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


Thinking Lizard

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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.

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Thursday, May 31, 2007

sw00437a-con.versingwithmyself

[ Updated 2007-09-24 ] Autobio The Yeats-Auden-Saenz-Mackey Connections Last night I got to reflecting: I am somewhat of an oddball poet, a strange poet. And so I did searches on both. Under the first I found and read an interview of two translators of works by a reclusive nocturnal oddball poet who lived out his life in La Paz, Bolivia. His name is Jaime Saenz. Though not as he was, going back to even before my 27 years working as a motel/hotel night auditor I was a creature of night. My reclusiveness applies more to my inner life than to my day-to-day life, but I have become more reclusive in my day-to-day life since my health forced me into an early retirement, a circumstance I did not expect and was not planning toward. There is a chance I may become less of a recluse. The oddball in me relates to my approach to writing as well as to my personality, though I believe the latter is the force beneath and within my views of and consequent expressions of whoever it is I am. Unless some other can gather a sense of me more clearly than I am able to, I contend I am a chameleon: one who does not have a locatable style. Why? Because my sub- conscious, my hidden brain, my below-ground brain is an ocean of possibilities, an ocean which is constantly changed. And it is from what that ocean does with what changes it that I so often am motivated. Rarely am I able to tell in advance what next will rise from it. It has been my way to go with what is presented to my conscious brain, however it is structured. Doing so is filled with risks, but I am possessed by a risk-taking personality. Yes, I have made significant errors because of it, but I have also made signal advances because of it. Should I be more rational? Sure. I have at times. - So where does Yeats fit into this? Centrally in his belief that we who do such making/ make poetry out of our arguments with ourselves. I definitely do this, and not just in poems I make. And where does Auden enter? Centrally in his: "How can I know what I think until I see what I say" idea. And Nathaniel Mackey? Two things--both ofwhich I learned from an online interview of him by Christopher Funkhouser: 1) his interest in math and science during his early years / 2) his belief writing is rooted in the author, and that therefore an author must take the risk of not appealing to anyone, must have the faith writings of his (of hers) will find their ways to appreciative audiences. - Here are two sites to see. If you go to the first one, scroll to the bottom of the page and read the information there, and heed it. - (this is the interview about Jaime Saenz) - (this is the Funkhouser Mackey interview) - footnote: recently one of my siblings told me I--when I was yet quite young--used to get up on top of the kitchen table and attempt to carry on a debate with my dad. My dad would then eat a little faster and go outside. My sibling, meanwhile, would sneak some of the food on my plate. - Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

sw00436rtj-codes.sitemap

[ last modified: 2007-06-04 ] Regarding This Journal Sprintedon Hollow Updating - E14 Have been updating this Sprintedon Hollow journal the last few days. Am not yet finished, but mostly finished. The sw00254jcctr entry was really an rtj entry. Accordingly, it is sw00254rtj-shj.codes.center now. My investigating has made clear to me the importance of what comes after the en dash. Therefore, my updates have concentrated on that portion of my URL structure. The "E14" above indicates that this is the 14th rtj entry. The "30may07entry" does not expressly reveal/ what type of entry it relates to, nor provide the sequence # for the entry; but, at this date, all regular rtj entries use this pattern. Admittedly I am experimenting. No other type of entry will use the pattern I am using for rtj entries. Throughout this journal each type of entry will use a pattern specific to it. I have assigned numbers to most of the central links sites. Instead of using simply "links" after an en dash, I am now using, for example, "links.entry5", which is the one for the math entries links site. Am considering placing a list on this page, but today I did just that at Sprintedon Hollow's Journal Links Center. Whenever I find that a further refinement needs to be made, I will make that refinement. I do not/ want/ to be ever making refinements, but things change and I must/ change with them. I have also been removing many tags, as I am learning more about what works best in that realm. - This journal's links center code is the Sprintedon Hollow code. It is the code for this journal's core sitemap/index/links entry. It is one of just two which I've allowed to retain the "sw-p". "00260jlctr" follow. Except for the few purposely singular entries in this journal, all of S H's entries can be accessed from there. No more than a search on this code is necessary. If you want to see the most recent entries however, link to the Sprintedon Hollow URL. In the code shown here the "jlctr" means Journal Links Center. As I have done on this page, each new page will show my journal's name, provide a link to my journal's Journal Links Center, and display thepage's AOL entry number in its upper right corner. Place your cursor over the Journal Links Center link to see its code. - - sitemap information at Wikipedia Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, May 28, 2007

sw00435math-colors.hex.rgb.2

Math Color Names and Digital Reality Having seen sites on which multiple variations of gray are shown and are given numbers such as gray 7, I did some searching this morning and found this site: Graphics Magick where grays are assigned percentage values, with 0 being black and 100 being white. When a color is given a language name, the digital realities, i.e., mathematical realities, of the systems being used are at that moment sublimated by the fictive, the poetical. To name 00ff00 / 0,255,0 green, light green, bright green, lime, or my mother's favorite is essentially a pleasantry which only minimally describes fact. Because black needs to be "zero" and not "one", and because white (for practical reasons) was set at "255", there are 256 gradations. Given the red/green/blue primaries, we are faced with 256³ (16,777,216) possible colors. I don't know about you, but unless someone or some robot has already given a language name to each of these, I suggest using the rgb numbers. Since 255,0,0 is the brightest pure red and 1,0,0 is the darkest pure red, 255,254,254 is the most nearly white red even if it seems gray. If I tried to give a name to each possible color, how long would it take me? If I tried to write a poem about each, how long would that take? Maybe we should assign each possible color to each of 16,777,216 humans for the purpose of giving each color in our pantheon a name. Maybe 16,777,216 volunteers could be found. What a bouquet! - Has someone created a fireproof, damage-resistant, energy self-sufficient house/ replete with pontoons in case a flood races toward it? That would be a better project. - Read Kenneth Brecher's remarks in article by Robert Roy Britt in the 25 June 2002 issue of Science -

- to go to my colors.hex.rgb entry

~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, May 26, 2007

sw00434v-14.poem12

Venturings What It Is after reflecting on the poem-making of Mark Doty and John Ashbery Though there is no silence, One must write in the silence, Take time in the silence, Though there is no time One must write in; Yet this is how The great poem is written, Survives itself, Patiently/ revealing its being Displacing the dark. Words into words Like rocks into rocks Or tired breezes curled into sleep Arrive, arise / descend, depart Riffs into riffs/ for days into days. ----------------------- links to over 300 literary periodicals Brian A. J. Salchert

Thursday, May 24, 2007

sw00433a-tu4caring

Autobio [ The remarks below were originally on the home page of a site I once had in Tripod space. BAJS ] A Special Thank You It is Wednesday, October 4th, 2000. About 8am I decided to write this and to place it here. Due to the genes I inherited I have never known true health, yet I may soon be 60 years old. Were it not for the doctors and other health-care professionals, and were it not for researchers and inventors and the many companies which make the products that have benifitted me and continue to benefit me, and were it not for parents who cared and for all like others, I would not still be alive. I owe all these magnificent humans a special thank you; nay, owe can go: To all of you without whom I would not yet be/ experiencing this holy/ human passage, ugly and beautiful as it is and as I have made it, thank you, thank you, for you truly are the goodness of God. Brian Salchert Retail Pharmacy Rant - (I read it. You should too.) Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

sw00432a-poets.who.blog

Autobio Internet poets Will this really be about me? I am not sure. Maybe tomorrow I will know. Maybe never. Fissures mar my spirit. That I can say. Yet, it is more likely resilience will build in me (if the universe allows it to) than the dissolution of what is left of who I am. Let no one feel one drop of sadness, for where I am and am heading toward/ I freely choose. Life, even without anyone but myself, I shall ever prefer to no life. As it is, the only reason I still am an Earth-alive sappy human/ is: the love of other humans. I have probably had 4 times the lives a cat supposedly is able to have. Will this really be about me? I am not sure. - Someone or some organization ought to conduct a census of American poets and publish a list thereafter. Perceived worth should not be a consideration. Only this question need be asked: If you believe you are a poet, what is your poet name? My sense is there are far more of us than is generally thought. I know some would not answer my proposed question. Some might even consider it an insult. Poets who are widely known should, perhaps, not even be approached. [ AM 9 24MAY07: Maybe someone in the literary blogosphere is making a list. ] - - [ PM 8:22 24MAY07: Below is a note from the home page I once had on Tripod. ] - The computer revolution notwithstanding, there are millions of humans known only by those few humans who know them. More to the point, the same can be said of millions of humans who have an online presence. I am these days such a human. Here I sit, typing this, typing that, as if I am writing to billions; but barely even a dozen a day read my words. I am as one in a plasma cell at this 11:17 passing PM minute, wholly available; yet wholly alone. It is a strange universe, it is, it is. Good night. - September 20, 2006 - Brian Salchert American Academy of Poets - Randall Mann on John Ashbery Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

sw00431a-inthefar.beyond

Autobio (galaxies and avant-garde poetry) Earlier I was in the Archive of Astronomy Picture of the Day where I looked at a photo of the Globular Cluster M13. In the explanation/ mention was made of a yet more distant galaxy, a presence which moved me to say to myself interiorly: The existence and persistence of the universe obliterates my comprehension. - I then went to Reginald Shepherd's Blog where I encountered a piece on the nature of language. It was posted on Friday, May 18, 2007. It's entitled: "A Few Words About Language". Reginald Shepherd's Blog is here. In one sentence he says: ". . . language is not a discrete entity the way sound and color and shape are: . . ." I agree. As T. S. Eliot wrote in Burnt Norton: . . . . Words . . . / . . . / . . . slip, slide, . . . / . . . / Will not stay still. - Mr. Shepherd indicates that the purview of the poetic avant-garde is that space where language is nearest to losing its identity as language, but he does not pursue this. Through examples from my own compositions I am going to pursue this, but not tonight. It is nearing 11:30, and I have other concerns. - 23MAY07: I am not in general an avant-garde poet. I am, however, in my own way, a poet who believes as Stanley Kunitz did: that a poem comes to one as a kind of blessing. Therefore, even though I often do chose a form first (such as the sonnet), I tend to allow a poem to develop an interior form. A poem is an it: a made thing. This its construction, however, does not need to be predetermined in its form and content. This its construction can issue from the sense and sound of its initial word or meta-word or non-word. The levels of formality and informality to which a poem can rise (or descend, if you will) are endless. Poem-making is not an exact science, however intensively a particular maker is craft-centered. To begin with, each maker is a being who is constantly changing and being changed by da-dot-da-dot, da-dot-da-dot, da-dot-da-dot, rigida, rigida, ü ee ee ü ah ah ah. And, in the riddledon- going, a foreign object in one's eye can suddenly flip "everything". So, the so-called content of an object made with words always engenders an interior form, a form which can rigidly mimic an exterior form/ or which can so aggressively counter an exterior form it replaces that form with the form inherent in itself, or exist in some degree between/ wherein it serves as a tone master. - The following are varyingly avant-garde compositions of mine: - See 2007/02/25/sw00237s for "Day Five blue" from my Birthday Ribbons set - See 2007/02/13/sw00207tdp for "As the Desk Lamp Flickers" - See 2007/05/01/sw00357ut for "E v e n i n g" - See 2007/04/25/sw00348v for "U" - See 2007/05/10/sw00385jt for "Incantation" (see near bottom of entry) - Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, May 20, 2007

sw00430math-colors.hex.rgb

Math HTML color codes information [ last modified: 2007-05-26 ] Links to important references relating to this entry appear below. = Before I begin showing my conclusions, I thank the following: - MS Explorer, AOL Journals, Colorado State Engineering, Keller . com, and Learning Web Design . com - = In the RGB (red/green/blue) HTML color realm, the number "17" (as I have long known through my own heuristic math delvings, but which I did not fully appreciate until today via learning about the uses for the number "16" from the Colorado State Engineering site) is key. The #FFFFFF I placed above is the hexadecimal (HEX) code for the color "white" (the top cock, as in the adult male domestic chicken) which has the equivalent RGB code of 255,255,255. There are sixteen (16) basic color gradations, if black (#000000) is allowed. They are "F" / "E" / "D" / "C" / "B" / "A" / "9" / "8" / "7" / "6" / "5" / "4" / "3" / "2" / "1" / "0" - This means that A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D = 13, E = 14, and F = 15. However, "0" is in termpostion (tpo) "1", and therefore "F" is in tpo "16". This is significant when dealing with color combinations. "17" is this system's rung number. 0/17 = 0. 0 + 17 = 17 and 17/17 = 1, and 1 = #111111 in HEX and 017,017,017 in RGB. Black is black and white is white, but every color between these in which the six HEX alpha/numeric characters are alike are variants of gray. So 000 (0), 017 (17), 034 (34), 051 (51), 068 (68), 085 (85), 102, 119, 136, 153, 170, 197, 204, 221, 236, and 255 are the central sixteen RGB numbers. 16 x 16 = 256. From this set far more colors than are needed can be generated. One color in the w3c core sixteen is silver (#C0C0C0 or 192,192,192). What is "C" in HEX is "204" in RGB. If 204 is divided by 17, 12 remains. It happens that 204 - 12 = 192, and C is 12 as 17 shows. [ It is 12:55 PM and I am taking a break. ] - The other w3c colorsare: white, black, one gray (#808080 or 128,128.128), red(#FF0000 or 255,0,0), yellow (#FFFF00 or 255,255,0), blue (#0000FF or 0,0,255), aqua (#00FFFF  or 0,255,255), lime(#00FF00 or 0,255,0), fuchsia (#FF00FF or 255,0,255, navy (#000080 or 0,0,128), maroon (#800000 or 128,0,0), teal (#008080 or 0,128,128), olive (#808000 or 128,128,0), green (#008000 or 0,128,0), & purple (#800080 or 128,0,128). There are nastinesses herein whose sources I am not aware of and whose consequent results I am not able to dispute, but I am bringing them to the fore. I have been an AOL member since April 18, 2000; and almost from the first I was puzzled by the color system, especially by the color now (and possibly then) known as either cyan or aqua. Still, green then was what lime now is, and I'm fairly sure purple then was what fuchsia now is. In light of the aqua/cyan color, these new namings seem apt, and I do find no fault with fuchsia, purple, or lime; but the color which is labeled green is going to take some getting used to. What is at stake, if it is at stake, is the prism-derived notion of what a primary, secondary, and so on color is. - On to "16" and what I culled from the engineering site. This involves remainders resulting from divisions by "16" and--as with "17"--"0" is included. In this regard, MS Explorer will sometimes change the RGB code I have put in. Reminder: 16 divides into 256 (not 255) 16 times. Because divisions by 16 extend to four places, .0000 must be used for black. 1/16 = .0625, 2/16 = .1250, 3/16 = .1875, 4/16 = .2500, 5/16 = .3125, 6/16 = .3750, 7/16 = .4375, 8/16 = .5000, 9/16 = .5625, 10/16 = .6250, 11/16 = .6875, 12/16 = .7500, 13/16 = .8125, 14/16 = .8750, and 15/16 = .9375 and F = 15 and 15 x 17 = 255. Why is knowing this valuable? Here is the link to Engineering Colorado State HTML color support Read it only/ as its reason for being is to aid the students there. On this page is an explanation of how to convert an RGB value to its hexadecimal equivalent. - The catalyst behind this entry was and yet is my desire to know color names for the 216 HTML safe colors. My immediate ? is: What is the name of the #00CCCC HEX color? [ 7:17 PM - I've decided to make up my own color names. ] - [ 21MAY07: There will be more to come here. ] - One pleasant light event was that finally I did find what I'd long been vigorously seeking, but I have chosen not to use it; yet, since the information there is worth pondering: *** this e-whip to it ***. - Also this from the University of Rhode Island. - - two other worthwhile sites to visit: color names at Learning Web Design - RGB HTML at Keller [ 22MAY07: Have been thinking about "green" and/ after concluding that midway between 255,0,0 and 0,0,255 is 0,128,0// I went to the Internet Options color area. I chose to test my conclusion via the 204,204,204 bg color I am using. It changed the bg color but because I did not OK the initial OK it moved to the basic colors palette IE7 uses. Suddenly (though it now seems I should have known this) I realized/ the colors palette at AOL Journals is the same one, but AOL Journals does not use strict RGB codes. It uses the associated codes w3c uses. As I now know which of the palette's colors is 0,128,0/ I am next going to see how it is coded in AOL J. - It is, of course (as I half-suspected): 008000. Besides, all this is already noted above where I presented the core w3c 16 colors along with both codes. ] [ 26MAY07: This morning I found a site where the names given to certain RGB (rgb) colors are more to my liking. scroll down to see - Also this morning (with Google's help) I re-learned that with paints and dyes the primary colors are red,blue,yellow. Try a "primary colors rgb" search. ] -

- to go to my colors.hex.rgb.2 entry ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, May 19, 2007

sw00429xdspny-math.poetics

Cross-Disciplinary xdspny Magic numbers for the natural number summation sequence are always even numbers, always relate to two odd or two even nnss terms, and always are numbers which are equidistant from (at the midpoint between) nnss terms. Therefore, if a termposition is a positive odd whole number (pown), the nnss pair which can be generated from it will always be odd; likewise, if a temposition is a positive even whole number (pewn), the nnss pair which can be generated from it will always be even. However, because it is necessary to multiply a given termposition by "two" in order to discover the greater of the two numbers being summed through (unless you prefer using division and so use the number being summed through as your starting point), that number will always be a pewn while the lesser paired number being summed through will always be a pown. Example: "one" plus "two" equals "three" wherein the controlling termposition is "one"/ and "one" times "two" equals the magic nnss number for the odd "one"-"three" nnss pair. This is the only case where the number being summed through is also the magic nnss number. Earlier today I calculated from the termposition (tpo) "10,011". The formula for finding the magic nnss number is: tpo times 2tpo or "10,011" times "20,022" which results in the product "200,440,242". "20,022" is the greater of the two numbers which can be summed through when "10,011" is the generating tpo, it is NOT the greater of the two nnss terms to which tpo "10,011" leads. If the goal is to sum through "20,022"/ then "10,011" will need to be added to "200,440,242"; but if the goal is to sum through only 20,021"/ then "10,011" wll need to be subtracted from "200,440,242". What is my reason for belaboring this? In this entry my primary reason is to show that herein exists a mathematics of absolute determinacy. - I have been reading (randomly) Marjorie Perloff's The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage and at the beginning of the final chapter (chapter eight, page 288) she writes: In Chapter Six of the Poetics, Aristotle lists the six constituent parts of tragedy (for him the supreme form of poetry) as mythos (plot), ethos (character), dianoia (thought), lexis (diction), melopoeia (rhythm and song), and opsis (spectacle). She then relates these to what has been happening in poetics, citing the Romantic, Modernist, and now the postmodern (centering on Performance Poetry). John Cage and David Antin figure in this. Even though I am psychologically a deep-within person, I am not caged there, and so at times can be quite antic. Back in my gainfully- employed days, one co-worker nicknamed me "bad ass" and another one nicknamed me "mad man": homo corruptus? We're not telling. That the postmodern sensibility is oriented more toward the oral, aural, vividly visual, the ephemeral event, imagination's interstices, workings of rather than products of what we call consciousness, the oblique outside// seems to me beyond question. With each passing instant planet Earth and Homo sapiens (whoever that is / is that) are more and more rapidly flying toward somewhere undefined. A moment ago I had a near vertigo feeling which caused my foreign guys (there apparently is more than one now) alter egos to/ pop in with: "Vaired he go?" "Vee don't know, and vee don't care. Maybe he will/ stay there." If I had the technological ability, I would/ try to create dancing colored on-off dots et cetera poems. For every venture there's a season, whether with/ or without reason. Oh yes, Aristotle. | Plot. That place within which your ashes are buried. No? That which holds a tragedy together like the hand of an angry god. Maybe I should return to this later. | Character. Something I am but don't have. No? A definable representation of a sentient being. I suspect an insufficiency here. | Thought. Oh really. No? That which is an evidence of intelligence. Maybe after I read further, though I somewhat doubt such will matter. | Diction. Yes, that would be a good idea. No? Speaking distinctly/ and audibly. Seems safe. | Rhythm and song. - Sing a song of sixpence: A pocket full of why Four and twenty blackbirds Ate an apple pie. - No? Sonority and enchanting language.  Of choruses! Perhaps, but certainly not only. | Spectacle. One eyepiece. No? A presentation of grand proportions. Yes, but not exclusively. In thesetimes it might be simply a minimal object imbued with the power to induce intense attentiveness. There will be investigations. The Argotist: Perloff interview The Perloff book was published by Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey Copyright © 1981 by Princeton University Press - Brian A. J. Salchert

Friday, May 18, 2007

sw00428rtj-ascii.chart

Regarding This Journal E13 [ 2007-05-19: xdspny is a new code - it is for cross-disciplinary ] There was a time when I decided to not provide links to outside sites from entries in this journal. That time has passed. Today I decided I will provide at least 1 link to an outside site in each entry. In the prior entry there is one. I was earlier considering making these mystery links, but I may not. I know which one I am going to provide today, but I have not made a list. I will, however, be making a list for my own purposes. § I am still changing codes a little. One I plan to change later this afternoon is my "m" for math code to "math" since discovering "pind" for Prayers in December was preferable to just "p" for what I needed. § So, for those of you who use HTML, today's link is to a useful ASCII chart. You may wish to do as I have: place the link to it in your favorite sites section. Speaking of which, sort of, I learned how to code the section symbol I've twice used in this entry by referring to that chart. And those of you who already know HTML ASCII codes can just sit back and chuckle. I am not a tech geek. This forwards another point: most of the links I'm likely to provide will be ones to literary sites. Brian A. J. Salchert

Thursday, May 17, 2007

sw00427a-tribs

Autobio Recently something happened at Google I was puzzled by. Today it happened again. So I decided to search further. There is online a poem by another of my classmates at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. It is a deep-thought poem by David Lunde entitled Absolute Zero. Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00426pind-prayer33

December 31: New Year's Eve Year's end. And mistakes I have made, of whatever size and strength they have been, set my inner left ear gurgling like water boiling deep in a well; curl inside my stomach wall a distant ache; open in the bone of my upper left arm a space whirling with a damp wind. Year's end: pulsebeats not for counting: particular patterns and places of them layered with knowledge sometimes hard to peel, sometimes hard to learn from. Still, the attempt; still resolutions without understandings. Little's changed. Year's end. And three crows flap from a sleeping oak; and my spirit stands on a high granite rock, viewing before, and now, and to come, and waiting for the vitamin light and mineraled waters to feed and test the hidden wisdoms gathered by a heart at another raucous, another somber year's end. Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00425pind-prayer32

December 30 If the butterfly had dipped to the left instead of to the right, the swallow would have missed it and the well-dressed man watching from the clovered knoll would not have remembered those irretrievable moments when, his wit outwitted by a circumstance, he was stript of his natty pride. - Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00424pind-prayer31

December 29 Magnificence (cities, castles, cathedrals of imagination) deepens, encourages, inspires. Magnificence (winds, waters, land shapes of imagination) deepens, encourages, inspires. Magnificence (faith, hope, love in imagination) deepens, encourages, inspires. Through the nerve routes of human creation, the nerve routes of nature, the nerve routes of spirit; through the air ways of human creation, the air ways of nature, the air ways of spirit; through the blood lines of human creation, the blood lines of nature, the blood lines of spirit, magnificence, magnificence, magnificence. ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00423pind-prayer30

December 28 When the guest asked: "Have you ever been burned?" I answered: "Yes"-- but did not heed him well enough. So when they talked me into opening the pool-- those two from a wedding-party group-- I did not double-lock the drawer. While I was gone swift knowledge used to slide it out, and all the tens and all the twenties (one hundred thirty dollars worth) flew from there. Foxes, cats; and one dead bunny. [ 2007-05-17 ~ There does exist a two-part story preceding this story which somewhat explains the why of this one, but it's in a place that's double-locked. ] - Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

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December 27 In the long night the long day resounds-- a rainbow of odors, a taster's delight of textures, and ever-changing pulsebeat of remembrances. When we near an end, its beginning always returns. Every moment involved with every other. Every space. Ecology: of the universe, of the mind. The discovery of a cecropia resplendent in the sun, the vision of a coasting Snowy Owl. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 26 Balancing the day that would not balance-- as there were errors in the rooms, in the restaurant, in the lounge; errors in the debits and the credits; errors in the balances picked up-- my attention is disrupted by our other Brian, and my wonder caught by Polaroid for his album of employees, guests, and patrons of this Holiday Inn-West Bend. My attention scribbles off to vague, unsolvable dreams. Labor, recreation, relaxation: fitful though they are: I give, and am given. Down a highway glare with freezing rain we safely travel home. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Christmas Day: During And let your gifts be inexpensive but rich with meaning. And let your gifts be small with large souls. This starship you inhabit will reward you. From your trudging against a blizzard up an unfamiliar road, a searcher on a snowmobile will rescue you. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Christmas Day: Dawn Hidden from us by a shell of clouds, the flashing sun floats higher and higher from the Eastern trees. The mansion's acres kept sacred by a steel fence, its owners' dogs cannot tear our hands. Led inward by imaginings, the senses curl to sleep. Her silence is their prayer. His watchfulness their lantern in the cave. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Christmas Day: Midnight Father Creator, In the name of Your Son, Jesus, whose birth this day we celebrate, congratulations. As the margins of oceans with the margins of lands applaud; as winds with the leaves of trees applaud, so now my spirit with my flesh applauds. In one place strings of stars give voice to this night; in another place shakings of snow. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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[ As to the following, be skeptical. Do your own research. ] December 24: Christmas Eve Sitting in my parents' living room, I am attracted to the voice of another: Do you want to hear a good one? Before the Second World War the DuPonts built factories in Germany which were used by the Nazis to make bombs directed against our men and profits for the DuPonts, factories which were then bombed by our pilots, an act because of which the DuPonts sued the United States, and so profited both ways. Traitors. Ill-used money. Ill-wed power. The death of men. Watching my parents' television, I turn to the voice of Golda Meir. I can't see how the PLO can be called a liberation movement. It's not. It's a terrorist movement. * . . . . How can you argue with people who want you to die. In the hands of the greedy the earth's living green burns to brown: gills and lungs collapse. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 23 Soon, like Jesus of Nazareth, I may be killed because I am different and am not afraid to say so. [ 2007-05-16: Delete, delete: too paranoid; too confessional. Okay. Proceed. Examples follow. ] So you: Black, Red, Brown, Yellow, White. So you: Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Jew, Christian. So you: woman, man. So you. We are each of minorities who must assuage and counter and bear with the tyrannies of majorities and each other; who, though often lost in the forests of our whims and demands, must contemplate the trilliums of hope. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 22 Having missed today, I come back to it from the day after with just enough faith to give it a chapel with a mellow bell. ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 21 Icy snowflakes on the windows of our van-- a morning of glassware branches-- we're wondering to church. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 20 Lord, Person Supreme, forgive me for my forgetfulness of those I have gamed with and half-an-hour later no longer known, and those close acquaintances of a year or more whose names, if not faces, will not return; the memory You have given me, good, is neither always quick nor long; so, I try to accept it, hoping that through these words I may/ a tad atone for its hurtful, embarrassing faults; and in one small way again bless-- or in more than one way: like the notes of a moving song, the sparklings of snow on a pine, the delicate highs in a fern. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 19 The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a version of the Holy Bible, The Works of Shakespeare, a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, Teilhard de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man, Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God, J. Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, Buckminster Fuller's Synergetics, Isaac Asimov's Guide to Science, George B. Leonard's The Transformation, James Joyce's Ulysses, Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, Thorton Wilder's The Eighth Day, J. H. Plumb's In the Light of History, Carl Sagan's The Cosmic Connection, Carl Jung's Man and His Symbols, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Studs Terkel's Working, Barbara Ward's 5 Ideas that Change the World, Nancy Wilson Ross's Three Ways of Asian Wisdom, Alberto Moravia's Man as an End, C. S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, Richard Holmes' Shelley: The Pursuit, Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition, Karl Hess's Dear America, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Northrup Frye's The Educated Imagination, Edward Dahlberg's Can These Bones Live, Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind: a selection of some the books I own or have borrowed: a naming of some of the best prayers I may ever have the sacred delight to somewhat say. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 18 And what is a prayer anyhow? What more than the sense of something new or something old newly entered. ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 17 Today the winds whine near zero through the windows of our homes. In the abandoned sky the abandoned nest in the abandoned tree sticks like a stone. Sitting together we sit apart: you in your book; me in my poem. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 16: for Emily Dickinson Utopias are impossible, but do not cease to dream. The only ways our spirits grow are mixed of joy and pain. If I should walk an unkown path and catch a bramble wrong, sure I'd curse before I'd laugh-- let thunderstorms hide the sun. If I were to take a foreign street; get pummeled, raped, knifed, I still would strike for the good in me in my sudden enemy's life. Fool in this; fool in that; fool with words, with hearts: to the purest religion, the purest math, to the providential stars. ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

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December 15 In the robin's egg the philosopher's dreams lose all shape and substance and in the fateful tongues of lightnings whose lashings sting to kill, all power and direction; in the resilient fragile wonder of human prayer the ripe fruit of forking wood. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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[ Other than "The First Sunday of Advent" (which was in 1974), my original copy does not mention day names; but it does note that 1975 was the year of the December 14 (which was also a Sunday) prayer, implying that I penned the remaining prayers in 1975. Even though I cannot prove this, I am accepting it. ] December 14: Sunday (1975) Letters. Mine. The copies I have. If I were to read them over again, I would be appalled by the uneasiness with which so many of them were written, the overblown rhetoric there, the false pride. How is it possible I can consider myself at all to be half as blessed as even a Shelley or an Auden to say nothing of a Shakespeare or a Whitman when such an abject crowd of letters exists to denounce me? Certainly the important critics and editors of this moment have not praised my poems especially, if indeed they have chanced to read them; but how can I expect them to who himself--? ..................... Letters. Mine. Promethean, Hephaestean, ashen. So also my poems. Read them. What delights you, keep. What disturbs you, consider. What your best critical intelligence tells you was poorly made, condemn. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 13: Friday ". . . the cold world shall not know." And so it ends, Shelley's Julian and Maddalo. And so it ends, though this December day, this year, is warm; and I have answered Father Ed and Andy Wanto; and have driven myself and Janice to the stores. The important deaths are inner; the important deaths demand the strengths of a God; the important deaths one enters necessarily, and enters quite alone. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 12: Thursday What items for sale! How deftly we've learned to increase our wants and the world of things, to break our spirits with overtease! "Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock." Storm-raked willow, eyes and nose by a frozen lagoon; all else above your ankles covered with dense wet snow. How smartly we expose ourselves, knowing the pain, yet also knowing no one will laugh; for no one is left with sense enough to sense our senseless game, to bless us with centlessness. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 11: Wednesday To supercede is the fantasy each of us harbors, or had, building a ship, someway the best; breaking & building it over again. But a ship locked with anchors and never at sea is a dream-concoction for sure, a Santa Claus sneer. So I turn to the myth of the Child in the hay, the myth of the Man at the Pole with the hope that this word as it meets with the next will a little move who I am as a finished ship of my spirit and flesh churning an ocean like that rooftop sleigh quicker than lightning, that temple-veil-rending Cross on the hill. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 10: Tuesday Poinsettias, balsams, mistletoe; quince, bayberry, spruce. Gold, myrrh, frankincense; holly, scotch pine, nog. We banter through malls. We Christmas-card friends. Myths and wishes. Flavors and fragrances. Don't you remember the quarter-size snowflakes? Don't you remember the fluffed-cotton coins? Honey-cured hams and baked apples? Mint gel and lamb? Somewhere I touch you and you touch me. Somewhere we whisper and laugh. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 9: Monday Flurries-- ideas, images, that will not take, will not join together as I would like, will not keep their crystal shapes in the too-warm air-- all this day (so far) erratically descend, as, somewhere, you, leaving me only a process to sense and pass along for my and your broken dance, my and your renewal. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 8: The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady Ladies? I know of ladies. Conceptions? I know. Virgins? Yes. But this one, this Mary they call Blessed-- sinless? I sit near a fireplace where an elm log glows, arguing with friends, or before my waiting typewriter, arguing alone. And outside, and inside, the immaculate conceptions of snow. And outside, and inside, the immaculate conceptions of sun. - Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, May 14, 2007

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December 7: Saturday The great poems, great as they are from conception, often as not do not seem so and must settle into greatness; likewise, the great humans. At the base of a mountain we may look up, and up: climbing that mountain, we begin to know: by our aches and curses, we begin; by the changing views. Of the experience of falling through a barn floor and breaking one's arms; of the experience of carving this Nativity statuette; of the experience of living a Gandhian life--- the ink from a pen mates with this paper and the letters born, the words, the worlds, are beings into timelessness in time; and I, I, merely, was given them. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 6: St. Nicholas Day .......If we are going to rhyme, .......I'm .......more in favor of .......a simpler kind of love. Peering from behind their father's cart, eleven-year-old Daniel and nine-year-old Mark laugh when Bishop Nicholas stumbles on the cathedral steps. They want to throw tomatoes at him but their tomatoes turn hollow and float into heaven. They want to tear his robes but their hands drop from their arms and become designs: gardens on Nicholas's clothes. They want the bishop to bless them but the blessings he gives are his smile / and his presence. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 5: Thursday The wall flickers; another tear of wax begins. Even though I am habited in heavy cotton, dampness soaks my bones. Through more than eleven days now snow stars float and whip. Pray for the strength to last, he said. Pray for light. For less than a year I have journeyed empty into this dark. In the Manuscript Room I stare foggily at the great letter my hand creates. I put my/ brush/ aside; out of my cloth, I ease a knife/ & drive it in. The snow star my body is sputters. I grasp my brush. Its strokes carry my pain. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 4: Wednesday Our masters have it, even when they don't: the right cards handled breezily or the wrong cards played exquisitely right. Their talents do not decay. In the morning through an August elm their eyes squint with a joy as a goldfinch threads the cirrus sky and their bodies bob. In whatever they do; whatever they say, a god. If five powers are given them, they soon have five more. A cloud turns as the earth turns. There is no wind. They make the cards themselves. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 3: Tuesday Lord, touch me. Make of my eyes, sanctuaries; of my ears, just & patient confessors; of my mouth, a choir; of my mouth, an humble entrance; of my fingers, lovers, prayers; of my nose, a passage for whoelness, for the rituals of incense; of my spirit, a column of fire. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 2: Monday In the distance, beyond my hearing, a young wind, its body scraping a limestone cliff, screams; and the animals-- if I remember anything, I remember falling: from the year-or-so older browner limb I was sure would hold me to the one I avoided; and I remember stopping: the slenderer wood springing under my knees; and I remember: the pile of broken concrete sprinkled with sticks & glass, and the weeds; and my Adam's-apple heart. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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December 1: The First Sunday of Advent "All my heart goes out to thee" as to anyone else who will so be close to me equally. No matter I am distanced from you by things of this world or at other moments these very same things move me closer to you, that standing in the frost-bright grass, camera in hand, I admire again my chestnut-fendered Sun Bug or, crouched at the edge of the blacktop drive, dance to the sparklings set on a leaf. Aware of your presence or not aware, your presence still pervades; and the sun which rose one day in October, its light filtered to a soft pink by clouds, though different, is yet the same, and the pink haze in the fiery trees, and my body, where it passes, and those of others, and yours. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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PRAYERS IN DECEMBER (begun in 1974) December 1: The First Sunday of Advent - December 2: Monday - December 3: Tuesday - December 4: Wednesday - December 5: Thursday - December 6: St. Nicholas Day - December 7: Saturday - December 8: The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady - December 9: Monday - December 10: Tuesday - December 11: Wednesday - December 12: Thursday - December 13: Friday - December 14: Sunday (1975) - see note on entry - December 15 - December 16: for Emily Dickinson - December 17 - December 18 - December 19 - December 20 - December 21 - December 22 - December 23 - December 24: Christmas Eve - Chirstmas Day: Midnight - Christmas Day: Dawn - Christmas Day: During - December 26 - December 27 - December 28 - December 29 - December 30 - December 31: NewYear's Eve ~ Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, May 13, 2007

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String of Days 12Jan83 Wednesday In the marrow of consciousness the universe turns tosses dies and is constantly born. 13Jan83 Thursday Water freezes; so too the flesh and the flesh's ideas; but Creator Energy forever stays warm. 14Jan83 Friday Discover imitate re-create manifestations of the seething sun. 15Jan83 Saturday That round & naked open hearth now awake twice its width above the pines shocks shut my curious eyes. 16Jan83 Sunday The Christmas balloon gift from Janice floats where I'd sit this day I begin my 43rd year. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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String of Days 07Jan83 Friday This afternoon, warmth enough. I wash my hair. The poetry of America is much the same. 08Jan83 Saturday Weather in weather out the holy person is life light not blurred by cold or clouds. 09Jan83 Sunday The estuary the alluvial fan the fern the beckoning amphitheater the open book the voice the wild and human gatherer. 10Jan83 Monday Unless the imagination-empty tree bears meaning in its presentness, the beaver's gnawing scrunches all remembering, and my deep passions are a fool's dreams. 11Jan83 Tuesday Beauty of poetry; truth of philosophy: yellow sun; green leaf. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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String of Days 01Jan83 Saturday Begin. Begin. Who knows toward what. Yet, begin: to find out. 02Jan83 Sunday Variegated shapes of grey is this day's dome we & the gulls sail beneath, scavenging for sustenance. 03Jan83 Monday And Mike B., momentarily needing to leave my storytelling to open the door, quickly instructs: "Put a bookmark in your mouth." 04Jan83 Tuesday I think of my dad saying, after I had rattled to him my peeves against humanity: "And the birds sit in the trees." 05Jan83 Wednesday The damp coolness numbers my bones. I'm a knot of discomfort wishing for sun-warmth to loosen me. 06Jan83 Thursday But the coldness stays; strengthens to frost during the night. Although inside, I put on my sweater. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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String of Days 27Dec82 Monday Where light warms, blossoms of air sway, envelop, mother us. 28Dec82 Tuesday We softly smile; dream in them a string of days to adorn ourselves with. 29Dec82 Wednesday And so this morning the morning's Orange refreshed with its juice the Florida sky. 30Dec82 Thursday Yet up in Wisconsin another day moonlight flashed off waves of snow. 31Dec82 Friday Once again an ending, a sacred circle closed as every life experiences on this world. - Brian A. J. Salchert

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Sets String of Days links sd1: 5 days December 27-31 1982 - sd2: 6 days January 1-6 1983 - sd3: 5 days January 7-11 1983 - sd4: 5 days January 12-16 1983 - - [ last modified: 2008-10-16 ] Brian A. J. Salchert

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Autobio Beyond the Ego So many these years are trying to Get Beyond the ego And yet the ego Remains Remains I "know" we dont need to Use the word "ego" Or the word "id" Or the word "libido" Or even the word "subconscious" And i "know" one could say i stink therefore i am I "know" the "ego" has dangerous side effects Inside effects But i do not see where there is a way to Escape to a oneness or an Eternal nothingness Imbued with wonder beauty love Imbued with an exquisite emptiness Obliterating "i" For so long as I Am able to sense I am an "I" A spirited body An embodied spirit Such sensing will of necessity Correlate integrate propagate Each of my continuances Each of those whatevers which individuate me Were disease or accident to rob me of my Abilities to individuate to discern to will Would I then be in a holier condition though less whole? Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, May 12, 2007

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Autobio I am in a driftwood state. Waves of concerns buffet me. Scenes of interests beckon me. Yesterday a rainbow gathered itself in the cloudy east around pm 7:11. Today the quavering air is mostly clear. I have been reading Robin Blaser's The Collected Books of Jack Spicer and because of Blaser's "The Practice of Outside" and a review by R. K. Meiners I am convinced I need to read Owen Barfield's What Coleridge Thought. . . . natura naturans: the ongoing. In May of 1970 I wrote a letter in which I said: "Yet, ambiguous creatures of polarities caught up in change, we are constant mysteries." But I also, shortly thereafter, said this: "Just keeping close to Balance, our one Utopia, takes all the awareness we can command." In this I presently feel I was wrong; and if this feeling is correct, once I read Barfield's book I will know for sure: why, and where. Concomitant with the above was a Rebecca Seiferle E-view of Marvin Bell at www.thedrunkenboat.com wherein he noted he had encountered a need to move beyond free verse: to make the sentence central, no matter how lengthy. Then I read online an article published in The Cortland Review Dec 2006: "A Manifesto On The Contemporary Sonnet: A Personal Aesthetics" by Tony Barnstone. He presented examples of techniques for enlivening the traditional sonnet. One of his examples used anaphora. Does anyone sense a melding of traditions? Does anyone sense a new openness? I do. Though in the latter 1970's I experimented intensively, if not extensively, with sonnet-crafting, all I am becoming aware of/ of late/ is entering and changing me. There is an online article at Rain Taxi I am being pushed toward. I am in a driftwood state, but I am not/ driftwood. § And what was at Rain Taxi?: a review of Arthur Sze's The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998 Copper Canyon Press by Tony Barnstone. § review of What Coleridge Thought by R. K. Meiners - Marvin Bell E-view by Rebecca Seiferle - Rain Taxi 1998 fall review by Tony Barnstone Brian A. J. Salchert

Thursday, May 10, 2007

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e20 From Love, through Love, to Love: no other way Will let us well discern our night from day. We never can know all: because we change. And if it seems God's truths are shorn away; That absolutes lie lost beyond your range, Or never were, I cannot help you, friend, Irradicate the causes of your mange, Unless you first desire that ill to end; Unless God first allows it. To spend Ourselves, relentlessly, in search of what We are, remains our need, as always, but: This is a Loved-One kingdom, I believe. We do not have to travel up that rut Of human evolution to achieve A knowledge of ourselves and of our goal, As so/ many must. Do not, then, deceive Yourselves or let each passing theory roll A little more of heaven from your soul. Retain the faith your God has given you. And not from fear. For if our Loved-One's few Consider their belief, as some would say, 'Creative security'; and do Not bear the good news and the cross, their faith Is hollow and of little worth. My prayers Are granted substance for those here today, Therefore, because you are my central cares; And while I am no priest, my heart repairs To Loved-One just the same. This kingdom nears A time when every good, which now appears So vibrant, could be poisoned into ash. The decisions we rest upon, my peers In spirit, will judge us: will see us splash Into the lye our enemies prepare-- Within one thousand days--or see us lash New beams against the dark; and bring our spare Accomplishments to more, and keep Earth's air From riddled screams. We are finite beasts, Whose sciences can only let their yeasts React upon the finite universe, And be at all correct. Bound knowledge feasts On bound objects, not boundless ones. The curse Of our advances, the saddest aria, Is that we think we live absurdly, hearsed In a 'void at the center of things'. Let this be a Newborn land. Let it be named: Urania." Postem For Urania is astronomy's Muse, And to the stars we must incline our views; But first the selfish child in us must die, Or from this orb the only lasting news May be the remnants of a race passed by. The justice of this universe is such That beings who refuse to love will fry in hells of their own making. Purge the smutch: Humanicide. Heal// with the olive crutch. § [ Below this note is a phonetic call-to-arms (though it does not need to be read that way) entitled: Incantation. I've often said it was from Pageant Wizard's Alchemy, a book which does not exist. I think my first version of "Incantation" was written in Gainesville, Florida. I am not at the moment certain about the date. ] Incantation Terragahn oh tahpolahzoh yah trinkahlou iveederon yo vahdigay yo vahdigay terrez terrez Octormilou invederee sayhamahrah interritahn see imerow see imerow ahlahg ahlahg Kristahnsibole iieeamin mitahvrahlah omistifahn gy sahmahrahsh! gy sahmahrahsh! eelay! eelay! Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e19 Against his personage or goodly rule. I thought my throne a golden-threaded spool Which so dispersed through Moiland's men of law Its splendid lengths that not even/ this young Hugh, Though a fiery genius, would ever claw The raiments spun from them, would ever peck The spool itself as if it were a raw, unwanted cob or corn whose tasseled neck And head could never really give a speck Of/ their gold threads to weave to/ anything. How soon I learned what/ supersedes/ a king. Saint Ruam was not chosen/ for his grace, As some wish to believe (and if bards/ sing It so, they sing a myth), nor for his face, Which never could suggest a handsome mien; But rather: to hold the masses in their place. And I could say such prompted this bright scene, And turn you all for me and for my queen; But Hugh DeVry and I have argued long, And I am tired, yet glad; since what it wrong, Still, still, is not so much my person as My throne. Moilanders!: you think a gong Has tortured out my senses, or a threat has Made my courage disappear? Think not. Know only that the power of kings must pass, And better by decrees than by uprooting plot. So consciences mature/ and egos/ rot; And humanity thrives: till what was thrust Upon it by design/ orders/ the dust It is--from which it came--and each arrives, In time, to that position where/ each must/ For each/ guide on evolving nature's drives; Where each must be responsible: not through Loss of self in learning and labor hives Or dearth of humor, but in living true And selfless presents wherever they're due-- Through loss of self in one where self will grow, Not wither, die. What we by reason know, Or in a million years may know, is naught. The human race stands bound: from head to toe. Let manics rattle what they feel they ought! Depressives think their selves destroyed by groups! We are more than the sum of what we're taught; More than the lines of those paranoid troops Which fight for sly commanders, sullen dupes. Brian A. J. Salchert

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e18 Has come. Great Moiland shall not have a king, But kings; for while the source of power yet springs From Justan, people, soon the source of power, As I have said, will spring from you. What things Will then occur, what roses then will flower, What thorns, shall be/ your responsibilities. With Aethea volcanic at this hour And Urop solid once again, and these Fair stahts uncharged potentialities, The grave, internal revolution, here To be officially begun, is fear Transmuted into acts by which this land Shall save itself, or die. And there's no bier More sad to gaze at or to understand Than one which holds a nation, because it Walked on too proudly to extend its hand, Because it could not change--for lack of wit, Because its people were divorced from it." With this, the bold and fiery Hugh again Moves back/ to take his place among the men Of/ The House of Princes, while on the ledge, Where Saul and Parth were watching these/ when I last looked, only Saul remains/ to wedge ----- human flesh in the Eribon spur, To speculate; and now, standing/ near the edge Of the royal platform, Seth, stirring the air Aimlessly, speaks, sharply questioning: "Were We, were we less--these princes and I-- For not seeing, for not understanding why Our Moiland would profit by change? Yes; For the mind of Man progresses, and the eye Of rule must watch, so the rule may progress, Not lag/ too far behind. Our present king, Good representatives, who will address You now, is yet/ best for us. Let ayes ring For him, as Yuston suggests." "Aye." "Your king." "When, in this Age of Crises, kingdoms fall, Their bodies burned beyond reclaim, recall, And mankind suffers for mankind's mistakes, Our duty's not to weep upon a pall; But build from/ what is--for our children's sakes. I thought there was a glory in my throne Which would not/ be removed: that Justan wakes And sleeps; and yet is so admired in bone, In heart, that no man would/ think to groan Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e17 Between two variant forms of rule. This truly's no conundrum for a fool, Or group of fools, my princes. No; this Land's not/ witless either. The people who'll Judge your new decisions will not miss One jot or one sly underturn, if any of the latter appear; nor will they kiss Farewell, I say again, to what these many Years has served with unchecked ease. A trehnney For a xyymme? You had better show a xyymme At least." "Sir Yuston, we never treat time As refuse or as something to be used Quite indiscriminately when we climb Kingdom-ruling faces, though we are bruised There and often held back from reaching some Plateau worth all our efforts; nor excuse Ourselves from reason. So you have come Complaining, cautioninng; and with your thumb Extended downward, would mutilate Our pride, if nothing else. Well then, berate. I'll join you/ for that matter. Of course lt will take time before we terminate This not ungoodly form of rule; but the horse We bring to you is not a Trojan one Nor an Ederon stallion, with cruel force Sequestered in its bowels, but rather one Which is a real gift--a minor sun!/ In usefulness. No, Sir Yuston, I'm not offering a trehnney for a xyymme. It is a xyymme, and more; yet I agree With you when you suggest that through that time Required to change Moiland's government we be/ led by Justan--the singular sane arrangement, to be sure. Actually, Though you would have me/ more clearly explain These plans we/ do not intend/ to refrain From promulgating, since I did conceive Of them, originally: to leave That task and pleasure to our king, I feel, Is more appropriate/ and wise. Believe Me, friends, you will not be/ squirrels that squeal In vain for food. No longer are you mere Unthinking animals, whose lot's to reel Toward wherever a prince directs, to fear A monarch's whims. The reckoning year Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e16 Of castigating books, memorials. But Moiland is not Aethea, and gulls To one, may, to an other, be hawks. Each has/ its own kernels, its own hulls; And if, of Ruam, Seth Bedara talks A thousand times (though there is no need), Crowds will gather: in yards and streets, on walks; For they/ will/ have their saints, and not a reed Or whip or chain could change them. Indeed, What is done in deed, and satisfies Our highest instincts, must realize Our highest praise. Today, the Tamarind line Shall end itself: an act which Ruam's eyes Would brighten at, as some men's do from wine, While Rofnoe's would be turned aside and down, Though he too was a king of heart and spine, A ruler of imperishable renown; The fourth of Moiland to receive a crown Of gratitude. That observation spire, Or spire to be, from which we may admire This region's beauties: from the Durin Sea To Ranyon, and Fudera's crumbling pyre; From The Mounds of Tamarind to Grau-Lee, Where the Durin mountains twine to the shore And Rofnoe's village, Edenshire, where he Was born, that tower--. "No monarchs anymore?! You mean what you say, DeVry?! We?! What for? Should the squirrels forget to gather meats And starve? What nonsense--this, he greets Us with! Yes, we did agree to let you, You--The House of Princes--you elites, Convene in secret councils to review Our royal system; but we did not think Your minds would come to such conclusions. Do Explain yourselves/ so we do not all shrink/ From your hopes/ before they're set afloat to sink Or sail. And if you do convince us, still, That we may better understand your will, I say our Justan, though no longer king, Should temporarily be our leader, till Whatever must be done to fuse this thing You speak of, is completed. We can Not be expected to expel the ring As we loosen our bowels with fibrous bran. Us'ly a revolution fills the span Brian A. J. Salchert

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e15 Of their embroiled government should weaken Instead of being strong, like a beacon Poorly set, I cannot tell. But Ruam's Days are not half myth, that, when we speak on Them, must baffle; but knowing each one, calms Concerns immeasurably, and so each did In seventeen-thirty-two when the balms Of unctions with oil blessed him home and slid Those devils down who flicked their tongues amid The missals/ and twisted round the rosaries; Who set and nourished Paul of Trent's disease Eleven years before. With Ruam's loss, His knighted subjects were so out of ease They had a sculptor chisel them a cross From a ten by five by two marble block, Which they erected on a mound across The Eribon where/ thirteen graves now lock The bones of Tamarind's kings; and on a rock From Nareb, which they set beyond the arch To Lorga's Jonathan when whistling March Curved against the stars, they had the same Man slice out chips that looked like/ flakes of starch But fell like/ flakes of steel to place the fame Of Ruam in its skin, though arguments As such/ could not make/ better known/ his name The way--by publishing experiments-- A searcher/ will his. What represents Us best are those good acts no one perceives, Not monuments that rise between the leaves Of autumn and the leaves of spring, not words Inscribed in stone. Though Earth will have its thieves and givers both remembered, a world girds Itself for peace or girds itself for war; And if for peace, it is a quiet world-- A world that has no need for rocks to shore Its human soil; but such a world's not, nor, For this blessed planet, likely to be. And so the Pauls of Trent, the Ruams, we Recall, to keep our bodies whole--the worse: To make example of their roguery And how they left off breathing with a curse; The better: to inspire our children, us. Yet worse or better, once beyond his nurse, A man who will be famed or infamous Will, well enough, be known, without the truss Brian A. J. Salchert

Monday, May 7, 2007

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e14 Disorganized inhabitants. His years Were so remarkably fulfilled/ his peers, Before and after, seemed (and would seem) Like princes on the throne: that when the tears Of many came in the wake of the dream, Which really was his ship of death, the heart Of Moiland tremored to its farthest stream, Till there was not a major, minor part Which did not lose in strength, which did not start. From that crisp day, when fall blazed highest, all In Moiland sought for ways to reach The Wall (That marble barrier in Castle D Behind which every king before Trent's Paul, And every king thereafter, willed to be) To visit holy Tamarind's bier, To be with Nareb's hermit: not where he Had risen to, but for a while; just near To where his body lay beyond their fear. For forty days their king's fair body laid In grand repose, for not a hair decayed Nor did a finger darken or turn hard; But just as when that sainted ruler prayed Before the vigil cross in Crean's yard, And no one dared disturb him, his smile And olive eyes . . . exactly as the guard Rudolfo swore they were, so all that while He stayed. And each new mourner/ who would file/ Against The Wall, as each had sinned, would weep. Such was the power given Ruam in his sleep. Such was his Rune's approval, five weeks And five full days. By 3 pm the steep Descent to Durin Square--where Seth still speaks Of Ruam, as his family is wont, On each November first--and there, the peaks Of Sedra's voice, above King Argot's font, Exploded into memories Moiland's want; And there, the valleys of his voice, above Queen Anna's herbs, extending Ruam's love (His radiant ecumenical verve), Seeping into hearts the fluid wonder of A man who had one Master he would serve, Enriched through rare emotions Moiland's wealth. Oh whether today, to Parth, these deserve One like him or have to/ shrink from the stealth Of someone like Geldarkta: that the health Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e13 Yet Crean, having come in nine-eleven, His House attained together/ thirty-seven Rulers into sixteen-twenty-three, when wars With new invaders spilled its heaven Next to the Durin Sea, and the swart floors Of Edward's palace thundered and cracked As Jonathan of Lorga drove his scores Against the bones of Moiland; broke and sacked Leoma. But the House of Lorga lacked What Crean's bore in glorious abundance; And Jonathan, moderate in indulgence As he was, could only bear his with him: To that arch which marks his sad convergence With the clay, to that granite arch of grim Position, settled, where it is, beneath Five willows. How many more, though, swim Through those seaweed branches to place a wreath Before his name than cross that battled heath Between Leoma's last remaining gate And Crean's gardened monument, so great In grandeur! How many praise! And much Because the House of Trent, which lived through eight Mediocre kings, never held such/ As Jonathan. Then, Ruam Tamarind, The first, the holy one, leaving his hutch In the snows of Nareb, and the glass-sharp wind, Passed by the trumpets where hummingbirds spinned, Passed by the bees' dark holes; and everyone In Moiland/ welcomed him: for the last pale son Of Henry of Trent, torn from his throne, now Would/ be beheaded; for now the called one Would be crowned. Leomans flocked to bow, Who would not be/ without their king, though kings Had in two generations shown them how To hate a royal lineage/ and things Concerned in any way with monarchs' rings Or sceptres. Nareb's hermit was coming-- The famed, unvowed recluse. And rumming And strumming, the people feasted for days, While Tamarind walked--singing, humming-- And on each morning prayed, and offered praise, At Little holy Osteind's (preserved) To best prepare himself within/ for ways So unfamiliar; and learned what served, What would not serve, ten millions of unnerved, Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e12 Establishments of public speech: The House Of Ordinaries and The Royal House Of Princes. The nearest to the cliff And furthest north was visioned by the spouse Of Moiland's first known king, Crean, as if His name had to be preserved, though his years Were quickly grayed with fogs of myth Which, since the Tamarind line began, his peers Have known reveal untruth, yet keep. Four tiers, Nevertheless, acclaim his primacy-- His being first to cross the Norax Sea And rock the Moi-Rog Ocean with his ships, His being first to plant the chortled Tree And let the name of Moiland from his lips On this then barbarous soil, his being first, And therefore king, of all these heights and crypts; His being first to turn from what was cursed, To leave old Urop at its hardened worst, Confused beyond a thousand years, to start A new existence in a wilder part, But freer, of this earth where men increase, Or die from weakness in the living art. And on those tiers, growing shall never cease, For conifers and flowers, bushes And deciduous trees, each with its lease From the Maker on each year's time, pushes Then toward greenness above the varied mushes Of liverworts and mosses that have grown Through every space between the Elcon stone From which that monument was built: the same White stone whose absence left this cliff, long known To hunters from Leoma and to the game They stalk/ along the Eribon spur, beyond Its edge; where, after Crean came With six armed men who were kiddishly fond Of trampling foreign woods, the spring-formed pond, Bright Eribon's source, lay ribboned with blood. So Crean reigned with Di, from cloud to mud, And never knew what she would raise to him, And never knew what limestone wall would bud Near the end of that spur of dastard whim, At the top of which, as the tale goes, A band of seven stripped themselves, to swim In a just-discovered pond below the snows Of Nareb. Only Crean's blade arose. Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e11 Or Black, or a Bronze sheen; dawn or eve. Far to the right, a hill where many grieve Holds to a marble cross (a green-haired fist Gripping/ a mark of extinction). Believe They what they will, their hearts have been kissed By that symbol; and that burial site Of two hundred/ years of kings--through a mist Seen/ by millions of eyes--lighted at night By the flames from torches, stars, coffins might In the tightened/ throats of the living, in The ground; and they do not deny its thin Intrusions into/ their hungry veins, That bringer of/ death as food. Within Leoma, yet nearest to those plains Between it and/ The Mounds of Tamarind Kingdoms cemetary, its Elcon panes Sputtering blue, the holy Osteind Lime-white steeple gently allures the sinned- Against, the sinning, as to its left, My pageant wizard's shrine, possessed of heft In equal measure, equally does. Around These massive temples a singular reft Appears, recalling there the raucous sounds Of soot-marked children, elders wan; for there The markets, abodes crumble, tumble down, Their wooden walls rot from their pointless stairs, Their renters pass dimly from strength or care While their owners rest pillowed on some hill Or in a wooded acre by a rill, Enjoying ordered loveliness--the best They think they can afford. They, too, are still. Why does a mourning dove construct a nest In such an easy, sloppy manner, while A robin molds a firm cup in its zest? Still, robins do not rob, or whisper: "I'll Be tops, and care not how my domicile Was made." Around Leoma's trunk, old And new, apartments built against the cold, Like needles on a ragged evergreen, Allow the trunk to expel, to hold, To be. Four memorials can be seen Beside the left bank of the Eribon, Which curves into the Durin Sea between The starry temples and the cambium Of Moiland's central town--those mastodon Brian A. J. Salchert

Sunday, May 6, 2007

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e10 Piece only--to strategists of war; To watchers from that fog-and-wind waves' shore: Dahlias of stone, coral, a rainbow. One thousand years Leoma's kings, three score, Have ruled the soldier dying in a slough, Have danced beyond the fingers of some child Breaking the stems of flowers, to feel, to know. And all that time Leoma's grey blocks smiled Through chalky mouths or lips of ash, piled In rainless moments with uneven art By passers-by, who, coming, depart-- Faces, like the ones they quickly drew. But there are those who pass to leave their hearts, Not dripping, perhaps, nor iced, yet true, Always true; who leave them wrapped in things Majestic, alive; who, like those two On Elcon cliff, are born to ponderings, To seeing deeply, clearly, to measurings-- To capturing: from joy to death to fear, Expressions which pulse eternal in the ear, Which scintillate forever in the eye, And like purple clay pottery: never blear; Which, through an inner and an outer sky, Please, and bring fulfillment to the sole. Without such hearts, not ever you nor I Could live and be half of that lustrous whole Of humanhood we ought; nor could I shoal Through those two brothers on The Poets' Seats One third of their Leoma's deep retreats. From there: "This intolerable howling Of the inevitable ages" which sheets Of song and speech proclaim, this fouling Of thought by our beggars and our sages We hear in the chambers of prowling Or out from the alleys of broken rages, We feel--whether we/ live in homes/ or cages. And so they feel. Up on that jutting, free From immediate worry, Saul and Parth see, Like nearly blind eagles, the bolder forms Of mighty Moiland's capital. Tree Melts into tree; men disappear like storms In the night, leaving their puddles of self And their freshets--the only norms, From Elcon's edge, by which those two can shelve, Can divide their race: into White Alph Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e9 "Irony, Rio? Always a wit star? What a fancy-frumpled angel you are! Yet therein rings the glory of our choir: We are distinctive notes that bar by bar, In whatever order, delight, inspire; For being made to harmonize, we do, Since none of us chose chaos and the fire. So, Rio, we welcome your silent shoe And your wonder. Kai will enlighten you." "The wooden crown of Justan, it seems, will rest; But Justan will not, Rio, for a test Of strength drifts near, and Moiland's towns grow green For fruit or locusts. Therefore, we invest These many human hours as twins/ to screen Our varied intuitions and to build From individual insights, strong, keen Conclusions; for Hugh and Justan, instilled Against each other, yet have same ends willed." "Let me move the veil of your wonder more, Guardian of Geldarkta. We deplore Young Hugh's false notions, but his true ones Flame with wisdom no one can ignore, Even though the source from which such flaming runs Be barely more than vaguely understood By kingdom-ruling peers. Somehow, new suns Are better praised by men than known; but should Knowing come, we shall have done all we could." Standing by his rightful place, Prince Hugh waits; His smile disappears. Before him, the gates Of ancient Leoma shutter shut, And Justan turns. Discussion abates. Higher up the spur, where lime rocks jut Along historic Elcon cliff, two men Relax. And Hugh could be there with them, but For today; for from that powdery seat, when Even all this space held only a wren, He has surveyed with grateful eyes: air, Water, earth, fire, until he could not care Apart from them; for from that porous bench, When this space heard not even a wren's blare, He has prayed. From there: the priest, the wench, The cobblestone poor, the queen, are the same; But Leoma, bright city, built by wrench and blood, displays itself, transfixed flame, In all its still variety, as a game Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e8 "Perhaps, Oro, perhaps. I know we are Forever happy because the Triune Star, Your God and mine, is always in our view; But what of Hugh DeVry and those who are Even less sure than he of what or who-- Or rather, toward whom their search for happiness Sets their eyes? Are we not meant to feel, too, In our own way, the terror in each guess They make, who guard them--rich or penniless?" "Good angel of the youthful prince, my friend, Our splendrous God, whose Being has no end To the intuition and love of all Nine choirs, placed us (who gladly bend Before Him) in that choir which must fall Within creation's scale closest to these; And surely, therefore, the sound of their small Voices attracts us; but do not let is tease You out of tune, or shake your spirit's keys." "And so my spirit's off its meted line, And I am drunk from quaffing thoughts not mine, And I am nearly out of tune besides. I'd say I'm three times less; not near so fine A creature as even God made me. Brides, Humans are, since fiery-tongued Juchrislarmem. They have a special communion. God resides-- He resides, Oro--flesh and blood, in them: In some of them. Let my feelings condemn." "Kai, I feel you are more bound to hewmz than I Because your given human, questioning why As he does of those high absolutes We love, looks less within the Favoring Eye; Yet, Kai, while I guide one whose royal boots (Soon a chosen ruler's boots I expect) Since that clear day of festive wines and flutes And Easter water blessings which have wrecked Hell, wear on chosen feet, much must he correct." "Oro-Kai, to twin you, though you are not, Will you ever be apart when my lot Brings me to you? What causes your Hugh And Justan to seem so close your spirits clot This frequently? I know there are a few Among us who profit deeply by such Intimate unions; but with these two, What prompts it? Wherever their spheres touch They do not love each other overmuch." Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e7 From his bed, Prince Hugh unties his cape And planes it into the air, watching it drape Itself over the raised arms of a boy. Laughing, he asks, "Son, what is the shape Of your intent? Why would you hide your joy And burning behind a foreign mass? Shine on us with force. Do not be coy. That cloth is not a cloud which will not pass. And we are burned already. Why the grass Has curled from you for more than half an hour. Look at us. Let every dainty flower Wilt. Look at us. We need, we need more sun." Nearby, some voices ripple, like a shower When it is winded into waves which run In easy lashes on a roof; and Hugh Moves back to sit among the princes, one Who by his smiles lets each good mood come through. "Oro, Justan's angel, what shall I do?" "Sweet angel of the fiery prince, since Love Creates the hands that then may make the glove And fleshes His own Son to lift a cross, Direct yourself to Him, within, above. As His Son says: In Him there is no loss, And his bright Spirit will receive your own, As He does sinners--as gold; not as dross. Such commerce which by that, Kai, will be flown Between your spheres, you never could have known." "Yet, Oro, my commanded mortal speaks As one with paradox between his cheeks, Crying against the sun, while wishing more. Even I am baffled by what he seeks. Their Mezdras thinks him wise: a likely sore. Or could it be the heat has withered here A man with roots too immature to store The food he really needs to still appear At his known best, after a dry year?" "For him, it seems, the year has not been dry, But wet. I think their games with reason, Kai, Still spin your spirit off its meted line. Your intuition flutters far too high. Their thoughts are more like milk than scotch or wine. They are nothing that should intoxicate An angel. Look at Justan's mighty spine: How it curves forward, and he is great Among men. Should we be bent so by fate?" Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e6 Of eloquence his preconceived expressions Bear. For there are right and wrong impressions, And while our king has been most just, the need This day is more than even my transgressions Of authority can satisfy. Weed My garden, Ulerus. Weed my mind. How shall my lips be shaped? How shall the seed Of my desire now germinate, now find Fulfillment? Unbeasted citizens, behind This mouth, roots of deep direction start To spread, and every word will be a part Of their beginnings' opposition: leaf, Stem, flower--a plant so formed by natural art You will be glad for it. Today, belief, Belief in your discretion, names you men Instead of sheep. Today your nation's chief Will lay his crown aside. Moilanders. Then, Moilanders, you may choose him back again Or you may choose another. However, Be alert; for from this time you will never Have a self-appointed leader, nor will Traditions hold. The need to know has severed Age from age; and while a man may climb a hill With greater confidence if he knows And uses each experience until His flag claims its summit as he goes, He must exact his steps, and like a rose Or dandelion: adapt, adapt. Change, Change, change. It has come. To disarrange? To make things fall apart? No. To unite. When we stood still, the quiet here seemed strange; Myth, mystery, the past flooded our sight: In Seth, those disappearing birds that flew To the woods, the robes of Justan. Bright It was, but dark; and is. If scientists knew No other thing: that sight can be untrue, It were enough. Justan, you may as well Talk to your guardian angel about hell. Myth is dead. Mystery is undermined. The past is untenable. What fell, People, when certain vaunted scions signed, Published their thoughts, was not Sol-vitae's heat Or the Second One's words, but the perched mind, The eagle-plumed ignorance. Facts complete. Be facted." Then, like one stripping a sheet Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e5 Of science; and now you stand in the ranks. What is your purpose?" "Luborga, my thanks To you," Hugh responds. And then to be More easily heard, he jogs up a plank To the royal platform. "Listen to me. People of Moiland, listen to me; for Today your lives shall change; your eyes not see These plumes and flowing costumes anymore. People of Moiland, for sixteen years war And all its machinations have been at rest; And I have grown. But soon another test Of our convictions will be mapped; and then: Who shall be the Aethean viper's guest? I--I: and every worthy youth. Those men Who clotted in the trenches, who were torn From strength to wheelchairs are alive again In us; for though they fell when we were born, Their ghosts shall make us stand, though rows of corn And evergreens catch and drink our blood. Yes, before we laughed, creeping through the mud; Before we walked--they died: Prince John of Kolle, Lifting his auburn beard against Otud At Lake Odango; Mount Nareb's soul, Karkarmon; Prince Harr himself (bright son Of Leoma's queen mother, piquant Zal), Who might have been our king; dark Marion Of the alligator tangles, who won Eleven battles; Imara and my Father, valiant men, who had to lie In fever near Damorca while Nimain Defeated their troops. --House of DeVry.-- Friends, your king this day has nothing to gain As he did then, and yet I understand His hesitation. Mine would be the same. But, friends, I do not sit in Justan's hand Like so much clay, because the spear and band Of holy Tamarind's glories pass; And the sheep that meekly chewed the grass And bleated to the shearer at his call Will find the ancient torch of power has Been handed on to them. 'Now watch it fall,' Some shepherds say. Sheep? You are not sheep; But I am standing here for you are all Untrained and unprepared, and I must keep Good Justan's wit alive yet wound that sweep Brian A. J. Salchert

Saturday, May 5, 2007

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e4 Be patient, fiery prince, our wishes shall Be act." Now Luborga (son of Borgadal The Appellator: so-called because he chose The name of Moiland's present king when Zal And Refnoe wore the splendid crowns of those From holy Tamarind descended), filled With flint enough to dazzle the sun, posed Before the multitude, will surely spill And spark to ash; but the Host-God builds A cloud from Mezdras's voice to cover him: "Proud prince, your sight is not one-eighth as dim As mine, yet I should not be bold as you Are bold; our king has come. You think the rim Needs watching? that perhaps it will rust through, Or lose its hold on warping boards and snap? That our culture will evaporate like dew And rise to wisps in the senseless air, or slap To earth at once, sink through a dusty gap? You have attended the councils, have spoken, Have listened; have not let the keg be broken By the sledging tongues of knowledge-fearers And fevered insularians. What token Of your wisdom, then, is this, to make us hearers Still? How many years I've lived, and would, Yet would live. Each moment I press nearer To this land. It does not matter that I have stood For thirty springs in darkness: I have stood. And so, prized prince, so have you stood, enough, Enough. A wise man has no need to puff Before the world as if he would inflate His name thereby, as if such gaseous stuffs Which at those times his mouth and head can mate Would not fill as well a polyethylene Balloon, if bottled for that purpose. State Your griefs within. Do not jar a scene Among the people. Do not stand between Your king (on his last day) and these masses Who, sadly, only know what passes Toward their governance after Justan speaks To them." "Yes, DeVry, my chum, how crass is A crow, anyhow? Or is it you that creaks, That is a sun-warped barrel? or has the shell Of his birth still drooping from his top? Weeks, Interminable weeks, we have heard you spell, Phrase, and paragraph your sweet lac et mel Brian A. J. Salchert

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Justan Tamarind: Book I e3 You remember Nimain. Tell us, tell us Then, why you try us with wating, and fuss And fidget like a nervous cat. Your tongue, My king, your tongue." (The hands of Ulerus Touch him.) "Isn't that why you've come among Us in this so-called time of peace? Have you Not made us gather for a graver tongue Than the gurgling of the Eribon? Do You not allow this heat to wilt us through And through for a better reason than fear Of our great strength? Seth knows, he knows the year You should have come has passed. Why did you wait? Why do you wait today? Destroy the spear. Let us vote. Already Geldarkta baits The trap for Nimain. The old order dies, My king. Let us vote. It is not too late. Would not my father work against those ties Which strangle? You are worthy in our eyes, Justan. Throw off the shell. Forget the scrolls. The world is safe. At least these peopled knolls Will not press in upon you, not this noon. But should you rest until another, souls And flesh of darker hue, snakes (when no moon Glows), may wind across the sea, and hell Shall have its vengeance: a perfect boon For sake of sentiment. Then, king, your shell Will break upon your throat; your meat will swell The belly of a venomed thing." Again Ulerus, respected servant in The House of DeVry and valet to the bold And fiery Hugh, again he touches him; But the prince had ended. The masses roll And jostle like a shaken lake, and words Whir up, as when ten thousand wings unfold. Justan, nodding to his attendant lords, Whispers to blind Mezdras, while Seth shouts words Of countermand at Hugh DeVry, young prince: "Well-placed crow, how handily you mince A carcass. Yes, Seth knows, he knows the year Has passed. Be patient. Perhaps you need not rinse Your find with scavenger spittle. I fear As you, and so do many others; But I myself have reprimanded here Our king's deep caution. In this, a mother's Care could not be more. Breathe, sisters, brothers. Brian A. J. Salchert

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Book I: e1 Justan Tamarind: Book I e2 This heard (another's chance to disapprove), Lady Tarsk taunts Yuana: "The grove, My queen. Now our king must burn it, and bid Blind Mezdras, judge, to sentence Seth to rove Forever through Viberian tundras, hid From human hearing, human sight; for such Has long seemed near, and many desire to rid From them him: he who swings the olive crutch; Would feast-high flush that prophet from his hutch To Nomän or Soaxian wastes, if they Wore such a potent crown." But on this day, Thoughts of grosser pains darken Justan's face. And losing in his their cares, whether they Are low in favor, as of Ham's cursed race, Or high, as of the gloried Julus line, The citizens calm, heedless of their place Or that Sol-vitae's wheeling sears to wine; Fuse round their king, round Moiland's thirty-nine: Men (of reasoning bones, emotive flesh, Selected from the Occi-Oriental mesh All human time through procreation formed), Earth treasures most; and who alone can thresh Her given grains. For these, when trials had stormed Across their needful toils and crushed them out, And left them starving while fat bears slept warmed In rugged caves: these, who when tossed about Unceasingly as were their parents, stout And bold, who searched across another world, Were cowards not; but knowing that the curled And fearful insect still deprives itself Of life for all its foolish feigning, burled Their wills incessantly to thwart the Elf Of hooked despairs and foster hope in their Insatiable minds, transformed stones to wealth, And suffering to eglantine. So here, Luborga and his wife, Rosine, preen; pare, While, as in Aethea once, he chides her eye: "Pretty one, I will protect you from the wry And hard-faced. . . ." Suddenly, from the tired, Increasingly restless crowd, Hugh DeVry (Son of Prince Gilbert DeVry, who expired Those eighteen years ago in Aethea When Hugh had lived barely two), his face fired To rose, cries out: "Solemn Justan, ah, My king, you remember Geldarkta, Brian A. J. Salchert

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