is a tiny wandering imaginary dinosaur which migrated from AOL in October of 2008.


Thinking Lizard

About Me

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Rhodingeedaddee is my node blog. See my other blogs and recent posts.

Guide

[6-16-2009 Update Insert: Most of what is in this space is now moot. I found out what I was doing wrong and have reinstated Archives and Labels searches. They do work. However, in certain cases you may prefer Labels to Archives. Example: 1976 Today begins in November of 2006 and concludes in December of 2006, but there are other related posts in other months. Note: Labels only shows 20 posts at a time. There are 21 hubs, making 21 (which is for 1976 Today) an older hub.] ********************************* to my online poems and song lyrics using Archives. Use hubs for finding archival locations but do not link through them. Originally an AOL Journal, where the archive system was nothing like the system here, this blog was migrated from there to here in October of 2008. Today (Memorial/Veteran's Day, May 25, 2009) I discovered a glitch when trying to use a Blogger archive. Now, it may be template-related, but I am unable to return to S M or to the dashboard once I am in the Archives. Therefore, I've decided on this approach: a month-by-month post guide. The sw you see in the codes here stood for Salchert's Weblog when I began it in November of 2006. It later became Sprintedon Hollow. AOL provided what were called entry numbers, but they weren't consistent, and they didn't begin at the first cardinal number. That is why the numbers after "sw" came to be part of a post's code. ************** Here then is the month-by-month post guide: *2006* November: 00001 through 00046 - December: 00047 through 00056 -- *2007* January: 00057 through 00137 - February: 00138 through 00241 - March: 00242 through 00295 - April: 00296 through 00356 - May: 00357 through 00437 - June: 00438 through 00527 - July: 00528 though 00550 - August: 00551 through 00610 - September: 00611 through 00625 - October: 00626 through 00657 - November: 00658 through 00729 - December: 00730 through 00762 -- *2008* January: 00763 through 00791 - February: 00792 through 00826 - March: 00827 through 00849 - April: 00850 through 00872 - May: 00873 through 00907 - June: 00908 through 00931 - July: 00932 through 00955 - August: 00956 through 00993 - September 00994 through 01005 - October: 01006 through 01007 - November: 01008 through 01011 - December: 01012 through 01014 -- *2009* January: 01015 through 01021 - February: 01022 through 01028 - March: 01029 through 01033 - April: 01034 through 01036 - May: 01037 through 01044 - ******************************************************* 1976 Today: 2006/11 and 2006/12 -- Rooted Sky 2007: 2007/01/00063rsc -- Postures 2007: 2007/01/sw00137pc -- Sets: 2007/02/sw00215sgc -- Venturings: 2007/03/00216vc -- The Undulant Trees: 2007/03/00266utc -- This Day's Poem: 2007/03/00267tdpc -- Autobio: 2007/04/sw00316ac -- Fond du Lac: 2007/04/00339fdl -- Justan Tamarind: 2007/05/sw00366jtc -- Prayers in December: 2007/05/sw00393pindc -- June 2007: 2007/06/sw00440junec -- Seminary: 2007/07/sw00533semc -- Scatterings: 2008/08/00958sc ** Song Lyrics: 2008/02/sw00797slc ********** 2009-06-02: Have set S M to show 200 posts per page. Unfortunately, you will need to scroll to nearly the bottom of a page to get to the next older/newer page.

Labels

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

sw00241aih-intro

1 Intro to Brian S's As It Happens

The two major ongoing autobiographical works

I have had online were: Edges of Knowledge:

An Unplanned Autobiography and Brian's

Brain.  I may place what exists of those works

online again one day.  I am not sure.  However,

today I am starting Brian S's As It Happens.

Yes, numerous prose autobiographical postings

have appeared in this journal since the day I

began it, and each of those can now be placed

under my new title, but not a one needs to be. 

 

*

This morning I was officially up at 5 because I had to be at a clinic by 6:40 for several hours of stress tests. As it happened, I was allowed to leave about 11. The tests I took did not involve using a treadmill, a fact which pleased me. My Springfield sister had taken me there and she took away from there. We went to a grocery where a could pay a city bill, and we could do some shopping. After that she drove me back to my apartment complex. In today's dawn hours the weather was cloudy and blustery, but by the time of my return it was less blustery and some clearing had put a lighter mood in the sky. Still, after dark tonight storminess is expected, and tomorrow is likely to be blustery as well. Doesn't this just makeyou want to dance on your toes!? - Yesterday I began reading a poem which I last read years ago: T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and time has allowed me to more easily appreciate why Hart Crane and others felt the need to counterbalance it. Not that itisalways so, butintellectual intensiveness tends to be more negative in the sense of being more somber and more prone to use language in dark ways. The mind ruminates. The senses titillate. It is the angle of vision chosen that determines the play. One can be exuberant. One can be dispirited. One can be both or somewhere between. I know this from the inside. Yes, my character is generally more introverted, melancholic; but sometimes I find myself observing an object or even an activity as if for the first time, and if that object or activity is of a pleasant nature, I am carried by it into a state of cloistered joy. - I used to be able to buy mint ice cream--PURE mint ice cream. Even restaurants had it, and served it to any who wanted it. It was a popular dessert. Now, the only way you can get it is/ littered with chocolate chips. I am a chocolate chip fanatic. I eat some every day, BUT/ I do not want them/ in my/ MINT ice cream. Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

sw00240tdp-poem

This Day's Poem tdp022707 color-poem 23 "Turn"

G R E E N 'n' B E R R Y it.

Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, February 26, 2007

sw00239a-autobio

Intermission

 Today is the first day of the third month

 in my personal calendar.  This morning I

 chopped off my hair and put a new filter

 in the place for one on top of my electric

 furnace.  2007 057 03 1 1 is my date for

 this day.

-

Yesterday morning I 911'd myself to an

Emergency Station.  Wednesday morning

I need to go in for a stress test.  There

is one medication I've decided to not use

anymore unless I get an okay from the

doctor I am to see tomorrow.  I have the

feeling that most of my physical problems

are connected to my osteoporosis.  Will

find out more about that tomorrow also.

-

The latest from the foreign-accent guy,

that alter-ego, who pops into my

above-ground brain

whenever the mood strikes him:

----------------------

"You can't win,

 I tell you.

---

You try?

---

You silly goose."

 

 


Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00238s-br.d6.yellow

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons - Day Six

"1-16-77 yellow" This day I begin year 37 toward heaven though I'm someplaces told I'm a hell-caught fool: somewhy it seems/ we/ just drift purgatories, our left shoulders angled against door jambs, our eyes full of nothing-- their powers drawn back upon themselves as the energies of black-hole stars, our minds so lost in the mazes of loves it's likely we'll never consummate (despite desires) we have to ask that if they're seen somewhere they should please be led back, thank you: And today is Sunday & ice-age cold and bright only in the snap- ping wind, and the Sabbath commandment we are keeping here at home: and I still would celebrate to the riffs a fireplace warmth forgetful of the -60 wind chill & the charges to fill a mold: Crows bump through the bleak gusts while, snug in the poignant caves of their choosing, bears dream: As I celebrate, I celebrate: had I gone to church           I would have celebrated thus:        were I to make love, I would celebrate so: if I'd go early to the inn to talk & drink, to laugh, to relax, I/ must soon go to bed to celebrate: if I heat this chair tapping for riches, these acts will be my celebration: In the freezer waits ice cream; in the refrigerator, cherry pie: I am a man, a kid, a corpse, a spirit, an insatiable spy: if you try me, you will find my tolerance long, my patience lengthy, though I curse & spit: my need to be loved and to love a frozen grandiflora, a present forever, ribbons constantly loosened, bowed, & twirled & hurled in the blank air.

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, February 25, 2007

sw00237s-br.d5.blue

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons - Day Five

"1-15-77 blue" And the Arctic Tern flies farther to nest than any other bird because I need it to: and lives in sunlight more than any creature on this Earth: as far as 10,000 miles & 8 solid months of day: Today Janice & I drove north northwest 32 miles to celebrate my 36th year with her mother & father & 1st sister: Edie, Kenny, Julie: spaghetti 'n' sauce by Julie; banana cream & cherry pies by Edie; when Kenny got home, a wish for a happy birthday with: "May you live forever and I never die." Here & there swirling across the highway home, smoke of snow: the mailman brought card #3: a greeting from Janice's brother, David, and his wife & boys: the Lamplighter called: our lamps are fixed:

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00236s-br.d4.teal

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons - Day Four

"1-14-77 teal" How I could run & skate, tease the winds, yet not until competing was a lie test my gift 100 yards! How confess & confess until ears scream, yet breathe so little of who I am! born into Fond du Lac (unfit to smile) to godly parents, even if to a mom too gentle & a dad too firm: Take me for a conservative guy: often enough a demanding encounter closes me though I want to say I love you love love you with ringing arms & deep-tongued eyes, hold you with entrancing kisses, though I surge inside: the arms so slightly rising, the half- smile, the corny phrase: And we climbed with Bobby's kite, climbed & climbed, until it seemed our climbing would never end though we knew how tense the strain on the curved string: the exalting & exalted kite finally found by the railroad tracks over half-a-mile away:

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00235s-br.d3.red

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons - Day Three

"1-13-77 red" From the spools of memory, vignettes appear: me with my father in our garage mixing cement, sawing a 2-by-4, storing screens; out in our lot digging postholes, trimming a bush, planting, mowing, raking, chopping a head off a chicken; in a rocking boat listlessly waiting for some tricked perch to liven us; in our basement-- with 15 kids from the neighborhood-- mesmerized by "No Indians, Please" & World War II news flickering on the projector screen portion of the east wall, or the Lionel (oh, my 2 sisters were also there) as it clattered on its well-governed track, or --with other boys only-- the keyhole ladies in the frosted bar glasses; in our living room rollicked by Milton Berle, or sombered by a Graf Zeppelin stamp he will sell: with my mom in our kitchen working a rolling pin, pressing cookie cutters for santas, bells, gingerbread men; drawing maps; on the stairs picking up forgotten toys, vacuuming-- I day- dreaming, playing with sound-- yet that whirring by the moss phlox! the dwarf hyacinths! that larger than bumblebee!         that-- I whisper to my mother to quietly come closer as, carefully, I crouch on my toes-- that ruby, yes, male, yes, Ruby- throated Hummingbird, ah! windmill of the Lord!: with whomever snatching tadpoles, those wriggly wriggly out of Hadley's inlet!: and those long evening walks with Gary, Ron, Tom and the radio, listening to the Braves' games (through crickets/ nighthawks/ revvings of cars) when the Braves rode Milwaukee's hills chieftain tall!

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00234s-br.d2.white

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons - Day Two

"1-12-77 white" Such things to choose, let ricochet, dodge!: cornucopias tumble at us!: anyone's Gobis Urals, Niles: anyone's riddles: anyone's mines: the ticking, creaking, sputtering of time: loves / terrors, angers / delights, rots / fruitions-- of the globed & bright & juicy Snow, of the dandy civilized yam, of a roseate star: Such cor- nu- copias, ka- lei- doscopes, skies!: in the root web of an oak, cantatas of droplets of water, strength-laden insects of soil, dreams for the deep choreography of leaves: we are axial & galactic, expecting to die: The ribbons of our commitments, frayed, faded: we can only replace & replace: the presents of our caring, borrowed, taken: we can only return & return: Aphrodite out of the sea, Artemis out of the moon, Apollo out of the sun: Crawl, walk, run, jump          to fly, excitation to excitation tingling our spirits, our spines, mad, foolish, blindingly divine: At the gate, the sagging splintering gate, we meet, say hello, enter where mists from the ocean touch & sway; and the curve of our communions, speeding to the peaks of who we are in our hearts & bones: gentle, fierce, ancient: as the blossoms of the void: obliterates adagio: atoms in me shivering atoms in you & atoms in you shivering atoms in me: In the measure of this quack stem I chew on, in the hazel penetration of your eyes, Florida & oranges, California cliffs, the marshes of a child's warm Wisconsin, someone rummaging garbage in an alley, someone who has made the bedding clean:

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, February 24, 2007

sw00233s-br.d1.violet

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons - Day One

with an infinite thank you to George Starbuck, A. R. Ammons, Donald Justice, and Marvin Bell


"1-11-77 violet" And the wrapped presents: dimensions, horizons, trajectories? Violet white red teal blue yellow, the anxiously freed birthday ribbons swirl & cork- screw through the silly air as I, drowsy in the pinched light, compose: ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00232a-old.poem

an old poem - I have several unpublished books of poems, 2 of which are Seminary and Naked Exerciser. Today I found in the latter/ a piece I was a shade surprised to see there because most of the poems in that book are homoerotic, and this piece fits in with those in only an extremely off-to-the-side way. It is a con- versation poem, probably between a father and a son of his. If so, it's a fictive one that somewhat speaks to the psychological differences between me and my father. I do not know when I wrote it, but the typed copy I have of it is from the time Janice & I were living in an apartment on Forest Avenue in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. * * * "The Trouble Between Us" you heard what i said gut it but no buts about it get going o- kay maybe if you'd stop your daydreaming once you'd learn something i i now what you muttering it won't bite where do i start what haven't i shown you often enough i guess so you guess so don't you know yes well then what you waiting for n- nothing oh scram i'll do it myself ------- 2007 055 02 4 6 2-24-07 I so easily make typos I sometimes elide anger and begin laughing at myself. Just moments ago that happened, and-- as often also happens at such times--a voice with a foreign accent broke/ into my consciousness: "You are not a perfect being. Do you not understand? Sometimes, it seems, you just don't get it. You are not a perfect being." Brian A. J. Salchert -

sw00231a-calm.b4.storm

Weather Lull - but not for long

 

This afternoon the worst of the rough weather will be

whipping through.  Some 60 mph gusts could occur.

Hard rains definitely will.  So, I am going to be un-

plugging my system again soon.  It is now near AM

10:30.  I did have to plug my surge protector into

a socket on the north wall.  Do not know why, but

the socket on the west wall and the light switch and

the socket on the south wall quit working.  Even

flipping the breaker toggle back on did not help.

Have a gentle day. - - - - - - - - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

 

Friday, February 23, 2007

sw00230sc-set2.br.links

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons Introduction - Birthday Ribbons is a ribbon-like birthday-of-mine poem in 6 imagined colors, each representing a day in a set of consecutive days in January of 1977. The colors are: violet, white, red, teal, blue, yellow. ~ violet is at Day One - Day One - white is at Day Two - Day Two - red is at Day Three - Day Three - teal is at Day Four - Day Four - blue is at Day Five - Day Five - yellow is at Day Six - Day Six - Tape for the Turn of the Year by A. R. Ammons inspired the narrow structure of my poem, and that structure in turn inspired me to choose the the birthday ribbons (with the "ribbings" pun on "ribbons" intended) structure, my ribbons narrower than his tape. That this poem came in the wake of my 366 sonnets, 1976, which actually were/ not yet/ 366, only serves to show how eclectic I was. I am still so. - In the mid 1980's, having the "bad" idea of seeking a PhD in English, but having taken-- and done well on--the GRE, and desiring to study under the late Donald Justice, who was then teaching Creative Writing: Poetry at The University of Florida, a bicycle ride of moderate distance from where I was living, I got myself accepted into the program. I am glad and thankful I did. Near the end of that semester, in spite of having 4 of my poems chosen by a single periodical/ in part because they were so different from each other, I, feeling I had neither done enough nor well enough, and honestly needing help with a poem I had not intended to show to Mr. Justice as it had not been written in that semester, namely my ribbons poem, turned Birthday Ribbons in to him. In going through it with me, passing on to me his revision suggestions while praising those images of mine he considered effective, he said it seemed to him to be the most American poem of mine he had seen. Now/ that remark might seem puzzling; so let me demystify it for you. My heritage is 3 parts German and 1 part English, but the English in me is quite (mysteriously) entrenched. However, I was born in Wisconsin, and therefore am supposedly totally American. There. So, at Florida Birthday Ribbons did for me what my lyric narrative, Fond du Lac, had done for me at Iowa. [ last modified: 2008-10-16 ] Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00229olp-poets

See Bill Knott's February 17, 2007, and February 21, 2007, entries at his typepad.com place. - In one of those entries/ his pointing to Jorie Graham led me to poets.org/ where I read 3 of her poems and a 1996 interview of her I found enriching. Also, I became aware of Earth Took of Earth: 100 Great Poems of the English Language, an anthology she edited. I am going to seek it out at the library. - - All of this has led me to consider once again my own situation as a poet, and it moved me to reconfirm what I have long held: I am going to continue to write because I need to; and whether I write superbly or poorly when what I write is compared to what others write is not and cannot/ be an imprisoning concern to me. I am unique, just as each other is, and I have a story to tell; and, yes, I am going to try to tell it as well as I can; but the important points are: I must attend my need to tell it and I must pursue--in the best ways I deem appropriate--the answers to (even if such answers cannot be found) who I am and who each other is and what each dot and ripple is in the mystical warps of space and time and dimensions beyond. Woh! Am I a fool, or what? Something of both. No matter though. I know, as Bill Knott knows--though he is more certain about it than I yet am, Homo sapiens may well be a dead manifestation. Years ago in one of my sonnets I/ recognized that possibility, and made my peace with it. So, though I have/ dozens of times been at the edge of death, I have been/ allowed to go on, and go on I shall, learning, celebrating, treasuring. Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00228a-weather

Nasty Weather

will be blustering in later today and into Saturday/

afterwhich there will be a short lull, and then even

more severe rains (with the possibility of large hail)

will be swiping through Saturday afternoon.  There

also is an off-chance of a tornado somewhere in

the Missouri Ozarks.  Therefore, this system will

be unplugged later today and likely will not be up

again until Sunday.  Given the wind strengths that

we'll be experiencing, I will not be surprised if my

electricity goes out again.  Wuooooooooo ooooo

swish swash heewwwwwwww youuuuuuu pit pit

pit pit  pit pit  pit pit pit  pit pit pit  pit pit pit pit  at

wuooooooooo youuuuuuu

- - - - -

 

 

for copyright information see homepage

} } }

 

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Thursday, February 22, 2007

sw00227a-sexuality

Sexuality "The Salchertian Scale" There's a good chance I have already written about this somewhere herein, but my view is based solely on what I have learned about myself in my going on 67 years of being Earth-alive. It could not, honestly, be any other view of sexuality. However deeply we as humans inter- connect with each other, the fact of the each other can not go away so long as we are allowed to exist as an each. When I emerged from my mother's womb, I became a separate being physically; and I have lived and expect to die as a separate being. Is it a lonely trek? Yes it is. Yet that is not all it is. - So, what have I learned about my sexuality? The first truth is: I cannot be exact about it. The second is that there is a position I maintain which many others do not share: One's sexuality is determined more by how one feels (by what excites one) than by what one does. As I passed through my childhood, I discovered--partly due to a certain incident about which I wrote in veiled terms in one of my poems--I was attracted to my own body, wimpy body that it was and is; and that I was attracted to other males more than to females; but, mostly, that in the end, I actually wasn't much interested in physical sexual activities. That being so, I recently attempted to determine to what degree I was each of these. Here is a possible rating: 60% a sexual non-participant; 25% an autoerotic; 12% a homoerotic; 3% a heteroerotic. Such a rating of myself--what I "know" about myself notwith- standing--may be quite not right, just as I am quite not right*. It is, however, an honest attempt. - During my elementary and high school years I had, roughly, 12 puppy love attachments to males, none of whom were--to my knowledge--ever aware of my desire. During that same period of my existence, I was attracted to 3 different females, one of whom I eventually married. There is a semi-tragic story at the core of that union, but I do not wish to reveal it at this time. Besides, I have written and spoken of it often enough, and it will come to light again when some of my diary entries appear in this weblog. In the meanwhile, certain aspects of it can be gleaned from a number of the sonnets in my 1976: in 2006 work online here. About my encounters with myself, I'll say only this: There were times I nearly did things that could have ended this physical existence I yet have or damaged it and other realms of my being in ways I do not care to dwell on. About my encounters with other males, there were not that many, though a few of them had mystical qualities I have never understood. What I consider to be my "coming out" experience was the first such, and I did years later write a poem about it. I will say that my being easy to fend off while I was young was a blessing. When I was older, there was no need to fend me off because I was never the aggressor. Even when I was in my thirties, I was still a twink; and that was when I became visible. However, I do suspect classmates of mine, especially when I was in high school, had already determined how to label me. - To those of you who have read this far I now suggest: Go read D. H. Lawrence's "The Ship of Death". You should also read James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation". - - - - - * I have frontal lobe and generalized epilepsy which a certain medicine has been keeping under control. Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

sw00226tdp-poem

This Day's Poem tdp022107 22

Epitaph My greatest poems are among the missing. They knew better than I/ what to do.

------- Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

sw00225t-tech

Sprintedon Hollow Technorati Claim Technorati Favorites - I have not, and do not intend to, use this feature. See Technorati if you are interested in it. § Technorati Profile - When I joined/ this blog was known as Sawlcurt's Weblog. Copyright © 2007 Brian A. J. Salchert Thinkiing Lizard - All rights reserved.

sw00224a-twonotes

Two Personal Notes Now 66, I am a retired widower and a gregarious heuristic hermit with sundry interests. I presently reside in Missouri's SW sector, but I was born and raised in Wisconsin; and, until recently, I had long resided in Florida. Poets&Writers Directory * Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00223a-tags

Title Tags and Names

When I had many of my writings in two non-AOL

places, the name for my autobiographical work

(my current "daily" diary/journal musings) in one

place was Brian's Brain, and in the other place:

Edges of Knowledge.  I do have a dozen or

more journals which have never been published

although I have published excerpts online such

as my "At First to Poets" poem which is in my

Donald Duck Journal because that is where I

originally wrote it.    

-

In one of those places I also had pages devoted

to my current heuristic number theory meanders.

Number Theory Investigations was its title.  I had

in the 1990's penned a work entitled Meanderings

of an Amateur Mathematician which I then took

to a store where I was able to make 10 copies and

get them bound in plastic ring binders.  There are

several heuristic mathematical papers I've written

which deal with problems not related to Number

Theory.  Most of those were in my first journal in

AOL space, but IE messaged a concern about the

publisher, and I finally decided to delete that AOL

journal.

-

Speaking of IE, the reason I am no longer at the

places where I had had 6 years worth of efforts

online is because IE indicated suchdispleasure

with them it literally forced me out.  I tried two

other places, one of which I had been briefly at

several years before, but internal difficulties at

those places necessitated I leave them.  Why

am I back here in AOL journal space?  One day

an AOL representative talked me into trying it

again, and so far her thumbs-up attitude has

proven to be warranted.  Although I am doing

this page in the "Text" mode, I normally prefer

doing my own simple "HTML".  As you can see,

the lines here are not single-spaced.  With the

help given at on online site I do not recall the

URL for/ I was able to learn how to get single-

spaced lines in the "HTML" mode.  So while it may

not be best to be here, I am content.

-

If you have perused my weblog you already know

what is here, but some of my major projects here

I want to write about again.  This is centrally a

poem journal which so far has only poems written

by me.  There is a natural number summation

sequence entry.  There are weather entries.  I

have written about certain other poets.  Links to

pages of interest can be found here.  Here and

there I have written about my personal calendar.

I did place my "Notes to Nowhere" pages here as

they originally were composed in a 123 Publish

space.  Being somewhat an eclectic, I can never

be sure what I might write.  Back to the poems:

in and after 1976 I wrote a 366-sonnet work for

which I used that national bicentennial year for

that work's title.  In this journal is a 352-sonnet

2006 version of it.  As a writer, I have long been

an outsider, but late in 1972 when I was yet in

the academic sphere my first book, a book which

had one letter in it but was otherwise all poems,

was published.  The 2007 version of that book is

in this journal.  Most of my working years I was a

night auditor in the hospitality industry, a time

during which I became more an outsider.  I began

my own "company" and for a while used various

pen names.  Such was the case in 1980 when one

of the books I published in the cassette medium,

a book of poems in which each poem evidences a

different posture, made its Thinking Lizard way into

the world and into the Library of Congress.  In this

journal there is a 2007 version of that collection of

postures.  I do have ongoing here a "This Day's

Poem" series, and yesterday I began placing a work

of poem sets online here.  Both of these ventures

are unclosed in that neither is already a completed

work.  There are other complete books of poems I

intend to place here, but I do know when any one

of them will show.

 

Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, February 19, 2007

sw00222s-set1.tc7.cat.ditty

Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty [ The cat ditty below was published online about six years ago, but I don't at this moment-- 10:19pm 2006-05-12-- know where, though I do recall it being Google-accessible for a time. I have sent an e-mail query to/ the company I think/ might be able to find out, but I doubt I will get a response. 05/15/06: The date on the letter-size sheet I found it typed on/ is June 13, 1979, and it is signed: Alden St. Cloud. 2007 050 02 4 1 As it happens, I did get a reply; but the woman who sent it said they were not able to find it in their archives. ] - - - "Where'd the Cat Go?" Who knows, who knows where the kitty-kat goes, following her nose through the rains & snows; or, how the sun rose between her toes. Who knows. Who knows. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00221s-set1.tc6.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty "The Chair" The platform rocker, a long while around-- its wood: maple, its upholstery: aged/ rough olive-green patterned with fanciful blossoms of rusty green & rusty orange-- that I use when I read, and often leave a book on, is also the chair Tillie sometimes uses when she is tuckered. She approaches it with a quick mew, then locates where her body displaces the dull indoor air, & ignores my book with a mild disdain, giving it merely a why-is-this-thing-still-here glance/ as she settles beyond it. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00220s-set1.tc5.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty "Tillie Dreams" The rocker moves. It is Tillie changing position: sniffing grass / tearing, licking choice blades & spikes of seeds while she saves a corner of her eye-- the left one / the right one-- for a sudden bug to chase; then changing position: doing a hump stretch to loosen up/ for a leap to the roof of a garage to nip a pecking pigeon / & sail in a gentle curve back to the lawn as she circles down to the faded-olive seat; then changing position: capturing a cloud. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty "In a Favored Place" Curled in the chair as if in air on her left side so her whites hide for the most part as her slow heart visible in her pulsing skin while legs stretch out & her tail's stout & almost goes to her tired toes, our Tillie rests from moods & guests, and/ keeps her grace. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty "Thief" Entering the kitchen, she fills time bathing herself while I am making my cheese & cold meat sandwich; then, beyond the table, hops the less than 18 inches onto the windowsill, & shifting her head from behind the open curtain, springs to the cupboard while I am easing the jar of salad dressing into its place in the refrigerator door; and, just as I turn, looking up, jumps down with the red tie for the bread wrapper dangling from her beelining mouth. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty "2 Visions" Early one morning, though I knew she was passing the foot of our bed-- I could hear her mewing, and see the end half of her tail gliding above the static waves of our covers-- I hallucinated Tillie sitting in the doorway, the spirit of her in the doorway, silent & proper; and while I tried several times to shake it away, it wouldn't disappear, but stayed what seemed an unusually long while, until I thought "Oh no!-- as cheering as she often is, I don't think I could handle two "Tillies"; and once more/ shook my head. And that dream the other night!-- the white paws, white breast, white triangle (mini-pick beauty mark) to the left of her black nose, & the otherwise dominant medium gray & those amber eyes snuggling the solid lighter gray of another cat, the two of them impishly sitting toward me between the closet door & the bed as if they both belonged there. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Sets: set 1 - Tillie 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty "Amusement" On the other side of the bed where an extra blanket's crumpled in the corner, meowings & thumpings: Tillie's clawless front paws stuffing the injured 3-inch wire covered & flanged with red paper (the bread wrapper tie) under the worn old rose hump; then backing off, leading her crouched body, waiting for the right moment/ to attack, bat the viper, snatch it from its shelter, raising it to the top of her stretch & collapsing backwards, snapping it/ out of her mouth to bat, twist, hide it again . . ./ and again. ----------------------------------------- links to rest of set: - 2 Visions - Thief - In a Favored Place - Tillie Dreams - The Chair - Where'd the Cat Go? - - [ last modified: 2008-10-16 ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Sets: a rather amorphous book of poems sgc = Sets general contents 77 poems in 5 sets [ last modified: 2008-10-15 ] 02/19/07 Due to an impasse with Teasings, I've decided to begin revealing a book that is not yet a book, and may never be a completed book. The only reason for its existence at all is that it contains definable groups of poems, which is why I've entitled it: Sets. The first of these sets is going to be my cat poem set, all but one of which center on the first cat Janice and I acquired. Of the three cats we lived with, it was the largest and most enjoyable. We never did have more than one cat at a time. - first set: Tillie - in which are 6 poems related to a once real cat, and 1 cat ditty related to no real cat. See sw00216sc-links through sw00222s-ditty - Tillie - - second set: Birthday Ribbons - which is a poem to myself: 6 ribbons, with each a different color and each on a different day See sw00230sc-links - Birthday Ribbons - - third set: Thatah - a set of 6 formalistic poems written in October of 1966. See swp00245sc-links - Thatah - - fourth set: Accompaniments: Where There Is Room are 37 poems I wrote for W. S. Merwin on pages 3-15; 17-28; 30, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 49, 51, and 65 of my copy of W. S. Merwin's Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment in and around 1973. One I had to revise extensively. - Accompaniments: Where There Is Room - - fifth set: String of Days - 21 poems of 4 lines each for the 21 days from 27Dec82 to 16Jan83 - String of Days - - Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, February 18, 2007

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Calendars February 18, 2007, is/was the first day of the Chinese New Year. If calendars interest you, and if you haven't already been there, go to http://webexhibits.org/calendars/ I read about the history of both the Chinese calendar and the calendars the Mayas used. Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, February 17, 2007

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Regarding sonnet opus 1976: in 2006 as of February 17, 2007 As I am able to I am going to replace the fifteen sonnets I deleted, inserting each revised/new sonnet in the location it was deleted from. Doing this may take a long time. I may not even live long enough. - The first of these is for year-day two. There is a chance I will insert it today. - I did. There are now 352 sonnets. - - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Power Outage and Gusty Winds

At some time between AM 3:17 and 4:10 a power outage, which may have been caused by the gusty winds lashing through Springfield, occurred. At AM 4:10 I was awakened by noises from my computer system. I extricated myself by tossing the comforter over me toward my feet. Then I slipped from my bed and into my sandals. I had some trouble keeping my balance, but I unplugged and turned off my system's surge protector, stumbled to the bathroom for a few moments, & upon returning--because the high-speed modem was still beeping--disconnected the phone jack. At AM 11:12 I felt the gusts had subsided enough. I have been online since, though there still are gusts billowing about. The power returned at AM 4:50. It is PM 1:06, and sunlight is back. What was an all-gray sky has given way to a partly cloudy sky. Brian A. J. Salchert

Friday, February 16, 2007

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A Summary of Sorts

2007 047 02 3 5 Summary - In this journal, among various other pages, are three books of my poems and another (This Day's Poem) which is being written in an inspirational manner. 1976: in 2006, a work of 351 sonnets, is the first book. The second book is Rooted Sky 2007, which was originally published in November of 1972. The third book is Postures 2007, which was originally published in 1980. At the moment I am not certain which book will be the fourth, but I am leaning toward letting it be a late 1980's 18-poem chapbook entitled Teasings because in it is an unusual significant-to-me lengthy poem I feel this is a good moment for it to appear again. - 2007 048 02 3 6 Update: There now are 352 sonnets in 1976: in 2006. Whether there will ever be more I cannot say, but my intention is to fill all the gaps. I am not concerned about when the revised or new sonnets are written. 1976 was a work of 366 sonnets, and I want the current version to also contain 366 sonnets. - - - - - [ Other than the automated number each entry is given, I may devise my own identification system for the entries in this journal. ] Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

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3 Hmmm Moments -

Just downloaded and installed 17 updates. The present time is PM 11:17. Several days ago I got a $13.15 refund check. Today I paid $13.15 for a box of film for my Polaroid 600. Recently at the pharmacy I use, I needed 58 cents. I dumped out the coins in my coin purse: one quarter, three dimes, and three pennies. - - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

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So even if there isn't any viable St. Valentine, and even if no birds mate on this winter day, if the colors about and about delighted your molecules, good. Blessings on everyone. - Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

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02 11 08 Some information on this page is no longer true. 04 09 07 atj = about this journal - The claim immediately below is no longer valid because the name of this journal no longer is Salchert's Weblog: It is Sprintedon Hollow. - - Brian A. J. Salchert Claims Salchert's Weblog I, Brian A. J. Salchert, hereby claim Salchert's Weblog as properly mine. I also thank AOL for the space and the technology I use to manifest my journal: Salchert's Weblog. If my doing this here seems a touch goofy, then it does. - See Technorati Profile and Directory at www.pw.org - - My email address is: thinkinglizard@aol.com - My journal's address is: http://journals.aol.com/thinkinglizard/bajs/ - When you see a 5-number string such as 2007 044 02 3 2 you are seeing my personal date for the 13-month calendar I created last year. Each month in my calendar, except for month 13, has 28 days. Today's date in the calendar in use is: 2007 02 13. My date above equals today's date. The second number in my date is the day of the year. The fourth number is the week of the month. The fifth number is the day of week. If you add 13 to 31 you get 44. If you add 2 to 14 to 28 you also get 44. Any date in my calendar which at year's end will be a number containing more digits than it presently does will have one or two zeros in front of it. That is why "044" and "02" for today. Month 13 will always have one free day which I have decided to name "Happy Day"; but, in a leap year, it will always have a second free day which I have decided to call "Love Day". I want each year and each month of each year to begin on a Monday, even though I am using numbers in place of day names. I do not think I am the first to envision this, but I want day 7 to always be Sunday. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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This Day's Poem tdp021307 21

As the Desk Lamp Flickers All day yesterday mists of rain, and late in the day heavier rain; and this morning who he 'ou who he 'ou from before sunrise and after sunrise between the buildings: the north side of this one and the south side of that one merely a red zone away: gusts of wind modulating wave after wave after wave like a rush of demons or ghosts of the dead or the end of the known world who you who you who youuuuuu beeeee be you be you be you whoooooo heeee who he who he who he hyouuuuuuu whoooooo And I here-- knees up under half a comforter-- my back, neck, head resting against pillows four deep, listening: who you youuu weee hyewww-ew-'ou hwitcha-ah-ahhhhhh: deciding then to get up again, squinting at the 7:30 in the glare from my cell widget: whooooooooo hewwwwwwwwww hewwwwwwwwww hew-ee-ew you it you it you it youuuuuuu

- - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, February 12, 2007

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Postures 2007 - Overview 2007 043 02 3 1 All 57 of the poems which are presently in Postures 2007 are now up. They are a strange lot. Yet among them are 2 sestinas and 2 odes. Yes, there are sonnets; but there is also an edgy ballad and a sly selection spoken by an animal housed in a museum. That piece has three-line stanzas in which the final words in each line in a given stanza rhyme. Oh, there are, of course, numerous free verse poems. Also, there is one villanelle, and several short pieces which are for children; but the only way the volume coheres is in the variety of stances which can be found in it. Even each of the poems about death has its own posture. [ 2008-06-12 belated note: For familial reasons, a poem I found among my papers was added as #23 of Side 1. This book now has 58 poems. ] - - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #35 from Side Two "Francis Grey Owl, Walking" Tumbleweed, skeleton of earth, what warriors dance in the airy circlings of your bones? what squaws & maidens cry? - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #34 from Side Two "Epiphanies" [ "Epiphanies" is a poem based on a true story told to me by a high school bow-and-arrow deer hunter in 1973. It is an attempt by me to vicariously experience his experience. ] Dreaming the blood of deer as the sun dies redder & redder, I kneel with the wind in the corn, set my bow, listen. The leaves barely whisper, my spine knots from the cold; the spaces before me grow small. Crackles! A doe! Her fawn. Fingers, eyes/ tighten; the deer sink in the stalks. What sun I inhaled turns shadow. Then, just to my side, a buck! in this Indian day's last light; & I see him gutted & hanging, his wildness beguiling my tongue, but can only look/ wonder, caught where I can't let go. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #33 from Side Two

"Four for John Ashbery" 1. Erasures Begin with three white nines chalked on a green board: trees / people bowed in a wind; oval nerfs standing on their tails; lasso symbols. Erase to three zeros: stylized eggs; invitations to dive in. Erase to crescents, reeds, parentheses: . ' ' 2. Bones that Speak / Flesh that Reasons Heavy with seeds, this is our garden which--when rains & rays of sun step on--explodes into roots, stems, leaves, blossoms: strictured irregularities that pulse / breathe 3. Passages Winds thread weeds. Bodies thread madness. White-hot deeds. White-hot sadness. Nailed needs. Nailed gladness. Spirits slither. Ignorance stabs. 4. Portrait Every few seconds loud clouds flash their roots of fire, brains crest with inspirations; stars dig in, waiting for arrivals: in the atmospheres of carrion hearts the luck of double rainbows: soles held by earths crossed, heels and toes, relaxing & tightening daring bowels, wander a little, rock: bit by bit, time swallows us; we do not digest well.

[ "Four for John Ashbery" was written when I was using my pen name, Alden St. Cloud. It was published in 1980 on page 37 in Vol. 14 No. 2 & 3 (the fifth season) of Wisconsin Review. I have made some minor revisions to it. - Today is Thursday, August 24, 2006. Brian Arthur Salchert ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, February 11, 2007

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Postures 2007: #32 from Side Two "Memorandum" The day I learned, a 3-step approach lefthander taught me. Odd. Having watched, and heard, the pros, I should have started sooner, & properly; but I, muddy romantic (a kid determined to wait until his 16th birthday, more into when than how or where or why no matter his supposed desire to be great, holding the ball comfortably before him, his left hand underneath it even though it was just an alley ball & didn't fit right, the smoothness required hard to master, depending so much-- as it must-- on his knowledge of both his own body's characteristics and those of/ the objects of/ his serious play, eyes concentrating on the third arrow, the 1-3 pocket, his distance to the foul line carefully measured, his position, posture, balance checked & set, yet his crucial first step and pushaway entered too hurriedly to create that flow and establish that direction needed/ to carry his ball driving into its target at the height of its power and/ at/ its optimum angle & speed & roll to topple from its forward apex to its 4-pin base the smart triangle of precisely arranged 10 ring-necked pins), foul, gutter; spin naught but the pins of pride to the floor. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #31 from Side Two "To My Student Poets" Tonight the beginning of acorns tonight the sea the sea I am standing before you like the leaves in a wind- rattled tree Yesterday I would have said the dead know but not tonight You have come to me to understand how language moves & you can move it but I can only give you silence Today the beginning of acorns Tonight words grow down [ This poem is for the students in my first creative writing class. It was originally written on 8-31-71/ and revised on 10-3-72. For the revision I used a pen containing red ink. Both the original & the revision are on the front flyleaf pages of a copy of the paperback Contemporary American Poetry, selected and introduced by Donald Hall, and was first published--it is now 9:11pm, and today is Saturday, 8-26-06-- in 1962/ with yearly reprints from 1964 thru 1970, meaning that my copy is from the 1970 reprint batch. The publisher is Penguin Books Inc., 7110 Ambassador Road, Baltimore, Maryland 21207. Donald Hall holds the copy- right. I have chosen to post my revision here. ] [ 2007 042 02 2 7: There will be more about this, and about that night, later. ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #30 from Side Two "Between / Within" Rising, falling, the leaves could not quite cross His window's length, and now the wind wrinkled Less and less those spades. There would be dying Even there. He tries to forget that water Closing over her, that torrid distance Through night brightened by the suck and whine of fire. But how? Under what should orange fire Be hidden? Under the weight of a cross? Clenching his pillow to stuff the distance Of total blindness into his wrinkled Eyes, distance to shut away water, Fire, he wrestles with what has no dying Outside of--sleep, hurls his pillow; and dying With the wind, arches over his bed, a fire Himself, choking. Singing beside the water That night, was it so, where neither one could cross, Enter, crumpling toward the ashes, as wrinkled Again, he squirms on his sheet? Distance, Distance? I saw him drop. I know the distance; But the heart? If his body were dying, My senses wouldn't be so lost, wrinkled; But it's mostly his heart which remembers the fire And whatever barrier he did not cross, Yet feels he should have. She used to water That wildflower on our desk. Tom watched her water It often, having brought it a moon's distance After all, for her. He looks at the cross Above it: her gift. Cross, plant: dying Unites them too, now. With no divined fire To keep earth's creatures green, they have wrinkled In their thirst. He rises--as his wrinkled Bedding shows. Shall I follow him: to the water, The North Platte, where that orange fire Sparked the green to black; or any distance? His heart is his, not mine; his dying--. Falling, rising; Tom, Sharon, flower, cross-- Between these a confusing, wrinkled distance Conjures a wall: the water of their dying, And that human kind of fire/ he has yet to cross. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007 #29 from Side Two "November (the Last Day of)" Overcast airs, their warmth, hour into hour, dropping from near sixty to below freezing, all this Sunday long/ siren through our windows as you, Percy Bysshe Shelley, borne to me more heated, more cold, more human/ by one Richard Holmes/ than I ever would have seen, scream across your Adriatic tomb, wrestle with the macabre, elope, divorce, menage, entrance, politicize, and con, and moving by necessity from house to nervous house, moving by whim, by art, explore the end of each new thing, the source, till I am bugged by vessels torn apart and fantasize rare healings, mind in heart. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #28 from Side Two "To Us" [ George Bernard Shaw said that if Man ever hopes to transcend to a higher level he must exercise a heightened "command over himself" and concurrently go to those places where Nature retains "command over Man". - I leave it to you to find his exact words. ] The matter of our beings Spattering into the deadly air; Forests turning inward-- Silent, bare; The movements of our rivers Slowing everywhere: I do not know. Technos, Technos, Pinching out the stars; Butterflies and woollies Beneath our cars: Nothing that we look at Will be ours . . . Who do not know. Sarah, Johnny, Pat, Chalking on a wall, Wonder at the breezes, Why they crawl: Empty is your wisdom If Homo sapiens falls, And does not know. Consciousness encumbered, Knowledge that conceals; Broken eggshells, Broken fields: Oh God of our awareness, We are heels, Who cannot know. Holy, holy, holy, Wholly, wholly, whole, Bodies without number Penetrate each soul: Earth is what we make it, Pole to pole, Who will now know. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #27 from Side Two "20° Breeze" The snow fence crackles like a paper bag [ "20° Breeze" was originally published in Abbey. ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #26 from Side Two

"From this high bridge" i drop a stone a duckfoot shape fluttering indian red speckled green a moulting summer tanager in a long slow glide over rapid russet water & stands of cedar a soundless splash of light

------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #25 from Side Two "November trees" scraggly grey emerge through fog arrayed with diamonds ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #24 from Side Two "Registration" [ Explanation: The following is what I call a found poem/ because the content of it is not mine, but the words of one David Max, a student who (some 35 years ago) came to me for registration counseling, which is why the "Registration" title. While there, he asked about how a poem is written. I do not remember my response, or even if I had one; but I decided to listen closely to him, hoping I could somehow use his words--in the exact order he spoke them-- to create an example of how a poem might be written. That is why I kept the 4-letter word in it. Only this poem's form is mine. That is why I chose both his stress-filled words of the moment and also those words he used to reveal a certain more pleasant past. That is why I placed his words on the page as I did, and why I presented our example to him before he left. - The opportunities which foster poems can come at any time from any where; therefore, those who would write poems need to be ever/ ready for them. ] for David Max "Good grief! Not gonna have any time to eat on Thursdays what with all these classes during the noon hour-- shit! Did I really want this schedule? - Took a trip once to Oregon with a friend We spent entire afternoons tromping along rivers not even the rain stopped us-- we ate apples & swam." ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, February 10, 2007

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Postures 2007: #23 from Side Two "In the Arcadia High Cafeteria" To the dance of the pots & pans, the chance meetings of the pots & pans, where all the latest gossip's turned & tossed I, with my awkward steps & words, shout to talk and if what I say waltzes right on out there or boogies am satisfied and simply hope my listeners by their sounds & moves can tell me how they feel, can boo or laugh, or silently but well across my brain's gray floor draw patterns with their eyes. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #22 from Side Two "From a third-floor window" two girls making a snowman who will not be made arms quickly formed punched on his body fall off Maybe his eyes if they looked would tell them something but there isn't time and besides he must have arms Not that they want him to hug them but even a snowman fan-twig headdress & all ought to be whole So the chestnut girl prances again into drifts though he will not laugh and the grayish blonde stoops around him though he will not speak And finally after arms & arms they are satisfied and the window seems like a canvas happily painted on For my memory's sake I turn from it but within the hour am back to nothing but bumps of snow my headdress spread on the ground ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #21 from Side Two "For a Marriage" Things human begin; things human end: some in the haze of happenstance; some in the brightness of rite. Today we gather with two to once more grow into one so that shadows shrink in despair as our ages dance into flight. Loves wake on a leaf; hates nod in a hole: each of us birds of day; each of us birds of night. Fingers fidget & grasp in holy anticipation, feeling the real & imagined rings in their charged delight. Lord of hours we think we waste, Lord of moraines & lakes & sky, Lord of beings we fear, Lord of the rude & slight, Lord of labors in & out, Lord of re-creation, bless our joys / bless our pains, and ring this marriage we celebrate with life-fulfilling light. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #20 from Side Two "Newlyweds End-of-Rite Petition" Father, Son, Spirit, Mary, be with us as we walk toward the doors; be with us as we savor the air. Father, Son, Spirit, Mary, be with us when our spirits stomp the floors; be with us when our bodies touch with care. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #19 from Side Two "Wedding Toast" (for Janet and Hiroshi Araoka October 17, 1970) The sun rises; the eagle flies. Husband, wife, Springtime. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #18 from Side Two "Recalling Mr. Tabet (1907-1972)" It's been a long while now since my last haircut; it'll be longer still; it was not so long twenty years ago. Sitting, turning, waiting, his fingers/voice (touches I think were gentle; sounds I think were kind, yet cannot bring to my vision), time after time changing me, I grew quiet/ and daydreamed. To the looks in his mirror, the smiles, the simple experience of being there was what I marked, and will ever care to. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #17 from Side Two "Of the Passing of George Arnold" Closing in on Easter & the marshmallow bunnies & the eggs dyed & named & the front door's window & the clematis leaves, brown, & the trees, gray, Jim's moving beyond to the bright realm of the spirit, home of the fighter of dragons, turns my seeing around to a budding of quiet joy because this uncle was one who would not/ wait for spring. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #16 from Side Two

"After the Funerals of a Friend and an Uncle" 1 The dead have no way of looking the same as you or I Cursed in changes from fertile eggs to wrinkles blessed in the air and earth they have moved beyond our indecisions left our tables Yellow waxy deprived of blood they cannot blush or whiten 2 Milkweed in the circling field blooms dries splits and we don't want to know

[ "After the Funerals . . ." was originally published in Sou'wester. ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #15 from Side Two "Funeral Words" Whoever dies, dies not, but like a sometime maple rings and rings and puts forth leaves and new wood, and in brilliance pulls back; is a joy, a sorrow, a grace in the soils and winds and lights and rains of the memories of those of us who press on, Earth-alive. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #14 from Side Two "Watermelon" You have no conception of what you are in black seeds, white seeds, me no conception yet your music cleans us all even to the root-ends of trees And the sharp stars-- if I surf in the waters of your sound swirl and/ rainbow on My hair is full of butterflies my teeth a feasting pink your blessings light my spine [ "Watermelon" (the name of a band) was originally published in Wisconsin Review. ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #13 from Side Two "From Brian to Brian" So here I am reading Frank O'Hara intentionally yet without intention a two-legged creature who thinks and thinks he understands who at this moment hunches over words both Frank's & his because whatever it is he is or was sets him here drifts his thoughts to flowers bricks thinking about his thinking what's happening in another room outside-- the presents passed 12-29-72 ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #12 from Side Two

"Friends" It is late April and still no leaves I am thirty-one Last night I overheard a man say: Every once in a while you come across someone who is real They have no color It makes no difference whether they are white black or Chinese They are just real The girl he was speaking to and I agreed On the jukebox with my quarter the voice of Don McLean giving us his "Vincent" the frustrations of days old and long What I spell for you is piecemeal and unrhythmic (It is better that way) Some I write in my office some in my apartment some where I am now watching a gopher scurry past and the small brown waves and the chill sentences of the wind and May 12th & its sun watching teenagers atop the lighthouse spread horizontal wondering about the driftwood and my goosepimpled skin and the swallow banking by and the hunting gull shaking the ghost of Whitman-- Are they biting? yelled from a Chevy-- shaking the Bible or Man watching a bronzed grackle bathe itself at the shore leaving discovering again the windless warmth of my car What I spell for you is happenstance selected and rhythmic (It is better that way) There is always too much death I am a small American who wants to play softball Seated now in a brown-black chair we tried to sell but couldn't I listen to Janice preparing supper think that these verses may be a diary may be a letter ask myself What does it matter? scratch the eczema on my scalp stop The air settles Once again I am tired "Okay! it's time to eat!" Later looking at me Janice says "Such pretty red slippers and such a pretty red shirt!" And I think: Such a pretty-- Anyhow a small boy I don't even know V's me and calls "Peace, brother" I V back as we near each other walking the early evening of May 13th Saturday Sitting here naked writing this poem watching the phone waiting for Mark my psyche's divided my psyche encompasses all Simply what I am no less no more Homer Dante Shakespeare me in a moment ofdeath I could slice the world let its blood spurt through the universe and smile and smile Imagination supercedes the farthest star yet is vanquished by the merest atomic particle Whether I meet you on a stairway or meet you by a sign or meet you in a California stream I meet you where you are

------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Poet Presences: Kyger / Rich 2007 041 02 2 6 Yesterday was Joanne Kyger day. It may also have been Adrienne Rich day. (I've been reading about them and poems by them.) Certainly, Kyger--similar to Rich--is not afraid to reveal what she thinks or to deliver to a reader the tracks of her emotions. I could say more, but I would rather you read a few of their poems, and come to your own conclusions. There is a set of "political" poems by Joanne Kyger online, and there is a set of "love" poems by Adrienne Rich in volume 2 of The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. - Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00180olp-reflection

Don't Go Away - Love & Live - Share & Strive

"To Whomsoever Thinks It's Over, or Should Be" (a reflection on a Bill Knott thought) If you think you should be gently eased into the congregation of the dead, try venturing into where I lay my hermit head; and I'm not about to leave the mix, even though I am 66. If, of course, God says its time to go, then go I shall. Meanwhile, I say: Forge on. Yeats did.

Brian A. J. Salchert

Friday, February 9, 2007

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Postures 2007: #11 from Side Two "Apples" For weeks I have heard them drop from the landlord's tree, providing our neighbors children with broken food and missiles eyes laugh through the alley air; but this September night, as my pen waits in the ancient cricket silence, exactly at ten another bleached yellow squats in the lawn, and looking again through my den window this eve of Michael's Sunday, panning from shed to bruised branches to telephone wires at the tree's top, I follow the dark of its leaves, its gouged trunk, to incinerator ash; and knowing the tales, and remembering one robin's thrust, tell myself the children now dream of tomorrows when apples will not fall, when sea / time / memory are distances overcome. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #10 from Side Two "Alone in the Smith's Apartment" their cats survey me I turn away stand my albums on a canvass chair watch how the black one nuzzles them gaze through the windows By the register the white-and-grey turns on its back sleeps In the leafless trees the silence sharpens My past shoots through me like pieces of bone ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #9 from Side Two "James Tate" Break ground, he smiles, break ground, sailing his shovel high. Don't write of flowers; open your self, kaleidoscope; let the world's one in-- worms, wheels, crabgrass bones, mannequins. It's not to China you should go, or the jaded sea, but everywhere! Look, you think a shovel's just for digging? Listen, break ground. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #8 from Side Two "Imagined Words to James Tate at an Iowa Workshop Session" You, Jim, are natural, unlike me, stuck as I am stuck in my sweet soft knowledge of Keats holding me, hiding me. Sing on, Jim, even the birds will listen. Sing on, even the winds will hear. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #7 from Side Two "After Reading Hamlet Once Again" What have we to our names, if not our acts: the driving down of roots with every thought, the setting of foundations as each day begins, the movement of these limbs toward more than petaled promises, the grace of senses unified--like steel, and stone, and glass-- in building? A hundred times we walk down halls or pass by trees, and unaware, as often miss/ how their surfaces crack: how water seeps through ice, and dust congeals in crevices, and hard buds split: how mouths curve down or up, and joys or angers sound along their dancing tongues. A hundred times and more we fail because/ we dream too much. If we are what we make and what makes us, what lifts, preserves our persons, nourishes? A flower lives by minerals and sun; a building by the heads and hands of men-- and every bloom and beam, each in its time, to ears, in silence, perked, will speak of them. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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Postures 2007: #6 from Side Two "Tobin" [ Someone had said the poppies were falling when the news came, and so was it remembered. ] "Here, we are what we make and what makes us", the old man says; but Jeremy, my son, I am not sure. Each day we weed his rows, slicing the quack and dandelion roots or lifting the shallower roots of pigweed and thistles, breaking clods; and--turning brown, I wonder more. I feel less near to this. I am not concerned/ with carrots and beets, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower. Each day we weed his rows. I don't know. The summers seem to grow in length to me; I feel the earth has withered, become bland. All the patient excitement disappears. The rain, the sun, the life, the rising green are only/ happenings now: morbid facts to measure passings. You see these fingers? I used to boast of them, but something's changed: my body aches, and it shrivels my heart. But what of the old man? He is happy. Oh yes, and I am not so old or weak. But he is settled in his place, secure, the way a gardened flower is, a star. He can rest until he dies, but Tobin remains and hoes. I know, my son, I know you would work, would care for your father. Yes. I would be happy, perhaps. But what use? All my life I have sweated on the land: cleaned it, groomed it, fortified it; and now-- what good?! A broken horse is shot; a weed is tossed into some pile for burning. So, "we are what we make". Have I done poorly? Has all my quiet work been senseless, wrong? No, father. Besides, it does not matter what the old man says. We do what we can." Yes, Jeremy, but how could I accept (or ever be content with) a rocking chair while life persists in these two legs, though strength seeps out. I'd flounder, fume, would not sit down-- unless to die. It is a war in me. You understand. I could not gracefully age, not knowing what I know. The loneliness would tear into me like a rifle shell. You see the poppies, Jeremy, the poppies-- ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

Thursday, February 8, 2007

sw00173a-beinghuman

Thought Vignette on Being Human As I recall, John Ashbery said in an interview: ". . . we don't know anything", a position I am slowly becoming okay with. Certainly, we humans--however amazing our brains seem-- are yet--and well may ever be--quite piddly manifestations. Therefore, what we conclude is rational is likely no more than a speck of what is actually rational in the context of the universe. The import of inspiration, intuition, emotion, expectation, guessing, and the like is far more evident in our daily doings than logic is or needs to be. Where am I going with this? Come back later to find out. For now, though, I can say this: they are realms beyond. Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00172a-4notes

4 Quick Notes 2007 039 02 2 4 I saw two juncos out in the yard space on this building's north side this morning. Several days ago there was a small flock of them out there. I do not recall having ever seen juncos before. According to a book about Missouri birds which I got from a Springfield library, there are 4(?) varieties of juncos in this state. They are winter birds here. My guess is what I saw were the slate-colored type. - Have decided to quit using the Flow Break designation. - Due to an email from a relative regarding a gifted young girl from Sandpoint, Idaho, and due to an impasse with the link provided in that email, I got into a Google search which led me to a site with 61 comments on it centering on this artist. I read nearly all of what was there, and because there may yet be an opportunity for me to place a comment of my own on that page, I've bookmarked it. Much of the what was said dealt with the God/no God issue and the numerous ramifications of that. I am letting my brain wrestle with that and with the eventual structure of my response, if I share one. - Have been daily reading poems online at various sites. Have also been reading--as I am moved to--poems and other information in 3 library books: the 1982 The Postmoderns: The New American Poetry Revised and the third edtion of the two volume The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Years ago I owned copies of The New American Poetry and The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics but I must have given them away. - - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

sw00171tdp-poem

This Day's Poem tdp020707b 20 Miner Poet I am a miner poet. I dig for things. Some days I do not find anything. Other days I do. Maybe what I find isn't worth digging for, but I dig for it anyway. Maybe, on the other hand, any thing I find is worth digging for. Did you find anything today? ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00170tdp-ditty

This Day's Poem tdp020707 19

Valentine Ditty Cupid's such a stupid thing: bow and arrow on the wing -- hit your heart and make it sob for any blot or any blob. Someone needs to take that angel and somewhere somehow rearrange all of his quirks that sting us oddly so he can't be so ungodly.

- - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

sw00169a-interview

West Bend News - "Spice of Life" Therein, on February 4, 1977, an article entitled "poetry / brian salchert" is. Marc Eisen wrote the that article, presented eleven of my poems, nine of which are from Rooted Sky. One other is from 1976. The eleventh is now in Postures 2007. The conversation I had with Marc may have taken place outside. There is a picture of me. It shows me standing outside. I am wearing my parka, but its hood is down. Behind me two walls of some brick building meet, forming a protective corner for me; yet my facial expression seems slightly stern. - At that time, the title of the sonnet from 1976 was "82. March 22nd". I had written it for a co-worker at the then Holiday Inn where I was the main night auditor. The nine from Rooted Sky are "Snow", "The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time", "Beauty", "Prosody", "The Administrator", "Being a Poet", "Admonition", "The Mystics", and "Martha,". "Funeral Words" is the 11th, a short opinion poem from Postures. - Apparently, after a pondering pause, I told him I had written several thousand poems. If that is so, I must confess I was waxing hyperbolic. He did append in his commentary: ". . . though it's clear the numbering of them is unimportant." Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00168a-colors

Brian Salchert - - Uncovered the binot that was

* * * * * Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, February 5, 2007

sw00167o-national.dl.id

National DL ID For many years I have favored a National DL, but when an AOL item regarding what is now in process revealed some details and asked readers to vote yes/no/not sure, I decided to vote NO, even though I do not participate in such surveys--I have an aversion to surveys-- regularly. What I would like to see is a law which would create a basic commonality on certain issues so that moving from one state to another would be less of a hassle than it now is for someone who wishes to continue to drive. Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, February 4, 2007

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Postures 2007: #5 from Side Two "Spider" We watch her body swing from twig to spur, metronomic silver--in the sun; how each long sweep sets girders there for her which from her dusky abdomen ooze, lug; how building as if/ she would divide the air, eleven times/ crosses the fatal hub, & seems at moments falling, floating there. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00165p-poem4s2

Postures 2007: #4 from Side Two "Systems" Here, where the heart spins smoothly around an inner fire, mothers winds spattered with clouds, fathers flesh / bones / scars, scours its surface with windings of green, the finger shakes, the shifting begins. ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00164p-poem3s2

Postures 2007: #3 from Side Two "Tonight" we shall leave this place changed not so much as apples change or birds or clouds yet nonetheless changed for the words between us lighter than we dream heavier than we are the words that move unbrellas arms will as the Indians knew live forever and the motions of my hand your eyes forever If I press my thumbprint into this wood drive a sliver into your tongue greet you with wine and kisses and turn abashed you do the same So this night like a ragged child will pass and the black berries just after the rain [ "Tonight" was originally published in William Kloefkorn's magazine, Saltillo Winter 1974. ] ------- Brian A. J. Salchert

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