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My dear friend Kristine reminded me of Richard Brautigan, a beat poet I’ve been meaning to check out for a long time. I was inspired to look this morning and sure enough, I’m in love. Here are three of my favorites… so far:
Deer Tracks
Beautiful, sobbing
high-geared fucking
and then to lie silently
like deer tracks in the
freshly-fallen snow beside
the one you love.
That’s all
Gee, You’re So Beautiful That It’s Starting To Rain
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:
Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A
Computer Magic
A
Writing Letters to Those You Love
A
Finding out about Fish
A
Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty
A+!
I Live In The Twentieth Century
I live in the Twentieth Century
and you lie here beside me. You
were unhappy when you fell asleep.
There was nothing I could do about
it. I felt hopeless. Your face
is so beautiful that I cannot stop
to describe it, and there’s nothing
I can do to make you happy while
you sleep.
1
you came back to the night,
a cluster of shadowy hours;
break it off, eat the fruit of darkness,
taste ignorance.
2
With the pride of a tree
standing in a whirlwind
you undress
moving like water
leaping from the rocks
you abandon your bodies
with the sleepwalking steps of the wind
and throwing yourself on the bed
with eyes closed
you search for your ancient nakedness
3
i fall in you with the blind fall of a wave
your body sustains me like a wave reborn
wind blows outside and gathers the waters
all of the forests are a single tree
the city sails in the middle of the night
through endless earth and sky and seas
the elements entwine and weave
the clothes for an unknown day
4
enormous desert and secret fountain
scale of silence and tree of screams
body that unfolds like a sail
body that enfolds like an ember
heart i tear out from the night
scorpion fixed to my chest
seal of blood on my years as a man
5
(what you say i make)
with a Yes
the lamp guides you to the door of the dream
with a No
the scale that weighs the lies and truth of desire
with an Oh
the flowering one to cross through death
6
(today, always today)
you speak (many rains are heard)
i don’t know what you are saying (a yellow hand holds us)
you keep still (many birds are born)
i don’t know where we are (a scarlet cavity encloses us)
you laugh (the legs of the river are covered with leaves)
i don’t know where we’re going (tomorrow is today in the
middle of the night)
today opens and closes
never moves and never stops
a heart that never flickers out
today (a bird rests
on a tower of hail)
it is always noon
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Another one of my favorite Octavio Paz poems. He has written such a huge amount of beautiful poetry. This should be formatted differently… He scatters his lines in a way that I can’t recreate on here. Just another reason to buy this book.
My wife sleeps.
She too is a moon,
a clarity that travels
not between the reefs of the clouds,
but between the rocks and wracks of dreams:
She too is a soul.
She flows below her closed eyes,
a silent torrent
rushing down
from her forehead to her feet,
she tumbles within,
bursts out from within,
her heartbeats sculpt her,
traveling through herself
she invents herself,
inventing herself
she copies it,
she is an arm of the sea
between the islands of her breasts,
her belly a lagoon
where darkness and its foliage
grow pale,
she flows through her shape,
rises,
falls,
scatters in herself,
ties
herself to her flowing,
disperses in her form:
she too is a body.
Truth
is the swell of a breath
and the visions closed eyes see:
the palpable mystery of the person.
The night is at the point of running over.
It grows light.
The horizon has become aquatic.
To rush down from the heights of this hour:
Will dying be a falling or a rising,
a sensation or a cessation?
I close my eyes,
I hear in my skull
the footsteps of my blood,
I hear
time pass through my temples.
I am still alive.
The room is covered with moon.
Woman:
fountain in the night.
I am bound to her quiet flowing.
I found Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet” wedged between a couple of Anne Rice vampire books on my bookshelf while desperately searching for a new book to read. I usually tend to go for the thicker ones, but for some reason this tiny pocket sized book grabbed my attention.
An hour and a half later I was having epiphanies and my entire outlook on EVERYTHING had changed for the better. This tiny book inspired me to be honest with my self and to accept my self for what I am. It’s emo self-help. It’s simple, blunt, poetic and digs deep into a tortured artist’s mind while still inspiring the reader in a beautiful way. Here is a little excerpt from the first letter that sets the tone for the next nine:
There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your while life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.
To read the rest of the letters, click here. I would honestly just recommend buying the little book though. I’ve given away I don’t even know how many copies of this book as a gift to my friends, the friends looking for inspiration and the ones going through some sort of artistic crisis.
In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?
Declarative sentences – so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not –
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?
What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
whatever!
And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!
I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.
For more of Taylor Mali’s brilliance, click here.
My Diego:
Mirror of the night.
Your green sword eyes inside my flesh. Waves between our hands. All you in the space full of sounds- in shade and in light. You will be called AUXOCROMO- the one that attracts color. You are all the combinations of number. Life. My desire is to understand line form movement. You fill and I receive. Your word crosses all the space and reaches my cells that are my stars of many years retained in our body. Enchained words that we could not say, except in the lips of sleep. Everything was surrounded by the vegetal miracle of the landscape of your body. Upon your form, at my touch the cilia of flowers, the sounds of rivers respond. All the fruits were in the juice of your lips, the blood of the pomegranate… of the mammee and pure pineapple. I pressed you against my breast and the prodigy of your form penetrated through all my blood through the tips of my fingers. Odor of essence of oak, of the memory of walnut, of the green breath of ash- Horizons and landscapes that I crossed with a kiss. A forgetfulness of words will form the exact idiom to understand the glances of our closed eyes.
You are present, intangible and you are all the universe that I form to the space of my room. Your absence shoots forth trembling in the sound of the clock, in the pulse of light; your breath through the mirror. From you to my hands I go all over your body, and I am with you a minute, and I am with you a moment, and my blood is the miracle that travels the veins of the air from my heart to yours.
The Woman
____________________
The Man
The vegetal miracle of my body’s landscape is in you the whole of nature. I traverse it in a flight that with my fingers caresses the round hills, the… valleys, longing for possession and the embrace of the soft green fresh branches covers me. I penetrate the sex of the whole earth, its heat embraces me and in my body everything feels like the freshness of tender leaves. Its dew is the sweat of an always new lover. It is not love, nor tenderness, nor affection, it is the whole of life, mine that I found when I saw it in your hands, in your mouth and in your breasts. In my mouth I have the almond taste of your lips. Our words have never gone outside. Only a mountain knows the insides of another mountain. At times your presence floats continuously as if wrapping all my being in an anxious wait for morning. And I notice that I am with you. In this moment still full of sensations, my hands are plunged in oranges, and my body feels surrounded by you.
Hover
The imagined center, our tongues
grew long to please it, licking
the walls, a chamber built of scent,
a moment followed by a lesser moment
and a hunger to return. It couldn’t last. Resin
flowed glacially from wounds in the bark
pinned us in our entering
as the orchids opened wider. First,
liquid, so we swam until we couldn’t.
Then it felt like sleep, the taste of nectar
still inside us. Sometimes a flower
became submerged with us. A million years
went by. A hundred. Swarm of hoverflies,
cockroach, assassin bug, all
trapped, suspended
in that moment of fullness,
a Pompeii, the mother
covering her child’s head forever.
Nick Flynn is one of the poets that opened my eyes to contemporary poetry. I’m usually a classics fanatic, and I’m grateful when someone who is still alive grabs me with their words.
It took me several times of reading this poem to understand what it is about, though in retrospect, its absurdly obvious.
Bök is most famous for writing a book of sorts (Eunoia), which uses only one vowel per chapter. Take a look at Chapter E, if you’re interested in what that looks like.
I came across this poem of his in a poetry book about geology.
landslides
drag you down a funnelled pit
through the waist
of an hourglass
into an obliette for all sleepers.
gravel showers
bruise your body till you swoon,
the sand a fluid
solid, spilling time away
into dunes on display in tiny jars.
geology writes
a eulogy for all that it buries
by pressing words, like moths
between pages
of a mammoth encyclopedia.
In an effort to get people to look
into each others eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say “I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.”
When she doesnt respond
I know she’s used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.
Fierce:Fragile 