

Long live Cid.

Cover art by Keddy Ann Outlaw

The ongoing tour of past issues of Lilliput Review brings us to #145. For those following along, #144 is a broadside by Christien Gholson entitled Spiral, that does not lend itself to excerpting so has been skipped.

Enjoy.

The Arrival
We have arrived without luggage
in a country we don’t recognize
among people who distrust us
where the walls have no windows
and the doors open only
for the chosen. We are home at last.

David Chorlton

moist petals open,
the tumor blooms

Karen R. Porter

cutting glass
the guy in the neat suit
picked his way into a part
of the mirror & began
to see everything backwards.

Guy R. Beining

The short space
between the joints
growing along the Naniwa shore
- may the time before
your next visit be as brief

Princess Ise
translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro

Till next week,

Don

Issa's Sunday Service, #12

Laura

Tomorrow is the birthday of that "Italian poet from the 13th century," Petrarch, a poet so driven by his idealized love for a woman named Laura that he revitalized the sonnet form. Of course, he was born and lived in the 14th century (1304 - 1374), but I am voting that Dylan read the dates and mistakenly came up with 13th century, a common enough error, or wrote from memory and got it wrong. Lots of Dylan folks think the poet he is referring to is Dante, but I'm sticking by my guns. In an interview in 1978 (scroll down for the interview excerpt), Dylan further muddled the matter when asked who the poet was when the discussion turned to the song, Tangled Up In Blue:

Craig : Its got those nice lines at the end, about ' there was music
in the cafes at night and revolution in the air' and ' some are
mathematicians, some are carpenters wives, I don't know how it
all got started, I don't know what they do with their lives'.

Dylan : I like that song. Yeah that poet from the 13th century....

Craig : Who was that ?

Dylan : Plutarch. Is that his name ?

Well, that's a hoot and a half, anyway you cut it. There have been so many variations of Tangled Up In Blue, along with so many variations of the particular lines in question (Dylan has evidently inserted Charles Baudelaire, the Bible, and the 15th century in various performances), the point is moot. In any case, it is Petrarch's birthday, so Petrarch it is, wrong or right.



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



This week's poem from the Sunday "count up" (and for those paying close attention, you'll notice the countdown and count up have just overlapped, something that roughly might happen once every two and a half years) is from Lilliput Review #22. I've chosen a different poem from the 3 recently featured in the countdown, hope you enjoy it.

What is there

Single hawk stationary above the highway
------------flapping against the wind.
One dot black on the immense snow sky

-------------a tiny immortal
-------------the old peasant on the chinese scroll.

You can hear the geese but you can't see them.

Christien Gholson

departing geese
whatever are you
gabbing about?

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don


The LitRock website with past selections is here.

Home I'll Never Be: Issa's Sunday Service, #26

This week was the anniversary of Jack Kerouac's death so for today's Issa's Sunday Service here is Tom Waits performing "Home I'll Never Be." The words are supposedly by Kerouac himself; I haven't been able to verify that except to say that it is everywhere on the net. If anyone knows the history of this particular piece, I'd appreciate it and will share it with readers. Meanwhile, enjoy the Waits performance.

In addition, here's the band Low Anthem performing "Home I'll Never Be," noting that it was recorded by Kerouac and comes from On The Road. Still, any further details would be appreciated.






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

This week's feature poems closed out Lilliput Review issue #39, way back in 1992. Hope something grabs you here.

Circle

we 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 ash

christien gholson

Night in Akumal, Mexico

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 all

Cheryl Townsend

1992

My feet aren't working.
The clock is dead.
There's a new world coming:
beauty's headlights
blind us
from a distance.

Bart Solarcyzk

evening cicada--
a last loud song
to autumn

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Antonio Machado: I Never Wanted Fame

The short poems of Antonio Machado have found there way to Issa's Untidy Hut a few times. I Never Wanted Fame, a little chapbook published by Ally Press in 1979, is a delightful window into the work of this fine Spanish poet. The translations of Robert Bly are crystal clear, which brings the mystery of the poems themselves into high relief.

I.

---I never wanted fame,
nor wanted to leave my poems
behind in the memory of men.
I love the subtle worlds,
delicate, almost without weight,
like soap bubbles.
I enjoy seeing them take the color
of sunlight and scarlet, float
in the blue sky, then
suddenly quiver and break.

I enjoy seeing them take the color
of sunlight and scarlet, float
in the blue sky, then
suddenly quiver and break.

The beauty of the image here almost overwhelms the meaning; the reader must confront what are the subtle worlds, transported as she/he is into lyrical realms upon contemplation. Of what subtle worlds speaks the poet?

Perhaps there is a clue here:

II.

---Why should we call
these accidental furrows roads,...?
Everyone who moves on walks
like Jesus, on the sea.

If everyone who moves "walks / like Jesus, on the sea" perhaps these subtle realms aren't so distant after all.

VI.

---I love Jesus, who said to us:
Heaven and earth will pass away.
When heaven and earth have passed away,
my word will remain.
What was your word, Jesus?
Love? Forgiveness? Affection?
All your words were
one word: Wakeup.

Ah, that world, the world of spirit, the spiritual world. Gautama's favorite word: Wakeup! And when we are not awake, when we are lost, what then:

VII.

---It is good knowing that glasses
are to drink from;
the bad thing is not to know
what thirst is for.

There is a realm, too, a place, a world not so subtle. We find ourselves, we lose ourselves, we find ourselves again. When lost, how, how do we find our way back?

VIII.

---All things die and all things live forever;
but our task is to die,
to die making roads,
roads over the sea.

Here is our way out, here is our way home, back home to the subtle worlds where we so long to be. Might we need instruction as to the how, the where?

X.

---Mankind owns four things
that are no good at sea:
rudder, anchor, oars
and the fear of going down.

There are copies of this poignant little volume of ten verses, though long out of print, floating around for a very reasonable price on amazon (of course, some idiot is selling one for $90) and, if you cherish transcendent verse, this is right up your street. Since its been my policy for a couple of years now not to link to amazon, you may also find it here and here. I thought it might be available in Robert Bly's selected translations, The Winged Energy of Delight, but I checked at the library and, though there are some other Machado poems in that book, these little ones are not there.

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

In the ongoing, or on and off-going, feature of Lilliput broadsides, we've arrived at #84, Winter Prayers by Christien Gholson, a six-part poem. Here is part IV:

IV. None: heading to the bank

An old man stepped carefully down the ice sidewalk.
His skinny, brittle legs knew
that everything in his briefcase
----------------------- ------didn't matter

I knew he would not make it through the winter
and my knowing brought me closer
to that face,
------ -- - ---- beyond desperation,
---- --that saw the shadow of a sparrow
---- --as it slipped beneath the river
---- --and carried the bird shadow down
---- --to live in the form of curious fish
---- --moving through the cave of a skull.

And, to thread it all together, the master:

through the great red gate
no fear...
cuckoo

Issa
translated by Daniel G. Lanoue

best,
Don

James Wright , Jack Kerouac, Charlie Smith, and Chuang Tzu: Full House

Cover by Bobo

In Monday's post, I mentioned James Wright's groundbreaking collection, The Branch Will Not Break. Intrepid correspondent Ed Baker remembered the ending of another powerful poem from that collection. Here it is in its entirety:

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm
in Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for a home.
I have wasted my life.

James Wright

As evidenced in Ed's memory of this last line, the power of the poem is hard to underestimate. Perhaps that power has been slightly diminished via much imitation; still, I am bowled over every time I read it. The precision in execution, the attention to detail, and, perhaps, the allusion in the first line to Chuang Tzu's (Zhuangzi) famous

"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. "

Whether the allusion is there or no (just a dream of mine, perhaps), the general flavor of Eastern work permeates The Branch Will Not Break. I've been revisiting this volume on and off all year and reading the Selected Poems sent me back again. No matter how many times I return, the well continues to be plenteous.

Many thanks to the Poet Hound for her take on issue #165 of Lilliput Review. Sidle on over: she features poems by Greg Watson, David Chorlton, and John Martone.

Curtis, over at Blogging Along Tobacco Road, has mounted a YouTube video of Kerouac reading some of his haikus. In case you haven't seen it (or I should say heard, since it's a YouTube vid with a single picture fronting the audio - close your eyes and think "YouSpeaker"), here it is:





In addition, Curtis has been featuring videos he is making of poets reading haiku, as with the one by Roberta Beary posted here recently. This calls for some more sidling to see his vid of Charlie Smith and other goodies. With Curtis's permission, I'm also posting it here:




Charlie Smith


Ron Silliman has pointed to an interview by Doug Holder of the prolific poet, critic, reviewer, and small press legend, Hugh Fox that might be of interest to folks. Hugh has published the occasional poem here and is author of the Lilliput broadside, "Slides," which was issue #112. Here's a link to the old Lilliput blog (beware, pop-up zone), "Beneath Cherry Blossoms," with some sample poems from that broadside.

This week's featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #63, from December 1994. Be sure to check the Back Issue Archive, where you can find sample poems from 75 back issues. Enjoy.




A Basic Understanding

Cause links one
Reason to another,
And at the end
Of the chain
Sits a stark
And elemental is.

Ed Anderson

Sentence (from a sequence)

Too painfully large for word
or phrase, our small talents
despair of meaning, and we are
on buses tapping seat rails
unsure of the stop for today,
pausing as fingers glide
along reflective chrome
streaked by syllables
of familiar streets.

Tim Scannell

Gifts

Behold
this snow: light
fallen to show us through darkness
toward spring. Please
lift this sighting forward
on worthy words. I
don't know how.
But I believe in you.

Patricia Ranzoni

Snowflakes
Turds falling from 5 billion human rumps,
------5 billion snowflakes falling
----------from a single cloud.

Antler

The constant wavesound,
the chant,
slow-grinding thought and bone
to sand

christien gholson

The Knobadoor Diamond

Four boys
found a glass doorknob on the beach.
They called it The Knobadoor Diamond
and it made them rich.

Cal Sag

¶ someone's gotta fall
--babe
--make sure the bottom's still there.

scarecrow

best,
Don

"I come like Water, and like Wind I go"

Today is the anniversary of the passing of Thelonious Monk, on February 17th, 1982, arguably the single most creative keyboard composer and player in the history of jazz. I'm not exactly sure who might argue with that: devotees of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Fats Waller and a handful (or two) others no doubt.

For me, however, he's the one. Let's see - Monk on piano, Mingus on bass, Jones on drums, Ornette on alto, Trane on soprano/tenor, Miles on trumpet, composing duties shared equally - that should cover it. Away with the fantasy, however: here's the real deal.

I promised, or perhaps threatened, more highlights from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, which I was much taken with in a recent reading. Background highlights may be found in the previous post. For now, here's a thick, lyrical stew of death, booze, ennui, and love, not necessarily in that order.

Please use your hands.

And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,
---Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?

Alright, maybe the annotating isn't quite over. Notice the words that he capitalizes. That capitalization is not largely gratuitous. Particularly, in this quatrain: Room, Summer, Couch, and Earth. And, also, what is not capitalized: we and whom.

Ok, I'll try to refrain from refraining.

24.

Ah, make the most of what we may spend,
Before we, too, into the Dust descend;
---Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!

25.

Alike for those who for To-day prepare,
And those that after some To-morrow stare,
---A Muzzeín from the Tower of Darkness cries,
"Fools, your reward is neither Here nor There!"

26.

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust
---Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

27.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
---About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door that I went in.

28.

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
---And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd—
"I come like Water, and like Wind I go."

29.

Into this Universe, and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing;
---And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.

30.

What, without asking, hither Whence?
And, without asking, Whither hurried hence?
---Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence.

Well, it seems there must be a part three, because I could go on forever, but Omar says no! Since it is a little early for a Cup of Wine (No, again!), it seems it's time to turn to the Lilliput archival selections. This week's selection comes from December 1993, 15 plus years ago. Whatever were we up to then, eh?

Cover by Guy Beining

dead poem, #8

when the poets talk of flowers
I want them placed on their banal graves

big bloody hearts
hanging from a copperhead's mouth

a SASE
attached

Bill Shields

Early Robins

Orange breasted buddhas
test their beaks
against
the frozen earth

Bart Solarczyk

In A Time of Human Savagery

Woman in a blue car
holds a white flower
to her pink face

She breathes the flower,
eyes closed,
waiting to make her turn

Leaves open their arms
and fly wild onto the wind

Nothing can stop the world.

christien gholson

Becoming

white blossoms
& cranberry glass
the night more wild
than the red blood
of Egypt
each leaf
is not
what it
seems

Gina Bergamino

from Interweavings II

geovoidl

Richard Kostelanetz

Turner's Song

The player dances his keys
with pale tarantula hands.
His music moves into
the night where its staves melt
in the madness of the rain.

Gordon Grice

January 29th 1986

Winter is like losing
your luggage in Newark

Arthur Winfield Knight

Desacralizing
----sacralizing
Time into the serpentine
weaving of Café Latté
saxophone Kanishiwa
one month away
from
Spring

Hugh Fox

Finally, something of an update: I've printed the Basho Haiku Challenge chapbooks. This coming weekend, I hope to put a good dent into cutting, folding, collating, and stapling the contributors run of 50 or so. The new issues, 167 and 168, are also coming along nicely and all should begin to go out on time (well, that's a rescheduled on time) around March 1st.

And, then, perhaps daffodils.

spring begins--
sparrows at my gate
with healthy faces

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don