As For Poets

[EWolfe]

By Gary Snyder:

 

As for Poets

The Earth Poet

who writes small poems,

need help from no man.

 

***

 

The Air Poets

play out the swiftest gales

And sometimes loll in the eddies.

Poem after poem,

Curling back on the same thrust.

 

***

 

At fifty below

Fuel won't flow

And propane stays in the tank.

Fire Poets

Burn at absolute zero

Fossil love pumped back up.

 

***

 

The first Water Poet

Stayed down six years.

He was covered with seaweed.

The life in his poem

Left millions of tiny

Different tracks

Criscrossing through the mud.

 

***

 

With the sun and moon

In his belly,

The Space Poet

Sleeps.

No end to the sky-

But his poems,

Like wild geese,

Fly off the edge.

 

***

A Mind Poet

Stays in the house.

The house is empty

And it has no walls.

The poem

Is seen from all sides,

Everywhere,

At once.

[Fejas]

Forgotten

 

The forgotten moon brings me into the frivlless mind

A discussion that has already been discussed

A fearless charge into the void of my existence

Trying every possible tactic

Using every possible spell

Losing the battle

Failing you in every way

Where did the mistrust come from?

Where did it spawn?

And like the salmon, I strive to over come the mighty river

I give all my strength to make it up stream

But none the less I am ready to die

There are no misfortunes for I give myself back to the whole

Breaking me and taking my spirit, I ask you this

Why must one live wile the other dies?

Why should I choose to live this way?

And why should I be fed upon,

You like a wolf, you have hunted me down and devoured my heart.

[Alpinfox]

On Top

 

All this new stuff goes on top

turn it over turn it over

wait and water down.

From the dark bottom

turn it inside out

let it spread through, sift down,

even.

Watch it sprout.

 

A mind like compost

 

 

-Gary Snyder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dreamed I was a god

 

last night. Melting the winter snows

with my warm breath. Bending low over

snowy mountains with the black sharp

scattered fir and pine, breathing,

"Haaaaaah"

 

 

-Gary Snyder

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both of the above poems are from a book called "Axe Handles". For those of you who don't know, Gary Snyder is a pacifc northwest native (though he currently lives in California) who did a lot of climbing and tromping around in the woods around here. He is the inspiration for the main character "Joffe" in Kerouac's "Dharma Bums".

[EWolfe]

Was the second one from "Cold Mountain Poems"?

 

I seem to recall he was paying tribute to Han Shan withthat book, who sent poems written on leaves down the river to Chinese villagers from Cold Mountain... Hmmm...

[Alpinfox]

 

Nope second one is also from the book "Axe Handles". That poem is actually part of a larger "poem medley" called "Little Songs for Gaia".

 

 

Here is the eponymous poem from the book:

 

 

Axe Handles

 

One afternoon the last week in April

Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet

One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.

He revalls the hatchet-head

Without a handle, in the shop

And go gets it, and wants it for his own.

A broken-off axe handle behind the door

Is long enough for a hatchet,

We cut it to length and take it

With the hatchet head

And working hatchet, to the wood block.

There I begin to shape the old handle

With the hatchet, and the phrase

First learned from Ezra Pound

Rings in my ears!

"When making an axe handle

the pattern is not far off."

And I say this to Kai

"Look: We'll shape the handle

By checking the handle

Of the axe we cut with-"

And he sees. And I hear it again:

It's in Lu Ji's "Wen Fu", fourth centure

A.D. "Essay on Literature" -in the

Preface: "In making the handle

Of an axe

By cutting wood with an axe

The model is indeed near at hand."

My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen

Translated that and taught it years ago

And I see: Pound was an axe,

Chen was an axe, I am an axe

Any my son a handle, soon

To be shaping again, model

And tool, craft and culture,

How we go on.

[EWolfe]

The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats.

 

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water-rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berries

And of reddest stolen chetries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's morefully of weeping than you

can understand.

 

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim grey sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances,

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And is anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's morefully of weeping than you

can understand.

 

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,.

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's morefully of weeping than you

can understand.

 

 

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal-chest.

For be comes, the human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's morefully of weeping than you

can understand.

 

[foraker]

Marriage : Gregory Corso

 

Should I get married? Should I be Good?

Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustaus hood?

Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries

tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets

then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries

and she going just so far and I understanding why

not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!

Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone

and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky--

 

When she introduces me to her parents

back straightened, hair finally combed, strangled by a tie,

should I sit knees together on their 3rd degree sofa

and not ask Where's the bathroom?

How else to feel other than I am,

often thinking Flash Gordon soap--

O how terrible it must be for a young man

seated before a family and the family thinking

We never saw him before! He wants our Mary Lou!

After tea and homemade cookies they ask What do you do for a living?

Should I tell them? Would they like me then?

Say All right get married, we're losing a daughter

but we're gaining a son--

And should I then ask Where's the bathroom?

 

O God, and the wedding! All her family and her friends

and only a handful of mine all scroungy and bearded

just waiting to get at the drinks and food--

And the priest! He looking at me if I masturbated

asking me Do you take this woman for your lawful wedded wife?

And I trembling what to say say Pie Glue!

I kiss the bride all those corny men slapping me on the back

She's all yours, boy! Ha-ha-ha!

And in their eyes you could see some obscene honeymoon going on--

 

then all that absurd rice and clanky cans and shoes

Niagara Falls! Hordes of us! Husbands! Wives! Flowers! Chocolates!

All streaming into cozy hotels

All going to do the same thing tonight

The indifferent clerk he knowing what was going to happen

The lobby zombies they knowing what

The whistling elevator man he knowing

The winking bellboy knowing

Everybody knowing! I'd be almost inclined not to do anything!

Stay up all night! Stare that hotel clerk in the eye!

Screaming: I deny honeymoon! I deny honeymoon!

running rampant into those almost climatic suites

yelling Radio belly! Cat shovel!

O I'd live in Niagara forever! in a dark cave beneath the Falls

I'd sit there the Mad Honeymooner devising ways to break marriages, a scourge of bigamy a saint of divorce--

 

But I should get married I should be good

How nice it'd be to come home to her

and sit by the fireplace and she in the kitchen

aproned young and lovely wanting by baby

and so happy about me she burns the roast beef

and comes crying to me and I get up from my big papa chair

saying Christmas teeth! Radiant brains! Apple deaf!

God what a husband I'd make! Yes, I should get married!

So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones' house late at night

and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books

Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower

like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence

like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest

grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!

And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him

When are you going to stop people killing whales!

And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle

Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust--

 

Yet if I should get married and it's Connecticut and snow

and she gives birth to a child and I am sleepless, worn,

up for nights, head bowed against a quiet window, the past behind me,

finding myself in the most common of situations a trembling man

knowledged with responsibility not twig-smear not Roman coin soup--

O what would that be like!

Surely I'd give it for a nipple a rubber Tacitus

For a rattle bag of broken Bach records

Tack Della Francesca all over its crib

Sew the Greek alphabet on its bib

And build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon

 

No, I doubt I'd be that kind of father

not rural not snow no quiet window

but hot smelly New York City

seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls

a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!

And five nose running brats in love with Batman

And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired

like those hag masses of the 18th century

all wanting to come in and watch TV

The landlord wants his rent

Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus

Impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking--

No! I should not get married and I should never get married!

But--imagine if I were to marry a beautiful sophisticated woman

tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves

holding a cigarette holder in one hand and highball in the other

and we lived high up a penthouse with a huge window

from which we could see all of New York and even farther on clearer days

No I can't imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream--

 

O but what about love? I forget love

not that I am incapable of love

it's just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes--

I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother

And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible

And there maybe a girl now but she's already married

And I don't like men and--

but there's got to be somebody!

Because what if I'm 60 years old and not married,

all alone in furnished room with pee stains on my underwear

and everybody else is married! All in the universe married but me!

 

Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible

then marriage would be possible--

Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover

so I wait--bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life.

[j_b]

Canción de jinete

Federico Garcia-Lorca

 

Córdoba.

Lejana y sola.

 

Jaca negra, luna grande,

y aceitunas en mi alforja.

Aunque sepa los caminos

yo nunca llegaré a Córdoba.

 

Por el llano, por el viento,

jaca negra, luna roja.

La muerte me está mirando

desde las torres de Córdoba.

 

¡Ay que camino tan largo!

¡Ay mi jaca valerosa!

¡Ay que la muerte me espera,

antes de llegar a Córdoba!

 

Córdoba.

Lejana y sola.

 

quick translation:

 

The rider's song

 

Cordova

Far and lonely.

 

Black little horse, large moon,

and olives in my saddlebag.

Although I know the way,

I'll never reach Cordova.

 

Across the plain, through the wind,

little black horse, red moon.

Death watches me,

from the towers of Cordova.

 

The journey is so long!

My brave little horse!

Death awaits me,

Before I'll reach Cordova.

 

Cordova

Far and lonely.

[Dru]

 

When awful darkness and silence reign

Over the great Gromboolian plain,

Through the long, long wintry nights;-

When the angry breakers roar

As they beat on the rocky shore;-

When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights

Of the hills of the Chankly Bore:-

Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,

There moves what seems a fiery spark,

A lonely spark with silvery rays

Piercing the coal-black night,-

Hither and thither the vision strays,

A single lurid light.

 

Slowly it wanders, - pauses, - creeps, -

Anon it sparkles, - flashes and leaps;

And ever as onward it gleaming goes

A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws.

And those who watch at that midnight hour

From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,

Cry, as the wild light passes along, -

"The Dong! - the Dong!

"The wandering Dong through the forest goes!

"The Dong! the Dong!

"The Dong with a luminous Nose!"

 

Long years ago

The Dong was happy and gay,

Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl

Who came to those shores one day.

For the Jumblies came in a Sieve, they did, -

Landing at Eve near the Zemmery Fidd

Where the Oblong Oysters grow,

And the rocks are smooth and gray.

And all the woods and the valleys rang

With the chorus they daily and nightly sang, -

"Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a sieve."

 

Happily, happily passed those days!

While the cheerful Jumblies staid;

They danced in circlets all night long,

To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,

In moonlight, shine or shade.

For day and night he was always there

By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,

With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair.

Till the morning came of that hateful day

When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away,

And the Dong was left on the cruel shore

Gazing - gazing for evermore,-

Ever keeping his weary eyes on

That pea-green sail on the far horizon, -

Singing the Jumbly Chorus still

As he sate all day on the grassy hill, -

"Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a sieve."

 

But when the sun was low in the West,

The Dong arose and said, -

"What little sense I once possessed

Has quite gone out of my head!"

And since that day he wanders still

By lake and forest, marsh and hill,

Singing - "O somewhere, in valley or plain

"Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!

"For ever I'll seek by lake and shore

"Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!"

 

Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,

Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,

And because by night he could not see,

He gathered the bark of Twangum Tree

On the flowery plain that grows.

And he wove him a wondrous Nose, -

A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!

Of vast proportions and painted red,

And tied with cords to the back of his head.

- In a hollow rounded space it ended

With a luminous lamp within suspended,

All fenced about

With a bandage stout

To prevent the wind from blowing it out; -

And with holes all round to send the light,

In gleaming rays on the dismal night.

 

And now each night, and all night long,

Over those plains still roams the Dong;

And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe

You may hear the squeak of his plaintive pipe

While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain

To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;

Lonely and wild - all night he goes, -

The Dong with a luminous Nose!

And all who watch at the midnight hour,

From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,

Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,

Moving along through the dreary night, -

"This is the hour when forth he goes,

"The Dong with a luminous Nose!

"Yonder - over the plain he goes;

"He goes!

"He goes;

"The Dong with a luminous Nose!"

[Dru]

 

BEER

from: Love is A Mad Dog From Hell

I don't know how many bottles of beer

I have consumed while waiting for things

to get better

I dont know how much wine and whisky

and beer

mostly beer

I have consumed after

splits with women-

waiting for the phone to ring

waiting for the sound of footsteps,

and the phone to ring

waiting for the sounds of footsteps,

and the phone never rings

until much later

and the footsteps never arrive

until much later

when my stomach is coming up

out of my mouth

they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:

"what the hell have you done to yourself?

it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

 

the female is durable

she lives seven and one half years longer

than the male, and she drinks very little beer

because she knows its bad for the figure.

 

while we are going mad

they are out

dancing and laughing

with horney cowboys.

 

well, there's beer

sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles

and when you pick one up

the bottle fall through the wet bottom

of the paper sack

rolling

clanking

spilling gray wet ash

and stale beer,

or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.

in the morning

making the only sound in your life.

 

beer

rivers and seas of beer

the radio singing love songs

as the phone remains silent

and the walls stand

straight up and down

and beer is all there is

 

 

[jjd]

Gary Snyder is still a professor of English here at UC Davis. The link below will take you to a brief biography and a list of his works. If you want to read a great piece of prose, I would recommend "The Practice of the Wild."

 

http://wwwenglish.ucdavis.edu/faculty/snyder/snyder.htm

[EWolfe]

FAR-OFF, most secret, and inviolate Rose,

Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those

Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,

Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir

And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep

Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep

Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold

The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold

Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes

Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise

In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;

Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him

Who met Fand walking among flaming dew

By a grey shore where the wind never blew,

And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;

And him who drove the gods out of their liss,

And till a hundred moms had flowered red

Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;

And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown

And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown

Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods:

And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,

And sought through lands and islands numberless years,

Until he found, with laughter and with tears,

A woman of so shining loveliness

That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

A little stolen tress. I, too, await

The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.

When shall the stars be blown about the sky,

Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?

Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,

Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?[i/]

 

-William Butler Yeats

[rbw1966]

When I was young, I had no sense

I stuck my dick in an electric fence.

It curled my hair and tickled my balls

And made me shit in my overalls.

 

--Hustler

[Skeezix]

He is the inspiration for the main character "Joffe" in Kerouac's "Dharma Bums".

Japhy Ryder

[Dru]

Ode To Wine

Pablo Neruda

 

Day-colored wine,

night-colored wine,

wine with purple feet

or wine with topaz blood,

wine,

starry child

of earth,

wine, smooth

as a golden sword,

soft

as lascivious velvet,

wine, spiral-seashelled

and full of wonder,

amorous,

marine;

never has one goblet contained you,

one song, one man,

you are choral, gregarious,

at the least, you must be shared.

At times

you feed on mortal

memories;

your wave carries us

from tomb to tomb,

stonecutter of icy sepulchers,

and we weep

transitory tears;

your

glorious

spring dress

is different,

blood rises through the shoots,

wind incites the day,

nothing is left

of your immutable soul.

Wine

stirs the spring, happiness

bursts through the earth like a plant,

walls crumble,

and rocky cliffs,

chasms close,

as song is born.

A jug of wine, and thou beside me

in the wilderness,

sang the ancient poet.

Let the wine pitcher

add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly

the line of your hip

becomes the brimming curve

of the wine goblet,

your breast is the grape cluster,

your nipples are the grapes,

the gleam of spirits lights your hair,

and your navel is a chaste seal

stamped on the vessel of your belly,

your love an inexhaustible

cascade of wine,

light that illuminates my senses,

the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,

the fiery kiss,

the heat of fire,

more than the wine of life;

you are

the community of man,

translucency,

chorus of discipline,

abundance of flowers.

I like on the table,

when we're speaking,

the light of a bottle

of intelligent wine.

Drink it,

and remember in every

drop of gold,

in every topaz glass,

in every purple ladle,

that autumn labored

to fill the vessel with wine;

and in the ritual of his office,

let the simple man remember

to think of the soil and of his duty,

to propagate the canticle of the wine.

[ashw_justin]

Gary Snider

Speaking of Reedies...

 

 

‘Work of Mourning'

Because a fishing-boat washed up–

empty– to a shore crowded

in fog and the bodies of the hopeful and still-

waiting–

 

I lift my axe today

to this pile of slash, for kindling.

 

The body makes its own

memories in muscle, in skin,

in all it contacts. The axe's flight catches

a skiff of gray sky in its down stroke,

and my back muscles burn through

the hard task of re-learning.

 

Because the boat was empty–

the hull washed over in foam–

and because the survival suits drifted ashore…

 

Red rubber collars gripped

around absent necks, and the long, flat limbs

collapsed over skeletons of air.

I think we must take comfort in our elements,

be heartened by the thunk thunk

of axe-work, as we sweat towards this vigil

 

of fire, though the dry land blinks

its thousand wet eyes, and the axe skids

over the surface of rain-softened wood.

~Elyse Fenton

 

 

'Elegy'

In the buzz of downtown bars,

in the perfume of expensive cigars,

in the delicate necks of cocktail glasses

held half cocked,

in the conversations

in the beautiful faces,

in the well tailored dresses,

in the perfectly manicured phrases

(sample sized for later consumption)

in the de-commissioned shields used as cocktail trays

there is a Rome in its last days;

 

in the citizenry of foreigners

in the service of industry,

in the roads that stretch to every corner of the empire,

in the military having been allowed back inside the city,

in the college education that is considered crucial to success.

 

in the martini list stretching the length of the page,

in the Pomegranate stained lips of the laughing woman,

who could be a movie star or a secretary;

in the ginger smoldering in the vodka,

in the crushed white peaches dropped

in the champagne flutes

trailing faceless bubbles;

in the hair she lifts from her face to sip;

in the candles guttering

in the wreckage of half-eaten entrées,

in the constant rattle of ice in the shakers that is constant,

in the glasses that are re-loaded,

in the orders coming in,

in the fully automatic laughter that riddles him with smoke,

in the servers crouch and weave,

in the fresh linen flopped over the guests

table,

in the bodies dressed

to kill,

in the olive run through with a plastic sword,

in the wobbly signature of the company accountant too drunk to fuck the blonde

groping his pockets

there is the enactment of a new era;

there is the signing of a new bill

there is a Rome in its last days.

 

-Nathan Wilson

 

ps. don't steal these or I get my ass kicked.

[tread_tramp]

-Gary Snyder

 

ELK TRAILS

 

 

Ancient, world-old elk paths

Narrow, dusty Elk paths

Wide-trampled, muddy,

Aimless...wandering...

Everchanging Elk paths.

 

I have walked you, ancient trails, Along the narrow rocky ridges

High above the mountains that

Make up your world:

Looking down on giant trees, silent

In the purple shadows of the ravines--

Above the spire-like alpine fir

Above the high, steep-slanting meadows

Where sun-softened snowfield share the earth

With flowers.

 

I have followed narrow twisting ridges,

Sharp-topped and jagged as a crosscut saw

Across the roof of all the Elk-world

On one ancient wandering trail,

Cutting crazily over rocks and dust and snow--

Gently slanting through high meadows,

Rich with scent of Lupine,

Rich with smell of Elk-dung,

Rich with scent of short-lived

Dainty alpine flowers.

And from the ridgetops I have followed you

Down through the heather fields, through timber,

Downward winding to the hoof-churned shore of

One tiny blue-green mountain lake

Untouched by lips of man.

 

Ancient, wandering trails

Cut and edged by centuries of cloven hooves

Passing from one pasture to another--

Route and destination seeming aimless, but

Charted by the sharp-tempered guardian of creatures,

Instinct. A God coarse-haired, steel-muscled,

Thin-flanked and musky. Used to sleeping lonely

In the snow, or napping in the mountain grasses

On warm summer afternoons, high in the meadows.

And their God laughs low and often

At the man-made trails,

Precise-cut babies of the mountains

Ignorant of the fine, high-soaring ridges

And the slanting grassy meadows

Hanging over space--

Trails that follow streams and valleys

In well-marked switchbacks through the trees,

Newcomers to the Elk world.

 

(High above, the Elk walk in the evening

From one pasture to another

Scrambling on the rock and snow

While their ancient, wandering,

Aimless trails

And their ancient, coarse-haired,

Thin-flanked God

Laugh in silent wind-like chuckles

At man, and all his trails.)

 

Mt. St. Helens, Spirit Lake, 1947

[EWolfe]

 

Man, I love Gary Snyders stuff!

 

Riprap

 

Lay down these words

Before your mind like rocks.

placed solid, by hands

In choice of place, set

Before the body of the mind

in space and time:

Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall

riprap of things:

Cobble of milky way.

straying planets,

These poems, people,

lost ponies with

Dragging saddles --

and rocky sure-foot trails.

The worlds like an endless

four-dimensional

Game of Go.

ants and pebbles

In the thin loam, each rock a word

a creek-washed stone

Granite: ingrained

with torment of fire and weight

Crystal and sediment linked hot

all change, in thoughts,

As well as things.

 

--Gary Snyder

[glacier]

From Songs of Innocence and Experience, William Blake

 

Chimney-Sweeper

 

When my mother died I was very young,

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'

So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

 

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved; so I said,

'Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head's bare,

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.'

 

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight! -

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.

 

And by came an angel, who had a bright key,

And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;

Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run

And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

 

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind:

And the angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

 

And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:

So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

 

The Tiger

 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare seize the fire?

 

And what shoulder and what art

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And, when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand and what dread feet?

 

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

 

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did He smile His work to see?

Did He who made the lamb make thee?

 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

[olyclimber]

When Gary was here for his latest book reading and signing, I waited from nearly the end of the line, and when it was my turn to get my books signed I threw the books at him and then bum rushed him and gave him a giant nugey.

 

OK, not really. Just got a couple books signed. That was it. And told him to stop hitting on my wife. He is a nice wizened old man.

[Dru]

To make a Dadaist poem

Take a newspaper.

Take a pair of scissors.

Choose an article as long as you are planning to make your poem.

Cut out the article.

Then cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them in a bag.

Shake it gently.

Then take out the scraps one after the other in the

order in which they left the bag.

Copy conscientiously.

The poem will be like you.

And here you are a writer, infinitely original and

endowed with a sensibility that is charming

though beyond the understanding of the vulgar.

 

 

 

--Tristan Tzara

[Skeezix]

Snyder is the rockin poet zen master.

[Roger]

Snyder will be speaking in Portland on the 25th anniversary of the St. Helens eruption as part of this year's Illahee lecture series. Here's the link (scroll most of the way down).

[Harry_Pi]

Hello capitalist!

Which one of you guys did I see carrying your wife's purse today?

Thank you for allow me to post.

[Dru]

a violent prson

 

is marreed 2 a changling

 

th changling can adapt

can sumtimez radikalee b

on her his gud side evreethings

going swimminglee sumtimez

get shit whn he she runs out

uv prsonas masks goez 2

th closet n thers nothing

 

hanging ther can b myself he

she thinks thn thats th feer

that th punishment will cum

fr sure if he she cant leev her

him self fast enuff breeth b

call her him n start packing

 

him her self is alredee enuff

is alredee fine is alredee all ther

can go now can b now she he is

sew flexibul now who 2 trust or

2 find discovr

 

a mountin sliding in2 th sand

sumwun who wud stay yu cud

with hold n they cud find yu they

wudint leev n yu wud bcum all

ther with them not that

 

thers anee all ther

 

th changling writes lettrs 2 her him

selvs in th ambr waves n touchinglee

with love keeps th nite