Autobio On this Year-day 120 this entry will be a count of the poems, ditties, and mutt objects in my tlbajs journal. . 11:17 AM May 11, 2007 Scroll down to "Okay" tally and suggestion note. You can use the above Journal Links Center e-whip to go to all of the major Sprintedon Hollow entries. 2008-01-31 6:11 PM Regarding the sentence immediately above: Obviously/ I removed the link mentioned, but it is near the bottom of the homepage/// which can be linked to below. - "Author's Quirky Introduction" is the initial Sprintedon Hollow entry. In it are the first two poems of my This Day's Poem chapbook which is otherwise known as simply TDP. Three poems related to it which are not specifically in it are under the general title: 3 Tonalities. In today's count I am including them in TDP as "Tonality 1" / "Tonality 2" / "Tonality 3": 3 poems/ because even though the same words are in each, their tonal differences warrant this separateness. They are at the sw00016tdp entry. There also is a TDP poem of which there is an imagined discussion and a consequent re-vision of that poem on the same entry. That re-vision is today being raised to separate-poem status. Those two poems along with the intervening words are at my sw00002tdp-2poems page. It appears the TDP links entry may need to be upgraded. If so, I will do that later today. With these changes, there are 40 "poems" in the complete TDP online chapbook. [12:34 PM] Made some link fixes. - 1976: in 2006 comes next. Consisting presently of 352 sonnets--366 sonnets were in 1976, the original 1980 version of a work intended to celebrate the USA's bicentennial--it is to date my most ambitious and complex endeavor. See 2006/12/30/sw00056usabysc in archives. - One awareness letter and 47 poems, the last being a somewhat long argumentative interior dialogue, follow. The original version of this work was printedin 1972. I named it Rooted Sky. Its present name is Rooted Sky 2007. See 2007/01/07sw00063rsc. 5-11-07 In order that you may more clearly understand how I think, or (more accurately) thought, read the May, 1970, letter. - Then comes a 1980 volume originally called Postures. This book presently has 57 poems, and it now is Postures 2007. See sw00137pc. - My ongoing Sets project is composed of sets of poems. Each set has a common tie. In the first of the four sets so far, the tie is "cat". In set two the tie is "ribbons". In the third set the tie is "quadrunelle". In the fourth set the tie is W. S. Merwin's 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment. Other sets are in the wings. Like TDP, each set could be regarded as an online chapbook. Necessarily, I have had to provide a general entry. See 2007/02/19/sw00215sgc. 7 + 6 + 6 + 37 = 56 to date. - Other ongoing books are Venturings, The Undulant Trees, and my Justan Tamarind fantasy epic's Book I from 1965/66. . Venturings count: 10 poems . T U T: 32 . J T: 6 of 101 stanzas - There is online in this journal a small lyric narrative longpoem from 1966/67. I haven't counted its lines yet, but I used 9 entries for it. The title it has is the name of the town I was born in. - Lastly, there are 12 poems not affiliated with any book among my autobio entries. - - Okay: 40 + 352 + 47 + 57 + 56 + 10 + 32 + 1 + 12 = 607 which actually is not that many, but if you have the time and the inclination, I suggest you read all of what is in Venturings first. - - Thank you. Brian A. J. Salchert
Thinking Lizard
About Me
- brian (baj) salchert
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Monday, April 30, 2007
sw00356a-pdm.count
Sunday, April 29, 2007
sw00355o-trapt
Opinion The Internet giveth; the Internet taketh away. All praise be to the Internet. Security | Security | Security Whatever happened to freedom of speech? If things keep going the way some would have them go, each of us will be (if we aren't already) trapped in a cube from which there is no escape; and freedom of speech, along with many or all of those other freedoms each human has a right to, will be dead and gone. But this is an opinion; therefore, you do not need to feel as I feel. Blessings on all. Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00354v-12.poem10
Venturings Given the Chance & the Time, Janice & I jaytrot 3rd, enter Milwaukee's Hyatt Regency & wander around its lobby until upon the suggestion of a receptionist we ride the fourth glass elevator to the Polaris lounge & observation deck that circles each hour at the hotel's top where, encouraged to by its hostess, we make our own leisurely circle against (by my choice) its circling & peek at such other human works as the port breakwater to the southeast, the Performing Arts Center close east, the passing Schlitz seven blocks north, Ambrosia Chocolate near northwest whose soft sweet odor will later bless us, the westward stretch of the city from the MECCA complex to Wauwatosa, the YMCA and the Marc Plaza as we curve southwest and south toward the Grand Avenue Mall on the way. Off the Harbor Skybridge sunlight glows this afternoon of this so far cordial November, honoring the Farmer's Almanac if not the cold- & flu-rocked, which two days hence will honor it still as it muffles the sun & turns us to dreaming of polar bears in the cocktailing snow. - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00353ut-08.3poems
The Undulant Trees In Charleston Not waiting for thought or emotion, Cracking a beetle's back at the song Of a wren, seems so like me now: So indiscreet, leafless. For though May Has its own progression, rattling Pods of a past over my footsteps, And dandelions, and the spaniel's Barks; and though students gather, wait For me, proofs to be read, or mail, I cannot. Stopping to remove A pebble or center a name, No more do I know than I pass, And order's beyond me, and syn- Thesis is yesterday's. In shadow, In light, I turn at a whim, stumble Across my drive--the grass is green. § More than anything else uncertainty is my milieu; yet a small breeze through a few blades of grass makes me smile. § Young maple, as autumn ages you pull your greenness back into yourself leaving behind leaves of yellow that one by one flip flop becoming over grass & sidewalk driveway & street a new splash of shade remembering spring leaving above grayish twigs & branches brownish limbs & a trunk blotched black delicate stark tough ready to protect endure - Brian A. J. Salchert
Saturday, April 28, 2007
sw00352ut-07.3poems
The Undulant Trees Just before dark a red-wing eases down the wrinkling river its cattail home a new worm's on the hook Mark's squinting at his line American Top 40 rages on a spiral notebook's unwinding me against my steering wheel breezes disturb the willow leaves jays rankle from their lairs the grey clouds shed no rain § Committees A cold they say is largely of the mind Pressed against sinus walls that slough off poisons it cripples breath terrifies blood Behind one's eyes insights that yesterday came smiling are trapped in clouds Outstretched for sunrise a mind has gotten a starless moon a body lost If what they say is true a cold germ curries sadness to feed upon § Breakfast Gossip & what did we get, slithering behind our napkins? We did not make THEM dead: Gerald, Tom, Lillian. Whatever thoughts I voiced, choked with invectives, were mere words. I had no news to give. Bills & talons of hawks, mouths of leeches: my talk / your talk (stirring, fidgeting/ to reach its target/ & its friend-- a car revved up nearby; a hard snow fell-- right while our rolls digested) constantly broke down. I slammed the table as I left. You were not pleased. Those three are still around. - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00351a-sayings
Autobio Today I found among my papers: Sayings for Wuer Kaixi To dictators too opportunities to listen, learn, become noble present themselves; wise didtators embrace them. ---------------------------------------- Humanity will blossom forth in spite of old, rancorous men who've forgotten how to husband flowers. ---------------------------------------- Whoever would rule well must break with what subjugates, an act extremely difficult for one who's known little other than subjugation. ---------------------------------------- Those who deny others their rights as humans: to the extent that they do so, deny themselves the right to be accounted human. --------------------------------------- When fear of chaos dominates, tyranny dominates; chaos dominates. --------------------------------------- Power is such a beautiful strength when those who are blessed with it are not possessed by it and value above it: knowledge, wisdom, charity. --------------------------------------- He who cannot swallow his pride shall choke on same. 6-20-89 Brian Salchert ~ Brian A. J. Salchert
Friday, April 27, 2007
sw00350a-early.influences
Autobio In the beginning was the nerd (which rhymes with "word"), and I was that nerd. So, it all began with nursery rhymes, and then there was Poe (because we had a set of his works in our house); but the first poet I consciously tried to learn from was Charles Peguy, which was while I was in high school. Later in high school, Roman poets were an influence, particularly Publius Vergilius Maro. During my only year at the physical Marquette University/ Dante Alighieri became the center of my attention. I wrote a term paper about him. During my less than two seminary years, Gerard Manley Hopkins held sway. Then it was on to numerous others: Shakespeare (of course) being one of them, but Keats was the one who most entranced me. In 1962 I wrote a sonnet to each of them. Though "Ozymandias" cleaved to the farawayness in my soul, I was more drawn to Shelley's statement about poets being the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" than I was to his poems. Later it was T. S. Eliot, both for his intelligence and sonority. Prufrock? There were moments when I saw myself as a kind of Prufrock. To me "The Wasteland" was on a par with Igor Stravinky's "Rite of Spring" and "The Firebird": too innovative to readily appreciate. The meditative flow of "The Four Quartets"/ however/ spoke deeply to me. My "The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time" villanelle was one result of Eliot's influence. Auden was another influence, as were numerous others, many of whom were not English-language poets. I will say this: trying to/ imitate Hopkins/ is a venial sin. For the most part I did not attempt to imitate any other writer. There were special instances, though. Four poets in those situations were: Vachel Lindsay, Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson. Although I may be wrong, I tend to see myself as a writer who is difficult to locate, especially when one considers how easily I went from continuing my tightly rhymed Onefor fantasy epic to creating my loose blank verse Fond du Lac lyric narrative. It could be said of me: He sure was (and is) willing to/ take risks. Brian A. J. Salchert
Thursday, April 26, 2007
sw00349o-langpo
Opinion 6 Of Language Poetry (as I Presently Understand It) and My Self A heavy haze inhabits the sky. It is 8 am. It may take me many days to enter this. Last night, getting eye-weary reading The New Sentence, and seeing the weather was improving, I re-engaged my computer, & spent the next 4+ hours learning about the political scientist langpo: Bruce Andrews. I read about Language Poetry and him. I read a lengthy talk he gave. I took peeks at some of his creations, two of which were similar to two years-ago creations of mine. I read an interview. - My major conclusions are: Language Poets (if one is willing to view them as a special breed of Homo sapiens) may be proof of Darwin's survival-of- the-fittest theory. They have definitety been aggressive in finding each other, in promoting each other, and in proselytizing their social & linguistic beliefs. Had they not had their religious ardor in their difficult early years/ they would not have made it through those years, and would not have risen to the cardinal pulpits they now enjoy. This is not to say I find they are dis- agreeable. It is to say I have not (over the years) been aggressive enough, but my salient differences from them are my eclecticism and my inveterate inwardness. The eloquence of their prose statements tells us they indeed are knowledgeable, word-wise, and sincere. Some feel they are the final language avant-guard (my spelling). That may be, especially since the robots in our computers are on track to become the progenitors of every thing. But I digress. Attention to the word as word with all its attendant nuances is at the core of their poetics. Such attention results in deeply strange poems, but that is precisely what they want/ as they are trying to unsettle the prevailing worldorder-tending / peon-controlling usages of language. Odd. (I am going to let you figure out why.) They are trying to lead readers of their poems away from those industrial/governmental/ military usages of words by which they are being continually duped, and toward/ seeing anew the words we use. In this respect they are somewhat succeeding, though it may be a futile effort. The central problem, as I see it, is this: The corporate culture has become so adept at subsuming whatever might threaten it/ there no longer seems to be any viable way of escaping from that culture's control. I once read a story (a story which/ may be/ just that) about a Japanese poet who climbed high into a mountain and there committed suicide because/ he could no longer face/ the blank page. Are we as a race, an evermore enlightened and enlivened race, we Homo sapiens (of genders known and unknown), facing such a blank page? - Zahv-trah, wonderers/wanderers; or later today. - So, the without-which-humanity-is-doomed need is this: to convince each and every entity wherein power is the ruling tenet/ that only that which is good for each and every human is good for it. Only as a world community will humanity survive and thrive on this planet, which does not mean a one- world government is required. If we cannot/ rise beyond/ greedy egos, we will not/ rise beyond. - Brian A. J. Salchert
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
sw00348v-11.poem9
Venturings U with thanks to Ron Silliman poets of the final line poets of the grand gesture poets of the silence within poets of the raucous now Aaaa Oooo i e i a o Aaaa Oooo i e i a Aaaa Oooo i e i a o Aaaa Oooo i e i a i e i a i e i Aaaaaaaaaa 7:51 pm - April 24, 2007 Brian Salchert ------------------------ [ some personal/ history notes: - As I do not presently drive, and may never drive again, and have relocated to be near family, one of my sisters takes me wherever I need to go. Yesterday, one of those places was the library we use. There she dropped me off, and I went inside to return one book and check out another which was on hold for me. That book was Ron Silliman's The New Sentence. My sister had gone to the nearby Big Lots. I walked over to there and took a searching amble through the store, and then went out and sat on a black metal bench, which was not comfortable for me, but I wanted to start reading Mr. Silliman's book. When I read the "English language translation of a Fox tribe sweatbath poem" I immediately knew something would be afoot in my underground brain. While I was writing the above on a sheet from a legal pad, thunderstorms were passing through, more of which are forecast for today. - In the 1990's I was a night auditor at the University Center H. I. in Gainesville, Florida--a city I lived in for over twenty-four years-- and for a while during those 90's years I used to carry on jibberish conversations with an employee who was the 2nd shift supervisor. They had a relaxing effect on us. - Also, during those years--or possibly before--I did write a poem which is totally phonetic, and which I thought had no real words in it other than words such as "o". I may append it. ] - Brian A. J. Salchert
Sunday, April 22, 2007
sw00347fdl-entry9of9
Fond du Lac Fourteen - Whoever you are, bronze man on a bronze horse (statue beyond Scott), I do not care. Behind you salvia spark, cannas blaze; and cushions of chrysanthemums . . . just leaves. City, city. Here, along the boulevard's vertebrae: evergreen to evergreen to Lakeside Park, I feel beginnings mixed with ends; relief, and none. The Red Owl supermarket. Fond du Lac's infamous Outdoor. Fade it. Some say there's a law of entropy too. What are we: puddles of peristent darkness, toads? Fifteen - I can't--that engine!: old, retired, and on display-- make out its--. There!: Soo Line 613. And the red kiddie train, whistling; the swings-- my pumping heart--metronoming; shouts, laughter; the teeter-totters, gymnast arms; cheered sky! Sixteen - From this island of pfitzer junipers and arborvitae/ where a car may loop to "cruise the gut" again; ease through the park to the "big hole" harbor, the beacon point; or fishtail toward Lakeside to be, Main Street divides. Touching/ a blue-gray cone, I pass to the left; cover/ the fronts of my shoes with a beige film, popping a stone at a pole. Toward the south, smoke (where the sun spreads) begins to lemon and pinken; a near tree crackles; the planet burns. What good am I? That mouse, for instance, jittering into the weeds, it--! Damn. The gravel shadows to ash, the breeze shifts, and the wealth of Stinky Point / and a bridge longed for, dreams in the air, ghost / greet me. Confusion, ten thousand dead carp of aeration, you have stifled me well. On the lake-edge rocks, a couple fish, kiss; near them, grade school boys. So it is: we come, wiggle haphazardly, go. Even if-- leaping at the neck of a goldenrod, a bee warms its hind legs with yellow muffs, then journeys south. All I need to do is step through those reeds. Between the elders there-- what's that? An early nighthawk! Strange cry. The water cannot be too deep out there: no deeper than he glides now, over it-- two-and-a half men tall; yet deep enough to die in. But I? Each shown argument can be destroyed, disturbed, and all the buds of chrysanthemums, seas. Weeds. Weeds, if I rub you wrongly, you will cut. Still, I could tear you from your lives. But why? Because you will never bloom the ways I want you to? From the river's shore, two black guys, slim, young. . . . Behind me, weeds, moves a city, ofwhich I am a part: baffled, weak, but a part; and my reachings too--nighthawk in the twigs. Blade of quack, ragweed: the grasps of this seedling elm may exceed yours by miles, but no choices, no uncertainties. Alchemists of slime, should I demand this weed do this tree's work? avaunt? crow like a rooster? Dirty mouth, Fond du Lac River. Bullheads! Haven't I fallen? Do your think your shallowness better than mine? City. What time, what time is it, city? Bury your minds, ripples of weeds, jazz. Was I to know? Tell me, tiger-bee, was I? . . . Wah! git! git away! -- God! / Whirred world, will we never stop screeching, never live? [ 2 publication notes: - A portion of Fond du Lac, here sections "Eight" and "Nine" and the first 21 lines of section "Ten", was originally published in the Wisconsin Review. - Section "Two" and most of what is now section "Seven" along with several other passages were presented in Steve Trott's "Poet captures taste of Fond du Lac in his work"/ published in The Reporter, Monday, April 27, 1981. ] Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00346fdl-entry8of9
Fond du Lac Twelve - Johnson Street. How easy it would be to forget this jangled age, this Age of Crises; but will Main evaporate for that? Surrounded by bushes and evergreens, the Zacherl Funeral Home whispers, waits. No need to go past there. I'll cross Marquette right here, return to Main, and bear it out: even to/ Stinky Point. Besides, I'm getting hungry. The Super Valu sign dances, Borden's dances. Flickers on, the light goes green. Racing/ left of a kid scooting a wagon, my left arm raises; my belt ticks a post. Planing around the bumper of a car leaving the Conoco station, I notice the corner is clear, the light yellow, then red; I turn. "Aaaaaaannnt." A blue hood jolts at the edge of my eye; shocks me across Johnson, breathing beyond the nails of--any moment--death. Puffing, damp, I rest. Thirteen - Firehouse No. 3: and Purgatory, Greta, nothing and all, rush; become my thoughts, snail exploring the underside. A 'hound: to Chi--; used cars, washed: Gormican's; the Lighthouse Restaurant. Never have eaten at this place. Today, though, just for fun--. "What would you like?" "I guess I'll have the haddock plate." "Say pal," a fellow in his thirties slaps, "you must be Catholic." "Yes." ". . . loading, bus to: Oshkosh, Neenah, Menasha, Apple--" "My name's Bob. I've been hoping some Catholic would sit next to me. You see, I've got this friend: he thinks religion's bosh. You understand. He tells me logic's stuck in atoms, and that this human existence is a, a closed system (some kind of number set). Get it? He says nothing exists but what we can see: nothing spiritual, pal, exists! Says logic proves it--he and his educated friends." "Coffee, sir?" "Well now, what do you say to that?" "No thanks." "What, pal?" "I was just answering the waitress." "Huh? Haven't you been listening, pal?" "I think-- I can't get into that now." "Kinda sticks in your throat, does it? Well, my Catholic pal, looks like we're sunk. Helen, another cup of coffee. Think there is an answer?" "Yes." "But you don't know it. I thought Catholics knew all the answers." "Some might." "Some might, pal? Who?" "I don't know." "What's wrong? Does the fish taste bad?" "It's all right, I guess," "What's on your mind, then?" "Horse kicks." "Look, pal, if you've got a headache--" "No; you wouldn't understand." "Where you going?" "Out. Here, you can pay for my fish." So man's reduced to his chemistry, John; yet you look on in awe at individuals because of it; and for all your lack of belief, say you respect man more, perhaps, than I. It may well be you do. Still, "the still point of the turning world", the fight against the wastelands, against bland, personal ambiguity, against unsympathetic proselytizing; yes, even against accepting all. To be firm, yet tolerant. That. How? And even so,' that's not enough. Fragile leviathan. O Greta, I may never touch your ears again. Fond du Lac: page 9 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00345fdl-entry7of9
Fond du Lac Eleven - Slicing between the Citgo islands, I slip to Merrill. The waves shrink; the present rolls behind. Happier, I walk from its bright noise, and lazing through an elm about one hundred feet away, daydream of orioles, sparrows. The weathered fence of the car lot to my right seems moth dust on my fingertips. On the bridge at First, things as they are? By force, by fear, the sea; by chance, the air. Here, spirit--that man coming! Who is?--I--I know him! Yes! Oil-rich McNaughton. Probably going to the bank. But he's walking! "Hi, O. L., where you going?" "Church." Judge not. "What about you? Coming in?" "I guess." Chrysanthemum sea, windy flower, we cannot tell our closest fellow men: we cannot tell the stars. What can we tell? One-fourth of us wills evil, half of us thinks evil's holied when used to obtain what it supposes good, one-fourth of us seeks good through good; yet even these last rip each other's hulls. What is this air we breathe?! this slender shade?! Is logic locked in stones, and faith alone, beyond all seeming reason? We take this stale, volcanic century, embrace it; love. For what?! Christ!? Cross!? We are impossible. Standing, where Merrill/ stems Marquette: projecting beyond my eyes--the tumbling of Main, the curve of Macy: standing, fused, uncertain, I see my mother (softer than a distant kite) preparing dinner, knowing I won't be home, but worrying the same. Or what's a mother for? That noon the ball/ went skimming over/ the fence, and spattered glass at a butter plate, giving a couple wonder, I was shook to envy, laughter, fear/ no sharper than now: with O. L. in my thoughts again, and Fond du Lac. Sounds, like someone mowing! There! In his fifties, I'd say. But that poppy paisley! He must be liberal; even so, he slices weeds to equal heights, and we suspect they're civilized and/ call them grass. I suppose/ I should be at home myself, pruning our double lot; but then, I wouldn't be here if I cared that much about outer things. If I cared at all, some would rub. So what. Does everything have to be seen, to seem at a glance it's getting this world somewhere, to be practical like my uncle Ben to be worthwhile? So we can't tell a man by his cards, his clothes; a daisy from a cosmos; a peach from a sun: but if similarities conceal differences . . . all cards are jokers! And if everything's relative . . . the grounds for it?! Playgrounds, neighborly fresh-mown grounds, undergrounds? I cannot begin to play or cut unless I assume some absolute. There must be grounds from which to start, or what's this living all about? Grandmother used to bake gingerbread men. If a man's junk-- atoms without meaning--why does he care, argue: to soften the absurd? Absurd it is to have absurd grounds. But what then? Roses? And yet, how do we get together when one man's right is another man's wrong? Perhaps the confines of this rock do cause us to become schizoid (imperfect as we are) though water flowed from a rock, a church was built on a rock; "Choruses from 'The Rock'". It's enough to drive a man out of his bird: all this crazy walking around. Of course, I meant to challenge myself, shake the haze from my will; face this/ century for once. Still, if we could be one . . . if doubts were dispelled. . . . Fond du Lac: page 8 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00344fdl-entry6of9
Fond du Lac Nine - Snickering off, I pass George Webb's almost preconsciously while biting into a piece of log cabin. The temperature stretches itself yet along the pebbles of my perspiration. In Geyber's: pearls and diamonds. Greta, Greta, not till now, one thought of you. Buenos Aires shivers. A Germ--. Christ, help us; there's no returning. The bus depot's arch reminds me that the buses meet now farther north; that the blind woman passing me perceives, perhaps, as well as I. Shall each minute experience, Greta (girl too easy to love), progress a man toward tunnel vision, give him surer proof of his infinity? Will this slim lady's purple hat/ become an nth example, then, to dogmatize some prejudice? What matters it. Ten - O crammed profusion! City? Puke. I yawp and gawk, read that "The Fortune Cookie" will click at/ the theatre before me; inhale the warmth of marigold popcorn some kids are buying in the carmel shop next door; image the night a friend/ pissed on a walk-- there was no wind. And who is strong enough to care. A barber pole. This headline squawks: "Sharp VC attack"--why not. I squint at men and words that/ advocate a Faith/ I do not understand. Here is a bar, there is another jewelry store, and there's a novelty shop. Things as they are. But what? what can we say we know, we feel, believe? The Arcade: bowling. So the skulls have rolled, the hard, black balls of human power and skill; so Main Street flicks, a space of free electrons, vomit, song. Pressing against the gases, flesh and cloth seem dying blades of algae, caught in a thick brook, disparate, desperate. I wave at a brown convertible, friends of mine. The driver honks. Shouts and whistles disturb his radio into the semi trembling the parked car beside me; across this shoal I oscillate through, in the bone-tight weeds of a storefront display, a plastic car-- aPlymouth by Revell--interests me, bends my nose to a pane again. Above an HO switcher, and three rubber perch, a scum-green monster doll: who thinks to scare me in--I would suppose--to save that engine or/ to delight my younger sister's coming birthday: presides. But I am not impressed. Outside the Arcade, three boys and a girl chatter through smoke: "--what she did to o' Lou, I'd never want to--" "Remember Chris? Well, she's finally getting a divorce!" "From Sambo?!" "Yeh." "You know, I always thought that guy--" Pulling the wooden, heavy door open, I move up the stairs. Pins are falling. I listen for the strikes. A housewives' league. On alley nine a woman like a plum hops to the line. Her black and blue ball bumps, rolls two-thirds of the lane/ quite straight, then hooks to the left, tipping only the seven pin. On alley six a slimmer gal lightly glides to the line, letting her ball, barely heard, go swiftly down the lane. The pins all jump/ into the pit. Her teammates cheer, applaud. Another tray of beer goes out to ten. Some of the wives are packing. My thumb sticks in a thumbhole. I pluck it out, and head back down the stairs just as a green balloon and a laughing girl appear beside those four I overheard when--"But Linn, what makes you so positive Chris will keep her kids?" "I know her, numby. She will." "Okay, she will." "Look, Rudy, Chris and I were buds. . . ." The green balloon floats back, and a passing nun's smile, dipping into the little girl, pleases her. As they round the bandying group, they arouse in me St. Mary's and how nervously I wade along Main. Sand jets from the gutter, turns and jabs at me. My left eye itches, sinks; flounders back up. Fond du Lac: page 7 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00343fdl-entry5of9
Fond du Lac Six - Wallace S., among the rushes, Moses me a bit. Do not let this desert parch. Pray for manna, rain; oasis me. Strengthen the veins of Fond du Lac, Riplean ghost (preserved by a chance operation--at the first; a brilliant and eccentric K.--now), at its high, budding point. By 1960 this town was to die, believe it or not; and would have, too, had it not lost some fat before that predicted death date. Yet even then we needed our stubborn Merc man, Kiekhaefer, to force our sapling council into bud, to get it to/ spread our roots-- a task not all that easy. But the roots spread, and the tight buds. Stevens, go. I conjure you strangely, but want myself. Seven - Hotel, restaurant, furniture store, bar: the hub of my chrysanthemum, isle of--Sargasso, Sargasso. Fond du Lac, however sight would have you: here, where comfort and drink, food and shelter ridge their shades, odors, I could stand for hours watching Division and Main crossed, holding your sepals, your quarters together; keeping your quarters, your sepals distinct. Notheast: Maple, Taft, the Lighthouse, Marquette and Scott, and Winnebago Drive; the staid, persistent wealth of artesian wells; ledges, lagoons, Paul Bunyan's lake--puddle of/ stinky waters, flash storms; Roosevelt Park: whatever there men may ponder from under your burnt-out roof, Retlaw Hotel. Dim bar, Carry to me, behind your cracking door a woman, man, might sip and chat the whole Northwest: our Giddings & Lewis; rail yards, the Supple Marsh--where ice was once chunked out, and Seymour, Johnson, Hickory; the halls, motels, and lake shore homes; the pine, the deer. In your soft chairs, Kramer's: Mercury Motors and Madison and Military Road; Grove, Western, Pioneer: the whole Southwest a plush man could ease to mind. Restaurant, birth-and-death place for the vaired Southeast, from your delicious booths a man could raid: Vine, Highway Forty-One; the private course, the cemetaries; Eden. What other cross could one so dream this town from, learn through its fragile queens and pastel crimes, curse its stench, exalt its soil, feel how/ the near waves flower. Eight - So, Fond du Lac, your center spins a world in the half-light of this knifed hour: let be: your ocean's filled with aphids, paradox. A drop of salt arching from some whitecap burns to a crystal, dives, dissolves. A drop of salt: a small boy spurting from group to group. Weaving a double crossing, I approach the Retlaw, lean between two bikes heading south, and drift to the right. Inside, my steps are softer. Briskly looking around, I spot, walk over to/ a water fountain, catching the sea I bubble up. Bellboys stopped before the elevator, yellow mums, or are the asters, bud and break from their shoulders. Bloomings unfold us. But, here, much seems unwanted. Still, the doorman only glances, and the clerk lets me browse. They know their needle of unconcern will work me out in time; that silence is the better word to use, those easy coins. A Cadillac-- red!--arrives. Straining to follow it, I accidentally nick the doorman's heel, etching out. He stares slant at me, then sets a smile for the Cad guests. Fond du Lac: page 6 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00342fdl-entry4of9
Fond du Lac Four - "Excuse, me, ma'am." A blur of daisies dangling a shoe box, she sways, rubs past. I screw my neck to compass her, then loosen it. A knotted backbone gobbing tobacco onto the curb/ gags me. I shop the neat display of oxfords, boots and varia in Fondy's Big Shoe Store. Diamond, spade, heart, club: brightly placed in a white parallelogram of leather whose length dimension cuts across the ankle of a black Cuban style shoe. ["Who is set?" "Gambler?" "Yes." "Step in: I'm leaving. Your bluffs are just as good as mine." "Italian style?" "No! What do you think we're playing? This game's poker! Now place your bet or get on out." "Yah man, gotta have wild feet for this one. Gotta know each man's bare blood, light and dark. Experience that, and this land of other rooms is yours. Ain't no sour daydreams here."] That shining, off-set laced, pointed oxford makes me wince; want wrangling corpuscles, guys wise and sluffy to be my dangerous friends, horns in shoes. ["Raise four."] Fingertips press my collarbone. In the pane below my neck a silver buckle, a pin-stripped shirt--that face behind my face-- "Ray! How you been?!" Twisting to shake his hand, my lungs relax. "Well, what's the matter, Art, am I a ghost or something?" "No, you just surprised me." "What you looking at? Those things are for kids! You couldn't be wanting them!?" "Why not, I'm still teen-agey enough." "You what?!" "No, really! If I had the money--." "Well, here, take some of mine. Sure'd hate to see you/ melt through this glass." "Don't worry." "You think I am! It's your kick, Art. Don't lose your nose." Nice guy. Five - Torn bags; the sidewalk again, with its shells, weeds, memories pinched, tinted red, or rolling perhaps, or else / cracks in the stone, the--hornet of my brain. Meters. What is it with faces, licorice to buttermilk; rainbows slung around bodies of air? Places to park, to tease a fender. Lampposts. Banners. Cans to/ keep our city. Hydrants. Boxed-in phones. Meeters. What is it about blood that swirls, squeezes/ industrial legs/arms, crowds a mouth, a thousand mouths; whistles that swing, explode, to blind an eye? Today is Friday. Here doors/ will beat till nine: Buehler's, Sears, Ford's--. I think I'll get a little bag of logs to chew on. No, no, not tobacco, candy. (I would have to phrase it that way.) Let's see. "Candy is dandy" of course, but a good liquor tilting the arches would be a real sweet limbo/ to warm a Friday night. But then, vagrant sea, ripples, no. Let others think another naked son's no special thing, raise their mugs; chug their white wetnesses into their earths, rich, poor. You know, I like her smile. "A quater pound of these log cabins, please." "Anything else?" "No." "That's twenty-one cents." "I have the penny." "Thank you." Magazines. McCall's. Here's a Sports Illustrated! Na. Why should I piddle around messing up mags I won't buy anyhow. That looks--Thesz! The old man's quite a tendril. I wonder. No! "So long, Duffy." Ought to applaud myself for that one. Bet I usually spend ten full minutes here, at least, listing at pipes, paperbacks, whatnot. Wait! Orange flames? Negro. "Arson and street war--most destructive riot in U. S. history 11 pages in color" City of the angels. Life. Through weeds between two tires: a T-shirt stretched on a dark brown body--capable and young, a pair of black pants, and eyes straight ahead that see and do not see, walk. Behind him the world burns, splits and splits. The saucer men are coming. And I eat toothaches for kicks. Things couldn't be better. Fond du Lac: page 5 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00341fdl-entry3of9
Fond du Lac Three - Main Street: old battleground of needs and wants; watery eyes; of neon bullets, fingers; sales, investments; leases: our meeting place of years. Who swimming here, though well, can hook each piece to each, reveal the puzzle's order fashioned from parts so much alike, unlike: eshausts from trucks and buses, cinder dust, sirens, hearts, children, air-conditioned stores, broken mouths smearing an alley stair, smiles, the dance of/ indecision? All I see goes down and up, out and in, round and round, until summer, it seems, is/ because things exist, persist, at all. Looking through such knots of motion, a man might spit, prefer some woods to be hunted/ and bows of rain, though he's among those who also desire human touch. Main Street: at that down hour of two/ when more than half its lights are pulsing yellow, the fever in tourists' eyes, the drought in truckers' arms, a vacuum at the heart. Buildings appear a nerveless ligature then, as if without their cellular crowds, they were an asteroid's mountain range; or each a scab. The sun has tumbled into roofs and moved the minds of shoppers toward their homes and moved the Earth another hour toward death, warming the dusty stones to ninety-six at the First Fond du Lac National Bank. A quiet mother shades her babies deep in their dark green, nudges a turtle toy; then releasing the brake, rocks them, and ripples the way I came, like a word. Two older women toddle in front of Penny's shoe department, uneasy in their pillowed skins. The sign reads "walk". I taste their bobbing breasts, their sweat, as I meet them. Kids dash saltily by. Three bodies' lengths before me/ pigtails squeal; a pink girl whirls, slaps the arm and cheek of a tan brown-eyed boy, shrinking in his Bermuda blue-jeans. "Why don't you go back to California?" she snaps. A friend of his: (ochre sleeping across his eyes and clumping down his neck) in Greekish sandals, a spotted T-shirt, yellow madras shorts: resting his right hand on the ruffled boy's left shoulder, coolly says, "This town's tighter than vacuum seal--ay Whit?" Whit turns. "Man, I wish I had the wrist." "Hey you, what you so interestedin?" Man questions me. I shake my head and, as if in a daze, edge away; then, "He's just a bubble of air. Forget him." City, city: grand, expansive, seminal, macabre: the floor of a sea ridged with coral, speckled with/ wisps of fish, and gardened with anemone, how I would swim through you, would mix my heart and head in you, hold you entire; devour your parts, late summer city, gold chrysanthemum! Elbow to shoulder, smile to frown, a pound of Whitman's squished by a tire: how many bones scrape themselves against your rusting tin, town of shifting depths? how many reach to cleanse, to spray the plastic bandage on? ". . . get drunk. That'll keep your tubes warm. Better 'an jumpin' off a ledge or hangin' yourself." "Yah? Better than humpin' a broad?" Desire, Mexican fire bush, salvia, beet: none, I have none here, but One. Buildings, machines, people. If these are what we must explore, contend with--"Damn it, I tell ya, there is no God!" / "First niggers, now fags! Who the hell wants 'em?"--Main Street, Main Street, how can I not pray, not rebel? Fond du Lac: page 4 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00340fdl-entry2of9
Fond du Lac One - Ring the bridge rail! Open wide, blood, bones, will! Your concerns are with the now--what is; its meaning; not with what you want it to seem! If rivers scrub low through arrowhead/ mud, nudging twigs at their minnows, soaking butts, chugging sludge/ chemical refuse, flashing white bass/ swallows/ skies, submit, tampering heart: Look: here a hurtling bag, a sliding box, becomes at times a pigeon, or a dog; but today the air swings hammock-like, does not deceive, while pigeons wrinkle down from riding over Fond du Lac, and scuffle to their nests under the storage bins' roof, black from the dust of anthracite; today mongrels mix, tumble their beige and umber coats into the garden of oily weeds by the Milwaukee Road industrial track, somersault yelps to the river's edge, stop, ruggedly scurry, chase up the bank, shiver, and hurrying off for the bridge at Forest, run my sight. Those several boys arguing there--beyond them beads of cars jerk, slip their ways--wonder if I know any of those guys? The puniest kid seems--ya! Split. Split! Look at him come, whipping around the guard rail (kick at the mutts), pegged tan pants, brown curly hair, an aqua shirt-- faded--its sleeves cut off & its tails popping, black Cuban heels quivering, pointing back! No, I guess I don't know them. The two who started out after him, out on the bridge again with their leader, rough-up the kid they have held. Swallows skitter, people pass; and the three toughs, like a giant ant, drag their prey down somewhere, unbothered. This one, bewildered, turns, races up to the walk and slows, glaring at me as if I were an evasive punching bag; then skirts on by. What I fantasize he schemes intrigues me almost enough to follow him. I might enjoy--however, my thoughts--Lakeside Park is greener, riper. Two - . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hailstones, cobblestones-- in that swayback third of a block from Macy to this Mayville spur, I remember both, lodging a score of tires in ice; uneven and bowled, forcing the newsboys' bikes through slush, skating their wheels, hammering papers loose. Hail again? Perhaps. But the street's smooth now; slowly, erratically, ruddy bricks descend from the Reporter Building's frame, scabiosa turning chrysanthemum, while across First the Post Office sorts, feels the thoughts of thousands. In several years, what it will be, I do not know. Bright cars, dented cars, young girls skipping, men with canes, horns, yells, a lady reaching--kneeling down-- for a dropped dime, three businessmen converging, two six-foot boys with a mail cart; a friend I won't hello because I can't remember her name--the courthouse clock is wrong again. Fond du Lac: page 3 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00339fdl-entry1of9
[ The poem being introduced here is a lyric narrative centered around a persona walking through a part of his hometown at the time of the 1960's Los Angeles riots. Originally written in 1966/67 while I was attending the Writers' Workshop in Iowa City, it owes its existence to an intuitive challenge from my mentor. ] - [ insert from May 10, 2003 ] During my first year at Iowa, I had written a number of short poems; but had been devoting myself to fashioning a fantasy epic in stanzas of nine lines rhyming aababcbcc, a nasty scheme I then thought I had invented; and even to this day I have not done the research I would need to do to be sure. So, if I want, I can go on thinking of it as the "Salchertian Stanza"; but it will only be more proof of the foolishness in my ego. Blessedly, my mentor, George Starbuck, seeing what was in me and what was not, said I should write from something I was more familiar with; and so by the prongs of his pitchfork/ enabled me to make the primal leaps of a literary/mind-cracking journey I am yet on, and expect to persist on, no matter the opinions of others [thank you, Pushkin] who happen to encounter--here & there--a sentence or more I have written, or a simple sketch. Fond du Lac The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: from East Coker by T. S. Eliot Prologue Believing/ as might wings/ Earth ferries deaths my essence should not tolerate, I've tried to lose its factories, its predators under the shadows of my flight; to drift among hills in ages gentler than mine. Rebellion: over beauty, over truth; Idea: over the badinaged smile in the empty bottle. Rather than attempt to find and crush one berry for those mouths hidden in the small caves of tunnels, cans, I have hid my own. There were summer days I moved, a neurotic rook, turning left, right,left at each new corner, entranced toward a Circle, to see this planet dim; to dream. And there was a night, cooled with mist, when shoes were mostly home, I hung near a pool in Taylor Park to--"Only the Lonely"--hum, wanting, off from the square pavilion there (shelter for the custodians of cards, the cutthroat Sheepshead house), to harmonize me/you/and that: October-loaded world. But having to choose, ignorant of . . . sullens; my eyes itch, ache; their eyelids give to sleep. Fond du Lac: page 2 - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00338jt-b1.e1
- [ Information about, the "Proem" to, and the first 5 stanzas of Book 1 of what was Onefor when I composed the 900 lines in that Book in 1965-66/ comprise this entry. I saw it as a fantasy epic which would express how I felt about planet Earth and its human passengers. I was in The University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop Program, and that long poem was to be my MFA thesis. I was due to graduate in June of 1967, and 1967 was not far off. Thankfully my mentor, the late George Starbuck, realizing my effort would not suffice, had a wiser intuition. - This, then, is a failed work. On 9-28/29-82 my alter ego, Alden St. Cloud, penned its "Proem" stanza. Note the difficult aababcbcc rhyme scheme I chose. I doubt I am its originator, but I might be. Perhaps I should have burned this poem, but that would have been contrary to how I am. ] Justan Tamarind Proem That we prevail through many fields proclaims From ancient Cairo's to Brasilia's aims The wisdom in the folly of our dreams. Or does it? Still, for us to dream, for names To be remembered, is good. Human schemes Will be: both ways of worth, and ways which rust And end/ so that whenever living seems Too smooth / too rough, we will be taught how trust Can wither, or seed wonder, in our dust. Book 1 White lifts the sun; the moon falls cold, seared. Great stars flare out, known to none; and the weird Concoctions of ruined alchemy fade In the memory; but the yet more weird, More mortal, vital minglings found and made By new creators, here, on Moiland's soil, Or any else, appear, and do not fade; But concentrate, more surely cleanse, and soil-- As water rinses clothes, or rusts a coil. And I, being as one present to each warm act I sing, where, thought through words, fiction weds fact, Move delighted, howsoever I stir In time or heaven, for such is my pact With nature and with art, and this the spur My daemon of creation leads me to: The sacred Eribon, where kings confer; Where, on this cloudless noon,like changless dew, Ten thousand kings will sparkle into view. Thus, Spirit wholly of that Being Who orders all from rocks to/ deepest seeing, Eternal Teacher, Comforter: firm, Lift my voice, Ipray/ that, like a guide skiing Down an Alpine run, my every turn Shall own a happy grace of limbs and mind So unified in doing, I will discern/ All things before me; recall/ all things behind; And reinforming art, praise mankind. Yet feelings most You must invade/ if one Whose kingdom is this day to be undone Would move us with those words his airs are veined. "Look well at Justan: king, Tamarind's son, Who mutilates with knowledge he has gained Yet heals with kind dexterity; who runs As swiftly as that Pheidippides who trained His unremitting legs toward helpless ones And piston-peppered from opposing sons-- As Darius/ coughed in the sea--until The words of victory were rung from hill To hill, and he, excited most, had burst before The city's gates, shaking, gasping them still, Then whispering; then, because he could no more, Fell; and in their arms received his death: One breathless, breathless death. Who knows the sore He raises/ with his hot, invective breath; But lets it blaze and blister// none/the/less." Book I: e2 Justan Tamarind Book I links - Brian A. J. Salchert
Saturday, April 21, 2007
sw00337v-10.poem8
Venturings [ Prenote: I do not hide the fact my sensibility is Gay-oriented, but my physically-active Gay days were short-lived. My first encounter occurred on my 32nd birthday. It was not planned, but I did// allow it to be. Less than five years later/ my last such encounter occurred. I do not know the exact date, but a syphilis scare was the reason. I turned 32 in January of 1973. The poem below was written in 1985. ] = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = A Look In 1 Because I'm a writer, I am marginal. Were I not marginal and not a writer, human life would be less full. So I confess, and speak for you. So I rejoice, and speak for you. Out of my oddness, an ordinate balance. Do not the maimed often heal us? 2 A 44th year absorbs my body; a 30th year words arouse me; a 20th year a woman shades me: well, and ill; a 14th year admitting keeps my heart embracing chests of men; a 40th year Catholicism spikes my spirit; one more year, over & over torn apart by the horses of my intransigent cares, I disrupt me. And yet my left eye giggles at my right eye. Across the Gulf of Mexico, from the Yucatan to Louisiana, ruby-throated hummingbirds buoy dreams; still, just the other afternoon I watched a dead tupelo leaf held by a yard-long filament to the leaf-end of a bur oak twig turn, spin, wind & unwind in the mischievous air. 3 The winds are every shape and color, stopped as they are by every shape more dense than they are so that even when they most rave, and blast and bear in fearsome and contorted howling frail humans and sundry of their artifacts and facts of nature not themselves, they are molded by/ what they rive and pass in their transparencies (however blurred) the hues of white and (into black) all the grand diminishments of white. I am the winds, countering the obstacles, sometimes as a feather might, sometimes as wrecking balls, unsure of my approaching moods orhow the winds others are will change my force and clarity, and temperature, or how the non-wind obstacles/ will kink my moves. 4 Eclectic, stubborn, yet likely to change, because I'd imagine the breadth and depth of all that is human, light words as well as dark (and all the colors and intensities) flash from me. I do, however, admit I whiff undertones of teasing, irony, sarcasm which othen enough-- perhaps mistakenly and so unfortunately-- are aimed at the wrong "object"; and which perhaps, too much at times, obtrude. Still, it sometimes seems the only way I can cut the sweetness of the sentimental and the sourness of the didactic in me; for--however momently the requisite fruit of the green dreams of a fertile heart-- I do often mean to be sentimental and I do often mean to be didactic, though I know how unpalatable they are to many. 5 Let them mingle: the mind's eye & the termagant. Let the corkscrew the heart is open the bottles our spirits wait in. For thirty years I have typed & scribbled, erased. erased. trying somehow to put together my scattered life trying to root the universe. Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00336a-was.is
Autobio Then and Now When I was in high school (1955-59) I was among the elite intellectually, but I was also among the physically small; and while--as in elementary school--I did participate in school and non-school activities, often in my "free" time I created link-by-link chains of fantasies. Though I did not know then I had an INFP personality, I did know I had a melancholic temperament. I did know I had a good memory, but not a superb memory. Though I was quite fast over short distances, I did know I had an oxygen-intake disability and that/ my body was allergy-prone, and that/ my appendix was weak-- a fact I so consistently forgot it almost cost me my life in the spring of my 22nd year. [ Note: One does not become 1 until one's first year is done. ] Had I not been able at times to stand back and laugh at myself, I might very well have/ committed suicide. As it was I almost did so accidentally several times. Especially about sexual matters, I was rock naive. Puberty pulsed into my consciousness when I was twelve, about the same time I first attempted to write a poem and paint on a canvas. Along with that physical change came psychological changes I was not able to properly address. On occasion I/ became aggressive/ toward other boys, but most of the time my lack of physical strength (blessedly) prevented me from being a danger. I do not know how my epileptic brain (which was not a known back then) relates to how I was, but I do know I had a habit of seemingly spacing out when a thought-process block stymied me--a habit/ condition/disability I still have. Almost always/ I've been the last one to finish an exam. While I sometimes have a lightning wit, when it comes to matters of consequence, my mind at times is years slow. I easily misunderstand or simply do not get/ jokes; and (to me) practical jokes are definitely not prac- tical, nor are they jokes. I "think" a well-designed sufficiently- tested humor course would benefit the human community on this planet immeasurably. --from the hermit who lives in the fantasy realm known as Sprintedon Hollow-- As to the VA Tech rupture, I extend my gratitude/ to Josh Corey, Ron Silliman, Nikki Giovanni, and all others of like mind, both those who are yet amongst us and those who are not. Now I am going to proffer something many may not agree with: One never knows when, or how; but God does, and knows why. - Brian A. J. Salchert
Friday, April 20, 2007
sw00335a-poems14and15
Autobio In 1982--under my Alden St. Cloud pen name--two poems from a failed set of poems were published through Midwestern Writers' Publishing House in Wisconsin Poets' Calendar: 1982, edited by Tom & Mary Montag. I am placing them in this entry. * 14 "February" Well I'm back the short one the one Sadie Hawkins lengthens a day every four years but not this Did you toss out January or hide it It's amazing how much we lose retain how much forgotten suddenly returns brightening shadowing calming maddening how a loaf of bread a snowman move as my being short balanced yet blessed with something human * 15 "September" Nothing stays not even a hurricane's madness maddening us Even this universe billions of years hence may collapse into a black hole unimaginable For now though here in Wisconsin the rains wrinkling on the windows encourage dreams & memories it seems will stay * Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00334ut-06.2poems
The Undulant Trees
The Dance
Watching the lights
spin through minds--
red, yellow,
I think of fires and traffic signals.
Not a
baby
cries
but spins through minds--
red, yellow.
- - - -
Fishing at Dawn
Uh!
spuf spuf
swuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
uh!
spuf
swup
swuuuhp
swap
shivers
of rainbows
spouts
of water
slapped
into drops
the cave of a mouth
fins
writhing
3 feet high
shuddering the wind
glancing the fire
- Brian A. J. Salchert
Thursday, April 19, 2007
sw00333a-poem13apr07
Autobio "Each and Every" it isn't what one of us is doing it is what we are all doing and the end hangs like a broken star waiting for us - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00332olp-9poets
Some IWW Classmates: (1965-67) Late last night into this morning I did "name poet" searches of nine former IWW classmates: - - Michael Dennis Browne - Steve Orlen - Jon Anderson - Peter Klappert - Julia Vinograd - Peter Cooley - Eric Nightingale (?) --uncertain about-- - Harold Bond --died in March of 2000-- - Richard Geller - - Brian A. J. Salchert
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
sw00331a-poem12apr07
Autobio "Malaise" There is a deadness round about I know not how to ferret out that I might nab it by its nape and stick it where it shan't escape. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00330a-poem11
Autobio - What will be shown is a something I found in one of my Ledge Walks gatherings, a stash of old poems. It might be a Mutt Object. It was written in red ink on a white napkin on 12-1-71, and under that date is Brian Salchert.
To This Napkin 1. I am not using you as you were meant to be used, porous rough rectangle; my s t a i n s are orderly and red. Your whiteness sharpens them. 2. Beyond the above fold, this-- more territory to mark; so, harvesting, as the time is right, each moment that I come to now, caring only to follow here the sound, sense, space of you.
- Brian A. J. Salchert
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
sw00329s-aw9.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "Summer Tales" A rock swallows berries of rain Sunlight paints your hand A mouse climbs darknesses spinned Friends / acquaintances chip / stain each thought we shape stand lengthened shortened fattened thinned Leaves buzz like the saw's chain Waves suck rocks to sand In the answering grass the questioning wind (newly rewritten on page 42 under "Spring") 2 "Faith" In the midst of Hell the robin's egg (written on page 49 under "Nomad Songs") 3 "Possessed" We wait upon the edicts of our things and bow to them religiously (written on page 51 under "Ash") 4 "Valleys" Sparrows grapple with crows of wind but crouch in their houses when hail pelts or the fear of hail from enemy eyes catches me slinking from the air (written on page 65 under "Summits") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00328s-aw8.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "And tomorrow" will you be saying what you say now with any less brilliance rainbow because someone has seen you entered you and understood and given to others each drop of you (written on page 37 under "At the Same Time") 2 "Graves" are what we are born with what we make them the pains in dreams (written on page 38 under "The Wharf") 3 "Despair" Heaven is a snapping turtle with lilies in its mouth (written on page 39 under "Beggars and Kings") 4 "Just enough light" to see to write by here in my Nova this ten p.m. looking out over Lake Winnebago near the white lighthouse in Lakeside Park the floating lights of two boats carrying me the land lights around making me still faint stars headlights turning behind me to my right my eyes recording the play of them (written on page 41 under the conclusion to "The Unwritten") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00327s-aw7.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "Windows" come & go in your hair in your skin in the leaf of a oak in the air Open to them (written on page 30 under the conclusion to "A Door") 2 "A Wall" A row of sunflowers A voice An odor of daylight textured like the faces of a leaf-- a carpenter's hand (written on page 32 under the conclusion to "A Door") [ "A Wall" was published in Wisconsin Review volume 12 no. 4 1978 ] 3 "A Floor" Ordered space the top of a bottom in the soil in the sky in a dream able to be a wall or a ceiling to slant an inhabiter of times of memories the erratic edge of the universe beneath which nothing (written on page 33 under"A Door") 4 "Ceilings" The summits of our emotions Beings we look up to with axes in our hearts Desires finally ripe The most we are willing to pay walking on our knees for the chance to die The last day of Earth on a high place of ritual where costumed dancers chant their fate / on low-wall floors of stone while the Divinity of White rises in the north the appearance of her feet signalling the end Our awakenings our births (written on page 35 under the conclusion to "A Door") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00326s-aw6.5poems
- Accompaniment: Where There Is Room 5 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "Poetry" is full of ashes full of bees is a desert drowns (written on page 24 under "The Current") 2 "Habit" I would have tasted her message inhaled her love touched her songs in my toes (written on page 25 under "Something I've Not Done") 3 "Owl to Owl" There are enjoyments and enjoyments One enters where one can When age and wealth and preferences bless me with their light I enter my dark eyes I enter here (written on page 26 under "Tool") 4 "In a Pool Somewhere" the wrinkling face of a lily (written on page 27 under "Bread") 5 "Me" Wind disturber of rest / of contemplation designer of rags / composer chameleon wastrel / saviour invisible (written on page 28 under "Habits") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00325s-aw5.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "Prayer: Looking at a Mirror" Out of Mystery I am and what I can do Out of boiling space and sea and land the comings together of particular people at particular times Out of accidents in the dances of dust and wind water fire I honor them (written on page 20 under "On Each Journey") 2 "Lover" whichever one you are leaf of light voice of black black green tongue of wind your enterings of me are deep your embracings full mine of you pale (written on page 21 under "Beyond You") 3 "Stars" Porcupines Waves (written on page 22 under "Their Week") 4 "Death" is a cauldron of peonies My head and torse blister dissolve Blackbirds fly through sparows through the walls of a dream Insects slither down (written on page 23 under "Old Flag") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00324s-aw4.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "The Sands Between My Toes" What matters is not so much where I am as where I am not airs cresting behind my wanding fingers bruises of flowers beneath my soles (written on page 15 under "The Clear Skies") 2 "Questions" Do you really want to bartend Really want sex Are the sunlights in your past that hard to look at And what about seclusion in the rattling caves and pines Could you really get into nakedness all day long Are there splinters in your brain waves Are there sparrows' nests in your ears (written on page 17 under the conclusion of "To Be Sung While Still Looking") 3 "Against the light of a season" there is little space to be the suck and whine of fire (written on page 18 under "Under the Migrants") 4 "The Head That Won't Stay Put" --from Janice sprouting legs and arms and at every crossroads not knowing which way to go-- the elm leaf limping through parched grass the unicyclist astonishing Golden Gate Park the ripe moon on a plate of water the earthy shirtless boys making hay the body spurting blood that won't stay put (written on page 19 under "On the Silent Anniversary of a Reunion") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00323s-aw3.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings for an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "In This Last Hour of Sun" by towering grays grayed around gray me and the gray rock I rest on and the quilted brown-gray lake white sails stroll a bright-green fly jewels my finger a dull rainbow of cars looks out and later/ when the acquaintance leaves near a soft-magenta margin of sky where the blackish horizon ruffles flashes of ragged cracks glowing fans of electrons periods of water of light (written on page 11 under "Letter to the Heart") 2 "Does it fit" to talk of Eden after the snake has wound back under the roots and the Son has somehow magicked Himself beyond our clouds though this is where I am? (written on page 12 under "Memory of the Loss of Wings") 3 "Gide" coming to terms-- that 1 + 1 = 2 not 3-- is hard so one poem's sour another sweet another this me in my car near the lighthouse again boy/girl lovers on either side my finger's shadow darkening where I write and the waves snap-- a few as far as my windows closing in on midnight sinking away while someone perhaps awakened wonders whose I am: his or hers (written on page 13 under "The Old Boast") 4 "Mt. Tamalpais" I was not the first there the day I went up I was not the last but where I walked climbed only I did and how I prayed that Sunday morning I did alone yet resting talking I know others and the birds rocks shrubs grasses trees and the windy light that warmed me and the amoeba fog below moved worshipped more sacredly than I (written on page 14 under "The Day") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00322s-aw2.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "As I Just Said" one must but then there are times oh you know don't you leaf in my hand (written on page 7 under "Looking Back") 2 "The Poem (v3)" Most of that day he worked on it auditioning words selecting their places from before the glare till nearly midnight wanting to stage a perfect show though he understood well the wanderings of clouds and Earth's inability to hold still (written on page 8 under "Song of a Man Chipping an Arrowhead") 3 "Chuck It" No silence no nothing cymbal clangs cars trucks skreeeee krawuge bledding steel bleeding asphalt stained windows roaded I am a harsh wind in tan cornstalks shivering cracking a fist and claw raking pummeling I cannot stay (written on page 9 under "The Silence Before Harvest") 4 "Child" Praise the leaf as it turns the ages in your eyes (written on page 10 under "Cat Ghosts") [ "Child" was published in Wisconsin Review volume 12 no. 4 1978 ] Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00321s-aw1.4poems
- Accompaniments: Where There Is Room 4 poems for W. S. Merwin written in my copy of his 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment 1 "And June, Listen," whenever a hidden piece of light curses or screams it is tortured with dirt and bits of grass which it can only surround but cannot pearl or fester out and if it continues the entire cell it shines in is filled and if it continues still it is catapulted into the sun (written on page 3 under "Early One Summer") 2 "Equation" If it is in darkness that we see it is in silence that we hear in emptiness that we feel in fasting that we taste in an ocean's wave knots from even a rock that the fragrances of lilies kiss us (written on page 4 under "Eyes of Summer") 3 "San Francisco" Like a clean electron sure of itself yet jittery I sped to the mountainous coast imagining burial in quaking stone or blossoming into a star or transformed to a bee headed down under or bandying from cove to mountain to cove or abruptly burning home (written on page 5 under "End of Summer") 4 "Anxiety" One must keep it intact pampered like a knickknack its colors though dull are essential and its delicate shape Should you sleep with your wife or stay up to write Without it you can be certain (written on page 6 under "The Distances") Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00320sc-set4.aw.links
Set 4 links to Accompaniments: Where There Is Room --for W. S. Merwin-- 4 poems - aw 1 - 4 poems - aw 2 - 4 poems - aw 3 - 4 poems - aw 4 - 4 poems - aw 5 - 5 poems - aw 6 - 4 poems - aw 7 - 4 poems - aw 8 - 4 poems - aw 9 - - Brian A. J. Salchert
Monday, April 16, 2007
sw00319a-signal.links
Autobio [ First this search recommendation: John Barr American Poetry New Century ] This is a links/information entry to works of mine which are significant to me personally. It is not complete because some of those works are not back online yet. = - If you wish to read my Homer-centered sonnet, my "Sonnet to Shakespeare" or my "To John Keats" sonnet, scroll to Year-day 281, Year-day 284, Year-day 285 - - "When You Are Young" homily - - poem: "Snow" - - snowman poem - - Birthday Ribbons poems - - poem: "Tonight" - - "The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time" villanelle - - poem: "Symphony" - - Letter (May, 1970) - - poem: "The Forty-One Days of Kim" - - poem: "After the Apple" - - manifesto poem: "At First to Poets" - - Brian A. J. Salchert
Sunday, April 15, 2007
sw00318v-9.poem7
Venturnings After the Apple If no one cares to know my name, I cannot say I blame them. Yet, nonetheless, I will trudge on, and crunch the leaves and use the air, inventing for myself, I guess, a strand of pleasure in the night. If words are what one cares about: the ways they crash, and lift, and cry, one's turns with them, then, will occur, though only reach that magnitude of power and beauty and sharp surprise that at those times// one's self/ possesses. So, be it Sirius or asteroid ash or sparkling rainbows or tufts of dust, if no one cares to know my name, I cannot say; I cannot/ name them.
[ from 10-25-00 ]
Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00317v-8.poem6
Venturings I'm tired of life, bless it! I'm just gonna live it, simply live it. Fill the thimble, if thimble I am. Fill the bucket, if bucket I am. Fill the reservoir, if that I am. And if only ephemera come of it, then only ephemera, shimmering. I'll at least have tried, Thomas Aquinas contemplating angels, Alphonsus smiling at the monastery door. And if while I'm imagining sailboat, satellite, butterfly, rackets of blue jays break in, then rackets of blue jays do. I also clamor, shake my colors in the dilettante sun; sweep down over parking lots for scattering seeds. I also vanish in the leaves & twigs. I also survive.
[ from 8-23-85 ]
Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00316ac-links.entry4
Autobio [ last modified: 2008-10-16 ] Autobio Poems is a double chapbook of 19 and 24 poems
( * ) indicates loose e-chap entry - ( fv ) indicates First Verses e-chap entry November 2006 (9 entries) - 3 blog notes - of my personal self and my poet self - noosphere - 2 about where - busy day - busy day 2 - 11-19-06 about me - University of Iowa Alumni Survey note and "Snow" poem - busy day 3 - - 2007 January (7 entries) - prayers - new residence - ice storms - settling in - two notes - settling in two - old info - - February (17 entries) - hermit poet - colors: the IE binot that was - West Bend News "Spice of Life" interview - four notes - on being human - about this journal - blessings: on 02-14-07 - hmmm - summary - outage - tags - two notes - sexuality - weather - calm before storm - an old poem ( * ) poem 1 - autobio - - March (2 entries) - how the GRE altered my life - aphorisms - - April (19 entries) - greeting ( * ) poem 2 - star poem ( * ) poem 3 - bird poem ( * ) poem 4 - Holy Thursday thoughts |tomb poem ( * ) poem 5 - Good Friday thoughts | Jesus in "hell" poem ( * ) poem 6 - Holy Saturday thoughts | God as "Rune" poem ( * ) poem 7 - Easter Sunday thoughts | two disciples poem ( * ) poem 8 - poem: "To Those I Am One With" ( * ) poem 9 - curious lucid dream - weird poem ( * ) poem 10 - links to personally-significant works of mine - experimental poem written in red on a white napkin ( * ) poem 11 - poem: "Malaise" ( * ) poem 12 - poem: "Each and Every" ( * ) poem 13 - 2 poems: "February" ( * ) and "September" ( * ) poems 14 and 15 - Then and Now - some poetic influences - Sayings - count of poem, ditty, muttobs in journal - - May (9 entries) - Important Notes - Hermit Stance - Interim - natura naturans - ego - tribs - in the far beyond (galaxies and avant-garde poetry) - Internet poets - A Special Thank You (for my life) - The Yeats-Auden-Saenz-Mackey Connections - - July (8 entries) - 6 Lines ( * ) poem 16 - My First AOL Journal - Another View of Myself - Creativity - On Not Fitting In - Recess ( * ) poem 17 - Okay ( * ) poem 18 - pdm count - tally 2 w/ 4 Lines ( * ) poem 19 - - August (3 entries) - Timely Thoughts - An Email to Anyone - meeting/lines/Pessoa - - September (3 entries) - facing it - email (eml) 5 poems - All About Me #2 - - October (2 entries) - US states I've resided in - some quick insights - - November (3 entries) - 24 First Verses titles/links ( fv ) - The Realm of Ibnar - confusion dream - - December (1 entry) - pdm count - tally 3 - - May 2008 (1 entry) - photo math project note poetics link - - June 2008 (1 entry) - Note about the 13 books of poems in this journal - - July 2008 (1 entry) - five Autobio links about me - - Brian A. J. Salchert
Saturday, April 14, 2007
sw00315o-the10questions
Opinion My Answers to The Ten Questions at Very Like a Whale because I have decided to accept the indirect invitation from the master of that blog to "have a go at" his questions. 1. In his response to Shelley, W. H. Auden said that if poets were allowed to be acknowledged legislators they would create a society no one could live in. I find this challenging, but I sense he is right. I do have a stance though, not that I always adhere to it, either in my poem-making or in my life. I believe we ought to strive to spiritually love each other, including those we place among our enemies. It is a belief which comes directly from Jesus, and is implicit in the prayer to the Father He taught his disciples. Flowing from this belief are the last ten lines of one of my poems: And yet, and yet, not wealth nor fame nor power-- you know: Uncounted simple ones of us have grown & given, and more and more made radiance their progeny, and selflessness, and courage. 2. I have never participated in an online workshop; but I was in a workshop as an undergraduate, then as a graduate, and then approximately twenty years later as a post-graduate. Each of those benefitted me, especially the graduate workshop. 3. As to Donald Hall's statement, there are too many variables. Another position I learned through Auden is Valéry's astute conclusion: "a poem is never finished, it is only abandoned"; further, I, like Yeats, am willing to revise so long as I am enough alive to be able to do so. Still, some poems arrive from one's secret brain in pristine condition, while others gestate for years, and others are so messy there seems no way to salvage them. 4. Wrong, but I will say this: I have self-published all my books except the first one. That first one came out in November of 1972 just as my academic life was about to end. I asked six or so of my colleagues to pick a poem from that book which s/he liked best, and no poem received more than one vote. I am too eclectic, and the Universe knows it. Its Muse, there- fore, is likely to charge in with any thing; and if to me that any thing has enough going for it, I am likely to record it and pass it on. The other day at a site devoted to S. T. Coleridge, I encountered and read a mathematical poem he had written. Did it amaze me he had done such? Yes it did, but I was pleased to have become acquainted with it. 5. Yes I have an Internet presence, but the search engine robots know more about it than humans do. Over the last seven years (the age of my online life) I have had to abort several of my online projects. The one I now maintain began its life 11-03-06 in AOL's journals space. My name for it is: Sprintedon Hollow. It is majorly poems I have written. I am 66. - The state of online poetry is beyond comprehension. That it is there is enough for me. I am constantly learning through it, and finding variant joys through it. 6. I have been published minorly, and that because I am not aggressive in that manner. I am an INFP. My development as a poet is ongoing, and other than through the workshops I mentioned, most of that development proceeds through the reading I do and through deepening my understanding of my wacky self. Recently I wrote that all my poems ought to be read by an English butler. I am three parts German and one part English, but the English part hath my wit. 7. They are there, and now and again I visit one, but I do not submit to any. There was, however, last time I checked, a sonnet of mine at Sonnet Central. 8. I favor it. I prefer being the sole arbiter of what I create. Just before 1980 I began Thinking Lizard (my still viable publishing company) and in 1980 I published several of my books in the cassette medium and registered them through the LOC. 9. The biggest opportunity? Communion with an other Earth-alive human through a made object which enables that other to live with more hope and more faith and more love. Communion with myself to the same end. 10. The biggest challenge? Not letting my life wend on, nowhere going, nowhere gone. It is easy to give up, but to paraphrase loosely what President Coolidge once said: Persistence is/ more valuable than is talent or genius. I opt to persist until I can persist no longer. Thank you. Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00314math-60n.and.66n
Math: 10 and the 60n and 11 and the 66n - This entry is a supplement to my 6n Elimination Table entry. # tpo1 = 60n where n = 1 | tpo2 = 60n where n = 2 therefore, the value of the "tpo" = the value of the "n" therefore, the resulting pewn's are: 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, 360, 420, 480, 540, 600, 60n and, therefore, the (60n - 10) numbers are: 50, 110, 170, 230, 290, 350, 410, 470, 530, 590, (60n - 10) and the (60n + 10) numbers are: 70, 130, 190, 250, 310, 370, 430, 490, 550, 610, (60n + 10) and, therefore, this is one method for generating the times ten values of the 5 _ 7, 11 _ 13, 17 _ 19, 23 _ 25, (6n - 1) _ (6n + 1) pairs. If "n" were "49" (60 x 49), the product would be: 2940, making "2930" the minus 10 value and "2950" the plus 10 value So, 293 _ 295 is the pair at n = 49 in the 6n E T (6nET). - If you add 5 to 50 (55) and also add 7 to 70 (77), another "n" series of interest emerges: 66n (6 x 11) wherein 66 x 1 = 66, 66 x 2 = 132, 66 x 3 = 198, . . . from which these pairs can be generated: 55 _ 77 (66 - 11) and (66 + 11) for (5 x 11) and (7 x 11) 121 _ 143 (132 - 11) and (132 + 11) for (11 x 11) and (13 x 11) 187 _ 209 (198 - 11) and (198 + 11) for (17 x 11) and (19 x 11) = Weather note at 9:11 AM - It is snowing here in Springfield, Missouri. The wind is at 14, but is gusting. The thick green grasses are slick white. Winter is whooo-whooo owling at my bedroom window. The nesting birds are snuggled in their cups; but, wait: what was that? Parting the drapes, I see the smeared answer. # Brian A. J. Salchert
Friday, April 13, 2007
sw00313a-poem10apr07
Autobio "Weird" The Centaurs waxed and waned in the pools of heat Miss Quito buzzed for a whole year in and out of Ecuador You couldn't catch a fly with a button if you ate 'hoppers We sat about five feet from each other so we could breathe A myriad galaxies bounced out of time - Brian A. J. Salchert
Thursday, April 12, 2007
sw00312math-6n.elimination.table
The 6n Elimination Table - [ last modified: 2007-04-13 | see below ] In 2006, before I was forced by IE to move all I had there offline, I had a major site at ThirdAge, a significant portion of which was dedication to what I named: Number Theory Investigations. That IE made me remove that site/ may have been good. I did discover this year (2007) that at least one person copied my NTI pages there without my knowledge. I hope that person and whoever else became aware of my investigations/ learned some things of value from my endeavors. Being the heuristic mathematician I am, I often present my thoughts as they are occurring, and consequently am liable to change and/or discard those thoughts. - Due to what I began to see this morning, I am next going to place here part of page 12 from my Number Theory Investigations, but first some explanations. # pown = positive odd whole number pewn = positive even whole number E T = Elimination Table tpo = termposition fd = final digit # # 2006-04-19 Wednesday - A pown can be doubled to begin the creation of an Elimination Table which will effectively eliminate every multiple of that pown/ except that pown x 1. Thusly: If c = 6, 6 then can be the pewn constant for an Elimination Table in which neither a (6n - 1) term nor a (6n + 1) term could ever be a multiple of "3". # # 2007-04-12 comment: The "except that pown x 1" is wrong. Onward. Here is the beginning of a 6n Elimination Table: (note: the first "n" = "1")
Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 - (6n - 1) 6n (6n + 1) tpo1 5 6 7 - tpo2 11 12 13 - tpo3 17 18 19 - tpo4 23 24 25 - tpo5 29 30 31 - end of cycle 1 - tpo6 35 36_____________37 - tpo7 41 42_____________43 - tpo8 47 48_____________49 - tpo9 53 54_____________55 - tpo10 59 60_____________61 - end of cycle 2 - -
This is a what-I-started-to-see pause. Knowing that a number whose fd = 5 is a number divisible by 5 is easy, but knowing that a number (whatever its fd is) is divisible by 7 is not easy unless a way can be found which will make it easy. I think I may have found such a way. Important primary point: The power inherent in a pown (let 7 be our example) regarding those numbers it divides into equally/ does not begin until the square of that pown has been reached. In other words, while a given pown does divide equally into a number or numbers which are less than the value of that pown's square, it is the lesser number it is partnered with which rules. Two divides equally into every greater pewn. Important secondary point: In the table being used here, no (6n - 1) or (6n + 1) pown is divisible by 3. Okay, what about 7? 1 x 7 = 7. 3 x 7 = 21. 5 x 7 = 35. 7 x 7 = 49. 21 is not in this table. 35 is, but 5 rules it. 7 is, but 1 rules. As to 49, this: 48/6 = 8. 48 + 1 = 49. 6 + 8 = 14. 7 + 7 = 14. We are forced to skip 63 because it is divisible by 3, and neither 62 nor 64 is divisible by 6. Let's go to 77. 78/6 = 13. 78 - 1 = 77. 6 + 13 = 19. 7 + 11 = 18. What's with this? Let's go to 91. 90/6 = 15. 90 + 1 = 01. 91/7 = 13. 6 + 15 = 21. 7 + 13 = 20. What's with this? Let's go to 119. 120/6 = 20. 119/7 = 17. 6 + 20 = 26. 7 + 17 = 24. Now what's up? Would you like to venture a guess about the next divisible by 7 pown? Let's try 35. 36/6 = 6. 6 + 6 = 12. 5 + 7 = 12. I think there is a pairs thing going on here, wherein 36 and 48 are pair one; 78 and 90 are pair two; 120 and 132 are pair three. Also, 35 and 49 are pair one; 77 and 91 are pair two; 119 and 133 are pair three. I'll be back later. (It is 5:05 PM.) - 6:36 PM Among other things while I was away, I've been doing some calculating. Two worthy results came of it. The first is that the (6n - 1) and (6n + 1) numbers are multiplicands as well as being multipliers. This is simple enough. The other is: If you stay with the 6n E T so as to avoid multiples of "3", 6 times any (6n - 1) number or 6 times any (6n+ 1) number will give you tpo1 of a simple arithmetic sequence based on that tpo/ from which multiples of the pown you have chosen can bedetermined. 6 x 7 = 42. 42 -7 = 35. 42 + 7 = 49. 7's number withinthe parameters of the 6n E T is 42. 42 is tpo1. 84 is tpo2. 126 is tpo3. 168 is tpo4. This means/ 42 times any positive whole number = a product from which two numbers divisible by "7" can be derived. 41 x 42 = 1722. 1722 - 7 = 1715. 1715/7 = 245. 1722 + 7 = 1729. 1729/7 = 247. | 66 is the number for "11"; 78 is the number for "13". - Normally that pown which is two less than the square of a pown is a prime number. There are exceptions. "119" is an exception. 11 x 11 = 121, but 7 x 17 = 119. We already know 6 x 20 = 120. Point of possible interest. 6 + 20 = 26; 7 + 17 = 24; 11 + 11 = 22. In just looking at "119" it does not seem there is any clue pertaining to its divisibility by "7". Yes, 42 x 3 = 126, and 126 - 7 = 119; but what would lead one to even try that? Regarding "3": Any pwn that digit sums to 3, 6, or 9 is divisible by "3". Just a something you likely know. "119" digit sums to 11, or 2. 17's 6n E T parameter number is "102", and 102 + 17 = 119. Isn't this just sweet petunias. 126 - 102 = 24, and 24 x 5 = 120--for whatever that's worth. I wonder where the next 7n = a number which is two less than the square of a pown? - 9:14 PM Something I had forgotten about which solves the "119" question quicker than a blink. It involves "10". 10 times any pwn or any multiple of any pwn will encounter a greater pwn that is divisible by the base pwn. 7 x 7 = 49. 7 x 10 = 70. 49 + 70 = 119. This also proves why "17" has to be the multiplicand: 7 + 10 = 17. I know this isn't entirely satisfactory, but it is a light. # 2007-04-13 8:13 AM - One could call it the "times ten rule". Here is run-through using "7": 1 x 7 = 7; 7 x 10 = 70; 7 + 70 = 77; 1 + 10 = 11. 2 x 7 = 14; 14 + 70 = 84; 2 + 10 = 12; 7 x 12 = 84. 3 x 7 = 21; 21 + 70 = 91; 3 + 10 = 13; 7 x 13 = 91. 4 x 7 = 28; 28 + 70 = 98; 4 + 10 = 14; 7 x 14 = 98. 5 x 7 = 35; 35 + 70 = 105; 5 + 10 =15; 7 x 15 = 105. 6 x 7 = 42; 42 + 70 = 112; 6 + 10 = 16; 7 x 16 = 112. 7 x 7 = 49; 49 + 70 = 119; 7 + 10 = 17; 7 x 17 = 119. 8 x 7 = 56; 56 + 70 = 126; 8 + 10 = 18; 7 x 18 = 126. 9 x 7 = 63; 63 + 70 = 133; 9 + 10 = 19; 7 x 19 = 133. I ignored "0" but I ought to have begun with it. 0 x 7 = 0; 0 + 70 = 70; 0 + 10 = 10; 7x 10 = 70. The finaldigit (fd) cycle for "7" is: 0, 7, 4, 1, 8, 5, 2, 9, 6, 3 This fd cycle is a retrograde cycle because "7" is > "5". Without the leading zero, the fd following the "3" fd would be"0", but that "0" would be the zero in "10". I opted for the leading "0" in part because I did not want to enter what I call "the one set", that set which comprises the teens. I wanted to stay within what I call "the zero set", that set which comprises the single-digit positive whole numbers (pwn's). # Brian A. J. Salchert