How to Start a Year

undisturbed

the canary

(by Beethoven)

on his perch.

A little Rimbaud Blitzkrieg

Recovering from a wisdom tooth extraction. Rimbaud is appealing to a sick person:

LIGHTNING

Human works! it's an explosion that lightens my abyss from time to time.

"Nothing is vanity! To science, foward!" cries the modern Ecclesiastes, that is, everybody. And yet the corpses of the wicked and lazy fall on the hearts of others.... Ah! Quick, quick a little; there, beyond the night, future, eternal recompense...Shall we flee them? ...

-What can I do? I know work; and science is too slow. How prayer gallops and how light scolds I see well. It's too simple, and it is too hot; that happens to me. I have my duty, I will be proud in the way of the many, setting it aside.

My life is worn. Let's go! Let's pretend, laze about-what a pity! And we'll live in amusing ourselves, in dreaming monstrous loves and fantastic universes, in complaining and fighting about the appearances of the world, acrobat, mendicant, artist, bandit, - priest! On my hospital bed, the odour of incense hits me very strongly; guardian of sacred aromas, confessor, martyr... I recognize my dirt childhood education. And more!... Get on, my twenty years, if others will be twenty years...

No! No! now I revolt against that death! The work seems too light for my pride; my treachery to the world would be a torture too short. At the last moment, I'll attack to the left, right...

So, - oh ! - dear poor soul, eternity won't be lost for us!

Heeding the First Snows

As the frosty season comes upon us here in Canada, I thought I would make tribute to those first Norsemen who poked about in our great land, partially because I have been reading the new edition of Frans G. Bengtsson's The Long Ships. It is a good time of year to read the traditional sagas and Eddur (?) as well.

I offer then to the coming of the Forst Giants, 11 original dróttkvætt written to the best of my ability and following as closely as possible the original Norse rules. Unlike the verse of Norse narrative/legendary poetry (Eddic verse), dróttkvætt are notoriously difficult to compose. Called "lord's verse", these tricky poems were divised by the professional Skaldic poets of the Norse courts to praise the deeds of their chieftains.

Of all traditional formal poetic constraints, I think those of dróttkvætt are especially beneficial for poetic practice. It is tightly a structured alliterative verse. At the same time, line length is syllabic (6 per line). But also accentual (every line must end on a trochee). Furthermore, every odd line must contain an internal assonance and whereas every even line must have an internal full rhyme. Finally, it is short (4 couplets or 8 lines). All of traditional poesy wrapped in a virtuosic package!

Being forced to cram all of that into eight six-syllable lines is as fun and difficult a challenge as a modern poet could ask for. The structure forces you to make melopoetic lines. The short lines favour monosyllabic words, and a sparing use of articles. As for the sense...The original poems are full of kennings, inverted/convoluted word order, and fragmentary phrases. Not at all clear, but striking nonetheless. Add to this the double meaning of political faction and satire, and you have a stanza so dense it could anchor a longship

I did not attempt to broach terribly modern subjects here, as these were done in the spirit of experimentation, fun, and Nordic personae-ficiation (a la Browning and Pound). Enjoy!

i

scouring the grey stall-shelves
stand rakes of the breakfast
ever waiting whether
we might yield the war field
bare to yolk of blooding ;
breach in fight white armour
and sate the red word snake
songmaker who wrongs men.

ii

by this the bank's river
breaking the fir's armour
blood chiefs were thieves' children
of her charging fur tax
ages akin long since
armed out they drove routers
bequeathed gods the cough leaf
cunning the thunder stream.


iii

though holding to hearsay
hewn from songs of yawning
dark ages approach far
aping goals of oarsmen
prows grey, prim, and clouded,
pruning tunes of merchants,
ill fame in game flying,
for birds fit news: chirping.


iv

his lord is no hoarder
who gives to those living
but who our dead barter
breaks faith with wraithdom
sees hunters unheeded
harassing his castle
marsh doom out of darkness
delights the rite-breaker.

v

among the mace-lungers
my king is no cringer
fell blood eels swell feeding
fatten on attackers
of gold rings a giver
grace to the skald's racings
Aesir, heavy handed
help glory our warlord.

vi

abore the firm fortress
fight not with the pithy
men clamour for closeness
cunning and unsleeping
while guiles outlast weekends,
water is diverted,
who feed on the foolish
feast on the unseeing.

vii

the harsh crow's cawing
corrupts the suppertime,
brings each from their beakers
bothers the verse-men.
but worse in deep winter
rats' unceasing chatter,
who nibble by knook-ends
names of great statesmen.

viii

many grim hours grate me
grieving among reavers
in the sword dance standing
strewing lives in hewing
or long speeches bleating
loathsome to men's earlobes
but worse than all worries:
waiting to die nameless.

ix

the Aesir's drink sloppings
sputter through the hut's moat
when she, fair shield maid
shimmering with grimness
fell deeds to us foretells
for one of our number
before we are homebound
breaks his fast in Asgard.

x

she wards the tree shadow
shedding near her tearfuls
the winds blow in westward
where, pearl of the jarl's kin
for carrion caring
cut of the birds' feasting
the mound is, her man's crown
mortar of dark troll-folk.

xi

berserks sharing bear hides,
born eldest, of hell men
wildly in winter
were-beasts, mad in feasting
swaddled in thin skin cloth,
summer finds them unnerved
augured cold by Odin
eating fire and iron.

And the telescope reports...

Wellsprings out of time. This is the core of poems in our age. Poems are insensitive to the needs of the time. Poems are about poems and nothing else. Poems are consistently problems. Poems are not stripteases. Poems are incapable of hitting the thing itself since the '60s. Poems are hard. Poems are elitist. Poems are vicious. Poems disdain novels. Poems are far from personal. Poems are hatred. Poems are unemotional. Poems are racial. Poems cause fights. Poems are not worth it. Poems are unnappealing. Poems are not assertive enough. Poems are a wide winter snowscape. Poems are not necessary. The well read do not need to read poems. Poems make prose redundant, but are not redudant before that. Poems have to confront men before they can be freed. Poems drink human blood in sacrifice. Poems are thick bark. Poems are an outdated salvation. One only needs a few poems. Poems discourage the wide for the deep. Poems come in chunks. Poems are not backed by the government. Poems are starving. Poems are worth overlooking. Poems are not lyrics. Poems are rarely printed. Poems try to fit in hard.

Fall: Rilke, Laforgue, Luther

Lord: it is time. The summer was damn long.

Lay your shadows on the Sun's hour

Let them winds loose on the fields.

Demand the last fruits ripen;

Give them only 2 southern days

Push em down to completion and speed

the last sweets in the heavy wine.

Who has no house now, build no more.

Who's now alone, it'll last awhile

will wake, read, write long letters,

and will in alleys back and forth

wander fitful, if the leaves rush.

*

Here comes the fall of miserable downpours

Drowning the banal summer of lovers

Who stupid and slow go to crossroads

Plotting the progeny of their filthy neuroses.

G'bye lilacs, gold wheat, dusts, red skirts.

In the spleen despairing of painful organs,

Fire pretty much pokes the regrets of happy days,

We keep the incurable sadness of things...

Enjoy! Immortal glory! O season!

Spleen! Glory! Love, moneys.

Some striking bugles

Some heroes, nude and hot

Attacking the fiery Olympos of the Iliad!

O! Why was I born in this sad century,

Why am I here below?

Does the Universe know?

O! If I had a goal!

To love! To love! To enjoy!

Is my life a dream?

I exist! Is this really true?

To glory! To love! To exhuast my unique life!

(The dead

It's good buried ;

It don't leave

Hurried.)

*

Enjoy yourselves with the BOSS, you righted; the Pious should hail him rightly.

Give thanks to the BOSS with harps; praise sing him on psalms and instruments of 10 stings!

Sing him a new song; play pretty on the strings with cheery sounds!

Cuz the BOSS's word is truthful, and what he says, that he'll do for sure.

He loves righteousness and the right; the Earth's chock full of the BOSS's goods.

Heaven is, through the BOSS's word, done up and all his Host through the breath of his mouth.

He holds the water of the seas together like a canteen, and collects the Floods in his cupboard.

All the World fears the BOSS, and before him quivers everybody who dwells on the Earthcrust.

Cause when he speaks, so goes it; if he asks, so it is.

The BOSS makes obliterate the Heathen Wit and straddles the thoughts of the people.

But the conclusion of the BOSS remains for all time, the thoughts of his heart forever and ever.

Well to the folk, of whom the BOSS is the god, to the folk, that he has raised to legacy.

The BOSS looks from Heaven and sees all Men are children.

From his stuck Throne he sees em all, who dwell on the Earth.

He drives the heart of em all, he perks up at all their work.

To a King, his big might don't help; A hero can't save himself from his might craft.

Horsies also don't help; there would ya be betrayed; and their big power wouldn't save nuthin.

Look, the eyes of the BOSS peeks at everyone who's scared of him, who hope out of his goods

that he might save em from Death and preserves their life from Hunger's knot.

Our souls await the BOSS; he's our help and shield.

Cause our Heart enjoys itself in his, and we trust his Holy Name.

Your good, BOSS, be upon us, as we hope from ya.

On Poems and Toros

There is a reason we hate poems. When we pick up a book of poems it naturally disgusts us it is pretentious and goes on forever (even though the lines are short) the words are muddled make no sense after one another and the story is either non-existant or indecipherable. Even if we know we would like to be different would like to like poems we have to steady our initial nausea swallow it unwholesomely until we learn to digest it. These are the many reasons we hate poems and those reasons are offshoots of the one thing.

It is the same reason we hate bullfighting. When we watch a bullfight it naturally disgusts us it is preventable and goes on inexplicably (we're modern civilization for chrissakes!) the passes are torture and cannot be seen one from the other and the tragedy is either non-existant or monstrous. Even if we know we would like to be different and would like to like bullfighting we have to steady our initial repulsion and swallow it unwholesomely until we learn to digest it. There is a reason we hate bullfighting and those reasons are offshoots of the one reason.

Look at the faena of the bullfight and the line of a poem. The line of a poem is its most basic narrative unit, where the poet can convince you beyond mere ornamentation (single words) and yet before you are consumed in the whole of the emotional poetic paragraph. In the faena the matador has his chance to shine with the muleta (red cloth on a stick) and is for the first time left all alone with the bull. Both units are the hinge of the whole. Of course there are differences. But in the faena the great matador will do a series of passes the goal of which is to bring the horns of the bull as close to his body as possible without killing him in order to prepare the bull for death in a deadly way. In the poetic line, the poet must string together words the goal of which is to bring the meaning as close as possible to prose (that is, a chained meaning as opposed to individual words) without becoming prosaic in order to set the poem to a structural blueprint.

Now if the matador is tossed or killed the effect is not spoiled but it becomes immediately prosaic; questions of timing, grace, emotion become subsumed in a scientific journalism that needs to know who what where why and how. The poetic line is similar; it must jostle but not gore the reader or he will lose himself in scientific journalism and the effect will not be spoiled but will become prosaic.

But who wants to live outside of journalism these days? That's why poems are not on the front page. News that stays news doesn't move papers. We will watch a goring before we watch a whole corrida and we will ask our w5 before we will concern ourselves with textual architecture. It's just the times and there's no blaiming that, but our taste for this sort of thing explains why we like neither poems nor bullfighting and will barely (or not) tolerate funding for either.

A Week's Work

The single line:

Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni

has a week's work in it for any self-respecting translator, and needs inspiration on at least one day of the seven, yet people have had a mania for translating the whole of Horace.

-Ezra Pound

is dissolved sharp/keen winter by/at the agreeable/welcome change to spring and the west wind

dissolved is aching chill by the grateful turn to Spring and Favonius

dissolved is the aching chill by the thankful switch to Spring and Favonius

dissolved is the acrid cold by a thankful switch to Spring and Favonius

dissolved is the icy cold by a grateful pass to Spring and Favonius

the bitter winter scattered by grateful change to Spring and Favonius

the acrid chillies melted by grateful change to Spring and Favonius

spiky winter dissolved thanks to the progress of Spring and Favonius

solve, it'll acres he aims grated vicky varies ate Favoni

solved bitter winter's pains grace a switching to Spring and Favon

solving the acrid pains, a grateful turn to Spring and Favonus

solved, winter's acrid pains by grateful change to Spring and Favonus

thawed, winter's acrid pains by grateful change to Spring and Favonus <-

thawed, winter's acrid pains gratefully changing to Spring and Favonus

thawed, winter's acrid pains grace a change to Spring and Favonus

thawed, winter's acrid pains by welcome change to Spring and Favonus

thawed, winter's acrid pains by the welcome change to Spring and Favonus

winter's acrid pains thawed by welcome change to Spring and Favonus

etc.

An Ode of Wei (61)

Say the Ottawa's wide?

A paddleboat will cross it.

Say the Crown is far?

I can spot it from my tiptoes.

Rapid, the Ottawa?

Some parts will admit a boat.

Capitol far off?

I could be there

(save reference)

in half an hour.

The Famous Utensil

Burring, one minute a wasp

How long has he tried to enter?

Replace the

thing on the Tokonoma w/d you

(a joke stand, really, the Kakemono

is a dried dandelion and a macaroni picture on the fridge.)

What an annoying buzz. What is that?

Still? Is he hungry?

Cannot begrudge that. Sweating

it's simple so it's not vulgar

there are

a thousand leaves

this evening

a thousand thousand leaves

my darling, let's not count them,

leave that to the old botanists,

Goethe's

their colour wheels their gingkos

but here

merely leaves

a thousand ten and a thousand of leaves more.

A bumblebee's back, the screen -

oh that burring.

isn't it too hot to

shake like that

The fan of the ox-king is out

In the alcove for your pleasure

Please enjoy it, humble though

This drink is.

A mosquito's death in the afternoon,

And he bit a blacksmith named Cunda,

And the gates fell open, rusted.

The Tokonoma is re-set,

The gigantic

bones of a Deinosaurus, for

your pleasure, Vimalakirti.

These stone lanterns,

druid make?

Yes, the very ones.

If only we had a fly-swatter.

For all creatures must perish

In the heat of the afternoon

Or the fires of the hearth.

thwack.

...

And so they renamed the spoon

"fly-swatter" and it

became quite valuable.

From Karl Kraus

One asks not, what I do all the time.

I stay quiet;

and don't say why.

And there was quiet, there the Earth cracked.

It met no word.

One only speaks out of Sleep.

And dreams of a sun, which laughs.

It goes on;

After it was ennuyant.

The word passed on, as that world awoke.

--

I only am one of the Epigones

Who in the ancient house of language dwells.

But I have therein my own experiences,

I break out and I'm leaving Thebes in pieces.

Should I also come to ancient Masters, later,

So shall I rage the bloody knack of fathers.

Of vengeance speak I, I avenging language

Of all those, those who are language speakers.

I'm Epigone, the ancientworthy(ies?) elder.

But you, be the knowing Theban chorus!

--

Language controlling? That's right to me;

If one only speaks loudly, at the same time is it still?

So I control the language, that you speak

that my might may with me, what it will!

Thinking of Stendhal

At the least, the active life begins again for me;

Charms of youth, what they name vigour.

Cascades, hills over "dales" over lakes, indoors

From the rain, soup, and promenades, I see.

Sometimes, surging thoughts hide things from selves,

But not on purpose for the purposes of cowardice.

It was, above all, a woman of strong faith in herself,

Adieu, my fine Scala, my beautiful lake Como, adieu, adieu!

-

Can you not memorize this theology

Like the rules to a game of whist?

Do not Rousseau about it; nor hold (if you

happen to fall into it and believe) your old boys,

Your encyclopedic boys in disdain. No,

Have no spirit, my lad, until you graduate.

-

An Italian heart (what makes

Him less lovable, pardon):

No vanity but as adornment,

No guard against still, sole, gorgeous sights.

Sitting on an island rock,

No longer on edge,

Protected by deep night,

And the vast silence,

Some tears in the eyes,

Fresh moments not tasted

For a long time.

He swore never again to lie.

-

That religion steals the courage

to think of unusual things, and holds

above all personal examination the highest

of sins; a foot in the door of protestantism.

To know of what we are guilty, ask the priest, or read

the catalogue of sins, printed in books titled

Prepration for the Sacrement of Penitence.

Read murder; skipped passed simony.

(O Simon mago, o miseri seguaci!)

-

He was still young, still damn far

from spending his time to seek out

with patience particular realities of

things, thereby to figure out their causes.

dealers of antiques,

brokers, archaeologists,

You are not, as you think, alive.

For we are ever weak;

Always weakness entered

In the calculations

(come face al mancar dell' alimento)

The Other, Other Ballade of Villon

And what more, where is the third Calixte

Darn near last dead of that name,

Who four years tended the papists?

Alphons, the royal Arragon

The graceful duc of Bourbon

And Artus duc of Bretaigne,

And Charles Seven the hon. ?

But where is the pert Charlemaigne?

Similarly, the royal Scottish

Whose half-face was, says one,

Vermillion as an amethyst

Right down the chinstrap from the front?

The King of Chippre, of reknown,

Helas! and the good king of Spain

Of whom I do not know the name?

But where is the pert Charlemaigne?

But of more talking I desist;

The world is nought but illusion.

There's none who against death resists

Nor who finds provision.

And yet ask a question:

Lacelot the king of Bretaigne,

Where is he? Where is his old man?

But where is the pert Charlemaigne?

Where is Claquin the bonny Breton?

Where is the count Dauphin of Auvergne

And the late good duc of Alencon?

But where is the pert Charlemaigne?

A Sonnet from Guido to some Friends

Dante, Ezra, an exhale (messenger of

the heart) Suddenly attacked me sleeping

And I awoke, creeping,

Cuz I wasn't in company with love.

I turned a little and saw the servant

Of Monna Lagia who came saying

-help me can you please! - and crying

so much I felt so much more unnerved

That love showed up filing his darts

And I asked him concerning torment

And he answered me like this:

"Say to the servant the woman be seized

And he holds, by far, her adorement

And if he don't believe that, watch how her eye parts."

Speaking of "The New Sentence" ...

O blissful light of which clear beams I count the best. Subordinate to the third heaven. She is a clause of divinity. May we praise her eyes?

O sacrificial vessel the jade of which I model virtue. One cannot overestimate the rites. You are the clay of his bosom. Am I to bury you?

Onomopoeia of worship that goddes lips ykuste of mine. It arched a hillock in obeisance. It is the hollow of the well. Am I, moss, to grow over it?

Oscillate then, let again be phoenician the flame of the lyric.

The mystery play for its language alone is a parade worth summarizing.

---

O docile rhymes which parleying undulate. Of the gentle lady which another honours. You to be seen, if not granted once more. One who says: these are our brothers.

And then, Tuscan.

Suddenly, at the prima arriva. All such random hypotheses fondemens ruineux. The Eagle gave chase to Mr. Jean Rabbit. Bird who bore Ganymede.

Alors, Frenchman.

The "I have seen no root". Wood for humor so strong. Those who saw in the river Lombard. Her son fall, leaves out nor.

And the rest.

---

paragraph stanza sonnet of love

paragraph stanza inescapable sonnet of love

As blossoms in Heian eras. Writing ends you poorest immortal. Yours are fourteeners. Uncountable the wars and ways of heaven. There were kingdoms. She felled a wall.

Auspiciously a barrier for the oncoming production. I am a stage. Rains all the worlds.

Supposing a certain tendency towards vaprous talking, she could not be trusted. Hiccups are terse. Terse. Whose white is soul. Saul is where hills love.

paragraph stanza inescapable sonnet of death

As blossoms in warring states. Last in rites. First decidedly first by a hair this time around. Was it coming then. To morrow is to sorrow. I am cheered. Is it not to share. Not to sorry. Saul missed him. Him who obeys. You are not fit for aubergine my lass. Revolt in the just desserts. Proof in the prodding. Everything is not about flowers, death.

---

La Sentenzia Nova

In advance. My Lady shall be IXth. What o'clock in Arabia.

Let alignment be justice justice chiasmus chiasmus under reign.

A single long sentence. A short. What number is shortest.

De la mia donna stare se non in su lo nove, tra li nomi di queste donne.

Envoi sweet new. A foreign language probably romance. His youth.

First is divided. Second is divided. Che non abbisogna d'alcuna divisione.

---

I sing of frons, verses, feet, diesis, sirma. I canto of Safety, Love, and Virtue. I steal my dialect from all around town, the panther who visits all but dwells nowhere in particular.

Pes pes, O Amor.

I sing of frogs, mouses, geese, deer races, serpents. I cant off safely love and virtue. I steel my direction all around town, the panter whom visible patois impart incula.

Peace peace, O Amor.

Let her brave the storm.

Let him do a deed of daring.

Goethe take advantage of a sunny day

goethe's presents:

you pronounce it all

he shines, noble sun

you'll follow soon, i hope

step out into the garden (why doncha)

then youd be rose of the roses

lily of the lilies presently

when you reign in dancing

so all the stars rain

with ya about ya around

night would it were night

you overshine the moon's

pretty thing, sharp reflect-

ion and lovely are ya

flowers, moon, stars

they honour (and the sun) only you

sun well you're my sun

sculptress of noble day

life eternal etc.

fugue for a rainy day

One hears of the complexity of a Bach fugue. I listen to them and learn them as best I can, not being a musician. To me, they sound difficult, but followable. I tried to write this like I listen to them, in a followable way.

alexandria had a library

alexandria had a library

alexandria had a library

alexandria had a library

callimachus drove his wagons there

he sure knew a dog when he saw one

alexandria had a library

alexandria had a library

something cured something there

alexandria had a library

alexandria had a library

callimachus drove his wagons there

he sure knew a dog when he saw one

alexandria had a library

a muse or two was wont to dine

alexandria had a library

something cured something there

alexandria had a library

alexandria had a library

callimachus drove his wagons there

he sure knew a dog when he saw one

alexandria had a library

a muse or two was wont to dine

alexandria had a library

something cured something there

alexandria had a library

caesar lit a match

alexandria had a library

callimachus drove his wagons there

he sure knew a dog when he saw one

alexandria had a library

a muse or two was wont to dine

alexandria had a library

something cured something there

alexandria had a library

caesar lit a match

alexandria had a library

now it has a wiki page

Pre-emptive imitation

I came up with this a few months ago independent of Zukofsky, and also David Melnick's fantastic Men in Aida. I am happy to know that I've made it as far as the 80's, though really, it's an extension of what Pound had been doing in his translations from The Seafarer on. Absolutely literal homophonic translation is grueling, but unlike Melnick I didn't think of using any word fragments or meaningless syllables. A fun experiment, at any rate.

Sa Faute

Porcupine-thorned affluent Aphrodite,

Gradient, tall and plucky, listen I say

Do not seize me in horny eyeing, damned

Partner of no-man.

All of the deeds else I bid thee carry over

Tasks immense, audacious higher bailing

Eccles father's, the golden liver eater,

Cruising on, elsewhere.

Armed super zigzagger, alloy design

Yoked destroyer, vary gas mileage

Pushing two ninety, tear up, outrunning

High thermos diesel methods.

Wipe tears incognito, pseudo-my-saviour

Mighty your smiling, affluent proposal

"Hey, what in the hoot be bothering, caught anything?

Did he not call me?"

Caught me! Malice (...stealthy Guinness sigh)

My only theme, oh, tin of day old python;

Mice again pissin all over the tapestry.

Piss off, and decay.

Kay...Got to forgive...Taking loss the old way

I adore my deck, hit all aglow the sea,

I deny fleeing. Take off, fleers!

Go look at the liers.

Help me now, kindly call upon this loser

Heck, merriment, or else damn me till I sigh,

To the most merry television satellite;

Soon make us stressless.

some prose bits

of enlightened picnics

a picnic he said its like a picnic where the writer brings the words and the reader brings the meaning. he said it was like a picnic and bohme and blake and swedenborg brought the words and johnny appleseed brought a bushel and the rest of us brought the meaning. thats just what he said. he said it just like that. of course he said it he would know that gottingen has many lovely picnic spots a few even around his monument of course only for a moment around his monument but a picnic is a picnic is a picnic. so he might call it a monumomental occasion. for a picnic he said it was just like a picnic and i suppose of course he would know all the trash he picks up in his trash books. of course the anglo-german enlightenment in one man would know all about trash. and picnics. concerning the franco-german enlightenment well they were less about picnics he didnt said much about their entertainments. but as far as picnics are concerned he said and of course he knew that one requires: a monumomental spot, a blanket, a basket, fruit, vegetables, meats, breads, drinks and liquers, company, the sun, positively and negatively charged ions, ready wit, anecdotage, spare time, a date, milk and milk products and ice-cream, an enemy, an anemone, grass, sighs, ants, condiments or at least mustard, fruits of the sea, a frisbee, coolade, pants or skirts, a joke book, a laptop, a pen, angels to dance on the head of said pen, a camera, a dog, a camel if you are a bedouin, a ukelele, a dictionary-lexicon-wertherbook.

caesura

wen hui his cook whose knifed inimitably aimed avoiding bones by his knife-hand could and would carve oxen rather than oxenstirn allowing all the knotty bits to fall earthward. what a cutter. there is to be made here an analogy to the process (dao) of composition and the razor of composition by analysis. through his very cutting this inimitable cooks knife guided by his knife-hand remained sharp for decades. now we know that it is not the knife the nor the cutter nor the concentration skill nor the tenderness of oxen (that would be an oxymoron) that kept the knife sharp and the joints and steaks a comin it was rather something else. now this something is to be found in else and that else was his sticking to the definitions of speech namely phonemes. the only proper name in the whole business belonged to wen hui and when he was delighted with the process of the cook in his butchery of whole oxen. in this way butchery is sanctioned when it serves the purposes of parsing parsimony and parts of the whole are divided without blunting the knife.

language is a UFO

sub(check)ob(check)verb
arrystotlez blog???
simorgh (big bird)
tzubject awbject pherb
bird + bird = word?
uncle waltz dog
subject-object-verb
arrystotlez blog???

58 in the alleway

kyle our lispy lispy she
she the one lispy cat himself
more than all y'all loved
now in narrow alleyways
blowjobbin the progeny of bigshots

placard of the past-tense in a font of your choosing

resplendent times, the times a season fell
softer than now and harshless color change
ranged sky and tree alike; and fellows often
tell tidings of the capital contentment
(was not a byword but a local spice)
market bustle rank with petal odours
showed her golden inlays of a locket
(nice trappings those; excuses for the love knot)
cloven DAMASCUS wanderwhorled steeled
whispered of styles considered LEVANTINE
isthmus could mount OLYMPUS and LIANG-SHAN
(shield arma of such men in legend woven)
heaven twine the nominative sister
(glee junction) and the process status with us

Coeur de Lion

Coeur de Lion

no || jailbird || sings || his || heartmost

be honest || unless || hes || sad || about || it

but || for || fun & profit || why || not || sing-a-long

many || friends || poor || though

shame || if || my || ransom

lasts || 2 || winters

they || know || my men || my barons

english || norman || poitevin || gascon

they || know || no || poor || pal

whom || Id || leave || bail-less || in || jail

aint || no || hard || feelings

but || I'm || still || here

Harold of the Fields

An Ode to the Cannibal King,
or
"Mistah Kurz - he delicious."

Eliot says somewhere (I "forget-what-book") only an immature critic is possessed by a writer. It is childish to be possessed. This I admit. But I rarely come across possession anymore, as if Eliot predicted it. Because in reading massively one attains a critical mass, and this critical mass is a means to critique, this critical mass is a means to criticism, and this is a honed critical cynicism that comes en masse. Critical mass is what makes a critic critical. I like to play at being mature in this way much of the time. But. But I am childish today, for today I am absolutely possessed. Possessed by the spirit of a man-eater, a cannibal from Brazil called Haroldo de Campos.

It is harrowing to realize how far we are from modernity. Post-modernity, like Brazil, has no father, no child-hood. He is a dead-beat dad, and we must find him ourselves. And maybe eat him too. We are savages aping in imitation of that "man" of the quattrocento, the man who appeared to us from across the great sea, and who has as yet not returned. We have lost him, we miss him. In this sense we are passed past-modernity or post posed-modernity as you will. First past the post-modernity...The attraction of the work done in/by L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E is too often monolingualist. Nel mezzo del camin di nostra vita I found this by accident in a concrete anthology:

se= reflexive
nasce= birth
morre= death
re= re
des= dis

As I said I found this. And a note by the author calling it a completed Joycean vicocyle. I was astounded. I found out this author champ-champ-champ-ioned Andrade de Oswalde's theory of literary cannibalism (long food-chain here: Amerigo, Montaigne, Rousseau, Picasso, Levi-Strauss). That he translated (he calls it transcreated) from Arnaut, Dante, Li Po, Basho, the whole Iliad, Mallarme, much more. That he spearheaded a vortextual renaissance (renascence?) in Brazil. That Derrida, Umberto Eco, others of such, laud him as a dreadful New World God.

Then I found that our esteemed purple prosed Canadian-Ivy University has a single book about him. Tucked deep in the jungles of the Brazil section. In English. With about 10 pages of his actual work. I devoured this whole and devoured his mummy whole.

I do not have the patience to seek out the one recently-made-but-already-out-of-print translation collection. Nor is it even dual-language. I found a single Portuguese volume in our library of his work with his brother Augusto and Decio Pignatari, De Noigandres I, and I impatiently translated/devoured his portion myself. I was too impatient to wait upon or to become a scholar of Portuguese. Here is the result of my latest immature non-critical innaccurate child-like tut-tut-said-T.S.-Eliot obsession. They do not happen nearly enough anymore. (...has not a little to do with my current degree):


TRANSLATION OF
Thalassa Thalassa
Haroldo de Campos

I

We do not know of the sea.
The virile Sea with his testicles of gold
The Sea with his cardial heart of green
leaves
And his immense bronchial gills of imprisoned fish
The sea, not that which gives our coasts
Panthers of foam that the domestic
women
In their latex nets
King of byzantium and moving unguent between
wives
The manicured hands.

We do not know of the sea.
The day confines us between poor matter of
silent wood
Between those hollow birds, those horses of power and
that electronic mucous
And at night we adore the Sun of Galalite and the
Forceful Ace of Spades
Meanwhile the cynocephalus runs above
our rooves
Expecting the Naked-Mother that will have to appear
with her tiny breasts
Beautiful like the musk that gnaws the pituitaries
And the dead sables enwrapping her
buttocks of silver.

II

We do not know of the sea.
O trumpets of bone!
Broken deaf face down in the sand!
-A bird who gets lost in the sky of
cellophane
Forgetting its own sea cry of the gull.

Here is the Death of Six-Feet-Under
And the triple crown of lead around the brow
Death, the Big-Dog mounting a black
donkey
Advances tolling the drums of mourning.

Here is Terra-Firma and the Ship-Anchors
The Wood-of-the-Law and the Contruction-of-Stone
-The man who reads sortes in sacred guts
Hangs from his door the bucranium of the crazy.

... And they speak of an antique City
Like those coins of clay
And living like the odour of the rose.
Of its markets where is drunk the wine of the lotus
Of its destinies entrusted to Ancients
bearded of papyrus
Of its Laws, of its Deities, and of its
Virgins, its Kings:
And the immense dike of stone erected for its
people
To hold off the sea
- there are those towers of silver that we see in the
lowtide-
And the The agora like a green
bat
Collecting the membranes of wings and their reverse
Hanging
Like a green bat in its lunar siesta.

III

I also practice the funereal rites of the
Rose
When the Friends -The Templars of a
Mystery without a Temple-
Cross lances and take leave in a melancholy
farewell
I know nothing of the sea, but the Poem supplants it,
And a scarab of emerald lands on my forehead
Speaks to me in his crude maritime gibberish.

-The Sea, Cockerel Sultan with its bugle of
Spain
Its triumph of three hundred colts of amethyst
When beautiful and animal it gnaws its own
entrails
And a hilt of salt slaughters itself on the horizon.

The Sea recumbent on its dorsal of green
leaves
Sargon from a distant dynasty of purple
Dom Diniz labourer of his labours of foam
Falconero, and in the man his falcon-the
Moon.

-The Sea,
Not that lion of gemstones that gives to our
beaches
Hydropic Sun, tiger
Of sunflower which the women tame with a
triangle
Nubile in their bellies of benzoin and electromagnet.

-The Sea, shaggy young'un
With pisces in the groin

-The Sea, cardial heart
Riddled with swordfish
And in the breast of the hard marine substance
The coral skeleton of all its own deaths.

IV

And a child rose among the men and he feels
Himself among the wise
(Your sign, o Mystery, the carbuncle about
the brow of lynxes!)
A child of magnificent orphanage, like the
last of a Race,
Between the People of the Caves, the people of Terra-
Firma
The Feeders-on-Earth
Whose firstborns fester in pitchers
of clay
And they are the gods of concrete, the forefathers, the
lares
Of the Constructions-of-Stone and the Goods-of-the-root.

A child feels himself among the wise and rises
among the men!

The Bastard, the Heir,
Alleged from a line in extinction
(Like the hybrids of a species carrying the
barren seed)
And he speaks of the Sea and of ancestors
of limpid marine generations
To the Doctors who write upon placards
of adobe
To the women who tint the nails of their feet
with enamel of murex
And to a man who buries his dead in
The mornings of Sunday
Placing beneath the tongue a small
coin
And stuffing the bowels with natron and spices.

V


A child, and his brow
Like the wing of a bird of ivory.
A child, and his voice like the temper of a
sword
And a sunstroke of vowels restoring the
­langue-d'oc from predictions!

VI

-You, Lioness-Goddess
O death of bronze spurs
-Maritime Death, not of the Six-Feet-
Under...-
Lift the trident of gold, favour
As well the trade winds of the Poem.

Baroque Vrigin, figure
On the prow of ships
Shake the abysmal head of hair perfumed with
octopus
When the Sea-Admiral carries you away and the
Tattoos on the fish
With the coral skeleton of all his
dead.

Sustain the cadence of the poem, o Favourite one,
Of nude funerals for besieged eunuchs
Meanwhile those clear dates like digitals
open above You
And on Your flank you steer by the warlike shoal
of the dolphins.

* * *

And You, Tree of Language,
Mother of the Word,
Whose roots catch in the belly button of the Sea
Your cup rises alight with dialects
Where Paradise-Avenue and an Iris of Alliance
And the phoenix devours its very own rubies.
Recieve this pure-blood idiom as a golden votive
And the first-fruits of the Poem, unyoked
heifer
Be they agreeable to you!
You, Mother of the Word encircled by nude
hesperides.
Of whom it is said has the sinister voice of the oracle
And biforked like the tongue of the Dragon.

VII

A Child, and his Song
Like a little salt in the rites of Friendship.

VIII

... But one day the People will tire of hearing it.
The people will tire of calling "The Just!"
(That day the telephones will be
gargantuan hollow birds
Repeating forever the perfidious names
of Exile
And domestic scorpions will have devoured
The tongues of the nightingales
So that all can hear the irrefutable
Dialect of the Electronic Brain)
-And just as the Ten Thousand who saw the sea and
said "The Sea!"
-And just as the Doge of silver harness in the
nuptial Bucentaur
-Or that creature -the jellyfish- of pure
marine substance
So limpid that the retina does not filter -blue without
taint,
A man falls from Terra-Firmas and
gains
The Sea
-The Sea virile like his testicles of gold
-The Sea, fatherly of raging thorax
And sonorous lungs of corralled buffalo
And against that immense heart of nard
and green leaves,
Collects its filial heart surrounded by amethysts.

***

-And that helmet of purple that we see in the
descent of the waters...