If Being is an aspect of time?

I need an unorthodox idea. Daydreams are shit. This is what my horoscope says. I can only think of orthodox ideas at the moment...

Every time yoga teacher says OK now we'll do handstands, I feel like Woody Allen hands in hair Oh My God are you crazy, I am not doing that! Maybe I'm too neurotic for yoga, but I guess yoga doesn't mind... I have tons of fantasies about all the things I cannot do, they say if you can imagine it in your mind's eye one day you will be able to do it, but I'm not sure, there may be some things I can never do, because of my weird personality, my scoliosis, my bad hips...

I remember some yoga teacher once, who was also a massage therapist, said that massage is a part of your yoga practice, and I thought, oh he just wants my money, that is frivolous, and just for lazy people, and I just want to do work! Well I'm the type of lazy person that wants to work in order to prove I am not lazy! Not sure why I did it, but I knew I had today off so I called for a massage. It was so good! The whole time yelling (in a relaxed manner) at myself NO DAYDREAMING! Obsessed about being in the present moment. I didn't want to miss anything. And I did realize something about yoga. She would put like a pressure point and hold it, I could barely feel it, but it reminded me of the retention of breath thing in yoga. Then the thing I've been wondering about about, how if yoga is about relaxation, how come it seems holding the bandhas is a sort of tension? Seems contradictory, but it occurred to me maybe holding the bandhas is not a tension, but more like a retention of breath, a pause, not in time but in physicality.

Things that made me cry today after my massage:



To Write Love on Her Arms

And something else, but I can't link to a thought I had.

Also, I don't know if the public health care option actually means I can quit my crappy job, but it does mean I don't have to keep the job just for the benefits. Which is a tricky tricky way to be enslaved. Thinking about the ways I am free today and the ways I am not.

Another missed opportunity

"Parlez-vous francais?"

"Sorry."

"I'm from Africa."

"Oh."

Reviews of The Unicorns

Since I know you are google searching it, Mom:

Mike Young

Sommer Browning

That's all there is, but that is more than any other chapbook got... so yay. Thanks to Mike & Sommer. You're cool.

And since I'm feeling advertising-ish; Here are the collected links to the poems from my FORTHCOMING BOOK, The Incompossible, which will be out from the *much-hyped* Black Radish Books, in 2010.

Sous Rature,
Sir!,
Cannot Exist,
String of Small Machines

also Try! had some poems, but they are way too cool to ever have a link...

glowing golden eyes staring at me spookily.

The reason my socks are always mismatched is because all my other socks are mismatched.

My horoscope always says something about creativity lately, but I have no time.

I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing. I miss writing.

Started reading Stephen Ratcliffe's Idea's Mirror, and love the genre, a series of comma'ed phrases put together, kind of related in him, slightly narrative even as there is a "he" - but in my idea they would be totally unrelated fragments collaged, in my style. I have all these different short projects that really need to be collaged together. By themselves they are not enough. Overheard on the street series, work scrap series, NPR fragments, extra movie lines that didn't make it into Kine(sta)sis, the continuing diary project which is over but not over, random facebook updates, weird phrases from technical proofreading, I think that is it. Felt these things are parts of a big whole, but wasn't sure how, really. I like linking them through commas, he puts two blank lines between each line, not sure if that would work, or if it should have an appearance of prose...

Maybe my horoscope is right after all.

alpha and omega - boards of canada

Nightshift

Read so much I thought I was turning into stone.

How to continue a project when you've finished a project - there are all these hangover project poems. You can't stop and it is meaningless because to fit it into a new project it has to become something else and you must just stop and wait.

The bottoms of my feet are blue because the blue hair color washed out and I was standing in it.

Was thinking of turning the fragments from the diary into a daily one sentence entry, but then its just twittering? And I can just update facebook?

Maybe I should just write straight up poems like normal poets do.


Watch Dead Can Dance - Cantara.divx in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Not sure if its yoga or the aging process, but I can't eat lactose stuff anymore, can't eat gluten, can't eat sugar, can't drink alcohol without feeling disgusting, can't eat meat, I guess all that's left is quitting coffee, and I'm shaking all the time lately, so it probably does mean that. Or I'm not eating enough. All I'm eating lately is soup for lunch, and quinoa and broccoli for dinner. Yogurt and granola for breakfast. I'm still eating chocolate, a little, in small doses, but too much doesn't do well for me either...

That weird yoga studio owner where I used to go used to say something like yoga will make your dreams come true. And I think that's silly, no one's dreams ever come true, it's propaganda for the rich I think. I always wanted to ask Why does suffering make us lucky? I don't think most yoga people think about darknesses as a sort of luck. Maybe that's what zombie pose was all about yesterday! The difference between yoga studios that cater to the rich and those (few) to the working class.

Proofreading work all weekend makes me think too much. I don't know how to get out of thinking overthinking brain mode when I'm sitting in front of the laptop and I just have to be there... I think listening to The Cure's Pornography helps a LOT though.

The Figurehead - The Cure

maybe I'll be me for halloween

(right click my big hair)














More me 20+ years ago here

Little mini-visions all day yesterday but nothing coelesced, except little rainbow lines everywhere in the air

Blog Post in the Traditional Style

Had a nice post sushiplus nap and now I am proofreading. Oddly nice just coming straight home as all last week I went to yoga after work. Every day I think. Have been doing the agni sara and could oddly touch my chest to my knee in pyramid pose. Not sure if it is the sucking in the belly or the fact that we went bottom up instead of top to bottom. If my chest is already low to the ground, it is easy to just turn. My body randomly started doing the retention of breath thing at work today. It is kind of mysterious but cool. Instead of blogging for a proofreading break I should do some crunches or something, but... Think I did too much yoga last week and I am feeling tired. Or maybe it was walking from Oakland to Berkeley Saturday. I don't know why I did that, but I wanted to see things. There are so many neighborhoods to explore in my new city. I am still missing being a San Franciscan like crazy, and don't know if I will last longer than my lease. But at least I can explore. Also, it is cleaner here, and people smile at you, so that is nice.

Saturday I walked up to Temescal looking for a chilaquile; pico paco taqueria does not have this, they are salvadorean I think. She squinted at me. The other place La Calaca has them, but only until 1, I will try next weekend. Then I walked up trying to find BookZoo. I walked from 51st to Alcatraz. I didn't know how far a walk that is. Also it was hot, and I was carrying my laptop on my shoulder. I bought a Camille Roy and a Stephen Ratcliffe, and almost a Vanessa Place but it was $15 and I don't think I quite understand the genre. Probably if I started reading it the process would teach it to me, but $15... I also had a long conversation with the daughter of the bookseller, she had a cinderella bike and was telling me all about cinderella and showing me all the different ways to ride the bike, some worked better than others. I didn't know Cinderella had friends, but there were a bunch of other people on the bike picture, slowly days later I realize they are the stepsisters. Duh. I find talking to children one of the most bizarre ways to pass time. But after that I was feeling friendly and asked the bookseller where I could get some wifi. So he pointed me in the direction of nomad cafe. It was ok, there was a very strange east bay cultural situation where I was standing by the bathroom, thinking I'm next, but no the girl sitting at the table was next, and then the girl at the other table sitting was after her, and then there was a guy sitting at another table. How do you sit at a table and still be in "a line"? Students maybe. Have unusual ways of communicating. But I worked on my manuscript for a good 2 1/2 hours or so. Black Radisher,David Wolach gave me tons of intricate notes, so I went through one by one. It took a while. I got so into it I was late leaving to go to the city, meet up with an old new college friend (blogless friend how do I link to you), and I missed his friend's reading, but made it to the next one, the CIIS reading, and the next one, the SPD reading, where I abandoned the CIIS group and went off on my own, but saw Kaya, Barbara, and Cedar, and some other cute 20 year olds. I may have stumbled across my next book idea, which will be called Poetry Reading, and is sort of a third cousin to Flarf, zlarf? Because I had to write a poem to get the free book, and of course I had to have a free book if there was a free book to be had, so I wrote lines from each of the poets, kind of collaged together. I think it came out kind of cool. My free book was a bio of Alice James.

Then Sunday I tried to go to the noon yoga to the people class but was late, I just missed the BART when I got there, and this 20 year old boy kept asking me questions: did we just miss the BART, yes we did. He likes my socks. Oh. Do I go to Berkeley. No. What am I reading. What I wrote. Maybe it was the kneesocks that made me look like I was a college student? Then I couldn't get in to the yoga class because I was 5 minutes late and they lock the door. So I went to the half price books and found an Elise Ficarra book and was carrying it around until someone asked me Do I go to State. What is up with this day? Then I went to Royal Cafe for a bit and worked on my other manuscript for a while, until it was almost time to go catch a BART again. I stopped in crossroads, and found a cool 3/4 inch sleeve MTV shirt, so 80's, but didn't buy it because the only time I wear printed shirts is for yoga - actually my favorite yoga outfit is the printed T-shirt outfit, I sometimes start to think tank tops are kind of "traditional" and I like to be different, but has to be short sleeves or I would probably die.

Then I went to Ashby, Ashby is a very exciting BART station. I found David and Sarah's place, and almost felt too shy to go in, the house reading terror, but then I heard familiar voices talking and I felt comforted. I went in and me and Sarah are the only women, and I thought that was odd. The end count was 7 women. I didn't count the men. Ending up leaving with the latest Try!, Sara's latest chap, and Julia Drescher gave me a beautifully made Lulu perfect bound called The Islands. And also CJ's Delete press chap. Beautifully made, and a weird title. I need to start making ypolita chaps again because I don't like not having something to give people. I almost wanted to get up and get my notebook to writ zlarf during the reading, but didn't, but should have because 4 people were writing in notebooks during the readings... Thought I'd try and remember but all i remember is a Julia Drescher line: "Here is an impossibility." I think I remember it right. She writes about land a lot.

Then I left and for some reason, maybe all the sitting, listening, I walked from Ashby Bart area up to Downtown Berkeley BART area, at this point my hip was starting to hurt, and also my feet. I did make it to the 5 o'clock YTTP class, thank god, but my practice was kind of rickety. I also forgot to pay. I feel bad about it. But I love that place because it is ok to forget. Then what did I do? I did not call my mother as I should have. I had A LOT to do on the computer, is how I always feel. I did not watch the movie I've had for two weeks either. I did not go grocery shopping. My feet were hurting. Thinking I really want to just quit netflix, I never watch them, and maybe I could just go to a video store when the mood hits. Sometimes watching movies alone makes me sad, or I only want to if I have an art project or book binding type things to do while I watch. But the only one semi in my neighborhood seems to be here. Not sure what kind of walk that is.

This is kind of like a John Sakkis post but without all the beautiful people. Kind of without any people.

During Paschimottanasana yesterday I was having a mulabhanda freakout, and I knew, even though I wasn't in an ashtanga class, ashtanga wanted me to try the mulabhanda checkup, lift up, which I can't find a picture of, but you lift up with your hands by your thighs, and your butt and your feet are supposed to all lift up, and the only thing touching the ground is your hands, never have I been able to do this one, and get my feet off the ground, but I did it yesterday!!!

She came up, though, I don't know why... maybe her bandhas are engaged.

Anubis

Creeley/Halou

Massachusetts

What gentle echoes,
half heard sounds
there are around here.

*

You place yourself in
such relation, you hear
everything that's said.

Take it or leave it.
Return it to a particular
condition.

Think
slowly. See
the things around you,

taking place.

*

I began wanting a sense
of melody, e.g., following
the tune, became somehow
an image, then several,
and I was watching those things
becoming in front of me.

*

The you imagined locates
the response. Like turning
a tv dial. The message,
as one says, is information,
a form of energy. The wisdom
of the ages is "electrical" imulse.

Lap of water
to the hand, lifting
up, slaps
the side of the dock --

Darkening air, heavy
feeling in the air.

*

A PLAN

On some summer day
when we are far away
and there is impulse and time,
we will talk about all this.

Oceanwide - Halou



Goodbye

Now I recognize
it was always me
like a camera
set to expose

itself to a picture
or a pipe
through which the water
might run

or a chicken
dead for dinner
or a plan
inside the head

of a dead man.
Nothing so wrong
when one considered
how it all began.

It was Zukofsky's
Born very young into a world
already very old...
The century was well along

when i came in
and now that it's ending,
I realize it won't
be long.

But couldn't it all have been
a little nicer,
as my mother'd say. Did it
have to kill everything in sight,

did right always have to be so wrong?
I know this body is impatient.
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.
Yet I loved, I love.

I want no sentimentality.
I want no more than home.

Meditation sometimes feels like I'm boiling a pot of water, with the top on. Where is the steam coming out? My ears? No, instead it is prana/kundalini or whatever that energy thing is, coming out of my crown chakra!

In vinyasas, it is easy to breathe in going from push up to upward facing dog, but always so hard to breathe out as you are going down into push up; I always tend to hold my breath.

Did a handstand today with the help of Michelle at Namaste Yoga in Rockridge! Love a class with lots of arm balances. Was about to quit because it is not ashtanga, but Michelle is great! I have the fear issue with handstand, so bad, and I talked to her about it, and she says it is just practice, and it took her 5 years. With all fear issues; I am reminded how true it is - you just keep putting yourself in the situation that causes fear, and eventually it dissipates, because eventually everything becomes ho-hum. You can't stay in that state forever. The problem with me tho is, I haven't gone fully into the fear, or the pose, on my own. I trepidate on the outside of it, and so I never fully experience it, and it never dissipates, because I am AVOIDING it. I'm not quite sure how to solve this issue since the fear in my body prevents me from ever entering the pose...

For those who want more pictures. Hi Dad. Obviously, pre-move, more forthcoming, with stuff, later. Maybe much later.










































Not sure why I though going to a yoga class would be invigorating and give me energy for unpacking, cuz now my abs hurt like mad, and my knee hurts, too much with the hurdler pose I think. so I just want to get back in bed!

Took the class here - good class but very yuppie area. Then across the street, lo and behold, was a library! -not the best selection, but I got my new library card. Doesn't seem the Oakland is connected to Link + though, so that is a bit of a quandry. Bookstores here though.

Then I ate here Was "OK," not the best. I'd say 3 and a half stars. I miss Tofu Huarapa Krob, I'll never find that anywhere else. :(

Then I took maybe 3 naps all in a row.

Plan on going here soon. Almost, like next door. Honey ginger coffee?? WOW.

And off to the Temescal Farmer's Market. Hungry. I need food.

My new digs!

The weirdest thing about having quit It's Yoga, I thought I'd miss parsva bakasana, astavakrasana, my almost peacock, but I don't for some reason, the weirdest thing is my ankles are constantly throbbing in disuse pain. I think it was their really long standing on one foot thing: tree, toehold, warrior 3, dinkasana, standing splits, half moon, revolving half moon, arda baddha. I must have had amazing ankle strength and that is what I miss. We seem to do enough vinyasa pushups that my arms don't crave for anything, totally satisfied. Also, happy to not have to attempt to do handstands, and elbow stands which I can't do. It is sort of a relief. Also though, I occasionally feel like I'm losing my bandhas, and they give us much less meditation time at the end, but I've been going home and having a more consistent home meditation practice. And when I'm bored at work I try to engage the bandhas, it is something to do... so. They are also, at the gym, oddly into crescent pose, i don't understand this pose! It's weird that they like it so much but I don't know why. Also, lunges, they like the lunges, and they don't seem to *do* anything.

Two epiphanies

My first epiphany being (ha!) that the body does not exist. While looking at my nose dristi, where it sort of disappears, yet can still see it also, I realized I seemingly and simultaneously do and do not exist. After this epiphany, where every time I look at my nose, I remind myself that my body does not exist, I realized that strength poses are not about strength, it is an illusion, the trick is to make your body disappear, slowly, sort of. It is through extreme relaxation, simultaneously with using your bandhas to pull everything in, and up, or whatever, and so partially you don't exist, and then you can fly.

Whenever I get very, very quiet, have my eyes closed, meditating and am really in a happy happy place but very quiet and like almost in the void, a song comes up out of that voidy happiness, and that songs seems to be this.

Six Different Ways (2006 Remastered LP Version) - The Cure

Conceptual Praise Song for the Day

After Caroline Bergvall's many Dante translations in a row: The many lineations of Elizabeth Alexander's Inaugural Poem:


Original Transcript from New York Times (seemingly no longer available unlineated)

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Joseph Harrington's excised version, or if Pound had been her editor:

Praise the Day


We walk past, catching each other’s
eyes, or not, about to speak –
All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din.
Someone is repairing things that need it.
Someone makes music:

a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,
cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
We encounter each other in words

spiny or smooth, whispered, declaimed,
words to re-consider.
We want to find a place

where we will be safe.
Say it plain: many died for this day:
Sing the names of them that brought us here,

picked the cotton, or lettuce –
praise for every hand-lettered sign
under widening light at kitchen tables.

In today’s sharp sparkling winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun,
on the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,


The Beat Diaspora version with the subject title: cello, boom box, harmonica, voice


Praise Song for the Day
Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business
walking past each other,
catching each others’ eyes
or not,
about to speak or speaking.

All about us is noise.
All about us is noise and bramble,
thorn and din,
each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform,
patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden
spoons
on an oil drum.
With cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky.
A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words,
Words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
Words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone
and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.”
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks,
raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce,
built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep
clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle. Praise song for the day. Praise song for
every hand-lettered sign.
The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial,
national?
Love that casts a widening pool of light.
Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any
sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp – praise song for walking
forward in that light.


A shoe blogger's version


Praise Song for the Day by Elizabeth Alexander

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other,
catching each others’ eyes
or not,
about to speak
or speaking.

All about us is noise.

All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din,
each one of our ancestors on our tongues.
Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching
a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden
spoons on an oil drum.
With cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, “Take out your pencils. Begin.”

We encounter each other in words,
words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider,
reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and
then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side;

I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train
tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and
work inside of.

Praise song for struggle,
praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by, “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by,"First do no harm,"
or, "Take no more than you need."

What if the mightiest word is love?
Love beyond marital,
filial,
national.
Love that casts a widening pool of light.
Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today’s sharp sparkle,
this winter air,
anything can be made,
any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp — praise song for walking
forward in that light.

And a Novelist's version (my favorite)

Praise Song for the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander

Each day we go about our business
Walking past each other
Catching each others' eyes or not
About to speak or speaking
All about us is noise
All about us is noise and bramble thorn and din
Each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem
Darning a hole in a uniform
Patching a tire
Repairing the things in need of repair
Someone is trying to make music somewhere
With a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum
With cello, boombox, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus
A farmer considers the changing sky
A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.

We encounter each other in words
Words spiny or smooth
Whispered or declaimed
Words to consider, reconsider
We cross dirt roads and highways
That mark the will of someone and then others who said
I need to see what’s on the other side
I know there’s something better down the road
We need to find a place where we are safe
We walk into that which we cannot yet see

Say it plain
That many have died for this day
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here
Who laid the train tracks
Raised the bridges
Picked the cotton and the lettuce
Built brick by brick the glittering edifices
They would then keep clean and work inside of

Praise song for struggle
Praise song for the day
Praise song for every hand lettered sign
The figuring it out at kitchen tables

Some live by “love thy neighbor as thyself”
Others by “first do no harm” or “take no more than you need”
What if the mightiest word is love
Love beyond marital filial national
Love that casts a widening pool of light
Love with no need to preempt grievance

In today’s sharp sparkle
This winter air
Any thing can be made
Any sentence begun
On the brink
on the brim
on the cusp
Praise song for walking forward in that light.

Buddhism is Pro-Art!

from The Lotus Sutra:

If there are persons who for the sake of the Buddha
fashion and set up images,
carving them with many distinguishing characteristics,
then all have attained the Buddha way.
Or if they make things out of the seven kinds of gems,
of copper, red or white copper,
pewter, lead, tin,
iron, wood, or clay,
or use cloth soaked in lacquer or resin
to adorn and fashion Buddha images,
then persons such as these
have all attained the Buddha way.
If the employ pigments to paint Buddha images,
endowing them with the characteristics of hundredfold merit,
if they make them themselves or have others make them,
they have all attained the Buddha way.
Even if little boys in play
should use a piece of grass or wood or a brush,
or perhaps a fingernail
to draw an image of the Buddha,
such persons as these
bit by bit will pile up merit
and will become fully endowed with a mind of great compassion;
they all have attained the Buddha way.

My affinity with the crucifixion

How I feel what Christ felt, but in my ethereal body. I feel pain in my palms and feet from time to time. I think there is something like chakras or bandhas there because I feel it, sometimes the pain is so intense it is like it is glowing. I feel it in my heart sometimes too. I guess everyone feels that from time to time. And then when I've been meditating a lot I feel a prickly circle thing around my head. The only thing I can't account for is the spear in the side, I never have an ethereal body pain there. Maybe the spear really went into his heart.

Wrong holiday I know, but I have nothing to say about virgin births, or babies being born who are sons of some god or other...

Goodreads Review: A Poetics?

Gross stuff, but maybe that is the Herodotus. Better read all in one sitting I think. Wasn't "getting it" at all at first, but the latter part I totally got in a I think I had a dream that was this exact context kind of way. Collies are not included, although the petting of them is. A narrative of narrative itself? Chapters as characters. Characters as ideas. I had to look up insel in the dictionary, it wasn't in the dictionary, but inselberg was, from which I can kind of figure it out...Something about multiple palimpsests, two centers to the book, and to see vs to sea... vispo and fairytales. I wanted to say I read this on the plane 30,000 feet in the air, which would have been closer to the subject matter, but I finished it before we took off, due to a huge delay because of a missing oxygen "something" in the cockpit... The real subject is its subjectlessness. I don't really understand the "sample poems" and what are they samples of but I kind of, maybe realized that they are not Keith's poems but Jacob's and then it kind of makes sense. I read the whole thing waiting to get change at Thai Stick. I am often, often forgotten about but I get more reading done than people who are noticed. Incidentally, the Tofu Huarapa Krob is much much better than the Pad Huarapa. I've not barfed since 1995. Is that weird? I like the lyrical, but I don't like war. Read this in its entirety in the honey honey cafe, which is really expensive, but if you sit there long enough they give you free coffee refills and it has a sign that reads "Please let others enjoy reading." Really dug Joanne's hilarious piece revisioning Descartes! I think I really liked this but I kept daydreaming...probably just a personal defect on my part, or my period... I'm a sucker for prose poems. With illustrations. Helps to have read a "normal" translation perhaps, because it actually makes no sense. But it is a brilliant not making sense. I liked the idea of knowing the original somewhat as a sort of palimpsest. Where can i get some ayahuasca? I was so enraptured that when a homeless man asked me if he could sit down at my table, I confusedly said yes! This book will make you less uptight with smelly people. He put his backpack on the other chair, and then spread his stuff all over the table barely leaving any room for my peanut butter cookie. So then I looked up and noticed there were three empty tables... I don't really like his newer work but this old school stuff rocks the house with a UHF antenna! A rare instance where the movie is a million times better. Good day for mixed-southern nostalgia and eating an oatmeal raisin cookie at a table not meant "for one" while trying to call my friend who's been told to evacuate and not being able to get in touch w him. H.D.'s ghost everywhere and the beginning of the Drafts. Goes great with some 90's ethereal goth. Atmospheric, never quite sure where you are, but you kind of like it there - kind of poetry. I think these poems are better read than heard (in contrast to something else I just reviewed). I read every poem 12 times in a row, more or less, and want to read them 12 more times! Deceptively simple but really really complex. This book is a great laxative. I'd been constipated all week, and then was reading this in the bathroom at the yoga studio, and voila! Although the cover scares me a bit, the poetry is not scary at all. Totally wonderment and truth and beauty and so forth. Also if I ever have an "author photo," I'm totally going to wear a big, big hat and a tube top! Did this win an award? Very human, gut wrenching sequences mixed with porn searches, mixed with a very beautifully constructed aesthetic - a sort of architectural grammatics... Better in person, but still pretty vibrant on the page. I guess I'll be reading some Bob Kaufman now. I felt confused reading this and wished someone would read it to me instead of me reading it. I think it would work better for me "performed." Probably more genius than I can understand. What about the poetics of the studio apartment? But loving the chapter on mollusks! Victorian-age Language Poetry? Very weird, I'll have to read this a few more times... very easy reading, armchair enlightenment. Apparently, all you need to do is realize that awareness and consciousness are separate. Although I may have missed something. I can't do the beat stream of consciousness thing right now. Poets! I Implore You! Write Poetry not novels! Sigh... I can see how it would have been really cool, if only it were all poetry, instead of just moments. But I admire, intellectually, the genre twistingness. I admire also that it might have had a plot, although I am not sure what it was... Totally postmodern, but like in reality. It is like a sort of nostalgia, although not. Best book written ever for children or adults. I made my mom check this out every single week for months and months until she finally bought it for me! Not really up on the Traherne criticism, but was thoroughly enjoyable. He is apparently more metaphysical than the metaphysicals. And possibly buddhist. Next, or sometime, I will read Eckhart, Boehme, Plotinus, Plato, Pelagius, St Theresa, Augustine, Herbert, Vaughan. I tried to read this once. I just couldn't. Nothingness *is* sexy. I like the font. Perfect for the after TESOL certification blues. Is this flarf? Not sure why anyone is white, this book does not clear that up at all. He is just silly. I should've just reread that simulacra thing. "Wonders" confused me, as things that leave the mystical and enter into religion tend to do. Chapters and chapters on her interest in Fungi! OMG what am I doing! 4 stars for not being actual poetry, but I liked the writing about writing bits... I think I am starting to kind of understand the infinitive used as a noun thing. Maybe... The bear kind of freaked me out but I liked the dolphin parts. Not as good as I thought it would be for lifting depressions... This is not like I expected at all. I would give it 5 stars if this were the 70's. Liked him better in person than on the page... this is SO riveting; it is my kitchen book, while I am cooking, and I keep overboiling things... A lot of blood. I didn't read this but I saw the movie, I mean I went to the reading. Really funny! So funny I felt confused because I am really not used to laughing. The last bit, the title bit, with the sound motif, was really awesome. So instead of moving, I kind of use the book as armor, holding it up between us so I don't have to feel his weird erratic energy, ironically, keeping us from being face to face. I learned that I am supposed to read this book from right to left, but not until I was half way through reading it, apparently, backwards! Dear Surrealism, I love "the little house," the character, so much, I think I am her. Her story is my story. This book is devastatingly, brutally heartbreaking, possibly really disturbing. Don't read this during your menses, before, or after. Maybe that one week where everything is kind of in equilibrium, but be careful. It simultaneously made me think and was a balm for thinking too much. I learned about enclosures. After reading so many of these nature poems, after a while, it stops being about "about" since every poem seems to be saying the same thing, and seems more about different conglomerations of word clusters. I think this is his "humor" phase. If it is the end of the world and people want you to go to the top of a roof, but there are perhaps better, other things you should be doing, maybe don't go to the top of the roof, do those other things, and maybe I should start thinking now about what those other things are that I should be doing, so that when the end of the world does come, I will know exactly what I should be doing. I learnt it is not okay to drink the aftermilk. I kind of feel like I am at work reading this. I'm definitely going to quit my job. What do you read after Patanjali? This book scared the crap out of me! I learned some Italian phrases and (possibly) what it is like to have a broken leg in a foreign country. I learned about graphemes and prime numbers, and why the number one is not a prime number. I liked it better before I realized about the homonymic translation thing. Not for those who need "meaning" but lots of cool lines: "Come up and almonds are nomads." kind of like how when some one says something they think is witty and you can kind of see how it is witty, but you don't think that kind of witty is witty.

"with our
meth among the late lilacs & snow --"

Random pictures from Mom's camera

was trying for the good posture!













writing in the woods (Muir)=bad for posture


















need to do more pilates clearly.























Most of his reading Slosek just stood there like this looking pretty














Me and Slosek after his (last SF) reading















My chap in Books and Bookshelves














Me and Paulo














One of those awful California cliffs














Me taking a picture of mom taking a picture of me (wait until i find my uploading cord)

The more I meditate the more technology seems to fail around me.

A shepherd narrative.

Funny that while meditating, one's posture spontaneously improves. Is it like a body reaction to relaxation? I suppose slumping over is an expression of extreme stress and once you start relaxing everything naturally straightens up. Also interesting is the more yoga I am doing the more my bones will pop, which I always thought was an expression of stress, but when I am not doing yoga very little pops. No yoga=stasis? Popping=life!

Also had a dream while halfway listening to NPR, there was a story that all the infrastructures of the nation have gone to shit, bridges are collapsing left and right, and we need to start coming up with a plan (not verbatim, possibly only in the dream) because the longer you wait the more expensive it will be to fix. The word infrastructures invariably makes me start thinking of my spine and the frame of my body, which brings me back to my posture. I suppose meditation is a sort of repair work. (Lame compositional device, I know, but it just seemed to spontaneously come about, like improved posture during meditation, oh there I go again!)

I'd been wondering why when you do a lot of sitting meditation, it always brings up horrible latent emotions, that I suppose is good, because they are repressed, and you should look at them, but it is horribly painful, yet yoga just seems to clear all the icky emotions away and leave you clear, and how come it is so easy? Apparently, I just wasn't doing enough yoga. I went to yoga 3 days in a row last week, took the fourth day off, and then went again on the fifth day and got a horrible injury doing my first push-up pose. I think yoga pushes all the icky emotions stuff into your body somehow. I don't know which one is worse, but I think I'd rather be physically incapacitated more than emotionally... I guess it's got to come out one way or another. Or you could just keep it repressed, but then you become a politician or something.

Fatigue

A dream about a black dog with the cutest black nose ever, and I hugged him, I love black dogs, and then all the sudden he is ginger colored, but not Ginger, and I'm like But you were a black dog a minute ago, and the dog was like No, I've always been ginger colored.

The thing where you think you see someone you know, but then they are not that person at all, over and over again, and that other thing where you expect to be doing that with someone, but for some reason don't.

UNICORN ORPHAN

My right hand bleeding in three different spots.

Inability to close my blinds, so I sleep staring at the tree outside, which looks just like some sort of Very Tall Gargoyle.

Dream of finding a salve for my itchy head and rubbing it all over my head.

A complete noninterest in fungi.

David Bowie.

A new yellow notebook.

I am curious, too.

Wondering how to have a more complete nervous breakdown.

The assortment of piles.

When cigarettes made you more attractive.

Unnoticed broken glass at the edges of trees.

Just a minute, I have to walk my Unicorn.

Midway in our life's journey

How strange and deeply symbolic that it is not until my 35th year that I commence reading Dante's Inferno.

Having got lost in the Oracle maze.

I think my knee chakras are opening. Or, early-onset arthritis.

I am reading The Fast by Hannah Weiner. I am feeling this way about sugar lately. Extremely painful.

Ten commas

Numerical symbolism symbolizes symmetry.

When I, bizarrely, saw a guy with a watering hose, today, in financial district, watering a plant, that I had never noticed before, I knew, and it had.

I dreamt I got a white kitten, and I named her Lulu...

Trying to rid myself of phlegmishness through diet, would mean what?

I am searching the web for acrostics.

I am lacking a parenthetical.

Halfway to 70

Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70Halfway to 70

Dreamt last night that I found a hollowed out part of one of the tiles in the bathroom, and I knew that was where my dead father was buried and I would have to get him out. Or, he was buried wrong somehow, and I had to correct it. So I started somehow loosening the tile, or digging up the tile, which made the bathtub stop up or somehow started bringing up all kinds of nasty things from the sewer, mounds and mounds of hair started coming up and oh, what have I done to the pipes?

Dream dialog:

"I too was quite tall until the doctor seized my throat."

quotes

"We're so diminished we have ourselves left and now we've disappeared." --Robin Blaser

"I should expect nothing more from life than what fate has already given me." --Ales Debeljak

"that hour exists no matter what I do" --overheard on the street

The man in front of me at the post office today had four pennies inside his ear. Home remedy for hearing loss? Just in case?


And then at the cafe, a woman in purple glasses, listening to a walkie talkie, "10-4," and laughing, everytime I looked up at her, she had a look on her face, like she was about to orgasm.

I am clearly way too sane.

"your path is poetry, your goal is beyond
poetry" --Robin Blaser

Feeling a strong connection to red drinks lately.

Had a dream that I opened up this antiquated cabinet, in the woods, and it had all these dried fruit juices, crushed up like herbs, and I picked up the farthest one, which was red, it was for cherry flavor. How can I resist cherry anything? And then there was a creature in the cabinet and we were talking, maybe he was the keeper of the fruit juices? And he said something about listening to the Harmonics, the Harmonies, how sometimes you had to wait, for hours, but as long as you go "there" to the place where they come to, that they will come eventually.

Vision Quest

I sure wish I could have a vision. I am quite bored. I do have work to do though. For all the forthcomingness that is forthcoming. I bought cover stocks for two different books - one is a package of 250 pages and one is a package of 125 pages. I don't think I need that much but that is how they came. It was quite a heavy bag. So I waited for the bus. My cell phone had died and so I was counting time by songs on my mp3 player. The bus came at 28:40. I could have walked home twice.

I did have a dream last night about being on a boat named Telepathy. Sounds oracular!?

possibility of the possible

I am happy at any moment in time in which I have a notebook open with a pen (moving).

Reading Derrida's very cool Aporias.

I like point 2 (re:death?) a lot: "As long as the waiting can only be directed toward some other and toward some arrivant, one can and must wait for something else, hence expect some other — as when one is said to expect that something will happen or that some other will arrive. In both cases the awaiting onself and the expecting or the expecting-that can have a notable relation to death, to what is called — death (it is there, and maybe only there, that one ultimately awaits oneself or expects, that one expects that; and it is only there that the awaiting oneself may be no other than the expecting the other, or that the other may arrive)." French omitted, as I don't understand anyway...

We are all waiting for death, what else is really going to happen after all? Death as the other that we will finally, eventually meet.

I love typing up a Derrida quote and listening to the rain. This is a great moment.

There is another bit a little further down that really tripped my brain out. I've been thinking about it all day: "...the one is waiting for the other there, for the one and the other never arrive there together, at this rendezvouz...and the one who waits for the other there, at this border, is not he who arrives there first or she who gets there first. In order to wait for the other at this meeting place, one must, on the contrary, arrive there late, not early."

What waits for the other is also what must come late. Seems so contradictory, but only sorta kinda makes sense if you think of this other as literally death. Of course it is waiting for us, and of course it comes at the latest possible moment. Sortof comforting.

All this, speaking of death, and that which comes, to tell about my vision of a disembodied shrunken head woman.

Don't know what that means but perhaps I am feeling like my current life experiences are shrinking me, my soul is getting tiny tiny tiny. Also, head shrinking may mean I need a head shrink! haha! There was another, almost simultaneous vision of a grizzly haired werewolf looking guy. Which seems related as they are both representatives of the primal perhaps. But can't figure out much more than that.

What kind of word is "ipseity"? quite latinate, I suppose.

the ancient belief that the dead are not dead, or are not quite dead.

forthcoming-imminently

Inland Empire

I actually went into a rather deep, dark place, the rabbit hole itself perhaps, after watching the David Lynch movie, or rather, it opened up something dark in me. I have been having a depression thing for a while, the kind of depression where you are just so exhausted and can barely move all the time. I feel like it was this darkness that was sitting there, untouched, and something in this movie opened it up. Now that I went deep into that place instead of skirting around it, there is movement instead of stagnancy, a re-invigoration. I am not sure how long it will last, but it is a nice respite. Today was the first day in weeks that I was not utterly exhausted all day. But on Saturday when I saw the movie, (full moon I realize now!) I had great plans of things to do afterwards, to continue my day off, but after the movie I was so exhausted I could barely walk, I came home and I collapsed onto the bed and slept for an hour. When I woke up, I don't know what kind of half dream thought I had but I burst into tears and just sobbed for half an hour. Rest of the night felt morose and puffy-eyed. My friend called me at 11:30 and wanted me to go to the park near Japantown, for fireworks for chinese new year, I think, but I couldn't, maybe I should have, but at that point I just wanted to go to sleep and obliterate. Also, my eyes really hurt.

I keep thinking about this movie and keep thinking about this movie, it seems to me to be one of the most deeply spiritual experiences I have had in a while. I guess my religion is art? And David Lynch is the god I pray to? The way movies can really open you up in ways that you just cannot really be touched in normal life, is really amazing.

I find it really interesting that Lynch operates on a logic of symbolism, I think not just in his movies, but in his life, from things that I have read, and I wonder how can he do that, believe, at his age? I am much younger and I've pretty much stopped believing in that kind of thing. Maybe it is not age related. I want to believe but I just don't, can't, feel it. When something happens that seems synchonicitous, I would always, before, think that it meant something, like it was a message from the universe about my life, about being on the right path, etc. But I've totally lost that belief now, really since moving to SF in 2001. Which is part of why I started this blog, to investigate, keep track of the spiritual, the visionary, those weird moments that seem to happen less and less. To try and capture it, because it is the only thing that really ever makes me feel real. And it barely ever happens anymore, and I don't know if it is me, not being engaged with the universe, or if it is just maturing, growing up finally, getting practical; things that happen are not messages, they are just the things that happen. Stop reading shit into things.

Maybe I should start keeping track of synchronicities, and will meaning into them? Today, for example, someone was out sick with the shingles, of all things. At lunch, I was reading the new Effing, and Mairead Byrne has a poem called "Shingle." Deep, yes? I alas, had no deep insights about stress, itching, or roofing.

A big part of what this Lynch film is about, for me, is about searching for information. Which is what reading into synchronicities is. The universe has information that it is not sharing. But there is meaning out there, we just have to investigate deeply into it to find it. Is the thought. Depression is seeing things 2-dimensionally, seeing no meaning. I do feel, today, that it is not a mere practicality, but depression that keeps me from seeing things as I used to. Because how is 2-dimensionality ever wise or mature? It seems just hardened. I think there is a point where too much belief can become delusional, and you have to find the "middle path" between illusion and hard reality, which is itself also a form of illusion.

In Inland Empire, there is always a secret, things kept from others, secret symbols that are unexplained. And there seems to be a place you can go to where there is the still unexplained but yet it is also the un-unexplained, you get it in a way that is unexplainable in a regular linear way, and he presents it in such a way that you don't try too too hard to figure it out, because you can't.

I am glad I went to the film alone because it was a deep personal solitary journey that if my friend I invited had ended up going with me, the energy would just not have been the same and I would probably have had a less deep experience. I really like this aspect, that I haven't noticed in a Lynch film before, of a mythological, epic journey, ancient Greek almost. The Laura Dern character has to kind of go underground, Persephone-like, or like Inanna, wasn't she associated with the underworld too? She has to go there, underground, literally die for the sake of the journey she has to make. Not ironical, that she is covered in dirt at the end. And the chorus of whores. How are they not mythological sirens or some such, creatures of the underworld, holy harlots!? The way they seem to be helping her sometimes, and disregarding her at others, maybe Lynch knows about the fluctuations between believing in symbolism stuff and not, and they are meant to be personifications of synchronicity itself?

Mobiles

Last week at the dentist I had to beg and beg for some laughing gas. I don't know why they think I don't want it. They always act incredulous. You want it? Do you really? Hello this is SF, I'm sure I am not the only one who wants to get stoned! Very odd. But anyway, while I was high, I was staring at the mobile, why does every doctor's office have a mobile? This one was of boats, and I swear, not just regular boats, but pirate boats, and it started freaking me out that there were pirate boats in a dentist's office, like it is proof that he is evil or something. And then the boats started hitting each other, like slamming into each other, but slamming slowly, because, of course, they were floating. Later, when I came down, I realized they were not pirate boats at all, but sailboats, more appropriate boats definitely, wooden. I don't know why I perceived them as pirate ships. Maybe one's perceptions/ expectations of reality really do color how you perceive things...

And then I was remembering the only other time I distinctly remember a mobile floating in a doctor's office was when I was 15 or so and I had a migraine. The most horrible migraine in the world. I thought I was dying. I didn't go to school and I called my mom crying at the school she taught at. She came home and rushed me to the doctor and I was lying on the bed-thing looking up at the mobile, thinking I was dying and just staring at the floating things. I don't remember what they were of but I remember thinking this would be one of the last things I'd ever see. Then the doctor made us go to a different doctor, a specialist, who didn't have a mobile, but he had this cool thing that shot water up my nose at a very high speed, and as soon as he did that the headache was instantly gone. An allergy migraine. And that's when I started getting into neti pots. Love the water up the nose. That doctor gave me darvocet too, which I wish I had some of now.

resolution for visions

a new resolution to meditate every night, and so after 5 days I have a vision, in the bath, of Einstein on the wall, what on earth could that mean? And then later I am in bed and finishing my book, I had 10 or so pages left, and I get to the last page and it is a reference to Einstein! His Special Theory of Relativity was published in 1905, 100 years ago (at publication). Maybe I should read it.

Devin Johnston on Susan Howe

Johnston talks about Susan Howe as directly in the "tradition of apocalyptic Romanticism," and that "in a moment of terror or crisis, the writer’s mind becomes other to itself, transcending the circumscribed palisades of order and rationality." He also says that "critical discourse has in some sense domesticated the wildness of Howe’s texts by attributing to them an academic or liberal agenda" (146). She is sometimes utterly strange reading. A collaged voicing of historical texts.

He also talks about Brenda Hillman, another favorite. In Hillmans' Loose Sugar, in the poems entitled "blue codices," which have a subtitle of depression and alchemy, "dissociation serves as subject and method" (158). Dissociation as another form in the apocalyptic romantic tradition?

"In the vast and heterogeneous body of poets now writing, few address the metaphysical implications of form except to suggest its conventionality. In an academic context, the challenge of "experimental" poetry has generally been presented as that of an avant-gardism. In the wake of Language Poetry, its prolific self-promoters and commentators have framed experimental poetry, as essentially deconstructive, and with the particular agenda of deconstructing a naïve, naturalistic sense of "voice." Correspondingly, most poetry criticism discusses experimental formal practice in terms of an "explosion" of tradition. Critics such as Marjorie Perloff, for instance have followed Charles Bernstein in celebrating self-evident "artifice" as 'a measure of a poem’s intractability to being read as the sum of its devices and subject matters.' What has been obscured, I think, is the ongoing commitment one finds in much American experimental poetry to an organic relation between poem and cosmos. For such poets, poetry does not so much function as commentary or space for reflection; rather, it stages a volatile, primary activity. Likewise, normative sense is not abdicated in favor of nonsense, but in favor of a transrational, visionary mode. " (136)

I like the wild and I like the organic and I definitely like a connection to the cosmos.

An excerpt from Howe:

UpConcatenationLessonLittleAKantianEmpiricalMaoris
HumTemporal-SpatioLostAreLifeAbstractSoRemotePossess
ReddenBorderViewHaloPastApparitionOpenMostNotionIs

Johnston says about this: "Such passages hardly invite close readings, and could perhaps be discussed more readily in terms of their gaps or incoherence rather than thematic continuity. Yet I would like to suggest that Howe’s composition here follows an imitative logic. As Atherton enters the depths of the forest he "cannot see," and the space between words closes with the space between trees. In the page quoted here, the text of the previous page is reversed, implying the lack of a proscribed route or direction in unsettled space. Furthermore, the parenthetical "selv" suggests the obscured state of selfhood in the wilderness, as well as its plurality" (150).

***


Funny how at the Fanny Howe reading recently I was connecting antiwar poetry and spirituality and D. Johnston connects her sister's work Susan to H.D. for similar reasons. He says Susan's "lyric intensity draws equally on an antinomian experience of the wilderness (in poems such as "Articulation of Sound forms in Time") and the destruction of the Second World War (in "Pythagorean Silence"). For Howe, as for H.D., lyric intensity is closely related to violence."

Speaking of Susan Howe, I am reading Pierce-Arrow, which seems to be about the logician philosopher Charles S. Peirce, who I read as an undergrad! A philosopher I have actually read is kindof rare, but I cannot remember a thing about him, except the spelling of his name is opposite the usual way you spell that word. Him and Wieners. Pierce is a strange, possibly, un-hip topic. I mean logic? But of course it is cool in her hands. Poetry & philosophy is a common combination, but poetry and logic? Pierce-Arrow seems to be an academic study mixed with her poetic lines regarding the topic, which makes it a cool anti-academic, academic form. But it does not contain much about logic, it is biography - the dubious facts of his 2nd wife’s background. So far. But: "Phenomenology asks what are the elements of appearance" (11). Biography as Phenomenology. "What is the secret nature of facts" (14).

More Devin Johnston

The Merrill Chapter of Precipitations

Otto Rank on the double: “The double serves to preserve the ego through a negation of loss.” (Qtd in Johnston 110). Can that elucidate my confusion on H.D. and her use of the double? I don't know that H.D. was trying to preserve the ego though. Maybe, through expansion of self, magnification of the self, the self is somehow preserved, but I don't think it was necessarily about the self. In H.D., it almost seems as though the other is the self and the self is the other, and you find the self through finding the other. She, in all her marginalizations, seems to be more other than other, and to find her self through an actual other would bring her back to some sort of center, away from the margins. The second part of Rank's sentence "a negation of loss" I'm not sure about either. In H.D., the double seems to always signify loss because the double is never retained... Maybe Otto Rank cannot help me with H.D.

But another cool poetics: “Imagination…does not move in one direction but is reciprocal” (116). Johnston is discussing the two voices (DJ &JM) in Changing Light of Sandover here but this poetics could also refer to Poetry/Muse etc. I feed and pull on it and it feeds/pulls on me.

“In Yeats’ experience, the spirits who dictated through his wife announced that they did not bring a system of philosophy to be explicated in lifelong study but ‘metaphors for your poetry’” (122). Poetry as more important than any logical system!

Devin Johnston on Spicer

A poetics in which “a poem can productively violate intention.” –Spicer

I think intention can violate poetry!

“suddenly there comes a poem which you just hate and would like to get rid of that says just exactly the opposite of what you mean, of what you have to say. You want to say something about your beloved’s eyebrows and the poem says the eyes should fall out. And you don’t really want the eyes to fall out. Or you’re trying to write a poem about Vietnam and you write a poem about Vermont. These things, again, begin to show you just exactly where the road to dictation leads.” (Spicer qtd in Johnston 97).

More from Devin Johnston's Precipitations

From the chapter on Robert Duncan, where he talks about Duncan's idea of poetry as dictation: “Poetry then is a participation, in a beauty that we discover in certain passages that becomes ours, drawing us into Correspondence.” (Duncan qtd in Johnston 50). A nice poetics.

While reading this chapter called "Sublime Undoing," I realized I totally am influenced by, if not subconsciously, then just synchronistically, with Duncan. I have not read him as much as H.D., but I think that I agree with him on the source of poetry: “the poem originates from...a source that is beyond the poets’ understanding.”

Johnston also states that Duncan, in Fictive Certainities, says that Whitman’s paradigm is not of an eternal form, but of an “ever flowing, ever self-creative ground of a process…[T]he evolution of a creative intention that moves not toward the satisfaction of some prescribed form but towards the fullfillment of a multitude of possibilities out of its seed.” (qtd in Johnston 87). This theory of writing seems to be so right-on for me. Poetry as possibility not objectivity.

Reading Devin Johnston’s Precipitations: Contemporary American Poetry as Occult Practice

“the very liberation H.D. identifies with occultic thought radiates disaster triumphant.”

"In her sessions with Freud, H.D. was concerned with rescuing her vision as central to a vatic sense of poetic identity."

“Wistfulness, exaltation,
a pure core of burning celebration,

Jottings on a margin,
indecipherable palimpsest scribbled over

with too many contradictory emotions,
search for finite definition

of the infinite, stumbling toward
vague cosmic expression” (Walls Do Not Fall, 42)

He seems to be saying that the most mystical, spiritual times only come in the times of absolute devastation, maybe they come then only because they have to, one needs them to survive it – so for those chasing spirituality, they sometimes seek out devastation in order to attain mystical experiences. I don't know that H.D. actually did this, but maybe after the first vision at Corfu, which seems to me a very organic, and healing experience, and appropriate to the time, her later weird experiences with channeling RAF guys, were an attempt to regain that lost experience, which was very unifying for her. But they seem to be less organic, and more forced, sometimes the visionary only happens at one time in one's life, it is a way of moving past the devastation, but one shouldn't become attached to it. If you are not having visions, maybe your life is going ok. I also feel a sense that at the vision at Corfu, maybe there was an acceptance of the misery of life, and that sortof made her unified. But the later desperation perhaps did not come from a place of acceptance, and so it all became sortof weird.

Maybe my life is not going OK, right now, I have had two vision-esque experiences recently at the yoga studio. Have been feeling very unhappy, and realizing I have to let go of dreaming, thinking I do need to, but not sure I quite can. How to deal with reality as it is, the misery of it? One vision was of a gargoyle shadow on the ceiling, felt scared and thought what a horrible sign! But then I woke up in the middle of the night a few nights later, with a weird epiphany thought, that it was not a gargoyle, but a good spirit protecting me, an owl perhaps. Owls and gargoyles have very similar shadows!

Then yesterday, Thanksgiving, I had another vision; the walls (which do not fall) at the yoga studio have strange markings on them, like abstract cave art, so I was looking at the wall upside down in standing fold reverse namaste pose and I saw a cow in the markings. I was so mesmerized by her I didn't follow along with the class for a bit, she seemed very gentle, and peaceful, and filled with grace, a thanksgiving blessing! Cows are very connected with Hinduism, so that is a nice symbol to get from yoga class... a sense of hope, but that may only be because I am feeling so bad! There is nowhere to go but up. But a feeling also that this time is a hinge, a meeting point between when the bad times turn toward good. I am a hopeless optimist.



I am Mary, she said, Of Magdala,
I am Mary, a great tower;

through my will and my power,
Mary shall be myrrh;

I am Mary -- O, there are Marys a-plenty,
(though I am Mara, bitter) I shall be Mary-myrrh" (Trilogy FOTR 135)

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Livejournal is down and it is rather freaking me out.

I have things to say. I don't know really what. But I have a feeling like I have to say things and no one will let me.

There are some new poems of mine here.