sanctuary 

just a general note that Gary Sullivan has been posting some good shit on his blog. I think the term flarf had ought to die off toute de suite as it now tempts readers to think of the work in terms of trickery or program, just as LANGUAGE too suffers that critical mind set of collective category. it's not like you or I could write 'Gary Sullivan poems' just by using his procedures. or let me put it this way: try it yourself. the rule of thumb, then: read the poem not the prodedure.

I was glad I was able to stop unpacking and focus on this poem by Tony Towle Tom King at The Duplications. a lovely elegiac piece. I don't think lines or phrases can be quoted usefully, as I think readers would miss how lovely the words are outside the context of the whole. the poem do sound 17th century-ish, without a false note.

spent the last few days moving. very big deal for me, for several reasons, with issues underlying and exciting moving on. of course the usual delays and best laid plans. much was moved in on friday, tho it was supposed to be all. when I got up on friday, I locked the cat in the bathroom, elsewise he'd disappear into the woodwork in that fun way cats have of freakin' out. did I mench best laid plans? I went in to comfort poor Mowgli, who was totally buggin' with the weirdness, and he managed to escape into nether regions. luckily, by friday evening he was willing to be coaxed from hiding. both the dog and cat have abandonment issues. the dog had 2 owners before he came to me. the cat was left to us by his mother, no shit. 3 years ago we heard a cat crying outside. we checked and there was a mother cat and a little kitten. when we came to the door, the kitten ran towards us and the mother ran away. probably a teen pregnancy thing. for a while the cat lived under the porch but after running a security check on us, decided to join us inside. now he's an indoor cat who is much contented with the sitch. with racoons and coyote about, it's just as well. there's a feral cat around that looks just like Mowgli, presumably his sibling. apparently Mowgli was not deemed feral enough, tho tell that to a piece of string being jiggled or a crumpled ball of paper. so well like anyway. neurotic cat yowled all friday night (what was left of it) till I finally got up and lay down on the livingroom floor with the passively neurotic dog, which brought the cat over, and the 3 of us dozed for a while. who needs sleep when you're tired? much was left to do saturday, but we were exhausted and sore so the start was slow. not till 2am sunday morning were we fully moved out. hunger and general wired-upitude got me up after 4 hours sleep. the garage is completely filled, who knows where what is, but we are home.

fine piece on David Baptiste Chirot. Geof Huth puts effort into his pieces.

I forgot to point to this picture. the fish on the left side particularly look like they're from a dimension of motion. and the child's hand is obviously large in this. I still remember that wonderful picture of the child looking out on a city vista of construction/destruction of a couple months ago (too lazy to find the link, I pointed to it at the time). you know, in painting there seems to be a genre of pictures with koi and other garden fish as subjects. might zwell point to this picture too, a couple of misplaced exotics, altho the birds don't seem to realize it. I'm reminded of a cartoon, can't remember the artist, of 2 gussied up poodles in the wild, with one saying, "it's hard to be wild poodles of the jungle".

it says here that the 36th installment of Antic View remains sizzling at our blog for your delectation. in this episode Jeff and I go out on a limb and anoint Bob Dylan as a voice of a generation. we also try to decide which Dylan hat is our favourite.

House of Sorted Things Left After My Father Died

here the people come thus, you microscopic black hole, to live.
You wouldn’t even consider saying “Please let me know
this is mine and Kelly’s cat that they would let die here.”
maybe I am slum lord. I saw: Hospital. I saw a man who

varied and, um, sank. The people gathered around him,
saved ego the remainder. Their "pee" spelled out quotes from
famous Prague residents. I saw a pregnant woman. She pushed
herself with difficulty, raised shining, toad-like eyes to Minerva’s

face along a high hot wall, after which she groped sometimes
around him to say that you haven’t pushed her to the limit
of her potential. she is still there. yes, I just learned then
that love is stronger. She's on her path, just like me...

I sought on my plan: House of Childbirth. Well. And I must
still note always: The problem may happen again but
medicine will fix it – if anything can. Broad Rue Saint-Jacob and a
large building with one couple. The plan gave the Hospital to

a Valley-of-grace soldier. I did not need to actually know that,
but it does no harm. The lane started to feel squeezed
on both sides to the point where most of the songs
feel like they're spewing confetti. it smelled so much

that to be differentiated could, after Chloroform,
after fried apple fat content, after fear, after all the cities
feel in summer, I saw a particularly colorblind house

that could be found in no plan, but was still rather
ennobled by its door. Night shelters. The prices
were beside the entry. I read them. It was not expensive.

I am beginning to think that Jonathan Mayhew meant indifferent in the sense of being anything but.

we got all this cardboard and wot were gonna do is paint it white then cut it to size and masking tape it to this old dead white peugeot station wagon dats in my drive way... and make it look like its all lowered and shit and make cardboard spoilers and make racing numbers and shit dats in da future hmmm

I like the photo of the cheerful if alarming statuary atStephen Vincent's blog. the kind of weird things that people not only make, but make permanent. and the story behind the statuary is charming.

reading Joanne Kyger's selected poems, which I find bright and firm. both qualities give strength against potential zen wishy washiness. the idea of zen poem strikes me as problematic. or theoretically it's a good match, for zen strives towards essential condition, or let's say it does. and poetry strives towards essence, doesn't it? but, and yet, however... the zen poem can be too damn talky, just as zen commentary can be. one sees in Kyger's poetry well-lit observation as well as a steadiness. I'm fond of Lew Welch's work, but he was, as he may've thought himself, a failed buddhist. he was too nervous, agitated, hopeful to 'succeed' in practice. but that agitation worked in his poetry. Kyger's steady on, with a flush of humour, and a lightness. she's not sticky with the zen biz. I got the book from the library, but when I'm rolling in the rye grass, it is one I'd look to purchase.

indifference is anything but indifferent. it's a passive aggressive sort of reaction to inferences. I'm reminded of Ambrose Bierce, re Incompassible: "Unable to exist if something else exists. Two things are incompossible when the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both -- as Walt Whitman's poetry and God's mercy to man. Incompossibility, it will be seen, is only incompatibility let loose. Instead of such low language as "Go heel yourself -- I mean to kill you on sight," the words, "Sir, we are incompossible," would convey an equally significant intimation and in stately courtesy are altogether superior." Auden comes to mind as a writer I never bothered to read. I have read Eliot, but never approached him with even minimal generosity. one can't read everything, so there's no guilt in leaving someone out. still, it is a platform of ignorance, however modest. what struck me about Robert Grenier as a teacher, his curiosity entered everything he read. I can't see a virtue in indifference, only a necessity.

birdwatchers in the wild 

the concord 

idyll 

rude bridge 

money plant 

well lit 

I've been using writing procedures a lot as I write lately. Google trawling, find and replace, Babelfish, random spell check: these procedures all serve to remove the tyrant fromthe picture. I relinquish control to these procedures. I've tried various methods for doing so all my writer life. only recently, tho, have I felt that the results are 'mine'. partly I am more comfortable using these techniques, and partly, I'm allowing the processes to carry me. some people might worry that these proceses are too mechanical, but what could be more mechanical than squeezing words into metre and rhyme scheme? it is method, how one proceeds. I start with a text, which may or may not be especially 'interesting', which may or may not be mine. I may use phrases from it to do Google searches, in the hopes that this might turn something up (metaphor of fishing feels quite accurate). I may jostle the text via those computer techniques I mentioned. from there it absolutely feels like sculpting: remove what doesn't feel right and add what does. and play it by ear. the point is adventure. when you 1st begin writing, as a tyro, whether or not you are writing imitatively, you wreak a giddy flow. and that feeling, especially if you like the results, urges you to keep on. sometimes you find yourself trying to repeat the glory. I see that a lot in the work of Whitman and Ginsberg, but also in Keats' awful "Ode to Indolence". my own work shows many examples of that effort to return. playing with these techniques allows me to go somewhere else, bascially. find a different fountain. adventure is a good word.

Party Art

I have used the power of
words to overcome
scads of books. I call it
the serenade twice
removed. that means sharing
thoughts and ideas with
fellow weird words. I thought it
was excellent to use them
colour'd with my words
mainly. there's just a lot of
poems and the like in the
logistics, industry, association,
distribution that declare that
a procedure handles a
specified event . I enjoy
that serenade, navel-gazing,
that voice in my head.

I had ought to mench that Antic View continues to accumulate.

binocs 

arty picture 

present 

les coupes 

still life 

I enjoyed the Dylan fest on PBS. the sudden flashes get me: a brief shot of Muddy Waters working his mojo at high giddy up, a wee bit of Mike Bloomfield, that sort of thing. Allen Ginsberg acknowledging a poet more famous than he. I'd never seen/heard the infamous Newport show. not only was Bloomfield playing hard and loud, he was giving good guitar face. total folkie shock. the transformation of Dylan from soso folkie to champion songwriter is not news, but it was interesting to watch. all these pointless labels that people depended on. which is why I get squeaky over the usage of the phrase School of Quietude, with its gravity of laziness. best rock song of all time is a silly claim, albeit right in keeping with a pop slum like Rolling Stone. I would humbly offer the song "Omaha" by Moby Grape as the best, if someone really needs that kind of info. I'll grant "Like A Rolling Stone" is anthemic, tho that AAAA rhyme scheme hinders my ability to anoint it. and mid-tempo rocker doesn't quite seem appropriate for the award. whereas "Omaha" proceeds, in 2 1/2 minutes, to skip along with brisk delivery. but really, except to sell mags, who needs the notion? I almost got the point of Dylan's harmonica playing while watching the film. he uses the instrument not so much musically as gesturally. I've seen the Irish musician Andy Irvine play the melody on guitar and harmonica simultaneously, so it's possible to make much more of the guitar/harmonica arrangement than Dylan does. his harmonica playing is more like an idea, like a performance art piece. really, I got to thinking that. I liked the bit with the intense weirdo who asked Dylan about the t-shirt Dylan wears on the cover of Highway 61 Revisited. what kind of answer did this guy need? figure it out for yourself. that aspect of Dylan's audience is spooky. that the art is taken into realms of arcana, that there's some prophetic expectation from the audience. we worry that he let "Blowin' In The Wind" attach itself to whatever grim exploitation, but I see it as a reasonable recognition that the song is "out there", no longer Dylan's. tho yeah he gets the royalties. I haven't read Al Kooper's books (I think it's plural), reminiscences of his years in the music biz, but I got to put them on my list: he's got good perspective. Dave van Ronk and Maria Muldaur showed good perspective too.

I want what scrapes air
raw like wandering immune to worship
or like walking, but with steps
a kind of breathing in and between
the tallest grasses that know what we want.:

Lewis Lacook's Xanaxpop is back. I like the immediate flicker here, the quick rush to write and post. I performed by own daily duty of blogged poems for 14 months at R/ckets & S/ntries, the sense of being balanced at the point, written and performed. thus Xanaxpop. Bramhallingly recommended.

----- 

Grecian whatsis 

----- 

I love this picture. it evokes severally. the blimps look like fish, strange and wonderful. tho we, residents of the modern world, are used to objects in the sky, blimps, as well as searchlights, bring to mind a seemingly primal sense of war, of something impending. I'm reminded of Ashbery's dire "Europe". I once saw a fascinating tableau. I was watching a blind man confidently cross a rather busy intersection. looming largely ahead of him was a blimp, looking gorgeously framed in the sky above the buildings and trees. the blind man was missing that, tho that is not to say there aren't ferlies that I too miss. or I mean, the man was so admirably adept and adapted to his condition, yet there was a marvel he could not see. before I noted the blimp I was in something like awe at the feat of perambulating without sight so well as this person. further memory (tangent time), was standing at a cross walk in Harvard Square next to a women with a seeing eye dog. the sign adamantly read DON'T WALK but a flood of people were crossing anyway, as per Harvard Sq. just the blind person and dog (and I) took heed of the sign. anyway, I see I am boring you. it was fortuitous to capture 2 blimps at once. when you hear the engines of blimps they sound too tinny and inadequate to motivate these whales of the sky. I like and love the serendipity of camera work. I don't want to work at photography as I do with writing and painting. I just want to take pictures frivolously, and hope something shows up. the birdwatching school of photography. for that matter, I don't want to work at birdwatching (Thoreau poking about for hours), I just want to be ready when something happens.

the prize 

leaving our wholesome food shopping experience we discovered that a parade had formed, making egress from the parking lot impossible. last week the town celebrated its 276th anniversary, but somebody spotted a raindrop and the parade was postponed. it wasn't bad at all last week but admittedly today is perfect early fall weather. it was funny seeing the backup of traffic in the parking lot. with many people on their cellphones, presumably because this delay would push everything else in the day off schedule. the parade proved itself a decidedly small town affair. a minuteman group led, fifing and drumming along: that's our New England necessity. the high school band with a squadron of cheerleaders (go Buccaneers! go Blue and White!) almost got funky with teh rhythm section. a nearly anonymous crew turned out to be American Legion. those three musical entities were the entertainment portion of the parade. well wait, a handful of martial arts types, dressed in protective gear, were whacking each other with sticks. I don't know to what organization they belonged. there was in fact no organization, it was a free for all. hey dad, I wanna join that group!!! the karate school to which Erin belongs also made an appearance. they were much better organized. you see below one of the teachers and 2 hotshot youngsters in mid flight. Erin didn't march this year, he's at a Magic Tournament. in the bustle of my youth I marched with the Cub and Boy Scouts; we had to march in step. some football and soccer groups brought the parade to an end. these last groups were inspired to throw candy to the crowd. or that was the original concept. what they did in fact was toss the candy to the side of the road then race after it. haha, I managed to collect 2 rolls of Smarties. which madeleinely back to me a fond memory of a parade in Townsend, Mass, where my grandmother lived. girls on one float were tossing pieces of cake wrapped in napkins. which struck me as absolutely wonderful. I was young enough to figure this occurred at all parades. it could well be that today was the only 2nd time that I received such a gift at a parade. always kept hoping, tho... speaking of Townsend, my memory of the town is as of Mayberry. everyone knew each other. my grandmother ran a small store across the street from the town swimming hole. a river ran thru, partly dammed, and there was a park, with a bandstand. every saturday night during the summer there'd be a chicken barbecue and a band concert. you can just imagine Andy and Opie milling thru that crowd. the VFW maintained it all, the swimming area, the barbecue, the bandstand. it was a living community undertaking. several years ago Beth and I were coming home from western Mass and passing by the swimming hole we stopped. well I knew the store was long gone, it was now simply a home, but jeez: the river was gone. just gone, as was the bandstand. vanity of vanities, maya, holy shit! today's parade was a plucky attempt to see the town as a community. I suspect that if you really want a sense of community, hope for a disaster to force people into that light. enough reasons to band together exist as it is, but we need a more dire sense of drama to kick out the jams. war in Iraq, and elsewhere, is still painted as a necessity, with acceptable loss. yeah yeah, support our troops, blah blah. the recent acts of god and of bureaucrats inspires earnest efforts of aid and focussed feelings of dismay, whereas war is an intellectual concept, too many for most of us. I am in a state of wicked anxiousness right now, a lot because of the out of control country in which I live. we need community, not networks. okay, sorry to go boring here.

banner trouble 

mid air karate 

parade from nowhere 

road picture 

woods view 

fly agaric, have some!!! 

------ 

31st installment of Antic View. rip 'em a new one is our new motto, so you'll surely want to check things out. we're a couple of bad asses!!!

excuse me while I write about my own poem. sometime soon after my father died, I wrote out some of my feelings. just to let off pressure. I didn't want to use the occasion of my father's death, yet it was powerfully present. yesterday I found the text, and felt enough distance. and that distance allowed me to cut away what I will call the chaff. extra words, extra emotions even. that's what the process felt like, judge the results for yourelf. I've been learning this lately, approaching the text as a sculptural entity. I know that a phrase like 'sculptural entity' sounds like hoohah but I got to go that way. a poem has its place in space, say. we know structural weaknesses exist, words that don't hold. one can cut away what doesn't support, what interferes or hides. such thinking, poem as sculpture, was present in my method of reading the piece that I wrote (which wasn't written as a piece, but as a peace). and I had the courage to say less than I had to say. playing with flarf, and messing with texts from other writers, has been a useful lesson. I feel I can now approach my own works better, make more substantial (yet positive) changes. I mean, I have been thinking about this.

the latest installment to Antic View now up. 2 people serious on the subject matter: I think that's reason enough to read it. or do you need daily pictures of me instead?

listen up, yo.
I'm gonna be satirizing Kent Johnson.
I'm gonna be satirizing Ron Silliman.
I'm even gonna be satirizing Foetry.com.
the edge of knife.
hahahahahaha.

Property Mark

It's of the properties of a short six years
ago, "eyeballs" and "stickiness" Grid

will change storage. the process of this
naturalization seems more important than

Gutenberg's sauce train and the Flowers of
Evil, of Charles Baudelaire and the laws of will.

naturalization will change everywhere, that
is to say, sure to control the laws of will.

nomenclature sees whether your country
is before the transfer of the central system

towards the satellites, or redistribution
of that central system towards the

satellites, or all other properties of
Gutenberg's sauce train. This should be the

first thing seen when one observes this
property. Gutenberg archiving removes

requests. Exchange them or do not publish
without written permission. All this dyes

stickler's requests with "the small legal press".
other information on the sauce train and

Gutenberg's properties lower part of this
filing. Included is important information on your

rights and specific limitations as filed in that employment.
You can even discover approximately making

a donation with the properties of
Gutenberg, and likewise obtain implication.

Late Signal

Dear nobody left,

I put my
father into
the ambulance,
when it was time for
him to. He was
not going to
rehab. He came home
carried only
by not his own. He
no longer ate
or drank. He was not
getting better
hospital. Returning
home did his
returning. home was
tremendous tension to
see, the house
committed his
death. We were
worn there when
he was put into. Two
kind ambulance
drivers do not
revive notice. Lifted into
the ambulance after
his birthday, he was giving
away. I was
giving him, too. The
task was left
to make me.

I've listed several hundred more books to Ex Poetical Libraire, which consists of (nearly) all the books in the library belong to Beth, Erin and me. unlike Jordan Davis' attempt to read all magazines, I just want to get my hands on all books (and as for reading, we'll have our servants do that!!!). got a ways to go.

and I know things missing, and mislisted, and what the heck. still, when we've move, T minus X and counting, there's a strong possibility some order will be made of these books on the shelf. that's the hope.

Dear Element of Surplus

cakewalk Prince Intercontinental Chief Auditor Subtraction. audit department camera canker fest of Fund release Ordinary central boom boom Bank of Nigeria lattice work. cakewalk the letter to you, your elf, each word frightening itself as Surprise, but take it like you own. Mr. VALDIRIM from Trade Station (lack of embryo)(user) executed contract (common) through Federal Misty Days Aviation here in
Nigeria, the plant. the contract worth of buttons throb your intention but the process of Transferring money to him dyed his family in earthquake. Patience, leaflet: disaster that occurred recently in Georgia (user rules). his money (mop function) must be Signed in my office. cakewalk will order the central bank of Nigeria (buzzing sound hereditary). final endorsement of his money means Nobody knows what is going. cakewalk and user two workers, this is man's formation:

(1)Contract Sum
(2)Contract number

You will act like this fund. cakewalk will send you the whole relevant documents. in this transaction immediately you accept to co-operate with life of nouns inclusive. Send me to your:
1. private phone and fax numbers (elephant ranch sounds)
2. Name of your company to enable us to start the immediate (portion).

cakewalk decided to give you 20% risk. I'm going on very soon, so cakewalk to take care of My future area. investment in your century waiting your urgent God. bless you.

PLEASE REPLY ME

Thanks, lump sum

some funny sketchcomedy stuff by Mitch Magee. I thought "Retard Juice" was wonderful, especially the denouement.

the Sticky Name is All Bramhall

Competently certificated and carried out of high school in 1970, competently without inspiration in public schools. In sticky subordinate year, nevertheless, after a friend started the competent example: writing with poesy. Since then, the letter is a central care. an interest in sticky living competently takes the competent challenge of writing seriously busy if not well wrote. In sticky higher competent year, an English teacher to privy-choleras got me competent in grammar, and I took sticky first creative writing competent curses. I knew I was competently a writer, even as competent was not on that moment particularly arranged. Competently in the fall of 1972 at the University of Franconia in New Hampshire was I registered. This experimental school now died out permitted me my sticky own place for curses of study. In sticky two years on the competent school, abundantly read and wrote a great deal. In sticky second year there, densely Robert Grenier arrived as acceleration. Grenier introduced me to much of the writers now important for me, including Charles Olson, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Louis Zukofsky, and Robert Creeley. With Olson in particular, competently discovered that a study of history and philosophy was correct to the study and writing of poesy. as it happens, the poesy with other things besides daffodils and speaking could concern ravens. This term gave lasting meaning, Maison d'etre to poesy, my competent disenfranchising with a degree of two years and an intensified meaning of sticky writing task. Grenier published a long poem of mine in a day book which he called This. Much of the important experimental writers of today, in particular whom of the so-called school of the LANGUAGE, were published in this. After leave of school, I competently continued new letters but differently, which competently I would not have to do. Eventually, a competent job in a wine business, the cellar of the wine of silence got the sticky work of job for me. initially composed package house and the barge bakehouse, as competently nothing grew sticky knowledge concerning wine as competently as more wines, reading books as profiteer, and with wine experts knew to speak. Thus competent as a wine consultant, Council and recommendation. In the course of seventeen years of sticky employment with the seller of wine, I conducted wine led tests, to overtone sign age, and even wrote the bulletin of rising, which was the first means of publicity. Each of these activities can be described as education. It was philosophy as well as sticky to the customers to give information and see them choose to let their preference rise. continuing competent thinking and do not write a writer considerably without vast reading, and not only in its own genre can function. Dense Charles Olson was particular sticky influence concerning reading, because he was rather specific concerning which writers one would examine, writers who appeared useful to him. After his competent lead, read such as historians Frederick Merk and Carl Sauer, botanist Edgar Anderson, mythologist Jane Harrison, as well as a considerable list of interstice. That meaning of interdisciplinary research interests me. Competently in 1993, reached a competent impasse.

streetlamp 

mushroom 

buzzing right along

up to section 27 at Antic View.

Thomson City

trans scarlet uncaring: gauntleted up to 150 words:

On our doggonest streetcar, a carny in athletics carbuncled the sky.
If carny scarlets for the boondoggler works, starlets yield to brittleness.
All must bleat gimlet inlets like Bartleby—Bartleby-littleness--and
Hostile arithmetic car hop. let scarlet testcard go, caring who would diet.

Let toiletries card athletics.

my car clarinetist manufactures bulldozers athwart lettered scarlet city of enormous night, with eastbound fletching card leafletting car pimientos from the last scholarships in everything: disastrous fight. "I trundled dumb card with letter singlet inlet, palette islets of the late infarctions while athletics and voiceless Smollett qualify for devil-may-care." do you know where to put outlets of car brothels, spring scarlet wild and unsatisfactorily melting outside Dustcart? Scared brotherhoods of Ore. I scarleted painfuller toiletries and coverlets with odorlessness? Scary Ferlinghetti! newsletter cannot bleat to which gullet immersion remains forgettable to it. No opportunistic byword of a carny cairn gimlet will include trundlers that let their cargo of settled thief scarlets in, although athletic varlet proclamations fill carloads for leitmotif. they let city its cart night. Plutarch pleads carbuncle. Plutarch the thief leads diet cart but it is clarinetist's cart night. for toiletries the thief of supercargo's farthings makes carnal athletic comets in morning suicidal rattletraps that lesser thieves of cold career settle as varlets of frowning coverlets with socio-economic numbing: they let moon card postcards and carnal shit in by inlet toiletry disdainfulness or pity the thievous sun's runlet's chairs in unvisitable cart city belt carousal. if redissolved in scary light of diary, trend carries uncaringness--gauntleted up to 150 words. That's the max.

these, by Lanny Quarles, are wonderful.

sly, thoughtful sermonettes from Jack Kimball today. which see.

Carl Annarummo used Blue Cheer as part of a fumigating process. that's what I infer, and I can see it. Blue Cheer claimed to play louder than anybody. their achievement kinda begins there, see where it goes. they did "Summertime Blues". the drummer scrambles to be heard over guitar and bass. you can hear the snares rattle to the hum of the amps. Eddie Cochran did the song so that you could dance. BC so's you could break rocks, or believe there's an upside to obliteration. The Who went epic with the song. Joan Jett sped it up and watched it run away to the pop fields. funny sea changes, identify the times. I've been listening further to Led Zep. Erin hears "Rock and Roll", which he knows from the endless commercial redactions, and wants to borrow the cd. the song is 'today'. in their jams, LZ goes from noodling to something almost carefully blue. Zep is some monster dictator, complete in command. sometimes Jones and Bonham don't know what to do, because the other 2, the principles, are engaged in their spatial matter. wait for the heroes to come back. Plant wails in high honky fashion, and gets away with it, admittedly, and Page is guitar god. Page does some runs that are exactly 3½ times faster than any reference to the song. it's giddy, and I'm not 15. BC were noise, let's don't get lavish. they pled Marshall amps at 11. you feel a force, the dictum of some woozy philosophy. LZ, those guys had the stage and kept it. I almost believe the biz of their selling their souls (except Jones), tho a different transaction maybe than Robert Johnson. I saw Sonic Youth wow 10 years ago (and they were old then!). I likened their 2 guitar fever fest to Richard Thompson. different means to a similar end, that is. the sort of split the air with musical effect kind of experience. Thompson could do it with speed and grace, SY with noise diverted towards eloquence. it's fun to believe.

great! in "The Gods Must Be Crazy", a woman says "do the voices in my head disturb you?".

I'm down with the man, KSM (just his initials tell who I mean), but I would add a 5th possible reviewing function: how the reviewer as writer makes use of or applies him/herself to the reviewed. okay, I just went lumpy in my phraseology, sorry. I've recently put 'reviews' on this blog, of Warren, Tabios, Ellis, Koeneke (German pronunciation) and Larsen. also I was much taken by some of Jack Kimball's recent posts, a poem by Shanna Compton. I met each writer in terms of my own writerhood. what can these magicians offer me? not so much a supermarket offering, but I find myself likening my effort to theirs, comparing the distinctions, trying to incororate different ways. I approach this well-meaningly, I'm not doing an I'm better than (I mean, do you think so???) in my book commentaries. Kasey's characterizations are absolutely apt. I don't feel qualified in them, however, as regards my own reactionizations, public I mean (of course I love what I love). but I know I read with interest, and my interest bears on my writing. this is solipsistic, yup, but I do not proceed with a pretense of objectivity. the gas about the Johnson/Behrle et al contretemps is that in the merge of self-defense and radical defense and overt offense, etc, it's not clear what the honest instigation is. i.e.: is it the poem that bugs you, or the moustache. I don't want to prance in the bungalow of my own integrity, but I know vis-à-vis the above writers, that I approached their works with a defined interest. my interest in writing, and how their work touched beneficently on what I want and hope to do. I have failed if you, reader lovely, don't see this. Kasey's right to enumerate these possibilities, the reader should be so aware. I think my addition usefully extends his consideration.

memo to J Mayhew: in the waiting room slush pile was, of all things, Golf Magazine's Fiction issue. nestled amidst the fictionizers (John Updike, Dan Wakefield, and a bunch of sports writers going genre hopping) was a poem by David Shapiro. over and out.

24th installment to Antic View.

somehow, Glen Baxter just sets things right.

I looked at recent Lucipo archives concerning teapot tempests, but found my energy quickly lagged. defense and counter defense enacted with longing. it is fascinating, and Gudding's study brings light upon. I'll try ot keep my nose clean and just leave it at that.

I guess Gabriel Gudding has earned a place on my links. I bestow this honour because he finally seems to be pulling the oar regular. furthermore, this is a pretty good punch. I mean to me. I feel like a tacky look at me for my in-the-moment reactions. here. on this blog. not enough expanse in my outlook. well, not to discredit my capricious vitality.

well I stumbled on John Latta reborn, tho no posts for 10 days so far so I'm not gonna fuss the template (grim biz) till I see some dedication. this is blogging, not writing!!! and yet, a Glen Baxter mention. Baxter absolutely frays me. zany koans.

oh, this from the Larsen Faux/e pub (from "Joke Paige"):

Q. WHAT DO YOU CALL A MAN
WITH A HOLE IN HIS HEART?

A. "FLOP".

Click here to learn about the Customer Experience Improvement Program.

it disconcerts me to learn this bright fine New England sunday that Professor Mayhew is potentially my own worst nightmare. I shall try to avoid that side, hoping I haven't already tumbled to my doom.

these 3 poems seem like literal translations from Chinese or Japanese. I mean, maybe yes, maybe no. and the images with them are odd interceptions. Lanny Quarles' work provides a wide range of vivid oddity, almost swampy attestations of life in the flurry. the weirdness comes with a specific tension and knowledge base. some of the weird is my ignorance of that knowledge base, some due to the joyful exuberence of putting it (all) together.

I got The Thorn by David Larsen (Faux Press 2005: fresh meat!) yesterday. Larsen possesses one of those names that have interest attached, as in: sounds interesting. I liked his guest blogging at The Ingredient, where he presented some odd writings and nifty visuals. I read blogwhere that he performs his poetry well, and that he does so from memory. perhaps that (memory reading) suggests a sense of stance towards the work, or just that he's wired special. one thing he does: presents many of his poems handwritten. here are some illustrations, one of which appears in The Thorn: "Glory of God". what's generative in handwrit? I don't really know (possessor of sloppy handwiting). but, well, you see (infer) the pulse. it also unnarrows the possible. poetry exceeds format, that's the whole point. Larsen's poetry? it is directed from speech. one poem, a long one, calls itself "Wild Speech". formative tussle:

MY READER
FIGHTING WITH ME IS LIKE
FIGHTING THE SUNSHINE
IN A DROP OF DEW
WHEN HALF OF THE BEAST
COULD BE YOU
WHAT YOU WOULD NOT
YOU WILL NOW

(note: Larsen's handwrit caps come across less shouty than above).

I hear KNOW in NOW, not that you need to. I choose not to fight with Larsen, for he seems like a facing toward. I'm trying to picture avant-garde as personal, a step toward and into, not the coagulated aesthetic insularity that each generation wallops as needed. for Larsen gives me a sense of facing, forward even. the above quote seems like working advice. which sounds blurby so let me resay that. the voice in these poems is particular, ranged directly with and towards the general. a gravitational dance? it's a way that oddity feels familiar, and familiar feels strange. look especially at his prose pieces, which come across as skewed term papers. "THE DIVINER SATIH" (Satih has accent marks that I can't reproduce) is all this info regarding Islam, and I dunno what's 'for real'. it's all quite certain and shaky at the same time. he cites the prophet Anna as a particularly interesting New Testament character, and concludes "And she recognized the infant Jesus right off the bat." that colloquial phrase unsteadies everything in a most useful way. you can feel the writer's satisfaction at being so brisk and conclusive. I mean the any writer who would be boiling Islam down to 3¼ pages. this poem is on the back cover:

EASY TO READ
HARD TO BEAT
AND ROUGH ON
THE CORONA
THIS TEXT
ANTICIPATES
YOUR RESISTANCE
AND OFFERS IT
A MEATING-EATING
FLOWER

well feed me too, Seymour. I get this rush of sensations: goofiness, surety, entanglement, posture, energy. his language goes somewhere, yet it stays somewhere. does that sound plausible? it is the consciousness that he retains within the swirl of saying. the tension of which is rather important, and loving.

I want to say once more, rules of this court, that when I write of poetry here, it is off the top of the head. mayhap I have no depth. I like to take these opportunities with new work. take a stab at it. and publicly, just because privately I mayn't go to the trouble. when I take notes for myself, I leave a lot out. but in imagining a reader of these words, I try the outward a little more. the import of my writing here is interest. so if I am lame here, don't let that dissuade you from the writer. I'm just trying to parse my own confusions, and recognize the resilient light.k?