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, 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.
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.”
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
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.
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.
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.
The short poems of Antonio Machado have found there way to Issa's Untidy Huta 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 ChristienGholson, 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.
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.
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.
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
fromInterweavings 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
In life, death informs all things. Think of it as the booby prize of cognizance. This is as true for those who choose to repress it, perhaps even more so. It's the primary reason Freud got to have what has euphemistically come to be known as a consulting room (check out Ernst Becker's groundbreaking The Denial of Death to let all this sink in, long and hard).
For those who might like their answer in a more timely, lyrical fashion, there is the Rubáiyátof Omar Khayyám as translated by EdwardFitzGerald. I was recently reminded of the Rubáiyát by an article in the Times Literary Supplement (January 9, 2009)entitled "The Angry Omar," though it might more appropriately been titled "The Wine-Soaked Omar." It is a fine article written by Daniel Karlin, fine enough to prompt me back to the Rubáiyat, which I've haven't visited in many a year.
Two points Karlin makes are of particular editorial importance. The first:
In the Persian text the rubáiyatare independent poems, grouped according to custom by end-rhyme. FitzGerald saw how some of these separate poems might be linked to form a narrative and argumentative sequence, by analogy with the classiccal Greek or Latin "ecolgue."
The second:
(FitzGerald's) attitude to translation is summed up in a phrase that has become the rallying cry of "free" translators against their literalist opponents: "Better a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle."
There were five different editions of the Rubáiyat in FitzGerald's lifetime and, since they are all relatively brief, being composed of anywhere from 73 quatrains to just over 100, frequently all 5 are published in the same volume. The verses I've chosen to highlight all come from the final 5th edition. Enjoy.
7.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentence fling: ---The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
8.
And look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day Woke—and a thousand scatter'd into Clay: ---And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamshýd and Kaikobád away. ----
15.
And those that husbanded the Golden Grain, And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, ---Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As buried once, Men want dug up again.
16.
Think in this batter'd Carnavanserai Whose doorways are alternate Night and Day, ---How Sultán after Sultán with his pomp Abode his hour or two and went his way.
19.
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean— ---Ah, lean upon it lightly, for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen. ---------
Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears To-day of past regrets and future Fears— ---To-morrow? Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterdays Sev'n Thousand Years.
21.
Lo, some we loved, the loveliest and best That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest, ---Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before And one by one crept silently to Rest.
22.
And we that make 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?
Well there is a little taste, of both sweet and bitter wine. I'll try to delve into more verses in a future post.
Speaking of second parts, in last week's archival posting of Lilliput Review poems, I promised a second dip into the double size issue, #53, from February 1994. Here it is.
Cherry blossoms swirling --------------in the wind: ---------------------one thousand little poets
--------Jamie Sweeney
a hilltop puddle choked with clouds
Bill Hart
¶trees turned to fence sky to window, ocean to the drowning ground
Scarecrow
Snow Chimes The End Of The Human War
Snowgrains strike the rust-iron train trestle above the frozen creek. They clang loud as bell towers in the world inside the dove's eye. In our world, they barely make any sound at all.
christien gholson
Sigmund Freud On Coming To Terms -------------With His Father --------(Based on Freud's Revolutionary Dream)
"I stood on the railway platform waving good-bye to a blind man."
D. B. McCoy
/ modern /
everyone's a masochist. who hasn't shaved, bled? those who grow hair free i'm sure have refused butter on their toast? turned off tv and yawned through a book? altered their chemical makeup just to stint the truth?
the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long i guess we burn twice as long, we sad dim fuckers.
tolek
6:57 P.M.
wearing your purple sunglasses
I just can't care
anymore
C. Ra McGuirt
Well, those were different times, indeed. Here's a little something that sums up change nicely.
the sky colors of dawn have changed to summer clothes
As you know if you are a regular around here, the Near Perfect list is reader nominated and remains an ongoing project. As such, I don't necessarily have to agree with the choices; this is a communal thing. I hope to be featuring a poem or three from each of the nominated books by way of sharing the work valued by regular readers of poetry.
Which brings us back to Silence in the Snowy Fields. I'm a fan of Robert Bly, I think he has written more than his share of very good poems and has done more promoting the art of poetry than many of our laureates ever have. That being said, I've read Silence through twice over the past couple of months and, well, it didn't really grab me in a big way. So, this is by way of saying I'm not the final arbiter in this. I featured one poem from Silence back in July. Here are two more that stood out for me:
Watering The Horse
How strange to think of giving up all ambition! Suddenly I see with such clear eyes The white flake of snow That has just fallen in the horse's mane!
Where We Must Look For Help
The dove returns: it found no resting place: It was in flight all night above the shaken seas; Beneath ark eaves The dove shall magnify the tiger's bed; Give the dove peace. The split-tail swallows leave the sill at dawn; At dusk, blue swallows shall return. On the third day the crow shall fly; The crow, the crow, the spider-colored crow, The crow shall find new mud to walk upon.
The horses on Bly's farm played a large part in American poetry it would seem. The second poem feels pretty average until you hit the last two lines; suddenly the language rises to the image, transmutes to archetypal myth, and we are forced to see the cliche of a familiar story in a very different way. Silence was Bly's first book and it is considered groundbreaking for its time, clearing out some of the cobwebs of what had been for many years a fairly staid American poetry scene. I'll be sharing one more poem from Silence in the coming days. For a very sizable preview of Silence in the Snowy Fields, check it out in google books.
This week's featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #60, a little different in layout and approach. It even comes with a title: "Poems Without Segues II." The whole idea was a matter of expediency; I had more poems on hand than I could, at that time, deal with, and so threw nuance to the wind and simply printed them. #60 was originally published in August 1994.
Artwork by Harland Ristau
Since the scan actually includes 6 poems from the cover (click on the image above for a readable version), I'll be featuring more poems than usual. What follows are some selections from the other 7 jam-packed pages.
breezy-- the spider's thread warps a sunbeam
William Hart
waves break on the cusp of our bed-- I cradle her moans, moonlit between my crescent thighs
Janet Mason
fromRainy Day Sweetish Bakery
I think the rain is falling on my mother's grave I think it falls very quietly. I think there is a tree there and it catches the drops and sifts them down silently.
Albert Huffstickler
Ely Cathedral
Seeing you from a distance I knew at once O Ship of the Fens How right it was to make you metaphor
Hugh Hennedy
There is me and this tree and that bird
and there is morning. Suzanne Bowers
trumpet curves stagelight - the rainy street outside
christien gholson
Self Aggrandizing Poet The head of the dead window box flower bows away from the grimy window in the town with your name.
K. Shabee
And a Brobdingnag poem from Huff:
Laundromat
This is how Hopper would have painted it: the line of yellow dryers catching the sunlight from the broad window. Man with his hand reached up to the coin slot, head turned to the side as though reflecting, woman bent over the wide table intent on sorting, another standing hands at her side, looking off - as though visiting another country; each thing as it is, not reaching beyond the scene for his symbols, saying merely, "On such and such a day, it was just as I show you." Each person, each object, static but the light a pilgrim.
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.
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.
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.
The ongoing tour of past issues of Lilliput Reviewbrings 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
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