foresight

at the end of a barren concrete hall,
sitting alone, while Bon Iver’s acoustic
ticks like vibrant flecks of summer rain
splashing against the windows of a
mind that never landed the last time
she took off, “Oh God” he muses “I
shall never recover from the beauty
in this pain.” and recover he won’t.
it is a tragedy in the finest sense
when one touches through to heaven
only to be pulled back into the gray
haze of these misty flats, where she
and he carved out a life for them-
selves. the vibrancy just never blinds
the eyes, quite like the first time.

and when the moment had cleared, he could
see for miles, and miles, and miles.

Radiolucent – Fighting Man – Live at the Bad Manor, Athens GA 2011

I know I said no more videos but this one is pretty sweet. I had no idea the sparklers even happened?!?! I was preoccupied on the keys.

keyboard players sweat too

taken at the Bad Manor, Athens, GA, June 25, 2011.

…more (non-vain) poetry coming soon….

here is a little footage of the final encore from that concert. Helter Skelter.
Yes, the shirt came off.

gig

won’t be long
among the coterie
and dancing lights
and palpitating rhythms
of night and sex and
debauchery, ’til with a few
subtle strokes of
my keys will i,
like master to
slave, own
you.

Finding Alone

When humdrum begets hubbub
I feel the riptides of Night
Pull against my sunken ankles
And forces despite me cry out

Deep calls to deep
And the subregions
Of my soul answer

And I am drawn into the dark,
Where, on this plod of green ground -
Handed down to me by blood and
Deed- I find in the dim quiet of evening

the Solitude of stars.

Greatest Father’s Day Ever – R. W. Emerson

So I have not been writing much lately. This is not due to laziness, it’s due to reading! My wife got me some great books for Father’s day and one of them is the Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I have been totally enamored by this man’s essays – especially his essay entitled Nature. It has simply blown me away as he expresses things so amazingly eloquently that I have felt – unanswered – my entire life. His ideas on Art and Nature and man are completely reshaping the way I feel about much of my own writing and the purposes in it. He sees the world in a completely ‘poetic’ way, and that I adore and admire. So, I wanted to share some of my favorite excepts. All text listed below belongs to the remarkable Ralph W. Emerson.

“Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.”

“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars.”

“The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus in art, does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works.”

“This imagery is spontaneous. It is the blending of experience with the present action of the mind. It is proper creation. It is the working of the Original Cause through the instruments he has already made. These facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind, over the artificial and curtailed life of cities. We know more from nature than we can at will communicate. Its light flows into the mind evermore, and we forget its presence. The poet, the orator, bred in the woods, whose senses have been nourished by their fair and appeasing changes, year after year, without design and without heed, — shall not lose their lesson altogether, in the roar of cities or the broil of politics. Long hereafter, amidst agitation and terror in national councils, — in the hour of revolution, — these solemn images shall reappear in their morning lustre, as fit symbols and words of the thoughts which the passing events shall awaken. At the call of a noble sentiment, again the woods wave, the pines murmur, the river rolls and shines, and the cattle low upon the mountains, as he saw and heard them in his infancy. And with these forms, the spells of persuasion, the keys of power are put into his hands.”

“This relation between the mind and matter is not fancied by some poet, but stands in the will of God, and so is free to be known by all men. It appears to men, or it does not appear. When in fortunate hours we ponder this miracle, the wise man doubts, if, at all other times, he is not blind and deaf;

“Can these things be,
And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,
Without our special wonder?”

for the universe becomes transparent, and the light of higher laws than its own, shines through it.”

A Perfect Peace in the Afternoon Spring

It was in the Spring of
The mighty Cottonwoods when
I knew that this love of ours
Was both true and eternal.

Those cloud-white flitting, falling blooms
Made the air of Earth but
Space. A shimmering shower of stars,
With Heaven’s depths notched in the deep

Brown ridges of their bark skin.
The grass melted into galaxies
Beneath my feet – their green
Blanket appeared as the great

Nebulae, through clear streams
Of Cosmos. The finest scene,
Art’s greatest achievement in
That infintesimal moment, where

Sight, senses, soul, and heart made
Perfect peace, within me.

The Universal Language Is Not So

He says,
“01001001
01101100 01101111 01110110 01100101
01111001 01101111 01110101″

She shrugs.

She says,
“je t’aime.”

He muses and walks off, alone.
She withdraws, empty-handed.

DesTiny

God is spirit
& Galaxy ghost

Collapsing DNA
Collapsing heart

I was designed
To break.

Elem3ntal

Earth.
Mud.
Tree.
Blood.

Soil.
Water.
Death.
Power.

Air.
Sod.
Toil.
God.

Old bones

Beat not around
This bush
For snakes and
Kin rise
At the swatting
Of the
Broom.

Some old bones
Are better
Off left buried
Under
Dry and sandy
Places.

And when we
Toss what
Has died on
Them, new
Life heals their
Benign
Wounds.

Let the dead, indeed
Bury their own dead.

the world’s gone mad.

bitter men, here, rest on apathetic laurels.

with moony eyes they scour tattered bits
of paper hushing secretly along the rain
soaked sidewalks. they scheme a clever ruse
for unsuspecting hearts. ones full of life.

to the brim with love they are a gentle sort,
in need of the steadiest of hands. massive,
strong hands, calloused, still sensitive to shifts
in wind and weather. large cracked palms lurch
out from dark fog beneath us, as we drop
through cloud and air, tempered only by
the imposing hands beneath. unseen until that
last moment. that last breath, before eyes
close and lips press, newly moist, against
an others’ lips. can you recall the butterfly
race that ran circles around your innocent
innards? : we digress in times of great strife,
or embarrassment. and we pursue the trails
of tempting rabbits, wherever they may lead.

i would rather return to the brood of hopeless hobos
lifting tidbits of lost letters to the sunlit
drab sky. as if each word scrawled were coins
for the taking. as a young girl’s heart is, until
she’s gone. their knees are scuffed and oft times
bleeding from the strain of this life. ah but this
life would be lost without pain. and the world,
colorless without death. water, fire, wind – do your
worst. kill me unsuspectingly. let me confuse fear,
in the last flinch, with pure pleasure. and send
my heart laughing into the gates of Death.

victim to our auspiciously mad, mad world.

*moony – dreamy, listless, or silly

Amazing and Tragic poet – Amy Levy

Brilliant woman born in London in 1861. She committed suicide at the age of 27. Tragic life and an exceptional talent. Here is a little poem of hers that struck me enough to add it to my list of Favorite Poems. I think you will certainly relate.

At a Dinner Party
Amy Levy

With fruit and flowers the board is deckt,
The wine and laughter flow;
I’ll not complain–could one expect
So dull a world to know?

You look across the fruit and flowers,
My glance your glances find.
It is our secret, only ours,
Since all the world is blind.

this here sacrifice

i see plainly that you have brought
your bones with you. this is a start.
we have so much to do before you will
be without them. so many hands to hold
before their dreams are released to us.

we will trade some of your bones for them.
would it not be better to feel than to
walk? my dear, crying will not change
a thing. storms are cooking up something
damnable in the east. storms are
brewing up something fierce. listen, lady,
i’ve done this a million times. you needn’t
fear nor cry. i will not let you go completely.
only a bone here a bone there will be lost.

and not really lost, but sacrificed. doesn’t
that imply something bad now for something
good later? doesn’t that bring you the slightest
bit of encouragement? that this is possibly the
start of something amazing? either way, it doesn’t
change your destiny. this will happen. we will
trade in your bones, only a few, for now. and
more later. no need for you to stand on your
own two feet anymore. no real need for you to
stand even. would it not be enough to just
recline in the cool of the evening and rest?

wouldn’t that suffice? wouldn’t that mend a broken
heart? surely there is more to life than walking,
or standing, or running. nevertheless, here we are.
and it doesn’t do either of us any good at all to
think so hard on such things. would be far better
to think of the here and now. not the there and then.
the here and now. it is both, here…and now. like
us. standing here. now. you’ve brought all your bones.

i’m glad. soon we will need them. soon they will arrive
to collect what remains. they will store it away
for us in a tiny vial. up on a shelf. resting above
a number they will use later to track it back down.
when it’s time for us to collect, in rapture, on this
here sacrifice. that’s when it comes full circle. that’s
the point where karma and destiny and faith and luck all
meet and join hands and dance around a circle of flames
in the middle of the night. such joy. this is what we
are waiting for. this is why we are trading your bones.

this is why we are here in the first place. do think that
i simply did this all for me? do you think for one moment
that if there were any other way that i wouldn’t leap at
the chance? were it a mountain, i’d climb. a sea, i’d swim.
a valley, i’d traverse. a desert, i’d endure. for your
bones are more precious than you know. these things always
work themselves out. these types of situations always
create fear, but seldom does that wraith materialize. seldom.

steady now dear, hold your bones out, they are arriving.
and smile my love, this is the day of reckoning. preacher man
say, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.”
this is for you my dear, gladness for sackcloth. now go on
and empty out those bones. let’s have a trade.

Want

i
miss
the
way
you
stare at me
through
sunlit
hairs
from
the
corner of your
pillow

Doing What I Love

Slavery Sea

Atlantic
Your ripples woo me
Home to the
Depths of your
Clean womb.

Your curls bewitch
A Southern man’s
Lovesick heart.

Fuzzy infinite horizon.
Swishing mating calls.
You pull the land away
From beneath my feet.
One grain at a time.

Tis the love and lust
Of your fragrant air,
I am drunk with blue.

Go on, my exquisite whore
Seduce me
With your wares.