A poem for the moment

The Purse-seine, by Robinson Jeffers, 1937
.......I cannot tell you
How beautiful the scene is, and a little terrible,
then, when the crowded fish
Know they are caught, and wildly beat from one wall
to the other of their closing destiny the
phosphorescent
Water to a pool of flame, each beautiful slender body
sheeted with flame, like a live rocket
A comet's tail wake of clear yellow flame; while outside
the narrowing
Floats and cordage of the net great sea-lions come up
to watch, sighing in the dark; the vast walls
of night
Stand erect to the stars.
Lately I was looking from a night mountain-top
On a wide city, the colored splendor, galaxies of light:
how could I help but recall the seine-net
Gathering the luminous fish? I cannot tell you how
beautiful the city appeared, and a little terrible.
I thought, We have geared the machines and locked all together
into inter-dependence; we have built the great cities; now
There is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable
of free survival, insulated
From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all
dependent. The circle is closed, and the net
Is being hauled in.......

Thank you Steven Earl Salmony for posting this  at theoildrum.com.

Found Poetry?

I posted this image a little while back, and asked readers to figure out what the biggest joke was. The trick was to look for what wasn't there as opposed to what was jokingly described. Lots of people didn't seem to notice that Africa, a whole continent, is missing.

A few days later, I came across a piece of "found poetry", entitled The Relevance Of Africa. Found poetry is just what it sounds like, a bit of language, or a part of a speech that someone with a poetic soul recognizes as having vision, power, or in some cases, "fruitful ambiguity". John Lundberg presents us with the startling finds of Julian Gough and Hart Seely.

Julian Gough of the UK's Prospect Magazine opined facetiously this past December that "Palin is a poet, and a fine one at that. What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse." His example of this "fruitful ambiguity" is a found poem he termed "The Relevance of Africa:"

The Relevance of Africa

And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the
Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska's.

Whether you consider Palin a poet laureate, or the consummate anti-poet, you must admit she pretty much captured the essence of unthinking American self-centeredness in her comments.

One of my favorite poems by Jack Gilbert.

(Just think, I could have posted a poem I wrote. All together now, deep cleansing breath.)

Bring In the Gods - Jack Gilbert

Bring in the gods I say, and he goes out. When he comes
back and I know they are with him, I say, Put tables in front
of them so they be may be seated, and food upon the tables
so they may eat. When they have eaten, I ask which of them
will question me. Let him hold up his hand, I say.
The one on the left raises his hand and I tell him to ask.
Where are you now, he says. I stand on top of myself, I hear
myself answer. I stand on myself like a hilltop and my life
is spread before me. Does it surprise you, he asks. I explain
that in our youth and for a long time after our youth we cannot
see our lives. Because we are inside of that. Because we can
see no shape to it since we have nothing to compare it to.
We have not seen it grow and change because we are too close.
We don't know the names of things that would bind them to us,
so we cannot feed on them. One near the middle asks why not.
Because we don't have the knack for eating what we are living.
Why is that? she asks. Because we are too much in a hurry.
Where are you now? the one on the left says. With the ghosts.
I am with Gianna those two years in Perugia. Meeting secretly
in the thirteenth-century alleys of stone. Walking in the fields
through the spring light, she well dressed and walking in heels
over the plowed land. We are just outside the city walls
hidden under the thorny blackberry bushes and her breasts naked.
I am with her those many twilights in the olive orchards,
holding the heart of her as she whimpers. Now where are you?
he says. I am with Linda those years and years. In American
cities, in København, on Greek islands season after season.
Lindos and Monolithos and the other places. I am with Michiko
for eleven years, East and West, holding her clear in my mind
the way a native can hold all of his village at one moment.
Where are you now? he says. I am standing on myself the way
a bird sits in her nest, with the babies half asleep underneath
and the world all leaves and morning air. What do you want?
a blonde one asks. To keep what I already have, I say. You ask
too much, he says sternly. Then you are at peace, she says.
I am not at peace, I tell her. I want to fail. I am hungry
for what I am becoming. What will you do? she asks. I will
continue north, carrying the past in my arms, flying into winter.

--Jack Gilbert.

This is my touchstone. I will continue north, carrying the past in my arms, flying into winter.

A Poem of Obvious Political Import

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.

- - Langston Hughes

Shame on the Mormon Church.

John Cleese, Poet

Ode to Sean Hannity
by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

Continue looking away.....

Ephemera
Arthropoda, insecta, ephemeroptera
live for but one day. Mayfly, Junefly, fly fly away.
Dance the Brownian minuet.
The cloud rises ~ the dancers twirl.
Wave after wave; Rise, pause, whirl.

Can you glimpse Shiva spinning in the corner of your eye?
Smiling, at the least of these, your brethren?
O elect, O noble, O brief bit
All desire stilled-- but one.
To spin the wheel, just this once, again.
To be born again, to be born again.

Addendum: If you meet the Buddha on the road -- swat him.

Feel free to look away

Gethsemane

Gazing down through the licentious brachiation
the long climb down past~40 days, years, who knows the hour or the day
A voice, prehensile thought, Glancing up at the beckoning stars, then down to the stony ground.

Out on the plain thunder stirs.
Lightning leaps from cloud to ground.
What rough beast Straightens, reaches, stretches for the cross- piece; hesitates
A threnody in the wind,Troy burning, Oedipus bleeding
The wind pivots
A dityrambic murmur, Bacchus, bread, a swirl of skirts.
Hands balancing, Toes clinging, Then, the leap down.

Be very afraid -- poetry

Rules of English

Robert Lowth, too trivial even for trivial pursuit

Said, in 1762, [In a "short introduction to English Grammar" that]

"Thou shalt not end a sentence in a preposition." [I may be paraphrasing here.]

And, even though flat out wrong, the world

Bent

Perhaps I should be thankful, as sinning by violating grammatical

rules is easier on the pocketbook and the knees than the more

celebrated types of violation.

But if for him, why not me? And you, too, should get the thrill

of the small sin.

So, I declare

The word "flaxseed" should occur with much greater frequency in English.

I should no longer follow E. It's time I got to be the leader. E has

his own way for much too long.

Junior High English teaches should be force to wear a scarlet

"ain't" prominently displayed at all times. Even when bathing.

When you split an infinitive, the person next to you must pay you a quarter.

If someone could arrange for the "lay" "lie" distinction to disappear

under unclear circumstances, there may be a cash reward.

To master a stupid rule, to master a rule imposed by some authority,

incorporating the authority of the original into yourself is

sympathetic magic. You beome stronger at the expense of the world,

which becomes less rich. You what this was about, didn't you?

Don't impose your rules on me. I'll split my infinitives. I might

split something else even. I might even wear plaid with polka dots.

Consider the source. Lay Off.

Dec. 2004